of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
accounts it for ours c. and so before he pronounceth us he maketh us righteous Let us be rude with the Apostle as long as we stand fixed in the doctrine of grace with the Apostles That Mr. Baxter speaks more Logically after the Sophisters and captivates himself to their learned errours however he may applaud himself therein we conceive it to deserve more pity then envie 6. To his fourth Question I shall speak but little because I understand him but little Neither have I that edge upon my dull brain to discern whether in his acutenesse he doth more contradict others or himself or what other least cause he hath to contradict granting what he grants save â—â—ly the spirit of contradiction The formall cause of justification in his Thesis we have thus B. The formall cause is the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the law or the disabling the law to accuse or condemn him The question that he conceiveth will be put to him here to answer is B. Why he makes not the imputation of Christs righteousnesse the formall cause To this he answers p. 218. B. That imputation is not the forme is undeniable The forme gives the name especially to actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct acts and how then can imputing be the form of justifying c. Here before I can understand the depths of Mr. Baxter I must be resolved by him in some Queries 1. Whether justification hath its being before it hath its form For the form doth more unexceptively give the being then the name and is in order of nature before the thing formed or named 2. If not Whether then there were ever a justifyed man after the tenour of the new Covenant upon earth or ever shall be such For if the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling of the Law to accuse or condemn be the form of justification then is justification unformed and without being according to Mr. Baxter untill the day of Judgment Untill then he binds all hand and foot under the threatnings and curse of the Law as we have seen in and under his 9 11 12 13. Thesis and how long after he doth not yet certifie us so that if this be the form of justification then after his principles there neither is nor shall be either justification or any justifyed person as long as the world lasteth either in heaven or upon earth Except Mr. Baxter will say the law is so dealt with by Christ as Cnipperdoling was by John a Leyden of the highest magistrate and judge made tormentor or hangman deposed from being any longer a righteous Accuser Judge or Condemner of guilty persons and made an Executioner and Tormentor of them whom no Law accuseth or condemneth 3. Whether the Law accuseth or condemneth of any thing else but of sin And if not Whether Gods acquitting the sinner from the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not his acquitting the sinner from all sin that might expose him to the Lawes accusing and condemning This Mr. Baxter must grant except he will say a man may be acquitted from the Lawes yet left unto the Devils accusation and condemnation as he seems before to hint But this is no other acquitting but from the frying-pan into the fire from a just accuser and Judge into the tyranny of an unjust slanderer and destroyer Such a justification with its form we decline as damnation it selfe if Mr. Baxter can with his Sophistry charm the Devill let him grapple with him 4. Whether the imputation of righteousnesse and the not imputing of sin be not the same thing neither an act distinct from the other but each connoting and implying the other For so he answers the question denying imputation to be the form viz. imputation of righteousnesse without the adject terme of diminution the righteousnesse of Christ knowing well that some of the most considerate of the Antipapisticall Divines place the form of justification in the imputation of righteousness not in the imputation of Christs righteousnesse viz. which he hath done These two Quaeâ—ies he must grant us except he will sinke from his own principles and contradict himself 5. Whether then there be any difference between Mr. Baxters form of justification and that form which he impugneth Whether the acquitting of the sinner from the Law from sin which exposeth to the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not the same thing in substance with Gods imputing of righteousnesse and not imputing of sin to him What hath the one of these save words alone more or lesse in it then the other They must be Mr. Baxters Lynces eyes that are busied in the speculation of Democritus his Atomes and Platoes Ideas that can discern the difference my blunt fancie is uncapable and uncomprehensive of it B. I believe saith Mr. Baxter that this imputing doth in order of nature goe before justifying And doth not the form in order of nature go before the thing formed how else doth the form give it its ultimum esse This more proves then denies imputation to be the form B. And that the righteousnesse so imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated legally righteous and why the Law cannot condemn us This also makes more for us then for him He tels us before that the forme gives the name Now to be Legally righteous in Mr. Baxters phrase is to be righteous in the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction He that is so is justifyed in title of Law as Mr. Baxter termes it and here treats of it if then it give denomination of legally righteous it gives the name of justification in title of Law except he will say that a man is legally righteous in Christ before Gods gracious act makes him such if so then is imputation the form of justification because it gives it its name He concludes well B. It is a vain thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the causes of justification if we agree in the matter Yet see I no other ground that Mr. Baxter hath to take up this quarrell against the whole stream of Protestant Divines in refusing and oppugning the form of justification which they give but to quarrell about names and words The form which he substituteth in place of theirs being the same with theirs in substance and differing only in Logicall not Theologicall names and words Unlesse some will say there is a reall as well as a nominall difference between the disabling of the Law to accuse of sin and Gods not imputing sin i. e. between the Lawes acquitting and Gods acquitting from sin between the Lawes not imputing unrighteousnesse and Gods imputing righteousnesse which is all one as if I should put a difference between the pardon that disables the Law of the Land from accusing and condemning of a malefactor and a pardon which acquits him from the offence which the same Law had power to accuse him of
by Christs repenting beleeving c. his satisfying of Gods justice by his expiatory sacrifice for the failings of our Faith and Repentance at they held not up to the Lawes perfection I dislike it no less then Mr. B. But can we conjecture that Mr. Saltmarsh himself was not the first that disliked it and all the rest both good and bad of what he wrote in that Tractate I have been told by some of his godly acquaintance that the man had a naturall impotency of crazines in his brain And the whirlwind of imaginations wherewith he was carried to a hasty taking up of opinions and no les hasty hurling away of them again the much of the top and the little of the bottom of wit the flashes of nimblenes and the want of solidity and depth which he shewed in his writings his inconsistency with himself with others with the Scriptures his exâ—reme mutability and roving from Tropick to Tropick without settledness any where do in great measure prove the report to be true And if so he is to be pittied though his infirmities are not to be patronized However this extravagancy of his into so loos and careless expressions doth neither justifie Mr. B. Tenents nor ought to â—rejudice the Truth from which Mr. B. or any other hath erred Neither doth Mr. B. captiousnes so null my charity as to enteâ—â—ain the least conjecture that ever Master Saltmarsh meant or thought that Christ had sinne to repent of or beleeved to obtein the pardon thereof Here now wee finde Master Baxter returning from his irefull pursuit of his imaginary not reall Antinomians and of a dead mans Ghost that could neither see nor hear him And when hee reviews what he had written hee sees it neither holpen nor amended by his hot words spent upon the wind He had affirmed that there is a two-fold Righteousnesse necessary to our Justification one the Righteousnesse of Christ imputed to us the other a personall Righteousnesse or Righteousnesse of our owne inherent in our selves And to this our own Righteousnesse had attributed an equall power with the Righteousnesse of Christ to our Justification if not a power above and superiour to it This assertion of his he perceives to savour so much of humane arrogance and to use his own words to be a self-exalting horrid Doctrine of so high a nature and so contradictory to the whole Tenor of the Gospel that a short affected brawl with No-bodies and dead men cannot turn away the hatred which all that know and love the Lord Jesus must needs conceive against it Hee is therefore in a streight cure it he cannot revoke it he will not Therefore in stead of a better shift he posteth to the Monks Jesuits borrows their either Cowl or Cloak to cover the deformity of it And good reason have they to stead him for it is their cause in his hand viz. Justification by our own personal Righteousness that hath streightened him Let us now see what he brings from them to us to make their assertion from his pen tolerable B. Thes 21. 115. Not that wee can perform these conditions without Grace for without Christ we can doe nothing But that he enableth us to perform them our selves and doth not himself repent beleeve love Christ obey the Gospel for us as he did satisfie the Law for us B. Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some think it is a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee but the Actors of those duties though we professe to doe it onely by the strength of Grace But that it is Christ that repenteth and beleeveth not we is language somewhat strange to those that have been used to the language of Scripture or Reason Though I know there is a sort of sublime Platonick Plotinian Divines sprung up of late among us who think all things to bee but one c. We find in Scripture that as Christ hath his Mystery so hath Antichrist his Mystery also And that this latter is a Mystery of iniquity 2 Thess 2. 7. and Mystery Babylon the great c. And it is somewhat mysterious and strange that the materials of this Babel-building will not hold and close together without Babel slime to cement it Mr. Baxter would fain have fortified and fastened together the gaping chinks of this Babel with his owne morter But it will not hold therefore is he forced ever and anon to make use of the proper slime which the former Builders have left for them that come after to repair so doth hee in this place None of his own sHifts and tricks could hide the menstruousness and monstrousness of his Doctrine this Pall from Rome doth it no less perfectly then the Fig-leaf Aprons covered the nakedness and filthiness of our first Progenitors from the eye of God It sounded before so dreadfully as it was enough to make the ears of a true Christian to tingle at the hearing that Our own righteousnesse must goe foot by foot with Christs righteousnesse to our Justification but that which Mr. Baxter brings here from Rome takes off the ghastlyness and makes all smooth and himself in what he hath said no less amiable then he that had the Lambs horns but the voice of the Dragon Rev. 13. 11. How should it bee otherwise when all the glory is ascribed to Gods Grace and to the Spirit and Power of Christ so saith he Wee are justified in part by our own righteousnes indeed yet Not that we performe in this Righteousnesse which he termeth these conditions without Grace for without Christ wee can doe nothing but hee enableth us to perform them c. And in the Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some thinke it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee the Actors of these duties though we professe to doe it only by the strength of Grace Now when Mr. Baxter hath thus sayd and professed what reason can there be given why he should not bee thought as honest and innocent as the proudest Popish Prelates Jesuits and Friars that in answer to this objection which Mr. Baxter preventeth here have said and professed the same thing over and over many hundred times In stead of them all which even to name with their words abbreviated would fil a volumne I shall mention some few only First the Popish glosse thus speaketh Opera nostra quatenus nostra Glosa ordinaria in cap. 6. ad Rom. ver 23. sunt vim nullam Justificandi obtinent quatenus verò non à nobis sunt sed in nobis à Deo facta sunt per Gratiam Justificationem promerentur i. e. Our works as farre as they are ours have no power to justifie but as farre as they are not from us but wrought of God by Grace in us so they deserve justification In the same manner our English Jesuit Campian is recorded in the dispute which hee had with some of our English
heap and hoard up Scriptures to the same purpose which call men righteous in reference to the Law of Works But in what respects men are called so in Scripture for an unperfect righteousness is not the thing in question Not that they were justified by it is certain but in whatsoever other respects it destroyeth Mr. Baxters conclusion that men are called Righteous in relation to the Covenant of Grace onely and shews the inconsequence of his Argumentation that because none is perfectly righteous viz. to Justification in relation to the Law of Works Ergo in no other respect is he called Righteous according to the Covenant of Works What he addeth Onely in Christ who hath obeyed and satisfied we are Righteous This we embrace as our Gospel Righteousness and Mr. Baxter alone without company or suffrage of Prophet or Apostle Ancient or Modern Writers affirms to be our legall Righteousness But hitherto we finde it an affirmation without confirmation It follows Bax. But if you consider our actions and persons in relation to the Rule of the New Covenant so all the Regenerate are personally righteous because they all perform the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced Righteous thereby Neither can it be conceived how the works of Beleevers should either please God or be called Righteousness as they relate to that old Rule which doth pronounce them unrighteous hatefull and accursed He proceeds still in his sophistry without any the least particle of Scripture or any thing else save the wind of wit and words to prove what he would have us to beleeve It behoveth him that will fasten and screw into the judgements of men new and strange Doctrines that never sounded before at least in the same phrase of words in their ears to bring irrefragable Arguments to confirm it But such paradoxes and prodigies both of doctrines and words doth Mr. Baxter here hold forth as were never before heard of but in uttering them he is a Barbarian to us and we Barbarians to him in not understanding them yet brings nothing else but his own word to promote them The mysteries of his sophistry are so deep that our woodden wits cannot sink to the bottome to comprehend and understand it First what means he by the Rule of the New Covenant Doth he put the New Covenant here in the Passive or in the Active and Possessive sense i. e. Doth hee meane by the Rule of the New Covenant a rule extrinsecall and without the New Covenant to which the New Covenant must bee conformed that it may bee regular or a rule in the New Covenant and by it made out to us whereunto wee must bee conformed If in this latter sense then whether without or else with reference to some end if to some end whether then to Sanctification or Justification I cannot so much as conjecture that he puts the phrase in the first sense that he tels us here of a Rule to which the New Covenant must be conformed because it is altogether alien from the scope of his dispute and besides how we should be related to a rule with which the New Covenant must suit I cannot see for such a Rule I should conceive to be immanent in God and so hid from us that we cannot perceive how to regulate our selves by it This then he cannot mean 2. Neither doe I conceive that his meaning is that we are to be conformed to the Rule which is contained in and manifested by the New Covenant without respect to any end to which the rule directeth that we ought to be thus and thus qualified and thus to act onely because the Gospel so biddeth without reference to the end of such qualifications and actings For neither is this any thing to the purpose of his dispute Neither in this sense can such qualifications and actings be in any shew of reason called what Mr. Baxter here calleth them Conditions of the New Covenant For they are Conditions if at all Conditions in reference to some ends without which the end cannot be obtained Or what ends doth the New Covenant immediately point at more then either our Justification or Sanctification 3. If he mean the Rule of the New Covenant for Sanctification 1. Then I shall demand of him whether the Law of Works be not the rule of the matter and substance of those qualifications and actions which conduce to Sanctification even under the New Covenant and whether the Rule of the New Covenant or Gospel doe extend any further then to the Modification of those Qualifications and Actions directing to the Mediator from whom to derive those Qualifications and Actions and by and through whom to present our selves and them unto God 2. And then whether in reference to Sanctification men may not be called Righteous as having their righteousness relating to the rule of the Old as well as the New Covenant I cannot be so uncharitable to think that Mr. Baxter having positively affirmed that beleevers are in part under the Curse of the Law will deny them to be also in part under the rule and direction of the Law if he should hee must brand upon himself the due infamy of Antinomianism which he unduly and falsly chargeth upon others 3. And yet this will in no wise advantage his cause For we grant him that in reference to the inherent righteousnes of Sanctification men are called Righteous in the Scriptures by a personal righteousnesse But what is this to that righteousnesse in our selves equally necessary to the righteousnes which is in Christ to Justification which he had in the former Theses asserted and here goes about to prove or illustrate 4. If he mean the rule of the New Covenant to Justification which seems to me unquestionable though hee will not fully express himself then 1. I demand of him how our actions relate to this rule Is it that themselves i. e. our very actions may be justified by it This he condemneth Thess 25 and its Explication Or that they may Justifie us as conditions of our Justification This most probably is his meaning which when he confesseth he confesseth himself worse then Popish for the Papists ascribe Justification not to actions indefinitely but to some good works onely When he speaks more broadly then they let him shew himself without a vizard under the name and notion of a Papist and he will not want answerers or answers But upon this supposition let us see what he inferreth So all the regenerate are personally righteous because they all performe the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced righteous thereby Let us now collect together what in probability is the whole summe of his dispute Leaving what he hath said to deny that men are called Righteous in respect of Justification by the rule of the Law because wee doe not cannot perform the conditions of the Law unto which I have already answered here he endeavours to prove that they are called Righteous onely in reference to
kept in Gods memory to impute them every moment as fast as they are committed For one of these last milstones tyed to the neck of the poor offender sinks him into hell as surely as if all that are removed had their weight returned upon him with that one to sink him 3. If God hath remitted and justifyed a beleever from the sins which he hath committed and not from the sins which he foreknoweth they will commit but imputeth or will impute them then is the same person both justifyed and unjustifyed at the same time and God at the same time both loveth the same person to eternall life and hateth him to eternall condemnation which were no lesse absurdity then to attribute two contrary wils acting in God at once and so the same person be declared in his own conscience at the same time both in the state of life and in the state of death of life in respect of the sins past forgiven through Christ of death in regard of the sins to come not yet forgiven Secondly In Christ or as Mr. Baxter terms it Thesis 43. in Christs own justification either all sins are forgiven to the elect or none at all When having done their Law and paid their debt Christ appeared in the most holy place in the heaven at Gods mercy seat to mediate with his bloud for them he either received acquitance from and forgivenesse of all the sins which his elect in after times should commit and so in Christ their sins to come were forgiven or else no sin was forgiven for as yet they were not in being therefore neither were their sins yet committed But he received then in their names a full acquitance and forgivenesse of their sins as hath been before shewed therefore of their sins before they were committed and they were forgiven before they had offended Hence some of our Divines thus reason if since Christs satisfaction any sins be imputed any more to the elect they must be such as Christ hath or hath not expiated with his bloud and made satisfaction for to Gods justice if such as Christ hath expiated then notwithstanding that God imputes the sin yet the person to whom he imputes it is in grace and favour with God and the full penalty of his sin while imputed is paid to God but this were injustice not incident to God to impute a debt which is fully paid him If such as Christ hath not satisfyed for then the faith of an elect person obtains at Gods hands forgivenesse or the not imputing of such sins for which Christ hath not satisfyed Gods justice and so there shall be here remission without the shedding of bloud and justification out of Christ or faith and Gospell obedience shall be the price and ransome of their soules All which is most absurd Therefore the sins of the elect yet uncommitted are in Christ as fully forgiven as those that are already committed Thirdly If Mr. Baxters meaning be when he saith the sin is not forgiven before it be committed that the beleever hath not a singular apprehension of the forgivenesse of every singular sin before it be committed and that God hath not declared to his conscience the forgivenesse of every singular offence i. e. this evill which at this and that evill which in that hour of his life he shall drop into I acknowledge in this sense neither are any of our sins future forgiven nor many of our sins past For who in this case knoweth not only how oft he shall erre but also how oft and wherein he hath erred in this respect the generall pardon sealed in Christ bloud to us though it mention not every singular errour of our lives contained under the generall is alsufficient for us But perhaps Mr. Baxters meaning is that Christ hath not purchased to the elect a plenary and absolute forgivenesse but hath conditionally dyed for all if they shall beleeve and obey and upon this condition runs the hope of pardon as to the sins which they shall commit unto their lives end their renewed sins being dayly pardoned upon the continuance and dayly renewing of their obedience and so this Thesis runs in the same channell with the 43 44 45. Positions and for this cause I have annexed it to them Neither do I speak any thing to this Position in this sense here because it is prevented by what hath been already said in the examination of what he hath said there And too much hath been said both to those and this Position in which nothing but Magisteriall assertions without proofs are to be found CHAP. XXIV Arg. Mr. Baxters new Modell of the causes of Justification examined and first his dispute about the efficients and the materiall and formall causes thereof MR. Baxter in his 56. Thesis disputeth very Logically though but little Theologically of the causes of justification and because he thinks them all Athenians whom he hath a lust to corrupt viz. such as spend their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing some new thing Act. 17. 21. therefore looking aside from that which all the soundest i. e. with him the Antinomian Divines have said upon this Argument and disdaining it with a squint eye as too rustick and not enough pretty and dialecticall himself presents me with a new case and order of causes from the forge of his fancie viz. some sole and some sociall some single and some double some proper and some improper causes some causes that are causes and some causes that are no causes without further particularizing take him thus in his own words B. Thesis 56. By what hath been said it is apparent that justification in title may be ascribed to severall causes 1. The principall efficient cause is God 2. The instrumentall is the promise or grant of the new Covenant 3. The Prâ—catartick cause so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men is fourfold 1 And chiefly the satisfaction of Christ 2 The intercession of Christ and supplication of the sinner 3 The necessity of the sinner 4 The opportunity and advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie The first of these is the meritorious cause the second the morall perswading cause the third is the objective and the fourth is the occasion 2. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not 3. The formall cause is acquiting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling the Law to accuse or condemn him 4. The finall cause is the glory of God and of the Mediator and the deliverance of the sinner 5. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed It must be granted that he is not a man of delicacies hath a dull eye and dry brain whosoever is not enamoured with so fair a shew of causes like a cup-bord
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
not of great moment but the supercilious haughtinesse of the man puft with the opinion of his secular learning so high as to puf and pif at so many excellent Divines for learning and holinesse to many of which he is not worthy to be an Amanuensis is unsufferable I shall therefore as briefly as I can expresse upon what grounds our Divines and how far they make the righteousnesse of Christ the matter of our justification as near as I may upon good probabilities conjecture The Doctrine of justification by Christ is no where in the four Evangelists held forth under the name of justification or justifying Many both Parables and clear doctrines that proceeded from the lips of Christ do indeed in other words fully display it specially John the Evangelist who made it more his task to record the doctrine then the acts of Christ because he saw those historifyed somewhat largely by the other three Evangelists which had written before him Eagle-like mounting on high to the contemplation of his Celestiall and Divine nature and doctrines very exactly sets it forth but under other words naming it Life eternall Life everlasting Life He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life Joh. 3. 36. Is passed from death to life Joh. 5. 24. Hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. My flesh which I give for the life of the world Joh. 6. 51. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life Joh. 5. 40. Except ye eat my flesh and drink my bloud ye have no life in you he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6. 57. In all which and many other texts of this Evangelist none can deny but by life is to be understood chiefly if not only life in law the life of justification not that of glory which is to be received above but that of grace here For so those Scriptures point out a life here in this present world enduring everlastingly to all eternity and not a life here only to be hoped for and hereafter to come into our fruition Neither do I find the word justifie used but once by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles Nor yet at all in any one of the Epistles of the Apostles St. James only excepted in one Chapter but by the Apostle Paul alone Yet the substance of justification was the chief doctrine in all their Epistles handled but the same set forth under the name of Salvation saving life and other phrases which our Saviour himself used And these phrases also doth St. Paul use as equipollent with the word Justifying in all his Epistles Now the reason why this Apostle more then the rest treats of this doctrine under the name of justification I conceive to be this Because he was forced to handle it by way of controversie against the false Apostles some professing some rejecting Christ that taught justification and salvation by the works of the Law in part and not by faith only whom therefore he must needs in his disputes treat with in their own tearms and words Their Argumentation against the Apostle as may be gathered from the Apostles answers ran in this tenour and to this effect That righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But the righteousnesse of the Law is that righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh man perfectly righteous at least by procuring proper righteousnesse to him therefore that alone saveth The Apostle here granteth the proposition that no other righteousnesse but that which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But denyeth the assumption that the righteousnesse of the Law only or at all justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous Because only the perfect doers of the law are perfectly righteous not the hearers But no man can perfectly do it And contrariwise proveth that the righteousness of the Gospel which he cals the Righteousnesse of God the Righteousnesse of faith the Righteousnesse of God by faith which consisteth in Christs satisfaction imputed to us is the Righteousnesse which justifyeth and maketh perfectly righteous because it cleanseth from the guilt and freeth from the imputation of all sin and unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 17. 3. 5 21 22 25 26. 4. 3 5 6 11. 5. 17 18 21. 9. 30. 10. 3 4 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. In all which places and in many other the Apostle having rejected the righteousnesse of works from being asserteth the righteousnesse of God in Christ by faith to be the righteousnesse the matter and substance of the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed This he illustrateth Rom. 5. 19. by a comparison between Adam and Christ Adams disobedience and Christs obedience As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made roghteous the ones disobedience was not only the merit but also the matter of our sin as far as sin is capable of matter the very sin it self which being imputed to us as being in him without any personall and actuall sin of our own makes us sinners So the obedience of Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin and giving satisfaction to Gods justice in obedience to that positive command of the Father which required it was and is not only the merit but also the matter of that righteousnesse which being imputed to us as being in Christ without any personall obedience of ours added to it constituteth us righteous and justifyed in Gods acceptance or is that for by and in which the Lord pronounceth us just and justifyed to our own consciences Such is the frequent dispute of the Apostle about the substance and matter of that righteousnesse by which we are justify ad which he concludes not to be a righteousnesse inherent in us but this Righteousnesse inherent in Christ but imputed to us and apprehended by faith to justification whom God hath set forth as a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. And this is all that I finde our Divines to mean in saying the righteousnesse or satisfaction of Christ is the materiall cause of our justification defending against the Papists as the Apostle did againsts the Pharisees that the matter of the righteousnesse which God accepteth and imputeth to us in justifying us or unto righteousnesse and justification is this righteousnesse of Christ only not the righteousnesse of works Mr. Baxter in rejecting the phrase 1. As rude and not Logicall 2. As at the best unproper doth first accuse the Apostle and secondarily them that follow his Apostolicall doctrine and phrase of this rudenesse and impropriety of language One of them speaks out the minde of the rest Deus justitiam i. e. Obedientiam satisfactionem Sevarpius â—rs Th eol â— justif â— 925. Christi nostram facit ac pro nostra ducit c. atque ita nos antequam justos pronunciet justos facit God makes the righteousnesse i. e. the obedience and satisfaction of Christ ours
would have passed currantly We cannot so suppose for one absurd supposition being granted a thousand more will follow after Mr. Baxter begins too low in his suppositions Let him here advance a stair higher with us and suppose first a truth before he supposeth that which is false and unpossible in respect of that truth that must necessarily be presupposed viz. That God before his Covenanting with man had decreed within himself Salva Justitia without obscuring at all his Justice to make known on the vessels of mercy i. e. in justifying and saving miserable sinners whom he had before prepared to glory the riches of his glory i. e. the praise of the glory of grace Rom. 9. 23. Ephes 1. 6. that himself and his free grace should be all and man nothing to his justification and salvation and to the end that his justice might appear still in all its lustre had taken full satisfaction from his own Son here to manifest the freenesse of his grace the all to our happinesse residing in his meer mercy and the nothing in our selves I see not what other condition or means besides faith God could have put out of which mans proud heart would not have arrogated something to himself to have swoln therewith and so the glory of Gods grace should have been obscured Or doth Mr. Baxter see farther then the Apostle He tels us It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4. 16. If by other means it might have been and yet by grace there would be a notable flaw in the Apostles arguing which limits it to faith that it might be of grace To the same purpose are those many Scriptures in which he affirms it to be by faith that all mans boasting may be excluded implying that if it had not been only by faith there would have been something of man in it clowding the glory of Gods grace and giving to man occasion of boasting that there is something of his own to his justification and so to glory partly in himself and not wholly in the Lord. So Mr. Baxters arguing If God had put some other condition no doubt it would have justified is one and the same with this If God had acted against his own purpose and betrayed the glory of his Grace no doubt it had been betrayed But the former supposition is no lesse absurd then the latter And almost so much at the full Mr. Baxter either to toll on his Reader into more snares which afterward he layeth by his magnificent elogies of Gods grace or from the throws and checks of an accusing conscience speaketh in the following part of this Section Yet so that he cannot cease from the interweaving of mans works with Gods grace unto Justification which because he doth more fully and grossely in the following part of this Tractate I shall here forbear to anticipate what there is to be said by way of answer to him The next Position is of neer cognation with this his words are these B. Thesis 58. The ground of this is because Christs righteousnesse doth not justifie us properly and formally because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by divine donation or imputation This is plain in it self and in that which is said before How this is plain in that which is said before we have before examined how it is plain in it self we are here to examine To omit how after Mr. Baxters Principles the righteousnesse of Christ can be said to be ours by divine donation and imputation when he holds it no otherwise by Gods donation ours then the wilde Goose is his his if he can catch her and as long as he can hold her so his as it is every ones else as well as his if they can take and hold her For she is the worlds Goose and proper to no one before one hath taken her and no longer that ones then while he holds her if he let her go she is the worlds Goose again If Mr. Baxters righteousnesse be stablished upon such a law donation and imputation let it be his not mine I shall not contend with him for a share in it because the Lord offers me a righteousnesse of a better Covenant established upon better promises Heb. 8. 6. But to let this passe When M. Baxter saith the ground of this is what meaneth he by this That no doubt that went before in the former Position But in it are many things and which of them is plain upon this ground in his meaning I cannot easily judge because to my understanding no one of them is upon this ground plain Nay upon this ground no man living is justified in this world For it is not ours saith he by beleeving and receiving it but by divine donation And this donation he will not have to be confirmed untill all the conditions be compleated and that is not untill the world be ended But to give my best conjecture of his meaning I think he will be understood that the two last clauses of his former Thesis are plain upon this ground viz. 1. That Faith doth justifie properly as a condition c. 2. Improperly as it doth receive Christ The ground saith he is this because c. Here by the way we may take notice of the mans subtilty and sophistry in shifting from one tearm of Art to another Thes 57. he tels us that faith doth properly justifie thus and improperly thus but in the Explication he foysteth in the word formally and formall pag. 230 231. and here Thes 58. puts both together properly and formally as if there were no other proper cause and reason but the formall cause and reason of a thing and that every proper cause were the formall cause And thus whatsoeverr Scripture saith illiterately Christ himself after Mr. Baxters proper language should not be a proper cause of our justification And who sees not the end of this his project If he be put to it he layes a ground for the diverting of the whole dispute from the Scriptures unto Philosophy Logick and the Metaphysicks where there may be a cavill about the nature of the formall cause so long untill both sides be out of breath and in the end both parties be as wise to Justification as in the beginning This is the calamity of the Church in these times that they which hold themselves the chief Doctors and eminent lights thereof darken every sacred truth with the mist of humane Learning cast upon it in stead of clearing it to the comprehension of Gods babes and sucklings No marvel then if the justice of God hath stirred up among us so many Earth-born and Earth-bred Meteors persons of no learning Ranters and Enthusiasts I mean like Balaams Asse to rebuke the madnesse of these Prophets And doubtlesse either by these or some other the Lord will prevail against them if they shall not cease to pervert with Elymas the plain ways of God Now to the matter it self about which
passed thorough after men are dead With hundreds more of the same kind and worth wherein it seems Mr. Baxter here would imitate them to ingratiate himself into their favour As for the residue of Mr. Baxters quotations in this place they are for the most part if not all urged in another place to prove works the condition of our glorification and future salvation and untill then I forbear to answer them But lest any in the interim should stand doubting at any of the Scritures hâ—re quoted promising either love or life or grace or glory to men thus and thus qualifyed and conceive that such qualifications are the ground and condition together with faith to in right us in that which is promised I think it fit to premonish by the way what all Protestant writers have â—maintained and cleared against the Papists that the ground of our right in such selicities promised is not the qualifications or works of the person but the new relation of the person so qualifyed his union with Christ justification and adoption before God Such promises not being made to all but to the Saints in Christ so doing I shall clear it up to you by a similitude Isaac promiseth his son Esau his blessing but bids him go a hunting and bring him venison and then in eating it he will blesse him what was that which enrighted Esau to the blessing that was the ground or condition upon which Isaac would blesse him the venison caught and dressed nothing lesse for if a 1000. others should have presented him with a 1000. pieces of venison at severall times all dressed and fitted to his appetite the blessing should have been reserved entire for Esau and they all have been sent away empty as appeareth by his dealing with Jacob presenting his made venison how agreeing so ever the dish was to the palate of the old Patriark yet he will examine thorowly who it is whether his very son Esau that brings it before he gives the blessing It was not then the venison but the sonrship yea primo-geniture of Esau that was the ground and condition of Isaacs promise to blesse him So is it also to his justifyed and adopted ones in Christ that the Lord saith Aske and ye shall have seek and ye shall finde knock and it shall be opened to you Run and ye shall obtain Overcome and ye shall be crowned Love and I will love you Be mercifull and I will be mercifull to you Humble your selves and I will lift you up and a thousand more such promises of grace as far as they hold forth spirituall and saving blessings they are the Childrens bread dispensations of God within his own family no stranger hath part in it or right to it Let the world those that are not beloved aske seek knock run fight c. the Lord may possibly out of the goodnesse of his providence infinitenesse of his wisdome and bounty of his nature reward with corporall and temporall good things their carnall and temporall endeavours but untill by the spirit of adoption they are through faith united to Christ they have no right by the new Covenant to make claim to the spirituall and saving blessings promised neither are they any otherwise to be ratifyed to any but as they were beloved of God in Christ before there were any such qualifications and motions in them as Mr. Baxter cals conditions as hath been before declared Yea suppose that Esau could not have brought the venison to his Father had been hindered or drawn aside from seeking it or seeking could not find it or finding could not have taken and brought it should the promise and purpose of Isaac to blesse him for this cause have failed He performed not the condition he shall therefore be bereaved of the blessing Nothing lesse for the generall and fundamentall ground and condition the relation of a son of the first-born son stood still fixed unto which the good will of the Father and the blessing in the Fathers purpose was entailed In like manner though a child of God fail in some of the works and qualifications which Mr. Baxter cals conditions of the new Covenant yet this makes not the promise of the Covenant or the beneficence of the Covenanter promising to be void because these are grounded so far as they are grounded out of God upon Christ our union unto Christ and new relation to God in Christ All which I doubt not shall be made manifest in its own place only what hath been said I thought fit to be said by the way for the prevention of doubts and perplexities that might ingage the weak reader before we come thither I should here have put an end to what I had to say to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures having spoken to all that in this place are quoted saving those which he brings again elsewhere for which place I have put off my examination of them But that p. 310. he comes with a new supply Lest therefore I should make another work of it there or minister occasion to any of saying that where his Argument is most fortifyed there I shun and shrink from answering I shall examine here also what force such of those Scriptures as have not been here quoted and examined have to prove justification by works and so much the rather because he tels us there that the assertion is evident from these following Scriptures B. Mat. 12. 37. By thy words thou shalt be justifyed and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Justification and Condemnation seem here by our Saviours testimony to depend upon the sinfull and blamelesse use of our tongues Ergo upon works We may grant all in our Saviours sense without advantaging Mr. Baxters cause or endammaging our own For the Lord Christ here directeth his words to those Legall Jewish Pharisaicall Justiciaries who stuck fast to the righteousnesse of the Law for justification and in zeal thereof blasphemed as in the precedent part of the Chapter upon which this dependeth is to be seen Christ and his Gospell This blasphemy Christ here reproveth and smiteth with a weapon fetcht out of their own Armory Even your own law forbids such evill words and blasphemies holding forth Justification and Condemnation not only upon condition of good and evill works but words also so that there is nothing spoken of the justification of the New but of the Old Covenant only A reprehension and commination pat to them to whom it was denounced the threat of the Law to them that refused the Gospell and were and would be under the Law But this is nothing to the justification of the new Covenant that followes the rule of the Gospell The next Scripture not contained and examined in the former sardle of quotations is B. 1 Joh. 1. 9 If we confesse our sins God is faithfull to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our iniquities Here confession another work seems to be a condition of forgivenesse and justification
From the attributes that he gives to the faith to which he denieth justification viz. a dead faith ver 17. 20. 26. A faith of Devils ver 19. But a dead and Devillish faith are not a true Gospel faith but at the best a figment and counterfeit thereof 4. From the similitude by which he illustrateth his disputation If a man in a pretence of charity speaks comfortable words to his hungry and naked brother Alas poor soul be cloathed be filled but ministreth nothing to him for his refreshing will any call that flourish of words true charity Is it any more then a paint therof So also of him that saith hee hath faith but evidenceth it not by its fruits c. The verball faith doth no more profit to justification than the verball charity to sanctification If one of these in the mind of the Author be true charity then according to the minde of the Author also the other is true Faith 5. From the object of that Faith which James excludeth from Iustification Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the object of justifying Faith is Christ Thes 66 -68 and their explication But let him shew that James doth here expresly or impliedly in any one passage of his dispute make Christ the object of that Faith which he excludes from justification or any other object than the Faith of a meer Heathen or Hypocrite may pitch upon viz. generall truths that there is a God c. else let him grant from his owne principles that it is not true Faith but an unprofitable Historicall Faith as some terme it which is here excluded Thus have our writers in answer to the Papists Cavills expressed the minde of James in this place or rather from him selfe declared what himselfe expresseth to be his minde and this they expresse not as Mr. Baxter perverts them by some one but by both of these interpretations viz. of the word justifying and the word Faith manifesting out of James himselfe that as oft as in this dispute he attributes justification to works he speaks of justification i e. the declaration or manifestation thereof to men As when vers 21 Abraham and ver 25. Rahab and ver 24. A man indefinitely are said to be justified by works he meanes they are so manifested and declared by their works to us This is a usuall phrase not only in Scripture but in our common expressions and our common talk I will justifie what I have spoken or done i. e. I will declare it make it appear to be all good true and just I will justifie him from all that is layd to his charge i. e. I will declare and prove him just and free from all that he is charged with Again where hee denieth justification to that dead faith that worketh not by love that by faith he means a false profession and counterfeit of and not the true justifying faith and who among us ever said that to say I have faith never expressing the power and fruits of it can justifie a man So there is nothing to be found in James crossing the Protestant yea Evangelicall and Apostolicall conclusion that we are justified in our consciences before God by faith alone without works i. e. by a living and working not a dead faith yet without works can we not be declared and manifested just unto men That which Mr. Br. hath spoken against the former part of this interpretation viz. justification before men we have found to be either less or worse than nothing To the other viz. the denying of justification to faith that is a counterfeit a false profession of faith hee saith nothing and why because hee hath not what to say Therfore he stifles it in darknes will not have his Reader hear of it for then actum est he must run to S. Francis or some other Saint S. James leaves him in the mire It is no lesse ludicrous than fallacious that he turns the state of the question another way and danceth round about it never comming to that which our Divines answer 1. Having devised pag. 294. that we say James speaks of works as justifying our faith not our persons he doth pa. 296. goe about to prove that works justifie the person not the faith only And who ever denied this position Doe not wee all say that the holy life declares the truth of faith and therin justifieth as to men the professor of it from all hypocrisie in making such a profession 2. pag. 297. he falls foul with the Ghost of sweet Mr. Pemble for saying that by Faith and works Iames understands a working Faith And after a sharp chiding without examining his Reasons the matter whereof I have before examined at length p. 298. fetching breath he offers him peace and friendship upon condition that he will arise from the grave say what Mr. Baxter saith But despairing of that and concluding if he should rise again from the dead he would still say with the Protestant Churches and Writers that Fides solùm justificat non autem fides sola Faith alone justifieth but not that Faith which is alone without works because that alone faith is not a true Faith he 3. Makes a transition to fall out with all Protestant Churches for attributing too much to Faith in making it instrumentall to Iustification that when Believers are said to receive Christ Io. 1. 12. and to receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of Righteousnesse Rom. 5. 17. wee will not say they receive this Christ this gift of his Righteousnesse to Iustification without any receiving instrument but make Faith the instrument by which we receive the same p. 299. A most pernicious Doctrine to Mr. Baxters Cause If it stand Mr. Baxters Iustification by workes in the same relation with Faith as its Concause must needs fall and tumble downe to hell for works will not be bowed into any instrumentality to co-operate with Faith in receiving Christ and his righteousness When contrariwise if we would say as he doth and which we must take his word without any further demonstration to bee true then in despite of Paul and the Holy Ghost our justification should be parted between faith and works and Mr. Brs. new Gospel stand the Gospel of Grace being wholly taken out of the way as unprofitable But in all that he saith hee diligently keeps off from speaking a word to what our Divines say in proving from James himselfe that he means not true faith when hee denies to the counterfeit or profession of it any efficacy to justifie and let the conscientious Reader judge whether he doth this in zeal for Christ or against him Let none except that possibly hee never read any of them that have thus expounded James What one of them hath he then read Nay I rather question what one of them hath he not read or with what one thing is he unacquainted that any of them hath written He is a stranger to Mr. Br. that will accuse him of little reading
and order he can call his but the substance of all is theirs as to Justification by works and from them in common with the Socinians and Arminians as to Justification by Faith as an Act or Worke. This I could easily make evident by affixing but marginall quotations of those Popish and Arminian Authours to this Worke whom in every particle hee followeth as having spoken the same things before him if I had now that which once I had that which might be called a Library By how much the more I admire some that make their concourse confluence to him from all parts as to an Oracle to learne from him that which at home by their owne fire Eckins Hosius Vega c. or the more ancient Schoolemen before them or Beâ—â—arminâ— with the Jesuits and Arminians since them would have taught them more at large or which besides other hundreds of our Divines one Chamier in his 3 Tome of his Panstratia would have given them to understand at large together with a large and full confutation of all as to the Papists Yet see with what confidence Mr. Baxter speaketh It is most clear and beyond all dispute c. What is so cleare that our proper compleat and actuall justification c. This is cleare by Scripture Yet neither hath he alleadged or can alleadge any one Scripture that tels us of or teacheth any such justification The Papists tell us indeed of a two-fold Justification but both in this life They say Christs judgement or sentence or our account and reckoning not our justification shall thus pass in the last day The Arminians indeed say as Mr. Baxter and hee hath learned to speake as confidently as they proving as little as they Now what boldness is it to call that from a pretended cleare testimony of Scripture our Actuall most Proper compleat Justification which the Scripture doth in no place call or bid us to call Justification in any sense or con-consideration we would grant to Mr. Baxter the use of his owne Phrase and use it with him if he would understand by the Justification in the day of Judgement onely either the publication and open declaration of the justification before given and received or the conferring on Believers the Glorious and eternall fruits above of their justification here or their exemption from the sentence of vengeance which shal be then pronounced against from condemnation which shal be then executed upon the unbelieving world in which sense it is sometimes indeed in Scripture called our Redemption and the day of Redemption to the Saints which to the world will be an evill day a day of judgement But this will not satisfie him and the Scripture grants no more so that we cannot please him without displeasing God Againe when he saith our most Proper Justification will be at the great Judgement according to our workes and according to what wee have done in the flesh whether it be good or evill Doth he meane first that the measure of our justification wil be according to the measure of our works great works and a great and full justification a little Treasury of workes and a little corner of justification This agrees not with his owne phrase in tearming it a compleat justificacation Nor will it cohere with the definition that he gives to this justification Thes 39. making it to consist in Gods acquitting from the Accusation and condemnation of the Law This Act of God or of Christ doth not recipere magis minus hee that hath more works cannot be said to bee more or he that hath less to be less acquitted but iâ— at all acquitted then compleatly acquitted acquitting and not acquitting being contradictories that admit of no medium but the one or other must stand in all its force Or 2. doth he mean that the being or not being of justification doth follow the being or not being of our Works no works and no justification but if works then justification will it not hence necessarily follow both that many which have died in Christ shall be condemned viz. all that after their union to Christ by the Spirit departed out of this life before they had time and oportunity to doe such works as Mr. Baxter after instanceth and many that never believed in Christ never were in Christ shall bee justified by Christ in the last day viz. such as have lived and died such as the Apostle Paul was before his conversion touching the Righteousnesse which is by the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 6. and that of sincerity in opposition to hypocrisie and vaine glory walking in all good Conscience before God As for faith in Christ hee doth not heere touch upon and Acts 23. 1 whether any of his reasons which hee brings to confirme his Thesis will infer it we shall see in examining them 3. When he saith that Christ at that great Assize will not give his bare will of Purpose as the reason of his proceedings c. Let him say whether his intent in this passage were not to cast an Odium upon the Protestants as if they so taught And except hee can produce any one man that hath so taught and hath not still asserted that the damnation of the damned shall be for their sinnes and the glorification of the glorified a free gift of God for the satisfaction which Christ hath made for them with reference to their being in Christ Let him confess that he hath slandered them 4. In the rest that is contained in this Thesis we finde nothing but contradictions his unsaying and gainsaying of what he had before said A little before pag 294 295. to destroy that interpretation of James which our Divines bring that when he speakes of justification by workes hee meanes the declaring to men by works the truth of their Faith and Justification the man is angry and cries out An usurped Judgement and Justification I affirme The World is no lawfull Judge of our Righteousnesse before God neither are they competent or capable Judges of our Righteousnesse or unrighteousnesse neither are works a certaine Medium or evidence whereby the world can know us to be righteous for the outward part an hypocrite may performe and the inward part Principles and ends of the worke they cannot discern Why was it that hee was so hot there against the possibility of manifesting to men the truth of our Righteousness It was against his Cause there to owne it Here contrariwise Justification in the last day must passe by workes to declare to the World not only the righteousnes obedience of the justified but also the equity of the Justifier and to stop every month from speaking against either And now the world is no longer an usurping but a lawfull Judge not an insufficient but a competent and capable Judge not onely of mans righteousness but of Christs equity in judgement and works are become a certaine Medium and evidence to manifest both to the world How comes this sudden change
through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ and by their very receiving of him should obtein power to become the sonns of God notwithstanding all their former pollutions without all prejacent qualifications in them to purchase so great a Redemption Such was the doctrine preached to them and in the embracing and professing of this Doctrine and their Faith in Christ the alone redeemer they were first admitted into Christ gathered into Churches and so continued a while stablished in this truth with the joy of the Holy Ghost abounding in them The persons against whom he disputeth were chiefly if not onely the False Apostles of the Circumcision who also professed the Faith of Christ and preached it not the unbeleeving Jewes for these should not have had any such audience from the Churches But such as went out from the Apostles and the Church that was at Hierusalem to preach Christ Act. 15. 24. Such as came from James Gal. 2. 12. Such as boasted themselves to be of Câ—phas to hold forth the doctrine of Peter 1 Cor. 1. 12. Such as preached Christ of envie strife and contenâ—iâ—n not sincerely but under the luâ—e of so holy a name to take the advantage to deceive Phil. 1. 15 16. Who not labouring to gather Disciples to Christ out of infidelity as the Apostles had done entred into the severâ—ll Churches before stablished by the Apostles troubling them with words subverting their souls teaching them that they must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses els they could not be saved Act. 15. 1. 24. And these were of the Sect of the Pharisees which beleeved Act. 15. 5. Emissaries out of those Many thousands or rather Myriads of the Jewes at Hierusalem which beleeved yet were all zealous of the Law Act. 21. 20. Had the Apostles dispute been against such as had apostatizâ—d from the profession of Christ and against such unbeleevers as had seduced them from trusling on Christs imputed to rest upon their own inherent righteousness for justification iâ— had not been besides the purpose to have it his question as Mr. Br saith whether it be Christs righteousness or our own righteousness that we must plead against the accusations of the Law But seeing both the seduced and seducers with whom he dealeth were such as professed faith in Christ as their justifier and Saviour and questioned onely whether Faith alone or els their righteousness works also together with Faith were required to inright them to Christs righteousnes and salvation it had been impertinent if not ridiculous to have made it his question what the proper righteousnes is by which we are justified For this had been to decline and not to prosecute the question between him and them They would have granted him all that he concluded without the least dammage to their Cause Therefore his question was principally By what means we come to partake of the righteousness of Christ to Justification 2 Let the Apostle himself give his Testimony what his principall question was For he better knew his own minde than Mr. Br or my self And first in his Epistle to the Romans having for an introduction to the question in the three first Chapters proved both the Jewes with all their legall and the Gentiles with all their naturall righteousness and unrighteousness to be under sin guilt and condemnation he no sooner in the third Chapter begins to speak of the mean of their recovery Christ Jesus but he annexeth also by what means we come to have right in him In both which he no less Contradicteth Mr. Br than if he had seen before what Mr. Br hath written so many ages after Or the former he affirmeth that we are justified as by Christ so by the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ as he was set forth to be a propitiation or expiatory sacrifice for our sinns Rom. 3. 24 25. Not as Mr. Br before so stoutly Contended as he is our Lord i. e. in his sense our Lawgiver Of the latter that it is faith alone that makes this redemption and Propitiation ours to Justification namely Faith in his bloud Faith without the deeds of the Law Faith which excludeth without works which include boasting ver 25 27 28. And this faith in the death of Christ without works without deeds cannot include in it Morall works and righteousness unto Justification as Mr. Br would extort from it elsewhere by making Christ as our Lord and Lawgiver the object of Justifying Faith At length he Concludeth ver 30. that both in them which have some seeming and plausible qualification of righteousness and works and in them that have it not it is not that righteousness of their own but Faith which Justifieth And that this Faith is no less effectuall to the justifying of them that unto that very day have been ungodly than of them which from their very birth have seemed to be holy to the Lord. So much is Comprehended in those words of the Apostle It is one God which Justifieth the Circumcision by faith and the un-circumcision through Faith In these words is included the whole State of Pauls question The Apostle writing to the Church that was at Rome Consisting of beleeving Jewes and Gentiles endeavours to heal the divisions Close the breaches and settle a sweet union and Communion between them This he applyeth himself unto first in that great and fundamentall point of Christianitie viz. Justification by Christ in which they dissented Both Jewes and Gentiles acknowledged Justification and salvation to be by Christ alone but in this they differed The Jewes Confined this salvation by Christ to themselves alone that to them onely he was promised that they alone were qualified and in a capacity to receive him and the benefits that are by him That he came to be the Saviour of his own hallowed people that had waited for him not of the common and unclean Pagans that were aliens from the Common wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise To this purpose they boasted of their Naturall Faederal and personall righteousness and holines qualifying them for the Justification which is by Christ of all which the Gentiles were destitute Their naturall Righteousness and holiness that they were Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles the seed of Abraham the holy stock to whom and whose seed the promise was made Their Faederall holines That they alone of all nations were in Covenant with God and did bear the badge and seal of the Covenant Circumcision in their Flesh by which they were distinguishd from all other people as holy to God when all other Nations under the Sunne were an abhomination in his sight Their Legall holiness that they had the Law Word and Oracles of God Committed to them all other Nations being left without Law without God and without hope in the world Their personall and Actuall righteousness that in reference to this holy Law of God they had walked exactly kept it from their youth
and touching the righteousness thereof were blameless When contrarwise the Gentiles had walked inordinately lawlesly after the instinct of their own nature and lusts of their own hearts servants to idols and devills not to God For this Cause they Contended that they by this their righteousness had that the Gentiles by means of their unrighteousness had not right to the redemption and Justification which are by Christ That the Gentiles in stead of the naturall holiness before mentioned must become Proselytes and so the ascititious or adopted Children of Abraham becoming Jewes must receive the seale of the Covenant Circumcision in their flesh receive and be brought under the Law and become personally righteous in keeping it Else they could not be saved by Christ Act. 15. 1 24. Their bare Faith in Christ without their own righteousness and works could not make them partakers of the tighteousnesse and salvation which are by Christ And who seeth not here that Mr. Brs doctrine is one and the same in generall with theirs that were the first heretical troublers and subverters of the Church of Christ But against this plea of the beleeving Jewes the Apostle layeth his Contradictory Conclusion That both the Circumcision and the uncircumcision they that had and they that had not all or any of these kinds of righteousness were made partakers of Justification through Christ onely by Faith in him That our own prejacent works and righteousness are nothing to further nor our former unrighteousness and sinn any thing to hinder our Justification but Faith in Christ is all He that beleeveth is not condemned he that beleeveth not is already condemned whether he be Jew or Gentile clean or unclean outwardly because as he had said before ver 22 23. There is no difference For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God This Conclusion that Faith alone without our prejacent or concomitant works and righteousness do make the righteousness which is by Christ ours to Justification he proveth soundly in the 4th Chapter 1 From the example of Abraham the Father of the Faithfull By what means Abraham found and obteined the Justification which is by Christ by the same means all now obteine it that are Justified But Abraham found or obteiaed it not by his own righteousness or works but by Faith Therefore so do now all that are justified The proposition he leaves as standing so firm on its own pillars that none will dare to seek the demolishing thereof The assumption he proves in both its members that it was not by his own righteousnes either Natural i. e. derived from parents and ancestors for they were Idolaters and served other Gods Josh 24. 2. Or faederall in the Jewes sense for he was justified before he was circumcised and after received Circumcision as a seal of the Righteousness of Faith ver 10 11 of this 4th Chapter to the Romans or Legal For he was so Justified 400 years before the Law was given Or personall by the works of righteousness which he had done For then first he should have had matter of boasting that he had done something towards his own Justification ver 2. And secondly then his justification should have been reckoned not of Grace but of debt and so the glory thereof should have redounded to Abraham and not to God ver 4. And if by no one of these kinds of his own then not at all by his own righteousness That it was by Faith he proves by clear Testimony of Scripture ver 3. Therefore the conclusion stands that we are justified also by faith without works That Faith and not any righteousness of our own makes Christs righteousness ours Another Argument he draws from clear and evident Scripture witnessing that the righteousness and justification which consisteth in the forgivenes not imputing and covering of sinn is made ours without works therefore by Faith alone ver 6 7 8. When in these two Arguments none can deny but that the righteousness and Justification which Abraham obteined and which Consisted not in the doing but in the imputing of righteousness and in the pardoning and not imputing of sinn is the Justification which is by Christ and when the Apostle laboureth not at all to prove this to be The proper Righteousness to Justification but takes it as granted and unquestioned all must acknowledge that his question was not What righteousness it is that Justifieth whether Christs or ours But when all his dispute is confined to this one point to prove that this righteousness by Christ is made ouâ—s not at all by works but altogether by Faith what rational man can be so swayed by a Spirit of Contradiction as to say with Mr. Br. that St Pauls question was not to make out by what means this Justification by Christ may be made ours Whosoever will see these two Arguments further and fully illustrated and amplified together with more arguments to these annexed let him peruse the residue of this 4 Chap. And if he return with his Reason sound and brings not this verdit that it is impudence not judgement in Mr. Br. to state Pauls question as he doth Then am I a stranger both to Paul and Reason Again when the Apostle still insisting upon the same subject setts forth the priviledges of them that are justified by Faith doth withall affirm that while they were yet sinners Châ—ist dyed for them and so they became Justified by his bloud and being yet enemies are reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5. 1 8 9 10. thereby implying that there is nothing of our own works and righteousness except sin and enmity against God be such that doth or can Concurr to our justification so leaving justification to Faith onely it is evident that his principall question was not whether we are Justified by Christ but whether Faith alone or works with Faith are appointed of God in order to Justification I shall forbear to cite short testimonies from other Epistles of the Apostle evincing this Truth and pass to his Epistle to the Galathians in which he wholly levelleth to this mark It cannot be denyed by Mr. Br. himselfe that the Apostle there disputeth not of a legal but Gospel Justification and that this is a Justification onely by Christ that when he saith If any man if we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel c. his meaning is not a Justification out of Christ for this should be a legal not a Gospel Justification but any other way to the Justification which is by Christ save that which we have preached let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8 9. Herein it was agreed between the Apostle and the false Apostles that Christ is the alone Justifier and that salvation is onely by him and to this all the seduced ones among the Galathians assented Else had they been Apostate from Christ to the Law and not to another Gospel as the Apostle terms it Gal. 1. 6. And from their beginning in the Spirit to seek
which is in our selves could be more excellent than that which Christ is made to us untill this new Doctor took the Chair to teach Mysteries and by inverting and misnaming Scripture-phrase hath so taught Nevertheles it behoved Mr. Br having resolved to keep on the triple Crown upon the Popes head by stablishing justification upon works though it were to the uncrowning of Christ to reject uprightnes and to seek after inventions Eccles 7. 29. First he must hold beleevers to be under both Covenants els while he builds up one peece of Babylon he should pluck down another and give his judgment against his holines in one point while he acts the Champion for him in another and adventure with all the loss of his Cause if he keep not as strong hold-fast in the Covenant of works with the one hand as in the Covenant of grace with the other 2 He must call the Condition or means of applying Christ to us or obteining interest in his satisfaction our Righteousnes els he will not be able to evade those Scriptures which assert our Justification by faith But by this feat he thinks himself in a fit posture both to answer this and to bring in all qualifications and works that he pleaseth in a partnership with faith to justifie True will he say we are justified by Faith as a part of our righteousnes and by all other good qualifications and works as other parts of our righteousnes 3 He must call faith and works our Evangelicall righteousnes having seen in what a stinking trance some of his dirty deer brethren in their disputes have been left when they would prove that good works as works of the Law do justifie and how little better they have fared who would have them to justifie onely as works of grace having not had enough subtlety to prove them Gospel or Grace works Need had he therefore to put himself upon strong and strange inventions that himself may not stick in the same mire after them But enough in generall let us hear him deliver his own minde in particulars B. Thes 17. p. 102. As there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions So is there a twofold Righteousnes and both of them absolutely necessary to salvation The latter member of this proposition is grounded upon the former the Thesis upon the Hypothesis As true is the latter as the former But how true is the former that there are two Covenants and that they have their distinct Conditions First when he saith there are two Covenants he meaneth two Covenants in force to the very Saints in Christ that while they are under grace to salvation they are also under the Law to the Curse and Condemnation This hath been his busines to Confirm in the former part of this Treatise and he owns it in the explication of this Thesis But this is false as in disapproving of his arguments before hath been proved They are no more under the Law who are once under grace Rom. 6. 14. 2ly Neither have the two Covenants their distinct Conditions according to Mr. Br. For Thes 4. he makes the Condition of the first Covenant Perfect Obedience or Righteousnes The same he makes here the Condition of the New Covenant viz. Faith and Obedience but both as integrant parts of our own inherent righteousnes as we have partly seen and shall be forced to see more fully in that which is to come after So that we grant him that as true as there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions in force to the same persons so true is it that there is a twofold Righteousness and both absolutely necessary to salvation if by salvation he means Justification At falsum prius ergo posterius When he brings proofs to Confirm his assertions he may meet with a larger answer In mean while a simple Negation stands fittest in opposition to his bare affirmation That which he brings in the explication to Confirm it hath been answered over and over before Onely he tells us in the upshot that He will take it as granted To which I answer that there hath been such a generation of men still upon earth so fingerative that will needs take that which was never granted and delivered to them such is the main bulk of Mr. Brs doctrine in this book taken but never delivered to him from God or his Christ Bax. The usuall confounding of these Righteousnesses saith he doth much darken the Controversies about Justification And Mr. Br doth no less cleer the Controversie than an Ecclipse the Sun-beams He proceeds to explain what this twofold Righteousnes is so absolutely necessary to salvation Bax. The legall Righteousness saith he is not in us or consisteth not in any qualifications of our own persons or actions performed by us But it is wholly without us in Christ Thes 18. p. 103. The righteousnes of the New Covenant is the onely Condition of our interest in and enjoyment of the Righteousnes of the old c. Thes 19. p. 107. Our Evangelicall Righteousnes is not without us in Christ as our Legall Righteousnes is but consisteth in our own actions of Faith and Gospel Obedience c. Thes 20. p. 108. What there is more in any of these three positions is transcribed at large before To the 18 Thesis he annexeth in the explication a dispute against the Papists not to Confute them as adversaries to the truth for joyning mans righteousnes with Christs righteousness unto justification for herein he professeth entire Communion with them but to admonish them as his loving brethren to defend this their Conclusion of Justification by their own righteousness not under the terms of their legall but of their Evangelicall righteousness Because the legall righteousnes is unpossible but the Evangelicall righteousnes according to his carving and forming of it is easie to be fullfilled and almost unpossible to be violated Not that the Papists were wholly ignorant of this mystery untill Mr. Br here teacheth them Nay many of them had and pleaded it very artificially before he was born And himself hath learned it of them But he as the most proficient of all their disciples hath more fully improved it so that now he becomes a teacher to his very Masters and exhorts them to learn of him the pious feat and fraud of making use of this distinction yet further than ever they had the wit or grace to devise even to all matters and purposes that tend to the eluding of the word of Christ and the advantaging of the holy mother Church in her doctrine of Justification that is altogether Contradictory to the doctrine of the Scriptures upon the same Argument To the 19th 20th positions he annexeth an explication of both of these and of all that was said in the two former positions also In it we shall finde whatsoever deserveth a fuller Answer than hath been yet given to all and every of these four positions or any thing in all or any of them conteined not
I know that the observance of the Law of Ceremonies and the seeking of Life by the works of the Law are both commonly called Legall Righteousnes and that Christs legall righteousness imputed to us is commonly called Evangelicall Righteousness he must needs mean primarily that these are so Called Commonly in holy Scriptures and but secondarily that they are so called by Ecclesiasticall Writers as they derive from the Scriptures a Chaste Scripture phrase wherein to expresse spirituall doctrines For so the Scripture mentioneth onely two kinds of Righteousness that ever Came or shall Come into Competition about our Justification the one a legall righteousnes or righteousness of the Law the other the Evangelicall righteousnes or righteousnes of the Gospel The legall Righteousness it affirms to be a righteousness of works which we have done i. e. of good qualifications within us and good operations flowing from us the Evangelicall righteousness to be of meer grace and mercy Tit. 3. 5. The latter it terms Gods Righteousness i. e. that which God giveth and imputeth the former our own righteousness i. e. which is wrought within our selves and acted by our selves Rom. 10. 3. Phil. 3. 9. That of the Law a Righteousnes of works this of the Gospel a Righteousness without works Rom. 4. 6. That a Righteousness in our selves inherent This a Righteousness in Christ imputed Eph. 2. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Or let Mr. Br shew any one Scripture that terms the Righteousness which is in and by Christ a legall or that which is inherent in our selves an Evangelicall Righteousness or that terms any gift or qualification in man or work and deed of man his righteousness any peece of his righteousness unto Justification So that his quarrell here is against the Holy Ghost for speaking so improperly and incongruously in Scriptures and Calling the Righteousness which is by Christ Evangelicall and the righteousness which is in our selves Legall Righteousness But how will he Confute the Holy Ghost and prove an absurdity and impropriety in the language of the Holy Ghost Forsooth by opposing himself his own authority and learning to the Holy Ghost and his wisdome and authority Himself he affirms to speak logically and by Consequence strictly and properly But the Holy Ghost is no scholar never read Aristotle therefore speaks rudely rustically like one of the Rural Animals not as an Artist out of the schools Himself gives scholar-like a denomination to these two Righteousnesses from that Covenant which is their Rule from the Formall Reason of the thing But the Holy Ghost for lack of school-learning gives names thereunto from more Alien Extrinsecall respects This is the summe of his reasoning And is it not possible to request from Mr. Br that he would take the Holy Ghost a while as a pupill into his Tuition to read unto him some Logicall Lectures by which he may be instructed to mould a new the Scriptures into another a Logical insteed of that spirituall and Celestiall phrase in which we now finde them Or if the Spirit of truth and wisdom should be the Teacher not the Schollar of Mr. Br then may we break out into Mr. Brs words against Mr. Br Moâ—strous Doctrine pride reasoning and that which every Christian should abhorr as unsufferable But if Mr. Br be not in more haste than good speed a word or two we shall request from him to be resolved in some few questions before we part upon that which he hath here written First Whether it hath not been the Common slight of all subtle heretikes to make new and unused phrases their harbingers to promote and make way for the vending of their new opinions and monstrous doctrines yea whether he himself had not first laid down a purpose within himself of broaching his doctrine of Justification by works and inherent righteousness and then after devised this new distinction of our legall righteousnes in Christ and Evangelicall righteousness in our selves both necessary to our justification or to what other end hath he coined this novelty of words and phrase in opposition to the language of the Gospel but to make it subservient to the novelty of his pernicious doctrine Contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel 2 Whether by this novelty of phrase he doth not attribute more excellency and efficacy as to justification to mans inherent than to Christs imputed righteousness For pag. 98. himself affiâ—meth that The primary most excellent and most proper righteousness lyeth in the conformity of our actions to the precept the secondary less excellent Righteousness yet fitly enough so called is when though we have broke the precepts yet we have satisfied for our breach either by our own sufferings or some other way Compare we with that which he there spake that which here he speaketh and we shall finde him attributing that which he calleth the primary most excellent and most proper righteousness to our selves viz. our Conformity to the precepts of the Gospel and that which he calleth the secondary less excellent righteousness to Christ in and by whom we have satisfied for the breach of the precepts of the Law If this be not the nullifying surely it is the abasing of Christ And he that would thus veil will be ready also to quench as much as in him lyeth the glory of Christs Righteousness 3 What shew of truth is there in that which he assigneth as the Cause of his departing from the usuall phrase of Scripture to a new expression of words Calling Christ our Legall and our own qualifications and works our Evangelicall Righteousness which no man since the very foundation of the world was laid I think ever so termed before him They so take name saith he from the Covenant which is their Rule c. and their Denomination from the formall Reason of the thing To the unveiling of this Mystery Davuâ— sum non Oedipus It must be some of Pythagoras his mysticall and not of Aristotles Dialectick learning that must so bring this about that we may finde and fathom it For first how is the Law of Nature or Covenant of works the rule of Christs Mediation or satisfaction made for us Whether we Consider it as it was fullfilled by Christ or as it is apprehended by us to righteousness is the Law or old Covenant made with mankinde a rule or direction to him or us Did this law at all either binde or direct the eternall Sonn of the eternall God to assume our Nature and in it to offer himself a sacrifice for our sinn and so make satisfaction to divine Justice Indeed as in Christs sufferings we see him onely a patient drawn and dragg'd to judgement and death for our iniquiâ—ies laid on him so was his passion the effect of the Law But if there were no more to be seen in his sufferings he should not have been our righteousnes either Legall or Evangelicall For what merit could there be in a suffering of Constraint and Compulsion But when in his sufferings he
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
she loved Christ much how good was it to be possessed of a whole legion of such white Devils that breathed into the soul possessed such strong love of Christ But why then said Christ to her Thy faith hath saved thee ver 50. did her faith only save her but her love justifie her This is one piece of Mr. Baxters new Divinity and with him I leave it Let him learn modesty and truth from Soarez himself a Prelate among the Papists Oportet advertere in hoc quod dicitur quoniam dilexit multum non prius dilexisse multum magnam dilectionem causam fuisse tantae remissionis sed vice versa quoniam remissa sunt ei peccata multa ideo dilexisse multum Soarez in locum He addes Mat. 5. 44. Luk. 6. 27 45. Love your enemies c. That ye may be the children of your heavenly Father c. What will Mr. Baxter hence conclude but that our love c. is the cause or ground of our Adoption That we love God first and then he us afterward That not his grace but our righteousnesse makes us his Children and him our father But contrariwise Christ here exhorteth the children to be like the father directs his words to the already Adopted so to put on the image and resemble the nature and operations of their heavenly Father that they may be i. e. declare themselves to be the children of the heavenly Father Like that of Joh. 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love c. And that of 1 Joh. 3. 10. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devill he that loveth not is not of God c. So love on our part doth not make but manifest us to be the children of God But remarkeable is his next quotation Joh. 15. 12 17. This is my commandement that ye love one another ergo love justifyeth as good as if I should argue Christ commanded Peter to angle and take a fish ergo Peters angling and catching a fish justifyed him As if whatsoever Christ commanded he commanded to justification And as full to his purpose is 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. what the Lord hath laid up for them that love him ergo my love was the condition of Gods laying up for me as if God had not laid up for me before I loved him How agrees this with that which after he annexeth Mat. 25. Inherit the Kingdome prepared for you before the beginning of the world and Rom. 8. 28. All things shall work together for good to them that love God who are they such as are called according to his purpose if called then justifyed and who denyeth the riches of Gods grace dispensing all things for the good of his justifyed ones that love him But what is this to loves justifying And rare logick from the next two Scriptures Grace be with them that love the Lord Jesus Eph. 6. 24. And he that loveth him not let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16. 22. Ergo love to Christ justifyeth in rank and life with faith when I make my love the ground or condition of Gods grace and cease to make the grace of Christ the foundation of my love to Christ then will I expect that Mr. Baxter will justifie me untill then I shall be in his account Anathema maranatha Again God hath promised the Crown the Kingdom to them that love him Jam. 1. 12. 2. 5. Ergo Justification is a Crown and Kingdom and love will then justifie when it brings us to the Crown and Kingdome untill then we are unjustifyed He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father Joh. 14. 21. Ergo our love to Christ begets love in the Father and ergo the love of the Father is our justification and what else Mr. Baxter will for he concludes quidlibet e quolibet I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall finde me Prov. 8. 17. Ergo God doth not love us untill we love him nor seek us till we seek him and so God is moved by us not we by him and perhaps justifyed for of this he speaketh by us before we are justifyed by him That I may cause them that love me to inherit substance and I will fill their treasures ver 21. Ergo our justification is in our chests and purses and our love prevails upon God and Christ to fill them up to the brim with this golden justification I know not whether I may lawfully follow him in his non sequiturs and playing with the sacred Oracles of God surely neither Lucian nor Corn Agrippa with his Asse could ever treat of holy things more ludibriously or expose the sacred word of God to more scorn then this man doth were it out of weaknesse that he doth it he were to be pittied But who knoweth not if Mr. Baxter knoweth not what validity or invalidity there is in every Argument to prove Where was conscience then in quoting so many Scriptures which are no more proper to prove that to which they are applyed then they are to demonstrate a world in the Moon he knoweth the most of them have neither sound nor shew that way and those that have some shew have but a shew and being thoroughly urged to his present purpose would neither prove what he would have here proved but contrariwise crush in pieces some of his former assertions which are the pillars of the whole structure made in this book and falling will necessitate the ruine of the whole fabrick All this he saw therefore stopped at the quotation without alleadging or applying the Scriptures quoted If the man were no more happy in in his Philosophy then in his Theology he should have very little thanks from Rome And it is to be doubted his esteem will be the lesse there for his pretending to be a Scripturist and over-turning or at least shaming with his fingering of Scriptures the specious frontispice which he had erected by his Sophistry Unlesse possibly this may advantage him that he shewes the same genius and spirit in arguing from Scriptures with those holy Fathers and Fryers for so profoundly do we find them arguing Thou art Peter and upon this rock c. Mat. 16. Ergo the Pope is Christ vicar and vicegerent c. Master or Lord Here are two swords Luk. 22. 38. Ergo the Pope hath both swords of Ecclesiasticall and Civill power committed to him God made two lights the greater to rule the day the lesser the night Gâ—n 1. Ergo the Popes power is so much more excellent then Kings and Emperors as the glory of the Sun surpasseth that of the Moon I beat down my body and keep it in subjection 1 Cor. 9. Ergo we must doe penance and whip and scourge our backs when there is occasion Every mans work shall be tryed by fire 1 Cor. 3. Ergo there is a purgatory of fire to be
ugliness of this imaginary Chimera Here therefore it shall suffice leaving the Reader to the perusall of what hath been said already upon this subject to mind him of these two things 1. That both the whole and every least fragment of all that is here collected whether we look to the substance or Artifice used about it is not his but borrowed partly from the Papists partly from the Socinians and their Apes the Arminians as hath been before shewed and if I shall be called thereto I am ready more fully to shew by quoting the Authors out of whom he hath transcribed all almost word for word to his use So that the Reader may consult with such of our Writers that have answered their sophistry if he desire to read more fully and largely upon this subject and not expect it from mee who have already transgressed as some will judg by my too much largeness thereon as to Mr. Baxter 2 That although the voyce here be the voyce of Jacob yet the hands are the hands of Esau Sweet words but subverting doctrine in matter and substance Pills of poyson wrapt up in gold we except not against the gold but the poyson therein inclosed not against the Terms of words considered by themselves but against the pernicious doctrine which they palliate Whether we ascribe too much to Faith by making it an instrument see the examination of his answer to the last question which he propoundeth in the explication of Thes 56. But how false and fallacious his flaattering words which he useth here to make tolerable yea sweet his arrogant doctrine of Justification by works viz. that Wee that is I and the Papists with Socinus and Arminius make our righteousnesse but a Condition or Medium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness Not as works simply considered nor as Legall works nor as Meritorious works Nor as good works with which God is pleased but as our Gospel-righteousness and conditions to which the free Law-giver hath promised justification and life will easily appear to him that considereth what how much hee ascribeth to works Though he cals works a poor Causa sine qua non yet himself affirmeth that some Causes sine qua non deserve farr greater praise in morall respect than some that have a proper Causality do Aph. pa. 216. which though in words he deny of Faith meaning by faith all obedience and good works which hee calls the severall Acts of Faith Aph. p. 126. that it doth so deserve Aphor. p. 224. yet in matter and substance he affirms it And Nulla fides verbis cum res adversa loquatur For as I have more than hinted before 1 He maketh our righteousnes of works and Christs satisfactory righteousness co-ordinate and collateral in the procurement of our Justification the one as absolutely necessary as the other to the attainment of this end the one to purchase a possibility of Justification the other to render that which was but in possibility actual and effectual to us Both satisfactory the one as a sufficient Fine and payment the other as satisfactory Rent and homage Aph. Thes 17 18 19. pa. 129. 2 He puts both in the same order and kind of Causes making our righteousness and Christs satisfaction to be both the Causa sine qua non Thes 56. For although he names Faith there yet himself declares himselfe under Faith to mean and comprehend obedience also This Civility alone he vouchsafeth to Christ that he names Christs satisfaction before our faith or obedience because it seems that is the elder But in order power and authority to the producing of this effect Christ hath no pre-eminence given him above man 3 He affirms mans righteousness to be as perfect as Christs righteousness in order to Justification viz. both perfect in suo genere Christs righteousness perfect to do its work mans to its work or as he explains himself both perfect in the perfection of sufficiency in order to its end So that here also is a parity no efficiency in Christs righteousness without mans nor in mans without Christs to justifie But when the two perfections meet if neither lose its perfection they may after the world is ended perfect our justification Thes 24. p. 132. In the mean while till our works be added to Christs satisfaction what he saith of faith that he every where implyeth of the satisfaction of Christ that it is dead being alone as to the use and purpose of justifying And so as works make faith alive so they make Christs satisfaction alive as to the attainment of its end justification 4 That works justifie in the same kind of Causality and procurement with faith not only proving Faith to be sound but themselves being in the same obligation with Faith not idle Concomitants only standing by while Faith doth all which some fools might imagine hee meaneth when he calls them onely necessary Antecedents of Justification pa. 223. Nay they are Concomitants with Faith in the very Act of procuring it and in that kind of Causality which they have p. 299 300. 5 They do all this as they are works Even Faith it self justifieth as it is an Act of ours Append. p. 80. and as a morall duty Append. p. 102. So do all other Morall duties as they are part of our sincere obedience to Christ ibid. 6 That we are justified not only by works Aph. p. 300. and according to our works but also for our works pa. 320. that good works are a ground and Reason of it p. 221. 7 That we are justified for our works that is for the Merit of them Not Merit in the most proper and strict sense which is the performance of somewhat not due by one that is not under the Soveraignty of him to whom it is performed of that worth in it selfe which bindeth him to whom it is done in strict and naturall justice to requite him Such an obligation can no creature lay upon God Neither could perfect obedience in respect of the Law of Works if man had continued still upright have so merited But so far as it was possible for a perfect man to have merited under the Covenant of works hee may now merit also under the Covenant of Grace by his works viz. in an improper way of Meriting where the obligation to reward is Gods Ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthinesse lyeth in our performance of the Condition on our part Thus farr might Adam in his perfection have merited according to the Law of works and so farr may wee merit according to the Covenant of Grace Aphorism Thesis 26. pa. 138. 140 141. Let all this be laid together and who can but per-force acknowledge together with the horns of the Lamb the voyce of the Dragon also and all that he hath spoken pretendedly to the diminution of works under the fine terms of his causa sine qua non his
the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 20. 24. If Mr. Br. had been taught of God as the truth is in Jesus I should think he would not have put at least upon deliberation left in print such a question and bold Cavill against the Apostle yea against Christ himself Object But if good works will neither justifie nor save me why should I do them and not take the liberty to do what I list Answ The voyce of a Rebel against God who if hee may not serve God to his own ends will not serve him at all and professeth openly that he doth all that he doth in Gods work not for Gods sake but for his own sake An Objection more deserving to be answered with a Thunder-bolt than with Scripture-reason Yet may there be alledged many other most holy and honourable ends for which we are to do good works though we be not justified and saved by them These I had thought here to have particularized but the work is swoln already to a bignes and dimension never intended at first And this Task hath been already so fully performed by so many of our Protestant Writers in answer to the Papists that I should but glean after them to say a little but begin a new work if I should say all that they have sayd and might be said to this purpose I therefore transmit the Reader for his full satisfaction to read Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 16. Zanch. Confess Fidei pro se sua Familia bound with his Miscellan Vrsin Catech. Quest 91. Catech and his Quest 5. upon that Question Tylenus Synt. part 2. disp 46. Th. 8 9 10 11. where is to be read too short an abbreviation of the three former But M. Perkins in one of his works I remember though at present I am bereaved of them all hath the very same words of Zanchy translated into English in answer to this question And since these whole hundreds both of English and forreign Divines have after Zanchy and Perkins delivered the same things in substance with them though some more largely some more compendiously so that to the exercised Reader it will be superfluous for me to write any thing upon the same subject I shall conclude all in the words of Augustine as more needing his Apology than himself where he useth it Lib. de Spir. Litera Cap. 35. Haec egi libro isto loquacius fortasse quà m sat est Sed contra inimicos Gratia Dei paraeùm mihi dixisse videor Nihil que mihi tam multum dicere delectat quam ubi mihi Scriptura ejus plurimum suffragatur id agitur ut qui gloriatur in Domomino glorietur in omnibus gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro sursum corda habentes unde a patre luminum omne Datum optimum omne donum perfectum est that is These things have I treated of in this Book it may be with more than enough plenty of words and language But I seem to my selfe to have spoken little against the Enemies of the grace of God And I take delight to be large in speaking about nothing else so much as when both the Scripture doth most give its testimony with me and the question treated on is that hee which glorieth may glory in the Lord and that in all things we may give thanks to God having our hearts lifted up to the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect gift discendeth He it is that freely justifieth us by his Grace To him be the praise and glory of all and let his Kingdom come and be speedily inlarged throughout the world that from all parts thereof there may be a joyfull acclamation of Saints Amen Amen FINIS A TABLE of the Generall and Chief Heads of Doctrine Treated of in this Booke A WHether the To credere or Act of beleeving be that by which we are justified part 1. p. 164. and onward to p. 181. p. 363 364 Mr. Br. to shew that both Papists and Arminians are met together in his owne brest teaaheth both that it is our justifying Righteousnesse and imputed to us for Righteousnesse his Reasons to prove it examined ibid. p. 166 c. More of Act viz. Immanent and Life A short Animadversion upon Mr. Brs dispute of Christs Active and passive righteousnesse in order to Justification Part 1. p. 21. to 25. Afflictions befalling the Saints not parts of the Curse but fruits of Gods Love Part 1. p. 35. to 37. What they are in their nature ib. p. 44 45 Antinomians their first rise originall and what their Tenets then were part 1. p. 263 264. Their growth and what hath been in these latter yeers charged on them as errours ib. 264 266. What of all wherewith they have been charged is errour indeed ibid. p. 267. to 271. 273. Who are such in Mr. Brs Kalender Pref. p. 7 8. part 1. p. 271 272. His Fraud under this Nick-name to make odious the Gospel and all true Protestants Pref. ibid. part 1. p 274. In the midst of his Invectives against imaginary he hath more then all men besides honoured the reall Antinomians part 1. p. 162 163. and declared himself really one of them p. 277. Exotick Arts how far usefull in Divinity Pref. p. 14. to the 17. They are incompetent to be Rules and Judges in purely Gospel matters ibid. and in some following pages and part 1. p. 341. What evils have followed such use and abuse of it Pref. 24 c. How abasingly the Scriptures speak of it as so abused Pref. p. 22 23. More viz. Sophistry Authority of men viz. Faith B Bellarmine and Mr. Br. speak the same things in the point of Justification part 2. p. 25. 31. Bullingers judgment of mingling prophane Arts in teaching with the Gospel pref p. 42 43. C Mr. Brs new Modell of the Causes of Justification and Salvation examined part 1. p. 314 c. And 1 of the principall efficient Cause ib. p. 316 317. 2 Of the instrumentall Cause ib. p. 317 318. 3 Of th◠procatarctick Causes ib. p. 318. to 321. 4 Of the naturall Cause and the Protestant doctrine defended against his cavils ib. p. 323. to 327. 5 Likewise of the formall Cause ib. p. 327. 329. The Protestant doctrine that Faith is the Instrument or Instrumentall Cause of Justification viz. Gods effective and mans receptive Instrument largely defended against Mr. Brs Sophisms ib. p. 330. to 348. Whether Faith be the Causa sine qua non ib. p. 356 357. Works cannot be the causa sine qua non part 2. p. 110 111. Charity the Rule of judging one another and by what evidence it must judge part 2. p. 93 94. What it is to take half and what to take whole Christ to justification part 2. p. 184 186. What to make Christ our All in Preaching part 2. p. 291. More viz. Grace 293. Whether Justification run upon Conditions