Covenant made to Christ upon the Gospel invitation And thus it is expiated by Christ 4ly Or as it hath respect to the Gospel commination so as to make a man the object of the actuall curse of this New Covenant or the person to whom its proper penalty is become actually due as every sin made the penalty of the first Law actually due to us This is it that I have said that Christ doth not expiate and none but this Some Divines say the Gospel hath no proper curse or commination penalty I am past doubt that it hath even non-liberation a privation of all the salvation offered them and the Remedilesness of their state c. and I have oft opened this and proved that only final Impenitency and Infidelity or the finall non-performance of the conditions of life are thus peremptorily threatned and make a man the Subject of the proper actual curse of this Law of Grace And if after all explications you will still carry it in confusion or intimate that men hold intolerable Doctrine omitting their explications and by generals making that theirs which they disclaim our next reply shall be patience or if you think indeed either that the Law of Grace doth oblige any under the penalty of remediless non-liberation besides the finally Impenitent and Unbelievers or that Christ dyed to expiate any mans predominant final Impenitency or Unbelief I will not trouble you with any other consutation then a denyal of it Treat p. ibid. Repentance is not an ingredient to our Justification as faith is Repentance qualifieth the Subject but faith immediatly receiveth it Answer The Word Ingredient is more ambiguous then to be worthy the labour of discussing But your assigned difference I ever did allow And yet must we voluminously differ when I have told you that I allow it But then I add that this difference is in the nature of the acts and in their aptitude to their office But in the general nature of being Conditions of pardon which is the nearest reason of their interest they agree though upon several reasons they are made conditions Treat We are not justified by the Habit of faith but by the Act. Answer I said so too in my Aphorisms But the reasons of a learned man Dr. Wallis in his friendly animadversions have perswaded me that it is unsound Treat p. 129. It is asserted that Justification called in Titulo or virtual is nothing but the Grant of it in the Gospel But I see not how that can be called our Justification Answ First That which is asserted is first That the Gospel is the Instrument justifying Secondly That the moral act of the Gospel-Grant and Gods Will by it is Justification in sensu activo Thirdly That the Relation resulting there-from is our passive Justification Secondly Can you see how a Princes pardon under his hand-writing can be the Instrument of a Traitors pardon and how the moral or civil Action of that Instrument and of the Prince by it can be active pardon and how the Relation effected by it can be passive pardon If you can see it there you may see it here And if you cannot many a one can Treat It is the sign or Instrument declaring it not justification it self An. Who ever said and where that passive Justification yea or active is the Gospel it self or the sign The Letter is the sign The actual signification of Gods will thereby is the justifying act The Relation thence resulting on us is our passive Justification These have been oft recited Treat As the grant or promise of our Sanctification is not our Sanctification Answ Good reason The difference is not to you unknown Sanctification passive being a Physical effect must have a Physical cause and therefore a bare moral cause cannot produce it But pardon or justification being but a Relative effect may be produced per nudam resultantiam à fundamento 2. But suppose God had made a promise of Sanctification on condition of faith would not the Right to Sanctification have resulted immediately from this promise the condition being performed And that Right hath the same Relative nature as constitutive Justification and pardon it self hath Treat And as on the contrary our condemnation while we abide in sin or Gods anger against the sinner is not the threatning promulged but that which comes from God himself Answ 1. Our Condemnation per sententiam Judicis is not the thing in question not yet the explication of it but our constitutive condemnation And that it is not indeed the Letter of the Law whoever said so but activè it is the action of the Law passivè sumpta it is the Relative effect of the Law 2. From your own Argument reverst I unresistibly make good my Cause against you Condemnation active is the Laws act and condemnation Passive is the Laws immediate effect therefore Justification is alike produced by the Promise or Gift in the Gospel The Antecedent is proved Iohn 3.18 he that believeth on him is not condemned for the Obligation is dissolved but he that believeth not is condemned already Which must be by some Law it being before Judgement and Execution 2 Cor. 3 9. The Law in its delivery is called the ministration of condemnation and that of the Gospel the ministration of righteousness Iam. 2.9 men are said to be convinced of the Law as transgressors Though Paul confute the false conceits of Justification by the Law yet he took them for no unfit phrases to speak of the Law working wrath Rom. 4.15 The curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 And saith Whatsoever the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law Rom. 3.19 When the Law comes sin reviveth and we die Rom. 7.8 9. therefore we are said to be delivered from the Law Rom. 8.2 Gal. 3.13 Rom. 7.6 And Gal. 3.21 If there had been a Law given which could have given life righteousness should have been by the Law Hence then is mention of being Iustified by the Law Gal. 5.4 and mens being debtors to the Law Gal. 5.3 And somewhat this way is implyed by Nicodemus Iohn 7.51 doth our Law judge any man before c. In a word what more common among Divines then to say the Law curseth or condemneth sinners And then it is not abhorrent from the nature of a Law of Grace an act of Oblivion to absolve and justifie sinners Treat Neither then could we say that we are justified by Christ given to us but by the proposition laid down in the Scripture whereas all say that the objectum quod of our faith is ens incomplexum not the promise of Christ but Christ himself promised Answ It s no impossible thing to be justified both by Christ and by the Promise There is no ground to suppose co-ordinates to be contraries Why may not Christ given us justifie us as the meritorious cause and a principal efficient and his Gospel-grant as his Instrument And accordingly each of them may be the
many Scriptures against you Put to your self it s enough to ask How can you constantly make Remission an Essential part of Justification and yet say that we cannot call it a state as we do Justification In your first Treat of Just Lect. 17. pag. 145. you say Prop. 4. Remission is not to be considered meerly as removing of evil but also as bestowing good It is not only ablativa mali but collativa boni a plentiful vouchsafing of many gracious favours to us such as a Son-ship and a Right to eternal life as also peace with God and communion with him And why may we not say A state of Sonship or salvation as well as of Justification Treat ib. There is a Justification of the cause and of the person alwaies to be distinguished Answ There is no Justification of his cause which doth not so far justifie the person Nor any sentential Justification of the person but by justifying his cause Though his actions may not be justifiable yet when the cause to be tryed is Whether sinful actions be pardoned by Christ that cause must be justified if that man be justified Even as Accusations are not charged upon the person without some cause real or pretended Treat pag. 152. Not only Bucer who is known to place Justification both in Imputed righteousness and Inherent thereby endeavouring a Reconciliation with the Papists But Calvin li. 3. cap. 17. sect 8. To this purpose also Zanchy Answ Why then might not I have had as fair measure as Lud. de Dieu Bucer Calvin Zanchy especially when I go not so far And yet I take my self beholden to Guil. Rivet for helping me to some scraps of Phil. Codurcus who drives at this mark as you say Bucer doth though I cannot yet get the Book it self Treat pag. 158. O this is excellent when a man is amazed and in an holy manner confounded at his holiness as well as at his offences Answ So you before say they must be ashamed of their Righteousness as well as their sins I do not well understand these distinctions Nothing in all the world confoundeth me so much as the imperfection of my Holiness But I dare not think that imperfection to be no sin left I must think the perfection to be no duty and so come to works of supererrogation and Evangelical Counsels And Holiness considered in it self and not as sinful and imperfect is amiable in my eyes and I know not how to be ashamed of it without being ashamed of God that is its object and exemplar and heaven that is the state of its perfection Treat ib. Set some few even a remnant aside comparatively the whole Christian world both Doctors and people learned and unlearned fasten on a Justification by works Answ I hope not so many as you fear or affirm First all the Doctors and people of your judgement do not And if you thought those so exceeding few among Christians you would not take me for so singular as you do 2. None of the truly sanctified are such as you here affirm 3. The multitude of groundless presumers of Free Grace are not such And truly though I doubt Justiciaries are too common I do not think that such Presumptuous ones are so small a Remnant 4. The Libertines and Antinomians and many other Sects of their mind are none of this great number 5. I will yet hope for all this that you cannot prove it of the Doctors and people of half the Christian world Their hearts God knows And I will not yet believe that in their Doctrine about Justification by works the Greek Churches the Armenians Jacobites Copti's Abasineâ— c. do fasten on such dangerous sands or differ so much from you 6. I heard as eminent Divines as most I know some yet living in a publick meeting say that Bishop Vsher and Mr. Gataker affirmed that the Papists did not fundamentally differ from us in the Doctrine of Justification Treat pag. 167. By all these subtile Distinctions men would be thought Answ Your scope in that page seems to be against any distinguishing whatsoever about works in this proposition We are justified by faith and not by works If so that we must not run to any distinction but say that in every motion or sense Works are excluded and do justifie in none then I profess it is past my uttmost skill to justifie you for accusing Althamer as you do for saying Mentiris Jacobe in caput tuum Yea if he had upon the reading of Mat. 12.36 risen higher and said Mentiris Christe in caput tuum For sure he that saith By thy words thou shalt be justified Or by works a man unjustified and not by faith only can no way possibly be excused from that crime if no distinction may verifie his words but they must then be taken as absolutely false which I will not be perswaded of Treat pag. 219. Serm. 23. Observ That even the most holy and regenerate man is not Iustified by the works of grace which he doth This truth is the more diligently to be asserted by how much the error that confronts it is more specious and refined and maintained by such abettors whose repute is not so easily cast off as the former we spake of Now you come purposely I perceive to deal with me I confess the repute of Abettors doth much to bear up opinions through the world even with them that speak most against implicit faith But you need not despair of casting off the repute of them you mention Mr. Robertson and Mr. Crandon can teach any man that will learn that lesson Treat ib. The Question is not Whether we are Iustified by works though flowing from grace as meritorious or efficient of Justification This the Opinionists we have to deal with do reject with indignation To make Works either merits or efficient causes of our Iustification before God they grant it directly to oppose the Scriptures yea they seem to be offended with the Orthodox as giving too much to faith because it s made an Instrument of our Iustification therefore they are to be acquitted at least from gross Popery Answ This is one passage which I understand by your Preface to you Sermons on John 17. you lookt for thanks for and I do freely thank you for it for the world is such now as that I must take my self beholden to any man that doth injure me with moderation and modesty But you might have done that justice to us Opinionists as to have put any causes at all instead of efficient causes when we had so often told you the Orthodox that we disclaimed all true causality and then your Reader would have been ready to hope that we are free also from the finer Popery as well as the gross But since I have heard of late times what it is that goes under the name of Antichristianity and Popery even with many that are able to call themselves Orthodox and others that dissent from them worse then
said Causalitas quaedam which is terminus diminuens If quoad esse causalitatis it be terminus diminuens then the meaning is that I make them no causes But do you think any Reader will English Causalitas quaedam by no Causality But doubtless you mean that it is Terminus diminuens as to the quality or nobility of the cause But first I never heard before that quaedam was terminus diminuens and if no Readers must understand you but those that know this to be true I think it will be but few Secondly But what if that were so Did you not know that I denyed even all causality how diminute soever quaedam can express if it be but real Thirdly But you added Concurrence But it was in Concurrence with the several unjust passages before mentioned and sure the neighbour-hood of that word hath not force enough to make them all true Preface My Reverend Brother saith He vehemently disclaimeth all Causality of works in Justification surely his meaning is all Proper causal efficiency and so did I in the stating of it But to deny Causality in a large sense is to contradict himself Answer If so what hope of Justice Must I in paper after paper disclaim all true Causality and will you not only perswade the world of the contrary but persist in it whether I will or not and say I mean a proper causal efficiency Reader I have no other remedy left but to advise thee that if yet after this it be affirmed the next time that I disclaim not all true causality or mean not as I say thou believe not the affirmation Preface For in his Aphoris 74. Thes They both viz. Faith and Works justifie in the same kind of causality or mediate it should be media and improper causes or as Dr. Twiss causae dispositivae but with this difference Faith as the principal Obedience as the less principal Here is causality though improper Here is a causa dispositiva and yet shall I be blamed after I had removed Efficiency and Merit Answer This is but to add injustice When I have written at large that faith and works are no true causes of Justification and after tell you that a condition is commonly called causa sine qua non which is causa fatua and no cause at all but meerly nominal having by custom obtained that name and that Dr. Twiss calls this causa dispositiva when I say that they have only a causality improperly to called which indeed is no causality Is it justice for you still to perswade the world that I mean some causality though not efficiency The thing I renounce the name is not it that you only charge me with if you had I was not the maker of it It was called causa sine qua non before I was born I must comply with common language or be silent especially when I tell you I take it for no Cause You give me such justice as the hoast of the Crown Tavern in Cheap-side had who as Speed saith was hanged for saying merrily that his Son was Heir of the Crown and his exposition would not save his life I pray you hereafter remove more then Efficiency and Merit I take not works to be either the material or formal cause of Justification no nor the final though you in the words before cited affirm it such Who then gives more to works you or I The final cause is so called because it causeth us to choose the means to it Justification is not a means of our using but an act of God Therefore works are not properly the end of it as to us And yet let me say this to you lest you should mistake me As vehemently as I disown all true causality of works to our Justification I intend not to fall out with all men that call them causes As first Not with Piscator nor such other that call them causes of our final absolution and salvation Secondly Nor with those that call them meritorious in the same sense as the Fathers did though they unfitly use the word Thirdly Nor with those that will say that because they please God and so are the object of his complacency and will they may therefore speaking after the manner of men be called Procatarctike causes of his act of Justification and so that the Amiableness and desirableness of faith and holiness is the cause why he assigned them to this Noble place and office Fourthly Nor with them that say faith is a moral or a Metaphorical passive or active Instrument of Justification Though I say not as these men I will not quarrel with them Preface But I need not run to this for my Arguments militate against works at works justifying under any pretended Notion whatsoever Answer By the help of this I shall interpret all your Arguments And if so then they militate against the act of faith justifying under the pretended notion of an Instrument unless you will say that faith is no Act or Instrumentality is no pretended notion Preface And this maketh me admire how my learned Brother could let fall one passage wherein he may be so palpably and ocularly convinced to the contrary by the first looking upon my Arguments that which he saith is the strength of my Arguments lies upon a supposition that conditions have a moral efficiency There is no one of these ten Arguments brought against Justification by works as a Condition sine qua non that is built upon this supposition or hath any dependance on it only in the fourth Argument after their strength is delivered I do ex abundanti shew that a Condition in a Covenant strictly taken hath a moral efficiency Answer First you confess it is your Assertion that such Conditions have a moral efficiency Secondly I never said that you made that a Medium in all your Arguments nor that you intended that as their strength but that their strength lyeth on that supposition and if I have mistaken in that I will not stand in it But I think to shew you that without that supposition your Arguments have no strength which if I do then judge at what you marvailed But it s a farther act of injustice in you in alleadging me Apol. pag. 8. saying that some conditions are impulsive causes when I told you it is not qua conditions but only as materially there is somewhat in them that is meritorious I doubt not but the same thing may be the matter of a cause and a condition I shall now return to your Lect. of Justification and there speak to the other passage in your preface about justifying Repentance and Love c. Treat pag. 220. This therefore I shall God willing undertake to prove that good works are not a condition or a cause sine qua non of our Justification Answer But remember that it is Justification either as begun in constitution or continued or as pronounced by the Judges Sentence that the Question comprehendeth and not only the
grace yet his works would have been a causall Condition of the blessedness promised In the Covenant of Grace though what man doth is by the gift of God yet look upon the same gift as our duty and as a Condition which in our persons is performed This inferreth some Moral Efficiency Answ 1. See then all you that are accounted Orthodox the multitude of Protestant Divines that have made either Faith or Repentance Conditions what a case you have brought your selves into And rejoyce then all you that have against them maintained that the Covenant of Grace hath on our part no Conditions for your Cause is better then some have made you believe and in particular this Reverend Author Yea see what a case he hath argued himself into while he hath argued you out of the danger that you were supposed in For he himself writeth against those that make Repentance to be but a sign and deny it to be a Condition to qualifie the subject for Iustification Treat of Iustif part 1. Lect. 20. And he saith that in some gross sins there are many Conditions requisite besides humiliation without which pardon of sin cannot be obtained and instanceth in restitution pag. 210. with many the like passages 2. Either you mean that Adams works would have been Causall quatenus a Condition performed or else quatenus meritorious ex natura materia or some other cause The first I still deny and is it that you should prove and not go on with naked affirmations The second I will not yield you as to the notion of meritorious though it be nothing to our question The same I say of your later instance of Gospel Conditions Prove them morally efficient qua tales if you can Treat ib. And so though in words they deny yet in deed they do exalt works to some kind of causality Answ I am perswaded you speak not this out of malice but is it not as unkind and unjust as if I should perswade men that you make God the Author of sin indeed though you deny it in words 1. What be the Deeds that you know my mind by to be contrary to my words Speak out and tell the world and spare me not But if it be words that you set against words 1. Why should you not believe my Negations as well as my supposed affirmations Am I credible only when I speak amiss and not at all when I speak right A charitable judgementi 2. And which should you take to be indeed my sense A naked term Condition expounded by you that never saw my heart and therefore know not how I understand it further then I tell you Or rather my express explication of that term in a sense contrary to your supposition â—ear all you that are impartial and judge I say A Condition is no Cause and Faith and Repentance are Conditions My Reverend Brother tells you now that in word I deny them to be efficient Causes but in deed I make them such viz. I make them to be what I deny them to be Judge between us as you see cause Suppose I say that Scripture is Sacred and withall I add that by Sacred I mean that which is related to God as proceeding from him and separated to him and I plead Etymologie and the Authority of Authors and Custom for my speech If my Reverend Brother now will contradict me only as to the fitness of the word and say that sacer signifieth only execrabilis I will not be offended with him though I will not believe him but should so good and wise a man proclaim in print that sacer signifieth only execrabilis and therefore that though in word I call Scripture Sacred yet in deed I make it execrable I should say this were unkind dealing What! plainly to say that a Verbal controversie is a Real one and that contrary to my frequent published professions What is this but to say Whatever he saith I know his heart to be contrary Should a man deal so with your self now he hath somewhat to say for it For you first profess Repentance and Restitution to be a Condition as I do and when you have done profess Conditions to have a Moral Efficiency which I deny But what 's this to me that am not of your mind Treat pag. 229. A fifth Argument is that which so much sounds in all Books If good works be the effect and fruit of our Justification then they cannot be Conditions or Causa sine qua non of our Iustification But c. Answ 1. I deny the Minor in the sense of your party Our first Repentance our first desire of Christ as our Saviour and Love to him as a Saviour and our first disclaiming of all other Saviours and our first accepting him as Lord and Teacher and as a Saviour from the Power of sin as well as the guilt all these are works with you and yet all these are not the effects of our Relative Justification nor any of them 2. As to External acts and Consequent internal acts I deny your Consequence taking it of continued or final Justification though I easily yield it as to our Justification at the first 1. All the acts of justifying faith besides the first act are as truly effects of our first Justification as our other graces or gracious acts are And doth it therefore follow that they can be no Conditions of our continued Justification Why not Conditions as well as Instruments or Causes Do you think that only the first instantaneous act of faith doth justifie and no other after through the course of our lives I prove the contrary from the instance of Abraham It was not the first act of his faith that Paul mentioneth when he proveth from him Justification by faith As it s no good Consequence Faith afterward is the effect of Iustification before therefore it cannot afterward justifie or be a Condition So it s no good Consequence as to Repentance Hope or Obedience 2. It only follows that they cannot be the Condition of that Justification whereof they are the effect and which went before them which is granted you But it follows not that they may not be the Condition of continued or final Justification Sucking the brest did not cause life in the beginning therefore it is not a means to continue it It followeth not You well teach that the Justification at the last Judgement is the chief and most eminent Justification This hath more Conditions then your first pardon of sin had yea as many as your salvation hath as hath been formerly proved and may be proved more at large Treat pag. 230. By this we may see that more things are required to our Salvation then to our Iustification to be possessors of heaven and than it should be to entitle us thereto Answ 1. It s true as to our first Justifying and its true as to our present continued state because perseverance is still requisite to salvation But it s not true as to
Either you ask this question as of a penitent Believer or the finally impenitent Vnbeliever If of the former I say First All his sins Christs righteousness pardoneth and covereth and consequently all the failings in Gospel duties Secondly But his predominant final Impenitency and Infidelity Christ pardoneth not because he is not guilty of it he hath none such to pardon but hath the personal righteousness of a performer of the conditions of the Gospel And for the finally impenitent Infidels the answer is because they rejected that Righteousness which was able to satisfie and would not return to God by him and so not performing the condition of pardon have neither the pardon of that sin nor of any other which were conditionally pardoned to them If this Doctrine be the avoiding the good known way there is a good known way besides that which is revealed in the Gospel And if this be so hard a point for you to receive I bless God it is not so to me And if it be far more easie to maintain one single righteousness viz. imputed only it will not prove so safe as easie If one righteousness may serve may not Pilate and Simon Magus be justified if no man be put to prove his part in it and if he be how shall he prove it but by his performance of the conditions of the Gift Treat pag. 232. Argu. 8. That cannot be a condition of Justification which it self needeth Justification But good works being imperfect and having much dross cleaving need a Justification to take that guilt away Answ First Again hearken all you that have so long denyed the Covenant to have any conditions at all Here is an Argument to maintain your cause for it makes as much against faith as any other acts which they call works for faith is imperfect also and needs Justification a pardon I suppose you mean I had rather talk of pardoning my sins then justifying them or any imperfections what ever Secondly But indeed it s too gross a shift to help your cause The Major is false and hath nothing to tempt a man to believe it that I can see Faith and Repentance are considerable First As sincere Secondly As imperfect They are not the conditions of pardon as imperfect but as sincere God doth not say I will pardon you if you will not perfectly believe but If you will believe Imperfection is sin and God makes not sin a condition of pardon and life I am not able to conceive what it was that in your mind could seem a sufficiennt reason for this Proposition that nothing can be a condition that needs a pardon It s true that in the same respect as it needs a pardon that is as it is a sin it can be no condition But faith as faith Repentance as Repentance is no sin Treat ibid. It s true Justification is properly of persons and of actions indirectly and obliquely Answ The clean contrary is true as of Justification in general and as among men ordinarily The action is first accusasable or justifiable and so the person as the cause of that Action But in our Justification by Christs satisfaction our Actions are not justifiable at all save only that we have performed the condition of the Gift that makes his righteousness ours Treat pag. 233. This question therefore is again and again to be propounded If good works be the condition of our Justification how comes the guilt in them that deserveth condemnation to be done away Is there a further condition required to this condition and so another to that with a processus in infinitum Answ Once may serve turn for any thing regardable that I can perceive in it But if so again and again you shall be answered The Gospel giveth Christ and life upon the same condition to all This condition is first a duty and then a condition As a duty we perform it imperfectly and so sinfully for the perfection of it is a duty but the perfection is not the condition but the sincerity Sincere Repentance and faith is the condition of the pardon of all our sins therefore of their own Imperfections which are sins Will you ask now If faith be imperfect how comes the guilt of that Imperfection to be pardoned is it by a further condition and so in infinitum No it is on tht same condition sincere repentance and faith are the conditions of a pardon for their own Imperfections Is there any difficulty in this or is there any doubt of it Why may not faith be a condition as well as an Instrument of receiving the pardon of its own Imperfection I hope still you perceive that you put these questions to others as well as me and argue against the common Judgement of Protestants who make that which is imperfect to be the condition of pardon Repent and be baptized saith Peter for the remission of sin Of what sin is any excepted to the Penitent Believer certainly no It is of all sins And is not the imperfection of faith and repentance a sin The same we say of sincere obedience as to the continuance of our Justification or the not losing it and as to our final Justification If we sincerely obey God will adjudge us to salvation and so justifie us by his final sentence through the blood of Christ from all the imperfections of that obedience what need therefore of running any further towards an infinitum Treat ibid. The Popish party and the Castellians are so far convinced of this that therefore they say our good works are perfect And Castellio makes that prayer for pardon not to belong to all the godly Answ It seems they are partly Quakers But they are unhappy souls if such an Argument could drive them to such an abominable opinion And yet if this that you affirm be the cause that Papists have taken up the doctrine of perfection I have more hopes of their recovery then I had before nay because they are some of them men of ordinary capacities I take it as if it were done already For the Remedy is most obvious Understand Papists that it is Faith and Repentance and Obedience to Christ in Truth and not in Perfection that is the Condition of your final Justification at Judgement and you need not plead for perfection any more But I hardly believe you that this is the cause of their error in this point And you may see that if Protestants had no more Wit then Papists they must all be driven by the violence of your Argument to hold that Faith and Repentance are perfect And seeing you tell us of Castellio's absurdity I would intreat you to tell us why it is that you pray for pardon your selves either you take Prayer to be Means to obtain pardon or you do not If not then 1. Pardon is none of your end in praying for pardon 2. And then if once it be taken for no means men cannot be blamed if they use it but accordingly But if you
all but in the proper ordinary sence as an Instrument signifieth Causam quae influit in effectum per virtutem inferioris rationis as Suarez Stierius Arnisaeus c. Vel Instrumentum est quod ex directione alterius principalis agentis influit ad produceâ—dum effectum se nobiliorem ut Schibler c. So I utterly deny Faith to be an Instrument But I will first question whether it be a physical Instrument 2. Whether a moral 1. And for the first I have done it already for seeing our acute Divines have ceased to lay any claim to it as an active Instrument but only as a Passive therefore having disproved what they claim I have done enough to that 2. Yet I will add some more And 1. If it be a physical active Instrument it must have a physical active Influx to the producing of the Effect but so hath not Faith to the producing of our Justification Ergo c. The Major is apparent from the common definition of such Instruments The Minor will be as evident if we consider but what Gods Act in Justification is and then it would appear impossible that any act of ours should be such an Instrument 1. At the great Justification at Judgement Christs act is to sentence us acquit and discharged and doth our Faith activè sixae influere ad hunc effectum Doth it intervene between Christ and the effect and so actively justifie us Who will say so 2. And the act by which God justifieth us here is by a Deed of Gift in his Gospel as I Judge Now 1. That doth immediately produce the effect only supposing Faith as a condition 2. And it is but a moral Instrumental cause it self and how faith can be a Physical I know not 3. Nay the act is but a moral act such as a Statute or Bond acteth and what need Faith to be a physical Instrument 2. My second Reason is this It is generally concluded that Tota instrumenti causalit as est in usu applicatione It ceaseth to be an Instrument when it ceaseth to be used or acted by the principal cause But faith doth most frequently cease its action and is not used physically when we sleep or wholly mind other things Therefore according to this Doctrine faith should then cease its Instrumentality and consequently either we should all that while be unjustified and unpardoned or else be justified and pardoned some other way and not by faith All which is absurd and easily avoided by discerning faith to be but a Condition of our Justification or a Causa sine quae non 3. If Faith be a physical Instrument then it should justifie from a reason intrinsecal natural and essential to it and not from Gods meer ordination of it to this office by his Word of Promise but that were at least dangerous Doctrine and should not be entertained by them who truly acknowledge that it justifies not as a work much less then as a Physical reception which they call its Instrumentality The consequence of the Major is evident in that nothing can be more intrinsecal and essential to faith this faith then to be what it is viz. a Reception or acceptance of Christ or his Righteousness therefore if it justifie directly as such then it justifieth of its own Nature 4. It is to me a hard saying that God and Faith do the same thing that is Pardon and justifie and yet so they do if it be an Instrument of Justification For eadem est Actio Instrumenti principalis causae viz. quoad determinationem ad hunc effectum ut Aquinas Schibler c. I dare not say or think that Faith doth so properly effectively justifie and pardon us 5. It seems to me needless to feign this Instrumentality because frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora 6. Yea it derogateth from the work for as Scotus saith in 4. dist 45. q. 1. pag. mihi 239. D. Actio sine instrumento est perfectior quà m actio cum instrumento 7. And this Doctrine makes man to be the causa proxima of his own Pardon and Justification For it is man that believes and not God God is the causa prima but man the causa proxima credendi and so of justifying if Faith be an Instrument Or at least man is a cause of his own Pardon and Justification Yea faith being by Divines acknowledged our own Instrument it must needs follow that we justifie and forgive our selves Dr. Amesius saith Bellar. Enervat To. 4. li 6. p. mihi 315. Plurimum refert quia sicut sacramenta quamvis aliquo sâ—nsu possint dici Instrumenta nostra c. proprie tamen sunt Jnstrumenta Dei sic etiam fides quamvis possit vocari Instrumentum Dei quia Deus justificat nos ex fide per fidem proprie tamen est Instrumentum nostrum Deus nos baptizat pascit non nosmet ipsi Nos credimus in Christum non Deus Whether faith may be a moral Instrument I shall enquire when I have answered the next question which is Q 6. If faith were such a Physical Passive or Active Instrument whether that be the formal direct reason of its justifying and whether as it is it do justifie directly and primarily quatenus est apprehensio Christi justitioe vel Justificationis And this is it that I most confidently deny and had rather you would stick to in debate then all the rest for I ground many other things on it I affirm therefore 1. That faith justifieth primarily and directly as the condition on which the free Donor hath bestowed Christ with all his benefits in the Gospel-conveyance 2. And that if it were a meer Physical apprehension it would not justifie no nor do us any good 3. And that the apprehension called the receptivity which is truly its nature is yet but its aptitude to its justifying office and so a remote not the direct proper formal cause These three I will prove in order 1. And for the first it is proved 1. From the Tenor of the justifynâ—g Promise which still assureth Justification on the condition of Believing He that believeth and whosoever believeth and if thou believe do plainly and unquestionably express such a condition upon which we shall be justified and without which we shall not The Antinomians most unreasonably deny this 2. And the nature of Justification makes it unquestioinable for whether you make it a Law-act or an act of Gods own Judgement and Will determining of our state yet nither will admit of any intervening cause especially any act of ours but only a condition 3. Besides Conditions depend on the will of him that bestoweth the Gift and according to his Will they succeed but Instruments more according to their own fitness Now it is known well that Justification is an act of Gods meer free Grace and Will and therefore nothing can further conduce to Gods free act as on our part but by way
to use any more distinctions then these few and therefore I will add no more about this Term. As to the term Evangelical Righteousness may be so called in a four-fold sense 1. Either because it is that righteousness which the Covenant or Law of Grace requireth as its Condition Or 2. Because its a Righteousness revealed by the Gospel Or 3. Because it is Given by the Gospel 4. Or because it 〈◊〉 ◠perfect fulfilling of the Precepts of the Gospel By a personal Righteousness we mean here not that which is ours by meer Imputation but that which is founded in somewhat Inherent in us or performed by us Necessity is 1. of a meer Antecedent 2. Or of a Means We mean the last Means are either causes or conditions I shall now by the help of these few distinctions give you the plain truth in some Propositions both Negatively and Affirmatively as followeth Proposition 1. It is confessed by all that know themselves or man and the Law that none of us have a Personal universal Righteousness For then there were no sin nor place for confession or pardon or Christ Prop. 2. And therefore we must all confess that in regard of the Preceptive part of the Law of works we are all unjust and cannot be justified by the deeds of the Law or by our works Prop. 3. And in regard of the Commination of that Law we are all under guilt and the Curse and are the children of wrath and therefore cannot be justified by that Law or by our works Both these are proved by Paul at large so that none have a personal Legal Righteousness Prop. 4. No man can plead any proper satisfaction of his own for the pardon of sin and escaping the curse of the Law But only Christs Satisfaction that fulfilled the Law and became a curse for us Prop. 5. No man can plead any merit of his own for procuring the Reward unless as actions that have the promise of a Reward are under Christ improperly called merits But our righteousness of this sort is only the merit and purchase of Christ and the free gift of the Gospel in him Prop. 6. We have no one work that is perfectly justifiable by the perfect precepts of the Law of works And therefore we have no legal personal Righteousness at all that can properly be so called but are all corrupt and become abominable there being none that doth good no not one Imperfect legal righteousness is an improper speech it is properly no legal righteousness at all but a less degree of unrighteousness The more to blame they that call sanctification so Prop. 7. No man can say that he is a Co-ordinate con-Con-cause with Christ in his Justification or that he hath the least degree of a satisfactory or Meritorious Righteousness which may bear any part in co-ordination with Christs righteousness for his justification or salvation Prop. 8. We have not any personal Evangelical Righteousness of perfect obedience to the Precepts of Christ himself whether it be the Law of Nature as in his hand or the Gospel positives Prop. 9. Even the Gospel personal Righteousness of outward works though but in sincerity and not perfection is not necessary no not as an antecedent to our Justification at the first Prop. 10. External works of Holiness are not of absolute necessity to Salvation for it is possible that death may suddenly after Conversion prevent opportunity and then the inward faith and repentance will suffice Though I think no man can give us one instance of such a man de facto not the thief on the cross for he confessed prayed reproved the other c. Prop. 11. Where sincere Obedience is Necessary to Salvation it is not all the same Acts of obedience that are of Necessity to all men or at all times for the Matter may vary and yet the sinecerity of obedience continue But some special Acts are of Necessity to the sincerity Prop. 12. If Righteousness be denominated from the Precept Christs Obedience was a perfect legal Righteousness as having a perfect conformity to the Law But not so an Evangelical Righteousness for he gave us in many Laws for the application of his Merits that he was neither obliged to fulfill nor capable of it If Righteousness be denominated from the Promise or premiant part of the Law Christs righteousness was in some sort the righteousness of the Law of works for he merited all the reward of that Law But it was principally the righteousness of the special Covenant of Redemption between the Father and him but not of the Covenant of Grace made with man he did not repent or obey for pardon and salvation to himself as a Believer If Righteousness be denominated from the Comminatory or penal part of the Law then Christs sufferings were neither a strictly legal or an Evangelical righteousness For the Law required the supplicium ipsius delinquentis and knew no Surety or Substitute But thus Christs sufferings were a Pro-Legal-righteousness as being not the fulfilling of the Threatening but a full Satisfaction to the Law-giver which was equivalent and so a valuable consideration why the Law should not be fulfilled by our damnation but dispensed with by our pardon So that the Commination was the cause of Christs sufferings and he suffered materially the same sort of Death which the Law threatened But most strictly his sufferings were a Righteous fulfilling his part of the Covenant of Redemption with the Father But in no propriety were they the fulfilling of the Commination of the Law of Grace against the Despisers or neglecters of Grace I mean that proper to the Gospel Prop. 13. Christs righteousness is well called our Evangelical Righteousness both as it is Revealed by the Gospel and conferred by it and opposed to the legal way of Justification by perfect personal Righteousness So that by calling our own personal righteousness Evangelical we deny not that Title to Christs but give it that in a higher respect and much more Prop. 14. No personal righteousness of ours our faith or repentance is any proper cause of our first Justification or of our entering into a justifyed state Though as they remove Impediments or are Conditions they may improperly be called causes So much for the Negative Propositions Affirm Prop. 1. That a Godly man hath a particular righteousness or may be Just in a particular cause there is no man can deny unless he will make him worse then the Devil for if the Devil may be falsly accused or belyed he is just in that particular cause Prop. 2. All Christians that I know do confess an Inherent Righteousness in the Saints and the necessity of this righteousness to Salvation So that this can be no part of our Controversie Prop. 3. Consequently all must confess that Christs righteousness imputed is not our only righteousness Yea that the righteousness of Pardon and Justification from sin is no further necessary then men are sinners and therefore the less need any
justified in co-ordination with Christs merits by denying that he hath any merits of his own that can so justifie him and by repenting of those sins that have condemned him and by desiring loving hoping in Christ alone for his Justification or by Thankfulness to God for justifying him by the sole merits of Christ And is it not a strange Exposition that feigneth Paul to mean and exclude such acts as these under the name of works But yet really if such a man be to be found that doth think to merit Justification by denying such merit I am against him as well as you His third Argument is If faith justifie only as the beginning of our Justification then there are degrees of Justification but there are no degrees Ergo. Answer 1. Faith is neither the Beginning nor End of Justification but a means of it 2. If you would insinuate that I deny faith to be the means of our continued as well as begun Justification you deal deceitfully 3. I deny your Consequence It may prove more necessary to the Continuance of our Justification then to its beginning and yet prove no degrees 4. But how Justification hath or hath not Degrees I have told you before and fuller in other writings His fourth Argument is Because good works do not precede but follow Justification Answer 1. Repentance and the Love of God in Christ and faith in Christ as Lord and Head and Teacher do go before the pardon of sin and so before Justification 2. External obedience goeth before Justification at Judgement and Justification as continued here Did you doubt of these His fifth Argument is that These two Justifications overthrow each other If by one we have peace with God what need the other How can good works perfect our Justification being themselves imperfect Answer All this is answered in the second Disputation 1. It s no contradiction to be justified by God by Christ by Faith by Words by Works if God be to be believed that affirmeth all 2. As imperfect faith may be the condition of pardon so may imperfect Repentance and imperfect Obedience of our sentential Absolution Pag. 233. He answereth the Objection Blessedness is ascribed to other Graces thus Not as if Happiness were in them per se but only as they are signs Answer Promising is more then Ascrbing It s a great advantage for you to have the forming of your Objections 2. Happiness per se is as much in Love as in Faith and more 3. Other Graces are media means which is more then only works Pag. 241. He proves that works justifie not subordinate to Faith thus Argument 1. No good works were found till faith had done its Works Answer 1. Faith hath not done its work till death we are not justified only by the first act of faith but by after-acts to the Death 2. Faith in Christ as Head and Lord and Teacher and Desire and Repentance were found before Faith had justified us 3. Obedience is found before the sentential Justification or the continuation of our first received Righteousness His second Argument is Because good works are the effects of Faith and Justification and therefore cannot be the cause Answer 1. They are none of the cause at all It s not well to intimate that we hold them the cause as in despight of all our own denyals 2. They are not so much as Means or Antecedents of that part of Justification of which they are the effect The act of faith which you will exercise before your death is as true a condition or Instrument if you will needs call it so of your Justification as continued as your first act of faith was of your Justification as begun And yet that act of faith is but fruit of your first Justification as well as Obedience is His third Argument is that If Gospel Obedience and good works do subordinately act with faith to the effecting of Justification then the Justification which proceedeth from both must be of a different kind and nature Answer 1. Neither faith nor work effect Justification 2. Justification by Promise and Gift and Justification by Sentence Plea c. are much different 3. But your consequence is nothing worth For these are not causes but conditions And if they were yet different causes may concur to the same effect which never man before you denyed that I know of Our case is as if to a Rebell that hath forfeited Life and Estate the King upon a Ransom grant him both on condition that he thankfully accept them as the fruits of that gift and Ransom and to hold them on condition that he often do his Homage to the King and return not to Rebellion Doth the first acceptance here serve turn for continuance of what is first received without the following Homage and Fidelity or do the different parts of the condition make such a difference in the benefit as you here take the Monstrous Justification to be as you rashly call it Another Argument is If faith be a total cause or condition of producing the effect of Justification then there 's no want of obedience for its assistance Answer 1. Faith or obedience are no causes of pardon 2. I will not trouble the Reader to open the shame of that Philosophy which you make such ostentation of Only I would remember you that causes total in suo genere may have others under them And that it followeth not that the sun shineth not or the fire heateth not or that you understand not and wrote not these words though I suppose you will say that God is Causa totalis of all these act nor yet that God doth use his creatures because of an insufficiency in himself 3. Faith taken for our becoming Believers Disciples Christians is the total condition of our first Receiving Justification 2. Faith taken more narrowly for our accepting Christs Righteousness is not the total Condition of our first Receiving of Justification 3. Obedience is part of the condition of the continuance of it and of our sentential Justification And whereas you talk over and over of Total causes and particular causes I tell you again they are no causes He adds that then Obedience doth nihil agere or actum agere Answer It doth nihil efficere But besides nihil and factum there 's two things oft mentioned Justification at Judgement and the non-amission of it here 3. He insipidly gain disputes that If an effect doth totally proceed from any cause then it totally depends on it And what then Therefore it solely dependeth on it And if these things were true what are they to our question But saith he When good works the fruit of faith are interrupted yet our Justification abides by the single influence of faith only as a total cause of its being and conservation Answer 1. Alas What would such Disputants do with the Church if Gods mercy did not hinder them By your own Argument now neither God nor Christ nor the Gospel are any
will believe him shall no further be disturbed by me in his belief I doubt I have wearied the Reader already and therefore I shall only add a few words about a few more of the most considerable passages in his Book Some other of Mr. Warners passages of most importance considered Pag. 385. MR. W. saith It 's worth the observing how to evade the Distinction of the Acts of faith he saith that faith is one act in a moral sense as Taking a man to be my Prince Teacher Physitian c. and not in a physical sence for so it is many acts c. And he confuteth me thus Here Reader see the wit or forgetfulness of the man who to maintain his own ground doth often consider faith as Physically seated in the understanding and will but when we assault him will not allow us any Physical but a moral Acception of it Answer A most gross untruth and that 's an Arguing that Faith needeth not Your forgery is not only without ground and contrary to my plain and frequent words but contrary to the express words that you draw your Observation from I say faith Physically taken is many acts but morally taken it is one work Hence you call out to the Reader to observe that I will not allow you any Physical but a Moral Acception of it Is it fit to Dispute with such dealing as this Do you think that I or any man of brains doth doubt whether faith be a Physical Act except them of late that take it to be but a Passion and a Nominal action Surely all know that it is an Act in order of Nature before it is a moral act Actus moralis is first actus Physicus Though Moraliter actus i. e. actus Reputativus may be but a non-acting Physically He that wilfully famisheth his own child doth kill him morally or reputatively and so is moraliter agens that is Reputative But he that cherisheth him is an Agent natural and moral that is Ethical or Vertuous I wonder what made you think me of such an opinion that I have so much wrote against He next saith that Though by one moral act we receive divers benefits yet we receive them to divers purposes Answer True But many such passages of yours are to no purpose and such is this impertinent to the business Page 391. He comes to my Distinction where I say that ex parte Christi he satisfieth Justice as a Ransom and Teacheth us as our Master and Ruleth us as our King yet ex parte nostri it is but one and the same entire faith that is the condition of our Title to his several benefits From hence he ingeniously gathereth that I say That faith hath but one respect to those benefits and is not diversified by several acts and deny the necessity of these distinct acts in reference to the several benefits of Christ Whereas I only maintained that though the acts be Physically distinct yet they are not distinct conditions of our Interest in the benefits but the same entire faith is the one condition of them all Hereupon he learnedly addresseth himself to prove that faith hath several acts And he that thinketh it worth his time to transcribe and confute his Arguments let him do it for I do not Page 401. He thinks We need not dispute whether the Reception of Christ by faith be moral or Physical however it is not an improper but proper reception Answ 1. It seems then we need not dispute whether Christs body be every where and whether mans faith do touch him and receive him naturally as the mouth doth the meat 2. And whereas Recipere in its first and proper signification was wont to be pati now it is agere And whereas consent or Acceptance was wont to be called Receiving but Metonymically now it is becoma a proper Reception Page 303.304 Reasoning against me he saith The nearest formal Reason of a Believers Interest is not Gods making it a condition which is the remote reason thereof but a Believers fulfilling the condition c. Answ 1. Here he changeth the question from What is the nearest reason of saiths Interest to What is the nearest reason of the Believers Interest To the first I say Its being made the condition of the Promise To the second I say The Promise or grant it self 2. He findeth a learned Confutation for me viz. That it is not Gods making but the fulfilling the condition that is the formal Reason Answ Performance that is Believing maketh faith to be faith and exist but the Promise makes that the condition I spoke de esse and he de existere And yet I usually say that The nearest Reason of faiths interest in Justification iâ— as it is the condition of the Promises fulfilled that I might joyn both 3. Note that in this his Assertion he granteth me the sum of all that I desire For if this be true then it is not the Nature or the Instrumentality of faith that is the nearest reason as is usually said Page 200. He doth as solemnly call his Adversarie ad partes as if he were in good sadness to tell him what is the causality of works is Justification And falling to his enumeration he tells us that The particle A or Ab notes the peculiar causality of the efficient the particle Ex notes the material cause the particle Pâ—r or By the formal cause the particle Propter the final cause Answ I must erave pardon of the Reader while I suppose all this to be currant that I may answer ad hominâ—m And then 1. It seems faith is not the efficient cause and therefore not the Instrumental cause For A or ab is not affixed to it in this business 2. It seems then that faith is the formal cause of Justification because we are said to be Justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 3.22 25 30 passim By Faith So that faith is come to higher promotion then to be an Instrumental efficient cause 3. Hence it seems also that faith even the same faith is the material cause too For most certainly we are said to be justified ex fide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 3.26 30. Rom. 5.1 Gal. 2.16 3.8 7 5 9 22 24. 5.5 Jam. 2.24 Whether ex fide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do indeed express an Instrumental efficient I leave to consideration But sure I am it fitly expresseth the Interest of a condition And if Mr. W. will needs advance faith hereby to be the matter of our Righteousness it must be but of our subordinate particular Evangelical righteousness which consisteth in fulfilling the condition of Justification Chap. 5. pag. 29.30 31. He spends a Chapter to open to us the meaning of fides qua Justificat And prosesseth that it is the Carad controversia yea it was the remembrance of this distinction and the light he received by it that induced him to enter on this Discourse and that it is the basis of his
following exercitation And what think you is the happy Light that deserveth all this ostentation Why 1. On the Negative we are satisfied that he means not What fides qua fides can do And then we are secure that he means nothing that can hurt his Adversaries cause 2. The Light then is all but this That qua here is not taken Reduplicative but specificative when by the particle qua or quatenus there is some new or singular kind of Denomination added to the subject of the Proposition as when we say man as a reasonable creature feeleth In this latter sence saith he I believe the particle qua or quatenus is taken when we do not say faith as faith but faith as Justifying viz. as a Grace designed to this act or operation of Justifying looks on Christ as Saviour Answ This Chapter was worth the observing For if this be the Basis of all the Exercitation and the Light that Generated all the rest the dispatch of this may serve for all It seems by his words he had look't into Reebe's Distinctions in the end of Castaneus and meeing with Reduplicative and specificative admired the distinction as some rare Discovery and this pregnant fruitful Distinction begot a Volume before it was half understood it self Had he but read the large Schemes for explaining Qua or Quatenus in others its like it would have either begot a larger Volume or by informing or confounding him have prevented this First he disowneth the Reduplicative sence and then owneth the specificative But 1. He seeth not it seems the insufficiency of this distinction 2. Nor the meaning of it 3. Nor could well apply it to the subject in hand Of the first I shall speak anon The second appeareth by his Description his Instance and his Application He describeth it to be When there is some new or singular kind of Denomination added to the subject of the Proposition 1. And why may it not be added also to the Predicate as well as it may Reduplicatively as Motus est actus mobilis quatenus est mobile 2. There are many new kinds of Denominations that will not serve for your specificative Quatenus The instance you give is as when we say man as a Reasonable creature faileth This was but an unhappy Translation of Homo quatenus animal est sensibilis and it s true in the Latine how false soever in the English For the Application 1. You say you Believe its thus taken As if you did but Believe and not know your own meaning in the Basis of your Exercitation 2. Your Specificative Quatenus is Causal or signifieth the Reason of the thing either of the Predication or the thing predicate But so cannot your Basis hold good For faith doth not look on Christ as a Saviour as you please Metaphorically to speak because it Justifieth for its Nature is before the effect and therefore cannot the effect be given as the cause of it unless it were the final cause of which anon Qua or quatenus properly and according to the common use signifieth the proper reason of the thing or predication and is appliable only to that which is spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As to the terms sometimes there is a Reduplication of the same term sometimes that reduplication is of the matter but in other terms as in a definition or synominal words or it is implyed sometimes it is the terms of the Predicate or Attribute that is Reduplicate sometimes it is without a Reduplication And then sometimes it giveth a Reason from an Essential Part sometime from the Generical Nature sometime from the Specifick Nature sometime from an Accident and those are divers sometime from a Quality sometime from Quantity sometime from Relation and that is multifarious If we should run into all the sences of this Term which Mr. W. doth lap up in the word Specificative the words might exceed the profit And it s to be noted that usually the term is respective as to some other thing excluded which is contradistinct so we give sometimes a more Remote and General sometime a neerer and more special Reason by Qua or quatenus As if you mix a purging Electuary in your Drink I say that Purgeth quatenus medicated which is to exclude the Drink from being Purgative If I speak of the Electuary I may say that it purgeth quatenus Diagridiate to exclude many other Ingredients from being Purgative But if I speak of the Diagridium I may say that it Purgeth as having an Elective faculty c. to exclude other Reasons of its operation Now for the opening of the matter in hand let us try certain Propositions that may be supposed to be laid down concerning Faith 1. Faith as faith justifieth This is True taken laxely for the excluding of faith as a meer Physical act or meritorious c. but it is false strictly taken as signifying the formal or nearest reason So 2. Fades in Christum qua talis Justificat that is haec sides in specie is true taken Laxely and materially to exclude all other Faith q. d. It is not faith in Peter or Paul but faith in Christ as such that is the matter deputed to be the condition of Justification But it s false taken strictly deratione formali 3. So This faith as it is an Apprehension or Acceptance of Christ justifieth It s true Materialiter Remotius Laxly but false formaliter stricte de ratione proxima For this is the same in other terms with the second So 4. Faith justifieth as an Instrumental effitient cause of our Justification It s false in every tolerable sence So 5. Faith justifieth as an Instrument of receiving Christ It s true 1. taking the word Instrument Metaphorically and meaning only the Nature of this faith which is to Believe in and Accept Christ 2. and taking Quatenus remotely laxely and materially only q.d. Faith is the Elected matter of the condition or is chosen to be the condition of Justification for this Aptitude as or because it is a Reception or Acceptance of Christ But it s false 1. Taking an Instrument strictly and Logically 2. and speaking de ratione formali So 6. Faith as a believing in Christs sacrifice justifieth It s true Laxly Materialiter partialiter that is This act of faith is part of the matter of the condition But it s false formaliter de ratione proxima So 7. Faith justifieth only as it is a Believing in Christs sacrifice or Righteousness It s false both de materia de ratione formali So 8. Faith as Justifying is only a Believing in or Accepting Christ as our Ransom Here is darkness and either nonsence or false doctrine 1. As Justifying signifieth either as a justifying efficient cause 2. Or as the merit or matter of our Righteousness 3. Or as the means i. e. condition of our Righteousness of which Justification is a consequent and final cause In the first sense it is every way
neither a continued Act nor renewed or repeated neither Faith nor Repentance afterwards performed are any conditions of our Justification in this Life This may seem a heavy charge but it is a plain Truth For that Justification which we receive upon our first believing hath only that first Act of faith for its condition or as others speak its Instrumental cause We are not justified to day by that act of Faith which we shall perform to Morrow or a Twelvemonth hence so that according to your opinion and all that go that way it is only one the first Act of Faith which justifies and all the following Acts through our whole life do no more to our Justification then the works of the Law do I would many other Divines that go your way for it is common as to the dispatching of Justification by one Act would think of this foul absurdity You may add this also to what is said before against your opinion herein Where then is the Old Doctrine of the just living by faith as to Justification I may bear with these men or at least need not wonder for not admitting Obedience or other Graces to be conditions of Justification as continued when they will not admit faith it self Who speaks more against faith they or I When I admit as necessary that first act and maintain the necessity of repeated acts to our continued Justification and they exclude all save one Instantaneous act 2. And what reason can any man give why Repentance should be admitted as a condition of our first Justification and yet be no condition of the continuance of it or what proof is there from Scripture for this I shall prove that the continuance of our Justification hath more to its condition then the beginning though learned men I know gain-say it but surely less it cannot have 4. But why do you say only of Repentance that it is the condition of Remision and of forgiving others that it is the condition of entring into life Have you not Christs express words that forgiving others is a condition of our Remission if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will forgive you but if you forgive not men c. Nay is not Reformation and Obedience ordinarily made a condition of forgiveness I refer you to the Texts cited in my Aphorisms Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings c. then if your sins be as crimson c. He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy And I would have it considered if Remission and Justification be either the same or so neer as all Divines make them whether it be possible that forgiving others and Reformat on or new Obedience should be a condition of the continuance or renewal of a pardoning Act and not of Justification Doubtless the general Justification must be continued as well as the general pardon and a particular Justification I think after particular sins is needfull as well as particular pardon or if the name should be thought improper the thing cannot be denyed Judicious Ball saith as much as I yet men were not so angry with him Treat of Covenant pag. 20.21 A disposition to good works is necessary to Justification being the qualification of an active lively faith Good works of all sorts are necessary to our continuance in the state of Justification and so to our final Absolution if God give opportunity but they are not the cause of but only a precedent qualification or condition to final forgiveness and Eternal bliss And pag. 21. This walking in the light as he is in the light is that qualification whereby we become immediatly capable of Christs Righteousness or actual participants of his propitiation which is the sole immediate cause of our Justification taken for Remission of sins or actual approbation with God And pag. 73. Works then or a purpose to walk with God justifie as the passive qualification of the subject capable of Justification or as the qualification of that faith which justifieth So he 5. How will you ever prove that our Entering into Life and our continued remission or Justification have not the same conditions that those Graces are excluded from one which belong to the other Indeed the men that are for Faiths Instrumentality say somewhat to it but what you can say I know not And for them if they could prove Faith Instrumental in justifying co nomine because it receives Christ by whom we are justified they would also prove it the Instrument of Glorifying because it Receives Christ by and for whom we are saved and Glorified And so if the Instrumentality of Faith must exclude obedience from justifying us it must also exclude it from Glorifying us And I marvel that they are so loose and easie in admitting obedience into the work of saving and yet not of continuing or consummating Justification when the Apostle saith By Grace ye are saved by Faith and so excludes obedience from Salvation in the general as much as he any where doth from Justification in particular 6. But lastly I take what you grant me in this Section and profess that I think in effect you grant me the main of the cause that I stand upon For as you grant 1. That faith is not the whole condition of the Covenant 2. That Repentance also is the condition of Remission which is near the same with Justification 3. That obedience is the condition of Glorification which hath the same conditions with final and continued Justification 4. So you seem to yield all this as to our full justification at Judgement For you purposely limit the conditionality of meer faith to our Justification in this Life But if you yield all that I desire as you do if I understand you as to the last justification at Judgement then we are not much differing in this business For I take as Mr. Burges doth Lect. of Justification 29 our compleatest and most perfect Justification to be that at Judgement Yea and that it is so eminent and considerable here that I think all other Justification is so called chiefly as referring to that And me thinks above all men you should say so too who make Justification to lie only in sententiâ— judicis and not in sententia Legis And so all that go your way as many that I meet with do If then we are justified at Gods great Tribunal at Judgement by obedience as the secondary part of the condition of the Covenant which you seem to yield 1. We are agreed in the main 2. I cannot yet believe that our Justification at that Bar hath one condition and our Justification in Law or in this Life as continued another He that dyeth justified was so justified in the hour of dying on the same conditions as he must be at Judgement For 1. There are no conditions to be performed after death 2. Sententia Legis sententia judicis do justifie on the same terms Add to all
as that any acts of our own must interpose but they are in eodem instanti and differ only in order of nature In sum we prove a promise of pardon to all that receive Christ himself and believe in him If any will affirm the necessity of any other act before we can be justified it is incumbent on them to prove it This was the substance of my Answer to which the Reverend Bishop said no more whether satisfied or not I cannot tell But I thought meet to recite his Judgement both because it comes so neer the matter and because I know not of any other that saith the same or so much of seeming strength against us Against all these seven particular Opinions I am now to defend the Thesis when I have first told you in certain distinctions and propositions how much I grant and what I deny which I shall in short dispatch And here I need but to rehearse what I have said already to Mr. Blake pag. 3.4 or to give you some short account of my thoughts to the same purpose First We must not confound Justification by Constitution or Guift and justification by the Sentence of the Judge and the Execution of that sentence which are three distinct things Secondly We must not confound Justification with the assurance or feeling of Justification Thirdly We must distinguish between our first Justification from a state of sin and our daily Justification from particular Acts of sin Fourthly Between that which is necessary on Christs part and that which is necessary on our part to our Justification Fifthly Between Christs purchasing our Justification and his actual justifying of us Sixthly Between these two senses of the phrase justified by Fatih viz. as by an efficient Cause or as a meer Condition Seventhly Between the Causality of faith in the Physical effects of sanctification on the soul and its conducing to the efficacy of the Promise in our Justification Proposition 1. Ex parte Christi We easily grant that it is not his Teaching or Ruling us but his Ransome and Obedience that are the Meritorious cause of our Justification and Salvation Proposition 2. Therefore if Christ did justifie us per modum objecti aprehensi in the nearest sense as the Belief of sacred Truths doth make a Qualitative impression on the soul in our Sanctification and the exciting and acting of our Graces then I should confess that it is only that Act of Faith which is the apprehension of this Object that doth help us directly to the benefit of the Object Proposition 3. But it is not so For the Object justifieth us causally by way of Merit and Moral procurement and the benefit of that Merit is partly the Promise conveying to us Justification and partly Justification conveyed by that Promise not to speak now of other benefits and the Promise conveyeth Justification by Moral Donation as a deed of Gift or a Pardon to a Traytor Therefore the Gift flowing purely from the Will of the Giver and the Promise or deed of Gift being the Immediate Instrumental efficient Cause of it as it is signum voluntatis Donatoris our Belief or Apprehension qua talis cannot justifie us nor have any nearer or higher interest in our Justification then to be the Condition of it as it is a free Gift And therefore the Condition must be judged of by the will of the Donor expressed in his Promise and not immediately by the conceits of men concerning its natural agreeableness to the Object in this or that respect Proposition 4. Yea Even ex parte Christi though he Merit Justification by his Ransome and Obedience yet he actually justifieth us as King of his Church and that in regard of all the three sorts or parts of Justification He giveth it constitutively by his Promise as Lord and Legislator and Benefactor on these terms of Grace He sentenceth us Just as our Judg and he executeth that sentence as a Just Judge governing according to his Laws So that if Faith did justifie ex natura rei which they call its Instrumentality I see not yet but that the apprehension of Christ as Lord and Judge must justifie us because the Object apprehended doth thus justifie us Proposition 5. I easily grant that in our Sanctification or the exciting and exercise of our Graces the case standeth as the Opponents apprehend it to do in Justification This Interest of the Act must be judged of by the Object apprehended For it is not the Belief of a Promise that feareth us but of a Threatning nor the Belief of a Threatning that Comforteth us but of a Promise For here the Object worketh immediately on our minds per modum objecti apprehensi But in Justification it is not so where God is the Agent as a Donor and there can be nothing done by us but in order to make us fit Subjects and the change is not Qualitative by an Object as such but Relative by a Fundamentum which is without us in the Gospel and nothing within us but a qualifying Condition without which it will not be done Proposition 6. Accordingly I easily grant that the Sense or Assurance of Justification in our Consciences is wrought by the Object as an Object Because this Assurance is a part of our Sanctification But that Object is not directly Christs Ransome but the Promise through his blood and our own Faith which is the condition of that Promise Proposition 7. I easily grant that Faith in Christ as Lord or Teacher of the Church is not the Instrumental efficient Cause of our Justification They need not therefore contend against me in this But withall I say that faith in his Priest-hood is not the Instrumental efficient Cause neither though I allow it to have a nearer Physical Relation to the Ransome which meriteth our Justification Proposition 8. Though there is a greater shew of Reason to assert the Interest of the single Belief in Christs Priest-hood for a particular Pardon then for our first general Pardon yet indeed it is but a shew even there also For it is not only the applying our selves to his blood or Ransome but it is also the applying our selves to whole Christ to make up the whole breach that is the Condition of our particular Pardon so far as a particular Act of saith is a Condition which though it be not a Receiving Christ for Union with him as we did in the beginning yet is it a receiving him ad hoc et secundum quid and a renewed Consent to his whole Office and adhesion to him as our special remedy for recovery from that fall by freeing us both from the guilt and stain of Sin Proposition 9. It is undoubtedly the duty of every Sinner in the sense of his guilt and misery to fly to the Ransome of Christs blood and the Merit of his Obedience as the satisfaction to Gods Justice and the Purchaser of our Justification And he that doth not this how willing soever he may seem
which is preached to every Creature and not only one branch of it Col. 1.21 22 23. And it is called Col. 2.6 a Receiving Christ Iesus the Lord. John 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Iesus is the Christ the son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name That faith by which we have life is certainly it by which we are justified for as Justification is part of that life so Right to Eternal life is given on the same terms as Justification is And the object of this faith here is Christ in Person and entire Office the son of God by whose Name we have life Acts 2.30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38. Knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his loynes according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit upon his Throne he seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in his Hell neither his flesh did see Corruption This Iesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses therefore being by the right hand of God exalted therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this same Iesus whom ye have Crucified both Lord and Christ Now when they heard this Then Peter said unto them Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Iesus Christ for the Remission of sins Here it is evident that Remission of sins is a Benefit that by this faith they were to be made partakers of and so that it is the faith by which we are justified that they are Invited to And that the Object of this faith implyed in the terms Repent and be baptized c. is the Name of Jesus Christ and that eminently in his exaltation as Risen and set at the Right hand of God and as Lord and Christ So Acts 3.19.22.15 Repent therefore and be Converted that your sins may be blotted out For Moses truly said A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up Here the Jews are accused for killing the Prince of life vers 15. and exhorted to Repent thereof and so of their Infidelity and be converted to Christ and so to become Christians which is more then one act of faith and this was that their sins may be blotted out And Christ as Prophet is propounded to them as the object of this faith which they are exhorted to So Act 10.42 43. with 36 37 38 40 41. And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead to him give all the Prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive Remission of sins Here the faith is described which hath the Promise of Remission And the Object of it is at large set out to be Jesus Christ as Lord of all ver 36. as anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power raised from the dead and made the Judge of the quick and the dead and it is called entirely a Believing in him and the Remission is through his name Act. 16.31 The faith of the Jaylor as perswaded to for life is the believing in the Lord Jesus Christ entirely and it s called a Believing in God ver 34. 1 Pet. 2.4 5 6 7. The faith there mentioned is that By which we are justified he that believeth on him shall not be confounded and the Object of it is whole Christ as the Corner stone Elect and Precious John 5.10 11 12. The faith there mentioned is that by which we have Christ and Life And the Object of it is the Son of God and God and the record that God gave of his Son even that God hath given us eternal Life and this life is in his Son Mat. 11.27 28 29. The faith there mentioned is called a comming to Christ weary and heavy laden that he may give them rest which must comprehend Rest from the Guilt of sin and punishment And the Act of that Faith is directed to Christ as one to whom all Power is given by the Father and as one whose yoak and burden we must take upon us But I shall add no more for this To this last Mr. Blake saith pag. 504. This Text shows the Duty of men to be not alone to such rest and ease from Christ but to learn of Christ and follow him But neither their learning nor their imitation but faith in his blood is their freedom or Justification Repl. Properly neither one act of faith nor other is our Justification Faith is a Quality in the Habit and an act in the exercise and Justification is a Relation Faith is a part of our Sanctification Therefore it is not our Justification But supposing you speak Metonymically I say both acts of faith are our Justification that is the Condition of it And the Text proves it by making our Subjection not only a Duty but an express Condition of the Promise And this Conditionality you here before and after do confess or grant Argument 4. If we are justified by Christ as Priest Prophet and King conjunctly and not by any of these alone much less by his Humiliation and Obedience alone then according to the Opponents own Principles who argue from the distinct Interest of the several parts of the Object to the distinct Interest of the several acts of faith we are justified by believing in Christ as Priest Prophet and King and not as Humble and Obedient only But we are justified by Christ as Priest Prophet and King c. Ergo c. The Consequence is their own And the Antecedent I shall prove from several texts of Scripture and from the nature of the thing beginning with the last And first it is to be supposed That we are all agreed that the blood and Humiliation of Jesus Christ are the Ransome and Price that satisfieth the Justice of God for our sins and accordingly must be apprehended by the Believer And many of us agree also that his Active obedience as such is part of this satisfaction or at least Meritorious of the same effect of our Justification But the thing that I am to prove is that the Meritorious Cause is not the only Cause and that Christ in his other actions is as truly the efficient Cause as in his meriting and that all do sweetly and harmoniously concur to the entire effect and that faith must have respect to the other causes of our Justification and not alone to the Meritorious Cause and that we are Justified by this entire work of Faith and not only by that Act which respects the satisfaction or merit And first I shall prove that Christ doth actually justifie us as King The word Justification as I have often said and it s past doubt is used to signifie these three Acts. First Condonation or constitutive Justification by the Law of Grace or Promise of the Gospel Secondly Absolution
by sentence in Judgement Thirdly The Execution of the former by actuall Liberation from penalty The last is oftener call'd Remission of sin the two former are more properly called Justification First As for the first of these I argue this If Christ do as King and Benefactor on supposition of his antecedent Merits Enact the Law of Grace or promise by which we are justified then doth he as King and Benefactor justifie us by Condonation or constitution For the Promise is his Instrument by which he doth it But the Antecedent is certain therefore so is the Consequent As the Father by Right of Creation was Rector of the new created world and so made the Covenant of Life that was then made so the Son and the Father by Right of Redemption is Rector of the new Redeemed world and so made the Law of Grace that gives Christ and Life to all that will believe As it is a Law it is the Act of a King As it is a Deed of Gift it is the Act of a Benefactor as it is founded in his death and supposeth his satisfaction thereby it is called his Testament In no respect is it part of his satisfaction or Humiliation or Merit itself but the true effect of it So that Christs merit is the Remote Moral Cause of our Justification but his granting of this promise or Act of Grace is the true natural efficient Instrumental Cause of our Justification even the Immediate Cause Secondly Justification by sentence of Judgement is undeniably by Christ as King For God hath appointed to Judge the World by him Act. 17.31 and hath committed all Judgement to him John 5.22 And therefore as Judge he doth justifie and Condemn This is not therefore any part of his Humiliation or Obedience by which he ransometh sinners from the Curse To deny these things is to deny Principles in Politicks Thirdly And then for the Execution of the sentence by actual liberation there is as little room for a doubt this being after both the former and the act of a Rector and not of a Surety in the form of a servant So that it is apparent that as the Merit of our Justification is by Christ in his Humiliation So our actual Justification in all three senses is by Christ as King And therefore Faith in order to Justification must accordingly respect him Secondly As the Teacher of the Church Christ doth not immediately justifie but yet mediately he doth and it is but mediately that he justifieth by his Merits The Gospel is a Law that must be promulgate and expounded and a Doctrine that must be taught and pressed on sinners till they receive it and believe that they may be justified And this Christ doth as the Teacher of his Church And Faith must accordingly respect him Thirdly The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was part of his exaltation by Power and Conquest and not of his Humiliation and yet we are justified by his Resurrection as that which both shewed the perfection of his satisfaction by which he entred upon that state of Glory in which he was to apply the benefits Fourthly The Intercession of Christ is a part of his office as he is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck but it is no part of his Humiliation or Ransome And yet we are justified by his Intercession And therefore Faith must respct it for Justification Let us now hear what The Scripture saith in these cases Mattthew 9.6 But that you may know that the Son of man hath Power on earth to forgive sins c. Here it is plainly made an Act of Power and not of Humiliation to forgive sins Mat. 11.27 28 29. All things are delivered unto me of my Father c. Come to me all ye that are weary c. so Mat. 28.18 19. compared with Mark 16.15 16. shew that it is an act of Christ exalted or in Power to pardon or grant the promise of Grace John 1.12 To give power to men to become the Sons of God must be an act of Power John 5.22 23 24. it is express of the sentence Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give Repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins He forgiveth as a Prince and Saviour Act. 10.42 43. he is preached as the Judge of quick and dead and so made the Object of the faith by which we have Remission of sins Rom. 4.25 Who was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification And this Resurrection as is said was part of his Exaltation And the Apostle thence concludes as is aforesaid that this is the faith that is Imputed to us for Righteousness If we believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead vers 26. Rom. 8.33 34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Here God and the Resurrection and Session at Gods right hand and the intercession of Christ are all made the grounds or causes of our Justification and not only Christs death Yea it is exprest by it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen c. 1 Cor. 15.1 2.3 4. The faith by which Paul tells them they were saved had Christs Resurrection for its object as well as his dying for our sins Phil. 3.8.9 10. Pauls way of Justification was first to win Christ and be found in him and so to have a Righteousness of God by faith in Christ whole Christ and not that of the Law that he might know the power of his Resurrection c. The true Nature of this faith is described 1 Pet. 1.21 Who by him do believe in God that raised him from the dead and gave him Glory that your Faith and Hope may be in God 1 Pet. 3.21 The like Figure whereunto even Baptism doth now also save us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ who is gone into Heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him It is certain that the salvation of Baptism consisteth very much in Remission of sin or Justification In a word it is most evident in Scripture that merit and satisfaction are but the moral remote preparatory Causes of our Justification though exceeding eminent and must be the daily study and everlasting praise of the Saints and that the perfecting nearer efficient causes were by other acts of Christ and that all concurred to accomplish this work And therefore even ex parte Christi the work is done by his several acts though merited by him in his humiliation only And therefore it is past doubt on their own principles that faith must respect all in order to our Justification And the faith by which we are justified must be that of the Eunuch Acts 8.37 that believed with all
his heart that Christ was the son of God and so received him as Christ entirely Argument 5. If it be a necessary Condition of our being baptized for the Remission of sin that we profess a belief in more then Christs Humiliation and merits then is it a necessary Condition of our actual Remission of sin that we really believe in more than Christs Humiliation and Merits But the Antecedent is certain For the Prescript Mat. 28.19 20 and the constantly used form of Baptism and the Texts even now mentioned 1 Pet. 3.21 Act. 8.37 do all shew it And I have more fully proved it in my Dispute of Right to Sacraments And the Consequence is undeniable And I think all will be granted Argument 6. If the Apostles of Christ themselves before his death were justified by believing in him as the son of God and the Teacher and King of the Church yea perhaps without believing at all in his Death and Ransom thereby then the believing in him as the son of God and Teacher and King conjunct with believing in his blood are the faith by which we are now justified But the Antecedent is true therefore so is the Consequent The reason of the Consequence is because it is utterly improbable that the addition of further light and objects for our faith should null the former and that which was all or so much of their justifying faith should be now no part of ours The Antecedent I prove Matth. 16.21.22 23. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his Disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day then Peter took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee c. John 12.16 These things understood not his Disciples at the first but when Jesus was glorified then c. Luke 28. Then he took unto him the twelve and said unto them Behold we go up to Jerusà lem and all things that are written by the Prophets concerning the son of man shall be accomplished For he shall be delivered to the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spitefully intreated and spit upon and they shall scourge him and put him to death and the third day he shall rise again And they understood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Luke 24.20 21 22. The chief Priests and Rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him but we trusted that it had been be which should have redeemed Israel and beside all this to day is the third day since these things were done and certain women also of our company made us astonished which were early at the Sepulchre O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his Glory vers 45. Then opened be their understanding that they might understand the Scripture John 20.9 For as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead By all this it is plain that the Disciples then believed not Christs death or Resurrection Yet that they were justified is apparent in many Texts of Scripture where Christ pronounceth them clean by the word which he had spoken John 15.3 and oft called them blessed Mat. 5. 16.17 Luke 6. And he saith that the Father loved them John 16.27 They were branches in him the living Vine and exhorted to abide in him John 15 5 6 7. And that they were Believers is oft exprest and particularly that they Believed in him as the son of God and trusted it was he that should redeem Israel that is by Power and not by Death and that they took him for their Master and Teacher and the King of Israel some of them desiring to sit at his right and left hand in his Kingdom and striving who should be the greatest about him John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God John 1.49 Nathaniel answered and saith unto him Rabbi thou art the son of God thou art the King of Israel Here was the saving faith of the Disciples Matth. 16.16 Simon Peter answered and said Thou art Christ the son of the living God Object But was it possible for them to be justified without the blood of Christ Answ No as to the Fathers acceptance his blood even then before it was shed was the meritorious cause of their Justification But they were justified by it without the knowledge or belief of it thought not without faith in Christ as the son of God the Messiah the Rabbi and the King of Israel Which also shews that faith did not then justifie them in the new Notion of an Instrumental cause apprehending the purchasing cause or that the effects of Christs several acts were not diversifyed according to the several acts of faith to those as Objects I hope all that have Christian Ingenuity will here understand that I speak not this in the least measure to diminish the excellency or necessity of that act of faith which consisteth in the believing on Christ as crucified or in his blood and Ransom Or that I think it less necessary then the other to us now because the Disciples then were justified without it I know the case is much altered and that is now of necessity to Justification that was not then But all that I endeavour is to shew that we are justified by the other acts of faith as well as this because it is not likely that those acts should not be now justifying in conjunction with this by which men were then justified without this Argument 7. If the satisfaction and merits of Christ be the only Objects of the justifying act of faith then according to their own principles they must on the same reason be the only obiects of the sanctifying and saving acts of faith But the satisfaction and merit of Christ are not the only Objects of the sanctifying and saving acts of faith therefore not of the justifying To this Mr. Blake answereth by finding an Equivocation in the word Merit and four terms in the Syllogism as in other terms I had expressed it And saith We look at Christ for justification as satisfying Iustice and meriting pardon and remission not as meriting sanctification Repl. But this is his mis-understanding of plain words The term Meritor was not equivocal but the General comprehending both effects And that which he nakedly affirms is the thing which the Argument makes against Here it is supposed as a granted truth that we can be no more sanctified then justified without Christs blood and merits and so the scope of the Argument is this Christ as a Ransom and a Meritor of sanctification is not the only object of the sanctifying act of faith therefore by
and drinking his blood intended not the exclusion of the spirit that quickneth I am therefore Resolved by his Grace to adhere to whole Christ as the object of that faith which is the Condition of Justification And I think this full comprehensive faith is safer then the groundlesly distinguishing faith and this Doctrine more agreeable to the Scriptures Mr. Blake Fourthly Our faith must look on Christ so as to obtain righteousness by him by virtue of which we may appear before God as righteous But it is by his Obedience as a servant that we obtain righteousness and stand before God as righteous Rom. 5.19 by the obedience of one many are made righteous Repl. First I grant the whole but it s nothing to our Question It s a strange error that runs through so many Arguments that they should be impertinent to the question You should have concluded that Faith in Christ qua Lord doth not justifie which in terminis is the conclusion that you undertook to prove whereas all that this Argument will conclude is that our faith must look at Christs obedience for Righteousness c. which I have said no more against then you have done Secondly But if Only be implyed as adjoyned to obedience then it will exclude his suffering as suffering in that formal respect and take it in only as the Matter of his Obedience Thirdly And by this Argument you destroy what you not only mantained but resolved to stick to in the last that is that it is not fit for any one to tell us of any other thing then faith in his blood for justification and that you are resolved to look no further then Christs Priestly office alone For Obedience extendeth further then blood-shed therefore if we are justified by Christs whole obedience then by more then his blood Yea you will be put hard to it to prove that all Christs obedience was offered by him as a Preist to his Father It belongs to a Subject a Servant a Son to obey but obedience is far from being proper to a Priest Fourthly If you intend the Major exclusively as to all other considerations of the object I still deny it as false Our faith even as the condition of Justification must look at Christ not only to obtain Righteousness by him but also to subject our selves to his Teaching and Government and to glorifie him in and for his Mercy Fifthly Yea the Minor it self is false if you imply the exclusive Only For we obtain Righteousness and are justified before God effectively by Christ as King first by constitution and secondly by sentence as well as meritoriously by Christ as Priest Mr. Blake Fifthly That way that Christ took to bring us to God our faith must eye and follow But Christ by death the Sacrifice of of himself brings us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust c. Repl. Still the same error an Ignoratio Elenchi I grant the whole but the conclusion's wanting Did I ever deny that faith must eye and follow Christs death to bring us to God yea for Justification But you should have said by his death alone or you say nothing And when you prove that by his death alone Christ brings us to God you will do somewhat And yet if you did it would not follow that we are brought to God in Justification only by eying the cause of Justification as such Mr. Blake Sixthly As Christ freeth us from the curse so he justifies us and in that notion our faith must look to him for Justification This is plain Justification being no other but our acquittal from the curse which is the sentence of the Law of Moses Act. 13.8 but Christ freeth us from the cause in suffering as a Sacrifice not ruling as a Lord Gal. 3.13 Christ hath Redeemed us c. Repl. First Only is again left out in the Major proposition and so I grant it But if it be implyed that faith must look to him for Justification only in that notion as he justifieth us yea only as he meriteth Justification then I deny it and you say nothing to prove it Secondly The exclusive of your Minor is a dangerous error Christ freeth us from the curse by Justifying us as a King and teaching and ruling and sanctifying us and not only by becoming a curse for us For if you here put in Only you plainly exclude all his Obedience as such and much of it materially for it is not a cursed thing to obey God The Law curseth for disobeying therefore Obeying is not the Curse nor is it materially a Curse to Love God and Trust him and be zealous for his Glory c. The whole office of Christ is imployed in freeing us from the Curse and when Paul saith he was made a Curse to free us he never said or thought that he did nothing else to free us for an hundred texts do tell us of more Thirdly And on the by I must say that I am not of your mind in the description of Justification for omitting the controversie whether Justification only free us from the Curse I do not believe that this curse is only the sentence of the Law of Moses If it were either you must prove that all the Gentile world that heard not of it was under the Law of Moses which abundance of most Learned men deny with better grounds then you have to affirm it or else that all these are under no curse for Justification to remove The Law of Nature was materially part of the Mosaical Law but the form denominateth So much to Mr. Blakes Arguments which are so little to the purpose that if the weight of the cause and the prejudice of some Readers did not call more earnestly for a Reply then any apperance of strength in them I had spared my self and the Reader this Labor But that Christ as Christ is the object of that faith by which as a Condition we must be justified and so that we are not justified only by believing in his blood but also by believing in him entirely as Jesus Christ our Lord and by becoming his Disciples or true Christians this is a truth that deserveth more then my Pen to defend it and that while God affordeth me time and strength I shall never desert Nov. 1656. A DISPVTATION OF JVSTIFICATION Whether any Works be any Conditions of it Conteining a necessary Defence of ancient Verity against the unnecessary Opposition of a very Learned Reverend and dearly Beloved Brother in his Treatise of Imputation of Righteousness and his Lectures on John 17. By Richard Baxter LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster 1657. Whether Works are a Condition of Justification And so whether we are justified by Works as such a Condition THough we have said enough already on these Questions which for dispatch I joyn together yet seeing there are some that must needs have more or the same
28.13 Act. 3.19 with many more The Consequence is plain in that Pardon is by very many made the whole of our Justification and by others confessed a chief part and by all it s confessed to be made ours on the same terms as is Justification it self My fourth Proof is from those texts which make these kind of Acts to have the place of a condition in order to salvation if they are conditions of salvation then are they no less then conditions of our final Justification But the Antecedent is ordinarily acknowledged by the Opponents and it s proved 1 Tim. 4.8 Heb. 5.9 1 Tim. 6.18 19. Luk. 11.28 and 13.24 1 Cor. 9.24 25 26 27. Rev. 22.14 John 12.26 Rom. 8.13 Mat. 5.20 Mat. 19.29 Mat. 6.1 2 4 6. and 5.12 46. and 10.41 42. 2 Thess 1.5 6. Col. 3.23 24. Heb. 6.10 2. Tim. 4.7 8. Gal. 6.4 5 6 7 8 9 10. 2. Cor. 9.6 9. John 5.22 27 28 29 c. The Consequence is proved good first In that final Justification and Glorification have the same conditions as is plain both in many Scriptures mentioned and in the nature of the thing for that Justification is the adjudging us to that Glory and therefore so far as any thing is the cause or condition of the Glory it self it must be the reason of the sentence which adjudgeth it to us Secondly And salvation is as free as Justification and no more deserved by man and therefore the Apostle equally excludeth works from both Eph. 2.5 8 9. By Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of worke lest any man should boast so Tit. 3.5 6 7. more fully Now if Salvation by grace through faith without works exclude not sincere obedience from being a Condition of Salvation then Justification by grace through faith without works doth not in Scripture sence exclude sincere obedience from being the condition of our final Justification nor Repentance from being the condition of our justification as begun for there is eadem ratio and the Text makes the one as free without works as the other But the Antecedent is plain in the Scriptures Ergo c. My fifth Proof is from those texts that in terms seem to assign a causality to such obediential acts which can be interpreted of no less then a conditionality such are Luke 19.17 Mat. 25.31 23 34 35 40 46. Gen. 22.16 17 18. 2 Chron. 34.26 27. Psalm 91.9 14. Mark 7.29 1 John 3.22 23. John 16.27 Rev. 3.10 and 3.4 and 7.14 15. c. And though some of these texts speak not of Divine acceptance to life yet first some do secondly and the rest speak of no mercy but what is as freely given as Justification A mans own works are excluded other Means and parts of salvation as well as that I run over these briefly and generally both because I expect that the bare texts without my Comments should work upon the Considerate and because I have been so much upon it formerly in other writings as Confess § 3. p. â—6 cap. 3. cap 5. § 2. pag. 117 118. alibi passim as that I apprehend in this work more tediousness than necessity But the chief thing that I further here intend is to answer some Objections that by a Reverend Brother in his second part of his Treatise of Justification are brought against me But before I come to his Arguments its necessary that I a little animadvert on his Description of Justification that we may first agree upon the sense of our terms or at least know how to understand one another Treat Of Justification p. 126. Justification is a gratious and just Act of God whereby through Christ our Mediator and Surety a sinner but repenting and believing is pronounced just and hereby put into a state of Reconciliation and favour with God to the praise of Gods glorious attributes and to the Believers eternal salvation I shall not examine this Description by accurate Logical Rules c. Answ First Doubtless an accurate rather then popular definition would as soon be expected from you as from most and here as anywhere in a Treatise purposely on the Subject Secondly Pronunciation doth not go before Constitution not put us into a state of Reconciliation and favour but find us in it you say your self pag. 120. To justifie is to constitute and to declare or pronounce righteous And in your first Treatise of Justification pag. 7. Indeed the Apostle Rom. 5. saith many are made righteous by the second Adam which if not meant of inherent holiness doth imply that the righteousness we have by Christ is not meerly declarative but also constitutive and indeed one is in order before the other for a man must be righteous before he can be pronounced or declared so to be Treat p. The Application of Justification is attributed to the Holy Ghost Answ I know not of any such except first where Justification is taken for Sanctification Secondly or as the Holy Ghost is made the Author of the Promise though I doubt not but he is the Author of faith also Treat 16. The Socinians say Christ justifieth only Instrumentally not principally even so faith is said to save but this cannot be because Christ is God as well at Man and therefore cannot be instrumental but principal Answ As they err on one hand that say Christ justifieth only Instrumentally which flows from their blasphemous denyall of his God-head so it s an error on the other hand to say that Christ cannot be Instrumental but principal I prove the contrary first If Christ may be an Officer appointed by the Father to the Redemption and ruling of mankind then may he be an Instrument But c. Ergo c. Secondly If Christ may be a means he may be an Instrument but he may be a means for he is called by himself the way to the Father and a way is a means Thirdly He is called the Fathers servant therefore he may be an Instrument Fourthly He is said to come to do his Fathers will therefore he is his Instrument Fifthly All Power is said to be given him even the Power of judging John 5.22 and Matthew 28.18 19. therefore he is the Fathers Instrument in judging And your reason is invalid viz. because Christ is God for he is Man as well as God and so may be Instrumental Treat p. 129 130. It sounds as intolerable Doctrine in my ears that Christ our Mediator did only expiate by his death sins against the Law and Covenant of works but that those that are against the Covenant of Grace c. Answ A sin is against the Law of Grace or Gospel first because it is against some object revealed in the Gospel which the sin is against as Christ Thus sin was expiated by Christ 2ly As it is against a Precept of the Gospel and thus it is expiated by Christ 3ly As it is a breach of a mans own Promise or
putting us into a justified state And its works under any notion that you speak of and not only under the reduplication quà works Treat p. 221. First I shall instance in the great pattern and example of our Justification Abraham from whom the Apostle concludeth a Justification of all Believers in the like manner he was Now that Abraham was not Iustified by works or his working though a godly man the Apostle c. Answ 1. I distinguish between works in Pauls sense and works in Iames his sense And because you say so much against distinguishing of works before as deceitful I will first prove the necessity of distinguishing 1. Works in Pauls sense are such as make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt Works in Iames his sense are not such therefore they are not the same Works in Pauls sense are actions as valuable offered to God and justifying by their value But works in Iames his sense are none such Proved The works that James speaks of must necessarily be done Works in Pauls sense we may not so much as imagine that we can do viz. such as make the Reward of Debt and not of Grace Though the matter of such works may be done which Justiciaries thus conceive of yet under such a notion no man may once imagine that he hath them 2. Works in Pauls sense are such as stand in competition with Christ or at least would be co-partners with him in a co-ordination But works in James his sense are none such but such as stand in a due subordination to Christ such undoubtedly there are And such James speaks of That Paul speaks of works as Competitors with Christ or as co-ordinate an hundred Texts will prove and the case is so plain that I think it not worth the insisting on seeing the impartial reading over the Epistles may satisfie 2. I distinguish of Justifying quoad modum procurandi or of the distinct Interests of mens actions therein signified in the preposition By. Paul speaks of Justification By works as by valuable deserving causes or procatarctike causes moving God to justifie us by their worth or by some true causality procuring it But Iames speaks of Works as supposing the perfect Satisfaction and Merit of Christ and that all that is valuable to the causal procurement of our Justification is to be found in him alone and therefore he leaves no causality herein to works but takes them as a meer condition which cease suspending when performed For the efficiency of a condition is only in suspending till performed And so Rebellion can suspend when the ceasing of that Rebellion by obedience doth not cause but only cease suspending Now I answer to your Minor that Abraham was not justified by works in Pauls sense but he was in Iames's sense unless you will own the saying which you chide Althamer for Though I must say that in his Conciliationes Loc. Script Althamer deals more mannerly with Iames. Abraham was not justified by works as making the Reward of debt and not of grace for he had no such works But Abraham was justified 1. By the act of faith as a condition therefore by an act under some notion I know of few Divines that deny that faith is a condition of Justification 2. However you confess your self that Abraham was Justified by faith as an instrument and you say that it was by the act of faith and not the habit And though you take this to be but a nominal act and really a Passion yet so do not others for herein you are more singular a thousand to one as far as I am able to understand then I am in the Doctrine which you charge with singularity 3. The faith that Abraham was justified by was not only a bare apprehension of Christs Righteousness but a receiving of Christ as Christ which is called Works by your party 4. It was either By or Because of his External Obedience that Abraham was justified Proved 1 By Iames 2.21 Was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the Altar 2. From Gen. 22.12 16 18. By my self have I sworn saith the Lord for because thou hast done this thing and hast not with-held thy son thine only son that in blessing I will bless thee c. And in thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice But then I must add that this was none of Abrahams first Justification for he was just before this but it was a renewed Acceptance and Approbation of God and a kind of sentential Declaration thereof by the voice of the Angel But a Justification it was and so James calls it Now let us hear your Replies Treat pag. 221. This cannot be a solid Answer 1. Because the Apostle speaketh generally of works in this description of Iustification though in other places he sometimes saith the works of the Law yet Abraham could not be Instanced in for such works c. When we read the Holy Ghost spake generally of all works who are we that we should limits it to some By their interpretation the believer should be opposed only to some kind of works and faith c. Answ 1. The ordinary strain of the Apostles speech being expressive of the works of the Law is Expository of the rest 1. Because a few passages must be usually expounded by many 2. And because a few much more abundance of limiting passages must expound those where the restriction is not expressed 2. Have not I ever yielded to you that all works are excluded from Justifying as works but it follows not that therefore they are as you may say excluded under any Notion whatsoever 3. And why might not Abraham be instanced in Your proof is none 1. Is it not a good Argument Negative Abraham was not justified by works therefore we are not And a good Argument to prove the Antecedent Because he had no works that could justifie No nor those which were then trusted on to Justification 2. Doth not Paul shew that he speaks of these when he proves his assertion 1. Because Abraham was then in uncircumcision Rom. 4.10 what 's that to Gospel obedience 2. Because the Law was long after the promise and was not then given Gal. 3.17 3. Paul maketh it all one to be justified by works and to be justified by the Law as abundance of passages shew A multitude of particular Texts do expresly shew that it is a Legal Iustification only that he speaks of and that he directly intendeth only Legal works I will now instance but in one viz. Rom. 4.13 compared with Gen. 22.18 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham and his seed by the Law but through the righteousness of faith Now compare with this the words of the promise it self And in thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice So ver
16 17. Because thou hast done this thing c. 4. It s not easie to conceive how any man can expect a Legal or Pharisaical Iustification by Evangelical works without a gross contradiction For example to be justified Legally by Evangelical faith desire love thanks joy self-denyal confession c. are all palpable contradictions And such a mans faith must be thus exprest I expect to merit Iustification legally by believing in Christ as the sole Meriter of my Iustification and salvation or by desiring Christ or by loving Christ as the sole Meriter of my salvation Or by thanking him or rejoycing in him as the Sole-meriter of my salvation Or I expect legally to merit Iustification by denying that I can merit it by any righteousness of my own or by confessing that I deserve damnation by my sins or by praying or seeking for salvation by free gift as merited only by Christ All these are palpable contradictions and no man can hold both that knoweth what he doth 5. Yet I will suppose that though no man can so trust to his works for legal Justification that are apprehended by him as Formally Evangelical yet perhaps he may do it by some works that are Materially Evangelical and fancied by him to be what they are not And so I still say that though it were Legal works that Paul did directly dispute against yet consequentially and indirectly he disputeth against works commanded only in the Gospel if men will do them to Legal ends and fancy them to be of the value legally to justifie them 6. I will therefore suppose some men to be so unreasonable as to expect a Legal Justification by their believing or confessing that Christ only can Legally justifie them and not themselves and so I will grant you that Paul doth consequentially exclude all works even Evangelical works from Justification But though he exclude all works yet not in every notion nor doth he exclude All interest of All works in our Justification All works as valuable offerings he excludes and so as meritorious not only in point of Commutative Justice but also in point of Legal worth and Legal Justice as the Pharisees supposed them meritorious All works he excludes from all proper Causality But he doth not exclude all works from having any Interest at all in subordination to Christ Do you verily believe that Repentance and Faith have no Interest in our Pardon in sub-ordination to Christ If you say No not any you contradict God and your self and all the Christian world If you say Yea but they justifie not qua works you say nothing to the controversie For I have over and over as loud as you professed that they justifie not formaliter as works If you say they have any Interest 1. Tell us better what it is 2. And then you confute your general assertion There 's no Christian that I know but will confess that the Gospel works have the interest of Declaring signs in our final Iustification And few will deny that Repentance hath the interest of a necessary qualification or condition to our first Justification Now would you perswade us that Paul excludeth this kind of Interest or opposeth faith to it If not against the signal interest of works then not against all Interest therefore if Pauls general exclusion will consist with your signal Interest then I shall maintain that it will consist with the fore-explained Conditional interest I will not therefore be guilty of your charge of limiting the Holy Ghost If he spake of all works I will believe he means All works But 1. If he over and over near an hundred times at least explain himself as speaking of the Law I will not shut my ears against that explication And 2. I will grant it is also all Evangelical Works at least by consequence But I need not therefore grant that because he excludeth All Work therefore he excludeth All kind of Interest of all works but only that sort which he disputeth against Besides all this I must distinguish of Justification Legal and Evangelical respective to the promises and threatnings of the Law and Gospel which do differ No works at all did justifie Abraham from the charge of the Law Thou art a sinner as being the Righteousness of the Law and the matter of that Justification Nor will any works at all so justifie us But it doth not follow that therefore no works will justifie a man from the false accusation of being an Impenitent Unbeliever and so having no part in Christ whose Righteousness must stop the mouth of the Law Or that no works are the matter of the righteousness required in this Constitution He that believeth shall be saved Repent that your sins may be blotted out Which are here required as the condition of our freedom from the Law by the righteousness of Christ In a word Paul bestows a large dispute to prove that no works of ours do answer the expectation of the Law and so cannot justifie us themselves from its Accusation It s an ill consequence that therefore Paul proveth that no works of mans do answer the special constitution or condition of the Gospel Repent and Believe in Christ c. and so are not the Condition of our interest in that perfect righteousness of Christ which is the only valuable cause of our foresaid Justification Treat 222. Again that works of all sorts are excluded is plain if you consider the Object of Iustification who it is that is here said to be justified and that is the ungodly By the ungodly is one meant that hath not a sufficient and adequate holiness so that Abraham though regenerated yet as to Iustification is ungodly he cannot stand before God or endure if all his imperfections be enquired after Now certainly he that fulfilleth the conditions of Iustification cannot be called ungodly for he doth all that is required Answ 1. Again I grant all works excluded but not in all their relations nor are all their Interests in Justification excluded 2. This Argument I should not have expected from you You confess that by ungodly is meant such though Regenerate and holy that have not an adequate holiness Adequate To what to the Law or to the constitution of the condition in the Gospel Marvel not if I deny the Consequence of your Argument and if I be unable to digest your reason for it You say He that fulfilleth the Condition of Iustification cannot be called ungodly But what Condition I confess he that fulfilleth the Laws condition cannot be called ungodly nor be unjustifiable by that Law But he that performeth the Gospel-Condition of liberation may be called ungodly in the sense you now mentioned that is unjustifiable immediatly for his works by the Law or one that hath not an holiness adequate to the Law Though indeed he cannot be called Evangelically ungodly I suppose you clearly see that your Argument makes as much against any Condition of Justification in us as against works
that bona opera sequuntur justificatum non praecedunt justificandum in regard of our first justification I dare not say they are Antecedents or media ordinata Where you add what is that to you that make the righteousness of the Covenant of grace to be made ours upon our godly working c. I answer 1. I have shewed it is as much as I say if not more upon intending but a condition or medium ordinatum 2. I never said what you say I maintain in phrase or sense if the word made intend either efficiency or any causality or the first possession of Righteousness 3. You much use the harsh phrase of working as here Godly working as mine which I doubt whether ever I uttered or used And the term works I little use but in the explication of James For I told you that I disclaim works in Pauls sense Rom. 4.4 which make the reward not of grace but of debt You add If therefore you had spent your self to shew that faith hath no peculiar instrumentality in our justification but what other graces have then you had hit the mark Answ I confess Sir you now come to the point in difference But do you not hereby confess that I give no more to works then you but only less to faith Why then do you still harp upon the word works as if I did give more to them the task you now set me is to prove that faith doth no more and not that works do so much That faith is not an instrument and not that love or obedience are conditions And to this I answer you 1. I have in my book said somewhat to prove faith no instrument of justifying and you said nothing against it Why then should I aim at this mark 2. I think I have proved there that faith justifieth primarily and properly as the condition of the Covenant and but remotely as A receiving justification this which you call the instrumentality being but the very formal nature of the act and so the quasi materia or its aptitude to the office of Justifying And because I build much on this supposition I put it in the Queries which you judge impertinent 3. Yet if you will understand the word instrument laxely I have not any where denyed faith to have such an instrumentality that is receiving or apprehensiveness above other graces Only I deny and most confidently deny that that is the formal proper or neerest cause of faith's justifying But the formal reason is because God hath made it the condition of the Covenant promising justification to such receiving which else would have no more justified then any other act And therefore so far as others are made conditions and the promise to us on them they must needs have some such use as well as faith And that they are conditions you confess as much as I. 4. But what if I be mistaken in this point what is the danger If faith should deserve the name of an instrument when I think it is but a condition 1. Is it any danger to give less to faith then others while I give no less to Christ For if you should think I gave less to Christ then others I should provoke you again and again to shew wherein 2. I deny nothing that Scripture saith It saith not that faith is an instrument perhaps you will tell me Veronius argues thus But I mean it is neither in the letter nor plain sense and then I care not who speaks it if true 3. You make man an efficient cause of justifying himself For the instrument is an efficient cause And what if I dare not give so much to man is there any danger in it or should I be spoke against for the Doctrine of obedience as if I gave more to man then you when I give so much less 4. Those that dissent from me do make the very natural act of faith which is most essential to it and inseparable from it as it from it self viz. Its apprehension of Christs Righteousness to be the proper primary reason of its justifying What if I dare not do so but give that glory to God and not to the nature of our own act and say that Fides quae recipit Justificat sed non qua recipit primarily but as it is the condition which the free justifier hath conferred this honour upon is there any danger in this and will there be joy in heaven for reducing a man from such an opinion You say What more obvious then that there are many conditions in justificato which are not in actu justificationis The fastning the head to the body c. Answ 1. You said before that they are Antecedents Media ordinata and then they are sure conditions in justificando as well as in justificato 2. Your mention of the condition in homine vidente is besides our business and is only of a natural condition or qualification in genere naturae When we are speaking only of an active condition in genere moris The former is improperly the later properly called a condition 3. If this be your meaning I confess there are many natural or passive qualifications necessary which are no active or proper moral conditions in a Law-sense But this is nothing to the matter 4. The phrases of Conditions in justificato in actu justificationis are ambiguous and in the Moral sense improper Our question is whether they are conditions ad justificationem recipiendam Which yet in regard of time are in actu justificationis but not conditiones vel qualificationes ipsius actus And if you did not think that repentance is a condition ad justificationem recipiendam and so in actu justificationis how can you say it is medium ordinatum A medium as such essentially hath some tendency or conducibleness to its end 5. As obvious therefore as you think this is it is past the reach of my dull apprehension to conceive of your conditions in a judiciary sense which are in justificato for the obtaining of justification and not be both ad actum in actu justificationis for I suppose you are more accurate and serious then by the word condition to mean modum vel affectionem entis Metaphysicam vel subjecti alicujus adjunctum vel qualificationem in sense Physico when we are speaking only of conditions in sensu forensi And there are many thousand honest Christians as dull as I and therefore I do not think it can be any weighty point of faith which must be supported by such subtilties which are past our reach though obvious to yours God useth not to hang mens salvation on such School distinctions which few men can understand 6. And every such Tyro in Philosophy as I cannot reach your Phylosophical subtilty neither to understand that the fastning of the head to the body is not conditio in actu videntis though it be nothing to our purpose Indeed we may think it of more remote use
then some other and but propter aliud quasi conditio conditionis and if you say so of Repentance c. we should not disagree You say In other things I come off and so mollifie my assertions that you need not contend Answ 1. I would you had told me wherein I so come off For I know not of a word If you mean in that I now say obedience is no condition of our first attaining justification but only of the continuance of it c. I said the same over and over in my book and lest it should be over-lookt I put it in the Index of distinctions If you mean not this I know not what you mean 2. But if explication of my self will so mollifie and prevent contending I shall be glad to explain my self yet further Yea and heartily to recant where I see my error For that which you desire I demonstrate that its By love and Through love c. I have answered before by distinguishing of the sense of By and Through and in my sense I have brought you forty plain Texts in my book for proof of it which shew it is no new Doctrine To your argument from Rom. 4. Where you say that Abrahams justification is the pattern of all others I conceive that an uncouth speech strange to Scripture for phrase and proper sense though in a large sense tolerable and true Certain I am that Paul brings Abrahams example to prove that we are justified by faith without the works of the Law but as certain that our faith must differ from Abrahams even in the essentials of it We must believe that this Jesus is he or we shall dye in our sins which Abraham was not required to believe Our faith is an explicite Assent and Consent to the Mediators Offices viz. that he be our Lord and Saviour and a Covenanting with him and giving up our selves to him accordingly But whether Abrahams and all recited in Heb. 11. were such is questionable Too much looking on Abraham as a pattern seems to be it that occasioned Grotius to give that wretched definition of faith Annot. in loc that it is but a high estimation of Gods power and wisdom and faithfulness in keeping his promises c. yet I know he came short also of describing that faith which he lookt on as the pattern My first answer was that I exclude also any effective co-operation to which you say Why do we strive about words c. I see that mens conceivings are so various that there is no hopes that we should be in all things of one mind Because I was loth to strive about words therefore I distinguished between causality and conditionality knowing that the word By was ambiguous when we are said to be justified By faith c. now you take this distinguishing to be striving about words to avoid which you would bring we back to the ambiguous term again Whereas I cannot but be most confident that as guile is most in Generals so there would be nothing else between us but striving about words if we dispute on an unexplained term and without distinction Do you indeed think that to be an efficient cause of our justification and to be a bare condition is all one or do you think the difference to be of no moment You say I do not exclude works justifying as well as faith let the expressions be what they will Answ 1. You should have said Let the sense or way of justifying be what it will for sure the difference between an efficient cause and a condition is more then in the expression or else I have been long mistaken 2. I do not exclude God justifying Christ justifying the Word justifying c. and yet to distinguish between the way that these justifie in and the way in which faith justifies I take to be no striving about words but of as high concernment as my salvation is worth 3. Either you mislike my phrase or my sense if the phrase then you mislike the word of God which saith a man is justified by works and not by faith only If the sense then you should not fall upon the phrase and then to distinguish and explain is not to strive about words 4. If I do bring faith and obedience neerer in justification then others it is not by giving more to works then others but by giving less to faith And if in that I err you should have fallen on that and shewed it and not speak still as if I gave more to works then you I am sure I give less to man and therefore no less than you to Christ I perceive not the least disadvantage herein that I lye open to but only the odium of the phrase of justification by works with men that are carried by prejudice and custome 5. I will not quarrel about such a word but I like not your phrase of Faith justifying and works justifying for it is fitter to introduce the conceit of an efficiency in them then to say We are justified by faith and by works which are only the Scripture phrase and signifie but a conditionality To that you say out of Phil. 3.9 I believe Paul doth most appositely oppose the righteousness which is by faith to that which is by the Law But then 1. He means not By faith as an instrument of justification 2. Nor by faith which is but a meer affiance on Christ for justification or only as such 3. Nor doth he exclude Knowledge Repentance Obedience c. 4. But to say that righteousness or justification is by love or by obedience c. Without adding any more is not a convenient speech as it is to say that righteousness is by faith 1. Because the speech seems to be of the first receiving of righteousness wherein obedience or works have no hand 2. Because faith having most clear direct relation to Christ doth most plainly point out our righteousness to be in him 3. Because faith as it is taken in the Gospel is a most comprehensive grace containing many acts and implying or including many others which relate to Christ as the object also Even obedience to Christ is implyed as a necessary subsequent part of the condition seeing faith is an accepting of Christ as Lord and King and Head and Husband as well as a justifier 5. Yet Scripture saith as well as I that Christ shall justifie us By his knowledge and we shall be justified by our words and by works and me thinks it should be no sin to speak the words of God except it be shewed that I misunderstand them It is not so fit a phrase to say that a poor ignoble woman was made rich and honorable by her Love or Obedience or Marriage faithfulness and conjugal actions as to say it was by marriage with such a Noble man or consent to take him to be her husband For the marriage consent and Covenant doth imply conjugal affection action and faithfulness Yet are these last
will and thence it is that faith is deputed to its office 2. Who doubteth but God could have bestowed pardon and justification on other terms or conditions if he would 3. Yea who doubteth but he might have given them without any condition even that of acceptance Yea though we had never known that there had been a Redeemer yet God might have justified us for his sake I speak not what he may now do after he resolved of a course in his Covenant But doubtless he might have made the Covenant to be an absolute promise without any condition on our part if he would even such as the Antinomians dream it to be And me thinks those great Divines that say with Twisse Châ—mier Walaeus c. that God might have pardoned us without a Redeemer should not deny this especially 4. And doubtless that faith which the Israelites in the first ages were justified by did much differ from ours now whatever that doth which is required of poor Indians now that never heard of Christ 5 And God pardoneth and justifieth Infants without any actual reception of pardon by their faith 2. And me thinks they that stand for the instrumentality of faith above all should not deny this for according to my Logick the formality of an Instrument is in its actual subserviency to the principal cause and therefore it is no longer causa instrumentalis then it is used and therefore whatsoever is the materia of the instrument or whatsoever is natural to it cannot be its form Now to be a reception or apprehension of Christ is most essentially natural to this act of faith and therefore cannot be the form of its instrumentality For as Scotus saith â—n 4. sint dist 1. q. 5. Fol. mihi 13. H. â—â—ru mentiiâ—â—nâ—itâ—s pâ—aeceda naturaliter usum ejus ut instrumentum And what is the 〈◊〉 or Aptitude of faith but this And as Scotus ibid. saith Nullum instrumentum formaliter est ideo aptum ad usum quia al quis utitur eo ut instrumento but it is an Instrument quia al quis utitur c. 3. And if the reception were the most direct proper cause especially if the physical reception then it would follow that justifying faith â—as such is the receiving of justification or of Christs righteousness but for the receiving of Christ himself or that the receiving of Christ would be but a preparatory act which is I dare say foul and false Doctrine and contrary to the scope of Scripture which makes Christ himself the object of this faith and the receiving of him John 1.11 12. and believing in him to be the condition of justification and the receiving of righteousness but secondarily or remotely Amesius saith ubi supra hic tamen observandum est accurate loquendo apprehensionem Christi justitiae ejus esse fidem justificantem quia justificatio nostra exurgit ex apprehensione Christi apprehentio justificationis ut possessionis nostrae praesentis fructus est effectum apprehensionis prioris So in his Medulla he makes Christ himself the object of justifying faith 4. Also if the said reception were the immediate proper reason why faith justifyeth then it would follow that it is one act of faith whereby we are pardoned viz the reception of pardon and another whereby we are justified viz. the Reception either of righteousness or justification and there must be another act of faith for Adoption and another for every other use according to the variety of the Objects But this is a vain fiction it being the same believing in Christ to which the Promise of Remission Justification Adoption Glorification and all is made Also it would contradict the Doctrine of our best Divines who say â—s Alste dius Distinct Theol. C. 17. p. 73. that Christ is our Righteousness in sensu causali sed non in sensu formali I conclude this with the plain Testimony of our best Writers Perkins vol. 1. pag. 662. In the true Gain saith And lest any should imagine that the very Act of faith in apprehending Christ justifieth we are to understand that faith doth not apprehend by Power from it self but by vertue of the Covenant If a man believe the Kingdom of France to be his it is not therefore his yet if he belive Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven by Christ to be his it is his indeed not simply because he believes but because he believes upon Commandment and Promise that is not properly as an Instrument but as a condition For in the tenor of the Covenant God promiseth to impute the Obedience of Christ to us for our Righteousness if we believe Is not this as plain as may be So Bullinger Decad. 1. Serm. 6. p. mihi 44. We say faith justifieth for it self not as it is a quality in our mind or our own work but as faith is a gift of Gods grace having the promise of righteousness and life c. Therefore faith justifieth for Christ and from the grace and Covenant of God This being therefore fully proved that faith justifieth properly and directly as the condition on which God hath made over Christ and all his benefits in the Gospel the two great points opposed in my Doctrine do hence arise unavoidably 1. That this faith justifieth as truly and directly as it is the receiving of Christ for Lord and King and Head and Husband as for a justifier for both are equally the conditions in the Gospel But if the physical Instrumental way were sound then it would justifie only as it is a receiving of Justification or Justice This is the main conclusion I contest for Yield me this and I will not so much stick at any of the rest 2. And hence it follows that Repentance forgiving others love to Christ Obedience Evangelical do so far justifie as the Gospel-promise makes them conditions and no further do I plead for them 7. My last Question was Whether now your Doctrine or mine be the more obscure doubtfull and dangerous And which is the more clear certain and safe And here I shall first shew you yet more what my Judgement is and therein whether Faith be a moral Instrument I think that conditio sine quâ non non potest esse efficiens quia hujus nulla est actio nec id ad cujus presentiam aliquid contigit câ—tra illius actionem nec materialis dispositio est Instrumentum c. ut Schibler Top. c. 3. pag. 102. Even the Gospel-Promise which is far more properly called Gods moral Instrument of justifying or pardoning is yet but somewhat to the making up that fundamentum from whence the relation of justified doth result And the Fundamentum is called a cause of the relation which ariseth from it without any act but what went to cause the foundation even by a meer resultancy as D' Orbellis fully in 1. sent dist 17. q. 1. But to call a condition in Law an Instrument is yet far more improper The Law or Promise
us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead So Jam. 2.23 Gal. 3.6 If any say that by Faith in all these Texts is meant Christs righteousness and not Faith I will beleive them when I take Scripture to be intelligible only by them and that God did not write it to have it understood But that Faith is imputed or accounted to us for Righteousness in a sense meerly subordinate to Christs righteousness by which we are justified I easily grant As to Satisfaction and Merit we have no righteousness but Christs but a Covenant and Law we are still under and not redeemed to be lawless and this Covenant is ordained as the way of making over Christ and his meritorious righteousness and life to us and therefore they being given or made over on Covenant-terms there is a personal performance of the conditions necessary and so that personal performance is all the righteousness inherent or propiae actionis that God requireth of us now whereas by the first Covenant perfect Obedience was required as necessary to life So that in point of meer personal performance our own Faith is accepted and imputed or accounted to us for Righteousness that is God will require no more as necessary to Justification at our own hands but that we believe in the righteousness of another and accept a Redeemer though once he required more But as to the satisfying of the Justice of the offended Majesty and the meriting of life with pardon c. So the Righteousness of Christ is our only Righteousness But nothing in Scripture is more plain then that Faith it self is said to be accounted to us for Righteousness and not only Christs own righteousness He that will not take this for proof must expect no Scripture proof of any thing from me Eph. 4.24 The new man after God is created in righteousness Many other Texts do call our first Conversion or state of Grace our faith and repentance and our sincere obedience by the name of Righteousness 2. And then that it may and that most fitly be called an Evangelical righteousness I will not trouble the Reader to prove lest I seem to censure his understanding as too stupid It s easie to try whether our Faith and Repentance our Inherent Righteousness do more answer the Precepts and Promise of Christ in the Gospel or those of the Law of works 3. And that this is a personal righteousness I have less need to prove Though it is Christ that purchased it and so it may be called the righteousness of Christ and the Spirit that worketh it in us yet it s we that are the Subjects and the Agents as to the act It being therefore past doubt that 1. The thing it self is existent and necessary 2. That righteousness is a fit name for it 3. All that remains to be proved is the Use of it Whether it be necessary to Justification and Salvation And here the common agreement of Divines except the Antinomians doth save us the labour of proving this for they all agree that Faith and Repentance are necessary to our first Justification and that sincere obedience also is necessary to our Justification at Judgement and to our Salvation So that here being no conteoversie I will not make my self needless work Obejct 1. But faith and repentance are not necessary to Justification qua justitia quaedam Evangelica under the notion of a righteousness but faith as an Instrument and repentance as a qualifying condition Answ 1. We are not now upon the question under what notion these are necessary It sufficeth to the proof of our present Thesis that a personal Evangelical Righteousness is necessary whether quâ talis or not 2. But the plain truth is 1. Remotely in respect of its natural Aptitude to its office faith is necessary because it is a Receiving Act and therefore fitted to a free Gift and an Assenting Act and therefore fitted to a supernatural Revelation And hence Divines say It justifieth as an Instrument calling its Receptive nature Metaphorically an Instrument which in this sense is true And Repentance is necessary because it is that Return to God and recovery of the soul which is the end of Redemption without which the following ends cannot be attained The Receptive nature of Faith and the dispositive use of Repentance may be assigned as Reasons Why God made them conditions of the Promise as being their aptitude thereto 2. But the nearest reason of their Interest and Necessity is because by the free constitution of God they are made conditions in that Promise that conferreth Justification and Salvation determining that without these they shall not be had and that whoever believeth shall not perish and if we repent our sins shall be forgiven us So that this is the formal or nearest Reason of their necessity and interest that they are the conditions of the Covenant so made by the free Donor Promimiser Testator Now this which in the first instant and consideration is a condition is in the next instant or consideration a true Evangelical Righteousness as that Condition is a Duty in respect to the Precept and as it is our Title to the benefit of the Promise and so is the Covenant-performance and as it hath respect to the sentence of Judgement where this will be the cause of the day Whether this Condition was performed or not It is not the Condition as imposed but as performed on which we become justified And therefore as sentential Justification is past upon the proof of this personal Righteousness which is our performance of the condition on which we have Title to Christ and Pardon and eternal life even so our Justification in the sense of the Law or Covenant is on supposition of this same performance of the Condition as such which is a certain Righteousness If at the last Judgement we are sententially justified by it as it is quaedam justitia a Righteousness subordinate to Christs Righteousness which is certain then in Law-sense we are justifiable by it on the same account For to be justified in point of law is nothing else then to be justifiable or justificandus by sentence and execution according to that Law so that its clear that a personal Righteousness qua talis is necessary to Justification and not only quo talis though this be beyond our Quest on in hand and therefore I add it but for elucidation and ex abundanti Object 2. If this be so then men are righteous before God doth justifie them Answ 1. Not with that Righteousness by which he justifieth them 2. Not Righteousness simply absolutely or universally but only secundum quid with a particular Righteousness 3. This particular Righteousness is but the means to possess them of Christs Righteousness by which they are materially and fully justified 4. There is not a moments distance of time between them For as soon as we believe and repent we are
will not be effectual to our Justification without Faith and repentance But perhaps this Writer means only to shew his offence against my naming Christs righteousness legal If that be so 1. I have given in my reasons because there can be no better reason of a name then from the form and the form of Christs righteousness being relative even a conformity to the Law of works and to the peculiar Covenant of redemption I thought did sufficiently warrant this name 2. The rather when I find not only that he is said to fulfill the Law and all righteousness and be made a curse for us but also to be righteous with that righteousness which is denyed of us which can be none but a legal or prolegal righteousness 3. But yet if the name Legal be all I could easily have given this Brother leave to differ from me about a name without contention and methinks he might have done the like by me Mr. W. Object But what if works and faith were both of them applyed to procure our Justification Answ This Objection yet further shews that the Author understands me not if it be me as I have reason to judge that he writeth against for he supposeth that its works that I call a legal Righteousness when I still tell him it is Christs satisfaction and fulfilling the Law of which our faith or works are no part but a subordinate particular Evangelical Righteousness Mr. W. 5. If both these kinds of Righteousness were absolutely necessary then where one of them is wanting in a person there can be no Justification of that person But Ergo. For where was any Legal Righteousness of the good thief on the Cross condemned for legal unrighteousness Answ I deny your minor The converted thief had a legal righteousness hanging on the next Cross to him even Christ that then was made a curse for him and was obedient to the death of the Cross I begin to be a weary in writing so much only to tell men that you understand me not Mr. W. 6. If legal Righteousness be thus necessarily to be joined with our Evangelical Righteousness to Justification then there must be two formal causes of Justification Answ I deny your consequence If the formal cause consist in remission and imputation as you say then Christs meritorious righteousness is none of the Form but the Matter And if besides that Matter a subservient particular righteousness of faith be necessary as the condition of our Title to Christ this makes not two forms of this Justification 2. And yet I grant you that it infers a subservient Justification that hath another form when you are made a Believer or justified against the false charge of being no Believer or penitent this is not remission of sin but another form and thing Mr. W. 7. That which maketh void Christs death cannot be absolutely necessary to Justification But legal righteousness makes void his Death Gal. 2.21 Answ It s a sad case that we must be charged with making void Christs Death for saying that he is legally Righteous by satisfying and fulfilling the Law and that this is all the legal righteousness that we have I am bold therefore to deny the Minor yea and to reverse it on you and tell you that he that denyeth Christs legal Righteousness denyeth both his death and obedience The Text Gal. 2.21 speaks not of the Law as fulfilled by Christ but by us Righteousness comes not by our keeping the Law but it came by Christs keeping it yet so that the Gospel only giveth us that righteousness of his Mr. W. 8. That which concurs with another efficient must have both an aptitude and Confluence to produce the effect but the Law and consequently Legal righteousness hath no aptitude to give life Gal. 3.2 Answ This is Disputing enough to make one tremble and loath Disputing Is there no aptitude in Christs legal Righteousness to give us life The Law doth not give us righteousness but it denominateth Christ righteous for fulfilling it and the Law-giver for satisfying and to that it had a sufficient aptitude The Text Gal. 3.2 saith truly that the Law giveth not life but first it speaks of the Law as obeyed by us and not by Christ that fulfilled it Secondly And indeed its speaks of Moses Law and not directly of that made with Adam Thirdly And it denies not that Christ fulfilling it may give us life though the Law it self give us none so that all this is besides the business Mr. W. 9. That Doctrine which doth most exalt the Grace of God ought to be admitted before that which doth least exalt it But the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone as our Gospel-righteousness doth most exalt his Grace and the other less Ergo. Answ Still misunderstanding Doth the Doctrine of faith alone without Christ advance Grace That 's no faith You do not think so that which denyeth Christ or faith denyeth Grace Mr. W. 10. That opinion which considereth a person under a two-fold Covenant at the same time ought not to be admitted But to require both Legal and Evangelical Righteousness is to consider him under the Covenant of works and Grace I conclude therefore that two sorts of righteousness are not necessarily required to our Justification Answ How far we are or are not under the Covenant of works I will not here trouble you by digressing in this rambling Dispute to enquire But to your Minor I say this opinion considereth man only under the curse of the Law till Christ take it off him by being made a curse for us and making over the fruit of his merits and suffering to us Mr. W. 2. As for the Subjects of these kinds of Righteousness I thus declare 1. That Jesus Christ and he alone who was truly endued with Legal righteousness who as he was made under the Law so he did not destroy but fulfill it and if he had not been the subject of Legal righteousness in himself he could not have been the Author of Evangelical Righteousness to us Answ Here after all these Arguments I have all that granted me that I contend for supposing the Imputation or Donation of Christs Righteousness to us whether in se or in â—ffectis I now dispute not You have here his full confession that Christ had a legal Righteousness Let him but grant the imputation of this and then it s ours And then I have granted him that it may be also called Evangelical in another respect Mr. W. pag. 166. I think it to be no incongruity in speech or Paradox in Divinity to say that Christs Legal righteousness is our Evangelical righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 2 Cor. 5.21 Jer. 23.8 Answ Sure we shall agree anon for all the ten Arguments Here 's all granted but the name as to us Many and many a time I have said that Christs Righteousness made ours is Legal in respect to the Law that it was a conformity to and which it answereth for us but
neither this act nor that act nor any act but qua justificans noteth only its respect to Justification rather then to Sanctification or other benefits As when I kindle a fire I thereby occasion both Light and Heat by putting to the fewel And if you speak of that act of mine qua calefaciens or qua illuminans this doth not distinguish of the nature of the act but of the Respect that the same Act hath to several effects or consequents Mr. W. Argument 10. If Christ only as crucified be the Meritorious Cause of our Redemption and Justification then Christ crucified is the only object of faith as Justifying But Ergo. Answ 1. The consequence of the Major is vain and an proved More then the Meritorious Cause of our Redemption is the object of justifying faith 2. The Minor is no small errour in the Judgement of most Protestants who maintain that Christs active Obedience and suffering life are also the Meritorious cause of our Justification and not only his Crucifixion Mr. W. Argument 11. If Christ as a servant did satisfie Gods Justice then he is so to be believed on to Justification But as a servant he did satisfie Gods Justice Ergo. Answ 1. I grant the conclusion Christ as a servant is to be believed in 2. But if only was again forgotten I further answer 1. I deny the consequence of the Major because Christ is to be believed on for Justification in other respects even in all essential to his Office and not only as satisfying I instanced before in Obeying Rising Judging from express Scripture 2. If the conclusion were granted it s against you and not for you For 1. Active obedience is as proper to a servant as suffering 2. Christ Taught the Church as a servant to his Father and is expresly called A Minister of the Circumcision So that these you yield the objects of this faith Mr. W. Argument 12. If none can call Christ Lord before he be justified by faith then faith as justifying is not an Accepting him as Lord. The Minor is true because none can call him Lord but by the Spirit and the Spirit is received by the hearing of faith after we believe Answ Any thing must serve 1. Both Major and Minor are such as are not to be swallowed in the lump If by Call you mean the call of the voyce then the consequence of the Major is vain and groundless For a man may believe in Christ with the heart as Lord and Saviour before he call him so with the mouth But if by Call you mean Believe then the Minor is false so confessed by all Protestants and Christians that ever I heard from of this point till now For they all confess that faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher and Head c. is the fides quae justificat or is of necessity to be present with the believing in his blood that a man may be justified Never did I hear till now that we first believe in Christ as dying only and so are justified before we believe in him as Lord and it seems before we are his Subjects or Disciples and that is before we are Christians 2. To your proof of the Minor I answer 1. It is no proof because the Text saith only that No man can call him Lord but by the Spirit but our question is of Believing and not of Calling which is Confessing 2. Many Expositors take it but for a common gift of the Spirit that 's there spoken of and do you think Justification must needs precede such common gifts 3. But if it had been Believe in stead of Call it s nothing for you For I easily grant that no man can believe in Christ as Lord but by the Spirit but I deny that this gift of the Spirit is never received till after that we believe and are justified And because it seems you judge that Believing in Christ to Justification is without the Spirit I pray answer first what we have said against the Arminians and Augustine against the Pelagians for the contrary Who would have thought that you had held such a point 4. How could you wink so hard as not to see that your Argument is as much against your self as me if you do but turn it thus If none can call Christ Jesus or the Saviour or believe in him to Justification before he be justified by faith then faith as justifying is not the accepting him as a Saviour The Minor is proved because none can call him Jesus or believe to Justification but by the Spirit This is as wise and strong an Argument as the other and all one See 1 Iob. 4.15 5.5 Believing in Christ as Saviour is as much of the Spirit is believing in him as Lord. 5. The Text makes against you 1 Cor 12.3 For there when Paul would denominate the true Christian faith or Confession he maketh Christ as Lord the Object Mr. W. Argument 13. If the promise of Salvation be the proper object of justifying faith then not the commands of Christ as Lord and Law-giver But Ergo Answ 1. The conclusion is nothing to our Question which is not of Commands but of Christ as Lord. It may be you know no difference between the Relation and subsequent Duties between the Authority and the Command between subjection and obedience 2. The Minor is false If by proper you mean Only and if not the consequence is vain and null For the Person of Christ and his Office and the fruits of his Office even Pardon yea and Glory are the true Objects of justifying Faith Mr. W. Argument 14. If we are not justified both by Righteousness Inherent and Imputed then not by obeying Christ as Lord and Law-giver But Ergo. Answ What 's this to the Question 1. About Justification by Righteousness Imputed or Inherent we spoke before 2. The conclusion never was acquainted with our Question Again it seems you cannot or will not distinguish between Relative subjection and actual obedience A man may become your servant and so have the Priviledges of a servant by covenant before he obey you A woman in Marriage may subject her self to you and have Interest in your estate even by that Marriage which promiseth subjection as well as Love without excluding the first from being any condition of her Interest and all this before she obey you 3. Your consequence would follow as much against your self as me For Believing in Christ as a Ransom is as truly a particular Inherent Righteousness as believing in him as Lord. 4. We are justified by Righteousness Inherent as a particular righteousness though not as a Universal as subordinate to Christs Righteousness that it may be ours though not in co-ordination with it Mr. W. Argument 15. If our accepting of Christ as Lord and Law-giver be not properly or formally faith nor properly to be called obedience then we are not formally justified by faith in him as Lord nor by our obedience to him as
which think you had had the fairer pretence for his censure But I am far from saying so or thinking it I know that the Assent to the essential Articles of Christianity containeth many Acts and that our Consent and Affiance are many Physical Acts as the parts of Christs Office are many Objects But yet I do not think but am certain that all these physical Acts concur to make up that Moral Aâ— which is called Christian or saving or Justifying Faith and that he that believeth not in Christ as to all that is essential to Christ is no Christian And a man is not justified by Faith before he is a Christian And truly Sir men that are loth to flie from the Light and that love the Truth and diligently seek it as heartily if not as happily as you must yet needs tell you that if you produce your Mormolucks an hundred times and cant over and over a Papist a Socinian an Arminian and an Arminian a Socinian and a Papist their understandings will never the more be perswaded to embrace your Delusions though you should say that the Kingdom of God doth consist in them Your fourth Argument is that There is a difference in Nature Efficacy Energy and Operation therefore the Acts are not the same Answ 1. I maintained the conclusion that faith hath different Acts before ever I heard of your name and have no reason now to denie it 2. The difference of Nature I grant you between many Acts of faith but what you mean by the Efficacy Energy and Operation be that knows can tell for I cannot But still desire you to know that I deny faith to have any efficient operation in justifying us or that it is an efficient cause of our Justification especially it s no Physical efficient you add a strange proof of your Assertion viz. For faith as Justifying makes a mystical Union and relative change on the person but faith as working and sanctifying produceth a moral union with Christ c. Answ 1. Faith as justifying doth only Justifie and produce no Vâ—ion the same faith as uniting is the means of Vnion 2. The question is of Faith in Christ as Priest and faith in Christ as Prophet and King also And you talk of faith as justifying and as working and sanctifying A small alteration 3. What Mystical Relative Union is that which is not a Moral Union 4. Faith in Christ as Christ and not as a Ransom only is the means of our Justification And you give us nothing like a proof of the contrary restriction In the same Preface you tell the world of as threefold Artifice that we use the first is to set up a second Justification Ans Is it the Name or the Thing that you mean If the name 1. cite the words where we use that Name 2. If it answer the subject you may bear with the name If it be the Thing then tell us what Religion that it that denyeth 1. a Justification by sentence at Judgement 2. Gods continual justifying us to the Death 3. And his particular pardoning or justifying us from the guilt of renewed particular sins 4. And that faith is not only in the first act but through all our lives the means of our Justification Or justifying faith is more then one instantaneous Act or a man ceaseth not to have justifying faith after the first Act or moment Tell us who those be and what Religion they are of that deny all these that Christians may be acquainted with them if they be worthy their acquaintance Our second Artifice is to require Works only as Gospel-Conditions Answ Would you have us say more of them or less If less I have said enough of it in the second Disputation Our third Artifice is To include works in the Definition of Justifying faith making it a receiving of Christ as Saviour Lord and Law-giver to Justification as also confounding our consummate Salvation or Glorification with our Justification Ans Gross untruths contrary to large and plaine expressions of my mind in several Volumes if you mean me as you know I have reason to judge 1. I ever took works to be a fruit of faith and no part of it unless you take the word Faith improperly and laxely unless by Works you mean Acts And you take faith for such a work your self that is an Act. 2. I expresly distiguished what you say I confound Consummate Sanctification or Glorification and consummate Justification But yet as I do in the Definition include Consent to Christs Lordship though not Obedience that 's only implyed to be a necessary consequent so I still say that much of your Justitication is yet to come And if your Religion teach you to say that you will be beholding to Christ for no more Justification so doth not mine And whereas you cite some that say that all our sins are pardoned in our first believing as if I had questioned any such thing I must tell you that I easily grant it that every sin is then forgiven and so far as that Justification is perfect but what have you yet said to prove 1. That we are never justified be faith but in that one instant 2. That we need no particular Justification from particular sins that after shall be committed 3. Nor no sentential Justification at Judgement which Mr. Burgess will tell you is the chief You and others use to say that that at Judgement is but Declarative But 1. It is no common Declaration but a Declaration by the Judge 2. And the Sentence doth more then meerely declare for it doth finally decide acquit and adjudge to Glory 3. And methinks this Declarative should be no term of Diminution but of Aggravation with those that still use to say that Justification is a judicialâ— Term. Alas That these matters among the friends of Christ and Truth should need so many words Some more I had to say to you but you may find it in the Preface to these Disputations I only add that if indeed it be true which you write to that Honourable person to whom you dedicate your Labors viz. That the Subject of your Discourse is so excellent and necessary to be known and that He who is Ignorant of the Object and Office of Faith doth neither know what he believeth nor how he is justified I should think it is high time that you call your Vnderstanding once more to an account and review the Fabrick that you have built on a qua justificans not understood or upon a specificative quatenus where there is no such thing And if you think me unfit to be hearkned to in this as being one of the men of perverse minds that there you mention its more worthy your industry to seek the advice of the learned Oxford Divines herein then that they should be sought to approve and midwife such a Book into the world and its likely that their Charity will provoke them to be serviceable to you in this though I
hereabout are such as if they were held practically and after the proper sense of their expressions would be a great hinderance to salvation if not plainly hazard it And therefore the question is not to be cast by as needless or unprofitable It is so neer the great matters of our Redemption Justification and the nature of faith that it is it self the greater And if Amesius say true that truths are so concatenated that every Error must by consequence overthrow the foundation then it must be so in this The consequents shall be mentioned anon in the Arguments where it will be more seasonable And in great matters it is not a contemptible Error which consisteth but in mis-naming and mis-placing them It is a very great help to the clear and full understanding of Truths to have right Notions and Methods And the contrary may prove dangerous to many others when the particular Patrons of those mistakes may be in no danger by them For perhaps their first Notions may be righter than their second and they may not see the consequents of their mistakes and yet when such mistakes in terms and methods shall be commended to the world other men that hear and read their words and know not their hearts and better apprehensions are like enough to take them in the most obvious or proper sense and by one disorder to be led to more and to swallow the Consequents as well as the misleading Premises And therefore I must needs say that this point appeareth of such moment in my eyes that I dare not desert that which I confidently take to be the Truth nor sacrifice it to the honor or pleasure of man For the explication of the terms it is needless to say much and I have neither time for nor mind of needless work By Justification here we mean not either Sanctification alone or sanctification and remission conjunct as making up our Righteousness as the Papists do though we deny not but sometime the word may be found in Scripture in some such sense For thus it is past controversie that our justification that is our sanctification as to all that followeth faith is as much if not much more from our belief in Christ as Teacher and King as from our belief in him as a Ransome But by Justification we mean that Relative Change which Protestants ordinarily mean by this word which we need not here define The Preposition By when we speak of being justified by faith is not by all men taken in the same sense First Sometime it s used more strictly and limitedly to signifie only an efficiency or the Interest of an Efficient cause And thus some Divines do seem to take it when they say that we are justified by faith in Christs blood and Righteousness and not by faith in him as a Teacher or a Lord which occasioneth the Papists to say our difference is wider then indeed it is For the word By hath an ambiguity and in their sence we yield their Negative though not their Affirmative in the last-mentioned conclusion Secondly Sometime the word By is used to signifie a Conditionality or the Interest of a condition only in special And thus we take it when we explain our selves in what manner it is that we are justified by faith and by these questioned acts in particular And therefore those Protestants that dispute against us who are for the Affirmative do if I understand them deny only the propriety of the phrase which we use but not the thing or sense which we express by it for they grant that these acts of faith are Conditions of our Justification when they have never so much disputed that we are not justified by them and so a small syllable of two letters is much of the matter of their controversie Thirdly sometime this word is used to signifie the Interest of any other cause as well as the Efficient and that either generally or especially of some one This Paper is white By the whiteness as the formal cause we are moved to a godly life By God and salvation as the final cause c. Fourthly Sometime the term By is taken yet more largely and fitly enough for all or any Means in General or the interest of any means in the attainment of the End And so it comprehendeth all Causes even those Per accidens and Conditions as well as Causes and all that doth but remove impediments And in this comprehensive sense we take it here in the Question though when we come to determine what is the special Interest of faith in Justification I take it in the second sense Take notice also That I purposely here use this phrase we are Justified by Believing or by Faith rather than these justifying faith or Faith doth justifie us And I here foretell you that if I shall at any time use these last expressions as led to it by those with whom I deal it is but in the sense as is hereafter explained The Reasons why I choose to stick to this phrase rather then other are First Because this only is the Scripture phrase and the other is not found in Scripture that I remember It is never said that Faith doth justifie us though it be said that we are justified by faith And if any will affirm that I may use that phrase which is not found in Scripture he cannot say I must use it And in a Controverted case especially about such Evangelical truths the safety of adhering to Scripture phrase and the danger of departing from it is so discernable and specially when men make great use of their unscriptural phrases for the countenancing of their opinions I have the more reason to be cautelous Secondly Because the phrases are not alwaies of one and the same signification The one is more comprehensive then the other if strictly taken To be justified by faith is a phrase extensive to the Interest of any Medium whatsoever And there are Media which are not Causes But when we say that Faith doth justifie us or call it justifying Faith we express a Causality if we take the word strictly Though this last phrase may signifie the Interest of a bare Condition yet not so properly and without straining as the former The Reverend Author of the seond Treatise of Justification is of the same mind as to the use of the terms but he conjectures another reason for the Scripture use then I shall ever be perswaded of viz. that it is because Credere is not Agere but Pati to Believe is to Suffer and not to Act that it is a Grammatic all Action but Physically a Passion Though I think this no truer then that my brains are made of a looking glass and my heart of marble yet is there somwhat in this Reverend mans opinion that looks toward the truth afar off For indeed it intimateth that as to Causality or Efficiency faith is not Active in the justifying of a sinner but is a meer condition or
to learn of Christ as a Master or to be ruled by him yet cannot be justified or saved by him Proposition 10. I easily grant that Faith qud Christum Prophetam et Dominum recipit doth not justifie but only fides quâ Christum Prophetam Dominum recipit quâ est promissionis Conditio praestita But then I say the same also of Faith in Christ as Priest or in his Righteousness Having explained my meaning in these ten Propositions for preventing of Objections that concern not the Controversie but run upon mistakes I shall now proceed to prove the Thesis which is this Thesis We are justified by God by our Believing in Christ as Teacher and Lord and not only by Believing in his blood or Righteousness Argument 1. My first Argument shall be from the Concession of those that we dispute with They commonly grant us the point contended for Therefore we may take it for granted by them If you say What need you then dispute the point if they deny it not whom you dispute with I Answer some of them grant it and understand not that they grant it us because they understand not the sense of our Assertion And some of them understand that they grant it in our sense but yet deny it in another sense of their own and so make it a strife about a syllable But I shall prove the Concession left some yet discern it not If it be granted us that Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Teacher is a real part of the Condition of our Justification then is it granted us that by this believing in him we are justified as by a Condition which is our sense and all that we assert But the former is true Therefore so is the later For the proof of the Antecedent which is all First Try whether you can meet with any Divine that dare deny it who believeth that Faith is the Condition of the Covenant Secondly And I am sure their writings do ordinarily confess it Their Doctrine that oppose us is That Faith is both a Condition and an Instrument but other Acts as Repentance c. may be Conditions but not Instruments And those that have waded so far into this Controversie seem to joyne these other Acts of Faith with the Conditions but not with the Instrument Thirdly They expresly make it antecedent to our Justification as of moral necessity ex constitutione permittentis and say it is the Fides quae justificat which is the thing desired if there be any sense in the words Fourthly They cannot deny to Faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher that which they commonly give to Repentance and most of them to many other Acts. But to be a Condition or part of the Condition of Justification is commonly by them ascribed to Repentance therefore they cannot deny it to these acts of faith So that you see I may fairly here break off and take the Thesis pro Concessa as to the sense Nothing more can be said by them but against our phrase whether it be proper to say that we are justified By that which is but a bare Condition of our Justification which if any will deny First We shall prove it by the consent of the world that apply the word By to any Medium And Dr. Twiss that told them contr Corvinum over and over that a condition is a Medium though it be not a cause and I think none will deny it Secondly by the consent of many Texts of Scripture But this must be referred to another Disputation to which it doth belong viz. about the Instrumentality of faith in justifying us which God willing I intend also to perform Argument 2. The usual language of the Scripture is that we are justified by faith in Christ or by believing in him without any exclusions of any essential part of that faith But faith in Christ doth essentially contain our believing in him as Teacher Priest and King or Lord therefore by believing in him as Teacher Priest and Lord we are justified The Major is past the denial of Christians as to the first part of it And for the second part the whole cause lyeth on it For the Minor also is past all controversie For if it be essential to Christ as Christ to be God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord then it is essential to faith in Christ by which we are justified to believe in him as God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord. But the Antecedent is most certain therefore so is the Consequent The reason of the Consequence is because the act here is specified from its Object All this is past further question All the Question therefore is Whether Scripture do any where expound it self by excluding the other essential parts of faith from being those acts by which we are justified and have limited our justification to any one act This lyeth on the Affirmers to prove So that you must note that it is enough for me to prove that we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus for this Includeth all the essential acts till they shall prove on the contrary that it is but secundum quid and that God hath excluded all other essential acts of faith save that which they assert The proof therefore is on their part and not on mine And I shall try anon how well they prove it In the mean time let us see what way the Scripture goeth and observe that every Text by way of Authority doth afford us a several Argument unless they prove the exclusion First Mark 16.15 16 17. Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every Creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and these signs shall follow them that believe c. Here the faith mentioned is the believing of the Gospel and the same with our becoming Christians and therefore not confined to one part or act of saving saith That Gospel which must be preached to all the world is it that is received by the faith here mentioned But that Gospel doth essentially contain more then the doctrine of Christs Priesthood therefore so doth that faith Object It is not Justification but Salvation that is there promised Answ It is that Salvation whereof Justification is a part It is such a Salvation as all have right to as soon as ever they believe and are baptized which comprehendeth Justification And the Scripture here and everywhere doth make the same faith without the least distinction to be the condition of Justification and of our Title to Glorification and never parcels out the several effects to several acts of faith except only in those Qualities or Acts of the soul which faith is to produce as an efficient cause To be justified by faith or Grace and to be saved by faith or Grace are promiscuously spoken as of the same faith or Grace Secondly John 3.15 16 18. He that believeth in him
alone be questioned but thus branded Does not every man that undergoes various relations variously act according to them And do not men that make address address themselves in like variety He that is at once a Husband a Parent a Master a School-master a Physician acts variously according to all of these capacities Some come to him as a Father some as a Master some as a Teacher all of them come to him as a Physician But only they that come to him as a Physician are cured by him Believers through faith go to Christ that hears all the Relations mentioned But as they seek satisfaction in his blood-shedding which is an act of his Priesthood they are justified Repl. I ever granted that we are justified by trusting in Christs blood But not only by that Secondly It was God that sought satisfaction in Christs blood the Believer seeks for the fruit of that satisfactition Thirdly But now to the distinction I shall tell you freely my thought of it and the reasons of my resisting your use of it and then answer your reasons for it And first We must understand what it is that is distinguished whether the Habit of faith or the Acts As far as I am able to understand them they that understand themselves do intend to distinguish of the Habit by a virtual distinction and their meaning is The Habit of Faith which produceth both these acts doth justifie but not as it produceth the act of believing in Christ as Lord Teacher c. but as it produceth the Act of believing in his blood that is The habit is the remote cause and the act is the nearer cause and the habit justifieth by this Act and not by the other I verily think this is their meaning I am sure this is the most probable and rational that I can imagine But then first This contradicteth their ordinary assertion that it is not the Habit of faith but the act by which we are justified Secondly Then they do not mean that the act of believing in Christ as Lord c. is so much as the fides qua which if they will speak out and make no more ado the controversie will be much better understood For then it is a question that 's easily apprehended Whether only the act of faith in Christs satisfaction do justifie or the believing in Christ as King Priest and Prophet or all that is essential to Christian faith This is a plain case which fides qua and qua do not illustrate But then I must add that this begs the question as used by them but decideth it not And as qua respecteth but the Matter of the condition q. d. The habit as it produceth this act and not that is the condition of Justification for else it justifieth neither as it produceth the one or the other so it is the very Question between us Whether it be one act or the whole essence of the Christian faith that is the Condition And this supposeth the determination of other controversies that are not yet determined There are three opinions of the Habit of faith First that the several acts of faith have several habits Secondly that the divers acts have but one habit of faith distinct from the habits of other graces Thirdly That faith love and all graces have but one habit If the first hold then the distinction as before explained hath no place If the last hold then the Habit of Love or Fear may be on the same ground said to justifie If I have before hit on their meaning then the distinction of the Habit is virtualis and the distinction of the acts is realis and they totally exclude all acts save that which they fix upon not from being present but from a co-interest But from what interest Of a Cause that we deny even to all Of a Condition that they grant to these which they exclude Next we must understand the members of their Distinction And sometime they express one branch to be fides qua justificat and sometime fides qua apprehendit Christum satisfacienrem c. As to the former it cannot be contradistinct from faith in Christ as Lord but from faith as sanctifying c. it being but a denominative or virtual distinction of one and the same faith from the several consequents And so I easily grant that fides qua justificat non sanct ficat vel glorificat and so of all the consequents of it As it is the condition of one it is not the condition of the other which is no more then to say that there is between the consequents Distinctio realis from whence the antecedent Really the same may be denominatively or virtually distinguished As the same man that goeth before a hundred particular men hath a hundred distinct Relations to them as Before them all The very same condition in a free Gift may be the condition of many hundred benefits and accordingly be Relatively and denominatively distinguished when yet it is as truly the condition of all as of one and hath equal interest as to the procurement And as for the other phrase that fides qua recipit Christum satisfacientem justificat properly it is false Docrine if qua signifie the nearest Reason of faiths interest in procuring justification for then it is but to say that fides qua fides justificat which is false The denomination and the description express but the same thing fides is the denomination and Receptio Christi is the description if therefore it justifie qua Receptio Christi then it justifieth qua fides that is qua haec fides in specie which is to ascribe it to the ◠credere with a witness And elsewhere I have disproved it by many Arguments But if qua be taken less properly as denoting only the aptitude of faith to be the condition of Justification then still the Question is begged For we say that as the act of believing in Christs blood-shed hath a special aptitude in one respect so the act of believing in his Resurrection Intercession c. and receiving him as King Teacher c. hath a special aptitude in other respects upon which God hath certainly made them the Conditions of our Justification with the other But if any should distinguish of the act of faith and not the Habit and say that fides qua credit in Christum ut Regem justificat sed non quâ credit in Christum ut Regem I accept the former as being all that I desire and grant the latter But then I say the like of the other act of faith that fides quâ credit in Christum satisfacientem non justificat because fides quà fides non justificat sed fides quâ conditio praestita And I think I need to say no more for the opening the Fallacy that this distinction useth to cover And now I come to peruse all that I can find that is produced to support this distinction And the most is certain pretended
his flesh Ephe. 5.23 24 25 30. Sixthly We are to do it as in remembrance of his death so also in expectation of his comming which will be in Kingly Glory when he will drink with us the fruit of the Vine new in the Kingdome of his Father Object But Christ doth not pardon sin in all these respects Answ First But in the Sacrament he is represented to be believed in entirely in all these respects Secondly And he pardoneth as King though he merit it as a sacrifice And as his Sacrifice and Merit are the cause of all that following so therefore it is specially represented in the Sacrament not excluding but including the rest Thirdly Believing in Christ as King and Prophet even as his offices respect his Honor and our sanctity may be as truly the condition of our Justification as believing in his blood Mr. Blake As the spirit of God guides faith so it must go to God for propitiation and â—â—tonement But the Holy Ghost guides faith to go the blood of Christ for attonement Rom. 3.25 5.9 Eph. 1.7 1 John 1.7 Reply Concedo totum The conclusion can be but this therefore faith must go to the blood of Christ for attonement Who ever questioned this I But your Thesis which you set at the Head of your Arguments was Faith in Christ qua Lord doth not justifie which is little kin to any of your Arguments But in the explication you have here at last the term Only and therefore I may take that to be supposed in the Argument But then with that Addition I deny your Minor The texts mentioned say nothing to prove it Rom. 3.25 hath no only in it nor any thing exclusive of the other acts of Christ And if it had yet it would not follow that all other acts of our faith were excluded As his blood is the meritorious cause and so the foundation of all the benefits and so all the Applying Causes are supposed in the mention of it and not excluded so are all other acts of our faith in the mention of that act Rom. 5.9 saith not that we are justified only by his blood Nâ—r is it any adding to the Scripture to add more unless you can prove that these texts are the whole Scripture or that the other Scriptures add no more Ephe. 1 7. and 1 John 1.7 do neither of them exclude either the other acts of Christ or other acts of faith Nay John seems to make somewhat else the condition on our part then the belief in that blood only when he saith there If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin Or if you think this if denoteth but a sign yet other texts will plainly prove more To conclude If I were to go only to the blood of Christ for atonement yet it would not follow that going to that blood only for it is the only act of Faith on which Justification is promised or given me in the Gospel as is before declared Mr. Blake You demand Will you exclude his Obedience Resurrection intercession To which I only say I marvell at the question If I exclude these I exclude his blood His shedding of blood was in Obedience John 10.18 Phil. 2.8 his Resurrection was his freedom from the bands of death and an evidence of our discharge by blood His Intercession is founded on his blood He intercedes not as we by bare petition but by merit He presents his blood as the high Priest in the Holy of Holies Repl. It was the thing I had to do to prove that Rom. 3.24 and those other texts are not exclusive of all but his blood and that the word Only is no more meant then it is expressed in them And now you grant it me And needs must do it while Scripture tells us that by the Obedience of one many are made Righteous Rom. 5.19 and that he is Risen for our Justification Rom. 4 â—5 and that Righteousness shall be imputed to us if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead ver 24. and It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh Intercession for us Rom. 8 33 34. he that believeth all these texts will not add only to the first at least if he understand them for they do not contradict each other Well! but you marvell at my question I am glad of that Are we so well agreed that you marvell at my supposition of this difference To satisfie you my question implyed this Argument If the Resurrection Intercession c. be not in those texts excluded nor faith in them then we may not add only to interpret them but c. Ergo. But let us hear the reasons of your marveling First As to Obedience you say His shedding of blood was in Obedience Answer But though all blood-shed was in Obedience yet all Obedience was not by blood-shed nor suffering neither And the text Rom. 5.19 seems to speak of Obedience as Obedience and not only as in blood shed Secondly You say His Resurrection was his freedom c. Ans But Suffering is one thing and freedom from suffering is another thing I herefore faith to our justification must eye Christs conquest and freedom from death as well as his death it self Moreover Resurrection was an act of Power and his Entrance on his Kingdom and not a meer act of Priesthood Nor will you ever prove that faith to Justification must only look at the Resurrection as connoting the death from which he riseth Thirdly You say His Intercession is founded on his blood c. Answer So is his Kingdom and Lordship Rom. 14 9. Mat. 28.18 Phil. 2.9 10. It seems then faith in order to Justification must not only look at Christs blood but that which is founded on it His Government in Legislation Judgement Execution is all founded in his blood c. because he hath drank of the brook in the way therefore did he lift up the Head Psalme 110.7 You add He Interceeds by Merit Answer Not by new purchasing Merit but by the virtue of his former Merit and the collation of the effects of it from the Father And so he Reigneth and Governeth both by virtue of former Merit and for the applying that Merit and attaining of its Ends. Whereas therefore you say If I exclude these I shall exclude his blood It is a weighty Answer And the like you may say also of his Kingly and Prophetical office The operation of them are so woven and twisted together by infinite wisdom that all do harmoniously concur to the attainment of the ends of each one and if you lay by one you lay by all you exclude Christs blood as to the end of Justification if you include not his Kingly and Prophetical
come nearer our use of the word when they expound it by Moderatio Circumscriptio determinatio limitatio In Naturals the word Condition is oft used pro ratione formali per quam alicujus disciplina subjectum adaquatuÌ„ constitui solet As e. g. Physicus considerat corpus cum conditions mobilitatis Geometer considerat quantitatem cum conditions continuitatis Arithmaticus cum conditions disjunctionis Modicus considerat humanuÌ„ corpus cum conditions fâ—iâ— quatenus agretare sanari potest Sometimes also any quality or action which is sine qua non to an effect or event is in meer Naturals called a Condition as the dryness of the wood and the approximation of it to the fire c. are conditions of its burning the non-impedition of a more powerful Agent is a Condition of the efficacious action of every lower cause c. Many other acceptions of the word in Physicks by Zabarel Claudius Alberius and others you may see in Goclenii Lexic Philosoph in nom conditio But we are not in a Physical but a moral discourse and therfore must be understood according to the subject matter It is therfore a Civil or Legal Condition that we have to enquire after and must fetch our descriptions from Lawyers and not from Physicks and therefore it is but deceitful equivocation in some Opponents to fetch their opposition from Physical instances The Lawyers give us divers Definitions of Condition but for the most part they come all to one in sense Some say conditio est Lex adposita hominum actionibus eas suspendens Prat. Conditio say others est modus qui suspendit actum donec co existente confirmetur Vult in Instit de haere instit § 3. n. 6. Accursus faith Conditio est suspensio cujus de futuro effectus vel confirmatio pendet Bart. Conditio est futurus eventus in quem dispositio suspenditar Cuiacius Conditio est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit These are of conditions de futuro But those that are de praesenti vel de praeterito suspend not the obligation unless as they are yet futurae quoad cognitionem though not quoad esse and so the knowledge of a Right may be suspended They are commonly divided into Casuaeles Potestativas mixtas The moral operation of Conditions as such is not in causing the effect when performed but in suspending the effect till performed The reason of the appointing of them for such suspensions is various sometime it s because the person Giving promising or otherwise constituting the condition is uncertain of the event of the performance and would not have the effect come to pass without it But that 's not alwaies sometime though he might be sure of the event of performance yet if he that is to perform the Condition be uncertain it may make way for this constitution It is therefore a vain Plea of them that say God appointeth no conditions of his Promises because the event is not to him uncertain Saith Mat. Martin in nom Cond Defimri solet Dispositionis suspensio ex eventu incerto futuro ei opposito Sic sane apud homines quo futura non norunt sed Deus jub certis conditionibus etiam nobiscum agit at omnium eventuum ipse gnaâ—us pro infinita sua sap entia qua praevidet quid occur urum nobis quid nos amplexuri vel declinaturâ— simâ—s Confer Deut. 28 29 30 31. 32. Capitobus Commonly the reason of appointing Conditions is the desireabâ—ness of the thing to be performed conjoyned with some backwardness or possibility of backwardness in the person that is to perform it and therefore he is drawn on by the promise of that which he is more willing to receive But many other reasons there may be The first cause of the Condition is the Requirer whether he be Testator Donor Stipulator Legislator c. And so the Condition of the Law or Covenant of Grace is first Gods condition as the Imposer Secondly And its the condition of each Subject as obliged to perform it Thirdly And the condition of each professing Christian as having Promised the performance Fourthly And the condition of true Christians only as actual Performers of it The condition of the Gospel hath several respects according to the various respects of the Law that doth impose it It s the Condition of a free Gift for the Gospel is a free Gift of Christ and Life It is the Condition of a Promise because much of the Gospel benefits are future It is the Condition of a Testament because Christ dying did leave this to the Church as his last Will and it was confirmed by the death of the Testator It is the Condition of a premiant Law and Act of Grace and oblivion because God made it as Legislator and Rector of the world in order to the conducting of his people to their happines It is the condition of a Minatory Law in that it is a duty commanded on pain of death and for the avoiding of that death Fourthly The preposition by in our present question may signifie either the use and Interest of any Medium in General or else of a true cause constitutive or efficient So much of the terms Proposition 1. Since Adams fall it is impossible for man to be justified by a perfect sinless Obedience of his own except Christ only and consequently impossible for him to be justified by the Law considered in that form and tenor as it was given to Adam for all men are sinners and that Law will ustifie no sinner Proposition 2. By the works of the Mosaical Law no man can be justified And therefore the Jews seek Righteousness where it is not to be found while they think that pardon of sin and acceptance with God are to be obtained by the bare works of that Law while they overlook or reject Christ who is the end of that Law for righteousness to every Believer Specially now that Law is Abrogated or ceased it were a double error to expect Justification by its works Proposition 3. Much less can they be justified by the foresaid Law who in stead of fulfilling it do but falsely imagine that they fulfill it Proposition 4. No man can be justified by works properly meritorious because no man hath any such at all nor may we once imagine that we have any such works as Paul speaks of and the Jews thought they had which make the reward to be not of Grace but of Debt Rom. 4.4 much less that we are justified by such even Gospel works and faith it self do not justifie on this account and a conceit that they are thus meritorious would but turn them into condemning sins Proposition 5. No act of mans no not faith it self can justifie as an act or work nor as This act in specie that is the nearest and formal reason of its justifying Interest must not be fetcht either from the General or special nature of the
act it self and therefore it is not faith as faith that is as it is an apprehension of Christ or recumbency on him that Justifyeth nor yet as an Instrument thus acting The nature of the act is but its aptitude to its office or justifying Interest and not the formal cause of it Proposition 6. No work or act of man is any true proper cause of his justification as Justification is commonly taken in the Gospel neither Principal or Instrumental The highest Interest that they can have is but to be a condition of our Justification and so a Dispositio moralis which therefore some call cansa dispositiva and some causa sine qua non and it s indeed but a Nominall cause and truly no cause at all Proposition 7. Whatsoever works do stand in opposition to Christ or disjunct from him yea or that stand not in a due subordination to him are so far from Justifying even as conditions that they are sins which do deserve condemnation Proposition 8. Works as taken for the Imperate Acts of Obedience external distinct from the first Radical Graces are not so much as conditions of our Justification as begun or our being put into a Justified state Proposition 9. Repentance from dead works denying our our selves renouncing our own Righteousness c. much less external Obedience are not the receptive condition of our Justification as faith is that is Their nature is not to be an actual Acceptance of Christ that is they are not faith and therefore are not designed on that account to be the Condition of our Justification Proposition 10. God doth not justifie us by Imputing our own faith to us in stead of perfect Obedience to the Law as if it were sufficient or esteemed by him sufficient to supply its place For it is Christs Righteousness that in point of value and merit doth supply its place nor doth any work of ours justifie us by satisfying for our sins for that 's the work of Christ the Mediator Our faith and love and obedience which are for the receiving and improving of him and his Righteousness and so stand in full subordination to him are not to be made co-partners of his office or honor Affirm Proposition first We are justified by the merits of a perfect sinless Obedience of Christ together with his sufferings which he performed both to the Law of nature the Law of Moses and the Law which was proper to himself as Mediator as the subject obliged Proposition 2. There is somewhat in the nature of faith it self in specie which makes it fit to be elected and appointed by God to be the great summary Condition of the Gospel that it be Receptive an Acceptance of Christ is the nature of the thing but that it be a condition of our Justification is from the will and constitution of the Donor and Justifier Proposition 3. There is also somewhat in the nature of Repentance self-denyal renouncing all other Saviours and our own righteousness desiring Christ loving Christ intending God and Glory as our end procured by Christ confessing sin c. which make them apt to be Dispositive Conditions and so to be comprized or implyed in faith the summary Receptive condition as its necessary attendants at least Proposition 4. Accordingly God hath joyned these together in his Promise and constitution making faith the summary and receptive Condition and making the said acts of Repentance self-denyal renouncing our own righteousness disclaiming in heart Justification by the works of the Law and the renouncing of all other Saviours also the desiring and loving of Christ offered and the willing of God as our God and the renouncing of all other Gods and so of the world flesh and devil at least in the resolution of the heart I say making these the dispositive Conditions which are ever implyed when faith only is expressed some of them as subservient to faith and perhaps some of them as real parts of faith it self Of which more anon Proposition 5. The Gospel promiseth Justification to all that will Believe or are Believers To be a Believer and to be a Disciple of Christ in Scripture sense is all one and so is it to be a Disciple and to be a Christian therefore the sense of the promise is that we shall be justified if we become true Christians or Disciples of Christ and therefore justifying faith comprehendeth all that is essential to our Discipleâ—ship or Christianity as its constitutive causes Proposition 6. It is not therefore any one single Act of faith alone by which we are justified but it is many Physical acts conjunctly which constitute that faith which the Gospel makes the condition of Life Those therefore that call any one Act or two by the name of justifying faith and all the rest by the name of works and say that it is only the act of recumbency on Christ as Priest or on Christ as dying for us or only the act of apprehending or accepting his imputed Righteousness by which we are justified and that our Assent or Acceptance of him as our Teacher and Lord our desire of him our love to him our renouncing other Saviours and our own Righteousness c. are the works which Paul doth exclude from our Justification and that it is Jewish to expect to be justified by these though but as Conditions of Justification these persons do mistake Paul and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and Justification and their Doctrine tendeth to corrupt the very nature of Christianity it self Though yet I doubt not but any of these acts conceited meritorious or otherwise as before explained in the Negative if men can believe contradictories may be the matter of such works as Paul excludeth And so may that one act also which they appropriate the name of justifying faith to Proposition 7. Sincere obedience to God in Christ is a condition of our continuance in a state of Justification or of our not losing it And our perseverance therein is a condition of our appearing in that state before the Lord at our departure hence Proposition 8. Our Faith Love and Works of Love or sincere Obedience are conditions of our sentential Justification by Christ at the particular and general Judgement which is the great Justification And so as they will prove our Interest in Christ our Righteousness so will they materially themselves justifie us against the particular false Accusation of being finally impenitent Unbelievers not Loving not obeying sincerely For to deny a false accusation is sufficient to our Justification Proposition 9. As Glorification and Deliverance from Hell is by some called Executive pardon or Justification so the foresaid acts are conditions of that execution which are conditions of Justification by the sentence of the Judge Proposition 10. As to a real inherent Justice or Justification in this life we have it in part in our Sanctification and Obedience and in the life to come we shall have it in perfection So much for the
do use it as a means then what means is it Is Prayer any cause of Pardon say so and you say more then we that you condemn and fall under all those censures that per fas aut nefas are cast upon us If it be no cause of pardon Is it a condition sine qua non as to that manner of pardoning that your prayer doth intend If you say yea you consequentially recant your disputation or Lecture and turn into the tents of the Opinionists But if it be no condition of pardon then tell us what means it is if you can If you say it is a duty I answer Duty and Means are commonly distinguished and so is necessitas praecepti medii Duty as such is no means to an end but the bare result of a command Though all Duty that God commandeth is also some means yet that is not qua Duty And so far as that Duty is a means it is either a Cause near or remote or a Condition either of the obtainment of the benefit simply or of the more certain or speedy or easie attainment of it or of obtaining some inferiour good that conduceth to the main So that still it is a Cause or a Condition if a means If you say It is an Antecedent I say qua tale that is no means but if a Necessary antecedent that which is the reason of its necessity may make it a means If you go to Physical prerequisites as you talkt of a mans shoulders bearing the head that he may see c. you go extra oleas It s a moral means that we treat of and I think you will not affirm Prayer to be a means of physical necessity to pardon If it were it must be a Physical cause near or remote or a Dispositio materiae of natural necessity c. If you say that prayer for pardon is dispositio subjecti I answer that 's it that we Opinionists do affirm But it is a dispositio moralis and necessary ut medium ad finem and that necessity must be constituted by the Promiser or Donor and that can be only by his modus promissionis which makes it in some measure or other a condition of the thing promised So that there is no lower moral medium then a meer condition sune qua non that my understanding can hitherto find out or apprehend Treat ibid. Paul Judgeth them dung and dross in reference to Justification yea all things c. Answ 1. But what are those All things 2. And what Reference to Justification is it If All things simply in all relation to Justification then he must judge the Gospel dung and dross as to the Instrumental collation of Justification and the Sacraments dung and dross as to the sealing of it and the Ministry dung and dross as to the preaching and offering it and beseeching men to be reconciled to God and Faith to be dung and dross as to the receiving of it as well as Repentance and Faith to be dung and dross as conditions of it or Prayer Obedience as conditions of continuing it 2. It s evident in the text that Pauls speaks of All things that stand in opposition to Christ and that stand in competition with him as such and not of any thing that stands in a necessary subordination to him as such 3. He expresly addeth in the text for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this therefore is none of the all things that are dung for the All things are opposed to this And it containeth that faith which is works with the Opponents for this is more then a recumbency on Christ as Priest It is the Knowledge of him as Lord also I am confident I shall never learn to expound Paul thus I esteem All things even the knowledge of Christ Jesus as Lord and Prophet as dung for the Knowledge of him as Priest Also Paul here excepteth his suffering the loss of that All. I am confident that the All that Paul suffered the loss of comprehended not his Self-denyal Repentance Prayer Charity Hope c. 4. It is not only in reference to Justification that Paul despiseth All things but it is to the winning of Christ who doubtless is the Principle of Sanctification as well as Justification and to be found in him which containeth the sum of his felicity If a man should be such a self-contradicter as to set Repentance or Faith in Christ or Prayer in his Name or Hope in him c. against winning Christ and against being found in him or against the knowledge of him let that man so far esteem his faith hope prayer c. as dung If you should say I account all things dung for the winning of God himself as my felicity Would you have me interpret you thus I account the love of God dung and prayer to him and studious obeying him and the word that revealeth him c. even as they stand subordinate to him This same Paul rejoyced in the testimony of his conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity he had had his conversation among them and he beat or subdued his body and brought it into subjection lest he should be Reprobated after he was justified and he prayed for pardon of sin and tells Timothy In doing this thou shalt save thy self c. therefore these things thus used were none of the All things that he opposed to the knowledge of Christ as dung Treat pag. 234 235. Others would avoid this Objection by saying that Gospel graces which are the Conditions of the Covenant are reducible to the Law and so Christ in satisfying the Law doth remove the imperfections cleaving to them And they judge it absurb to say that Christ hath satisfied for the sins of the second Covenant or breaches which is said to be only final unbelief Answ As this is brought in by head and shoulders so is it recited lamely without the necessary distinctions and explications adjoyned yea without part of the Sentence it self and therefore unfaithfully Treat But this answer may be called Legion for many errours and coctradictions are in it 1. How can justifying faith qua talis in the act of Justifying and Repentance be reducible duties to the Law taken strictly Indeed as it was in a large sense discovered to the Jews being the Covenant of Grace as I have elsewhere proved Vindic. Legis so it required Justifying Faith and Repentance But take it in the sense as the Abettor of this opinion must do justifying faith and repentance must be called the works of the Law Answ It s easilier called Legion then faithfully reported or solidly confuted 1. Let the Reader observe how much I incurr'd the displeasure of Mr. Blake for denying the Moral Law to be the sufficient or sole Rule of all duty and how much he hath said against me therein and then judge how hard a task it is to please all men when these two neighbours and friends do publikely thus draw
and not the hundreth line or word to press them to Trust that he will pardon and save them All the powerfull Perachers that ever I heard however they dispute yet when they are preaching to the generality of people they zealously cry down laziness lukewarmness negligence unholyness prophaness c. As that which would be the liklyest cause of the damnation of the people But if only the foresaid saith be the condition and all other Graces or Duties be but meer signal effects of this and signal qualifications of the subject and not so much a conditions what need all this Were it not then better to perswade all people even when they are whoring or drunk to trust on Christ to pardon and justifie them And then when they have the tree and cause the fruits and signal effects will follow Quest 24. Yea Why do the best Divines preach so much against Presumption And what is Presumption if it be not this very faith which Divines call justifying viz. the Trusting to Christ for Pardon and Salvation only without taking him for their King and Prophet If it be said that this last must be present though not justifie How can the bare presence of an idle Accident so make or marr the efficacy of the cause Quest 25. If to be unwilling that Christ should raign over us be part of the directly condemning sin Luke 19.27 why is not the willingness he should raign part of saving justifying faith Quest 26. Seeing resting in Christ is no Physical apprehension of him who is bodily in Heaven nor of his Righteousness which is not a being capable of such an apprehension How can that Resting justifie more then any other Act but only as it is the condition to which the Promise is made Resting on a friend for a Benefit makes it not yours but his gift does that As Perkins cited by me To believe the Kingdom of France shall be mine makes it not mine But to believe Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven c. vid. loc where he saith as much as I vol. 1. p. 662. If God had not said He that believeth shall be justified and saved would Believing have done it And if he had said He that repenteth or loveth or calleth on the name of the Lord shall be justified or saved would not these have done it if so then doth not faith justifie directly as the condition of the Gift Promise or new Covenant And its apprehension is but its aptitude to be set apart for this Office And if it justifie as a condition of the Promise must not others do it so far as they are parts of the Condition Sir If you should deny me the favour I hope for in resolving these doubts yet let me hear whether I may expect it or not And in the interim I shall search in jealousie and pray for direction But till your Arguments shall change my judgement I remain confident that I can maintain most of the Antinomian Dotages against any man that denyeth the principles of my Book and that which is accounted novelty in it is but a more explicate distinct necessary delivery of common Truths Yours RICHARD BAXTER April 5 1650 Sir I Am sorry that you are not in capacity for the motion I profered I thought discourse would not so much infeeble you especially when it would have been in so loving a way And I judged it the more seasable because I had been informed of a late solemn conference you had about Paedobaptism which could not but much spend you I shall press no more for it although this very letter doth abundantly confirm me that letters are but a loss of time for one word might have prevented many large digressions Is not that endeavour of yours in your seventh question to prove out of my book that Repentance is a necessary condition or qualification in the Subject to be pardoned c. a meer impertinency You earnestly desire satisfaction of your conscience therefore I cannot think you do wilfully mistake For is that the state of the question with us Is it not this whether the Gospel Righteousness be made ours otherwise then by believing You say by believing and Obedience I say only believing I say faith is only the condition justifying or instrument receiving you make a justifying Repentance a justifying Patience you make other acts of grace justifying as well so that whereas heretofore we only had justifying faith now there are as many other qualities and all justifying as there are Graces So that I do firmly hold and it needs a recantation that repentance and other exercises of Grace are antecedent qualifications and are media ordinata in the use whereof only pardon can be had But what is this to you Who expresly maintain the righteousness of the Covenant of Grace to be made ours upon our godly working as well as believing If therefore you had spent your self to shew that faith had no peculiar Instrumentality in our Justification but what other Graces have then you had hit the mark What is more obvious then that there are many conditions in justificato which are not in actu justificationis The fastening of the head to the body is a necessary condition in homine vidente but it is not in actu videntis You grant indeed some precedency to faith but you make Faith and Works aequè though not aequaliter the conditions of Justification I should say much more to the state of the question but I forbear In other things you seem to come off and though I do not say you recede from your Assertions yet you much mollifie them that I need not therein contend with you But here is the stick Let it be demonstrated that whereas the Scripture in the current of it attributes Justification to believing only as through faith and by Faith and through faith in his blood that you can as truly say it s received by love and it s through love of his blood shed for our sakes c. This is a little of that much which might be said to the state of the question This I judge new Doctrine justifying Repentance justifying Charity And in my Letter I laid down an Argument Rom. 4. Concerning Abrahams Justification the Pattern of all others To this you reckon up many Answers but I see not the Argument shaken by it First you say you exclude a co-operation effective but why do we strive about words You do not exclude works justifying as well as faith let the expressions be what they will Whereas Paul saith he would be found having the Righteousness which is by faith you will add and which is by love by zeal 2. You desire it to be proved that Paul excludes all works under any notion I think it s very easily done First because of the immediate opposition between Faith and Works now you will contradict Pauls Argument and give a tertium works that are of Grace But the Apostles opposition is so immediate here and
if God wil shew me so much Mercy as to enable this restless uncessantly-pained Sceleton to such a work I shall be bold to send you word and claim the favour you offer In the mean time it is my duty to let you know I have received your Letter and to return your hearty thanks for it though it be not that which I hoped for and shall now cease to expect I am convinced now as well as you that Letters are but a loss of time but your Arguments or direct answers to my Questions would have been for my advantage a precious improvement of it but seeing I may not be so happy I must rest content It still seemeth to my weak understanding to be no impertinency to prove that your self affirm Repentance Confession Turning Forgiveing others c to be more then signs i. e. to be conditions to qualifie the Subject to obtain forgiveness and to tell you that I say no more and to tell you still that you give more to faith and so to man then I but I give no more to works for ought I descern then you I am sure then our ordinary Divines do And if I do mistake herein you have little reason to suspect me of willfulness though of weakness as much as you please As for the state of the Question between us which you speak of I am a stranger to it and know not what you mean I never came to the stating of a Question with you nor did you state any to me in your letters but mentioned your vehement dissent from several passages in my book and therefore I had reason to think that you fell upon the Questions as there they were stated so that it is intime medullitùs pertinent to my question which is impertinent to yours You say the question is Whether the Gospel righteousness be made ours otherwise then by believing and tell me that I say by believing and obedience when I never stated such a question nor ever gave such an answer I suppose by Gospel Righteousness you mean Christs Righteousness given to Believers Now I have affirmed that those only shall have part in Christs satisfaction and so in him be legally righteous who do believe and obey the Gospel and so are in themselves Evangelically righteous But your phrase made ours doth intimate that our first possession of Christs Righteousness should be upon Obedience as well as Faith which I never affirmed But Christs Righteousness is continued ours on condition of obeying him though not made ours so and we shall be justified at Judgement also on that condition As it is not marriage duty but Contract which is the condition of a womans first Interest in her Husband and his riches but marriage duty and the performance of that Covenant is the condition of her Interest as continued And indeed it is much of my care in that Book to shun and avoid that question which you say is stated between us for I knew how much ambiguity is in the Word By which I was loth to play with I know we are justified By God the Father By Christs satisfaction By Christs absolution By the Gospel Covenant or Promise By the Sacraments By Faith By Works for I will never be ashamed to speak the words of the Holy Ghost By our words for so saith Christ Therefore if you will needs maintain in general that Christs Righteousness is made ours no otherwise then by beleiving nor otherwise continued ours you see how much you must exclude But to remove such Ambiguity I distinguish between justifying By as an efficient instrumental Cause and By as by a condition and I still affirm that Works or Obedience do never justifie as any cause much less such a cause but that by them as by a condition appointed by the free Lawgiver and Justifier we are finally justified And truly Sir it is past my reach at present to understand what you say less in this then I except you differ only about the word By and not the sence and think that it is improper to say that Pardon or Justification is By that which is but a condition You seem here to drive all at this and yet me thinks you should not 1. Because you affirm your self that conditions have a moral efficiency and then it seems when you say Repentance Confession c. are conditions you mean they are morally efficient which is a giving more to works then ever I did 2. Because you know it is the phrase of Christ and his Spirit that we are justified By our words and works and it is safe speaking in Scripture phrase 3. Because you say after that my Assertions are destructive of what Divines deliver but the word By if we are agreed in the sence cannot be destructive and except the phrase only By c. be the difference where is it When you say Repentance c. are conditions and I say they are no more and I have nothing from you of any disagreement about the sence of the word condition Lest you should doubt of my meaning in that I understand it as in our usual speech it is taken and as Lawyers and Divines generally do viz. Est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit Vel est modus vel causa quae suspendit id quod agitur quoad ex post facto confirmetur ut Cujacius And whereas Conditions are usually distinguisht into potestativas causales mixtas seu communes I mean conditiones potestativas Where you add that you say only faith is the condition justifying c. but I make a justifying Repentance c. And whereas heretofore we had only justifying faith now c. I answer 1. If by justifying Repentance c. you mean that which is as you say Faith is an instrument or efficient Cause I never dreamed of any such If as a Condition you confess it your self 2. If you speak against the sence we are agreed in that for ought I know If against the phrase then justifying Faith or Repentance is no Scripture phrase but to be justified By faith and By works and By words are all Scripture phrases You say you firmly hold that Repentance and other Exercises of Grace are antecedent qualifications and media ordinat◠in the use whereof only Pardon can be had but what is this to me c. I answer 1. Add conditions as you do in your Book and you say as much as I. 2. If by the other exercises of Grace you mean the particulars in your book enumerated or the like and if by Pardon you mean even the first pardon as the word Only shews you do then you go quite beyond me and give far more to those exercises of grace then I dare do For I say that Christ and all his imputed Righteousness is made ours and we pardoned and justified at first without any works or obedience more then bare faith and what is precedent in its place or concomitant and
answer 1. Righteousness is but a relation And therefore a thing which is naturally uncapable of being of it self physically apprehended This is past doubt 2. If it be physically received then either as a principle and quality or as an object Not the former For so we receive our first and after grace in sanctification but none ever said so in justification Nor indeed can that righteousness which is formally but a relation dwel in us as a principle or quality If we receive it as an object then by an Act Or if the soul were granted to be passive in reception of an object I have shewed that 1. It is but in apprehensione simplici None pleadeth for more But faith is not such 2. And so it would receive Christ no otherways then it receiveth any object whatsoever it thus apprehendeth 3. And this is not to receive Christ or his righteousness but the meer species of it according to your own Philosophers and if righteousness be but a relation and a relation as Durandus Dr. Twiss and many another thin be but Ens Rationis then the species of an Ens Rationis is a very curious Web Knowledge as D'Orbellis saith in 2. sent Dis 3. q. 3. is twofold i. e. sensitive and intellective and each of these twofold Intuitive and Abstractive Intuitive knowledge is indeed de objecto ut in se praesens quando scilicet res in propria existentia est per se motiva Exemplum de sensitiva est ut visus videt colorem yet this is but Recepiendo speciem non rem and this is not it in question Exemplum de intellectiva est ut visio Divinae essentiae à beatis This is utterly denyed to be at all by Doctor Stoughton Camer and other solid Divines against the School-mens judgement And if it be yet doubtless as we know not how so it is not such as faiths apprehension which we enquire after Cognitio Abstractiva est quando species rei movet ad cognoscendum rem ipsam hoc siveres sit in se praesens sive absens sive existat sive non Exemplum in sensitiva est ut phantasia imaginatur colorem Exemplum in intellectiva est ut intellectus cognoscit quidditatem coloris medicante ejus specie So that if it be either of these it were at the utmost but a passive reaception of the species and not of Christ or his righteousness 2. By what physical contact faith doth receive this might be enquired and 3. By what physical act of the Agent to neither of which questions can I imagine what tolerable answer can be given in defence of this cause 2. And if faith be a passive physical instrument it must have a Physical Efficiency and what is that to justifie why even God himself in this life doth that but by a Moral Act by his word and not by a physical as to particulars 3. But that which driveth me to the greatest admiration is How faith should Efficere patiendo If I should rip up this or require a demonstration of it in respect to the justification at judgement yea or in this life yea or of any effect I should lay such an odium on it from its absurdities that in dealing with you modesty doth forbid me to insist on it 4. The fourth requisite will be enquired after in the next Question save one The fourth Question is Whether other Graces may not be as properly called physical passive Instruments as Faith is your sense And I doubt not but they may though its true of neither For 1. If there be no physical reception of Christs righteousness imaginable but that which is per modum objecti and if other gratious acts have Christs righteousness for their object as well as that which you call faith then other Acts do receive Christs righteousness as well as saith but both branches of the Antecedent are true therefore the consequence the bare knowledge or simple apprehension of Christs righteousness per modum objecti may better pretend to this then recombency or affiance Yea and love it self more fitly then affiance may be said to receive or embrace its object which is not therefore false neither because Bellarmine hath it and you know he brings Austines plain words affirming love to be the hand by which they received him c. I confess if I first renounce not the concurrent Judgement of Philosophers I cannot approve of the common Answer which our Divines give to Bellarmine in this viz. That Faith receiveth Christs Righteousness first to make it ours but Love only to retain it and embrace and enjoy it when first we know it to be ours For though this say as much as I need to plead for acknowledging Love to be as properly a physical Reception for retention as Faith is for first Possession yet if affiance be taken in any proper ordinary sence it cannot thus hold good neither for so Affiance must signifie some act of the will in order of nature after love or at least not before it I acknowledge that so much of Faith as lyeth in the understanding is before Love in order of nature sicut ipse intellectus est simpliciter prior voluntate ut motivum mobili activum passivo ut Aquin. 1. q. § 2. a. 3.2 and 12. q. 13. a. 1. C. For as he Intellectus est primum motivum omnium potentiarium animae quoad determinationem actus voluntas verò quoad exercitium actus Aquin 12. q. 17. a. 1. C. But for the acts of the will toward Christ I could give you but to avoid tediousness I must forbear at large the Testimony of Aquinas Tolet Gerson Camero Amesius Zanchius Rob. Baronius Bradwardine Ravio Viguerius c. That Love is not only the first of all the Passions but even the first motion of the Will towards its Object and little or not at all different from Volition diligere being but intensive velle I have much more to say to this which here I must pretermit But still I speak not of Love as a Passion but a true closure as it were of the will with its Object as Good and expect love to be proper to the sensitive and strange to the intellective soul we must make it the same with Velle For Amor gaâ—dium in quantum significant Actus appetitus sensitivi passiones sunt non autem secundum quod significant Actus appetitus intellectivi inquit Aquinas 1. q. 2. a. 1.1 The fifth Question is Whether Faith be any Instrument of our Justification Answer Scotus gives many sences of the word Instrument and so doth Aquinas Schibler and most Philosophers that meddle with it and they give some so large as contain all causes in the world under God the first cause In so large a sence if any will call faith an Instrument of Justification I will not contend with him though yet I will not say so my self as judging faith to be no kind of cause of it at
honour of faith Though that were not so dangerous as to derogate from Christ For I acknowledge faith the only condition of our first Remission and justification and the principal part of the condition of our justification as continued and consummate And if faith be an instrumental cause I do not give that honor from it to works for they are not so Nay I boldly again aver that I give no more to obedience to Christ then Divines ordinarily do that is to be the secondary part of the condition of continued and consummate justification Only I give not so much as others to faith because I dare not ascribe so much to man And yet men make such a noise with the terrible name of Justification by works the Lords own phrase as if I gave more then themselves to man when I give so much less And thus Sir I have according to your advice spent my self as you speak in aiming at that mark which you were pleased to set me And now I shall proceed to the rest of your exceptions My next answer to you was that If works under every notion are excluded as you say they are then repentance is excluded under the notion of a condition or preparative But repentance under that notion is not excluded Therefore not works under every notion To this you reply that Repentance is not excluded as qualifying but as recipient which what is it but a plain yielding my Minor and so the cause For this is as much as I say If repentance be a work or act of ours and not excluded under the notion of a qualification or as you elsewhere yield a Medium ordinatum and a condition then works are not under every notion excluded And that repentance is not recipient how easily do I yeild to you But do you indeed think that when Paul excludeth the works of the Law that he excludeth them only as Recipient and not as qualifying If so as this answer seems to import seeing you will not have me here distinguish between works of Law and of Gospel or New Covenant then you give abundance more to works of the Law then I do or dare For I aver that Paul excludeth them even as qualifications yea and the very presence of them and that the Jews never dreamt of their works being Recipient To my next you say Whether Paul dispute what is our righteousness or upon what terms it is made ours it doth not much matter But I think it of very great moment they being Questions so very much different both in their sense and importance And whereas you think Paul speaks chiefly of the manner I think he speaks of both but primarily of the quasi materia and of the manner or means thereto but secondarily in reference to that So that I think the chief Question which Paul doth debate was Whether we are Justified by our own works or merits or by Anothers viz. the satisfaction of a surety which yet because it is no way made ours but by believing therefore he so puts the Question whether by works of the Law or by faith and so that he makes them two immediate opposites not granting any tertium I easily yield But of that before To the next you say that I cannot find such a figure for faith Relatively in my sense Answ And I conceive that faith in my sense may be taken Relatively full as well as in yours Doubtless acceptance of an offered Redeemer and all his benefits doth relate as properly to what is accepted viz. by the assent of the understanding initially and by the election and consent of the will consummately as a Physical Passive reception or instrumentality can do And also as it is a condition I make little doubt but it relateth to the thing given on that condition and that the very name of a condition is relative So that in my sense faith relateth to Christ two ways Whereof the former is but its very nature and so its aptitude to its office The later is that proper respect in which it immediately or directly justifieth Yet do I not mean as you seem to do as I gather by your phrase of putting Love and Obedience for Christs Righteousness For I conceive it may be put relatively and yet not strictly loco correlati for the thing related to when I say my hands or teeth feed me I do not put them instead of my Meat and yet I use the words relatively meaning my Meat principally and my teeth secondarily Neither do I mean that it relateth to Christs righteousness only or principally but first to himself And I doubt not but Love to Christ and Obedience to him as Redeemer do relate to him but not so fully clearly and directly express him as related to as Faith Faith being also so comprehensive a grace as to include some others It is a true saying that a poor woman that is marryrd to a Prince is made honourable by love and continued so by duty to her husband But it is more obscure and improper then to say she is made honourable by Marriage or taking such a man to her husband which includes love and implyeth duty and faithfulness as necessarily subsequent I conceive with Judicious Doctor Preston that faith is truly and properly such a consent contract or marriage with Christ Next to your similitude you say that I hold that not only seeing this brazen Serpent but any other Actions of sense will as well heal the wounded Christian To which I answer Similitudes run not on all four Thus far I believe that this holds 1. Christ was lift up on the Cross as the brazen Serpent was lift up 2. He was lift up for a cure to sin-stung souls as the brazen Serpent for the stung bodies 3. That as every one that looked on the Serpent was cured an easie condition so every one that believeth Christ to be the appointed Redeemer and heartily Accepteth him on the terms he is offered and so trusteth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life 4. That as the cure of their bodies came not from any natural reason drawn from the eye or from any natural excellency or efficacy of seeing above hearing or feeling but meerly from the free will and pleasure of God who ordained that looking should be the condition of their cure So all those Acts usually comprized or implyed in the word believing which justifie do it not from any natural excellency efficacy or instrumentality but meerly from the good pleasure of the Law-giver And therefore the natural Receptivity of Faith that is its very formal essence must not be given as the proper direct cause of its Justifying But that is its conditionality from the free appointment of God But on the other side 1. It was only one Act of one sense which was the condition of their cure but you will not say I believe that it is only one act of one faculty which justifieth however I will not 2. It
of our sight to be our Saviour Soveraign by redemption and Husband even here in our native Country the match being moved to us by his Embassadors and imperfectly solemnized upon our cordial consent and giving up our selves to him by our Covenant but it shall be perfectly solemnized at the great Marriage of the Lamb. This is my faith of the nature of true justifying faith and the manner of its receiving Christ THE Reader must understand that after this I had a personal conference with this Dear and Reverend Brother wherein he still owned and insisted on the passiveness of Justifying faith viz. That it is but a Grammatical action or nominal and a physical or hyperpyhsical passion which also he giveth us again in the Treatise of Imputation of righteousness FINIS A DISPVTATION Proving the Necessity of a two-fold Righteousness to Justification and Salvation And defending this and many other Truths about Iustifying Faith its Object and Office against the confident but dark Assaults of Mr. Iohn Warner By Richard Baxter Acts 5.31 Him hath Gad axalted with his right hand a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins Rom. 4.22 23 24 25. And therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was Imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be Imputed if we Believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our Justification LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Book seller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard 1658. Question Whether Besides the Righteousness of Christ Imputed there be a Personal Evangelical Righteousness necessary to Justification and Salvation Affirm THough it hath pleased a late Opponent Mr. Warner to make the Defence of this Proposition necessary to me yet I shall suppose that I may be allowed to be brief both because of what I have formerly said of it and because the Question is so easily decided and Christians are so commonly agreed on it For the right understanding of what we here maintain its necessary that I explain the Terms and remove confusion by some necessary distinctions and lay down my sense in some Propositions that make to the opening of this To trouble you with the Etymologies of the words in several Languages that signifie Righteousness or Justification would be a needless loss of time it being done to our hands by so many and we being so far agreed on it that here lyeth no part of our present controversie The Form of Righteousness signified by the name is Relative as strait or crooked is For it is not the Habit of Justice by which we give every man his own that is the Subject of our Question but Righteousness in a Judicial or Legal sense 1. Righteousness is either of the cause or of the person Not that these are subjects actually separated but distinct the one being subordinate to the other The cause is the nearest subject and so far as it is just and justifiable so far the person is just and justifiable Yet the person may otherwise be just and justified when one or many causes are unjustifyable 2. Righteousness is denominated either from a Relation to the Precept of the Law or to the Sanction To be righteous in Relation to the Precept is to be conform to that Precept An Action or Disposition conform to the Precept is called a Righteous Action or Disposition and from thence the person being so far conform is called a Righteous person And so this Righteousness as to the positive precept is his obeying it and as to the prohibition it is his Innocency contrary to that guilt which we call Reatus culpae Righteousness as a Relation to the Sanction is either a Relation to the Commination and penal Act of the Law or to the promissory or Premiant Act. As to the former Righteousness is nothing but the Not-dueness of the punishment contrary to the Reatus poenae as it respects the execution and so A not being lyable to condemnation as it respects the sentence This is sometime founded in the persons Innocency last mentioned sometime on a free pardon or acquittance sometime on satisfaction made by himself And sometime on satisfaction by another conjunct with free pardon which is our case Righteousness as a Relation to the Promise or Premiant part of the Sanction is nothing but our Right to the Reward Gift or Benefit as pleadable and justifyable in foro Which sometime is founded in merit of our own sometime in a free Gift sometime in the merit of another conjunct with free Gift which is our case other cases concern us not This last mentioned is Righteousness as a Relation to the substance of the Promise or Gift But when the Promise or Gift or Testament or Premiant Law is conditional as in our case it is then there is another sort of Righteousness necessary which is Related to the Modus promissionis and that is The performance of the condition which if it be not properly called Righteousness Ethically yet civilly in a Judiciary sense it is when it comes to be the cause to be tryed and Judged whether the person have performed the condition then his cause is just or unjust and he just or unjust in that respect 3. Righteousness is either Vniversal as to all causes that the person can be concerned in or it is only particular as to some causes only and so but secundum quid to the person 4. A particular Righteousness may either be such as the total welfare of a man depends on or it may be of less and inconsiderable moment 5. When a cause subordinate to the main cause is Righteous this may be called a subordinate Righteousness But if it be part of the main cause it is a partial righteousness co-ordinate I will not trouble you with so exact a disquisition of the Nature of Righteousness and Justification as I judge fit in it self both because I have a little heretofore attempted it and because I find it blamed as puzling curiosity or needless distinguishing Though I am not of that mind yet I have no minde to be troublesome As for the term Justification 1. It either may signifie the Act of the Law or Promise or the sentence of the Judge or the Execution of that sentence For to one of these three sences the word may still be reduced as we shall have to do with it that is to constitutive or sentential or Executive Justification though the sentence is most properly so called To these Justification by Plea Witness c. are subservient 2. Justification is either opposed to a false Accusation or to a true 3. In our case Justification is either according to the Law of works or to the Law of Grace I think we shall at this time have no great need
causes of our Justification For you say Faith is a Total cause and there can be but one Total Cause unless you lose the honor of your Philosophy 2. Faith is no proper cause at all 3. Did you not see what must needs be answered you That Faith is interrupted as well as Obedience and yet no intercision of our Justification When we sleep we do not at least alway act faith no more then obedience if so much And the habit of both continueth together sleeping and waking And if you should give over love and sincerity of obedience you would cease to be justified His last Argument is Because for sins after Conversion we must have recourse only by faith to Christ as our Advocate Answer 1. That speaks only of renewed pardon for particular sins but not of our Justification at Judgement nor the non-omission here 2. We must have recourse to Christ with Repentance and esteem and self-denial and desire c. as well as that act of faith which you plead for as the total cause And when you would set Zanchy against Zanchy you do but mis-understand him He saith truly with Paul that neither in whole or part are our own works such as Paul speaks of our Righteousness that is to answer the Law as Paul mentioneth or any way to merit or satisfie or stand in co-ordination with Christ But Zanchy never thought that Repentance and Faith in Christ as Head and Lord and Desire and Gratitude c. might be no means or Conditions of any sort of Justification or of that which we assert them to be means of I would answer much more of this Disputation but I am perswaded the judicious Reader will think I have done him wrong in troubling him with this much See pag. 298 299. how he answereth the Objection that pardon is promised to Repentance c. I will not disparage the Readers understanding so much as to offer him a Confutation of that and much more of the Book Only his many Arguments on the Question of my first Disputation I must crave your Patience while I examine briefly and I will tire you with no more Mr. W. pag. 411 412. I will rally up my Arguments against the foresaid Definition of Faith to be an accepting of Christ as Lord and Saviour proving that Christ only as Saviour and Priest offering himself up to the death of the Cross for our sins is the proper Object of justifying Faith as justifying Argument 1. If the Faith of the Fathers under the old Testament was directed to Christ as dying Priest and Saviour then also the Faith of Believers now ought so to be directed But. Ergo. Answ 1. I grant the whole and never made question of it But what kin is the conclusion of this Argument to that which you had to prove unless Only had been added Did we ever deny that Faith must be directed to Christ as Priest 2. A Saviour is a term respecting our whole Salvation and so Christ saveth by Teaching Ruling and judicial justifying as well as dying 3. The Fathers faith did not respect Christ as dying or satisfying only which you should prove but cannot Mr. W. Argument 2. If Christ as dying and as Saviour do satisfie Gods Justice and pacifie a sinners conscience then as dying and Saviour he is the Object of justifying Faith But Ergo. Answ The same answer serveth to this as to the last The conclusion is granted but nothing to the Question unless Only had been in 2. Christ as obeying actively and Christ as Rising and as interceding and as judging as King doth also justifie us Rom. 5.19 Rom. 4 24 25. Rom. 8.33.34 Mat. 12.37 and 25.34 40. Peruse these Texts impartially and be ignorant of this if you can 3. And yet the Argument will not hold that no act of faith is the condition of Justification but those whose object is considered only as justifying The accepting of Christ to sanctifie us is a real part of the condition of Justification Mr. W. Argument 3. If Christ as Lord be properly the Object of fear then he is not properly the Object of Faith as justifying But Ergo. Answ 1. If Properly be spoken de proprio quarto modo then is Christ properly the Object of neither that is he is not the object of either of these Only 2. But if properly be opposed to a tropical analogical or any such improper speech then he is the Object as Lord both of fear and faith and obedience c. 3. The deceit that still misleads most men in this point is in the terms of reduplication faith as justifying which men that look not through the bark do swallow without sufficient chewing and so wrong themselves and others by meer words Once more therefore understand that when men distinguish between fides quae justificans and qua justificans and say Faith which justifieth accepteth Christ as Head and Lord but faith as justifying taketh him only as a Priest The very distinction in the later branch of it qua justificans Is 1. Either palpable false Doctrine 2. And a meer begging of the Question 3. Or else co-incident with the other branch and so contradictory to their assertion For 1. The common Intent and meaning is that Fides quae credit in Christum justificat And so they suppose that Faith is to be denominated formally justificans ab objecto qua objectum And if this be true then fides qua fides justificat For the object is essential to faith in specie And so in their sense fides quae justificans is but the implication of this false Doctrine that haec fides in Christum crucifixum qua talis justificat Which I never yet met with sober Divine that would own when he saw it opened For the nature and essence of faith is but its aptitude to the office of justifying and it is the Covenant or free Gift of God in modo promittendi that assigneth it its office The nature of faith is but the Dispositio materiae but it s nearest interest in the effect is as a condition of the Promise performed 2. But if by the quâ justificans any should intend no more then to define the nature materially of that faith which is the condition of Justification then the qua and the qua is all one and then they contradict their own Assertion that fides quâ justificans non recipit Christum ut Dominum 3. If the quâ should relate to the effect then it would only express a distinction between Justification and other Benefits and not between faith and faith For then quâ justistcans should be contradistinct only from qua sanctificans or the like And if so it is one and the same Faith and the same acts of faith that sanctifie and justifie As if a King put into a gracious act to a company of Rebels that they shall be pardoned honoured enriched and all upon condition of their thankfull acceptance of him and of this act
false In the second sense it is every way false speaking of our Universal Righteousness In the third sense if spoken laxely de materia its false because of the exclusive Only And if spoken de ratione formalivel proxima 1. It s preposterous to put the Consequent before the Antecedent if you speak de ordine exequendi 2. And it is false For qua Justificans speaketh of Justification as the consequent or as an act and not of the Nature of Faith it self And therefore qua Justificans faith is nothing much less that act alone For it is not de esse fidei that the term speaks but of the consequent So that the Fides qua justificans est what ever act you mention is absurd and unsound For as non justificat quatenus est it a non est quatenus Justificat its Essence being pre-supposed But if you speak de ordine Intentionis viz. Faith as elected a means or condition of Justification is only a Believing in Christs sacrifice then Laxely Materially it would be True if it were not for the only But because of that it is false both de materia de ratione formali The nature of it is before its Office So 9. Faith as designed to this act or operation of Justifying looks on Christ as a Saviour This is Mr. Ws. Assertion But 1. justifying is not an act or operation of faith but of God on the Believer 2. But if you mean but constituting it the condition of Justification then 1. the wrong end is set first For it doth not look at Christ as it s made the condition but it s made the condition because being an Accepting of Christ its Apt for that Office So that Materially and Laxely it s thus true a Saviour comprehendeth Christs Kingly and Prophetical Offices and everlasting Priesthood in Heaven But this is nothing to the formal Reason of its Interest in Justification But lest you think that qua Justificans hath no proper place I further instance 9. Faith as justifying is distinst from faith as entitling to Heaven or other promised mercies This is true supposing Justification and the said Title to Glory to differ But this is but a denomination of the same faith from its divers consequents As my lighting a candle being one action is Actioilluminans ut causa moralis calefaciens quailluminans non est calefaciens So a womans marrying a Prince is an Honouring enriching act and qua honouring it is not enriching But it s the same entire undivided act or Antecedent Means or Condition that is thus variously denominated from several Benefits And thus Relations may give divers denominations to the same person the same man may be considered as a Father as a Physitian as a Subject c. So 10. FAITH WHICH IS AN EFFECTUAL ACCEPTANCE OF and AFFIANCE IN CHRIST AS CHRIST was CHOSEN and ORDAINED by God the Condition of Justification and Life because his Wisdom saw it fit for that Office and that fitness lyeth in its respect to the Object and Gods ends supposing we may assign Reasons or causes of Gods Will. By this faith so constituted the Condition we are actually JUSTIFIED AS T IS THE PERFORMED CONDITION OF GODS PROMISE This is the plain Truth in few and easie words By what is said you may see that when they say faith as Justifying is this or that it is both preposterous and the qua as distinct from the quae de ratione formali causally spoken is plainly false But in other cases Laxely and Materially the qua signifieth the same as the quae with the exclusion of other matter And when they have raised never so great a dust the Question is but this Whether we are justified by Believing in Christ as Christ or only in Christ as a Ransom and yet as a Ransom and as dying he purchaseth Sanctification as well as Justification Or. Whether faith in Christ as Christ or only faith in Christ as Purchasing Justification be the condition of our Justification Reader Having shewed the darkness of that Light that caused Mr. Ws. Exercitation and overthrown its Basis I shall put thee to no further trouble To my Reverend Brother Mr. John Warner Preacher of the Gospel at Christs Church in Hantshire Sir THough through the privacy of my habitation I never so much as heard of your name before your Book of the Object and Office of faith was in the Press yet upon tht perusal of it I confidently conclude that a zeal for God and that which you verily think to be his Truth hath moved you to this undertaking and doubtless you think that you have done God service by it I love your zeal and your indignation against Error and your tendernese of so great a point as that of Justification And could I find your Light to be answerable to your heat I hope I should also love and honour it Had you not taken me with the two Reverened Brethren whom you oppose to be the enemies of the person and Grace of the Lord Jesus or the followers of them as you say Epist pag. 6. I am perswaded you would not have either called us so or thought your self called to this assault And if I love Christ I must love that man that hateth me though mistakingly for the sake of Christ That principle within you that hath made Christ and Truth so dear to you that you rise up for that which seemeth to you to be Truth I hope will grow till you attain perfection in that world of Light that will end our differences I shall not go about to dèprecate your indignation for my plain expressions in this Defence when the nature of your matter did require them For I am not so unresonable as to expect that fair words should reconcile a good man to those that he takes to be enemies to Christ or to their followers But as I can truly say if I know what is in my heart that the Reading of your Book hath bred no enmity to you in my brest but only kindled a love to your zeal with a compassion of your darkness and a dislike of your so much confidence in the dark so it shall be my care as it is my duty to love you as a mistaken servant of Christ though you should take me for his greatest enemy And therefore being conscious of no worse affections to you I desire that Justice of you as to impute the ungratefull passages that you meet with to my apprehension of the badness of your cause and Arguments and a compassion to the poor Church that must be troubled and tempted and endangered by such gross mistakes and not to any contempt of your person with which I meddle not but as you are the Author of those Arguments In your Preface I find a Law imposed by you on your Answerer which I have not fully observed 1. Because I had written my Reply to your Arguments a considerable time before I saw your Preface
For it fell out that I first saw your Book without the Epistle and Preface 2. Because I thought it fittest to follow the Method that my Subject and the Readers â—â—dification did require 3. Yet did I once purpose to have answered all that was of moment in your Book against the Truth but upon trial I found your Reasons so inconsiderable that weariness interrupted me and put an end to my Reply and withal I grew confident that my labour would be to little purpose For I dare venture any Judicious Divine upon your Book without the help of a Reply And for the rest it is not replying that will serve turn but either prejudice will hold them to the side that they have taken or else they will think him in the right that hath the last word when they have read mine they will think that I am in the right and when they have again read yours they will think that you carry the cause and when they read my Reply again they will say you were mistaken but usually they will go with the party that is in greatest credit or hath most interest in them or advantage on them But yet I think you will find that none of your strength against me is neglected For I can truly say that when I think not meet to Answer all that a man hath said I never pass by that which I take to be his strength but purposely call out that and leave that which I think is so grosly weak as to need no answer So much of your ten Demands or Laws as I apprehended necessary I have here answered supposing what I had said of the same points in my first Disputation which I saw no Reason too often to Repeat I am none of those that blame you for too much of the Metaphysicks but rather mervail that you feared not lest your Metaphysical Reader will wrong you by mis-applying your cited Schegkius contrary to your better opinion of your self and take both your Schegkius and your Scaliger for Prophets that could speak as if they had read your Book and been acquainted with your arguings But it seems you are not the first of that way By your Arguments in your Preface I perceive you think it a matter of very great moment to your cause to prove that there are divers acts of Faith whereas I am so far from denying it that I am ready to demonstrate that even the faith by which we are Justified is liker to have twenty acts then one only but many certainly it hath Your first Argument is from the different objects because the Objects specifie the Acts. A sufficient Argument which no man can confute But 1. This is no proof that one act only is it that we are justified by 2. Where you add that Justifying Faith hath not respect to Christ as Lord formaliter you beg the Question and assert no light mistake But where you add in its act of Justifying you do but obtrude upon us your fundamental Error which leadeth you to the rest by naked affirmations Faith hath properly no justifying act Justificare est efficere Faith doth not effect our Justification we are justified by faith indeed but not as by an efficient cause unless you will take Justification for Sanctification For real qualitative Mutations it doth effect but the Jus or Title to any mercy in the world it cannot Effect but Accept when offered If you â—â—nâ— see so plain a Truth in its Evidence yet observe by the words of the Reverend Brother that is my Opponent in the second Disputation and by your Prefacers Dr. Kendals course that its a passive instrumentality that the Defenders of your cause at last are driven to and therefore talk not of its act of Justifying unless you will mean Gods act of Justifying which faith is the Condition of And whereas you make unbelief to be formally a slighting and neglecting Christ as a Saviour and effectively you must mean only effective non formaliter a denying subjection to him as Lord. You err so great but so rare an error that I suppose it needless to confute it All Christians as far as I can learn have been till now agreed that Believing in Christ as Prophet and King is a real part of faith and that unbelief or rejecting him as Prophet and King is a real part of unbelief Your second Argument is from the different subjects where you give us two such palpable Fictions that its a wonder you can make your self believe them much more that you should lay so great a stress on such absurdities The first is that the Act of Faith is in several faculties and you elswhere give us to understand that it is one Physical Act that you mean And do you think in good sadness that one single Physical act can be the act of both the faculties The second is that the fear love and obedience to Christ as King is but in the Will But 1. That Readers do you expect that will take an Assertion of Fear-Love and Obedience in stead of an assertion concerning Faith Were you not comparing faith in Christ as King with faith in Christ as Priest only And why speak you not of faith in one part of your comparison as well as in the other Your conclusion now is nothing to the Question 2. Or if you mean that Faith in Christ as King is not in both faculties as well as Faith in Christ as Priest or sacrifice did you think that any man of ordinary understanding would ever believe you without any proof or that ever such a thing can be proved Your third Argument is Because they are in a different time exerted the one that is Faith as Justifying being precedaneous to the other and to other Graces Answ Wonderfull Is that man justified that believeth not in Christ as the King and Prophet of the Church Do you believe this your self why then an Infidel is justified by Faith The ' Belief in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest only is not the Christian faith it is not faith in Christ properly because it is not faith in Christ as Christ For Christ as Priest only is not Christ A Heart only is not Corpus humanum A Body only is not a Man where there are three essential parts one of them is not the Thing without the rest The name Jesus Christ signifieth the office as well as the person It is essential to that Office that he be Prophet and King And hereby you shew that you do not only distinguish but divide For where there is a distance of time between the Acts there is a division Do you think that we are Christs enemies or followers of them unless we will believe you that a man is Justified by Believing in Christ only as a Priest or Ransom or in his Righteousness before ever be believe in him as King and Lord and so as Teacher c. If I had said that you are Christs enemy for such Doctrine
Marriage-consent then may we not as well say Marriage causeth Marriage as to say Marriage causeth Love Answer No. For 1. That Love which it causeth is the following acts of Love 2. And the name of Love is most usually given only to the Passion which is in the sensitive but not usually to the meer Velle the elicite act of the rational appetite I have been the more prolix on this because it serves also for answer to other of your Objections especially the third 2. You object Gospel-Precepts are many if not all the same with the moral Law if justified then by obedience to them are we not justified by the works of the Law c. Answer 1. James yields the whole 2. If you speak of our Justification at first by which of guilty and lyable to condemnation we become recti in curia or are acquit I then yield all that you seek here viz. that we are not justified by works 3. This objection is grounded on your formentioned mistake of my meaning as if I thought that justifying faith contained essentially such obedience or works 4. We are not justified by works of the Law if you mean the Law of works or by any works which make the reward to be not of Grace but of Debt which are the works that Paul speaks of 5. That which you call the moral Law viz. the bare Precepts of the Decalogue taken Division without the sanction viz the Promise or the Commination is not the Law but one part of the Law and the other part viz. the sanction adjoined if diversified makes it two distinct Laws though the Duty commanded be the same The Law that commandeth Socrates to drink Cicutam is not the same with that which should command a sick man to drink some for a cure 6. That our Justification is continued on condition of our sincere obedience added to our faith I maintain with James 7. Will you answer your own objection and you tell me what to answer Faith is a duty of the moral Law if we are justified by faith then we are justified by a work of the Law I know you will not evade as those that say Faith is not a work but a Passion nor as those that say we are justified by it not as a work but as an Instrument for I have heard you disclaim that If you say it is not as a work but as a condition by the free Law-giver appointed to this end then you say as I do both of faith and secondarily of works For what Divine denyeth works to be a condition of Salvation or of the final Justification or of our present Justification as continued vel nor amittendi Justificationem jam recaptam as Conr. Bergius saith I know but one other evasion left in the world which I once thought none would have adventured on but lately an acute Disputant with me maintains that faith is not conditio moralis vel ex voluntate constituentis but Conditio physica vel ex natura rei But I think I shall easily and quickly disprove this opinion Rababs and Abrahams works were works of the New Law of Grace and not of the old Law of works In a word As there is a two fold Law so there is a two fold Accusation and Justification when we are accused as breakers of the Law of works that is as sinners in common sort and so as lyable to the penalty thereof then we plead only Christs satisfaction as our Righteousnes and no work of our own But when we are Accused of final non-performance of the conditions of the New Law that is of being Rejectors of Christ the Mediator we are justified by producing our faith and sincere obedience to him The former Paul speaks of and James of the latter You may see Divines of great Name saying as I in this as Mead Deodate on James the 2. but most fully Placaus in Thes Salmuriens Thes de Justific c. To your third Objection That Faith Repentance Hope and Love as before explained are distinguished I easily yield you But where you say Faith and Love have different Objects therefore one is no essential part of the other I answer That faith in Christ and Love to the Saints which your Texts mention have different Objects I soon confess But faith in Christ as it is the first Act of the Will and love to Christ have one and the same Object beyond all doubt Your fourth I wholly yield if you speak of faith strictly or as it Justifieth and not in a large improper sence Your fifth is grounded on the forementioned mistake of my meaning And there needs no further answer but only to tell you that though sincere obedience to all Christs Lawes be a part of the condition of our Justification as continued and consummate at Judgement yet it follows not that every particular duty must be done no more then that Adam must obey every particular Law before he were actually just It is sufficient that there be no other defect in our Obedience but what may stand with sincerity The same Precept may command or make Duty to one and not to another and so be no Precept as to him A man that lives but an hour after his conversion is bound sincerely to obey Christ according to his Law but he is not bound to build Churches nor to do the work of twenty years Christ may be received as King and is in the same moment in which he is received as Justifier and in that reception we covenant to obey him and take him for our Lord to the death but not to obey him on earth when we are dead for we are then freed from these Lawes and come under the Lawes of the Glorified To your sixth I answer The Texts alledged have no shew of contradicting the Point you oppos se One saith we are justified by his Blood But doth it thence follow therefore not by Believing in him or receiving him as King are we made partakers of it His Blood is the Purchasing cause but we enquire after the condition on our part The other Text saith through faith in his Blood But 1. it saith not only in his Blood 2. And his blood is the Ground of his Dominion as well as of his Justifying us for by his blood he bought all into his own hands For to this end he Died Rose and Revived that he might be Lord of Dead and Living Rom. 14.9 It may be therefore through faith in his Blood as the chief part of the satisfaction and yet necessarily also through faith in himself or the Reception of himself as the Christ 3. Yet doth the Apostle most conveniently say through faith in his blood rather then through faith in his Dominion or Government because when he speaks of Faith he speaks Relatively not as some understand it by Faith meaning Christ but using the name of that Act which fitliest and fulliest relates to its Object and so intending the Object more
Luk. 19.27 Those mine enemies that would not I should raign over them bring them hither c. saith Amesius Medul l. 2. cap. 5. § 48. Opponuntur ista Infidelitas c. fidei non tantum qua tollunt Assensum illum Intellectus qui est ad fidem necessarius sed etiam qua inferunt includunt privationem illius Elections apprehensionis fidei quae est in Voluntate Surely an unwillingness to accept Christ for our Lord and Saviour is no small part of the condemning sin which we therefore call the rejecting of Christ The treading him under foot Neglecting so great Salvation Not willing to come to Christ for life Making light of him when they are invited to the marriage Mat. 22. and making excuses Not-kissiing the son Psal 2. with many the like which import the Wills refusal of Christ himself and not only its unwillingness to believe the Truth of the Promise or Declaration of the Gospel To your tenth Objection I answer by denying the consequence we speak of the soul as rational and not as sensitive or vegetative When the understanding Will receive Christ the whole soul doth it that is every faculty or the soul by a full entire motion in its several Actings to the Object presented both as true and good Your Joy Hope Fear are in the sensitive And Love as a Passion and as commonly taken And for Memory take it for an act of the Understanding or of Understanding and Imagination conjunct or for a third faculty as please your self it will not breed any difficulty in the case But whether Fear be properly a Receiving of Christ or any Object as Good I much question I take it rather for the shunning of an evil then the Reception of Good So much for your Objections I will next as impartially as I can consider your Answers to what I laid down for the proof of the Point in Question But first I must acknowledge that I have given you and others great advantage against the Doctrine of that Book by the immethodicalness and neglect of Art and not giving the Arguments in form which I then thought not so necessary as now I perceive it is for I was ready to yield wholly to Gibeeufs reasons against formal arguing Praefat. ante lib. 2. de Libertate The present expectation of death caused me to make that haste which I now repent yet though I see some oversights in the manner of expression I see no cause to change my mind in the Doctrine of it Also I must desire you to remember here that the proof lyeth on your part and not on mine Affirmanti incumbit probatio It is acknowledged by almost all that fides qua Justificat Justifying faith is a Receiving of Christ as Lord and not only as Saviour or Justifier And you and I are agreed on it that Faith justifieth not as an Instrument but as a Condition so that they who will go further here and maintain that yet Faith justifieth only As it Receiveth Christ as Justifier or as Saviour and not as King must prove what they say If I prove 1. that Faith justifieth as the Condition on performance whereof the Gift is conferred 2. And that this Faith which is the Condition is the Accepting of Christ as Christ or the Anointed King and Saviour both which are yielded me I must needs think that I have proved that the Receiving Christ as King doth as truly Justifie as the Receiving him as Priest or Justifier Yet I had rather not say that either Justifies because 1. it is no Scripture phrase 2. and seemeth to import an Efficiency but rather that we are justified by it which imports here but a conditionality and is the Scripture phrase Till you have proved your exclusion of faith in one respect from the Justifying Office and your confinement of it to the other my proof stands good I give you the entire condition and ubi Lex non distinguit non est distinguendum multó minus dividendum And though those that assert the proper Instrumentality of faith in Justifying or else the meer natural conditionality may have something to say for their Division though with foul absurdities Yet what you can say who have escaped those conceits I cannot imagine Me thinks if faith Justifie as the condition of the Grant or Covenant and this condition be the Receiving of Christ as Lord and Saviour it should be impossible to exclude the receiving Christ as King from Justifying till you first exclude it from the said conditionality A Quatenus ad omne valet consequentia To Justifie therefore As the condition on which the Promise gives Christ and with him Justification must needs infer that we are justified by all whatsoever hath such a conditionality Yet as I said before when we intend to express not only or principally the Act of the Receiver but also or principally the Grace of the Giver then it is a fitter phrase to say we are Justified by faith in his Blood or by Receiving Christ the Saviour and Justifier because it fulliest and fitliest expresseth that Grace which we intend and thus Paul oft doth So that they who distinguish between Fides quae Justificat and Fides qua Justificat and admit that Act into the former which they exclude from the latter must prove what they say Fides qua justificat non Recipit Christum vel ut Regem vel sacerdotem sed tantum Justificat i. e. Qua est Conditio non est Receptio Nec qua Recipit Justificat i. e. Qua Receptio non est Conditio Materia forma non sunt confundenda Actus fidei est quasi materia vel Aptitudo tantum ad officium conditionalitatis Distinctio igitur ipsa est inepta Now to your Answers Pardon this prolixity First I must tell you that by that phrase the whole soul I mean the entire motion of the soul by Understanding and Willing to its Object both as True and Good For I know the whole soul may be said to understand in every Intellectual Action and to will in every act of willing But when it only understands or Assents and not willeth it doth not Act fully according to its Power nor according to the nature of its Object when the Goodness is neglected and the Truth only apprehended And it is not a compleat motion seeing the Acts of the understanding are but introductory or preparatory to those of the Will where the motion of the Rational soul is compleat And so my Argument stands thus If Justifying faith be the Act both of the understanding and the Will then it is not one single act only But c. Ergo c. Prob. Anteced Justifying faith is the Receiving of Christ but Christ is Received by the Understanding and Will by the former incompleatly by the latter compleatly therefore Justifying faith is the Acting both of the Understanding and Will Probatur Minor Christ must be Received as Good and not only
it is not by Assent properly or fully that we receive Christ So Amesius ubi supra § 19. Crediturus etiam porro cum ex miseriae sensu omnimoâ—ae liberationis cum in se tum in aliis defectu necesse habeat se dedere Deo in Christo tanquam Servatori sufficienti fideli Deditionem istam facere non potest ullo modo per Assensum Intellectus sed per Consensum Voluntatis And indeed I think this Dedition or self-delivery to be part of Faith and that the covenanting in heart with God in Christ is the very justifying faith taking him for ours and giving up our selves to him as his and the external Covenanting is the profession of Faith and that Baptism is the marriage-solemnization and engaging sign and means 6. That Act which cannot be discerned in a Saint in it self from what may be in the wicked is not the receiving of Christ fully or properly which justifies But the Act of Assent to the Truth of the Gospel as it is in a Saint cannot in it self be discerned from what may be in the wicked Therefore the Act of Assent is not the Receiving of Christ which justifies The Major is hence evident In that justifying faith being the condition of our Justification must needs be the great Mark to know by whether we are justified or no But if it could not be known to be sincere it self in vain is it made a Mark to know our state by yea or a Condition almost when a man can never tell when he performeth it The Minor I have endeavoured to prove in an Additional Chap. to the third part of my Book of Rest to which for brevity I refer you Dr. Stoughton I have there shewed you saith as I Aâ—esius saith Medul l. 1. c. ◠§ 4. quaÌ„vis fides praesuppmat semper notitiaÌ„ Evangelii nulla tamen datur in quoquaÌ„ cognitio salutifera ab illa quo in quibusdam non salvandis reperitur diversa nifâ— consequenter ad actum istuÌ„ voluntatis ab ipso dependens Job 7.17 and 8.31.32 1 John 2.3 I doubt not but in the Intensness of Degree there is a difference between the Intellectual acts as Knowledge and Assent in a Saint and a wicked man but if any think that they are in themselves discernable I would he would tell me one Mark of the difference In their different Effects on the Will I know they are discernable 7. If you acknowledge that other Graces receive Christ as well as Faith and receiving of Christ doth make him ours and so justifie then you must acknowledge that other Graces justifie as well as faith yea not secondarily only but as Principally as Faith But that you will be loth to do The consequence will not be avoided but by shewing that there is a twofold receiving of Christ and that one justifieth and the other not which when you have proved from Scripture I will yield but then at least I shall gain this that receiving Christ justifies not properly ex natura actus sed ex voluntate Ordinantis and if I get that I get the main part of the cause in controversie 8. Affiance is judged by Divines to be an Act of the Will But Affiance is judged by the same Divines to be the justifying Act Therefore they judge that the justifying Act and consequently the Reception of Christ belongs to the Will 9. The Velle or Elicite act of the Will which I insist on is the very first Act and goes before Affiance as it denotes any other Act of the Will Therefore either this Velle must be the justifying Faith and Reception of Christ or else they must say that there is a saving reception of Christ that goes before the justifying or Reception which sure they will not grant that make that Faith the actus primas vitae spiritualis 10. Lastly The opinion seems to me so Improbable without and against reason and so dangerous that God doth assign one only Act of the soul to the Office of justifying especially the act of assent that I dare not entertain it without proof It is improbable that in a Moral Political Theological Matter the Holy Ghost should speak as if it were in the strictest discourse of Physicks It is improbable that God should speak to man in such a Moral discourse so as no men use to speak and therefore so as men could not without a further explication understand Doth he that speaks of receiving a man to be our Husband King Master c. mean it of one only Act though I know Consent is the chief Or he that gives any great matter on Condition of such Receiving Doth he mean that any one single Act is that Condition Much less Assent Or is there any likelyhood that when other Acts do receive the same Object Christ in a way of as high honouring him that yet God should confine Justification to one Act setting by all the rest Yea when the rest are acknowledged to be part of the Condition and Receiving as Lord to be the fides quae I know God is not bound to give man a Reason of his Laws but yet he usually doth it and we must take heed of asserting that to be Gods Law which appears unreasonable till we can prove what we say Yea what a dangerous loss will Christians then be at who will hardly ever be able to find out this single Act what it is and when they have it And he that knows how quick Spirits are in their actings and withall how little able we are to observe and discern them perhaps many doubt whether you can find a name for any single act of a soul or know when it is one Act and when many In the forementioned Instance A woman is condemned for Treason the Prince writeth to her that he hath dearly paid her Ransom will not only deliver her but also make her his Queen if she will Believe this and Receive him accordingly If now the Lawyers should dispute the case what single act it was that she was Delivered and Dignified by whether an act of the Intellect only or of the Will only whether Assent only or Affiance Yea whether agendo vel patiendo as many here do would not men think that learning made them dote And I would entreat you to consider whether it were Gods Design in the Gospel to advance any one Act of mans soul above the rest and so to honour it or rather to advance the Lord Jesus whom faith Receiveth as Mr. Gataker tels Salâ—marsh Many speak dangerously in over-magnifying their own faith when they should magnifie Christ whom it relates to I know the great thing that sticks with some is that the Scripture oft seems to describe faith by the Act of Assenting But consider so it doth in other places by Trusting Resting Taking Receiving Coming Eating and Drinking which Metaphors must needs signifie acts of the Will c. which shew that it is not any single