Head and of Pardon and Salvation 8. It is Christ's stated Constitution that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned Mar. 16. 16. That if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth Christ's resurrection unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation Rom 10. That except you repent you shall all perish Luke 13. 3 5. That men must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2. 38. And repent and be converted that their sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. So Rev. 22. 14. Matt. 6. 14 15. Ezek. 33. 14 16. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come Call these Laws or Covenants or what you will we are agreed that all this is the word of God 9. These terms of life and death are the rule of our practices and our expectations by which we must live and by which we shall be judged and therefore we may truly say that they are Christ's Law And they are God's signified determination of the conditions of life and death and his donation of our right to Christ Pardon and Life is contained herein and therefore this may truly be called Christ's Testament and Covenant in several respects 10. Though all duties be prescribed by God's Law and so each Precept is a material part yet formally or specifically the Laws to which these material parts belong must be distinguished by the distinct conditions of life and death 11. God hath made more Promises Donations and Covenants than one or two which must not be confounded 1. His Law and Covenant made to and with man in innocency is one 2. And his Law and Covenant made to and with Christ as Mediator is another 3. And his absolute promise of a Saviour to the World with the conditional promise or Law of Grace conjunct was the first edition of another And the Gospel as after the incarnation promulgate was a more perfect edition of it to pass by Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Law as such 12. Though Christ be promised in one of these and be God's antecedent gift he may nevertheless be the Author of another and so far the foundation as well as the meritorious cause 13. That may be of free Grace which is merited by Christ yea and that which is annexed to the Evangelical worthiness of a believer 14. That may be a condition required of us to be done by the help of Grace which yet is the effect of that Grace and given us by God 15. It is a true Covenant between God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and man which is solemnly entred into in Baptism And this is a Covenant of Grace even that proceedeth purely from Grace and of Grace as given by God and by us accepted He that will confound these various Covenants Promises and Laws on pretence of their unity though there is doubtless a wonderful unity of all the parts both of God's moral signal means and his physical works shall confound much of Theology 16. The Law made to Adam never said either thou or another for thee shall obey but it bound man to perfect perpetual personal obedience 17. Therefore that Law as it obliged us is not fulfilled by the obedience of Christ but only as far as it obliged him nor can any man be justified by it as a fulfiller of it by himself or by another nor did Christ fulfil it in any other mans person though in his stead so far as is aforesaid 18. The Law doth not command any man since Adam perfect personal obedience as the means or condition of life nor promise any life on such a condition as is now naturally impossible but though it be not repealed by God is so far ceased by the cessation of the subjects capacity to be so obliged 19. The Laws obligation of us to punishment is dispenced with and dissolved by a pardon purchased by our Mediator 20. Christ's righteousness is nevertheless the meritorious cause of our righteousness or justification though he justify us by the instrumentality of his donative Covenant as giving us right to our Union and Justification and Life and though our Faith and Repentance be the condition of our Title 21. We accept two Concessions as containing that truth which sheweth that we do not much differ de re could we more happily order our organical conceptions 1. That Christ's righteousness is not the formal cause of our Justification 2. p. 596. Seeing the satisfaction was not made IN THE PERSON of the offender but his substitute it was necessary that THE BENEFIT of ANOTHERS satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only motive to his acceptation of a substitute It is the undoubted priviledge of the Giver to dispose of his own gifts in his own way And it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the sinner should be duly qualified to receive such transcendent favours purchased at so dear a rate and fitted to return the glory to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted and unsanctified sinner could not possibly be He that writeth this cannot sure much differ from me hereabouts But he is charitably uncharitable when he saith Never any man in his wits affirmed it so that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification It 's too charitable to hide that which cannot be hid of so great a number whom it seems he never read for all his Commission from all the Systematical Divines of Germany c. p. 696. And it 's too uncharitable to judge so many excellent men out of their wits The truth is so many speak so that I have been doubtful I should be smartly censured for saying otherwise Forma qua justificamur est misericordia Patris perfecta Justitia filii saith Ant. Fayus in his Accurate Theses Th. 60. p. 280. And by misericordia Patris being the form you may see how he understood Imputation The number that thus speak are too great here to be recited so that even the most judicious Davenant lest he should go out of the road was fain to make this the Theses to be proved by him Imputatam Christi obedientiam esse causam formalem justificationis nostrae probatur Cap. 28. p. 362. c. de Instit habit But let none turn this to our reproach nor take all these for mad for it is but an unapt name and by him and many others soundly meant for the greater part of these Divines say but that Imputatio Justitiae Christi Remissio peccatorum are the form not of Justification as in us but as it is Actus Justificantis as Altingius Maresius Sharpius Bucanus Spanhemius Nigrinus Sohnius
the believing sinner may stand before this righteous and holy God is to affirm the eternal damnation of all the World VII The Covenant mentioned justifieth not but declareth our Justification which is the immediate proper effect of Christ's righteousness VIII Never any man in his wits affirmed that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification Give us but leave to call it the material cause or the meritorious cause immediately and properly of Justification c. Some will think that they are great and heinous errors which either these words or some of mine that seem contrary import But I must crave leave here to follow my usual method in separating the Controversies de re de nomine and then I think that even these strange words prove not him and me at so great a distance as they seem to intimate For I grant him as followeth de re 1. That God hath such a decree of Election or eternal purpose as he describeth and calleth the Constitution of the Covenant 2. That God doth wisely and graciously execute this Decree 3. That all Grace and Mercy is given by Christ And therefore so far as Mercy is common Christ is the common cause of it 4. That Christ himself is a blessing or gift decreed and also freely given by God even from his love to the World Joh. 3. 16. 5. That God's electing Act or Decree as in him hath no condition nor his purpose to give Christ as a Saviour to mankind 6. On our part no condition is required either that God may elect us or that the first promise of a Saviour be made or that Christ come into the World or that he fulfill all righteousness or that he obey or die or rise or be glorified or come to judgment or raise the dead or that he enact it as his Law of Grace that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned 7. Nor is any condition on our part necessary absolutely necessitate medii that the Gospel or the first Grace yea the first special Grace be given us 8. That Christ by his suffering and merits hath procured to his elect not only pardon and life if they believe and obey him but Grace to cause them effectually and infallibly to believe repent obey and persevere 9. That no man can or will believe and repent but by his Grace 10. That to give men a promise of pardon and life if they will believe repent and obey the Gospel is not the whole of Christ's Grace to any but where-ever he giveth this he giveth also much means and gracious help by which men may do better than they do and so be more prepared for his further Grace 11. That if God only gave men a promise of pardon if they believe and gave them no Grace to enable or help them to believe it would be no saving Covenant 12. God did not repeal his Law of Innocency or as he had rather call it of Perfection nor did properly dispense with or relax the preceptive part of it Nor is it absolutely ceased as to a capable subject And therefore Christ was bound to perfection 13. God would not have his Law to be without the honour of the perfect performance of mans Mediator though it be violated by us all 14. No man is saved or justified but by the proper merit of Christ's perfect obedience yea and his habitual holiness and satisfactory sufferings advanced in dignity by his divine perfection 15. This merit as related to us supposeth that Christ as a Sponsor was the second Adam the Root of the justified the reconciling Mediator who obeyed perfectly with that intent that by his obedience we might be justified and who suffered for our sins in our room and stead and so was in tantum our Vicarius poenae as some phrase it or substitute and was made a curse for us that we might be healed by his stripes as he was obedient that his righteousness might be the reason as a meritorious cause of our Justification which supposeth the relation of an undertaking Redeemer in our nature doing this and in our stead so far forth as that therefore perfect obedience should not be necessary to be performed by our selves And righteousness therefore is imputed to us that is we are truly reputed righteous because we as believing members of Christ have right to impunity and life as merited by his righteousness and freely given to all penitent believers And Christ's own righteousness may be said so far to be imputed to us as to be reckoned or reputed the meritorious cause of our right or justification as aforesaid Thus far we are agreed de re And then de nomine I willingly leave men to their way of speech 1. If he will call God's Decree his Covenant in Constitution 2. If he will call the execution of his Decree his Covenant in execution 3. If he will call nothing else the Covenant of Grace or at least nothing of narrower extent but what comprehendeth God's eternal Decrees and the promise and gift of a Redeemer and so of the rest I cannot help it his language is his own But I shall tell you further my thoughts de re de nomine 1. De re 1. God's eternal decrees purposes or election give no one right to Christ Pardon or Life and so justifie no man 2. The execution of God's Decrees yea of Election hath many Acts besides Justification 3. It must therefore be some transient Act done in time ad extra by which God justifieth men 4. There are divers such acts concurring in several sorts of causality or respect 5. Christ's meritorious righteousness and satisfaction are the sole proper immediate causemeritorious of all the Grace or Mercy procured and given by him there being no other meritorious cause of the same kind either more immediate or at all co-ordinate and copartner with him 6. As Christ giveth us Holiness qualitative and active by the real operation of his Spirit though he merited it immediately himself so doth he give us right to impunity to the further Grace of the Spirit and to Glory by the instrumentality of his Covenant as by a Testament Deed of Gift or Law of Grace Which by signifying God's donative will doth not first declare us justified or to have the foresaid right to Christ and Life but doth first give us instrumentally that right and so immediately justify us And God's will giveth us not right as secret or of it self but by such instrumental signification 7. God hath signified his will to us partly by absolute gifts and promises and partly by conditional that such there are he that denieth must deny much of the Scripture Christ was absolutely given to fallen mankind for a Redeemer and so was the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and many other mercies But he hath made and recorded a conditional Gift of Christ as in special Union to be our
Beumler and many others And Paraeus Joh. Crocius de Justif and many more expresly deny Christ's righteousness to be the formal cause And I believe that all they that assert it mean as the rest though they speak incautelously and unaptly And what they mean by Imputation let Davenant speak ib. c. 27. p. 359. Imputantur quando illorum intuitus respectus valent nobis ad aliquem effectum aeque ac si a nobis aut in nobis essent siquis indignus aut ignavus ob paternam virtutem merita erga rempublicam in gratiam regis admittatur gratum nobilitatum dicamus per propter Imputationem virtutis paternae This is Bradshaw's sense but yet the similitude falls short So Altingius states the Question Loc. Com. part 2. p. 679. An justificatio consistaet in Imputatione Justitiae Christi hoc est in Imputationae Justitiae per Christum acquisitae And what Protestant will deny this And Maresius with him saith Cum Paulo justitiae Imputatio peccatorum remissio idem sint prout nullum est discrimen inter satisfactionem Christi illius meritum non est necesse subtilius inter haec dùo scrupulose distinguere cum remissio sit peccatorum tum commissionis tum omissionis per illam jus plenum ad vitam aeternam habeamus But this needeth somewhat more I think Loc. 11. p. 284. And the description of the effect sheweth what the Imputation is which Maresius truly thus describeth Exeg Art 23. p. 326 327. Transit reatu peccatum orig ut non amplius imputetur adhaeret quidem ei inseparabiliter Reatus potentialis sive in actu primo ut sonat intrinsecum meritum poenae sed ablatus est Actualis sive quoad actum secundum ut sonat jus voluntatem Dei de paena illa adhuc exigenda N. B. Thysius in synopsi Leidens Disp 33. p. 413. saith Mirum hic videri non debet Christi justitiam non meritoriae solum materialis imo Formalis causae rationem habere cum id fiat diversi mode nempe qua illa est propter quod in quo seu ex quo per quod justificamur So he taketh Christ's righteousness to be all three the meritorious material and formal cause of our Justification De nomine I add as to our Author 1. I hope few will follow him in calling the Decrees of God the Covenant and confounding Election and the Covenant in Constitution For my part I will not 2. Constitution signifieth 1. actum Constituentis 2. more usually passively statum seu rem constitutam God's Eternal Purpose is not properly the Covenant in Constitution in either sense 3. God's Eternal Decree is nothing but his Essence for there is nothing in God but God and nothing but God eternal denominated as related to its connoted object which from eternity was nothing And the Covenant in Constitution is not God nor shall be by me so called 4. Nor will I call the whole execution of God's Election by Christ the Covenant in Execution nor any part of it but that which Scripture so calleth 5. I grant him that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is usually taken for a divine disposition and constitution but that is not meerly in God's Decree but as Grotius hath at large opened Praef. ad Annot. in Evang. as it is God's signal revealed determination of the terms of life and death or as it is a Law and a Covenant on God's part imposed on us before we consent And Jer. 33. 20. doth not call God's meer Decree his Covenant but his created course and law of nature 6. He that will but try the Texts which his Concordance referreth him to and cannot find a multitude of places where the word Covenant is taken for somewhat else than God's Decrees and their general Execution even for a Law with its premiant and penal sanction and for a free donation or promise which yet hath its proper conditions as the moralis dispositio recipientium and that cannot find divers such Covenants made by God with Christ and us that are really distinct and not to be confounded must not expect that I here trouble other Readers with such a task as his conviction 7. I fully agree that Christ's righteousnrss is fitly called both the meritorious and material cause of our Righteousness or passive Justification Though I lately read one contending that it cannot be both For we mean but that it is that Matter or Thing which meriteth it The First Part OF THE Nature Relations Knowledge AND DECREES OF GOD AND OF FREE-WILL AND PROVIDENCE As the Objects thereof Such selected Verities as are needful to reconcile the common Differences about Predestination Providence Grace and Free-will between the Synodists and Arminians Calvinists and Lutherans Dominicans and Jesuits c. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV THE CONTENTS Sect. 1. WHAT Knowledge of God is here to be expected Pag. 1. Sect. 2. Of mans Soul as the Glass or Image in which God must be seen p. 3. Sect. 3. The several inadequate Conceptions which together make up the most exact and orderly Knowledge of God p. 4. Sect. 4. The Relations and Denominations of Gods Active Power Knowledge and Will as to the Creatures p. 6. Sect. 5. Of Futurity and the pretended Eternal Causes of it and Gods Knowledge of it p. 8. Sect. 6. Of the Co-existence of the Creature with God in Eternity and of Gods Knowledge of them as existent p. 13. Sect. 7. Of the presumptions and uncertainties of many Scholastick Disputes about Gods Knowledge which should moderate our censures of Dissenters in such matters and check our sinful curiosity p. 15. Sect. 8. More of Gods knowing things future and of Permission of sin p. 24. Sect. 9. Of Predetermination Universal Causation Humane Power and the Nature of Liberty of Will Distinguished in a Table p. 27. Sect. 10. Of Natural and Moral Power and Impotency Their difference p. 36. Sect. 11. More of the same and Whether God bind man to Impossibilities p. 39. Sect. 12. Of Scientia Media p. 42. Sect. 13. Of the Will and Decrees of God in general Their simplicity and diversity supposed priority and posteriority Of Negations of Nolitions and Volitions of Negatives c. p. 45. Sect. 14. Several distinctions of Gods Will explained 1. Positive acts and non-agency 2. Positive and Negative as to the object 3. Positive and Oppositive Volitions and Nolitions 4. Immanent and Transient 5. Efficiently Transient and Objectively Transient 6. Natural and Free 7. Efficient and Permissive 8. Beneplaciti signi de eventu de debito Decretive and Legislative Where the true nature of Laws is opened 10. Absolute and Conditional 11. Effectual and uneffectual 12. Antecedent and Consequent p. 49. Sect. 15. Whether Gods Decrees must be said to be diversified and proved according to the order of Intention or Execution Whether
perfect edition of the Covenant of Grace to those that have the Gospel And it continueth to the rest of the world unrepealed as to the substance of the mercies of it further than men deprive themselves of them by forfeitures as wicked men here do as to the mercies of the Gospel But as it is a promise of Christ's future incarnation it ceased by his coming 3. The third is ceased by performance and by the Jews apostacy Though some think still that it is in force and that a national conversion shall perform that promise to the full But Mr. Calvert a Learned young man hath lately written to prove that no such national conversion is to be expected but only such additions of particular mens conversion to the Catholick Christian Church as are of that kind which hath been more fully done on the Jews already 4. As to the rest it hath troubled Divines how far Moses's Law is abrogated or ceased partly as to the Judicials and chiefly as to the Decalogue And that we may not be too forward to call one another Legatists or Antinomians for this difference those now called Antinomians being rather Libertine denyers of the Law of Christ I will notifie to those that know it not that it is as much a difference among the Papists greatest Doctors who yet bear with one another in it and the Pope decideth it not Some say that the Decalogue now obligeth not as the Law of Moses but only as the Law of Nature and of Christ So Soto de Instit li. 2. q. 5. ar 4. concl 2. Medina 1. 2. q. 103. ar 3. quem aliqui moderni sequntur saith Suarez de Leg. l. 9. c. 11. p. 761. and Tolet. in Rom. 3. Anot. 15. Salmer ad Rom. 7. disp 6. Victor Relict de Matrim 2. p. n. 3. Barrad To. 1. li. 2. c. 21. Valent. To. 2. disp 7. q. 7. punc 7. To whom Suarez joyneth himself confessing pag. 764 765. that if as some hold Moses Law had been only a Declaration of the Law of Nature and not de novo preceptive it could not be said to cease But he truly holdeth it to be constitutive or preceptive also to those that it was by Moses delivered to And of this opinion I profess my self notwithstanding all that on other points I have written against the Antinomians Believing that Christ now is the Universal Law-giver and that the very Law of nature as Nature it self is now His Law and that he hath taken it in to his Gospel administration and so the Decalogue is materially in force but not formally as part of the proper Mosaical Law save only that as Declarative and ex paritate rationis we may collect that God who for such reasons so bound them doth bind us to the same things by the same natural Reasons But there are other Papist Doctors that hold that as to the Morals Moses Law as preceptive is still in force even as then by him delivered and that to all Christians so Bellarm. de Justif li. 4. c. 6. Lorin in Act. 15. Vasquez who with Durandus Paludan Paul Burgens And Suarez saith that Alph. a Castro and most so speak And Vasquez denyeth the Law of Nature as such to have properly a Divine Obligation saith Suarez which he confuteth de Leg. l. 9. c. 11. p. 764 765. But this controversie when examined containeth not much more than verbal disagreement and so their mutual forbearance doth confess 34. The Jews instead of excelling in Holiness proportionably to their priviledges did grow carnal and proud and 1. Much neglected the Law of Nature 2. Much over-looked the spiritual Covenant of Grace made with them and all the world 3. And misunderstood the chief part of the special Promise made to Abraham not understanding commonly the high spiritual or universal Office and Kingdom of the Messiah but dreaming that he was but to be their Monarch to make them great and to subject the world to them 4. And they misunderstood the Law of Moses or Covenant on Mount Sinai as if the design of it had been but by its special holy excellency to justifie the doers of it by and for the doing and to pardon all the spiritual and perpetual punishment of Sin upon those terms which it appointed for a Political pardon and to give life spiritual and eternal upon those bare conditions on which their Law gave them Political benefits Over-looking the great causes of Justification and life in the Messiah and the common Covenant of Grace and Promise of the Messiah made to Abraham And this is the error which Christ and his Apostles found them in Yet proudly boasting of their Law and Political priviledges and despising all the rest of the world as out-casts in comparison of them 35. Though the behaviour of all the rest of the world till Christ's coming be little notifyed to us yet this much is sure that they were commonly more Ignorant and Idolatrous than the Jews that yet they retained the common notices of nature that they remembred by Tradition those intimations of the necessity of propitiatory Sacrifice so as to keep up the custom of Sacrificing among them That many of them with exceeding diligence sought to find God or know him in the works of Nature and Providence and attained to great and excellent understanding especially in Greece and Rome And many of them lived very strict austere and laborious lives in great Justice and Love and in the practice of many excellent Precepts towards God For the Heavens declared the Glory of God and the firmament shewed his handy-work Day unto day uttered speech and night unto night shewed knowledge There was no speech or language where their voice was not heard Their liâ—e went through the earth and their words to the worlds end Psal 19. 1 2 3 4. For all Gods works do praise him and the Lord is good to all his tender mercies are over all his works Psal 145. 9 10 17. He is King in all the earth He was not the God of the Jews only but of the Gentiles also Rom. 3. 29. Because that which may be known of God was manifest in or to them for God had shewed it to them For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made his Eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful Rom. 1. 19 20 21. God left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave men rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling their hearts with food and gladness Act. 14. 15 16. Seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things and hath made of one blood all Nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel
instrumentally giving 4. Right to Impunity and Glory by Justification and Adoption conjunct the thing given which Right is our very Righteousness against â—his Accusation that is a relation whence the other relation of just and â—ustifiable resulteth For if you will not here see relations resulting from â—elations pretend not to true accurateness in your search 166. These four Causes now were enough to constitute and so prove â—s righteous against the Charge of being damnandi if we were questionaâ—le no further But the turning point of the day is yet behind 1. Our â—llegation of Justification by Christ and the Covenant may be denied â—t may be said by the Accuser that the Covenant justifieth none but â—enitent Believers and giveth plenary Right to Glory to none but saints â—nd persevering Conquerors and that we are none such Against this Acâ—usation we must be justified or perish else all the rest will be unâ—ffectual And here to say that it is true I died an impeninent Person â—n Insidel Hypocrite or Ungodly but Christ was a penitent Believer for Of our own personal performance or righteousness how far necessary to our Justification â—e or sincere and holy for me or that he died to pardon this all this will â—e false and vain Christ's Merits and Satisfaction is not the Righteousness it self which must justifie us against this Accusation But our own â—ersonal Faith Repentance sincere Holiness and Perseverance purchased â—y Christ and wrought by the Spirit in us but thence our own acts Mr. W. Thomas of Ubley in his Book against Speed the Quaker saith pag. 42. part 2. This is an old Popish trick to make much of the Doctrine of the St. James in a mistaken interpretation and to lay aside the Doctrine of St. Paul Rom. 3. 28. when they should joyn both together and ascribe to Faith the justification of men as sinners and to work their justification as Believers This is sound and needeth but fuller explication â—e that cannot truly say The Accusation is false I am a true Penitent â—anctified persevering Believer must be condemned and perish Thus â—aith and Repentance are our Righteousness by which we must thus far â—e justified 167. But this is but a particular mediate subservient Righteousness â—nd part of our Justification subordinate to Christs Merits 168. Yet this being the Condition on our part for our Participation â—n all the free Gifts of the Covenant Scripture useth to describe Gods â—udgment as enquiring after this The great thing to be glorified in â—udgment is Gods Love Wisdom Justice and Truth and Christ's great Merits and performance in our Redemption But the great thing questioâ—ed accused tried and judged will be our performance of the Covenant of Grace as to our conditions The day is not to try God whether he be â—ust or Christ whether his Merits and Satisfaction were sufficient and whether he have done his part But to try man whether 1. He have â—rue Right to Impunity and Glory 2. Whether he have performed the Condition on which the Covenant giveth that Right and be indeed the â—rue Receiver of it The Devils hope cannot lie at all in proving Christ or the Covenant faulty or defective on their part but in proving â—s to be none of the persons that have Right This therefore is the Righteousness mentioned Matth. 25. and of Faith imputed Rom. 4 c. â—nd else-where 169. But if we will speak of Righteousness and Justification entirely â—s that which containeth all its Causes we must set all the five forementioned together giving each one its proper place and no one the â—lace or office of the rest And give leave to the self-conceited pievish â—gnorant blindly to revile you for saying that you joyn your Faith and Holiness to make one Righteousness with that of Christ as if it were not sufficient And tell him that Christ's Righteousness is not ours absolutely in it self but to and in the proper effects And that it is perfect as to its â—roper ends And that he never intended it to this end to be instead of Faith and Holiness in us nor to make them needless to our Salvation 170. No man must ascribe any thing to his own Faith or Holiness iâ— the least degree which is proper to 1. Gods Mercy or Grace 2. To Christ or his Righteousness or Merits 3. Or to the Covenant not any thing but its proper part And that must be granted it 171. It is a vain Fiction in them that think our Right to Justificatioâ— or Impunity and our Right to Salvation have not the same causes and conditions but that our own Repentance and Obedience is a condition of our Right to Salvation but not to Impunity or forgiveness Whereas ouâ— very Justification is a justifying of our Right to Salvation and the same Covenant giveth them conjunctly on the same conditions 172. But our Right to both as begun hath less for the condition thâ—â— our Right to them as continued and perfected For our believing consent to the Baptismal-Covenant putteth us into immediate Right to all the benefits of the Covenant which we are then capable of but not to all that we shall be made further capable of hereafter we are pardoned and should be glorified if we presently died But as we have more Grace to receive so we have more Duty to perform as a means yea a condition of obtaining it 173. This over-lookt by many is much to be considered both as to the case of Infants baptized and the Adult Many wonder that the What right the Covenant giveth to the after-helps and degrees of Grace Children of godly Parents prove oft so bad as if by the Baptismal-Covenant they had received nothing from God But the Synod of Dort Art 1. § 17. well concludeth that godly Parents have no cause to doubt of the Election or Salvation of their Children dying in Infancy they being holy and in the same Covenant with their Parents But the continuance of Gods Grace hath a continued condition and means to be used on our part The condition which the Covenant requireth to an Infants first Justification is that he be the Child of a true Believer by him dedicated to God And as the first Condition is to be found in the Parent or Owner so must the Condition of continued Grace as long as the Child continueth an Infant And that is the continuance of the Parents Faith and his faithful performance of his promise made to educate his Child in the way of God But if the Parents should presently both turn Infidels and so educate their Child and give him up as the Jâ—â—izaries are to an Infidel to educate I know God may nevertheless give him Grace above his Promise if he please for a Benefactor as such is free but I know of no assurance of it by Promise For in Baptism both Parties were obliged for the future and not one only And if when the Child cometh to the use of Reason he wilfully
may be called 1. A Receiving Cause 2. And a mediâ—â— or dispositive Cause of the effect Justification as Received but not as Given As I said Dr. Twisse chooseth to call it But this causa Dispositiva is pâ—â— of the causa Materialis viz. Qua disposita A cause or more properly a condition why I receive Justification and by receiving it am Justified which is their meaning who call it A Passive Instrument that is A â—â—ceiving Instrument 199. The plain easie truth is that Faiths Nature which is to be â—â—lieving Acceptance of Christ and Life offered on that Condition being â—â— very essence is but its Aptitude to the office it hath to our Justification by which the Question is answered why did God promise us Christ and Life â—â— the Condition of faith rather than another Because of the congruity of its Nature to that office But the formal Reason of its office as to our Justification is Its Being the performed Condition of the Covenant And if God had chosen another condition a condition it would have been Now the true notion in Law being a Condition Logicians would call this improperly a Receiving cause and more properly A Receptive Disposition of the matter reducing it to Physical notions But the most proper term is the plainest We are justified by that faith which is the Believing Practical Acceptance of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as Given us on that condition in the Baptismal Covenant because or as it is made by God the condition of his Gift thereby Understand this plain doctrine and you have the plain truth 200. They that say contrarily that Faith justifieth proximately as it is an Instrument or a Receiving Accepting act and not as a Condition of the Covenant do evidently choose that which they vehemently oppose viz. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere justifieth For the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the â—â—â—â— of Faith is to be an Acceptance of Christ given But if they will to avoid this say that By Faith they mean Christ believed in then they say that by Receiving Christ they mean not the receiving of him but Christ himself And why then do they not say so but trouble the world with such unintelligible phrases But to open the senselessness and coâ—sequents of that Doctrine would but offend All know that Chriâ—â—â—â— the object is connoted as essential to the act of Faith SECT XII How Repentance is joyned with Faith 201. Repentance is a Dispositio materiae recipientis too and a part of the condition of the Covenant And so far a Material or dispositive Receiving Cause But not an Acceptance of the Gift formally in its averting act 202. Faith and Repentance are words used in Scripture in divers significations Saith Malderus Gu. Amesius a parte recedit ab antiquo Calvinismo quiae requirit ad justitiam bonae operâ— tanquam conditionem praerequisitam quod â—tiam extendit ad ipsam â—lectionem See here how little the Papists understand us As Faith is sometimes taken for bare Assent as Jam. 2. and usually for Affiance or Trust and always when it denominateth a Christian or Justified Believer as such it essentially includeth all the three parts Assent Consent and Affiance but yet denominateth the whole by a word which principally signifieth One act which commonly is Affiance as including the other two so Repentance is sometime taken comprehensively for the whole Conversion of a Sinner to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and so it includeth Faith in the narrower sence and is the same thing as Faith in the larger sence but express'd under another formal notion Sometimes it is taken more narrowly and that 1. As to the Act. 2. As to the Object 1. As to the Act and so the word Repentance signifieth only the Aversion of the Soul from evil by sorrow and change of mind And this is the strict formal notion of the word though usually it be taken more largely as including also the Conversion of the Soul to Good which is the usual Scripture and Theological sense though the word it self do chiefly signifie the Averting act 2. As to the Object 1. Repentance sometime signifieth the Turning of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God And so Repentance towards God is distinguished from Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ 2. And sometimes it signifieth only the turning of the Soul and life from some particular Sin 203. Repentance as it is the turning of the Soul from sin and Idols * The Papists take Repentance it self to be part of the Remission of Sins And let the Reader note for the fuller opening of what I have said of their darkness thereabouts that Jansenius Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. maketh four things to be inseparably conteined in Remission though distinguishable 1. The Conversion of the Soul to God 2. The abstersion of the Macula or filth 3. Reconciliation or the remission of Gods offence 4. The relaxation of the aeternal punishment That all these are then at once given us we are all agreed But whether the name Remission or Pardon of sin â—e meet for them all we disagree Is it not visible then how unhappily we strive about words wheâ— we talk like men of several Languages But all is but removation and remitting the penalty of which Gods offense is the first part And Macula is either the sin it self or the relative consequents to God is the same with Faith in God in the large Covenant-sence and includeth Faith in God in the narrower sence Repentance as it is our Turning from Infidelity to Christianity is the same with Faith in Christ in the large Covenant-saving-sence and includeth Faith in Christ in the narrower sence as it is meer Assent Repentance as it is a Turning from the Flesh to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer is the same thing as our Faith in the Holy Ghost in the large Covenant sence and includeth Faith in the Holy Ghost in the narrower sence But when they are the same thing the ratio nominis or formal notion is not the same As man's mind is not so happy as to conceive of all things that are one by one entire single Conception so we are not so happy in our language as to have words enough to express things entirely by one name but we must have several words to express our inadequate conceptions by And so that is called Repentance as the Souls motion from the Terminus a quo which is called sometimes Faith or Affiance and sometimes Love from the motion of the Soul to the Terminus ad quem though the Motus be the same But when Faith and Repentance are distinguished as several parts of the Condition of the new Covenant the common sence is that Repentance signifieth the Conversion of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God which is or includeth Faith in God And Faith signifieth specially Faith in Christ as the Mediator and way
Grace And how oft the Resolution of the will may change without the loss of holy habits The teâ—â—pter will say to David or Peter If once why not twice If twice why not thrice And who but God can say just how oft And yet to set no bounds confoundeth the just and unjust good and bad and maketh Sanctification but a name And to say that Peter's Faith did totally fail or that he was holy deprived of wholly love or saving Grace is rash and an unlikely thing 302. And it must be remembred that the Will is always in the time of sinning more for the committing the Sin than against it actually or else it would not be committed And in omissions it is not prevalently for the Duty else it would be done And if it were Habitually so too as to a holy or a sinful life the person were unholy And when the will known by the practice is sometime actually more for a gross Sin than against it and daily actually more for some small Sins than against them it is wonderous hard here to discern certainly that the contrary habit is our state 303. And it addeth to the difficulty that it is hard to be sure whether the Habit of Love and Holiness may not be predominant and yet the very Habit of some one Sin as well as the act be stronger than the contrary habit For a daily use of the acts seemeth to prove a prevalent Habit. As a Habit of Anger of vain jeasting c. And if a very Habit of one Sin may be prevalent though not of all others it will be hard to say either how great that Sin may be and so whether a Habit of Lust of Pride of Covetousness may stand with Grace in that prevalency or yet how many Sins may be so habitually prevalent in a sanctified man But if no one what shall those think of themselves that live in the daily act of smaller Sins before-mentioned And that they erre who tell us that all Sin is equally mortified in the Habit common experience fully proveth But such men use not to distinguish between the General habit of Love to Good and Hatred to evil which is as the trunk of the Tree to the branches which may have their particular Cankers and Diseases and is indeed Virtually a Habit of all Good and against all Evil and the particular Habits of Good and Evil which are also found in every Soul 304. Yea the difficulty is yet greater by our ignorance of the very nature of a Habit of the will or of that Inclination of it to Good or Evil which is antecedent to the Act which he that hath read the Schoolmen and Metaphysicks or ever well studyed it himself will discern to be tantum non out of the reach of our understandings That it is a Dispositive promptitude to Act we feel But whether that Disposition be it self a secret unobserved Immanent Act disposing to the more open perceptible Act for the Soul is never out of Action and certainly hath at one instant several Acts of which that de fine is oft unobserved and yet most powerful As a Traveller that is taken up with other thoughts and talk would never hold on his way if the end were not actually intended though he feel it not or whether it be the Natural Inclination of the Will corroborated and what that Inclination is whether it lie much in a Receptive disposition of the acted faculties by which they are still ready to receive the Active motion of the Agent power as the Receptivity of the fuel causeth the greatness and constancy of a flame or the opening of the window the shining in of the Sun or the composition of the adapted wheels causeth the Clock or Watch to be easily and truly moved by the poise or spring or what else it is that we call a Habit is not so easily known as unstudied confident Disputers think So that judicious Mr. Truman Tract of Impaten Nat. Mor. seemed to despair of clear understanding it And whether an Infants Principle of Holiness be Quid morale which never came from any act nor is the particular Habit of any act any more than the Inclinatio naturalis ad bonum qua bonum with abundance of other difficulties about Habits These all make our case the harder to be resolved SECT XXI The solution of all the former difficulties in part 305. Of all these difficulties I have no better solution besides what is aforesaid than as followeth 1. That a Dispositive Inclination of the Will to God and actual Holiness is like to the Inclinatio naturalis ad bonum foelicitatem saving that it is not ours ab origine in our lapsed state and that it is more moveable and separable from the Soul And so is quiddam naturae though not quaedam natura called The Divine and new nature in us and is to the Soul what Health is to the man And is the great Moral Principle within us and is acceptable to God as being the Rectitude of his noble creature * * * As to the Papists continual calumnies that we call men just whose continued wickedness is but hid and not imputed and without inherent justice we abhor both their confusion and their calumny and distinctly give them this short account 1. We hold a conditional universal pardon of all 2. But no actual pardon of the destructive punishment nor non-impuration of Sin till men are truly converted from a wicked heart and life to the love of God by Faith and Repentance 3. And then all Sin inconsistent with the prevalent love of God and a holy just and sober life is mortified and ceaseth 4. But such infirmities as you call Venial Sins continue and all our Goodness is culpably imperfect 5. Though the destructive punishment be pardoned the Reatus culpae in se continueth for ever that is It is an everlasting truth that we once sinned 6. Our pardon and our Renovation are freely given us by Grace for the sake of the satisfaction merits and intercession of Christ whose perfect Righteousnesse fulfilled that Law that man had broken 7. In which sense his perfect Righteousness is said by Protestants to be Imputed to us because he did it and suffered for us in the person of a Mediator and so it was the Meritorious cause of all our Justification Grace and Glory And what hath any Papist or other wrangler against any of this Yeâ— we reject their loose Doctrine that say as Pot. as Joseph Theol. Spec. l. 4. c. 10. p. 511. De potentia absoluta Gratia habitualis potest simul esse iâ— eodeâ— subjecto meaning in a predominant degree cum peccato mortali sive actuali sive habituali For as I said before against Okam and Scotus on that point they are inconâ—istent contraries as life and not-living light and darkness and their proofs of the contrary are frivolous See Scot. in 4. d. 16. Aliac in 1. 99. Greg. Armin. in 1.
just but needing a particular remission For if a man cannot fall away however he live he may give up himself to lewd carnality and say I cannot fall away B. This is the same shameless self-contradicting Accusation and needs no other Answer As if you said If a man cannot fall away he may fall away To give up himself to carnality is to fall away And you say that he may do this because he cannot The Doctrine of your Adversaries is That God will certainly keep the godly from turning from him to an ungodly fleshly life And how doth this conduce to ungodliness A. The conceit of safety will make them careless B. Not if they conceive that their safety and their carefulness are equally decreed The bad and ignorant will abuse any thing But I am perswaded that very many live the more holily for this belief 1. Because as Prophecies conduce to their own accomplishment in that what men believe will certainly come to pass they all promote and will not oppose So it is in part in this case 2. And when they believe that God will have it be it greatly animateth their endeavours by hope and taketh off their discouragements 3. And when they find that God hath in his Decree conjoyned their care and labour to the end and hath no more decreed their perseverance than that they shall carefully avoid sin and temptations it maketh them fear that they are not Elect when they find these signs of Election to be doubtful and so preserveth them from presumption and security The third Crimination A. Their Doctrine is uncomfortable in two respects 1. In that it alloweth no man to be sure of his present Justification Pardon and Adoption who is not sure that he goeth further yea that he is not quite in another statâ— than any man that ever fell away which it is not possible that many if any one at all should be 2. In that it alloweth no man to be sure of his Justification and Adoption till he have so much Grace as that no Temptation how great soever would turn him from Christ if he were tried by it B. Wherein is the uncomfortableness of these A. I. I have known my self some fall to Socinianism Arrianism yea Infidelity denying Christ or his Godhead which is his chief Essence and the Scriptures and therefore sure had no saving Grace then and died so who had forty years lived in as eminent Piety Humility diligence in all religious Duties charity to others neglect of the World and patient suffering for their Religion oft times as almost any men that ever I knew And that they did not dissemble not only their constancy suffering and whole Conversation shewed but my own intimacy with them assured me by which I knew the very thoughts of their hearts Some of them were not of judgments clear and strong enough to discern the fallacies of Deceivers Others of them were naturally too hasty in judging And some were carried away by the advantages of the constant company of extraordinary able and insinuating Seducers But divers of them even after they apostatized did continue so much strictness of life and charity to all men and religiousness in their Theism and Infidel way and neglect of the World as convinced me that it was more the insufficiency of their judgments than the hypocrisie of their hearts which was the cause of their Apostacy Now by the Calvinists Doctrine none of these men were ever in a state of Grace And of the strictest Professors round about us there is not one of many hundreds that goeth so far as they did And all these must be left uncertain of their Justification till they are certain that they went beyond them all yea and certain that they are unjustified while they are certain that they came short of any one of them B. The case that you describe I have known and it is sad But we know not the hearts of other men There might be more sin and hypocrisie in them than we know of A. Though God only be the searcher of hearts yet long intimacy and near experience may make us so confident of some mens thoughts as that I confess to you you will never change my mind if you plead against so great experience I know their judgments were insufficient But I will never believe that their hearts were false as to what they knew B. God hath made his Word and not other mens hearts the rule for us to judge our selves by A. But if you think that his Word tells us that we are the Children of the Devil till we go beyond any that ever fell away we must look both to that Word and to such Apostates B. The truth is assurance of Justification and Salvation is not easily nor commonly attained And it is not Opinions alone that will procure it And while we have that sin and weakness which is the cause of doubts which Opinion soever we hold we shall find occasion for our doubtings But let us hear your second part of the Accusation A. II. They hold that if any man fall away by what temptation soever it is because he was never sincere And consequently that he is not sinâ—ers that would fall away by the strongest temptation that possibly may assault him So that every poor weak Christian whose Infant-strength is not proportioned to the greatest temptations must needs take himself to be still but an Hypocrite B. We stand not by our own strength of habitual Grace but by the upholding Love and Will of God * Carbo ex Aquin. 1. 2. q. 137. a. 4. Si persevâ—rantia sumatur pro ipso habitu indiget dono habitualis gratiae ut caeterae virtutes infusae si autem accipiatur pro actu perseverantiae durante usque ad mortem non jolum indiget habituali gratia sed etiam gratuito Dei auxilio conservante hominem in bono praedestinatis per gratiam Christi non solum datur ut perseverare possint sed ut perseverent ut Augustin Per se potest perseverare in malo non autem in bono Bradwardine who holdeth that no temptation can be overcome without special help that is a divine Volition or Decree doth yet hold that the same Will of God which saveth one man by overcoming his temptations saveth others by keeping temptations from them A. 1. When we dispute against their Doctrine it is from the immortal quality of the seed of God abiding in them that they plead for certainty of perseverance 2. Who findeth not by constant experience that God worketh on all things according to their Natures And so on man as man and so on Saints as Saints and on the weak as weak and on the strong as strong Do we not see that he giveth men wisdom and all Intellectual abilities before they speak and do as such abilities must fit them to do When did you see Gods Grace make ignorant injudicious fools or weak persons judge speak and live in
into on the pretence of avoiding and abhorring Popery Between S. A Sectary and P. A Peacemaker P. NEighbour I understand that you are one of those that divulge your desamatory Lamentations of me as inclining to Popery for some passages which I lately Preached in the City I pray you speak that to my face which you so freely speak behind my back S. Sir the City ringeth of you as one that greatly wrongeth the cause of God And my own ears heard you say that the difference between us and the Papists is little more than in ambiguous words and points unsearchable P. And this I hear you are one that have divulged and so it is by such as you that the City is made to ring of it But if this be an untruth of great aggravation do you then deserve the title you assume or are you a fit defender of the truth or can your Conscience tolerate you herein That which I said was this I distinguished the Controversies between us and the Papists into such as depend on a Carnal Interest and Mind and such as do not but arise from the meer difficulty of the subject In the former sort I said our difference is very great and like to be so and such are the differences about their Papal power and Church state their Government and worship as fitted hereunto and many doctrines as that of Purgatory Indulgences Auricular Confession abused by them Transubstantiation c. But the other sort of doctrinals are made by many the matter of greater difference than there is cause such as I named Predestination Providence the cause of sin mans power and fre-will Grace certainty of salvation and I might have added Justification and Merit as held by their Church and most of the Schoolmen not that here is no difference indeed but that long study hath made me certain that it is more in words than is commonly conceived And this Truth is fit to be spoken though the mistaken be offended by it Yea in these matters the Papists differ among themselves as much as with us Dare you deny that these were my words If you do you are a falsifier S. When you speak so clowdily who can remember every word you say P. Is not this plain English Peruse it and consider And dare you carry false reports abroad on pretence of pious zeal and then say You cannot remember Why would you report that which you cannot remember Why would you not stay till you had helpt your memory by speaking with me or some one that could have informed you But are not we in a hard case with such hearers as you when we must look to be as oft belyed as your understanding or your memory faileth because your loose Conscience faileth with them which is very oft S. I am not alone in judging thus of you City and Countrey ring of it what company can one come into where you are not talkt of I daily hear good people lament you and the best they say is that God useth to let those men fall fouly in some things who have been extraordinarily serviceable that men may not idolize them P. They that know me but half as well as I know my self will know that I have enough to abase me before God and man But will that warrant a course of lying and backbiting in others Do you partly receive and partly make and propagate false reports and then plead the Commonness for your excuse He that set London on fire might so have excused himself because the flame was common when he had caused it The effect and prospering of your sin should humble you and not seem to justifie you But yet I must tell you that Backbiting Sectaries are not the greater part of London There are many sober people that are ashamed of your sin and folly I will make this friendly motion to you Instead of backbiting Let us here to one anothers faces so friendly admonish each other of that which we take to be sin as may help to bring each other to repentance And do you begin Tell me of all the evil that you know by me S. I have nothing to accuse you of but that your Principles are too large and you vent them too freely and thereby you harden Papists and dishonour the Protestant cause and wrong free grace and the Righteousness of Christ by your doctrine of Justification and mans Righteousness And by coming so near Conformity you grieve the hearts of good people and may bring persecution on those that cannot do as you can P. 1. About Conformity forbear me here for I must deal with you of that by it self elsewhere 2. As to my doctrine of Justification if I have not fully justified it elsewhere I shall not now on this occasion 3. But whether you or I be righter about Popery let us now debate Have you read my Safe Relig. and my Key for Catholicks and my Treatise of the Certainty of Christianity without Popery and my late Dialogue and my Treat against Johnson of the Visibility of the Church and others against Popery S. I have somewhat else to do than read all your Writings P. Why have you not then somewhat else to do than hear me and backbite me and judge of things which you have not leisure to understand Do we not still deal on hard terms with such men as you that neither speaking nor writing can make them know our minds Have all your party that revile me done more each one against Popery than I have done But if this be all that you have to call me to repentance for I have a great deal more to say against my self And now I will deal faithfully with you I beseech you try whether it be not necessary that you speedily repent of all these following sins 1. What a shame is it for one that would be taken for a Religious man to be so Ignorant as you are and no better know the truth of Christ from the errors of Popery than it appeareth you do 2. What a sin for one so Ignorant to be so rash and bold in venturing to judge of that which he understandeth not 3. What a sin is it for one so Ignorant to be so proud of his pretended knowledge as to venture to defame his Teachers for contradicting him in his erâ—oneous conceits Have you studied these things as long and hard as I have done or are you sure that you have done it more in partially and that God hath illuminated you so much more as your confidence would import 4. What an unchristian crime is it to make lyes and carry them abroad of your Teachers and then be forced to confess that it was the failing of your memory as to what you heard 5. What a sin is it to be a backbiter Neither you nor any one of your quality did ever come to my face either to know my meaning or to hear what I had to say nor to reprove my sin or convince
soever that God is not the Cause of sin except some odd presumers who are condemned by the generality One or two spoke some hard words that way in Belgia whom the Synod of Dort rejected Mr. Archers Book was burnt for it by the Parliament or Westminster Synod Beza himself in Rom. 8. 28. passim abhorreth it as intolerable blasphemy But this Doctrine in question plainly maketh God the Willer and Cause of sin Yea more very much more than wicked men or Devils are which is not true 578. For they make Men and Devils to be but a second pre-moved predetermined Cause of the Act of Volition and Execution whence the formal obliquity necessarily resulteth But 1. God is certainly the Cause of the Nature which is the Agent 2. He is the Cause of the Law which maketh the act in specie to be sin His saying Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Murder maketh Adultery and Murder to be sin when they are committed which they would not be without the Law 3. God causeth and ordereth all the objects and occasions 4. And now they also say that God willeth ut peccatum fiat and is the first predetermining Cause even the total Cause of all that is in the act and all its circumstances without which predetermination it could not be So that man doth but will what God first willeth and act what God first moveth him unavoidably to act as the pen in my hand 5. And the Law and the Act being put in being the Relative obliquity is but the necessary result and hath no other cause 579. And note here what Estius before cited after Aquinas saith that to Will that peccatum sit vel fiat is all that the Sinner himself doth when he willeth sin And therefore it 's a vain thing here to distinguish between willing sin and willing the event futurity and existence of it ut peccatum fiat vel eveniat Though I confess I was long detained in suspense if not deceived by that distinction For he willeth sin who willeth the existence of it or that it be or come to pass 580. And note that it is both matter and form Act and obliquity which they say God willeth ut fiat For it is sin And forma dat nomen It is not sin but by the form of sin But if they had said otherwise it had been all one For he that willeth the fundamentum relate and correlate Saith Twisse Vindic. Graâ— li. 1. P. 1. Sect. 7. p. 137. Posito quod velit perâ—ectiones istas manifestare necesse est non impediat ingressum peccati sed permittat 1. As if he had proved that God was not able to manifest his Mercy and Justice by Laws and Illuminating men to know them without execution by the occasion of sin 2. Yet doth he make Christs death unnecessary and his satisfaction to Justice so far as that God could have accomplished our pardon and salvation another way if he would And is sin better or more necessary than Christs satisfaction 3. And methinks they that lay so little on Moral means and operations of Grace in comparison of Physical should not give so much to sin which were it a means as it is not but a Passive and opposite occasion is but a moral means And himself saith page 136. Permissio peccati proprie medium est assequendi â—inem à Deo praefixum At peccatum non est Medium proprie dictum sive manifestandae Dei misericordiae sive justitiae Media enim ejus sunt naturae ut ad ea facienda movâ—atur quis ex intentione finis Would the Reader have a better confuter of him than himself But he there addeth that it is Materia etsi non medium as stone and Timber to an House And yet sin they say hath no matter besides the subject and object but is a meer Privation of moral Rectitude But if it be to the Devils Kingdom loco materiae it is not so to Christs Rather if a beggar Want a house is that Want the Materia domus no nor the Materia of his mercy or bounty that buildeth it Thus the defectiveness of the subtilest wits abuseth God and his Church when the Christian simplicity of modest souls with a holy life would honour him So Sect. 9. pag. 137. Peccatum mihi videtur propriâ— dicendum esse materiam manifestandae Dei sive misericordiâ— sive iâ—stitiâ— potiâ—s quam medium Permissionem vero peccati medium esse ejus manifestandae proprie dictum But 1. how oft elsewhere doth he forget and contradict this 2. Permission it self is nothing being but non-impedire And is nothing or non-agere a proper means But especially I intreat the Reader to observe that in that very place Twisse and Arminius are herein professedly agreed that it is the Permission of sin and not the sin that is the Divine medium only one saith Praedestinationis and the other providentia And yet they will differ while they agree And I that differ from both would agree with both willeth the Relation 581. There is nothing left to be said then but that God willeth that sin be done but not as sin or because it is sin But this is nothing For 1. Either none or few of the Reprobate do will sin because it is Sin but because of the pleasure of sense or imagination or for seeming good 2. And if a man or Devil do maliciously Will sin as sin because it is against God so doing is but one of their sins which they say God willeth ut fiat before they willed it and predetermined them to it so that here is nothing in it but what is first and chiefly of God 582. If they say that God willeth it for the Glory of his Justice and so do not wicked men but for wicked ends or in enmity to God I answer That proveth that God hath a will which the wicked have not but not that the wicked have any will which God hath not For that Will and that Enmity to God still is but one of their sins which they say God first willeth ut fiat 583. Obj. But it is only ut fiat ipso permittente non faciente Answ The hypocrisie of that addition maketh it but the worse in the assertors For 1. They usually make Gods will effective of the thing willed 2. They maintain that there is nothing in the act as circumstantiated which God is not the total first efficient Cause of 3. They confess that the formal relation necessarily resulteth from the act and Law And why then do they put in the word permittente Would not that deceitfully insinuate to the Reader that the sinner doth something which God doth not do but only permit when they mean no such thing For that is my second reason against them 584. 2. By their doctrine God never permitteth sin which is false For that which he Willeth and Causeth as the first total Cause he cannot be said to Permit To do a thing and
Will or Power as if he could do no more But it is his Delight thus to govern the creature according to the nature and rank which he hath made it in and his non-volitions and non-operations of a higher sort are agreeable to his Perfection Wisdom and Liberty Higher action being used on higher creatures 3. Yet hath God placed and kept these free Agents not only under his Moral Government but also under his Dominion and disposal so that he will do with them as his own what he lift and none shall frustrate his disposing Will. 4. It pleased him first to make man perfect under a Law of Perfection making innocency or perfection the only condition of Life and the contrary of Death 5. When Man had sufficient Grace to have kept this Law not sufficient to ascertain the event but sufficient Power to have stood that is as much Grace as was necessary to his standing sine qua non esse potuit cum qua esse potuit he broke it and sinned against that sufficient Grace before God either denyed him any thing necessary or withdrew any from him 6. From whence it is clear that the Nature of Man's Will is such as that it is made to use a Power which doth not necessitate or determine it self or is determined necessarily but freely And that it is no Deifying of the Will nor extolling it above its Nature to say that it can act or determine it self without Gods pre-determinating premotion or by that same measure of help which at another time doth not determine it Though its Nature and its Act as such be of God yet so is its Liberty too and therefore by the Power and Liberty given by God the Will can act or not act or turn it self to this object or to that without more help than the said natural support and Concurse And this Power and Liberty is its Nature and Gods Image 7. From hence also it is evident that there is such a thing or operation of God as Grace Necessary called sufficient which is not effectual For God took no Grace away from Adam before he sinned nor let out any temptation upon him which he was not able to resist nor did he sin for want of necessary Grace but by that same degree of help might have overcome 8. God passing Sentence on faln Man for sin would not forgive him the temporal death nor common calamities of this life but cursed the creatures which he was to use as part of his penalty 9. But the Great evil which sin brought on man was the loss of Gods approbation and complacency and of his Spirits saving Communion and help and of Gods Image on man's Soul and of Communion with God herein and also his right to life eternal All which man 's own sin cast away and man was both the Deserver and Executioner without any change in God 10. Yet was all this privation penal in that God made Man such a creature as that his own sin should become his punishment or ruine if he committed it so that all Punishment is not determinatively of God though Gods Antecedent Will did make that which by man is made a Cause As in argument God saith antecedently If thou sin thy own sin shall be thy torment and misery and man saith I will sin Therefore it is Man that is the determining Cause of the Conclusion My own sâ—â— shall be my torment and misery So it is in Causation God antecedently to man's sin doth resolve I will make Man such a Creature with such a Mind Conscience and Will as that his Holiness shall be his Health and Joy and his immediate Receptive capacity of my favour and of his Communion with me and of his title to my spirit and Glory And that if he forsake me and his Holiness in the very Nature of the thing he shall lose all this Life Light and Love Joy and Communion and title to my Grace and shall feel the torments of his own Conscience telling him of his sin and loss This is Gods Antecedent Law Nay this is Gods Antecedent Creation to make man such a Creature Now if man sin his owâ— sin doth ipso facto become his misery and yet is not caused at all by Gods But yet that his Nature was made such as sin should prove a misery to was Gods Work And from that Antecedent Creation or Constitution the Relative form of a Punishment resulteth to the Sinner Even as God saith If thou Murder it shall be thy sin or Thou shalt not Murder And man doth Murder Here the Act that is sin is of man but that the Relation of sin belongeth to that act resulteth partly from the Law which forbiddeth it and yet God is not the Cause of sin though he Antecedently decreed Murder shall be sin if thou commit it So is it also with this sort of Punishment which is either sin it self or the effect or result oâ— sin immediately By which we see that when sin and punishment are found in one thing God is the Cause Antecedently of the formal Relation of a Punishment without being a Cause of the sin yea antecedently is some cause of the formal relation of the sin by his Law without causing any of the sin it self as the author of it As if God make man of such a temper as that surfetting drunkenness lust will make him sick and hazard his life Here God did no otherwise punish him than by making him such a man which he turned to his own destruction by his sin If a man make a thorn Hedge about his Garden that men may not steal his fruit and those that will shall â—rick themselves it is they that prick and punish themselves If God say He that will leap into the fire shall be burnt or into the water shall be drown'd it is they that do it that cause the evil and yet some formal relation of penalty may result to it from Gods conditional antecedent Law I say not that God executeth no other kind of punishment But these are the most common 11. Man having thus cast away Gods Image and his Innocency could beget a Child no purer holier or better than himself For he could not communicate that which he had lost So that our Nature is vitiated with Original sin and unhappy in the miserable effects Bradwardine hath a shift which serveth them that say man could do no good in Innocency without supernatural Help viz. Making that Help to be Gods Will that it shall be done But is not Gods Will called our natural Help when it is the foundation of Nature working by natural means It 's true that free will without Gods Will could do nothing 12. The promisory part of the Covenant or Law of Innocency became null or ceased with man's first sin cessante subditorum capacitate and so the Condition which is its modus So that no man ever since was under the Obligation of that Law as a Covenant of life
after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him we live and move and have our being For we are also his off-spring Act. 17. 25 26 27 28 29. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him For whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved But have they not heard Yes verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Rom. 10. 12 13 18. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance Who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Eternal life Glory honour and peace and to every man that worketh Good to the Jew first and also to the Greek For there is no respect of persons with God For not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their Consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel If the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the Law shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision He is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God Rom. 2. SECT III. Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption 36. In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Rom. 4. 4. But not them only for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him He redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us For he is the Saviour of the world and the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world He is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2. 2. For he tasted Death for every man Heb. 2. being the Saviour of all men but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. For if one dyed for all then were all dead And he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. 37. As the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father in his Divine nature only was the interposing Redeemer by undertaking before his Incarnation and governed the faln world by the fore-described Law of Grace so upon his Incarnation initially and upon his performance plenarily all things are delivered into his hands even all the world so far as it was defiled and cursed by Man's sin Man as the Redeemed the Creatures as his utensils and goods and Devils as his and our Enemies All Power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 26. 19. Joh. 13. 1 3. and 17. 2 3. All judgment was committed to him and the Father judgeth no man but by him But hath given him to have life in himself and to raise the dead Joh. 5. 22 23 24 25. For he hath made him Head over all things to his Church Eph. 1. 22 23. And for this end he dyed rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living Rom. 14. 9 10. For God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name that in the name of Jesus every knee should â—ow Phil. 2. 7 8. And as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15. 22. 38. Christ upon his Incarnation performed but what God had Decreed before the foundations of the world and had obscurely and generally promised after the fall at the first making of the Covenant of Grace Which Decree of God is after the manner of men called by some a Covenant between the Father and the Son especially because the Prophets have sometimes as Isa 53. described it by way of prediction as a Covenant between the Father and Christ incarnate If we conceive of it properly under the notion of a Decree first and a Promise after unto the world so the Will and Mercy of God the Father and Son with the Holy Spirit are the cause of mans Redemption Pardon and Salvation even the fundamental Principal total Cause And the Promise was man's security and Christ as promised was the primary great meanâ— which was to procure us the rest by doing that upon the fore-sight and fore-decree whereof God did before-hand pardon and save Sinners But if you had rather mention it as in the form of a Covenant which before the Incarnation must be improperly taken being only of God to himself or a promise of and to Christ as to be incarnate then the undertaking of the Father and the Son herein must be carefully distinguished and described The Father giveth up to Christ as Redeemer the whole lapsed cursed reparable world the several parts to several uses and especially his chosen to be eventually and infallibly saved and promiseth to accept his Sacrifice and performance and to make him Head over all things to his Church and by him to establish the Law of Grace in its perfect Edition and to give him the Government respectively of the Church and world and to Glorifie him for this work with himself for ever And the second person undertaketh to assume man's Nature to do and suffer all that he did in perfect obedience to his Fathers Will and Law of Redemption to fulfill all Righteousness conquer Satan and the world to suffer in the flesh and be a Sacrifice for sin and to conquer Death and teach and rule and purifie and raise and justifie and glorifie all true believers 39. Before the Incarnation Christ's future death and obedience being * * * Eadem suit sides in antiquis patribus modernis qui alio modo credebant in specialia alia credibilia quam nos Immo aliquid eredebant quod nunc est salsum Alliaco in 3. q. 1. not existent were no real existent Causes in themselves of men's Justification But that Wisdom which foresaw them and that Will of God which Decreed them as such and not they without that fore-sight and Decree as existent were the cause 40. Nor were they either before
he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn But then it must be understood that this distinction iâ— not applyed to the Will of God as he is meerly an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor but as he is the King or Rector of the world and so his Legislation is his Antecedent Will and his Judgment is his Consequent Will And no man of Religion can deny either that Gods Law is the signification of his Will or his Will signifyed or that his Judgment and â—â—cution is his Will declared or that Gods Law of Grace doth conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man's performance or rejection of the condition or that God condemneth Infidels consequently to their Infidelity The Law Antecedently to Mans part acted saith He that believeth shall be saved and the Sentence consequently to his fact saith Judas an unbeliever or impenitent shall perish And thus the distinction hath no doubt or difficulty 103. God by commanding faith and repentance and making theâ— necessary conditions of Justification and by commanding perseverance and threatning the Justified and Sanctified with damnation if they fâ—â— away and making perseverance a condition of Salvation doth thereby provide a convenient means for the performance of his own Decree of giving Faith and Repentance and perseverance to his Elect For he effecteth his ends by suitable moral means and such is this Law and Covenant to provoke man to due fear and care and obedience that he may be wrought on as a man 104. To be justifyed by Faith in general agreeth to the ages before Of Justification by Faith c. Christ's Incarnation and those since But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justifyed For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justifyed by to them that are under the last edition of the Covenant of Grace than was or is to them that were under the first alone Abraham believed not all our essential Articles of faith 105. To be justified by faith in Paul's sence is all one as to be justified What that Faith is by becoming Christians To be a Believer a Disciple and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sence 106. The faith by which we are justified as is aforesaid is best understood The Controversie between the Papists and us about Justification is agitated iâ— vain till we agree of the sence of the words Justification and Remission As I said elsewhere they take not only Justification for a qualitative change such as we call Sanctification but Remission of Sin for they know not what themselves most of them talk as if it were a putting away the Sin in its essence which can be meant of nothing but the Habit for the fact cannot be infectum Others seem to take it for remitting the punishment also with that change Malderus most plainly in 1. 2. q. 113. a. 1. and p. 567. saith that Remission of Sin is Ablatio Reatus culpae At esse longe aliud quam Nolle illud punire non enim tantum facit Hominem non puniri sed etiam non esse Poena dignum Minus tamen est quam in amicitiam recipi though yet no man is in a middle state neque Dâ—i amicus neque inimicus yet cogitations possunt seterari Peccata Remittere idem est quod non imputare si hoc non accipias pro dissimulare sed pro desinere esse offensum cum per Remissionem Deo non imputante est quasi non fuerit By this you may see that these Papists hold the same with those Protestants whom they seem most to resist and cannot hide it But 1. It will be true to eternity that Peter sinned 2. To say so is to blame him 3 His sin deserv'd death 4. The Law and the nature of sin past are the same after pardon as before 5. God doth not change his mind of sin 6. Gods offence or displeasure is not a passion or mutable but his essence as denomina ed from the object to be his Velle punire and Justice that must punish 7. For God to be appeased and no more offended is but his Nolle punire peccatorem and not to be obliged in Justice to punish him but by his Covenant related to him as one that will not punish 8. This change is in the sinner becoming not punishable 9. That is not worthy of it in the Gospel-sence though worthy by the Law of Innocency 10. All this is but that the Reatus pâ—na culpae quantum ad poenam is remitted but not the Reatus culpae simpliciter in se And thus we are all agreed by the Baptismal Covenant and is essentially a Believing Fiducial consent to our Covenant relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Reconciled Creator and Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer connoting the forsaking of all inconsistents For it must needs be the same faith by which we have right to the benefits of that Covenant and by which we are justified because we have our remission and justification by the Instrumental donation of the Covenant it being one of the benefits given by it But Practical Faith or Believing-consent is our condition of receiving our Covenant right to all the benefits in general therefore to Justification in particular 107. The Phrases of Justifying faith and Faith justifying us are humane and not Scriptural at all And though they may be well used with explicatory caution as being well meant yet they are more lyable to mislead men than the Scripture phrase that we are justified by Faith Because the former phrases are apter to insinuate an Efficiency than the other whereas faith is no efficient cause of our Justification nor any other act of Man And the Scripture that speaketh of Justification by Faith sometime useth the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which no more signifyeth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex operibus And though sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used it is to signifie no more than that God hath appointed it to be the Medium of our Justification as a condition but not as any efficient cause 108. The Faith by which we are justified as I touched before hath God the Father for its object as essentially as Christ the Saviour as the said Baptismal Covenant sheweth and that not only secondarily as Christ being the Mediator and way to the Father our faith in Christ connoteth the final object but also directly and primarily as the Father is the first in Trinity and as Creator first related to us and as the end is first in our intention Joh. 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent Joh. 13. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me 109. And as essential is it to this Faith to believe in Christ as the Purchaser of Holiness and Heaven as to
and the Collation is according to the order of his Will though the Things Given have their intrinsick difference 115. All men confess that this Moral Reception is an Act and therefore hath an object which Physical Reception is not And that thus to Receive doth suppose a Moral Gift which Gift maketh not the thing ours necessarily as physical operation doth but on supposition of our voluntary Reception or Consent And all confess that Gods Donation is by his Covenant Testament or Promise and this Covenant hath its proper nature and mode that is the Condition as imposed antecedent to our Receiving Therefore as the thing Given is made ours by the Donation so according to the order appointed by it and our Consent no otherwise maketh it ours than as the Condition of the Gift performed But Gods Covenant doth Give us Christ and Life that is Justification Sanctification and Glorification in tithe or right in one Gift to be Accepted by one entire faith as the Condition not making at all the order of the Gifts and faiths respect to them in that order to be any of the Ratio proprietatis 116. This will be plainer by humane instances A Servants Relation is founded in his consent to be a Servant a Wifes Relation is founded in her Marriage-consent to be a Wife and to take that man for her Husband simply without any more adoe Now if the Master of that Servant or the Husband of that Wife be a noble man a rich man a wise man a good man and they knew all this and by knowing it were induced to consent and are to have their proportionable benefits by his Nobility Riches Wisdom Goodness yet their title to these benefits ariseth not from the act of their consent as it respected these benefits severally and distinctly but meerly by consent to their Relation as being his Condition of Collation The Wife is made Noble by her Husbands Nobility she is made Rich by his Riches she is instructed by his Wisdom c. But she hath no more Right to his Riches for marrying him in the notion of Rich or for consenting to him for Riches than for marrying him in the notion or thought of his wisdom or goodness On her part it was not consent to be Rich by him that gave her right to his Riches and consent to be Noble by him that gave her right to Nobility but consent simply to be his Wife that gave her right to all 117. This is yet fullyer evident in that most usually men make consent to one thing to be the condition of their Receiving or Right to another And usually that which one is most backward to is made the condition of their Right to that which they are most forward or willing to have The Master doth not say If thou wilt have thy wages thou shalt have right to it But if thou wilt do my work thou shalt have thy wages The condition of Marriage is conjugal Love and fidelity q. d. I will be thy Husband and give thee right to all that I have if thou wilt be and do what is essential to a Wife and not if thou wilt have my Riches c. If a Father give a Child a free gift on any condition it will likely be If thou wilt be a thankful and obedient Child and not If thou wilt have it Or if meer consent to have it be put it is usually when it is some gift which it is supposed that the person is not very willing to have As if a Sick man will have Physick if an ungodly man will have Teaching Books or Godliness it self But to this usually they are induced by the Promise of somewhat else which they are willing of As to the Sick If thou wilt take this Physick thou shalt have health To the ungodly If thou wilt have Christ and holiness thou shalt have pardon and happiness Now in the sence of Physical Receiving He that receiveth Physick hath Physick and He that receiveth health hath health c. But in the moral sence of Receiving which is Accepting as it is the condition of a gift so He that receiveth the Physick shall have the health and He that receiveth Christ and his sanctifying Spirit shall have Pardon Justification and Salvation Not that his willingness to have pardon and happiness is the chief or only condition of his pardon and happiness But his Accepting Christ and his Spirit which men are naturally unwilling of is the condition of that pardon and happiness which men would have By all which it appeareth that to say Faith justifyeth me as it is the Receiving of Christs Righteousness and not as it is the Receiving of Christ as a Teacher Ruler c. is a confounding or seducing saying For 1. If it intimate that Faith Justifyeth us as an efficient cause principal oâ— Instrumental it is false * * * Unless by Justifying they mean the acts of Love Hope Obedience called Hâ—â—iness 2. If it mean that Faith is the Condition of Justification quatenus as it receiveth Christs Righteousness only it hath either one or two falshoods 1. If it mean that Faith 's receiving act is the formalis ratio Conditionis or that it justifyeth not qua conditio dâ—â—ationis but quae Receptio Justitiae Christi it is false Therefore qua here can signifie nothing but the Aptitude of faith to be made the condition and so Qua Quae here are all one 2. And then that only the Accepting of Righteousness justifyeth us that is Is the condition of our Justification is a falshood 118. Therefore our consent to be a Holy and obedient people or to take Christ for our Teacher Exemplar Ruler Sanctifier by his Word and Spirit and Judge hath at least as great a hand in our justification being principally the Condition of the Promise as our belief in our acceptance of Christ's Righteousness hath SECT VIII Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed 119. Christ's personal Righteousness Divine or Humane habitual active How little the Papists differ from the Imputation which they quarrel with See in Bellarm. words cited and approved by Davenant de Justit And Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. saith Obj. Pâ—ccatum remitti non potest quamdiu homo manet conversus ad creaturam aversus a Deo At semper aversus erit a Deo nisi mutatur Resp Sufficere mutationem moralem quae per solam Dei condonationem fieri potest ut jam homo non dicatur aversus a Deo This is Antinomianism and false As if God called not him averse who is really averse Obj. 2. Si peccatum remitti potest sine actu aut habitu per solam imputationem erit quae est â—aereticorum sententia Resp Haereticos loqui de facto non de imputatione peccati remanentis vere non remissi nos de possibili de verâ— remissione qua peccatum tollatur See how the case is turned and wranglers
all his Benefits are ever free Gifts â—â— to the matter and value first and then the relation of a Reward is bâ— secondary as to the Order of collation and the reason comparative whâ— one man hath them rather than another as a thankful Child hath the Gift which the Contemner goeth without 2. And that here Not to have this Gift forfeited by our sin is to be punished And so hâ—â—â— non-donari is puniri materially though the relations differ 3. And that it is the same Righteousness of Christ which meriteth our Impunity quoad damnum sensum and which meriteth our Right to the Gift of Life both sub ratione doni as a Gift and sub ratione condonationis as a forgiveness of the forfeiture and of the poena damni So that here â—â— no room for the conceit that Christ's death was only to purchase Pardon and his Righteousness to merit Life That which confoundeth men here is their taking the divers Respects and Connotations and Coâ—ceptions of one and the same thing to be divers separable things Thâ— same Law hath the Preceptive part to do and not do and the Retributing part penal and rewarding The same Obedience of Adam was â—â— doing what was commanded and a deserving what was promised â—â—â—â— more was promised to persevering Perfection than to the first act of Obedience One Sin deserved death but one act of Obedience desernâ—â— not immutable Glory And as the same Act is formally Obedience related to the Command and formally meritorious or praemiandus â—â— related to the Promise And the same Act is sin and punishable as related to the Precept or Prohibition and Threatening so the same Glory is a free Gift in one respect as related ut bonum to God as Benefactor and a Reward in another as related quoad ordinem conferendi to God â—â— Rector And the same loss of Glory is poena related to the Threatening and it is the loss of a Reward as related to the Promise And so the sâ—â—â— Merits of Christ's active and passive and habitual Righteousness because our Glory both by giving us pardon of our forfeiture and by Covenant-Donation and as a Reward to Christ and to us when â—â— perform the conditions of his Gift 133. And it is certain that Christ's Sufferings are first satisfactory and then meritorious being a part of his Active that is voluntary Oâ—dience And Christ's Holiness and Obedience are meritorious of pardon â—â— Sin as well as of Salvation 134. If there be as there is any thing which is given us througâ—â— Christ more than our own Innocency or Obedience would have mâ—â—â—ted the Gift of that is more than remission of Sin And is to be ascribeâ— accordingly to the Purchase of Christ's Merits But yet both his Holiness and Sufferings though not as sufferings did merit it And that was not a fulfilling of the Law in our stead 135. This superadded Gift what-ever it is seemeth in Scripture to be included in Adoption and not in Justification But yet it may in this sense be called Justification in that when our Right to that Gift is questioned that Right must be justified by the Covenant-Donation and by Christ's meritorious Purchase of it But this is only de nomine We are agreed of the thing 136. It is greatly to be noted that as a Reward is in the formal notion more than not punishing where materially they are the same so Christ hath not at all merited that eternal Life should be ours by way of Reward for our fulfilling the Law in him but that it should ours by his free Gift as a Reward to Christ for his own Merits So that the Relation of a Reward for Perfection belongeth only formally to Christ who taketh it as his benefit that we are saved through his love to Souls but not at all to us And to say as too many hold that Heaven is our Reward for our perfection of Holiness and Obedience in and by Christ is a Humane Invention subverting Christ's Gospel or unfit speech if better meant 137. Yet a Reward it is to us to be glorified but that is not for our fulfilling the Law of Innocency by Christ but for our believing in Christ and performing the conditions of the Covenant of Grace which giveth us Life as a free Gift but yet in the order of the condition it hath the relation and name of a Reward to us in the Scripture 138. So that here are three rewarding Covenants before us 1. The Covenant or Law of Innocency rewarding man for perfection to the end And this rewarded none but Christ And it is false that we are rewarded by that Covenant or justified by it for Christ's fulfilling it But it All the stir of the Papists is to prove that we have inherent Righteousness as well as pardon which Protestants are as much for as they The rest is de nomine justificationis Malder 1. 2. q. 113. a. 2. p. 572. Apostolus 2 Cor. 5. non aliud vult quam Christum cui nullum debebatur supplicium factum fuisse hostiam pro nostro peccato ut nos qui apud Deum nihil merebamur praeter supplicium justitia Dei fieremus in ipso id est gratis sine nostris operibus consequeremur per ipsius merita justitiam coram Deo What doth this differ from the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches Idem ibid Quando Apostolus dicit multos constitui justos per unius obedientiâ—â— significatur causa meritoria non autem formalis And so say we But some call Christ's Righteousness the causa materialâ—s meaning no more but that it is the matter of that Merit for which we are justified As if Adam had perfectly fulfilled the Law his fulfilling it had been meritorious of his sentential Justification and yet the matter of his constitutive Justification that is of his Righteousness And some uâ—â—ptly call it the formal cause But an unapt logical notion is not an error in Faith or Theology Idem ib. p. 573. Quamvis â—x omnino rigida justitia solus Christus Dominus satisfactat de condigno tamen ita ut merces operi â—ono debeatur post Dei promissionem meretur justus coronam justisiâ— quam reddet in illa die justus judex Est nostra justitia tota totum meritum tota satisfactio dependens a meâ—ito satisfactione Christi Still here is a wordy Controversie justified Christ 2. The Law or Covenant made only to and with Christ the Mediator And this Covenant further rewarded Christ as Mediator giving him all that it promised to himself and us for his performing the mediatorial conditions And so our Life is Christ's Reward 3. The Covenant or Law of Grace for it is the same thing in several respects that 's called the Law and the Covenant which giving Life on the condition of Faith doth justifie and reward Believers And we are justified and rewarded by no other Law 139. When Rom. 4. oft saith and other Texts that we are
him total resignation and use as such 2. As our Ruler we owe him â—ubjection and Obedience as such 3. As our Friend Benefactor Amaâ—â—lissimus we owe him Gratitude and Love as such which yet is part â—f Obedience too Now Sin being the privation of all this God is to â—e satisfied for it as such in all these three Relations And is pars laesa â—â— all these three Relations that is he is injured though not hurt It is â—â—ue that Government and punishing Justice formally as such belong to God only as Rector And satisfaction is made him eminently in that Reâ—ation yet also to compensate the injury done by sin to him in the other â—wo Relations also SECT IX Of the nature and distinctions of Justification 152. Justification is a word of many significations the Scheme whereof And 1. Of constitutive Justification should I give them all would seem to most Readers a troublesome diâ—tinguishing Therefore I take up with these three most notable senses â— Justification constitutive 2. Sentential 3. Executive The first is to make a man righteous The second is to judge him righteâ—us The third is to use him as righteous 1. By Impunity 2. Reward * * * The Papists are confounded in the point of Justification by sticking to confounding words They talk of Justification and remission of sin but cannot tell men intelligibly what they mean They say that Remission is a putting away the sin it self and not only the Reatum poenae and yet say many that it may be done without any physical change of the Sinner 1. By sin they mean not the Habit for that cannot be removed without a physical change 2. Nor the act For that is past as soon as done 3. When they say it is macula moralis habitualiter remanens they talk gibberish and play with a metaphor and the word habitualiter A true habit is quid physicum and what macula is they can tell no man besides a habit disposition privation â—r relation If they mean that it is the Reatus culpae or culpability that is done away and not only the Reatus poenae they hold â—he same thing which they oppose in those Protestants that go too far from them And it is not sound For the pardoned Sinâ—er will be culpable though not punishable for ever that is will be really the man that sinned and it will be an everâ—asting truth This man sinned though he be pardoned See Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. pag. 509 510 511. The Papists say Homo est formaliter justus per formam gratiae ipst exâ—riâ—secam non tantum per justitiam Christi illi imputatam And yet Nullus actus quantumvis perfectus sive sit contritio sive Amor Dei super omnia est causâ— formalis justificationis Patres diâ—entes charitatem esse perfectam justitiam intelligendi sunt dispositive non autem formaliter Because it is in the Habit and not in the Act â—r rather as others of them say in some internal inclination antecedent to the habits of Faith Hope and Love that they place Justification or as we call it Sanctification Pet. a S. Joseph Thes Univers de grat Hab. pag. 88 89. 153 God never judgeth a man righteous either by secret esteem or open sentence till he have made him such 154. To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense which is To be justifiable or justificandus by sentence 155. A man is righteous 1. Particularly secundum quid as to some particular cause that he is accusable of 2. Or universally as to all causes 3. Or eminently as to all those causes that Heaven or Hell depend upon 156. 1. No man is universally righteous really or reputatively God judgeth no Saint in Heaven to be one that never sinned And he that hath once sinned is unavoidably under the Relation of â—â—â—â— that sinned to eternity ex necessitate existentiae which Relation is the very Reatus ipsius peccati though all the ill effects be remitted 157. 2. Every man hath some particular righteousness For the worst man may be falsly accused and be righteous as to that false accusation But this will not save him 158. 3. That eminent Righteousness necessary to our Salvation though it be not universal or perfect else we should never be afficted by chastiâ—â—ments or denials of Grace or permissions to sin yet is it at least perfect as to its proper use and to our glorious perfection And may be called our universal Righteousness because it is all that we have And â—â— consisteth not of any one or two Causes but of many Of which no oâ—â— must be excluded or set against the rest As there are several Allegatioâ—â— or Accusations against us so there must be several parts of the matter of our Justification 159. Not only an actual Accusation but a possible or a virtual oâ—â— which we are liable to sufficeth to denominate Justification as its contrary in the first Law-sense of Justification 160. It is our Right to Impunity and to the heavenly Glory which is to be justified finally in Judgment and our persons as the Subjects of that Right And our Actions but mediately in order to that end 161. It is only at the Bar of Christ as Redeemer that we are to be judged and justified and not by God only as a Creator Therefore it is by the Law of Grace that we must be judged to life or death finally and not by the sole Law of Innocency 162. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency either by the preceptive or retributive part But we are justified only by the Lâ—â— or Covenant of Grace against the Accusation which may be brought against us from the Law of Innocency Against it not by it 163. We are liable to all these following Accusations which will opeâ— to us the correlate Justifications and the matter of each part 1. It may be said by the Accuser of the Brethren Thou art a Siâ—â—â—â— against the Precepts of Nature and Grace He that denieth this is a Lyar Against this Charge there is no Justification for ever But we must â—â— Heaven confess that we have sinned but Glory be to him that washed â—s from our sins in his blood by Pardon and Sanctifiation 164. 2. Next it may be said that We did deserve Hell by our Sin This also is to be confessed for ever 165. 3. It may be said that by Gods Law of Innocency Hell is ouâ— due and therefore we are to be condemned to it To this we deny the consequence because we have right to Impunity and to Glory freely given us by God our Redeemer by a Covenant of Grace merited for us by the Obedience and Satisfaction given for us by Christ our Saviour Where note that here in this first part of our Justification there are all these conjunct necessary Causes 1. Gods Love and Mercy giving 2. Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction meriting 3. The Covenant
really all is but a Thankful Accepting of the mercy of the new Covenant according to its nature and use as it is offered 196. It is a great question whether a man may Trust to his own Faith Of Trusting in our own faith repentance holiness c. Repentance or Holiness But some men still trouble the world with unexplained words where no sober men differ No wise man can dream that we may Trust to these for more than their proper part as that we may Trust them to do any thing proper to God to Christ to the Spirit to the Promise c. And to use the phrase of Trusting to our own faith or Holiness when it soundeth absolutely or may tempt the hearers to think that they may Trust them for Gods part or Christ's part and Of which see more in my Life of Faith Tollit gratia Meriâ—um non quod omnino nihil agamus sed quia non satisfacimus legi procul absumus a perfectione Melancth in Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. not only for their own is a dangerous deceiving course But that really they may be Trusted for their own part and must be so no sober person will deny For so to believe obey pray to God c. and not to Trust to them in their place that is not to think that we shall be ever the better for them is unbelief and indeed distrusting God and saying It is in vain to serve him and what profit is it that we call upon him And such diffidence and despair will end all endeavours Let every man prove Gal. 6. his own work and so shall he have rejoycing in himself and not in another This is our Rejoycing the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity 2 Cor. 1. 12. and Godly sincerity we have had our Conversation in the world If we are Justified by faith we may Trust to be Justifyed by it But the rare use of such a phrase in Scripture and the danger of it must make us never use it without need As if we were disputing whether the Popish or Protestant Religion be that which a man may trust for his Salvation or the like And when ever it 's used it implyeth our Trust in God and our Saviour only for their part 197. To conclude this great point of Imputed and Inherent Righteousness The last objection of the mistakers of Imputation To save me that much labour of citations I desire the Reader to see in Guil. Forbes Consider Pacific the Concessions of Vega Pighius Stapleton and other Papists about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as granting us all that Protestants mean as Bellarmine expresly doth as Davenant Nigrinus Joh. Crocius and many others have observed it may be objected that The same man may well be judged a Sinner deserving hell never fulfilling the Law nor satisfying Justice nor deserving Heaven in himself that is in his Natural person and yet be Judged one that never sinned but fulfilled the Law is perfectly holy and righteous and merited Heaven in his Legal or Civil person in and by Christ To which I answer One man is but one and hath but one person But if you take the word Person equivocally as signifying another that is made like him in some respects or that hath his Nature or doth somewhat in his stead and for his benefit as a second person say so and we will strive with no man about words If you will say we are now on earth in our Natural persons and are in Heaven in Christ or that we are Redeemed in our Natural persons but Redeemed our selves in Christ or that you are sick in your Natural person and well in your person in Christ c. I like not your language but there are scarce any words so bad which a man may not put a good sence on But we would be understood and plainly ask whether Christ was properly every sinners or believers person in Law-sence so that ipso facto God accounteth us to have been habitually and actively perfect in Him and to have merited and satisfied in him If so the Law can look on one man but as one And he that paid a debt by his Servant or any other as his Legal person cannot be required to do it again in his Natural person unless you will say that God loveth our Legal person and will save it and may hate our Natural person and damn it The Scripture useth no such contradictory subtleties as these SECT XI How faith Justifieth 198. The common saying that faith justifieth as an Instrument might pass as tolerable if too many did not strain it to a wrong sence and raise Note that when we call faith an Accepting it relateth to the Donation of the Covenant and the Donatum which is a Jus ad beneficia Renovation is effected by faith as a second cause but Pardon is Accepted by it And we fully grant the Papists that Renovation and pardon go together whatever they call them And some of themselves do speak just as we de Remissione Macula which others are confounded about Vid. Wotton's citations out of the Schoolmen de Macula de Reconcil pec And Brianson saith in 4. q. 8. fol. 116. that sin as â—emitted or guilt is Tantum quaedam Relatio rationis in quantum est objectum intellectus Voluntatis divinae Quia postquam commissit peccatum Dei voluntas ordinat ipsum ad poenum correspondentem peccato Intellectus praevidet pro omni tempore donec poena debita sit soluta Videre peceata Dei est ad â—oenam imputâ—re Avertere faciem est ad poenam non reservare August Ergo niâ— aliud est post actum câ—ssantem pâ—â—catis offâ—nsa Macula reatus nisi ista relatio rationis Sâ—d hujus Ordinatio ad â—oenam ut est disconveniens ipsi animae dicitur ejus Macula ut autem est obligatio formaliter ad istam poenam dicitur Râ—atus Et ut est divinae voluntatis c. dicâ—tur Offensa Nil n aliud est Offendi vel Irasci in Deo quam vâ—lle Vindicare ista poena But he after owneth that the culpa is another thing unwarrantable Doctrines from it and harden the Papists by unwarantable Answers A Justifying Instrument properly is an efficient Instrâ—mental cause of Justification which I have elsewhere too largely proved that faith is not either Gods Instrument or ours Physical or Moral noâ— any way efficiently justifieth us But justifying is one thing to Receive justification is another thing and to be justified is a third Faith iâ— no justifying act But faith is in its Essence the Acceptance of an offered God Christ Spirit for Life This Acceptance is by the Covenant made the condition of our passive true Reception and Possession of Right before opened To be such a Condition performed is to be a removens prohibeâ—s of the said Reception which is strictly to be Dispositio materiae recipientiâ— And so it
to God And so Faith is below Repentance as a means of it 204. By this the question whether Faith or Repentance be first may partly be resolved and partly cast out as founded in confusion As they are both one thing neither can be first any otherwise than the same Motus ut a termino a quo ut ad terminum ad quem But as they signifie divers things they have each of them divâ—râ— acts and in respect of each are before each other The Assenting act of Faith in general must needs be always before Repentance as it is an Act of the Will But the consenting Act of faith is also part of Repentance and must folow that part of Repentance which is a change of the understanding But whether the Repentance as towards God or Faith in Christ be first or Love to God and Faith in Christ I have discussed as accurately as I can in my Christian Directory Par 1. cap. 3. pag. 182. and therefore thither refer the Reader 205. And how Faith and Love differ I have there also opened and therefore shall now only say that Faith as it signifieth meet How Faith and Love differ Assent differeth from Love as the act of the Intellect from Volition And Love formally taken presupposeth the Assent and doth not contain it But Faith taken largely in the sence of the Baptismal Covenant containeth in it Consent which is the Wills Volition and therefore must needs have some initial Love in it as it acteth iâ— Desire This Faith in God hath some Desire and Volition of God and Faith in Christ which is the Souls Practical Affiance in him hath some Love to Christ in it But the denomination is not from the same ratio formalis in each It is eminently called Faith when giving up our Souls to Christ to be saved in practical Affiance is the great work of the Soul though it have something of Love essential to it And it is eminently called Love morally when the Complacency of the Soul in Christ thus trusted and in God our end is the great work or business of the Soul 206. This Holy Love as a fixed habit and employment of the Soul and our Relation to the Holy Ghost to work it in us is it that is promised and Given quoad jus in the Baptismal Covenant of which Faith though it have somewhat of actual Love or Volition in it is the antecedent condition which also I have so fully opened as afore cited that I refer the Reader to it for this also And somewhat was said of it before SECT XIII Of the degrees of Pardon or Justification 207. Some men lest they should yield that Justification is not one perfect finished act done but once do feign that it is only the first act of Faith by which a man is justified Indeed it is only the first act by which he â—s changed from an unrighteous to a righteous state But to think that therefore we are never after justified by Faith and so have no actually justifying Faith all our lives but for one instant only is fitter for a Dreamer than a theological Discourser 208. Our first constitutive Justification being in its nature a right to â—mpunity and to Life or Glory * * * â—â—â—â— tells us that 〈…〉 which 〈…〉 by Regeâ—â—ra â—â— and Just â—â—â—â— on â—uâ— what they mean by Râ—â—nission they cannot tell themselves as a â—oresaid Pardon of the guâ—â— they mean not or else they mean several things in one word is a Relation which must be continued to the end and therefore must have the true causes and condition continued and would cease if any of them ceased 209. As to the question therefore whether Justification be lossable and â—ardon reversible I answer that the grant of them in the Covenant is unalterable But mans will in it self is mutable and if he should cease believing by Apostacy and the condition fail he would lose his Right and be unjustified and unpardoned without any change in God But that a man doth not so de facto is to be ascribed to Election and special Grace of which afterward 210. Though all our past sins are pardoned at our first Faith or Conversion or as the Ancients speak in Baptism yet it is most certain that Pardon or Justification is not perfect at first no nor on this side death And the saying of many that Justification is perfect at first and Sanctification only by degrees is a palpable error as I have else-where oft shewed For that is not perfect 1. Which is not continued and brought on to its end but upon continued conditions and diligent use of means to the â—ast * * * Neque enim peccati sui veniam impetravit Adam ut a morte temporali immunis esset Twiss contr Corvin pag. 343. col 2. 2. Which leaveth many penalties unremoved which have further means to be used for their removal and further Right to it to be obtained To have more and more Grace and less and less Sin and to have â—earer communion with God are blessings as to the degrees which we must by degrees attain a further Right to and the privation of them are â—ore penalties to be removed 3. We have new sins to be pardoned every day 4. Our remaining Corruption is such as needeth a continued Pardon till it be perfectly done away 5. The Day of Judgment is not come for which the most perfect Justification is reserved SECT XIV Of Justification by Sentence of the Judge 211. The second sort of Justification which is by Sentence is done by Christ as Judge and so is an act of his Kingly Office 212. Therefore were it true as it is not that justifying Faith were only the receiving or believing in Christ as a Justifier of us it would not be a believing in him in his Priestly Office only but in act For he merited our Justification as a humbled Servant and a Sacrifice He giveth it us in Right by his Covenant or Law of Grace as King and Benefactor He promulgateth it as Prophet He passeth the Sentences as King and Judge He executively taketh off the penalty and glorifieth us as King and Benefactor There is no Justification by a partial Faith 213. Though the estimation of a man as just called the Sententiâ— judicis concepta as distinct from the sententia prolata be said to be â—â— immanet act of God and therefore from eternity yet it is a mistake For though it be not transient effectivè and do nihil efficere ad extra yeâ— it is transient objectivè and doth presuppose the existence of the qualified Object For though Gods Knowledge and Will in genere or as such are his eternal Essence yet Gods Knowledge and Love of John or Peter â—â— Believers are terms which signifie not his Essence as such but as transâ—â— and terminated on those existent persons relatively So that the extrinâ—â—cal denomination from the existent Object is temporary as it is 214.
in the heart and so maketh the Creed to be more properly this Law than the Scriptures as being written only on particular occasions But though we thankfully confess that the essentials of Christianity are so plain and few as may be remembred yet the Creed is contained and explained in the Scripture and without written Records our Faith would have been but ill preserved as experience and reason prove 7. That their Law as such discovered sin but gave not the Spirit of Grace to overcome it Insomuch as though he himself desired perfectly to fulfil it without sin yet he could not but was under a captivity that is a moral necessity of imperfection or sins of infirmity from which only the Grace of Christ could as to guilt and power deliver him 8. That no man ever came to Heaven by that way of merit which they dreamed of but all by the way of Redemption Grace free Gift and pardoning Mercy Therefore their conceit that they were just in the main and forgiven their sins and so justifiable by the meer dignity of Mose's Law which they kept and by the Works of the Law and not by the free Gift Pardon and Grace of a Redeemer and by the Faith and practical belief of that Gift and acceptance of it with thankful penitent obedient hearts was a pernicious errour But the true way of Righteousness was to become true Christians that is with such a penitent thankful accepting practical belief or affiance to believe in God as the Giver of Salvation in Christ as the Redeemer and his Spirit as our Life and Sanctifier and to accept Christ and all his procured Benefits Justification and Life as purchased by his Sacrifice and meritorious Righteousness and given in the New Covenant on this condition and so to give up our selves to his whole saving-work as to the Physician of our Souls and only Mediator with God This is the sum of Paul's Doctrine on this point 363. I say again therefore for any man to say that some one physical act either assent or consent or affiance upon one particular Object Christ's Righteousness as offered us is the instrumental cause of our Justification and that to look to be justified by any other act of Faith on Christ or on the Father or Holy Ghost or on Heaven the final Object God in Glory or secondarily as subsequent parts of the condition of Salvation by Repentance by praying for Pardon by forgiving others by Obedience to Christ c. is to look to be justified by Works in the sense that Paul excludeth them this is but to abuse the Gospel and the Church by a scandalous misinterpretation of a great part of the New Testament 364. St. James therefore having to do with some who thought that Leg. Placeum in Thes Salvin de hâ—sce Vol. 1. Conrad Bergium in Prax. Cathol â— e Blank Thes de Just and our Mr. Gibbon's Serm. Of Justif in the Morning-Exercises at Giles in the Fields Paraeus de Justif Cont. Bellarm. l. 2. c. 7. p. 469. Nos imputari nobis Christi justitiam ut per â—am formaliter justi nominâ—mâ—r simus neque diximus unquam neque sentimus ut aliquoties jam ostendimus Id enim pugnaret non minus cum recta ratione quam si reus in judicio absolutus diceret se clementia judicis donantis sibi vitam formaliter justum esse c. the bare profession of Christianity was Christianity and that Faith was a meer assent to the Truth and that to believe that the Gospel is true and trust to be justified by Christ was enough to Justification without Holiness and fruitful Lives and that their sin and barrenness hindered not their Justification so that they thus believed perhaps misunderstanding Paul's Epistles doth convince them that they were mistaken and that when God spake of Justification by Faith without the Works of the Law he never meant a Faith that containeth not a resolution to obey him in whom we believe nor that is separated from actual Obedience in the prosecution But that as we must be justified by our Faith against the charge of being Infidels so must we be justified by our Gospel personal holiness and sincere Obedience against the charge that we are unholy and wicked or impenitent or Hypocrites or else we shall never be adjudged to Salvation that is justified by God 365. All this then is past controversie among considerate understanding men 1. That Works justifie us not as perfect according to the Covenant of Innocence because we have them not 2. That the Works or keeping of Mose's Law as conceited sufficient or as set in opposition against or competition with a Saviour or free Gift or any otherwise than as the exercises of meer Obedience under Christ as Mary â—â—chary Elizabeth Simeon John Baptist David c. used them could justifie no man 3. That consequently no other Works set up either in the said opposition or competition or as any thing of Merit or worth is ascribed to them which is proper to Christ or any part of the honour of Gods free Gift can justifie no man nor any other way than as meer conditions and exercises of thankful obedience or acceptance in pure subordination to God's Mercy and Christ's Merits and the free Gift But that Works are not excluded from being conditions of our justification or the matter of it in any of these following respects 1. That Faith it self which is our act and an act of Obedience to God and is the â—iducial accepting belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for the benefits of the Covenant is the condition of our first Covenant-right to these Benefits 2. That this Faith is not actual Obedience to Christ as Christ at first but only to God as God But it is the Souls subjection to Christ as Christ which is our Covenant-consent to our future Obedience and virtually though not actually containeth our future Obedience in it 3. That there is somewhat of love consent or willingness of Desire of Hope of Repentance which goeth to make up this moral work of Faith as it is the condition even our first Christianity it self 4. That as the making of a Covenant is for the performing of it and subjection is for Obedience and Marriage for conjugal Duties so our said first Covenanting-Faith is for our future Faith Hope Comfort and grateful Obedience and Holiness And these are the secondary parts of the condition of Salvation And so are the secondary parts of our Justifications condition as continued or not-lost and consummate For to justifie us is as is said to justifie our Right to Impunity and Glory â— That as is said our own performance of the condition of the free Gift of Impunity and Glory by the New Covenant purchased by Christ's Righteousness is the thing to be tried and judged in Gods judgment And therefore we must so far be then justified from the charge of â—ot performing that condition of
cause Moral Good and hinder Moral Evil and by which as our Lover and End he will draw mans soul to himself in Love § 20. God as Rector though he vary his Laws in some things to several ages and places and promulgate the same Gospel with inequality on several accounts yet according to the respective Laws that they are under dealeth with all men in a certain equality which is called Justice that is His Laws antecedently to mans acts make not difference and as Judge he maketh none but what mans different actions require according to the said Laws and Justice But yet as Owner and as Benefactor he is free not against but above his Laws to make many inequalities which are no injustice they being not acts of formal Government and so he may do with his own as he list And thus though God give all their due according to his Law of Grace yet he giveth to his Elect such proportions of Grace as he gave them no antecedent Right to by his Law or at least to many of them passing by the controversie now whether he do so to them all § 21. God could cure and sanctifie all men if it were his Absolute will but he doth not and will not being no way obliged And he will be no loser nor sufferer by the creatures sin § 22. Gods absolute will is as fully accomplished by mans free acts as if they were all necessitated and Natural And mans actions are as free as if God had made no Absolute Decree of their futurity as in Good he hath done if we may so ascribe futurity to his Decrees § 23. It seemeth that all sin beginneth in the wills omission of what it was able to have done Even when Adams appetite was to the forbidden fruit and some think that this was the first part of the sin it seemeth that it was rather in the Wills not restraining that appetite when it could have done it And then positive sins do follow thereupon § 24. There is more Brutishness in sin and consequently more privative and less positive faultiness of the Reason and Will than many do consider which Paul partly meaneth Rom. 7. For it is certain 1. That a passion e. g. anger or fear may be forced on a man suddenly as â—n a Brute without Reason As if you come behind one and affright him or strike him suddenly no Reason raised that passion and consequently no Rational Will 2. It is certain that this passion without Reason can cause despotically a corporal motion as the fearful will start and run and the angry strike without any reason or rational will but as a Beast doth 3. It is certain that it is the office of the Will to Rule this passion and these motions 4. And that it must have due information from the understanding that so to do is good and best 5. If this information of the understanding did never miss of determining the Will then man would never sin but when the understanding failed of its necessary office before the will which would resolve all sin into the will of God as much as if he directly moved the will to it by necessitating unresistible predetermination For the Intellect as such hath no Liberty but is necessitated by objects further than it is under the Empire of the Will And the Objects and Intellect are made by God 6. Therefore it followeth that there is a certain measure of Intellecâ—â—â—l true apprehension according to which the will can excite and determine it self without â—â—y thing which it hath not and yet can forbear And that this not-willing what and when it should is the beginning of all sin § 25. God is no Efficient or Desicient cause of this first Omission of the will For efficient it hath none And deficient God is not who gave man power to have done it But man is the deficient Cause § 26. Man 's not believing not knowing not loving not obeying not desiring trusting fearing c. being the far greatest part of the sins of his life * * * Which made the worthy Bishop Usher dye with these words as his last But Lord in special forgive my â—â—â— of omission we see by this are not at all of God § 27. Though multitudes of positive Acts of sin do follow such omissions and go before some of them yet they being not sinful as Acts but as Disordered against the Rule and End and upon undue objects and especially comparatively preserring the wrong object before the right it seemeth that in their first instances they are all Omissive and Positive in the second only which maketh the Schoolmen so commonly say that sin is a Privation § 28. Yet the Moral formal Relation of sin is not only Privative but a Positive Disobedience or Disconformity And so as Quid Morale formaliter sin hath as much Relative being as Duty hath viz. 1. As contra Legem significantem 2. Contra Voluntatem Dei significatam 3. Et contra Jâ—â— Divini Dominii Imperii Amoris § 29. If any be unsatisfied in this it is certain that in the Velle hoc prohibitum potius quam hoc imperatâ—m there is no more physical entity than in the Velle imperatum no nor than there is in the Velle indefinitely considered as on any object Or if any deny that it is certain that there is no such addition of Entity it being but ordo modi in any such sinful Act from which as such the formal obliquity or sin resulteth but what man can do and doth without Gods causing the Act as so ordered and terminated So that God is no way the cause of formal sin § 30. †††Bradwardiâ— dealeth more plainly and maketh Gods effectual Volition to be the total immediate cause that man sinneth though it be no sin in God to do so and saith that God willeth it for good uses as the sinner doth or if he do not it is because God maketh him unavoidably do otherwise They that say He causeth all that man causeth and that as the first necesâ—itating or insuperable cause but yet is not the cause of the form of sin contradict themselves seeing that form is but a Relation which resulteth ipso facto from its fundamentam and terminus and nè per divinam potentiam cannot but do so And hath no other cause but what causeth them § 31. And they that say that yet God is not the Author of sin because he is under no Law do but sport with dreadful things And they mean that God is the chief Cause of all mens sins in the world but not of any sin of his own which is none of the question § 32. God doth neither Cause the sin nor the futurity or existence of it as some vainly distinguishing maintain especially Dr. Twisse and Rutherford For as Estius and others truly say to cause the sin is nothing but to cause the existence of it And sin as sin Dr. Twisse often
yet he commandeth it and requireth it of us But exciting and adjuvant Grace are all one on Gods part And if you will difference the same things as connoting divers effects you must denominate it more fitly from the effects by words that notifie the difference IX Adjuvant Grace and Free-will are not Partial Causes of supernatural Consent as two drawing a Boat so as neither is premoved by the other or maketh it co-operate with it Answ True For God premoveth the will of man though through mans fault it be not ever effectual And though Gods will and mans be two Causes of the same effect the term Partial is scarce fit while man hath his whole power and activity from God X. Scientia media is not to be ascribed to God But all prescience of the future co operation of the will even from the foresaid Hypothesis presupposeth in signo rationis the free decree of Gods will by which absolutely or granting that Hypothests he will in us and with us effect that operation if Good and permit it if Evil. Answ Here come in your presumptions of things unknown or false 1. That God knoweth future contingents and conditionals is certain But I think this scientia media unfitly named and an unnecessary distribution and insufficient to the Jesuits ends 2. And your fiction of signa rationis and the necessary antecedence of a decree of Gods to his knowledge of every Volition of man is a more ungrounded and perillous figment which you have not proved It seemeth a denyal of Gods Omniscience or perfection that he cannot know an act future as future but only as decreed to be so 3. You deceitfully talk of permitting evil while you plead for the irresistible predetermining premotion of the will by God to every evil act with all its circumstances Is that but Permitting 4. To permit is Nothing no act of God but a non-agency not to hinder And how prove you that God must of necessity have a Positive Decree for every Nothing or non-agency Is not the not-willing or not-decreeing to hinder a lye e. g. supposing natural concurse or to make more worlds enough to the production of that lye by an ill inclined nature or to the not-being of more Worlds We are in the dark and God is infinitely above us and these tremendous mysteries are not to be so presumptuously handled by unproved assertions XI There is on our part no Cause Reason or Condition assignable for which Gods supernatural providence in comparison of this or that hath the formal reason of predestination or retaineth the common reason of providence but predestination is to be reduced into the sole free-will of God Answ Most of this is about meer words The word Predestination connoteth various effects and objects and so is called various Acts. There is no efficient Cause in the Creature of any act of God But there are objects without which Gods Acts have not their special denominations and these objects are the termini and called Material Constitutive Causes of those various acts as denominated various specially or numerically And so Gods Decree or Will to Justifie and Glorifie man hath something in the object as a necessary condition of it * * * That is of that object which is not â—â— the object of his decree of giving faith And that hath something in its object which is not in the object of the decree of giving a Redeemer to the World or making the World c. if you will at all distinguish Gods decrees by their objects or effects But if not there will be no matter for any Controversie And Predestination is an ambiguous word If it be taken for All Gods fore-decreeing or all about man or all of Good to us then our Being is the first effect of it in us and the making of the World a preparatory effect c. And so no doubt the first effect supposed us no men before and therefore no condition in us But if you take Predestination for Gods decree of Giving us Grace and Glory only then it is presupposed that we are lapsed sinners And the decree of damning men is exercised only on them as foreknown damnable sinners And the decree of penal denying Grace or faith to sinners for sin supposeth them such punishable sinners But the bare Negation of a Decree to give faith to one to whom the absence is no privation is unfitly called Reprobation though men may talk at their own rates And we grant that some such no-decrees have no condition in the objects for they have no objects e. g. If you will feign that God decreed from eternity to give me no faith before the Creation or before I was born or to give Innocent Adam no faith in a Saviour as dying for him this were no reprobating act But when God hath given men a Saviour with his common grace to believe in and accept here if he deny them necessary grace to believe it is a penal act And note that Christ and Common grace as absolutely given to mankind and offered to individuals ever goeth before mens accepting or refusing him And no man to whom he is offered refuseth him for want of necessary help till by sin against that grace he forfeit it XII God by an absolute and efficacious decree of his Will antecedently to the prescience of the future good use of free-will predetermined all good acts which are done in time specially those by which the predestinate come to eternal life Answ The substance of this seemeth true only 1. Whether you fitly denominate a decree efficacious from eternity which effecteth nothing till the Time I leave to them that dispute of words 2. You presumptuously determine Gods Decrees to be antecedent to his prescience herein when they are neither before nor after one another 3. If by predetermining you mean more than predecreeing or prevolition as if mans will was predetermined when it was not determined or determined before it had a being you speak contradictions But Gods own will was eternally determined if we may so say of that which was never undetermined to give all the grace that he giveth in time and to cause all the good acts that he causeth as he causeth them XIII The Co-operation of free-will with the gifts of grace is in the predestinate an effect of predestination and efficiently proceedeth from God making us by the help of grace freely to co-operate and consequently dependeth not on the sole and innate liberty of the will Answ I think so too XIV We must necessarily distinguish of a twofold help of Grace one sufficient by which man may be converted to God or work piously The other effectual by which God effecteth that he be actually converted and act piously Answ Hold to that and contradict not the terms in your description and all 's well XV. The effectual help of preventing or preoperating grace moveth mans free-will to act not only by perswading alluring inviting or other
And who it is that erreth indeed the Light must discover and the studious impartial prepared Children of the Light must discern and the Father of Lights must finally judge Note that in the first part I speak as in the name of the Predeterminants till I come to the Questions and thence-forward I speak as in my own name which the Reader may easily perceive §. VII Of Jansenius his way of reconciling Grace and Free-will § 1. BUt after all these cometh Jansenius and justly blaming Philosophy as the great occasion of our heresies and errours which misled the Schoolmen Jesuites and others he goeth to Augustine alone as Lombard thought he had well done before him and disgraceth his cause by saying that Augustine first taught it to the Church as if Grace had been unknown by the former ages And because many will not be at the labour to know his mind by reading so big a volume I shall briefly select what concerneth the matter in hand and animadvert upon it 1. His first Tome describeth the Heresie of Pelagius wherein he proveth that Pelagius held all this that followeth concerning grace 1. The Remission of sins containing 1. Conversion to God 2. The abstersion of the blot and filth 3. Reconciliation or remission of Gods offence 4. And of the eternal punishment Jansenius Aug. To. 1. l. 5. c. 22. p. 126 127. 2. That Pelagius owned the Infusion of habitual grace And that God in Baptism did blot out all sins purge cleanse and expiate them save and renew the soul restore nature deliver from the body of this death and from the contracted custome of sinning He held that Grace doth Regenerate Illuminate cause Faith Justifie even Infants Sanctifie make us new Creatures incorporate us into Christ as his members give us the anointing of the Holy Ghost not only restoring us to the state that we were in in Adam but to a better and to be adopted sons of God and saved cap. 24. And 25. as to the Relative effects that Grace Reconcileth man to God maketh him an adopted Son of God and the Temple of the Holy Ghost an Heir of God and co-heir with Christ So that they acknowledge not only Habitual Infused Grace but more even in Baptism As also the Assisting motions of the spirit to good acts making them possible Also that after Pope Zozymus had condemned the Pelagians they went further and that their design was but to lay mens salvation or damnation on free-will lib. 6. c. 7. c. And when he cometh to characterize Pelagius he doth it as he doth elsewhere the Protestants and as Malignants do Religious persons by presumptions viz. that he was indeed as Augustine saith Temperate and of a good life but singular and very proud which he proveth by his opinion and because he was against Swearing and said that Gods servants mouths should vent no bitter thing but only that which is sweet and that Christians must be so patient as readily to let go what is taken from them and that gallantry and gay cloathing is contrary to God and that enemies must be loved as friends and yet not believed and that Riches must be forsaken c. as holding nothing mean and moderate that he affected novelty and yet his â—rrours were old coming from Origen â—uffinus Palladius Evagrius Jovinâ—an and the Philosophers that he affected fame admiration hypocrisie pretending to more holiness than others under the garb of poverty c. over-â—alued Reason Logick Syllogismes Philosophers c. All which I mention not to abate any mans dislike of any one errour of Pelagius but to shew that it is so usual for dissenters to make one another seem odious and to feign or aggravate faults and to vilifie or deny Gods grace in others that he that would not be tempted into malice uncharitableness and slander must take heed what he believeth even of men accounted most abominable hereticks Doubtless Pelagius his denying original sin and his laying too much on mans will and too little on grace are things to be detested II. Jansenius asserteth that the Angels and Adam had such Free-will as could obey or disobey and so could determine it self to good and persevere therein without any more grace than they had when they did it not And that by this Free-will some Angels stood and some fell and Adam fell when he might by it have stood and thereby fell from a nobler sort of Free-will which consisteth in a due subservience to God and fell to the Love of Himself not primarily of external things instead of God and to selfdependency and dominion De Grat. primi hom c. 6. p. 40 41 42. c. 7. Nos hic asserimus tanquam sine dubitatione verissimum juxta doctrinam sancti Augustini ecclesiae omnia hujusmodi opera adeoque ipsam fidem dilectionem Dei ab eo potuisse per arbitrii libertatem fieri sic ut ea non donaret ei gratia Dei vid. c. 7 8 c. The reason of this was sanitas Voluntatis Adami c. 9. III. Yet Grace was necessary to man and Angels both to perseverance and to every good act c. 10 11. And c. 12 13 c. this Grace necessary to all was not Habitual Grace for that they had nor general concurse which none denyed but it was Actual Adjuvant Roborating help But the Grace given to Angels and Adam was Adjutorium sine quo non giving the will power to determine it self but not Adjutorium quo which ever determineth it One giveth the Power and the other the Act. The same that is meant by the common distinction of Grace sufficient and effectual by the Dominicans Yet this Adjutorium sine quo non did with free will procure the Act in the standing Angels and Adam while he stood But that made it not Adjutorium quo because it is not so called efficax only ab eventu but because it so helpeth that illo praesente continuo fiat id propter quod datur illo absente nunquam fiat p. 63. c. 14 15. One is like Light and the visive faculty ad videndum the other ut ipsa visio such as all formal causes are and Gods simultaneous efficiency The difference is c. 15. that Adjutorium sine quo non doth but perfect the power and the chief honour belongeth to the will that useth it and could choose But contrarily the adjutorium quo is the principal cause of the Act and leaveth not the event to the will but useth it effectually to the act intended Therefore merit and perseverance in Innocency were no special gifts of God IV. That without or before faith no good work is done but lies and sins l. 3 4. c. 1. p. 223. no nor without true Godliness p. 261. passim To think that Infidels and ungodly have any true virtue is dotage c. 17. V. The first sin had no necessity being meer sin and no punishment and so easily avoidable and wholly voluntary Other sins
become parties in such daring medlings with the Consuming Fire Notes on some passages of Mr. Peter Sterries Book of Free-will § 1. IT is long since I heard much of the name and fame of Mr. Peter Sterry long Chaplain to Robert Lord Brook and after to Oliver Cromwel when he was Protector as then called His common fame was that his Preaching was such as none or few could understand which incensed my desire to have heard him of which I still mist though I oft attempted it But now since his death while my Book is in the Press unfinished a posthumous tractate of his cometh forth of Free-will upon perusal of which I find in him the same notions for so far as he meddleth with the same subjects as in Sr. H. Vane and somewhat of what Dr. Gibbon seemeth to deliver in his Scheme but all handled with much more strength of parts and raptures of highest devotion and great candour towards all others than I expected His Preface is a most excellent Perswasive to Universal Charity Love was never more extolled than throughout his Book Doubtless his head was strong his wit admirably pregnant his searching studies hard and sublime and I think his Heart replenished with holy Love to God and great charity moderation and peaceableness toward men In so much that I heartily repent that I so far believed fame as to think somewhat hardlier or less charitably of him and his few adherents than I now hope they did deserve Hasty judging and believing fame is a cause of unspeakable hurt to the world and injury to our brethren § 2. But I find that it is no wonder that he was understood by few For 1. His sublime and philosophical notions met not with many Auditors so well studied in those things as to be capable of understanding them It is a great inconvenience to men of extraordinary discoveries and sublimity that they must speak to very few 2. And though he cloud not his matter with so many self-made names and notions as Behmen Paraâ—elsus Wigelius and some others yet those few that he hath do somewhat obscure it 3. But above all the excessive pregnancy of his wit produceth so great a superabundance of Metaphors or Allegories that about the description of Christ especially they make up almost all his style so that to any ordinary Reader his matter is not so much cloathed in Metaphors as drowned buried or lost And though I confess my wit being to his but as a barren Desart to a florid Meadow may be apt to undervalue that which it attaineth not yet I do approve of my present judgement in thinking that seeing all metaphorical terms are ambiguous he that excessively useth them befriendeth not the Truth and the hearers intellect but while he is too much a Rhetorician he is too little a good Logician aâ—d as he is hardly understood by others I should fear lest he feduce his own understanding and can scarce have clear mental conceptions of that matter which he utters by a torrent of ambiguous Metaphors if he think as he speaketh and his words be the direct expressions of his mind I had rather be instructed in the words of the most barbarous Schoolman adapted to the matter than to be put to save my self from the temptation of equivocations in every sentence which I hear and to search after that Truth which is known only naked under so florid a disguise and paint § 3. But I cannot deny that though my temptations before were very great to doubt whether the Doctrine of Universally-necessary Predetermination as delivered by Bradwardine the Dominicans Dr. Twisse Rutherford and Hobbes were indeed to be rejected the Reading of Mr. Sterry increased my temptation not by any new strength of argument which he hath brought but by the power of his pious florid Oratory by which while he entitleth God to the necessitating causation of all sin and misery he seemeth to put so honourable and lovely a cloathing on them from their relative order to God to the Universe and to their End as that I felt my hard thoughts of both to abate and I was tempted to think of them as part of the amiable consequents of the Divine Love and of the Harmâ—nious order caused by the manifold wisdom of God § 4. And by this I see of how great importance it is in the world not only what Doctrine is taught and with what proof but who speaketh it and in what manner For as I found the same things reverenced in Dr. Twisse and Rutherford which were not so in Alvarez or Jansenius or Thom. White so I found the same Doctrine of Predetermining Necessitation almost commonly brought into greater dislike by Hobbes and Benedictus Spinosa's owning it and applying it to it s too obvious uses than all In Tract Polit. Theol. argumentations had ever before brought it And I see it as likely to recover its honour by the pious and florid dress put upon it by Mr. Sterry as if some new demonstrations for it were found out § 5. If I should recite Mr. Sterries mind in his own Metaphors the Reader may not understand it If I Epitomize him and change his words some may say that I misunderstand and wrong him But I will not do it willingly and if I do it necessarily his stile is my excuse He that would be seen must come into the light § 6. The summ of that which I am now concerned in in Mr. Sterry's Treatise is That the Freedom of all things is to act according to their natures and so is that of the will of man and that in God and man Necessity and Liberty concurr and that whatever we do or will we do or will it necessarily as being moved to it by the first causâ— and a chained connexion of necessitating causes by which all things in the world are carryed on That a will not determined by God but left to a self-determination without Gods predetermining causality is not to be asserted as contrary to Gods Goodness Wisdom power c. That sin is a privation formally and all that is positive in it is directly and not by accident of Gods positive causation else with the Manichees we must hold two first causes And that the formal privation is from the wiâ—lidrawing of necessary Divine causation of the contrary and God is the Negative necessitating cause of it Even as he causeth Light by the shining of the Sun and causeth darkness by its setting or not â—hining or as he causeth substances and shadows Life and death And that all sin thus as necessarily followeth Gods not giving the contrary or his leaving the defectible Creature to itself as the darkness folâ—oweth the Lights removal And this was the entrance of sin into the world the Woman being Necessarily deceived necessarily sinned and all good and evil is thus as to necessity equally to be resolved into Gods causing and not causing Will what he will cause cannot but be and what
received But they lay the certainty of our perseverance on Gods Decree and Promise Now say they God did not decree that it should be non-possibile but only that it should be non-futurum And so that he hath promised the non-futurity but not an impossibility of falling away 3. And yet they sometimes use the term impossible here But how 1. Say they There is a logical impossibilitas consequentiae And so there is on supposition of meer prescience and prediction For do but make this one of the premises God fore-knoweth that Paul will persevere and it is impossible this conclusion should be true Paul will not persevere But yet this may be nevertheless true It is possible for Paul to fall away But this impossibility of consequence in order of arguing is nothing to the impossibilitas rei in respect to the Causes 2. And also they say that there is impossibilitas hypothetica supposing that man willfully reject not Grace Gods Power it self is so engaged to defend him against Satan and all Enemies that it is impossible for them to overcome God and destroy him But here impossible is related to the power of Enemies only It is a thing that Satan hath not Power to do to conquer Grace 3. But when the question is of the Power of the Person himself they say It is unfit to say that he is unable to fall away or that it is impossible in respect to his own Power 1. Because that to fall away is an effect of Impotency and not of Power 2. Because God will not so operate by his Grace as to make a man unable to sin but unwilling and actually to keep him from it So that Grace doth not make us impotent to resist it and make it really impossible to us to fall away but maketh us able and willing to stand and causeth us freely de facto to persevere 3. And I must tell you that your Crimination is grounded on a lame and faulty recitation of their Opinion you name but half of it instead of the whole which is That the sanctified never fall away from the due fear and care and endeavour of persevering and consequently not from Sanctification or Justification And will you infer that a man needeth not fear care or live holily if certainly he shall do so A. Yes what need I take care of that which I shall certainly do B. That is what need you take care if you certainly shall take care A. What need I trouble my own head about that which God will do what-ever I do If he undertake to ascertain it I may leave it to him B. You talk contradictions God doth not undertake to secure your Salvation whether you will or not or care or not or labour or not But to cause you to will to care and labour And you say If God will make me willing I need not be willing If God will make me think of it and care and labour for it I need not think of it or care or labour for it The Sun need not shine if God will make it shine You need not eat if God decree that you shall eat Are not these weak Contradictions A. But as weak as you make it the Contradiction is their own For they first make God to make their falling away to be impossible or certainly non-futurum and yet say that he will make them fear it that is to perform an Act without the proper Object As if God decreed that they should fear Good as Good or love Evil as Evil No man can fear that which neither is nor is taken to be fearful An impossible or certainty non-future hurt is not fearful or an Object of fear unless to a mad man B. There were much weight in what you say but for that which you leave out 1. That objective certainty may be separated from subjective certainty that is men may be uncertain of that which is certain in it self 2. Yea few of the Godly have a strong assurance of their sincerity and Justification 3. And no man in this life hath a perfect assurance no more than other perfect Graces 4. And every mans faith it self in Gods Promises and fidelity is imperfect Therefore while all these are imperfect and not only so but liable to sad assaults and interruptions and decays 5. Yea and the person liable to such hainous sins as look terribly towards Apostacy you cannot say that fear is needless For though God decree the certainty of their perseverance that proveth not that they are perfectly certain of it A. But God will not found our Duty on our Sin nor command men to fear because through sinful weakness they do fear B. God will not make our Sin to be our Duty in sensu conjuncto 1. But God will make Duty on supposition that Sin maketh it necessary If you sin God will make sorrow and confession your Duty which would else be none 2. Yea more the same Act may be a Duty and a Sin in several respects And so may fear of Hell be A. Stay there Do you not then make God the Author of Sin For if he cause the Act as a Duty when it is caused it will prove a Sin too B. You mistake Two Causes may cause two Modes and Relations of the same Act and one not at all cause that which the other causeth God causeth every Act in genere act us which is sinful and yet causeth not the deficiency or exorbitancy of it As the Rider maketh the Horse go but not to go lamely God knowing our uncertainty of our own Election and Sincerity may make it our Duty by a wise and careful fear to avoid our own danger And yet that fear may not only come also from some ignorance and unbelief in our selves but have sinful degrees and so have that in it which God is not the cause of The second Crimination A. Their Doctrine tendeth to the indulgence of all sin * One would think that the Doctrine asserting the loss of Justification by mortal sin were stricter than the Calvinists But judge by the Jesuites Doctrine who teach that a man in mortal sin or unconverted may de congrâ—o merit Justification Ruiz de praedest exad d. 19. â—ect 4. p. 242. Ad meritum congrui non requiritur personam esse simpliciter Deo gratam quin potiâ—s propter peccatum mortale fit inimica Dei nihilâ—minus actus fidei alii qui ex side procedunt secundum se grati sunt quantum sufficit ut justificationem de congruo mereantur opera namque fraternae charitatis Heb. 13. miserccordiae sunt ut sacrificia quibus Deum per mortale peccatum amissum promeremur reconciliatum accipere 1 Joh. 1. si confiteamur c. So that Gods Justice is bound to be reconciled to and Justifie a wicked enemy for an Alms or for Confession Is not this an easie cure of enmity But the promise is made only câ—teris patibus to true Believers already
have followed thereupon The just Extenuation of this last Controversie IN all these things following the parties are agreed for the most considerable 1. That Adam fell from true Righteousness and Holiness and lost the Spirit 2. That therefore we cannot argue from the Nature of Holiness alone to prove that it cannot be lost 3. That as the word Possible relateth to man's Power to do evil and omit good it is not only Possible to fall away but too easie yea it is not opus potentiae sed Impotentiae except as Natural Power is exercised in the meer Act with Moral Impotency 4. Yea without Gods preserving Grace it is not possible to persevere 5. God hath appointed us much duty to be done that we may not fall away And among the rest to discern and fear the danger of falling away and in that fear to depart from evil and temptations 6. God hath promised us Salvation on Condition that we persevere 7. God oft threatneth the faithful with damnation if they fall away and describeth to us the sin and misery of Apostates 8. The Justified may lose many degrees of true Grace and dye with far less than once they had and so become uncapable of that Greater Glory which they were morally capable of before 9. It 's too possible for them to fall into heinous sin They are not certain that they shall never commit Adultery Incest the Murther of Parents Wife or Children c. nor certain just how oft they may so fall or not 10. Such Sins make them so far morally uncapable of Glory as that See the Brittish Divines Suffrages at Dort of perseverance a sound Repentance for them and from them and a renewal of Faith are necessary to full right or moral capacity 11. God doth not decree any man's perseverance let him live never so securely negligently or vitiously For those that do so are faln already It is a contradiction to persevere in holiness and to live unholily But Gods Decree is ever entire that such a one shall fear danger fly temptations live holily in the use of means and therein persevere unto the end He never separated these in his Decrees 12. Except Hierome truly accuse Jovinian with it there is not that I know of any Father Christian or Heretick that hath written that Lege Vossi Histor Pelag de Perseverant no truly Justifyed persons fall finally away from Grace and perish for above a thousand years after Christ And it 's commonly granted that generally they held the contrary Even Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius not excepted 13. It is confessed to be a sad clog to the contrary opinion that it is held against the Judgment of the Universal Church for above a thousand years and so seemeth to bear the imputation of novelty and singularity Though that be not a sufficient confutation of it 14. It is confessed that the Greek and Roman Church the Lutherans and Arminians and most Anabaptists are against this Doctrine 15. It is confessed that all these Fathers and Churches of old and all these Churches and Christians of late are not void of the Christian comforts of the Gospel even of faith and hope of Glory 16. It is confessed that the Scripture hath many passages so much seeming to favour both the opinions as hath made the controversie thus difficult to so many Learned Godly Men And what the Scripture is it will be to the worlds end 17. It is confessed that none can be sure of Salvation or perseverance who are not first sure of their Sincerity and Justification 18. And to be uncertain whether one be a true believer and justified is more uncomfortable than to be sure of that and uncertain of his perseverance 19. No man can ordinarily be certain that he is Sanctified and Justified that is not certain of the truth of the Gospel and hath Grace somewhat strong and active not clouded by great Soul-wounding Sins nor frightful or melancholy passions nor any that through Ignorance is uncertain of the true Nature of the conditions of the Covenant of Grace 20. Certain experience of the defect of these qualifications and of mens own Consessions assureth us that not one of a multitude of the strict Religious sort have that which we call proper certainty of their Sincerity Justification and Salvation though they hold against the Arminians that certainty of perseverance must be asserted as that which may be attained by them that are first certain that they are in a state of life 21. Yet the fore-mentioned knowledge of Gods Mercy Christ's Love and Covenant with experience and many evidences of great probability may cause even such as are uncertain of their Justification to live in some good measure of true Christian peace though mixed with some doubts and fears Because their Probability is much greater than their cause of fear And much more may they do so that doubt only of their perseverance 22. It must be confessed that the Doctrine that none fall from Justification hath its temptation also to discomfort as in the two or three fore-mentioned particulars which I 'll not repeat 23. It is confessed that if God should condemn those whom he before Justified it would argue no change in Him or his Word but in them alone 24. It is confest that some Justified persons who live in as much sin as will stand with sincerity are at present unfit for assurance of perseverance and salvation For it would not stand with that humbling correction which they are then most fit for 25. Lastly it is confest that this point is no Article of our Creed nor is an agreement in it necessary to Church-communion or Christian Love but difference in it must be accounted tolerable In all this the moderate are commonly agreed On the other side 1. It is commonly granted that all that are elected to salvation shall persevere though how far that election is upon foresight they quarrel Cur ergo id quod Apostolis tunc fecit Christus non concedemus pro omnibus praedestinatis fecisse ut peculiari modo sua merita illis applicaret perseverantiam eis obtineret nam si multi sancti pro aliis orantes conversionem eorum perseverantiam impetrarunt cur dicemus Christum pro omnibus praedestinatis non orasse peculiari suâ oratione tantam gloriam gratiam illis obtinuisse Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. a. 8. d. 94. c. 3. 2. It 's granted by all that not only such election but fore-knowledge of salvation and perseverance maketh it Logically Impossible quoad consequentiam not to persevere that is It Necessarily followeth God foreknoweth it Therefore it will come to pass 3. It is commonly granted that God forsaketh none till they forsake him 4. And that so great is his Goodness that no willing â—oul that solidly understandeth the Grounds of the Christian faith and hope and is in Love with God and Holiness and willing to use means and avoid temptations hath any
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by
faith mentioned so oft in Scripture that is Upon and by believing we are first made just by free-given pardon and right to life and true sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just But this is not without our Faith and Repentance 2. And that Faith and Repentance are a Righteousness Evangelical that is a performance of the conditions on which the Covenant of Grace doth freely give us right to Christ pardon and life and so are the Constitutive causes of that subordinate Justification Lib. But your subordinate Righteousness hath no hand in our Justification P. This is but singing over the old Song by one that will not consider what is answered Have you thought on all the Texts even now cited Hath faith no hand in our Justification Hath the performance of a Condition and the Moral Disposition of the Receiver no hand in the Reception of a Gift What think you is the meaning of Christs words Matth. 12. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned What meaneth St. James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only Are men justified by that which hath no hand in their Justification Lib. Christ meaneth before men and so doth James and not before God P. This is notoriously false as contrary to the plain Text Christ speaketh of the Account to be given of our words in the day of Judgement vers 36. And James speaketh of that which men are saved by vers 14. and that Justification which Abraham had and that in an instance where Man did not justifie him and of that which was faiths life and perfection vers 17 22. and of Gods imputing faith for righteousness as to a friend of God vers 23. And is this nothing but Justification before men Lib. This is not the justifying of the man but of his faith P. 1. You contradict the Text which saith Abraham Rahab A man is justified by Works 2. You contradict your self For if the faith be justified the man is justified to be a true believer For how could a man that fulfilled the Law as Christ and Angels did be justified but by justifying his actions And how can he that fulfilleth the Gospel conditions be justified in that point but by justifying that he fulfilled them Lib. At least I may say that this is not the great and notable Justification which is only by Christs Righteousness P. We are not contending for its preheminence but its truth and necessity in a subordinate place Indeed we have one Justification by our Judges sentence which hath many parts and causes God as Donor is one cause and God as Judge another And Christ as meriting is the only meritorious cause of the Justifying Gift and Covenant and Christ as Intercessor another cause and Christ as Judge another And our Righteousness as it is our Right to Impunity and life another and our faith and Repentance are conditions All this is sure Lib. But the Justification by faith is our Universal Justification and that can be only by Christs Righteousness And we are not to trust to a Righteousness mixt of Christs and ours nor doth Christs Righteousness need to be patcht up with our menstruous rags P. 1. No question but Christs Righteousness is perfect and ours imperfect and ours is no patch or supplement to Christs He is not made righteous by our righteousness but we by his 2. But that which is perfect in him is not made perfectly ours nor formally ours in it self as distinct from its merited effects It is not ours as it is Christs Christ that is our Righteousness is also made of God to us wisdom and sanctification And will you say therefore that we are not to be Wise or Holy by any Wisdom or Holiness of our own for fear of adding our patch to Christs 3. You use to say that Christs Righteousness is ours as Adams sin is ours and say some as Adams Righteousness would have been had he persevered But 1. Adams Righteousness would have indeed made an Infant initially just by propagation that is the innocent Child of an innocent Parent But as soon as that Infant had the use of Reason and Choice he must also have a Righteousness of his own or perish And this is no patch to Adams righteousness And indeed in his Infancy he must have a seminal Holiness of his own to justifie him as well as the relation of a Son of Adam 2. So also though we are guilty of Adams sin by propagation yet we have with that guilt 1. An inherent pravity of our own 2. And at age our actual sin And both these are our unrighteousness as well as Adams sin imputed to us Even so Christ the second Adam is a Root of a righteous seed Our Contract by faith is as to him what our Natural propagation is as to Adam that is the Condition of our Interest in his merits We have as believers an initial righteousness in our relation to Christ But we have also from him 1. Inherent habitual righteousness 2. The actual righteousness of faith and true obedience and love And these have their proper use and office without which we must perish 4. And I must tell you that the word Universal is too big to be properly given to any mans justification or righteousness but Christs Properly he only is Universally justified or righteous who hath no unrighteousness at all imputable to him and is justifyable in all things But the best believer 1. Was once a sinner originally 2. Did oft sin actually 3. Hath still sin in him 4. And for some sin may be punished by the Magistrate 5. And for sin is judged and punished by chastisements and death by God 6. And the earth still cursed for our sake 7. Yea which is worst of all we are still under the penaâ—ty of some privations alas how great of Gods Spirit and its Grace and our Communion with God And all this must be confessed And such a one is not Universally justified or just Lib. But still our own Righteousness doth but make us such as thankful persons must be for their Justification by Christ and is no part of that Justification by faith For if faith it self be that Righteousness we have not faith by faith and faith is not imputed to faith but Christs Righteousness is it that is imputed P. Of Imputation in due place 1. What need you talk against that which none of us assert Do we not all hold that our personal Gospel-Righteousness is subordinate to Christs and is by his Gift as ouâ— Wisdom and Sanctisication is Who dreameth that our faith is any part of Christs Righteousness But why do you waste time in vain cavilling against plain certain truth Is there any thing in Name or Thing asserted by us that you can deny or question Quest 1. Do you deny that Scripture commandeth us to Believe that we may be justified Lib. No. P. Quest 2. Or
that we are commanded not only Thankfully to Accept but Thankfully to obey our Lord Redeemer and Saviour Lib. No. P. Quest 3. Date you deny that life or death eternal dependeth on this as a Condition or Moral means and that we shall be judged according to it Lib. No. I deny it not P. Quest 4. Is it not a Law that thus commandeth us and by which we must be judged Lib. Yes If it were no Law there were no duty and sin in belief and unbelief P. Quest 5. Is not a man so far just and justifyable by that Law as he keepeth it and justifyable against the charge of being one that must be Damned by producing the Condition of pardon and life performed Lib. Yes I deny it not P. Quest 6. And doth not the same Law virtually justifie the performer now whom it will justifie as the Rule of Judgement at last Lib. Yes no doubt P. Quest 7. And is not the Name of Righteousness many score times given in Scripture to our own actions done by Grace and measured by the New Covenant Lib. Yes I cannot deny it P. Why then while you deny neither Name nor Thing what wrangle you about And let me plainly tell you that such men as you by indiscreet ever-doing are not the least of Satans instruments to bring the Gospel under scandal and harden the world in Infidelity and the scorn of Christ while you would so describe the Christian Religion as if this were the very heart and summ of it Believe that all the Elect have fulfilled perfectly all Gods Law by another and that Christ did it as personating each of them and therefore no crime of their own is imputable to them nor any kind or degree of Goodness or Righteousness in and of themselves is at least required of God as any means or condition of their present or future justification by their Judge or as having any hand therein As if God were become indifferent what we all are so that Christ be but Righteous for us when as it was Christs grand design to restore lapsed man to God which he doth not only by Relative benefits but by Renewing them to his Image in love and holy obedience Lib. Have you not lately and oft been told that holiness and obedience are necessary now but it is to other Ends than to justifie us as for Cratitude c. P. 1. We easily grant it is for other Ends than Christs Merits were and not to justifie us as they do nor in that Causality They are not to purchase for us a free gift of pardon and life nor the Holy Ghost c. as Christ did 2. But again tell me Hath not Christ a Law that commandeth our obedience to those ends as Gratitude which you mention And is not the keeping that Law a thing that the same Law will so far justifie us for Yea a Condition that life dependeth on And if the Cause in Judgement be Have you kept it or not must you not in that be accordingly Justified or Condemned Give over cavilling against plain necessary truth Lib. By this you will fall in with the Papists who take Justification to be partly by Christs Righteousness and partly by our own and partly in pardon and partly in faith and holiness P. Tell not me of the Names of Papists or any to frighten me from plain Scripture truth 1. Why may not I rather say Why go you from all the antient Writers and Churches even Augustine himself by your new and contrary opinion Was true Justification unknown for so many hundred years after the Apostles 2. The most zealous Antipapists do confess that some Texts of Scripture do so take the word Justification And multitudes of Texts so take the words Righteous and Righteousness And he that will impartially consider them may find that more Texts than are by us so confessed do by Justifying mean Making us Just and so Accounting us on all these causes conjunct 1. As being Redeemed by Christs Merits 2. And freely pardoned 3. And having Right to life 4. And renewed to Gods love and Image 5. And so justifyable at the Bar of Grace by the Law of faith and liberty 3. And the reality of all the Matter of this Doctrine is past doubt if the Controversie de nomine Justificationis were not so decided CHAP. IV. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ Lib. III. YOu bring in your doctrine of personal Righteousness to Justification by feigning Christ to have made a new Law whereas the Gospel is but a Doctrine History and Promise and not a Law and so no Rule of Righteousness and Judgement And this many Protestants have asserted P. I have read some such sayings in some men And some I think meant no more but that Christ did only expound and not add to the Law of Nature called by them the Moral Law And these I have excused for their unhappy kind of expression But for the rest that mean as the words sound universally they subvert Christianity and as the Arrians denyed Christs Godhead so do they his Office and Government and are somewhat worse than the Quakers who say that the Spirit within us is the Law and Rule of Christ which is better than none I pray answer me Quest 1. Is Christ the King and Ruler of the Church Lib. Yes P. Quest 2. Is not Legislation the first and principal part of Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 3. Do not they then that deny Christs Legislation deny his Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 4. Is it not essential to Christ as Christ the name signifying Relatively his Office to be King Lib. Yes P. Quest 5. Do they not then by this deny Christ to be Christ Lib. No for they confess that he hath a Law but not that he made any since his birth P. We grant 1. That the Law of Nature now is His Law 2. And that the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam after the fall was his Law 3. And Moses Law was partly his But you will not say that we are under this last nor I hope that he hath no other than the two first Lib. Why what other can you prove P. It is the Name or the Thing that you deny for you use to confound the cases 1. Whether the name be fit judge by these Texts Gal. 6. 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ James 1. 25. The perfect Law of Liberty Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 3. 27. Boasting is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of faith Mic. 4. 2. For the Law shall go out of Zion c. So Isa 2. 3. 8. 16 20. 42. 41. The Isles shall wait for his Law 1 Cor. 9. 21. We are under the Law to Christ Heb. 8. 10 16. I will put my Laws into their minds and hearts James 4. 12. There is one Law-giver c. Isa 33.
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Camâ—ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial â—cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness â—an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
imputed to us for righteousness If it be only the object and not faith why is it so often called faith believing being perswaded c. Will you say that It is not faith as an act of ours only Whoever dreamt it was For à quatenus ad omne If as an act then every act even plowing and walking and sinning would justifie us Will you say that It is not Faith as a Moral Virtue or Good act only Who saith it is For then every moral good act would justifie men Do you say that It is not by faith as faith in genere It is granted you For else à quatenus ad omne any act of faith would justifie even believing that there is a Hell Will you say that it is not any other species of faith besides our baptismal faith We grant it you But if you will also say that It is not this species even the Christian faith neither that is meant but only the object of it then 1. Why say you that it is Faith as connoting the object contradicting your self for if be not faith at all it is not faith as connoting that which is not doth not connote 2. And why say you that it is not faith it self essentially Is not the object essential as an object to the act in specie Is it not essential to our Christian faith to be a Believing in Christ 3. But what sober unprejudiced Christian that readeth the Text throughout and hath not been instructed to pervert it can choose but see that it is Faith it self that the Apostle speaketh of and that it is our personal Relation of Righteousness that it is said to be imputed for And who can believe that this is the sense Abrahams faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness or this either His faith that is Christs Righteousness and not his faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness Undoubtedly by faith is meant faith and by Righteousness is meant our own Relation But it is most easie to discern that the plain sense is Christ being presupposed the Meriter of our Justification and Salvation which he hath given the world conditionally by a Law of Grace or Covenant Donation by which now he ruleth and judgeth us all that this Covenant Gift or Law requireth on our part to make us Righteous and entitle us to the Spirit and everlasting life is that as Pâ—nitent Believers we accept Christ and life according to the nature ends and uses of the gift and this also by his grace Reader hold close to this plain Doctrine which most of the lower sort of Christians know who have not faln into perverters hands and youâ— will have more solid and practical and peaceable truth about this point than either Dr. Thomas Tullie or Maccovius or Mr. Crandâ—â— or Dr. Crispe or the Marrow of Modern Divinity * Written by an honest Barber Mr. Fisher as is said and applauded by divers Independent Divines or Paul Hobson or Mr. Saltmarsh or any such Writers do teach you in their learned Net-work Treatises by which being Wise or Orthodox overmuch being themselves entangled and confounded by incongruous notions of mans invention they are liker to entangle and confound you than to shew you the best method and grounds for the peace of an understanding dying man Christs Righteousness is Imputed or Reckoned to be as it is the total sole Meritorious Cause of all that Grace and Glory given us in and by the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and of our Grace for performance of the Conditions and it needeth nothing at all of ours to make it perfect to this use nor hath our faith any such supplemental Office But this condition of our part in Christ and of our Right to his Covenant-gifts must be performed and the sentence of Absolution or Condemnation life or death must be passed on us accordingly it being not Christ but we by this very Law that are to be Judged Justified or Condemned And this is the Condemnation that light is come into the World and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil But to as many as Received him he gave Right to become the Sons of God even to them that believe in his name And there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For being perfected he is become the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that obey him And it is not they that cry Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of our heavenly Father For Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of that to come CHAP. X. Whether Gods justifying those to day that were yesterday unjustified signifie any change in God P. IX OF this also I have said so much in my Apologie to Dr. Kendall and in the two first parts of this Book before that I shall now put you off with this short notice 1. There is nothing changed or new in God That which on his part is in God the Cause of our Justification is his eternal simple essence 2. But Gods Essence Understanding or Will considered simply in it self is not to be called Mans Justification But the effect produced by it And partly the extrinsick object as terminating Gods act and so by extrinsick denomination or connotation Gods Essential Intellect and Will is said de novo to justifie But it is only man that is really changed 3. The New effect in man from which God is said de novo to justifie him is 1. A new Right or Relation to Christ pardon and life and to the Father and the Holy Ghost 2. A new objective termination of Gods estimation acceptance and complacency And 3. A new heart hereupon at the same instant given us I think none of this is from eternity And that as God did de novo make the world and judge it existent and love and order it as existent without any change in him as also millions of creatures proceed from his simple Unity so is it here And this needeth no more words with knowing or teachable men And to others there is no end CHAP. XI Whether a Justified man should be afraid of becoming unjustified Lâ—b THis fear of losing our justification which you teach men is most injurious to Gods free grace and immutability and a rack for Conscience to destroy mens peace P. I have said so much of this before about Perseverance and Assurance as forbiddeth me tedious repetitions Here needeth no more but this explication of the matter which you confound 1. Fear is either Causeful or Causeless 2. Fear is either such as hindereth comfort or such as helpeth it 3. Fear is either a Duty or an unavoidable natural passion or a sin of unavoidable infirmity or a more deadly or heinous sin 4. It 's one thing to cause and cherish Fear and another thing to teach men that cannot avoid
to sin entertained we must go as far from sin as we can But poor deceived souls run into it under the conceit of going far enough from it and sometimes into greater than they avoid S. What sin have such Protestants run into in their opposition to Popery P. I will tell you some I. In Doctrine and II. In the consequentâ— and practice I. It is more than one injudicious Protestant Divine that hath printed such unfound Opinions as these in opposition to Popery for want of judgement 1. While they plead against the Romish false Tradition they have weakned faith by denying that necessary use of Historical Tradition of Scripture which Christianity doth suppose As others have denyed the necessary use of Reason unto faith 2. They have wronged the Church by undervaluing the Tradition of the Creed and the Essentials of Christianity by many means besides the Scriptures 3. They have much wronged the Protestant Cause by denying the perpetual Visibility of the Church and almost given it away as I have shewed against Johnson 4. And their dâ—nyal of its Universality and confining it long to the Waldenses and such others is an exceeding injury to the Church and Truth 5. And so is some mens over-doing as for the Scripture who teach men that they can be no surer of Christianity as delivered many years in Baptism before any of the New Testament was written than they are that there is no one error in all the Bible by the carelesness of the Scribes and Printers nor any humane frailty in the phrase 6. And also their feigning the Scripture perfection to consist in its being a particular determiner of all those circumstances of which it is only a general rule 7. And those that make every form of prayer or Ceremony to be Antichristian 8. And those that make Justifying faith to be a certainty or full perswasion that we are elected and pardoned and shall be saved 9. And those that say that To believe that I am justified is to believe Gods Word or â—ides divina either as most say because one of the premises is in Scripture or as excellent Chamier saith because the Witness of the Spirit is Gods Word 10. And those that say All that have true faith are sure they have such as Keckerman and too many others 11. Those that deny Christ to have made any Law 12. And those also that assert Imputation of Christs Righteousness in that sense which I have proved to subvert the Gospel 13. And those that deny Faith it self to be Imputed for righteousness 14. And those that deny that there is any personal Evangelical Righteousness in our selves that is any way necessary to our Justification 15. And those that lay all the stress of Faiths Justifying us on the notion of Instrumental efficiency 16. And those that say we are Justified by no act of faith but its receiving Christs Righteousness and all other acts of faith are the Worâ—s by which none is justified 17. And those that say that Evangelical obedience is not meritorious as it signifieth only Rewardable in point of Paternal Evangelical Governing Justice and as all the antient Fathers used that word because we merit not by Commutation 18. And those that say that man hath no free-will at all of any sort to spiritual good 19. And those that say that Christ was in Gods reputation the greatest sinner or wicked man Adulterer Murderer hater of God in all the world 20. And those that say that he suffered in soul Pain altogether of the same kind with those that the damned suffer in Hâ—â— 21. And those that in opposition to the Popish Government Confession Austerities and several acts of Worship do run into the conâ—rary extream against due Government Confession Austerities c. And those that from dark uncertainty or à minus notiâ— do gather many conclusions against known truth I pass by such as the Antinomians who as I have proved subveâ—t the Gospel it self by running into the contrary extream from Popeâ—â—â— S. You are as â—ad as Parker or the Debate-maker that thâ—s lâ—y sâ—â—ndal on the Reformers themselves If these were their faults you â—â—â—â— cover them and not open them This had been enough for â— Romish Râ—bshakeh P. You know not what it is that you say This is to aâ—hoâ—â—â—â—â—â—tance and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God yea to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion lest the erroâ— of â—â—â—â— be shamed But all men are lyars that is fallible and God is â—â—â—â— He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy but he that hideth it shall not prosper Are there not with you even with you also saith the Prophet sins against the Lord our God Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants and fomeâ— them to such open Confessions Did Paul wrong Peter and â—â—â—â— Gal. â— or the Ministry when he said All seek their own thingâ— and noâ—e the things of Jesus Christ or did the Evangelists wrong all â—he Disciples by saying that They all forsook him and fled or James all Câ—â—stians saying In many things we offend â—ll I think the Prouâ— Impeâ—itence of many Professors that will not confess sin nor endure to be â—â—led to it lest Religion be dishonoured is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for When such evils have â—â—â—â— held and done as our age hath known either it must be said that they are not evil or that they are If we deny it and say they are God â—â—â—â— and mâ—ns duty we feign God and Scripture and Religion to be for all that evil which is to blaspheme If we say It is evil we must saâ—â— that we are the guilty causes of it God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-self-justification to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it S. I think you would fain perswade us that Protestants are as bad as Papists and perswade us into the Roman Tents P. That is but your pievish inference But little do you know how much of Popery it self you have while you think that you hate it more than I. S. You would make me believe any thing if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party only They to their Sect and You to yours 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters only they excommunicate and burn them and you deny them your communion and reproach them But their charity extendeth much further than yours and you condemn more dissenters than they do 3. Do you not agree with them in
against those things which their ignorance misrepresenteth to themselves And so Gods ordinances are made a snare to souls which are appointed for their salvation and the man that can kindle in his hearers a transporting passion against this or that opinion or form as Popish is cryed up for an excellent preacher and seemeth to edifie the people while he destroveth them 11. And by this means you seem to justifie the Papists lyes and calumnies against the Protestants by doing as they do They belye Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza c. with just such intentions and such a kind of zeal as some over doing Sectaries belye them And is it bad in them and good in you 12. You teach the people a dangerous and perverse way of reasoning à minùs notis which will let in almost any errours From a dark text in the Revelations or Daniel or from the supposition that the Pope is the Antichrist and all Papists have received the mark of the beast you gather conclusions against the notorious duties of Love and peace which the light of nature doth commend to all Not that I am perswading you that the Pope is not Antichrist but that all things be received but according to their proper degree of evidence S. Now you open your self indeed All that revolt to Popery begin there with questioning whether the Pope be the Antichrist and telling men of the darkness of the Book of Revelations P. I tell you I will abate no certainty that you have but increase my own and yours if I could but I would not have any falsly to pretend that they are certainer of any thing than they are And no certainty can go beyond the ascertaining evidence And if all Scriptures be equally plain St. Peter was deceived that tells us of many things hard to be understood which the unlearned wrest as other Scriptures to their own destruction And if the Revelations be not one of the hardest I crave your answer to these questions 1. Why are five Expositors usually of four opinions in the expounding of it when it is those that have spent much of their lives in studying it as Napier Brightman c. who are the Expositors 2. Why will none of you that find it so easie at last write one certain Commentary which may assure which of all the former if any one of them was in the right 3. Why did Calvin take it to be too hard for him and durst not venture to expound it 4. And if you take it to be so necessary as you pretend tell me whether it was so necessary and so taken by all those Churches that for a long time received it not as Canonical Scripture Surely they were saved without believing it Though no doubt but the book of Revelation is a great mercy to the Church and all men should understand as much of it as they can But all that I blame you for here is the perverting of the order of proof in arguing à minùs notis 13. And these over-doers that run things into the contrary extreams do most injuriously weaken the Protestant cause by disabling themselves and all men of their principles to defend it and arming the Papists against it by their errors When it cometh to an open dispute by Word or Writing one of these mens errors is like a wound that lets out blood and spirits and puts words of triumph into the adversaries mouth A cunning Papist will presently drive the ignorant disputant to resolve his cause into his mistake and then will open the falshood of that and thence inferr the falshood of all the rest And what an injury is that to the souls of the auditors who may be betrayed by it and to the cause it self For instance If one of our over-doers hold that we are reputed to have kept all the Law of Innocency and merited salvation our selves by Christ or that no act of faith is Justifying but the accepting of his righteousness or that faith Justifieth only as the efficient instrumental cause or that we have no righteousness which hath any thing to do in our Justification but only Christs imputed Merits or that mans faith Love or obedience are not rewardable c. how easily will a Papist open the falshood of such an opinion to the hearers and then tell them that they may see by this who is in the right And alas what work would one Learned Papist make in London by publick disputing if we had no wiser men to deal with him than these over-doers They may call Truth and Sobriety Antichristian and talk nonsence as against Popery successfully to their own party but I hope never to see the cause managed by their publick disputes lest half the Congregation turn Papists on it at once If Chillingworth had not been abler to confute a Papist than those that used to calumniate him as Popish or Socinian he had done less service of that kind than he did 14. And it is an odious injury that these Over-doers do to the ancient and the universal Church while in many cases they ignorantly or wilfully reproach and condemn them as if they were all the favourers of Popery and call their ancient doctrine and practice Antichristian Some of them ignorantly falsifie the Fathers doctrine and upon trust from their Leaders aver◠that they held that which they plainly contradict and that which they held indeed they cry out against as Popery Such an instance we have newly in a Souldier Major Danvers an Anabaptist which I have detected And will Christ take it well to have almost all his Church condemned as Antichristian 15. And hereby what an honour is done to Popery and what a dishonour to the Reformed Churches when it shall be concluded that all the Churches heretofore even next after the age of the Apostles and almost all the present Churches were and are against the doctrine of the Protestants and on the Papists side And yet how many do us this injury and the Roman Church this honour About the nature of Justifying faith and its office to Justification and about the nature of Justification it self and Imputation of Righteousness and free-will and mans Works and Merits and about assurance of salvation and perseverance how many do call that Popery which the whole current of Greek and Latine Fathers do assert and all the ancient Churches owned and most of all the present Churches in the world And those that call all forms of prayer Popery or the English Liturgie at least when almost all the Christian world have forms and most such as are much worse do but tell men that the Christian world is on the side that they oppose and against their way 16. And it is a crime of infamy to be taken for Separatists from the universal Church And in doctrines and forms of Worship not only to avoid what we take to have been a common weakness but also to condemn them as Antichristian or as holding pernicious errours is but