signifie But that he means to extoll them he doth enough plainly give us to understand When he saith that the purchase did not Onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper his meaning must be at least that Christ dyed and by his death hath purchased to the pepper-corn of mans righteousness a value and efficacy in part though not Onely to Justifie us so that our righteousness must go Cheek by Cheek with the righteousness of Christ to Justification Now as if Usury as it Consisteth in taking increase be unlawfull a penny of a hundred pounds taken by way of increase is no less in substance Usury and unlawfull than the taking of Tenn pounds of the hundred so if the adding of our righteousness to the righteousness of Christ for our justification be an unlawfull exalting of our own and depressing of Christs righteousness then to bring our own righteousness with the righteousness of Christ in the least part to justifie is as truly an unlawfull depression of Christs righteousness and advancing of our own as if we brought it in the highest degree wholly and alone to justifie us and so by his account Christ dyed to make man though not the Onely yet in part a saviour of himself And herein to follow his doctrine is the ready way to be a self-destroyer Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are faln from grace said the Apostle to a people that did extoll but in part and not Onely their own righteousness to justification Though it be not Onely poyson which a man eateth yet it there be poyson in it it brings death after iâ— If we magnifie one grain of our own pepper to that height that we make it a part of that righteousness by which to stand at Gods tribunall this one grain will sink us down to hell so hot a poyson is Mr. Brs pepper-corn I shall joyn that which followes in the similitude viz. Bax. But thus A personall Rent must be payd for the testification of his homage He was never Redeemed to be Independent and his own Landlord and Master The olde Rent he cannot pay his new Landlords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn With that which is homogeneous to it in the application Bax. Two things are considerable in this debt of righteousness The value and the personall performance or interest The value of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us in stead of the value of a perfect Obedience of our own performing and the volue of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personall performance of homage therefore the personall performance of Faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment as if we had payd the full Rent because Christ whom we beleeve in hath payd it and he will take this for satisfactory homage so it is in point of personall performance and not of value that faith is imputed It is not denyed but a personall testification of homage is required We were not Redeemed to be independent or our own Landlords and Masters to serve our selves and walk after our own thoughts No Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price saith the Apostle Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods 1 Cor. 6. 20. And again He hath given himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works We must live and dye to him that dyed for us in testification of our homage But the thing in question is not whether this homage is to be done but whether when it is performed it be a Cause or an effect of our redemption and justification Whether we are to perform all duty that we may be redeemed and justified or because we are redeemed and justified Whether the relation of the persons go before the relative duties or the relative duties before the relation of the persons Reason tells us that filiall obedience doth alway presuppose the relation of a Son and where there is no Childe there can be expected no Childlike obedience First free and then free service And to this tenor runs the vote and voyce of the Gospel We are delivered out of the hands of our enemies that we may serve him without fear in holines and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life Luk. 1. 74 75. Not that we shall be delivered out of c. because we have so served him all the dayes of our life That we are married to Christ that we should bring forth fruit unto God Rom. 7. 4. Not that we are married to Christ because we have brought forth fruit unto God That he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them 2 Cor. 5. 15. Not that we must live to Christ that we may live by Christ and obtein life by his death If any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Not that he must be a new creature to the end that he may be in Christ Mr. Br shakes the whole frame of the Gospel into a topsie-turnie and might as rationally make our glorification the Condition of our sanctification as sanctification the Condition of our Justification and Adoption As for the distinction which he puts in the application between the value and the performance of Faith i. e. in his sense of sanctification making the value of Christs satisfaction to be imputed in stead of the value of a perfect obedience and the personall performance of Faith to be imputed onely in stead of the personall performance of the Law and so our inchoat sanctification for that he means by the performing of faith is imputed to us in place of performing all perfect righteousness unto justification some pretty witty men may be taken with it as a pretty witty fancy But whosoever Loveth the Lord Jesus up to a due jealousie for his honour Cannot but have his heart full of trembling to see the sacred word and mysteries of Christ to be made the play-game of an audacious and frothy wit and eluded yea vilified and enervate with such absurd and windy distinctions that have no footing in the word of God Himself using this distinction with a purpose not to teach but to Cheat the simple For pag. 141. he doth in express words affirm the worthines or value which he doth here ascribe to Christs satisfaction to lye in our performance or works Either he must be destitute of all natural and moral operations of Conscience or an Anti-Hannibal that hath sworn unreconcileable warrs not for God against Rome but for Rome against Christ that in so holy a busines can so frequently and fearlesly act the wanton I shall conclude therefore in the words which Mr. Pemble hath against the brethren of Mr. Br in this point
and continued untill the full execution thereof That very pactional Justification which is by Faith being nothing but the execution of the decree of God from eternity For besides our eternal Justification in Christ before mentioned we acknowledge also an eternall decree in God to declare and evidence his Elect justified in their own consciences i. e. in time to send forth his Spirit into them and by his Spirit to work Faith in them and so to draw them unto Christ and by the evidence of Faith and evidence of the Spirit to declare themselves to themselves to be justified and pardoned for ever As for that of the respect of the Adjunct to its Subject wee leave to Master Baxter and his friends the Arminians They indeed make Pardon and Justification to bear the nature of Adjuncts yea separable Adjuncts and Accidents of God which may adesse vel abesse sine destructione subjecti that God may hate one day even to damn and love the next day to save and the third day convert this love into hatred againe and so consequently change more frequently then the Moon and yet be Gâ—d still Such shall we find Mr. Baxters doctrine suckt out by kissing from the lips of the Arminians But I forbear to speak further of it here reserving it for its proper place 4. As to the instances which he giveth to make questionable whether Imanent Acts are eternall viz. For God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is sanctified or just c. Gods foreknowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not I answer that foreknowledge doth still imply and connote knowledge though knowledge doth not so imply foreknowledge He that perfectly in every respect foreknew an Ecclipse in every point of its time measure c. knew it also perfectly and could as fully and perfectly contemplate and speak of it in its fruition as presence future and present it was and is one to him Much more in God who hath created time for the measure of his creatures not his own being and motion Past present and future are much to us whose existence duration and motions are spanned and spinned out by moments But to God who is eternall dwels in eternity is eternity not circumscribed with place or time there is nothing former or latter no succession of present to past of future to present but all at once and at one view apparent to his eye or knowledge So that albeit he speakes oft in Scriptures to our capacitie of succession of times as if he together with us did act within the bounds thereof else if he should speake stil in reference to things of old and things hereafter to us as the eternall I AM not I was or I will bee our weakness would be beneath the comprehension of what he saith Yet these circumstances of time doe adde nothing to take nothing from nor properly square with him that is above time without the precincts of time comprehends time and temporary things within himself and is not comprehended or touched by them The now existence of the world the now sanctification of such a man are nâ—w and new in the knowledge of the Creature not the Creator Or let Mr. Baxter deny the world in that form state extent fulness c. in which it doth now exist or the now either sanctified or just man or the measure and nature of his Justification to have been from all eternity as apparent to Gods knowledge as it is in this now or present time of us his creatures 5. The comparisons or similitudes which hee bringeth of the Sun the glass the eye though they may have some appearance of freeing God from change in taking new notions into his knowledge in time which notwithstanding is but an appearance yet is there nothing in them from which to argue to the acts in general which are immanent in God These do but set forth the respect of natural causes and their natural effects either to other therefore are in a capacity to illustrate onely those acts that flow naturally and therewithall necessarily from God Not those that proceed from the liberty and freedom of his will which Master Baxter call Morall Acts and Morall Causes For of these there can be no Cause assigned but the free will of God And if they serve not Master Baxters turn in this respect they become utterly unusefull to him in the point of Justification Yet to this end doth he drive that God doth justifie and unjustifie pardon and unpardon change his will from love to hatred and from hatred to love to will the salvation of the same man at one time and his damnation at another without any change of his will or in himself The absurdity and impossibility whereof we shall afterward shew when Master Baxter in his following Theses gives me cause to do it So much of what he saith by way of answer to the Major or more properly what he saith to leave it unanswered For after all he concludes But grant that all Gods immanent Acts are Eternall And this is as much as if he had said All that hath been said is of no force to refell it Therefore I grant it As for his answer to the Minor That Remission and Iustification are immanent Acts in God though he speak much yet is it nothing to the pupose First he tells us that most Divines will deny it and tell you that they are transient Acts which is true An irrefragable Argument most will say it Ergo it is true True because most Will say it though hitherto possible they have never said it And how knowes he they Will say it â—eradventure he puts so much confidence in his following dispute that he accounts all will be captivated by it into his opinion Oâ— if he mean the most Divines have said it hee questionlesse means partly the Jesuiticall Divines for so Bellarmine indeed with others of the same School asserts or else more primarily the Arminian Divines speaking in this point what they have learned of Socinus who is as great with them as was Simon Magus with the Samaritans Yet even these also though they someâ—imes deny yet do they also sometimes when it may make for their advantage affirme Justification to be an immanent Act in God 2. Who is there that sees not his sophistry in shifting from him this proposition in stead of answering it Doctor Twisseâ— his proposition is Justification is an immanent Act in God To subvert this Master Baxter bestirrs himself to prove a seemingly but not really contradictory proposition viz. That Justification is a Transient Act of God A fallacy which in the Schools is called Ignoratio Elenchi And the reasoning of Master Baxter here is as proper and powerful as if Master Baxter should affirm that Apollo was above a hundred years old and I to overthrow his conclusion should assert and prove that Apollo
after many hundreds perhaps thousands of years is at length fully justified or if he be a peece of knotty timber perhaps comes not at last to bee fully justified I shall leave the Reader to view the Aphorism in Mr. Baxters book I hold it not worthy the transcribing so iâ— seems doth Mr. Baxter too for reviewing his company of the whole number which are no less then tenne he retaines onely two viz. Justification in title of Law and that in sentence of judgement about which his former Thesis was occupant disbanding all the rest and so leaving the cause as raw and unconfirmed as he found it CHAP. XXIV Whether Justification be and remains to be conditional and that to beleevers during life and the justified and pardoned may be unjustified and unpardoned again Aâ—so whether and in what sense and respects there may be remission of sinnes before they be committed Thes 43. pag. 196. B. The Justification which we have in Christs own justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders and none can lay claim to it untill he have performed the conditions nor shall any be personally justified till then Even the Elect remain personally unjustified for all their conditional justification in Christ till they do bâ—leeve Thes 44. Men that are but thus conditionally pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified againe for their non-performance of the conditions and all the debt so forgiven be required at their hands And all this without any change in God or in his Laws See Ball of the Covenant page 240. Thes 45. pag. 198. Yea in case the justified by Faith should cease beleeving the Scripture would pronounce them unjust again and yet without any change in God or Scripture but onely in themselves Because their Justification doth continue conditionall as long as they live here The Scripture doth justifie no man by name but all beleevers as such Therefore if they should cease to be beleevers they would cease to be justified I joyn together these three Aphorismes partly because Mr. Baxter doth very little sever them by the interposition of very short Explications which might have been as well spared as used for any light they give to his Aphorisms But principally because they all treat upon one and the same Argument conditional Justification And here I could have desired that he had treated more Argumentatively and less Magisterially That hee had stated the questions which he here determines into Conclusions and by the best Arguments he could have assayed to prove his assertions which he doth here nakedly and peremptorily lay down only upon his own bare authority to be taken up as if it were holy and unerring He could not have wanted help to have handled these points more controversally having the Papists on the one hand and Arminians on the others suggesting matter and arguments to him it being their not Christs cause and doctrine which he bids and teacheth here to stand alone so that in case he had met with a learned adversary that had driven him out of this field he might have been sure to have been succoured with a whole brigade of these Sophisters that would either have laid in the place or recovered the field for him again But we must give leave to a man that is all wisdome sometimes for his recreation to be servant to his will And because we find him not here what we expected we must take him as he offers himself Stet pro ratione voluntas Only I think it fit to save the labour to answer Arguments when he refuseth to make it his task to bring them Bare negations of Conclusions being the best way of answering where they are peremptorily and fastuously posited without any premissed reasons from whence to draw them or following arguments to back them In matters of Faith asserted not proved Jack Straws negation being of equal validity to John Scotus his affirmation onely we shall view his words to see what shew of reason there may be found in them In the Explication of the first of these three Positions vizt the 43. He tels us This needs not explication He saw it and had acquaintance with it while it was yet but a notion in his brain therefore needs not any spectacles to clear up unto him his own formed of spring but for my part such is my dulness that whether I seek for his meaning in some part of the Position or for truth in the rest I professe my self unable to understand without an interpreter Let his words be not onely glanced over but well considered I might think there may be the like though not so great an incapacity in anothers braine as in mine The Justification saith he which we have in Christs own Justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders Let the acute wit here inform my stupidness what he meanes by the Justification which wee have in Christs own Justification What is Christs own justification or what the justification which we have in Christs own justification If we understand not what the subject of a proposition is we cannot judge at all of the truth of the proposition and do in vain enquire into the predicate We can go no further understandingly in this Thesis untill wee understand this of which all the rest speaketh Christs own justification may be understood actively or passively For the justification by which hee justifieth others or that by which God hath justified him If Mr. Baxter had meant the former I conceive he would have said plainly as he doth every where else Justification without adding to it Christs or Christs own which seems to be used to distinguish here between the justification here spoken of and the common Justification whereof he treateth throughout this Tractate If in the latter sense it may not suddenly appear how possibly we can bee justified in Christs own justification Neither can Christs own justification properly taken be possibly made our justification For all will apprehend without help by Christs own justification the justification proper to his person which none had or have in common with him Yet I conceive Mr. Baxter means here Christs passive justification Gods justifying of Christ and that these words here do relate to the words which he hath within the 4 number of the foregoing or 42 Thesis where he saith 4. His own Justification as the publick person at his resurrection which is not enough properly called Christs own because it is not the justification of Christ as personally alone but as mystically considered Taking this to be his meaning I shall first speak something of the meaning of the phrase and then examine the truth of the Position 1. For the meaning of the phrase As the first Adam sustained the office of a publick person in relation to that Commandement of not eating of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil so that if he had obeyed we had all lived and been justified in him but
of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
not of great moment but the supercilious haughtinesse of the man puft with the opinion of his secular learning so high as to puf and pif at so many excellent Divines for learning and holinesse to many of which he is not worthy to be an Amanuensis is unsufferable I shall therefore as briefly as I can expresse upon what grounds our Divines and how far they make the righteousnesse of Christ the matter of our justification as near as I may upon good probabilities conjecture The Doctrine of justification by Christ is no where in the four Evangelists held forth under the name of justification or justifying Many both Parables and clear doctrines that proceeded from the lips of Christ do indeed in other words fully display it specially John the Evangelist who made it more his task to record the doctrine then the acts of Christ because he saw those historifyed somewhat largely by the other three Evangelists which had written before him Eagle-like mounting on high to the contemplation of his Celestiall and Divine nature and doctrines very exactly sets it forth but under other words naming it Life eternall Life everlasting Life He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life Joh. 3. 36. Is passed from death to life Joh. 5. 24. Hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. My flesh which I give for the life of the world Joh. 6. 51. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life Joh. 5. 40. Except ye eat my flesh and drink my bloud ye have no life in you he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6. 57. In all which and many other texts of this Evangelist none can deny but by life is to be understood chiefly if not only life in law the life of justification not that of glory which is to be received above but that of grace here For so those Scriptures point out a life here in this present world enduring everlastingly to all eternity and not a life here only to be hoped for and hereafter to come into our fruition Neither do I find the word justifie used but once by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles Nor yet at all in any one of the Epistles of the Apostles St. James only excepted in one Chapter but by the Apostle Paul alone Yet the substance of justification was the chief doctrine in all their Epistles handled but the same set forth under the name of Salvation saving life and other phrases which our Saviour himself used And these phrases also doth St. Paul use as equipollent with the word Justifying in all his Epistles Now the reason why this Apostle more then the rest treats of this doctrine under the name of justification I conceive to be this Because he was forced to handle it by way of controversie against the false Apostles some professing some rejecting Christ that taught justification and salvation by the works of the Law in part and not by faith only whom therefore he must needs in his disputes treat with in their own tearms and words Their Argumentation against the Apostle as may be gathered from the Apostles answers ran in this tenour and to this effect That righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But the righteousnesse of the Law is that righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh man perfectly righteous at least by procuring proper righteousnesse to him therefore that alone saveth The Apostle here granteth the proposition that no other righteousnesse but that which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But denyeth the assumption that the righteousnesse of the Law only or at all justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous Because only the perfect doers of the law are perfectly righteous not the hearers But no man can perfectly do it And contrariwise proveth that the righteousness of the Gospel which he cals the Righteousnesse of God the Righteousnesse of faith the Righteousnesse of God by faith which consisteth in Christs satisfaction imputed to us is the Righteousnesse which justifyeth and maketh perfectly righteous because it cleanseth from the guilt and freeth from the imputation of all sin and unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 17. 3. 5 21 22 25 26. 4. 3 5 6 11. 5. 17 18 21. 9. 30. 10. 3 4 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. In all which places and in many other the Apostle having rejected the righteousnesse of works from being asserteth the righteousnesse of God in Christ by faith to be the righteousnesse the matter and substance of the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed This he illustrateth Rom. 5. 19. by a comparison between Adam and Christ Adams disobedience and Christs obedience As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made roghteous the ones disobedience was not only the merit but also the matter of our sin as far as sin is capable of matter the very sin it self which being imputed to us as being in him without any personall and actuall sin of our own makes us sinners So the obedience of Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin and giving satisfaction to Gods justice in obedience to that positive command of the Father which required it was and is not only the merit but also the matter of that righteousnesse which being imputed to us as being in Christ without any personall obedience of ours added to it constituteth us righteous and justifyed in Gods acceptance or is that for by and in which the Lord pronounceth us just and justifyed to our own consciences Such is the frequent dispute of the Apostle about the substance and matter of that righteousnesse by which we are justify ad which he concludes not to be a righteousnesse inherent in us but this Righteousnesse inherent in Christ but imputed to us and apprehended by faith to justification whom God hath set forth as a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. And this is all that I finde our Divines to mean in saying the righteousnesse or satisfaction of Christ is the materiall cause of our justification defending against the Papists as the Apostle did againsts the Pharisees that the matter of the righteousnesse which God accepteth and imputeth to us in justifying us or unto righteousnesse and justification is this righteousnesse of Christ only not the righteousnesse of works Mr. Baxter in rejecting the phrase 1. As rude and not Logicall 2. As at the best unproper doth first accuse the Apostle and secondarily them that follow his Apostolicall doctrine and phrase of this rudenesse and impropriety of language One of them speaks out the minde of the rest Deus justitiam i. e. Obedientiam satisfactionem Sevarpius â—rs Th eol â— justif â— 925. Christi nostram facit ac pro nostra ducit c. atque ita nos antequam justos pronunciet justos facit God makes the righteousnesse i. e. the obedience and satisfaction of Christ ours
accounts it for ours c. and so before he pronounceth us he maketh us righteous Let us be rude with the Apostle as long as we stand fixed in the doctrine of grace with the Apostles That Mr. Baxter speaks more Logically after the Sophisters and captivates himself to their learned errours however he may applaud himself therein we conceive it to deserve more pity then envie 6. To his fourth Question I shall speak but little because I understand him but little Neither have I that edge upon my dull brain to discern whether in his acutenesse he doth more contradict others or himself or what other least cause he hath to contradict granting what he grants save â—â—ly the spirit of contradiction The formall cause of justification in his Thesis we have thus B. The formall cause is the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the law or the disabling the law to accuse or condemn him The question that he conceiveth will be put to him here to answer is B. Why he makes not the imputation of Christs righteousnesse the formall cause To this he answers p. 218. B. That imputation is not the forme is undeniable The forme gives the name especially to actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct acts and how then can imputing be the form of justifying c. Here before I can understand the depths of Mr. Baxter I must be resolved by him in some Queries 1. Whether justification hath its being before it hath its form For the form doth more unexceptively give the being then the name and is in order of nature before the thing formed or named 2. If not Whether then there were ever a justifyed man after the tenour of the new Covenant upon earth or ever shall be such For if the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling of the Law to accuse or condemn be the form of justification then is justification unformed and without being according to Mr. Baxter untill the day of Judgment Untill then he binds all hand and foot under the threatnings and curse of the Law as we have seen in and under his 9 11 12 13. Thesis and how long after he doth not yet certifie us so that if this be the form of justification then after his principles there neither is nor shall be either justification or any justifyed person as long as the world lasteth either in heaven or upon earth Except Mr. Baxter will say the law is so dealt with by Christ as Cnipperdoling was by John a Leyden of the highest magistrate and judge made tormentor or hangman deposed from being any longer a righteous Accuser Judge or Condemner of guilty persons and made an Executioner and Tormentor of them whom no Law accuseth or condemneth 3. Whether the Law accuseth or condemneth of any thing else but of sin And if not Whether Gods acquitting the sinner from the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not his acquitting the sinner from all sin that might expose him to the Lawes accusing and condemning This Mr. Baxter must grant except he will say a man may be acquitted from the Lawes yet left unto the Devils accusation and condemnation as he seems before to hint But this is no other acquitting but from the frying-pan into the fire from a just accuser and Judge into the tyranny of an unjust slanderer and destroyer Such a justification with its form we decline as damnation it selfe if Mr. Baxter can with his Sophistry charm the Devill let him grapple with him 4. Whether the imputation of righteousnesse and the not imputing of sin be not the same thing neither an act distinct from the other but each connoting and implying the other For so he answers the question denying imputation to be the form viz. imputation of righteousnesse without the adject terme of diminution the righteousnesse of Christ knowing well that some of the most considerate of the Antipapisticall Divines place the form of justification in the imputation of righteousness not in the imputation of Christs righteousnesse viz. which he hath done These two Quaeâ—ies he must grant us except he will sinke from his own principles and contradict himself 5. Whether then there be any difference between Mr. Baxters form of justification and that form which he impugneth Whether the acquitting of the sinner from the Law from sin which exposeth to the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not the same thing in substance with Gods imputing of righteousnesse and not imputing of sin to him What hath the one of these save words alone more or lesse in it then the other They must be Mr. Baxters Lynces eyes that are busied in the speculation of Democritus his Atomes and Platoes Ideas that can discern the difference my blunt fancie is uncapable and uncomprehensive of it B. I believe saith Mr. Baxter that this imputing doth in order of nature goe before justifying And doth not the form in order of nature go before the thing formed how else doth the form give it its ultimum esse This more proves then denies imputation to be the form B. And that the righteousnesse so imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated legally righteous and why the Law cannot condemn us This also makes more for us then for him He tels us before that the forme gives the name Now to be Legally righteous in Mr. Baxters phrase is to be righteous in the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction He that is so is justifyed in title of Law as Mr. Baxter termes it and here treats of it if then it give denomination of legally righteous it gives the name of justification in title of Law except he will say that a man is legally righteous in Christ before Gods gracious act makes him such if so then is imputation the form of justification because it gives it its name He concludes well B. It is a vain thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the causes of justification if we agree in the matter Yet see I no other ground that Mr. Baxter hath to take up this quarrell against the whole stream of Protestant Divines in refusing and oppugning the form of justification which they give but to quarrell about names and words The form which he substituteth in place of theirs being the same with theirs in substance and differing only in Logicall not Theologicall names and words Unlesse some will say there is a reall as well as a nominall difference between the disabling of the Law to accuse of sin and Gods not imputing sin i. e. between the Lawes acquitting and Gods acquitting from sin between the Lawes not imputing unrighteousnesse and Gods imputing righteousnesse which is all one as if I should put a difference between the pardon that disables the Law of the Land from accusing and condemning of a malefactor and a pardon which acquits him from the offence which the same Law had power to accuse him of
he hath out of Schiblers Mâ—taphysicks sound enough I acknowledge as Schibler proposeth it in Thesi but fallacious and misapplyed by this man to his Hypothesis Yet what ever it be though not the least portion of Gods word in it let us examine the strength of it It is the principall efficient of the act or effect that worketh by the instrument saith he but man is not the principall efficient therefore worketh not in this businesse by instruments or instrumentall helps I answer 1. not only in resevence to this but to that which also followeth in his Argumentation We are to distinguish between instruments that they are of two kinds effective or receptive Effective so is a knife the instrument of cutting Receptive so is the hand the instrument of receiving Mr. Baxters Arguments are applyed to the former only not at all to the latter For 1. Of an Effective instument it may be said the knife cuts and the Man cuts likewise But a Receptive instrument hath a double relation 1. To the giver 2. To the receiver As if a rich man give a great treasure to a poor man he receiveth it in his hand the receptive instrument of the poor mans inriching is his hand Now if a man should argue as Mr. Baxter doth the hand if it be an instrument it is an instrument either of the giver or receiver not of the receiver for he doth not inrich himself he is not the principall agent inriching not of the giver for he doth not receive any riches but the act of the hand is to receive therefore the instrument of neither nor at all an instrument Who sees not the vanity of such an Argument Yet such is this paralogism of Mr. Baxter I say therefore that the Canons of an instrument which he citeth out of Aquinas and Schibler hold only of effective not of receptive instruments Yet as faith is Gods effective instrument to justifie man and not himself as Mr. Baxter trifleth so these Canons hold of it also in the sense before specifyed 2. I deny the Assumption or Minor he proves it thus Man doth not justifie himself This is an equivocation and besides the question None ever made man the causa prima of his justification none I mean of all those whom Mr. Baxters disputes against Himself indeed and his followers asserting the perfection and merit of mans righteousnesse consisting in faith and good works and affirming that this righteousnesse of man and in man doth give him title to the righteousnesse which is by Christ cannot well be cleared from making man the first tause of his justification But we speak nothing tending to this purpose and in no other sense do we say that man acteth to his justification but by this apprehending and applying to himself the justification of God And in this respect man is not only the principall but also the sole efficient of apprehending or receiving Christ to justification and faith his alone receptive instrument therein by the instrumentall subsurviency of his faith in receiving Christ We make it not mans instrument of Christs satisfaction or of Gods acceptation or of his declaring but only of our applying it to our soules That it is not Gods instrument he hath these reasons to prove B. 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions A meer bull with which he jeers and scoffes not only at all the Protestant Divines but also at Christ and his Apostles as poor sorry animals and asses unworthy to be answered with reasons but with absurd non-sense 1. Faith in one was never used or ordained to be an instrument of justifying another much lesse faith in God to justifie man 2. He can conclude nothing else hence but this God beleeveth not therefore God is not justifyed or discharged from condemnation by the new Covenant 3. He doth in the Magisteriall confidence of his heart implicitely accuse Christ his Apostles and faithfull Teachers in his Church to hold that God is the instrument of our justification that the Principall agent and the instrument are the same thing that the instrument must be in the Agent or cannot be his instrument so that faith must be Gâ—d himself for whatsoever is in God is God himself the immanent acts of God are Gods acting These are all but slanderings of the Lords servants to make odious the doctrine which they deliver 4. We make faith in man not in God Gods effective instrument which he infundendo creat creando infundit and having wrought it in the soul he doth put it also in acting thereby to evidence to man his justification As some great and munificent Lord having laid up a great treasure for one of his poorest and most abject servant in some secret place tels him first what he hath done bestowes it fully and freely upon him but the servant not finding it is never the richer because he hath not the possession of it At length the Lord lights a torch guides his servant to the secret place and by the light of the torch shewes him the treasure which before in the minde and purpose of the doner was wholly his bids him to see and possesse Here the torch is that Lords instrument by which he discovered to his servant the treasure and evidenced him to be indeed enriched So and much more compleatly is faith Gods instrument by which he justifies us to our selves i. e. declareth and evidenceth us to be just and justifyed B. 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so man should be still said to justifie himself Either I understand him not or he speaks words without matter or words that are nothing to the matter in hand He is speaking of justification as of a transient act of God upon man in time This act of God we acknowledge no other but Gods declaring and evidencing man to himself justifyed Gods manifestation or pronouncing his justification to his conscience How man in this act of God should be the causa secunda between God in the action he explaines not and I perceive not That man is the causa secunda between God in the application of justification so manifested I deny not But in this doth man no more justifie himself then is above expressed Or because it is faith in man which we pronounce to be Gods instrument of justifying is therefore man causa secunda or a self-justifyer nay faith even in man is Gods Creature and the same nothing of mans essence Not of our sâ—lves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. May not God lay up his own instruments where it pleaseth his will and wisdome for his own use or ceaseth it to be Gods instrument or in Gods hand when it is laid up in the heart of man for his good Obj. But faith acts not in man without man as the second cause acting it and by such acting his faith man should justifie
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
expresse phrase of Scripture 3. From the nature of the thing For the effect is ascribed to the severall causes though not alike and in some sort to the conditions especially me thinks they that would have faith to be the instrument of justification should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as by an instrument For it is as proper a speech to say our hands or our teeth feed us as to say our meat feedeth us I shall not have need to speak much to this passage because Mr. Baxter hath before said and I have answered to the greatest part of it in examining his 23. Thes with the explication thereof Here as there I shall defend against him that it is not faith as it is righteousnesse but Christs righteousnesse by which we are said to be justifyed The first reason which he brings to evince the contradictory and contrary conclusion hath been there examined and I will not here actum agere To the second 1. He should have quoted that Apocryphal Scripture which saith He that beleeveth shall be justifyed as if he were not already justifyed I finde it not in the Canonicall 2. Those Scriptures which say we are justifyed by faith say not that we are justifyed by it as it is our righteousnesse or any part of our justifying righteousnesse and those that say it is imputed to us as Mr. Baxter will have it for righteousnesse have been sufficiently spoken to under Thesis 23. And by the way Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the originall text may be more properly rendred unto or to righteousnesse then for righteousnesse and that the old translation and most of our Protestant Divines so render it neither have I met with any one that declares his dislike of that version And from the text so read what Mr. Baxter can suck out to stablish the righteousnesse of faith not as the same but as a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction to justification I understand not 3. To his Only only and only I answer 1 That it is not the first time that Mr. Baxter hath taken the boldnesse to teach the holy Ghost to speak properly and fully 2 When the holy Ghost saith That the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. that whosoever is washed therein needs no other washing Joh. 13. 10. that he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Joh. 1. 29. that by his one offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctifyed by taking away their sins and iniquities Heb. 10. 14 17. That he is made of God righteousnesse to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. that he was made sin for us that we might become the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. That he is all in all Col. 3. 11. Will Mr. Baxter elude all these and a whole century more of the like Scriptures with this evasion yea Christ hath done and is all this in part to us leaving the other part of righteousnesse not perfected by him to be supplyed by faith his collaterall to our justification Or when it is said There is salvation in no other nor any name else given us under heaven by which we may be saved besides Christ Act. 4. 12. and the Apostle professeth it his whole labour to be found in Christ not having his own righteousnesse which is of the Law but the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith so making Christ put on for righteousnesse the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith not severall kinds of righteousnesse but one and the same righteousnesse which he opposeth there to his own inherent righteousnesse which he excludeth are not these speeches equipollent to that which Mr. Baxter requireth the Christ only or the righteousnesse of Christ only It is but a flourish wherewith he concludes this argument about the constant expresse phrase of Scripture For let him either produce one Scripture that affirmeth faith by any inherent righteousnesse in it self or of her own conveyed into us to contribute somewhat to our Justification or else confesse his errour to be derived from the scriblings of Bellarmine Socixus Grotius and Arminius where this Doctrine is to be found and not from the Scriptures of Gods inspiration that are wholly against it To his third reason I can say nothing because I understand nothing of his meaning therein or if I doe understand it nothing needs to be said because it hath nothing for himself or against us But to that which he addes of his thinking 1. Let him say whether by them that he saith would have faith to be the instrument c. he doth not mean all the Protestant Churches both Lutherans and Zuinglians or Calvinists as they are by some distinguished whether the best that have opposed them herein have not been the Arminians and from what Rome or Hell these first drank in their opinion he is not ignorant having fished in the same pools after them 2. When he thinks these should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as an instrument I answer 1 If they will not deny it will Mr. Baxter with them confesse it 2 The word properly is vox aequivoca a phrase may be said to be proper as it is enough fit and proportioned to declare the meaning of the speaker and in this sense we deny not that faith as an instrument subservient to the principall efficient doth so properly as an instrument can justifie us in our selves or to our own consciences Again it may be said to be proper in opposition to a tropicall way of speaking and in this sense we cannot say that faith doth so properly justifie specially in that extent wherein Mr. Baxter and his Masters will have it to justifie without a trope in the phrase of speaking which I would shew if it were pertinent to the question I shall spare to transcribe at large his next section which he puts under n. 4. of his Explication Because if he meant singly and precisely as he speaks all might be granted in a positive sense without prejudice to our cause or advantage to his viz. that faith doth directly and properly justifie in and to themselves those that were before justifyed in Christ as it is in a good sense the condition of the new Covenant and a means or instrument of Gods stamping by his commandement and promise to the attainment of this justification For this denyeth not that truth which before he kicked at that faith doth so justifie also in regard of that usefull and essentiall property which it hath above all other gifts of grace to be instrumentall to apprehend Christ for righteousnesse Nay even for this cause hath God either ordained and commanded faith to this end because it hath this property or because he hath ordained and given to it this property therefore he not only requireth but
and order he can call his but the substance of all is theirs as to Justification by works and from them in common with the Socinians and Arminians as to Justification by Faith as an Act or Worke. This I could easily make evident by affixing but marginall quotations of those Popish and Arminian Authours to this Worke whom in every particle hee followeth as having spoken the same things before him if I had now that which once I had that which might be called a Library By how much the more I admire some that make their concourse confluence to him from all parts as to an Oracle to learne from him that which at home by their owne fire Eckins Hosius Vega c. or the more ancient Schoolemen before them or Beâ—â—arminâ— with the Jesuits and Arminians since them would have taught them more at large or which besides other hundreds of our Divines one Chamier in his 3 Tome of his Panstratia would have given them to understand at large together with a large and full confutation of all as to the Papists Yet see with what confidence Mr. Baxter speaketh It is most clear and beyond all dispute c. What is so cleare that our proper compleat and actuall justification c. This is cleare by Scripture Yet neither hath he alleadged or can alleadge any one Scripture that tels us of or teacheth any such justification The Papists tell us indeed of a two-fold Justification but both in this life They say Christs judgement or sentence or our account and reckoning not our justification shall thus pass in the last day The Arminians indeed say as Mr. Baxter and hee hath learned to speake as confidently as they proving as little as they Now what boldness is it to call that from a pretended cleare testimony of Scripture our Actuall most Proper compleat Justification which the Scripture doth in no place call or bid us to call Justification in any sense or con-consideration we would grant to Mr. Baxter the use of his owne Phrase and use it with him if he would understand by the Justification in the day of Judgement onely either the publication and open declaration of the justification before given and received or the conferring on Believers the Glorious and eternall fruits above of their justification here or their exemption from the sentence of vengeance which shal be then pronounced against from condemnation which shal be then executed upon the unbelieving world in which sense it is sometimes indeed in Scripture called our Redemption and the day of Redemption to the Saints which to the world will be an evill day a day of judgement But this will not satisfie him and the Scripture grants no more so that we cannot please him without displeasing God Againe when he saith our most Proper Justification will be at the great Judgement according to our workes and according to what wee have done in the flesh whether it be good or evill Doth he meane first that the measure of our justification wil be according to the measure of our works great works and a great and full justification a little Treasury of workes and a little corner of justification This agrees not with his owne phrase in tearming it a compleat justificacation Nor will it cohere with the definition that he gives to this justification Thes 39. making it to consist in Gods acquitting from the Accusation and condemnation of the Law This Act of God or of Christ doth not recipere magis minus hee that hath more works cannot be said to bee more or he that hath less to be less acquitted but iâ— at all acquitted then compleatly acquitted acquitting and not acquitting being contradictories that admit of no medium but the one or other must stand in all its force Or 2. doth he mean that the being or not being of justification doth follow the being or not being of our Works no works and no justification but if works then justification will it not hence necessarily follow both that many which have died in Christ shall be condemned viz. all that after their union to Christ by the Spirit departed out of this life before they had time and oportunity to doe such works as Mr. Baxter after instanceth and many that never believed in Christ never were in Christ shall bee justified by Christ in the last day viz. such as have lived and died such as the Apostle Paul was before his conversion touching the Righteousnesse which is by the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 6. and that of sincerity in opposition to hypocrisie and vaine glory walking in all good Conscience before God As for faith in Christ hee doth not heere touch upon and Acts 23. 1 whether any of his reasons which hee brings to confirme his Thesis will infer it we shall see in examining them 3. When he saith that Christ at that great Assize will not give his bare will of Purpose as the reason of his proceedings c. Let him say whether his intent in this passage were not to cast an Odium upon the Protestants as if they so taught And except hee can produce any one man that hath so taught and hath not still asserted that the damnation of the damned shall be for their sinnes and the glorification of the glorified a free gift of God for the satisfaction which Christ hath made for them with reference to their being in Christ Let him confess that he hath slandered them 4. In the rest that is contained in this Thesis we finde nothing but contradictions his unsaying and gainsaying of what he had before said A little before pag 294 295. to destroy that interpretation of James which our Divines bring that when he speakes of justification by workes hee meanes the declaring to men by works the truth of their Faith and Justification the man is angry and cries out An usurped Judgement and Justification I affirme The World is no lawfull Judge of our Righteousnesse before God neither are they competent or capable Judges of our Righteousnesse or unrighteousnesse neither are works a certaine Medium or evidence whereby the world can know us to be righteous for the outward part an hypocrite may performe and the inward part Principles and ends of the worke they cannot discern Why was it that hee was so hot there against the possibility of manifesting to men the truth of our Righteousness It was against his Cause there to owne it Here contrariwise Justification in the last day must passe by workes to declare to the World not only the righteousnes obedience of the justified but also the equity of the Justifier and to stop every month from speaking against either And now the world is no longer an usurping but a lawfull Judge not an insufficient but a competent and capable Judge not onely of mans righteousness but of Christs equity in judgement and works are become a certaine Medium and evidence to manifest both to the world How comes this sudden change
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâ—st speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌ„s Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ„ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
and to make his authority the greater to deceive 6. Whether he offends not here and elsewhere against the rule of the Apostle who enjoyneth upon all to take heed of high thoughts of themselves and to be wise to sobriety Rom. 12. 3. i. e. not to mount above their reach and measure And what shall be accounted a wisedom without and against sobriety if not that which intrudeth it self into the things of God which it hath pleased him not to reveal pretending an ability with the key of secular learning to unlock the Cabinet of â—ods Counsells to which the most glorious Angels never dared to approach The Christian Spirit is the meek and modest Spirit where the Scripture is not the instructor contents it self to be ignorant concluding with Tertullian Quis revelabit Tert. lib. de Anima fere in Principio quod Deus texit unde sciseitandum est unde ignorare tutissimum est Praestat per Deum nescire quia non Revelaverit quam per hominem scire quia ipse presumpserit i. e. Who shall reveal what God hath covered whence in such case shall we make enquiry â—ea hence to be ignorant is most fafe It is better not to know by the will of God because he hath not revealed it than to seem to know by man because he hath presumed 7. Whether he doth not cross another precept of the Apostle 1 Tim. 6. 20. peculiarly appropriated to all Ministers under the name and person of Timothy O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoyding prophane and vain bablings and oppositions of science falsly so called He cannot none can deny the thing committed to Timothies trust to be the Gospel in its verity purity and simplicity This therefore he is charged to keep to make it his business to preserve it alive and inviolated within him to keep and hold himself closely to it without deviating to any other studies as helpfull to salvation Therefore to avoid vain bablings and oppositions of science falsly so called Neither will Mr. Baxter deny and all Commentators affirm the thing to be avoyded here to be sophisticall and philosophical disputes which if intermixed with the Doctrine of the Gospel are here termed prophane and vain babling which hath the name and opinion of science or wisdom in the opinion of men but is falsly so called and reputed Doth not Mr. Baxter here see himself set aside by the Holy Ghost for a prophane and vain babler and his learning and wisdom exploded as shady and false having nothing of substance and truth in it 8. Whether he doth not by this way of disputing as much as in him is uncanonize and make void the word For if he hold with the Apostle that the holy Scripture is sufficient and able to make men wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 3. 15. why doth he not stick to it what els doth his so oft and foul digressions from it to fetch ayd from his sophistry but argue that he holds the Scripture to be invalid to save and that there is either an equall or greater power in his sophistry to make men wise and perfect to salvation 9. Whether it doth not bewray his Cause to be naught that he knows it to be naught therfore seeks to bear it up with such slights feats as a good Cause needeth not When we see a house propped up on every side at every end with posts stakes and pillars who concludes not surely it is a ruinous and rotten building that needs so many supporters It is not for the maintenance of the Aphorism or Doctrine which Mr. Baxter doth here pretendedly explicate that he doth tye knots and unty them bind and loose with such a hurry of questions and distinctions This doctrine stands firm enough upon its own bottom Conscious he is therefore of a rotten building which he means in the following part of this Treatise to erect and therefore furnisheth himself with so many posts and stakes to under-prop it It is well observed by Mr. Pemble out of Erasmus Malè res agitur ubi opus est tot remedijs It is a certain Pemb. of Justis Sect. 2. Cap. 1 p. 37. sign of an untrue opinion when it must be bolstered up with so many distinctions And if the Cause be naught and the defender know it yet persists to defend it then are the Cause and the man both alike 10. Whether this kind of Argumentation doth not declare Mr. Baxter to be of another spirit from Christ and his Apostles Christ came into the world to preach the Gospel to the poor Lu. 4. 18. to give sight to the blind that they which see not might see Joh. 9. 39. And Paul discended low nurslike with flattering speech unto the weak as to babes in Christ feeding them with milk and not with meat untill they became capable to digest it 1 Cor. 2. 1. 4 3. 1 2. likewise also the rest of the Apostles But this man soareth on high unto the upmost region of the Airy element above the kenn and reach of weak Christians such as he acknowledgeth them for the greatest part to be for whose sake chiefly he wrote this speaking not to the comprehension of any save of such windy ones as himself at least to the delight of no other so elevated seems he with the vain-glory of his own excellencies And do not these contrary operations somwhat argue a contrary spirit moving him I mean contrary to that which moved in Christ and his Apostles 11. Whether it tends not to the quenching of the comfort and hazzarding of the salvation of weak Christians 1 to the quenching of their comfort For when from the pure word of God not sophisticated with the intermixture of mans wisedom and inventions they have attained to believe and joy in believing and living by faith in Christ rejoyce in the grace and light of Gods countenance shining upon them thorow him meeting with Mr. Baxters work and finding therein so holy so incomparable a man for learning and piety scattering so many doubts and puzling questions about the very beginning foundation of our redemption that himself cannot answer himself otherwise than by conjectures peradventure it may be thus and it may be it is so The poor souls are apt to fall foul upon themselves for that they have been so audacious to believe any thing seeing now so many doubts and uncertainties and to account all their former joyes in Christ to be a delusion and being unable to make out the mystery of their redemption to themselves in his sophisticall way they lye down and sink under the burthen of their sorrow as hopeless It tends to the hazzarding of their salvation also For while he goes about to make them philosophicall Christians Popish and Socinian Christians to live not by faith but by sense not by the word of Gods mouth but by reason so far only to believe as they see reasons
saith nothing Yet because this still leaveth sub judice litem and certain Conclusions cannot be inferred upon premisses left uncertain I should answer secondly That the Curse pronounced and inflicted upon Adam related to him not as a private but publike person For so he fell and so was he sentenced As comprehending the Elect he had the blessing of the seed of the woman but as representing those that perish so he had the Curse But touching those things which he and the other godly do suffer the learned Sadeel Adver sus humanas satisfactiones answereth this Popish Argument here proposed by Mr. Baxter out of Augustine Posset aliquis dicere saith Augustine Si propter peccatum Deus dixerit homini In sudore vultus tui edes panem tuum spinas tribulos proseret tibi terra c. Cur fideles post peccatorum remissionem eosdem dolores patiuntur Respondemus saith Austin Ante remissionem esse supplicia peccatorum post remissionem esse certamina exercitationesque justorum i. e. Some one may say If for sin God said to man In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread and the earth shall bring forth to thee bryars and thorns c. Why do the beleevers after the remission of sinns suffer these sorrowes We answer saith Austin Before remission these are punishments of sinns after remission they are tryalls and exercises of the Righteous Whereunto Sadeel addeth Non sequitur si mors vitae praesentis aerumnae per se sunt peccati poenae quippe propter peccatum in mundum ingressae eas esse proptereà peccatorum paenas ipsis etiam fidelibus quibus peccata sunt propter Christum condonata i. e. It followeth not if death and the sorrows of the present life be in themselves the punishments of sinn because they entred into the world for or by means of sinn that they are therefore punishments of sinn to the very faithfull also to whom their sinns are forgiven for Christs sake But to do him a pleasure should we give him his Argument forgiving the unsoundnes of it what doth he conclude Thus much that the suspending of the rigorous execution of the sentence of the Law is the most observable immediate effect of Christs death that the redeemed of the Lord partake of By suspending the rigorous execution of the Law he means that he doth forbear an hour or a day or some short time to destroy their lives and cast their souls into hell But so that every moment they must stand in expectation of it and that to their greater torment at last as their sinns during the time of the suspension is increased Whosoever now of Gods redeemed ones receives comfort by this doctrine will I doubt not give his verdit for Mr. Baxter having so nobly and divinely resolved this question that He is a Divine indeed He tells us there be other effects of Christs death c. But he is not at leisure now to communicate them But if they have no more sweet and marrow than this let him keep them to himself we will not be inquisitive after them P. 68. B. To the second Quâ—stion The Elect before Conversion do stand in the same relation to the Law and Curse as other men though they be differenced in Gods Decree Eph. 2. 3 12. Very short yet not so sweet as short He saith it but he proves it not For the Scripture which he brings for proof doth onely declare what the Elect are by nature before conversion not what they are before God in relation to his Covenant of Grace But Mr. Baxter purposeth to speak more largely hereunto in another place which will give me occasion to enlarge my answer At present he is in travell with his answer to the third question and cannot be at rest untill he be delivered of so beautifull a Monster and thus it comes from him Bax. To the third question I confess we have here a knotty question The common judgment is that Christ hath taken away the whole Curse though not the suffering by bearing it himself and now they are onely Afflictions of Love and not punishments I do not contradict this Doctrine through affectation of singularity the Lord knoweth but through constraint of judgment and that upon these grounds following 1 It is undeniable that Christs taking the Curs upon himself did not wholly prevent the execution upon the offender Ge. 3. 7 8 10 15 16 17 18 19. 2 It is evident from the event seeing we feel part of the Curs fulfilled on us we eat in labor and sweat the earth doth bring forth thorns and brayars women bring forth their children in sorrow our native pravity is the Curs upon our souls we are sick weary full of fears sorrows and shame and at last we dye and turn to dust 3 The Scripture tells us that we all dye in Adam even that death from which we must at the Resurrection be raised by Christ 1 Co. 15. 21 22. And that death is the wages of sin Ro. 6. 23. and that the sickness and weakness and death of the godly is caused by their sins 1 Co. 11. 30 31. And if so then doubtles they are in execution of the Law though not in full rigour 4 It is manifest that our sufferings are in their own nature evils to us and the sanctifying of them to us taketh not away their naturall evil but onely produceth by it as by an occasion a greater good Doubtles so farr as it is an effect of sinn it is evill and the effect of the Law also 5 They are ascribed to Gods anger as the moderating of them is ascribed to his lâ—ve Psa 30. 5. and a thousand places more 6 They are called punishments in scripture and therefore we may call them so Lev. 26 41 43. Lam. 3. 39. 4. 6 22. Ezras 9. 13. Hos 4. 9. 12. 2. Lev. 26. 18 24. 7 The very nature of affliction is to be a loving punishment a naturall evil sanctified and so to be mixt of evil and good as it proceeds from mixt causes Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the Curs and evill but not the sufferings is a contradiction becaus so farr as it is suffering it is to us evill and the execution of the Curs What Reason can be given why God should not do us all that good without our sufferings which now he doth by them if there were not sin and wrath and law in them Sure he could better us by easier means 8 All those Scriptures and Reasons that are brought to the contrary do prove no more but this that our afflictions are not the Rigorous execution of the Law that they are not wholly or chiefly in wrath but as the common love of God to the wicked is mixt with hatred in their sufferings and the hatred prevaileth above the love so the sufferings of the godly proceed from a mixture of Love and Anger and so have in them a mixture
to be cast out of Gods favour and overwhelmed with his wrath and fury Not that it is so really For God hath forgiven their sinns Therefore after his forgiving to retain wrath and anger may be ascribed to malicious men whom we shall hear saying I will forgive but never forget him But in no wise to the most righteous God who so forgiveth the sinns of beleevers as that he will never more remember them To the sixth I will not fall into a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strife and dispute about words and names Let Mr. Baxter agree with us in the matter and we will not stick to close with him in the name and words Let him deny all malignity and curse in the sufferings of the godly and to do him a pleasure we will call them punishments as he doth After that God had new named Jaakob calling him Israel he remained ever after indifferently called either Jaakob or Israel still the new name made it not a sin to make use of the old also So though the sufferings of the Saints which under the Law were usually termed punishments and judgments are now under the Gospel as it were baptized with new names which more set forth their nature such as are Chastisements and Tryalls yet is it no sin to use the old as well as the new names still for we see the penmen of the New Testament to have done it before us To the Seventh Mr. Baxter is here returned again to his evils and either I understand not what his meaning is or if I do understand him I find a pack of little sence and much arrogance a compound of absurdities and presumptions Absurdities in the Argument it self arrogance and presumption in that which he speaketh for the confirmation thereof First we have his absurd non-sense The very nature of affliction saith he is to be a loving punishment a naturall evill sanctified and so to be mixed of evill and good as it proceedeth from mixt causes Let him that can make sense and truth here meet together I cannot By evil I must needs conjecture he means the evill not of sin but of punishment For the evill of sin as sin cannot be mixt of evill and good being altogether evill By affliction ever since I understood words I have concluded to be meant any vexation trouble sorrow anguish or torment that a man hath inflicted upon him by God or the Creature If this be not affliction I never knew affliction If it be so it is a meer absurdity to affirm every affliction to be a loving punishment a naturall evill sanctified mixed of evill and good c. Pharaoh afflicted Israel and the Devill afflicted Job did either Pharaoh or the Devill mean or act love in afflicting or sanctifie the evill which they inflicted or had the evill which they inflicted either love or good in its own nature who but a man in a dream will affirm any of this gear It cannot be pronounced and concluded that the afflictions which are from the Creature as from the Creature to have such qualifications as Mr. Baxter ascribeth to them either from their own nature or from the will and infusion of the Creature inflicting them And no less absurd is it to attribute such qualifications to affliction universally as it proceeds from God either immediately or mediately by the Creature The torment of the reprobate men and Devils in Hell must be granted to be an affliction and that it is God which afflicts them To conclude hence because it is an affliction an affliction from God it is a loving punishment a sanctified evill mixt of good and evill as proceeding from mixt Causes is such an absurdity that although Mr. Baxter in words affirm it * Abhorret a sensu comuni ut benefiat ei a quo poenae sumuntur Cham. Panstr T. 3. l. 23. Cap. 6. Parag. 11. Monstrum judicij c. id ibid. Paragr 30. yet would he be as loath as any of the opposite opinion to try it If he had said Chastisements are in their own nature so qualified we should have born with it but he shunneth that word as a rock upon which he might have dashed the Curse against believers wherewith as with a treasure he hath laden the Barque of his disputation in this place From such false and absurd premisses therefore to inferr this Conclusion Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the Curse and evill but not the suffering is a meer contradiction becaus so far as it is a suffering it is evill to us and the execution of the Curse is as fallacious as the premisses absurd Fallacious many ways 1 in jumbling in the execution of the Curs which was neither expressed nor implyed in the premisses 2 In couniting together evill and the curse as equipollent terms which are oft disparates No man besides Mr. Baxter will conclude every evill of suffering to be the Curse Christ mourned for the sins of Jerusalem Mat. 23. 37. Lu. 19. 42. Paul had continuall heavinesse and sorrow in heart for the unbelief of Israel Rom. 9. 2. Jeremy had his soul weeping in secret and his eyes running down with teares for the sin and afflictions of his people Jer. 13. 17. This mourning heavines and weeping were sufferings made impression of evill I mean with Mr. Baxter the evill of pain and sorrow upon them yet were not these sufferings the execution of the Curse upon them 3 In an implyed insinuation that we deny all evill of pain in the sufferings of believers so making them as stocks and stones insensible or as glorified persons impassible Which none ever held though Mr. Baxter would lay it as an absurdity upon all that dissent from him to make the truth which they maintein odious Now Mr. Baxter is not a Child he sees well enough these absurdities and fallacies and doth not either thorow ignorance or inadvertency commit them His use of them therefore doth insinuate to us two things 1 His abasing opinion of others in the superlative confidence that he hath of and in himself If he thought not almost all others to be meer Terrae filios Clods of clay in comparison of himself he would not thus shake out upon his very absurdities and grossest fallacies to be treasured up by us as Oracles becaus his 2 His suspending of conscience that while he pretends unto truth yet takes the reines by any absurd false tricks utterly to subvert it As for his arrogance against God in the Conclusion What reason can be given c. ut supra No marvell if he take the chaire to himself alone from thence to judge of all other Divines when we finde him here as it were usurping the throne of Heaven thence to sentence and censure the wisedome of God in his proceedings In answer to him I shall use no other but Mr. Pembles words against the like arrogance of the Papists Such Questions saith he are vain and curious prosecuted by idle and unthankfull men
was by paying the full value 3 Though by this dispensation our freedom may be as full as upon a repeal yet the alteration is not made in the Law but in our estate and relation to the Law 4 So farr is the Law dispensed with to all as to suspend the rigorous execution for a time and a liberation or discharge conditionall procured and granted them But an absolute discharge is granted to none in this life For even when we do perform the condition yet still the discharge remains conditionall till we have quite finished our performance For it is not one instantaneous act of beleeving which shall quite discharge us but a continued faith No longer are we discharged than we are beleevers And where the condition is not performed the law is still in force and shall be executed upon the offender himself I speak nothing in all this of the directive use of the morall Law to beleevers but how farr the Law is yet in force even as it is a Covenant of works because an utter repeal of it in this sense is so commonly but inconsiderately asserted That it is no further overthrown no not to beleevers then is here explained I now come to prove Here we see the off-spring of the precedent mountainous and swelling distinctions Exit ridiculus mus In the three first Conclusions a meer tattle about the repealing and abrogating or dispensing and relaxing of the Law and of its dispensation in a totality and absolutenes or in a respectivenes to persons circumstances and degrees of execution c. which is as proper to the thing that he drives at as swines flesh and a peacock strangled with all his glittering feathers to the satisfying of a Jewes hungry appetite Surely either Mr. Br. had forgotten or thought we had forgotten that he had before vented this Mysticall learning of his own and Grotius his brain or doubted that it was not finely enough set out there therefore that he might have the full praise of so curious and spiderthreeded a speculation brings it in here again in somewhat a new and more specious a dress Let him rest contented we acknowledge it all very trim If he beleeve us not let him set it as a philactery upon his garment It will tend so much to the strengthening of it as of the cause he hath in hand For the question is not whether the Law be repealed or but dispensed with But whether it be in force to beleevers as a Covenant of works with which the three first positions meddle not The word abrogating some orthodox Divines I confess do use but not in a sense equipollent with the word repeal meaning thereby onely a nullity of the lawes domination over beleevers The alteration not being in the Law as we acknowledge with Mr. Br. but in our estate and relation to it The law reigneth over all that are under it But the Saints are not Inst lib. 3. cap. 19. sect 2. under the Law saith the Apostle But as Calvin saith in Christ above it But his fullnes and plainnes in his fourth Conclusion maketh some recompence for all his Amphibologies all his dark doubtfull locutions in that which went before Here we acknowledge his ingenuity He so speaks as that an English man may understand him Here he tells us what he meant before of nulling repealing c. of the Law to beleevers that it is not so nulled abrogated repealed relaxed or dispensed with but that all their life time they are still under the Law as a Covenant of works And why could not this be spoken without so great a preparative of sophisticall equivocations and distinctions It pleased him surely to act the Alderman that deckt himself with all his robes and rich furniture to go into his stable and cutt off his horses tayl But it shall satisfie us that after some suspension he at last discovers to us his meaning Let us examine it and first we shall finde set forth in two positions two so soul-ravishing priviledges purchased by the Lord Christ for the Elect Saints that whosoever of them will rest satisfied with them may gird himself fast and depart without them 1 That they have so large a discharge from the rigor of the Law for a while as any of the worst reprobates 2 That they have no more discharge from the Lawes curse than the worst of reprobates Must we not account him a Saint that hath a fastidious stomack or sore mouth that cannot relish these dainties The former Conclusion he reacheth to us in these words So farr is the Law dispensed with to all as to suspend the rigorous execution of it for a time and a liberation and discharge conditionall procured and granted them Jam sumus ergo pares In this the sons of God are in as good a case as the reprobates and somwhat before the Devills The latter Conclusion in these words But an absolute discharge is granted to no man in this life Jam sumus ergo pares Yet have we as large cause of exulting and joy in the Holy Ghost as the reprobates that as farr as we can discern we are no neerer to hell than the children of hell whose inheritance is in hell forever To prove the latter assertion that none are that beleevers are not absolutely discharged from the law as a Covenant of works in this life he borroweth matter from Pelagians Papists Socinians Arminians and the whole rabble of professed enemies to the grace of God in Christ manifesteth Scotus like ignotum per ignotius carries us into a dungeon of darknes to discern Colors which we could not judge of in the light to his minde brings seven other Devills many other heresies worse than the first at least so bad as the first to strengthen the first Clavum clavo not extorquet but torquet figit beats in other wedges not to loose the first but to fasten all Having gotten in the paw of the beast beats and beetles in many of his hornes after to wedge fast all The Popish errors which he brings as an addition to confirm that beleevers are during life under the law are these 1 That they which are in Christ have not their sinns fully pardoned neither are themselves wholly justified in this world 2ly That whosoever shall be justified in the world to come must procure it by his own willing running persevering in this world 3 That they which are in Christ may fall away and be damned 4 That no man while he lives can be certain of his salvation 5 To this he addeth one worse than any Popish or Socinian heresie as proper to himself and from himself alone viz. That all beleevers notwithstanding Christs satisfaction for them notwithstanding their persevering faith in him yet must be at last damned forever Some of these errors are in express words asserted the rest by necessary Consequence implyed in this short dispute of Mr. B The first he expresly affirmeth Even when we do perform
by Christs repenting beleeving c. his satisfying of Gods justice by his expiatory sacrifice for the failings of our Faith and Repentance at they held not up to the Lawes perfection I dislike it no less then Mr. B. But can we conjecture that Mr. Saltmarsh himself was not the first that disliked it and all the rest both good and bad of what he wrote in that Tractate I have been told by some of his godly acquaintance that the man had a naturall impotency of crazines in his brain And the whirlwind of imaginations wherewith he was carried to a hasty taking up of opinions and no les hasty hurling away of them again the much of the top and the little of the bottom of wit the flashes of nimblenes and the want of solidity and depth which he shewed in his writings his inconsistency with himself with others with the Scriptures his exâ—reme mutability and roving from Tropick to Tropick without settledness any where do in great measure prove the report to be true And if so he is to be pittied though his infirmities are not to be patronized However this extravagancy of his into so loos and careless expressions doth neither justifie Mr. B. Tenents nor ought to â—rejudice the Truth from which Mr. B. or any other hath erred Neither doth Mr. B. captiousnes so null my charity as to enteâ—â—ain the least conjecture that ever Master Saltmarsh meant or thought that Christ had sinne to repent of or beleeved to obtein the pardon thereof Here now wee finde Master Baxter returning from his irefull pursuit of his imaginary not reall Antinomians and of a dead mans Ghost that could neither see nor hear him And when hee reviews what he had written hee sees it neither holpen nor amended by his hot words spent upon the wind He had affirmed that there is a two-fold Righteousnesse necessary to our Justification one the Righteousnesse of Christ imputed to us the other a personall Righteousnesse or Righteousnesse of our owne inherent in our selves And to this our own Righteousnesse had attributed an equall power with the Righteousnesse of Christ to our Justification if not a power above and superiour to it This assertion of his he perceives to savour so much of humane arrogance and to use his own words to be a self-exalting horrid Doctrine of so high a nature and so contradictory to the whole Tenor of the Gospel that a short affected brawl with No-bodies and dead men cannot turn away the hatred which all that know and love the Lord Jesus must needs conceive against it Hee is therefore in a streight cure it he cannot revoke it he will not Therefore in stead of a better shift he posteth to the Monks Jesuits borrows their either Cowl or Cloak to cover the deformity of it And good reason have they to stead him for it is their cause in his hand viz. Justification by our own personal Righteousness that hath streightened him Let us now see what he brings from them to us to make their assertion from his pen tolerable B. Thes 21. 115. Not that wee can perform these conditions without Grace for without Christ we can doe nothing But that he enableth us to perform them our selves and doth not himself repent beleeve love Christ obey the Gospel for us as he did satisfie the Law for us B. Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some think it is a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee but the Actors of those duties though we professe to doe it onely by the strength of Grace But that it is Christ that repenteth and beleeveth not we is language somewhat strange to those that have been used to the language of Scripture or Reason Though I know there is a sort of sublime Platonick Plotinian Divines sprung up of late among us who think all things to bee but one c. We find in Scripture that as Christ hath his Mystery so hath Antichrist his Mystery also And that this latter is a Mystery of iniquity 2 Thess 2. 7. and Mystery Babylon the great c. And it is somewhat mysterious and strange that the materials of this Babel-building will not hold and close together without Babel slime to cement it Mr. Baxter would fain have fortified and fastened together the gaping chinks of this Babel with his owne morter But it will not hold therefore is he forced ever and anon to make use of the proper slime which the former Builders have left for them that come after to repair so doth hee in this place None of his own sHifts and tricks could hide the menstruousness and monstrousness of his Doctrine this Pall from Rome doth it no less perfectly then the Fig-leaf Aprons covered the nakedness and filthiness of our first Progenitors from the eye of God It sounded before so dreadfully as it was enough to make the ears of a true Christian to tingle at the hearing that Our own righteousnesse must goe foot by foot with Christs righteousnesse to our Justification but that which Mr. Baxter brings here from Rome takes off the ghastlyness and makes all smooth and himself in what he hath said no less amiable then he that had the Lambs horns but the voice of the Dragon Rev. 13. 11. How should it bee otherwise when all the glory is ascribed to Gods Grace and to the Spirit and Power of Christ so saith he Wee are justified in part by our own righteousnes indeed yet Not that we performe in this Righteousnesse which he termeth these conditions without Grace for without Christ wee can doe nothing but hee enableth us to perform them c. And in the Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some thinke it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee the Actors of these duties though we professe to doe it only by the strength of Grace Now when Mr. Baxter hath thus sayd and professed what reason can there be given why he should not bee thought as honest and innocent as the proudest Popish Prelates Jesuits and Friars that in answer to this objection which Mr. Baxter preventeth here have said and professed the same thing over and over many hundred times In stead of them all which even to name with their words abbreviated would fil a volumne I shall mention some few only First the Popish glosse thus speaketh Opera nostra quatenus nostra Glosa ordinaria in cap. 6. ad Rom. ver 23. sunt vim nullam Justificandi obtinent quatenus verò non à nobis sunt sed in nobis à Deo facta sunt per Gratiam Justificationem promerentur i. e. Our works as farre as they are ours have no power to justifie but as farre as they are not from us but wrought of God by Grace in us so they deserve justification In the same manner our English Jesuit Campian is recorded in the dispute which hee had with some of our English
us with the leaven of the Papists He saw these 2 Theses which I have examined together viz. Perfection Merits of works if they should come together one in the neck of another without any Calm betwixt them would make so terrible a sound as would be enough to waken and startle all that were but sleeping and not dead for fear the Pope or the Devill had been come to assault them Therfore to keep all quiet he interposeth this Thesis and its explication in which he pulls the ears of our Divines for saying that God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties and actions pag. 134. deinceps in the explication telling us it is a doctrine of dangerous consequence many wayes and except we will take it in his that is in the Popish sense it smells rankly of Popery setts up Justification by works from the very thought whereof he starts startles away as affrighted Notable dissimulation not of a learner but of one learned in the Trade Clodius accusat Maechos Catilina Cethegum He that affirms our Righteousness equall with the righteousnes of Christ to justification that entitles it a perfect righteousnes a meritorious righteousnes is the first man in all the world that fears of the advancing of Justification by works by them whom he hateth for oppugning it If there were that which he calls danger in this phrase or doctrine of setting up such a justification would not himself be the first man to kisse it to eat it up to promote it What is it that makes him to disrelish the phrase so extremely is it not that it inverts his order in Justification that he would have the works to justifie the man when contrariwise this doctrine makes the justification of the person to be the ground of the acceptance of his obedience Is it not the very depth of Satan from which he is moved to guise disguise himself to act Satans part with all guile and subtlety to betray the Saints of Christ and the truth of Christ to damning Popery and yet here and there to transform himself into an Angel of Light a Minister of Righteousnes to blinde the eyes of the simple that they may not espy him untill they be taken in his snare and lost for ever As for the doctrine or phrase it self he knowes our Divines mean this onely when they say God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties actioÌ„s viz. That God having first justified their persons from all the guilt that was upon them doth thenceforth also justifie them in refâ—rence to all the duties which thorow Christ the Mediator they shall perform unto God not imputing to them the imperfections thereof so that they may rest Confident of Gods accepting both the performers and the performance in and through Christ the beloved In this respect and not as Conditions of the New Covenant as Mr. Br dreameth doth the Gospel teach our works to be accepted of God There is yet one link of the Popish Chain wanting without which it will be unperfect and unusefull If it were granted that there is 1 a personall righteousnes of Gods own appointment necessary to justification 2 That this righteousness consisteth in ouâ— own Faith and sanctification or good works 3 That it is a perfect and 4 a Meritorious Righteousness yet all this cannot be effectâ—all either to save or deceive us unless it be a righteousnes also possible for us to perform Thaâ— he may not be wanting therefore to the Popish Cause in any one branch of Popish doctrine he addeth this also Thesis 27 in these words pag. 141. Bax As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of Works by that power which he received by Nature so is it possible for us to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ To which he adds in the Explication pag 142 c. Bax This possibility is to be understood not in Relation to the strength of the Agent But in the Relative sense the Conditions of the New Covenant are possible to them that have the assistance of Grace So that strength which was in Adam to fullfill was a power which he received by Nature But the strength by which we perform is the power which we receive from the grace of Christ If any should have asked him what that grace of Christ is the man was very Coy he could but he would not tell whether it were a Pauline or a Pâ—lagian Grace a grace equally extended both to the Elect and the Reprobats or a grace peculiar to the Elect a grace that comes no further than the ear or a grace operating upon the heart also c. He had other fish to fry and had not the leizure to stay câ—ack these nutts now He bids us to turn over many volumes and specially Parkers Theses to search if possibly we can finde what Mr. Brs judgment would be many years after in this poynt But it is easie to perceive the mans meaning by his gaping in many passages of this book We should have had all this in rank and file in his much promised Tractate of Vniversall Redemption by which as by a second famous atchievement he meant to endear himself to his holy Father but that unluckily there is one of his own spirit step into his Holinesses Parlour to present him with this gift and so anticipated this favour which Mr. Br would have had entire to himself so that now the expected advantage being lost he not using to open his Commodities to sale a day before the Fayr we might possibly for a couple of Capons obtein to know his meaning herein In the mean while it must needs be his intent in reserving to himself what he meant by grace to puâ— upon us a kind of impossibility to say readily yea or nay to his asserted pâ—ssibility of performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by a power which he leaves us uncertain of knowing what it is As for the two fold opposition which he puts in his Thesis 1. between the conditions of the Old Covenant New 2. Between the power which Adam had by nature and the power which we have by the Grace of Christ there is nothing but a windy sound of words therein to deceive his reader into an opinion that he hath some honest and sound meaning in what is here posited or said For neither doth he make any real difference between the conditions of these two Covenants but makes our own Righteousnesse consisting in faith and works to be the substance of the conditions of both Covenants onely he puts a supposed difference in the measure of them One an imaginary perfection of sincerity in doeing them answering to what the New Covenant requireth the other an absolute and gradual perfection in doing them without the least particle omitted or committed besides or against the rigorous exaction of the Old Covenant And this
the Apostles termes by which he freely and without necessity in relation to his justice willeth the salvation of one and willeth not the salvation of another loveth or hateth imputeth not or doth impute sinne according to his own free will But justification in the latter sense is an act of Gods righteousnes or faithfulnesse by which hee faithfully and righteously accomplisheth his promises of grace in just â—ying and absolving them which believe by the sentence of pardon pronounced to their conscience according to the Gospel promise made to beleevers No word of promise went before justification in the former sense to make it an act of justice to fulfill that promise neither could it be an act of his natural justice that by the necessity of his nature he should so justifie and love any for then should none be either loved or saved freely of God when contrariwise it was in his own free choice to love or to hate to save or condemn all or mutatis vicibus to have loved Esau hated Jacob to have willed the condemnation of the saved and the salvation of the reprobated But the word of promise preceded justification in the latter sense which it is righteousnesse in God to fulfill therefore is it an act as well of his justice or righteousnesse as of his free grace 3. That Justification in the former sense is antecedaneous or foregoing to all covenants whatsoever 1. In order of nature though not in time it goeth before that covenant between the father and the son mentioned before in the examination of the explication of Mr. Baxters fourteenth Thesis and consequently before Christs undertaking to make or the fathers Covenant to accept what he should offer in satisfaction for the sinnes of the elect For in order of nature the willing of the end alway goeth before the willing of the means conducing to the end so that Gods willing mans righteousnesse and immunity from sinne and loving him to salvation must needs goe before his willing of Christs satisfying of his justice which was but a mean appointed of God to the constituting of man righteous before him that he might be pure from sinne discharged from condemnation and partaker of salvation which was the end Not that there was any precedency or following after of these acts of God in time for they are both coeternal and before all times Whom God hath loved and forgiven their sinnes them hath he so loved and forgiven in and through Christ from all eternity and through and for the merit of his satisfaction Much more doth this immanent act of justification go before not onely in nature but in time also the other temporary Covenants both the Covenant of workes made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace made after by Gospel promise by Christ or God in Christ to us and with us For these had all their being in time But justification in its other acceptation is subsequent unto and followes after and is an effect of not onely the Covenant of Grace but of faith it selfe which the Covenant of Grace calls for as a mean to attain it None else but a beleiver nor he until he actually beleeveth is thus actually justified or hath pardon of sinnes and absolution from wrath declared and pronounced of God in his conscience And thus to be justified in Christ or in God is one thing and to bee justified in our selves by God through Christ is another The former is an antecedent the latter an effect or consequent of the Covenant of Grace 4. That neither the mediation satisfaction of Christ nor much lesse our faith in Christ nor any of the most noble gifts of grace received from Christ either in their habit or operation do move God to justifie us so as to put into him a will to pardon our sins and accept us as righteous or to change his affection from nilling to will our forgivenesse and happinesse and from hating to love and accept us because he is God and therefore immutable and there cannot be any cause of Gods will rendred any more than of God himselfe For the Will of God is God himselfe and these immanent acts of God are God himselfe acting So that the substration of all that Christ hath suffered and by his sufferings satisfied for us and of all that we doe or can doe to put our selves into union with Christ and a conformity with the Will of God are in no wise the causes or conditions or antecedents of Gods first loving owning and pronouncing uâ— righteous and pure from sinne imputed but the effects thereof For he so loveth and justifieth all that in a Covenant way have been or shall be justified in their own conscience before ever they beleeve or live But that the intervening of Christs satisfaction for our sinnes and our recumbency upon and embracing of Christ so satisfying by faith that we may be justified do ad nothing to God which was not nor alter any thing which was in his will before but do onely lay and make a way by Gods ordination how he from all eternity loving and justifying us in himselfe freely may in a course most convenient to magnify both his truth and righteousnesse and withal his grace and mercy at length actually declare us just in and to our own consciences and for ever acquit us from sinne and wrath to the admiration of Men and Angels And so the former justification is a pure simple free and irrespective act of God having no causality out of himselfe moving him to it but the latter is a foederal Gospel or Covenant justification respecting his own Covenant before made Christs satisfaction already given and pleaded in heaven by Christ and mans faith in the mediator and promiser pleading the promise and the blood of the mediator sealing it upon all which he doth he cannot but actually pronounce and declare to the conscience of the beleiver his perfect absolution from sin and vengeance This latter is indeed the justifying wherof the Scriptures primarily speak as oft as they speak of justification by faith but so as the former is also in such Scriptures implyed Neither is the Scripture silent in reference to the former as considered without the latter or apart from it 5. That although all that are or shall be justified by faith in time i. e. each onâ— in the time when he so beleeveth were justified also in Christ secretly in God before they beleived or yet lived even from eternity Yet is there no man justified by vertue of the New Covenant and promise of the Gospel proclaiming right to the Lord Christ to forgivenesse of sinnes freedome from condemnation heirship to Gods Kingdom and all other benefits of Christs Passion until he doth actually beleeve and embrace Christ thorow him to have all those pretious promises made good and effectual to himselfe Though in Christ he were Lord of all before yet differed he nothing in himselfe from a servant from a child of
act absolved the conscience there followeth also the sense of our remission and justification So that besides this sense and apprehension there are two things in our justification by faith over and above that which was in our eternal justification in Christ viz. 1. A total diffidence and denyal of our own righteousnesse and a trusting and adhering wholly and onely to Christ for pardon and justification 2. Gods act upon our consciences declaring and assuring us that our debt is paid by Christ and we discharged upon the satisfaction which our surety hath made so that the obligation is cancelled and we depart with a full and general acquittance in our consciences Neither of these were there in the former justification i. e. in the justification in the former sense before mentioned and so that there is more than the bare knowledge of our justification in our being justified in the latter sense is evident Whatsoever else is conteined in the doctrine of the Protestant divines about this question we shall have occasion to adde in examining what Master Baxter saith here and afterwards to oppugn it But the chief thing is yet behind may some say viz. the proof of these positions by sound Arguments or by evidencing Scriptures and the main thing to be proved is that there is such a justification as is an immanent and eternal act in God It is Master Baxters lowd challenge pag. 93. Let all the Antinomians shew but one Scripture that speaketh of justification from eternity I will be so charitable as to conceive he expects not that we should produce Scriptures that say in those very words but that which is the Tantundem that say it in sense and substance else if he reject the matter and stick to words I shall challenge him to produce one sentence of all the sermons which Christ preached and in the whole doctrine that he personally delivered which speaketh at all of justification by faith But in words equipollent to Master Baxters the Scripture delivereth this doctrine which he opposeth viz. justification from eternity First What lesse is to be gathered from 2 Tim. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our workes but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the World began What can be said more fully to Master Baxters challenge He will not deny that the word saving doth include in it justifying for so should he both contradict himselfe and lose elswhere more than he can gain here by denying it It will then run thus that we are justified and called of God with a holy calling not according to our works these words destroy the end of Master Baxters opposing the eternity of our justification if our own qualifycation and workes may not come in collaterally with Christ to constitute us justified he little regards whether the act be immanent or transient but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began and that is from eternity See the grace of justification and salvation was given us in Christ from eternity Object Master Baxter may probably object that the grace was indeed given us in Christ from eternity that is God had decreed from eternity to justifie us in Christ when we should come to beleeve in him to justifie or save us in time as to call us in time For the grace here mentioned given us in Christ before times is as much affirmed to be the grace of our vocation or calling as of our saving and justifying But our calling must therefore our justification also must be in time And thus by the grace given must be understood Gods gracious purpose and decree to give us salvation and justification So Mr. Baxter I know God hath decreed to justifie his people from eternity But it is done in time page 93. Sol. 1. That Covenant justifying or the declaring of us in our own Consciences to bee accepted as just in Christ is not denyed to be an act accomplished in us in time Nor yet that God decreed from Eternity to declare us in our consciences Righteous when wee should beleeve But the granting of all this nothing advantageth Master Baxters cause For neither doth this Act of God in time terminate upon our conscience nor his eternal decree so to justifie us beleeving in our selves deny that wee were justified in God and in Christ from Eternity 2. It appears not that the Apostle here speaketh of our calling to the participation of Christ and of justification and sanctification by him in time but rather of that calling mentioned Rom. 4. 17. That God calleth those things that be not as though they were As he called Abraham the father of many Nations when he was yet either childlesse or at least was in reference to the strength of nature without having without hope to have that child from whom those nations should issue and accrew to him as their father So God is said to have called us with a holy calling i. e. to have called and reputed us in Christ his pardoned accepted and adopted children even before we had any actual being in our selves Dedit qui erat accepit qui non erat Quis antem hoc facere potuit nisi qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt Aug. de verb. Apost Sect. 3. If by Calling it be pertinaciously maintained that we must understand that which is done by the Ministry of the Gospel yet all this helps not Master Baxter at all in regard of the exclusive clause following not according to our workâ— where our salvation and justification as well as our vocation are denyed to have any dependance upon our own workes and qualifications as conditions thereof And the whole end of Master Baxters dispute against justification as an immanent Act in God is because if that be granted there will be no place for footing our works and qualifications as necessarily precedent conditions of justification And these fall to ground as well as if we were justified without them though in time as if wee were justified from Eternity 4. But how and whether we can truly and properly be said to have received Grace in Christ before all worlds whereby we are saved and justified and yet not to be saved and justified in Christ before the world was will come to bee examined in drawing forth the sense of other Scriptures which I shall annex In the interim this remaines unquestioned that although the Apostle speak here of Justification in our selves in time yet he affirmes it to be according to the Grace given us in Christ before the world so it was in Christ for us before though not in our selves till we beleeve Againe when the Scripture speaking of the Sonnes of Isaac saith of them while yet unborn and consequently having neither done good nor evill Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated Mal. 1. 2 3. Rom. 9. 11 13. And
of all Christs Apostles Christ was annointed with the Spirit to preach the Gospel to the poor Luke 4. 18. Isa 61. 1. And had received from the Lord God the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary Isa 50. 4. This mans Spirit carries him aloft in the Aire to clowd the Gospel from the poor and to darken with his vaporous Sophistry the things which God hath hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes and useth the tongue of the learned to amaze and intangle not to refresh the weary Paul descended from all excellency of speech and of wisedom to the capacity or rather incapacity of the weak Christians in the Ministry of the Gospel 1 Cor. 2. 1 2. and fed the babes with milk 1 Cor 3. 1 2. And even then when he spake wisedom to the perfect because perfect it was not the wisedome of the World or of the Princes for learning of the World but the Mysterious and hidden wisedom of God and this he spake also not in the words which mans wisedome teacheth which the subtile Sâ—phistâ—rs made uâ—â— of but which the Holy Gost teacheth comparing spirirituall things with spirituall 1. Cor 2. 6 7. 13. This man casting away the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and useth in the holy Scriptures sends his poore lambes to feed and seek spiritual pasture in the thorny Copses of his Master Aristotle and his Saint Suarez Saint Vasques Saint Fonseca's Metaphysicks and Metaphysical Jesuitical Divinity or in Seraphical Scotus his Quodlibetary learning all which understood just so much of the Spirit and mystery of the Gospel in this greatest point of Gospel Doctrine Justification as the unlearned people of Kederminster do of this and the like peeces of this tractate of Mr. Baxter As for the matter it self he that understands it not shall be as much endoctrined by it as he that understands it For my own part I professe I see nothing in it of any more force to refute the opinion which he here opposeth Eternal Justification or Justification as an immanent Act in God than there is in a Peacocks Feather to dash out all the teeth of a Lion For should wee grant to him all that he here saith the thing in question onely excepted That immanent in God must be understood not Positively but Negatively for that Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause that Gods justifying a man when he believeth argues no change in God any more than is found in the Sunne glasse or eye by the variety of creatures faces colours set before them as he mentioneth what of all this What will he conclude at length against that which he saith Doctor Twisse maketh the Major of his Argument vizt That all immanent Acts in God are from Eternity will he deny it Nay but distrusting the weaknesse of his reasoning he doth rather grant it But grant saith he that all Gods immanent Acts are eternal which yet I think is quite beyond our understanding to know This is the result of all his Argumentation as to the Major It is true notwithstanding any thing I have said or can say against it onely I think it is beyond our understanding to judge whither it be universally true or no. As to the Minor of Doctor Twisse his Argument vizt That Remission and Iustification are Immanent Acts he disputes with as little dexterity as to the Major Most Divines saith he will deny the Minor and tell you that they are but transient Acts. Be it so But what have those most Divines to say for the disapprâ—ving of the Minor 'T is true saith Mr. Baxter what they say but I could never have the happinesse to see or hear it well cleared by any For to prove it transient they tell us no more but that it doth transire in Subjectum Extraneum By making a moral change on our Relation c. But this saith he is to affirm and not to prove What then doth Mr Baxter himself to supply what is in his most famous Divines deficient This onely he tels us a tale of a Tubb about relations how they are made up and thence hee brings in his Conjectures to make clear how this change of our relation is made up that our Pactional Justification or Justification according to the New Covenant is a Transient Act of God which I was never so happy or unhappy in my slender reading to find any one that denyeth And all this being granted yet may it stand as a firm foundation that Remission and Justification are immanent Acts in God as hath been before and shall be if there be need more fully afterward shewed He that readeth Mr. Baxters dispute must acknowledge that I do him no wrong in this Epitomizing of it And let every rationall man judge whether the heat of the man in promising so confidently before pag. 93. and in charging all his impetus or impotent impetuousness here as against the Pillars of Antinomianism be answered with strength of reason to beat down what he would have down Gods Eternal acceptation and approbation of his beloved ones in Christ Jesus Thus feeble are the most Nervous armes in fighting against God and so vain in their imaginations as the Apostle saith do they become who whet their wits upon the threshold of humane literature to dispute against God But after this generall view of his dispute it shall not be impertinent to take notice of the particulars also therein enclosed And 1. Why doth he call Doctor Twisse and Master Pemble Most excellent famous Divines Doth he so stile them for the excellency of their Philosophick Scholastick learning He should then more properly have termed them Most excellent famous Philosophers or Schollars Except he will also make Aristotle because he in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes the Treating of God one part of that Doctrine which is to be handled in that Science which is commonly called Metaphysicks to be a Theologer or Divine also Or for their abundant knowledge in the Doctrine of Christian Religion together with their great ability and faithfullnesse to teach and maintain it against the Adversaries thereof Much more proper had it been then for him to have followed the Genius and policy of the chief Priests as in other things he doth that would not say any thing to the Praise of Iohn that his Baptism or Droctrine were Divine and from Heaven fearing lest the Lord Jesus should then urge upon them Why then did yee not believe him Mat. 21. 25. For so Master Baxter here opens his bosome to the dint of the like reproof Were they excellent Why doth not he close with them in their excellency No one of the Papists or Arminians against whose Sophisms and impostures these two Champions so excellently and famously propugned the truth of Christ hath more deviated from their doctrine i. e. the Doctrine of Christ which they defended than Master
then reviving him with the precious comforts of the Gospel to prescribe unto God the same method or to conclude the same to bee the method of God in his operations upon all in converting them The rending whirlwind doth not alway goe before the quickening beams of the Sun of Righteousness To the third if he mean that they taught that Justification by Faith in the Gospel promises might be sound and effectuall though no sanctification but all allowed impurity of life should follow the assertion and doctrine implies a contradiction for there can be no living Faith in the promises that is not fruitfull in good works And herein they declared themselves no lesse Anti-Gospellers then Antinomians But if hee meane that without all such extream horrors of the Law a man may be truly justified by Faith in Christ notwithstanding all his former loose and impure life and so the Publicans and Harlots enter into the Kingdome of God before the self-righteous Pharisees this is not Antinomistick except Pauls doctrine also be such Rom. 4. 5. 2. As for those opinions charged in these latter times with Antinomianism by many the 1 2 and last cannot be excused Onely to give the Assertors their due whatsoever of doctrinal truths to be beleeved or of Moral duties to be practised are expressed both in the Old and New Testament they were conscientious to submit themselves thereunto yet not for the authority of the Law or Old Testament but of the New only The third can bee justly charged with Antinomianism no farther then as either the Maintainers of it were in other points Antinomists or in respect of the foundation which they laid to maintain it which was the abrogation of the Law and old Testament The Law of the Sabbath being one part therof which must stand or sink with the rest But as they denyed the lawfulness of all discrimination or difference of daies by way of Morall or Ecclesiastical or Apostolical order for the more orderly and profitable celebration of publick Assemblies and the ordinances of Christ in publick Communion calling it Will-worship and Superstition This error they drew from the Petrobusians and Anabaptists not from the Antinomians that had been before them As to other questions about the authority of the Sabbath first now of the Lords day what relation they have either to other whether the observation of them be of Natural or Positive right If of Moral and Natural right by what express authority it is altered from the last to the first day of the week If of Positive right whether it began from the Creation or from the Law given upon Mount Sinai Whether the fourth Commandement hath any thing in it Typical now vanished in Christ Or whether wholly Moral and binding for ever how far it did or did not bind precisely to a day not this day of 7 Whether it were of Moral Righteousnes or else only of Moral order Whether the holyness of the 7th be now wholly translated upon the first day of the week By what authority the observation of the seventh day ceased and of the first day of the week was instituted to succeed Whether by virtue of Christs Resurrection or by some express command of Christ and where that command is to bee found Or else by Apostolical appointment And then whether in respect of order or of the aforegoing authority of Gods Commandement about the Sabbath or else by the appointment and consent of the Churches in or after the Apostles times These and many other the like questions Mr. Baxter knoweth to have been in agitation between both the greater and the lesser Divines and Members of the Reformed Churches adhuc sub judice Lis est Onely some within the Church of England ever since a Tractate came forth upon this subject from one Dr. Bownd Anno Christi 1595. seem to fix the observation of the Lords day upon more strict grounds and to bind it to more precise termes then the other Reformed Churches beyond the seas admit or many of the solid Divines have approved But of this there is no proper occasion here given to dispute This assertion therefore any further then hath been specified I doubt not but Mr. Baxter himself will discharge of Antinomianism The 5. 7. Mr. Baxter himself will not have to be ranked among Antinomian errors confessing the former to be the judgement of many learned and godly Divines of singular esteem in the Church of God pag. 53. Ap. pag. 12. The latter hee pronounceth to be the Common Judgement viz. of Churches and Divines therefore of ignorance accused of Antinomianism pag. 68 of his Aphorisms The fourth gives us cause to accuse them of some audaciousnes in teaching the Holy Ghost to speake and pertinaciousness in binding themselves to phrases and words even to the declining of the language of the Holy Ghost in Scriptures To be justified by Faith and to bee justified by Christ or our being found in Christ being ever both in Canonical and Ecclesiastical Writings taken as Equipollent terms until in these few last years Mr. Bax. and some of his fellows irradiated from Rome and by the doctrine of Socinus and Arminius have broached another a new and unheard of interpretation of the phrases For whether we say we are justified by Faith wee were formerly understood to affirm our Justification by Christ to whom our Faith hath united us or by Christ it was understood by Christ apprehended by faith Neither manner of Locution therefore was to be rejected as opposing the other The sixth I take to be a fancy if they understand Gods seeing and knowing in generall without restriction troubling the brains of men with a strife about words without substance God seeth no sin unpardoned upon his people we acknowledge In reference to Judgement and Vengeance hee hath seen them all upon Christ and punished them upon Christ so that he no more sees sinne in beleevers to take vengeance of them for it But it were our loss and misery if God should not at all and simply see sinne in us How then should he purge it from us and us from it He is the Husbandman of his Vineyard sees and cuts out every canker from his Vines seeth and pareth off every unprofitable sprigg from the branches by meanes whereof fruitfullnesse followeth where else there must ensue barrennesse and rottennesse Some Divines therefore thus distinguish that Gods seeing of sin may be considered as either in Articulo providentiae so he seeth all sinns of all men alike to dispose of them to his glory or in Articulo Iustificationis so he seeth the sinnes onely of the unjustified Ier. 18. 23. Forget not their iniquity neither blot out their sin from thy sight but the sinnes of the justified are forgotten and blotted out of his remembrance and sight as the constant phrase of Scripture affirmeth no more to be imputed If they mean onely in this latter sense they erre not By that which hath been
adoption Or lastly is his meaning that our union with Christ is the foundation not only of remission justification and reconciliation which do restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favor which we had lost and faln from but also of Adoption and of a far higher advancement then that from which he fell herein I shall not dissent from him But why then doth he so transpose his words as to make the stream of Gods operations to run backward if not to make mans qualifications the ground of his union with Christ his faith and good works by which he is justifyed to be if not the cause yet the antecedent of this union and not this union to be the cause or antecedent of his both justification and holinesse So much I thought fit to interpose here that this Thesis of Mr. Baxter might not serve as a bridge to carry over the reader captive unto some fallacious untruths in the after-part of this his Tractate contained Hence now let us passe to the 55 Thesis which hath not a totall disagreement with the former that have been examined in this Chapter but a dependence upon them B. Thesis 55. p. 211. Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin the penalty is not due and where it is not due it cannot properly be forgiven therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed though the grounds of certain remission be laid before The strength and evidence of this reasoning will the better appear if we lay by it another to the same tune and upon the same terms It cannot be denyed to be as good an argumentation as this if I should thus argue Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin there is no penalty due and where it is not due it cannot properly be required therefore the sins that have been committed since the death of Christ had not their penalty born by Christ before they were committed and consequently Gods justice remains unsatisfyed for the sins of all that have been committed since the death of Christ and every offender is to bear the condemnation of them in his own bosome though the grounds of certain remission were laid before in God except another Christ be sent from heaven to bear or the same Christ again to bear the penalty of the sins after they are committed Whether this argumentation doth not carry in it as great if not greater likelihood of reason then Mr. Baxters I leave to every rationall man to judge And thus when a proud lust possesseth us to reason from our own brain and not from Gods word we easily reason our selves into hell Neither do I see how Mr. Baxter according to this reasoning can ever look to be justifyed or saved except by one of these two wayes either by asserting his own righteousnesse which hitherto with his fellowes he hath made but a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christ to justifie and save to be at a pinch all-sufficient and effectuall to perfect the work without Christ as it is with partners in a Trade and buying and selling of wares what one doth both do and what bargain one makes both must stand to it Or else by canonizing the Popish masse to offer therein Christ often unto God as a sacrifice for the expiation and forgivenesse of his sins when he hath committed them sith Christs offering himself was in no wise the bearing of the penalty or satisfying of Gods justice for his or our sins because not then committed But let us see whether in any sense the reasoning of Mr. Baxter here may be made good or taken up as tolerable Not to mention here Gods forgiving of sins as an act immanent in God from eternity For this would but make Mr. Baxter startle he is no more patient to hear this voice then was Caligula at the voice of Thunder his bloud riseth at it as do theirs at the sight of a Cat whose natures have an antipathy to that poor creature that never meant them hurt Let us consider forgivenesse and pardon in tearms and wayes as himself granteth a possibility of giving and receiving it And First in foro conscientiae at the bar of God in the conscience of man to which he most limiteth and contracteth remission and justification May not the offender apprehend and apply to himself the pardon of his future as well as of his past and present sins through the Lord Christ in some sense 1. In respect of the seed of all the sins which he shall through infirmity commit in the time to come of his life I mean his corrupt nature or originall defilement and sin from which as from their naturall source all their acts of sin spring every true beleever is and may apprehend himself pardoned this the very Papists acknowledge denying originall sin and defectivenesse to have any mortality of sin in it because the guilt thereof is purged from the soul by the bloud of Christ at his very first admission and entrance into Christ as they say In this respect I doubt not but Mr. Baxter will confesse that all their after acts of sin are remitted in their seed and womb to beleevers before they be committed 2. In respect of Gods not imputing them to the person that shall offend so the sins not yet committed are forgiven to every elect person God hath laid on Christs score all the sins of the elect committed or to be committed and satisfyed his justice for them upon Christ who in their names hath paid the penalty of all therefore their consciences are discharged neither sins past nor sins to come shall be any more imputed to them There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. There is dayly new sinning why not also subjection to condemnation because the person being in Christ though subject to a necessity of sinning yet through the justification of his person is exempted from the further imputation of sin so committed unto condemnation He that beleeveth hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5. 24. He comes dayly into the acting of new sins how is it that he comes not into a subjection and obligation to condemnation by those sins but because they were forgiven to the offender before therefore not imputed to him when committed It is one chief priviledge of the new Covenant Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Jer. 31. 38. c. Heb. 10. 17 18. speaks the holy Ghost here only of sin past and not of those to come that they which are within the new Covenant have remission of them then 1. The same person hath some sins forgiven and some not forgiven by Christ that which is past is remitted that which is to come is retained 2. Then the priviledge is no priviledge if only sins past are not remembred but sins to come are
kept in Gods memory to impute them every moment as fast as they are committed For one of these last milstones tyed to the neck of the poor offender sinks him into hell as surely as if all that are removed had their weight returned upon him with that one to sink him 3. If God hath remitted and justifyed a beleever from the sins which he hath committed and not from the sins which he foreknoweth they will commit but imputeth or will impute them then is the same person both justifyed and unjustifyed at the same time and God at the same time both loveth the same person to eternall life and hateth him to eternall condemnation which were no lesse absurdity then to attribute two contrary wils acting in God at once and so the same person be declared in his own conscience at the same time both in the state of life and in the state of death of life in respect of the sins past forgiven through Christ of death in regard of the sins to come not yet forgiven Secondly In Christ or as Mr. Baxter terms it Thesis 43. in Christs own justification either all sins are forgiven to the elect or none at all When having done their Law and paid their debt Christ appeared in the most holy place in the heaven at Gods mercy seat to mediate with his bloud for them he either received acquitance from and forgivenesse of all the sins which his elect in after times should commit and so in Christ their sins to come were forgiven or else no sin was forgiven for as yet they were not in being therefore neither were their sins yet committed But he received then in their names a full acquitance and forgivenesse of their sins as hath been before shewed therefore of their sins before they were committed and they were forgiven before they had offended Hence some of our Divines thus reason if since Christs satisfaction any sins be imputed any more to the elect they must be such as Christ hath or hath not expiated with his bloud and made satisfaction for to Gods justice if such as Christ hath expiated then notwithstanding that God imputes the sin yet the person to whom he imputes it is in grace and favour with God and the full penalty of his sin while imputed is paid to God but this were injustice not incident to God to impute a debt which is fully paid him If such as Christ hath not satisfyed for then the faith of an elect person obtains at Gods hands forgivenesse or the not imputing of such sins for which Christ hath not satisfyed Gods justice and so there shall be here remission without the shedding of bloud and justification out of Christ or faith and Gospell obedience shall be the price and ransome of their soules All which is most absurd Therefore the sins of the elect yet uncommitted are in Christ as fully forgiven as those that are already committed Thirdly If Mr. Baxters meaning be when he saith the sin is not forgiven before it be committed that the beleever hath not a singular apprehension of the forgivenesse of every singular sin before it be committed and that God hath not declared to his conscience the forgivenesse of every singular offence i. e. this evill which at this and that evill which in that hour of his life he shall drop into I acknowledge in this sense neither are any of our sins future forgiven nor many of our sins past For who in this case knoweth not only how oft he shall erre but also how oft and wherein he hath erred in this respect the generall pardon sealed in Christ bloud to us though it mention not every singular errour of our lives contained under the generall is alsufficient for us But perhaps Mr. Baxters meaning is that Christ hath not purchased to the elect a plenary and absolute forgivenesse but hath conditionally dyed for all if they shall beleeve and obey and upon this condition runs the hope of pardon as to the sins which they shall commit unto their lives end their renewed sins being dayly pardoned upon the continuance and dayly renewing of their obedience and so this Thesis runs in the same channell with the 43 44 45. Positions and for this cause I have annexed it to them Neither do I speak any thing to this Position in this sense here because it is prevented by what hath been already said in the examination of what he hath said there And too much hath been said both to those and this Position in which nothing but Magisteriall assertions without proofs are to be found CHAP. XXIV Arg. Mr. Baxters new Modell of the causes of Justification examined and first his dispute about the efficients and the materiall and formall causes thereof MR. Baxter in his 56. Thesis disputeth very Logically though but little Theologically of the causes of justification and because he thinks them all Athenians whom he hath a lust to corrupt viz. such as spend their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing some new thing Act. 17. 21. therefore looking aside from that which all the soundest i. e. with him the Antinomian Divines have said upon this Argument and disdaining it with a squint eye as too rustick and not enough pretty and dialecticall himself presents me with a new case and order of causes from the forge of his fancie viz. some sole and some sociall some single and some double some proper and some improper causes some causes that are causes and some causes that are no causes without further particularizing take him thus in his own words B. Thesis 56. By what hath been said it is apparent that justification in title may be ascribed to severall causes 1. The principall efficient cause is God 2. The instrumentall is the promise or grant of the new Covenant 3. The Prâ—catartick cause so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men is fourfold 1 And chiefly the satisfaction of Christ 2 The intercession of Christ and supplication of the sinner 3 The necessity of the sinner 4 The opportunity and advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie The first of these is the meritorious cause the second the morall perswading cause the third is the objective and the fourth is the occasion 2. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not 3. The formall cause is acquiting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling the Law to accuse or condemn him 4. The finall cause is the glory of God and of the Mediator and the deliverance of the sinner 5. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed It must be granted that he is not a man of delicacies hath a dull eye and dry brain whosoever is not enamoured with so fair a shew of causes like a cup-bord
instrumentall cause also But this Mr. Baxter will answer anon and I shall wait on him to hear how satisfactory his answer is 2. Whether in his answer to the Question as he puts it when he makes a mans lease or deed of gift and a Kings pardon to have their force from the hand and seal annexed to it is it not much more implyed that the grant of the Gospell without hand and seal put to it is not a sufficient instrument to the justifying of any man For the grant of the Gospell is made to the world indefinitely but when faith as the impression of Gods hand upon the soul and the Spirit witnessing and sealing to the conscience thou art the person to whom the justification generally proposed in the Gospell doth particularly belong and so are applyed by God as true accessary evidences to the grant of the Gospell to terminate justification upon the soul of man can Mr. Baxter deny these being acts of God distinct from the word of promise to be instrumentall to justification as properly and fully as the said promise and grant 3. To his Procatarctick causes which in the Thesis he giveth viz. so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men saith he I aske 1 Whether God may be moved in his will by any thing out of himself If so whether then something out of God do not give magis minus increase and diminution to God For every change of Gods will is a change of God himself and what shall it avail any to be justifyed by a mutable God that to day will justifie to morrow unjustifie againe being apt to take impression of change from things without him yea if a God mutable then in truth no God but one of the Pagans Idols or Puppets Or how little doth his additionall cause help him to speake after the manner of mâ—n he ought not to speak a lie for God to please men much lesse to lie against God to fashion himself to the manners of men foolish or wicked men If he say God cannot be moved by any thing out of himself how can he excuse himself from being a slanderer of the most high God by devising and asserting here 4. causes out of God moving him to justifie us having before wilfully suppressed in darknesse the riches of Gods grace within himself alsufficient without any auxiliary strength from the creature to move him How preposterous is he herein to the order of nature making the fruit to bear the tree and not the tree the fruit What lesse doth he in making Christs satisfaction and intercession the sinners supplication and desire of supply and the opportunity or advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie the causes of Gods will and gracious willings when contrariwise Gods gracious will is the cause of all these 2 Whether he jears at the invaluable means of our salvation or else that he thinks himself matching cocks for the game that he counterpoiseth the highest perfections of Christs mediatorship with mans vanity how unsufferable is it to see him putting into the one scale a precious pearl into the other a peppercorn or cherry stone To match Christs intercession with the sinners supplication To make the feeblenesse of man a collaterall and concause in the same order and degree of efficacy to justification with the vertue of Christ glorifyed It is to be acknowledged that the nothingnesse of the one is of as full validity as the omnipotency if I may so terme it of the other to beget new love new purposes new acts in Gods will This is that which God himself cannot do not because it is a work above his power but beneath his nature and perfection to work or to be capable of the working of any new impressions or changes in his will Neverthelesse this excuseth not Mr. Baxters vilifying of Christ in mating his intercession with the sinners supplication as if the former were a star of the same magnitude with the latter like that profane fellow that twisted together Religion and Cheese 3 Not to trifle away time upon every trifling word of Mr. Baxter I demand of him why seeing in the Explication pa. 215. he acknowledgeth that Procatarcticall or outwardly impulsive causes have properly no place with God he doth yet in his Thesis here fetch about again his four impulsive causes to marke them with severall names in their foreheads in Aristotles print is it not a testimony under his own hand that he will rather play and dance about God as if he were a meer may-pole then lose the ostentation of one least peece of his wit and art 4 Though I mean not to contend about the meritorious causality of Christs satisfaction because in this he hath as well many orthodox writers as Papists speaking in the same tone with him neverthelesse I should deny his assertion unlesse he he will grant me these 4. or 5. suppositions 1. That so far as justification is an act eternall and immamanent in God Christs satisfaction is not the meritorious cause of it 2. If in some other respect it be the meritorious cause that God doth therein merit from himself For the satisfaction made to him is of his own proper money himselfe paid the price in delivering his Sonne for our sinnes the body which Christ offered for us was given him by the Father to offer in our behalf 3. That this merit must in no wise hinder but that the entire benefit of justification must come to us freely without money and without price 4. That it is but unproperly termed merit even then when it respecteth the discharge which God giveth into a mans conscience it being so called metaphorically as our state in sin is considered as a state of debt which when Christ our surety hath paid for us he hath so far merited only as the payment of our debt may be said to deserve that we should receive a full acquittance from the debt In which Mr. Baxter goeth yet further that it was so paid that the Creditour might have chosen to accept it for satisfaction much more to have given us a full acquittance and discharge So that in relation to him and his principles it is lesse properly merit then to another 5. That Christs satisfaction is more properly to be called Gods foundation of this our new relation of justifyed persons upon which he hath inabled himself to justifie us in mercie without any seeming diminution of his justice and truth These things granted me I dismisse Mr. Baxter with his meriâ—orlous cause 5 When he cals Christs intercâ—ssion and the sinners supplication the morall perswading cause c. I demand whether there were such a totall deficiency or so great a scarcity of morall reason in God that it needed a begetting or quickning by perswasions from without him or whether he were so flinty aâ— that without strong perswasive reasons he could not be induced
or between the not accusing or condemning of a man and the not imputing any thing to him to his accusation and condemnation CHAP. XXV Arg. of the Causa sine qua non or the condition or the instrumentall cause and whether faith be the instrument And in what sense it is so The absurdities wherewith Mr. Baxter chargeth this doctrine removed and those that follow his doctrine in part particularized TO the first Question we must apply our selves somewhat more fully because in answer to the former Questions Mr. Baxter seems to me to have aimed chiefly to the ostentation of his wit and Logicall both acutenesse and profoundnesse to make himself thereby admired and formidable But in answering this and the next he collects in one all his subtilty and Sophistry â—o beguile and deceive if it were possible the very Elect. And indeed if he carry these two Questions in captivity to his own sense and purpose he shall thereby make at least a seeming way by which to introduce all his Popish soul-subverting errours about justification which follow and hang as at the tayle of these Questions His words in the Thesis are B. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed As much as he thought would be objected against his putting Christs satisfaction in the same place and degree of causality as a collaterall with faith he hath spoken to in his answer to the second Question and the firmnesse of this his answer hath been there examined But what concernes faith that which he thinks he shall be opposed in he formes into two Questions Explication pa. 214. 1. Why he makes it not the Instrumentall cause 2. Why he makes it the Causa sine qua non The former which is his 5. Question he applies himself to answer pa. 219. in these words B. To the fift Question perhaps I shall be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of our justification But affectation of singularity leads me not to it 1. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man Not of man for man is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so still man should be said to justifie himself 3. For as Aquinas the action of the principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dares say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx tâ— the producing of the effect of the principall cause by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification Here I know not whether we have more of the subtle serpent or of the roaring Lyon 1. He useth his winding Sophistry to intangle 2. His daring threats to them that being not intangled will be so bold as to contradict him Let us examine what efficacy there is in either or both these and first in his Sophistry To insinuate or as the Apostle saith to creep into the hearts of his Readers to deceive them he tels us Perhaps he may be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of justification It seems he doubted that some of his Readers for lack of acquaintance with many Authours upon this subject would not or could not take notice that it is a new doctrine which he here delivereth and so he should be robbed of the glory of his new invention That the praise thereof might therefore wholly redound to him he tels them he is the first of men that ever saw and taught Faith not to be the instrument of justification that herein he is singular from all men Bâ—t had he not rubbed his forehead that with open face he thus vindicateth to himself that which he hath received from the Priests and Jesuites Let him name himself singular and abhorrent from all Protestants yea from Christ and his Apostles not from all men he is singular and alone in this and most his assertions from the Orthodox from whom but holds it in common with the whole herd of Antichrist to whom he is fallen Doth not Bellarmine deny that faith can truly be said to justifie us except it doth obtain and in some sort merit Justification from God Do not all his brethren with one voice shake off the instrumentall causality of justification and make it as a perfect quality or good work to merit it A two fold subtlety yea falshood is there to be found therefore in this his insinuation 1. That he affirmes himself singular in this point to catch after an usurped praise to himself as if he had seen what none in the world before him had seen 2. In pretending it to be a new doctrine thereby to draw disciples after him in a time wherein the ears of men itch after new in disdain of sound and true doctrines But further to insinuate he tels us that affectation of singularity leads him not to it We beleeve him without oath or protestation It is not the desire of them that are of his hair to trudge single but accompanied with a whole Brigade of disciple under their conducting and seducing unto Rome But let us come to his Arguments B. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or Man But of neither of these Ergo not at all an instrument His Proposition or Major we grant him And it were enough and full to that which can be expected to refell his reasons which he brings for the proof of the minor Yet because my drift is not so much to answer him as to stablish some weak and unwary Christians against his impostures I shall endeavour first to confirm what he denyeth and seeks to shiver and then to examine the strength of reason which he brings against us When he saith in the Minor that faith is the instrument neither of God nor Man in justification What if I should undertake to prove and defend it to be the instrument of both He speaketh here of Justification as taken Passively declared to and termined upon the conscience For if we should mention justification as taken meerly Actively for that internall eternall and immanent act in God not transient upon an extraneous subject but hid in God before the world was or any justifyed or unjustifyed persons began to live or be Mr. Baxter would be ready to deal with us as did the Jewes with Steven Act. 7. 57. stop his ears and cry out against us with a loud voice Blasphemy blasphemy Yet in this sense we acknowledge that saith is neither Gods nor Mans instument of justification But in that sense which alone Mr. Baxter here taketh justification for that gracious act of God by which he dischargeth for Christs sake the sinner from condemnation by vertue of the new
justified by works will it follow for all this that justification and salvation have the same conditions on our part The reasoning is one and the same in reason as if I should thus argue Having 1. slandered the Scriptures and said they say what I say I should further proceed Therefore are we created that we may be saved neither is there any way to salvation but by creation It would be as derogatory to the grace of God to be created by our own working as to be saved by our own working Therfore though Glorification be adding of a greater happinesse than we had by Creation and so Creation is not enough therto yet on our part they have the same conditions The reasoning after the Principles of true Protestants would not in its conclusion though in its premises seem altogether absurd Because they affirm the absolute will and good pleasure of God without any conditions on mans part in Mr. Baxters sense of Conditions to be the alone cause both of his creating and saving us But after Mr. Baxters Principles it would bee both absurd and odious for so our good works must bee the condition of our Creation because they are so of our salvation that we must be created by ouâ— sincere obedience bâ—bâ—cause by it we are saved and that our sincere obedience must go before our Creation because they so do before our salvation and so when we have perseveringly obeyed without a being we shall at length bee created and have a being They that are taken with such Arguments I doubt are in the number of them that are made to be taken 2 Pet. 2. 12. And who can hold that which will away Mr. Baxter saw the wall gaping and ready to fall before hee had finished it therfore hastens to plaister and dawb it thus B. Yet heer I say still our full Justification because as I have shewed i. e. said our first possession of it is upon our meer Faith or contract with Christ But I think our glorification will be acknowledged to have the same conditions with our finall justification at the bar of Christ and why not to our entire continued justification upon earth These are but words comparing that which is reall with that which is but imaginary We still deny such a full and finall justification at the bar of Christ compleating that which was but unperfect conditionall and reversible heer upon earth All that hee hath said to prove it hath been examined and found insufficient We look for proof indeed and meet with nothing but words They that are once possessed of it by faith are fully and finally possessed of it His peremptory and bold conclusion is now come even upon his own grounds to I think and why had hee not kept his thoughts to himself untill he had known reason enough for rationall men to have concluded with him yet upon this thought he addeth and why not to our entire continued justification upon earth To which we need say no more in answer but this because wee must not build any Article of our Faith upon the thoughts of men but upon the word of God To the objection which hee supposeth some may make and to which he answereth before it be made against him I say no more but let him answer our reall not imagined objections and such we shall so long defend untill by the light of the word wee finde them unworthy of defence The Scripture which hee brings to prove the perseverâ—nce of Faith to be the condition of our persevering justification runs thus Heb. 3. 14. We are made partakers of Christ if wee hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast to the end Here perseverance is made a declaration and evidence of the truth of our Faith and of our participation of or Communion with Christ at present not a condition either of our justification or the perseverance therof By this it shal be evidenced that ye are truly in Christ and justâ—fied by him if ye persevere for thâ—se that fall away wâ—re but seemingly never truly in Christ They that are his in truth continue so to the end Like that v 6. We are the house of Christ if we hold fast our confidence to the end compared with 1 Jo. 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would without doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us So the perseverance or not persevering of these would manifest who had been who had not been truly pertakers of Christ and the house of his habitation not the condition of their persevering justification for then should it be for a time at least the condition of the perseverance of their justification who were never truly pertakers of Christ and consequently in Mr. Brs. phrase had never a beginning of justification Hitherto of what Mr. Baxter hath said to confirme the Proposition Hence he descendeth to prove the Assumption That Obedience is an undoubted condition of our salvation That wee may not here beat the winde we do first understand his obedience to be the obedience of good workes else is it the same with Faith as I have shewed and that of Faith in Scripture sense and not in Mr. Baxters large unscripturall and uncircumscriptive definition So much also many of the Scripture testimonies which hee alleadgeth here elswhere which I shal reduce to this place declare Yea himself in many places before hath set to his hand that it is his meaning 2. We understand him here by Salvation to mean that which he a little before calls glorification and not simply the salvation which is one and the same with Iustification But 3. We except against him that whereas without ceasing he beats our eares even into deafnesse with that Roman Rampant Exotick word CONDITION scarce uttering a sentence which he doth not blesse or curse with it though hee know the holy Scripture hath upon this Argument not the least mention of it that wee might thence learn that it is but borrowed from the Papists and improved much by the Arminians with whose common language through his familiarity with both parties hee is more acquainted than we can be who have no trafficque with them yet he will not fully make knowne to us the meaning of the word whether the signification thereof be boundlesse or within what limits it is bounded whether it comprehends under it all the necessary Antecdents of glorification or no if so whether it comprehends not under it as well much disobedience as obedience and works of the Divel as of God as the Cansas sine quibus non we shall obtaine salvation by Christ Or whether by Conditions we must understand onely Duties and if so whether those alone which go before or else also those that accompany and follow justification and glorification And withall whether those duties as morall or as spirituall because his Divinity
he fights against natural reason perswading men never more to eat because their meat is not appointed to Clothe them or to walk naked because he saith their garments are not usefull to nourish them No more Cause hath Mr. Br. or the Papists to accuse us that we banish good works from the life of a Christian by teaching that they are not usefull or appropriated to justifie but to sanctifie very usefull in all the particulars before-mentioned How unacquainted with the frame of a Christian spirit are these objectors Either they do not experimentally know or else do stifle within themselves this knowledge that a Christ-enjoying and Gospellized soul gaspeth no less for deliverance from the bondage than from the Condemnation of sinn delights so much in performing duty to Christ as in receiving pardon from him groanes so pathetically under the body as ever he did under the guilt of sinn Cryeth with equall vehemency of affâ—ctionâ— for holiness unto God as for happiness with him for Conformity to him in righteousness as in glory makes no other use of his redemption than to run at liberty the race of obedience set before him embraceth and delighteth in sanctifying as well as in saving grace in the infusion as in the imputation of righteousness labours to dispense all for the Lord and his service whatsoever he hath received from the Lord and his free grace Therefore whatsoever the Lord powrs upon him to sanctification is received with so great joy in the Holy Ghost as that which is communicated to him to justification and he labours to be and express himself wholly Christs as well as to obtein Christ wholly his As for Mr. Brs meerly Morall Men that will receive Christ neither to Justification nor to sanctification but upon their own terms purchasing him by Fine and rent that the glory might be partly theirs and not wholly Christs It is enough that Mr. Br. hardens and subverts them in this their Moral madness wholly contradictive to the spirituallness and wisdome of the Gospel We shall not be insnared by all the nicities of his Arts and Chimicall extracts of the spirits of his spoyling Philosophy to involve our selves with him in the guilt of poysoning so many souls and turning their best righteousness and devotion into sinn by encouraging them to appropriate the same to such an end as is destructive to the glory of Gods grace and contrary to the minde and rule of the Gospel We have one Master which is Christ his dictates expressed by him and his Apostles in the plainness and foolishness of their preaching are so sacred and authoritative with us that neither the most labyrinthical mazes of sophistry shall unwinde us nor the extravagancies of the most luxuriating witts nor the most Curious plausibilities of humane reason shall by Gods Grace unreason us so from our selves as to undisciple us from him Yea though we could not in some things give a satisfactory answer to the sophisticated reasonings of these disputers against Christ and his Gospel yet should we fit down as fools with Christ and his Apostles adoring the manifold wisdome of God revealed in a mystery rather than be wise with these men to the world knowing that the foolishness of God is wiser and the weakness of God is stronger than men And we seek wisdome and happiness from the mines of Christs Gospel not from the dry quarrie of mans literature and inventions 2 Though we reject it as an arrogant and presumptuous doctrine which Mr. Br. in Common with the Papists teacheth That we are justified and saved by our good qualifications and works for our works for the merit and worthinesse of our good works yet we teach and believe that they are in respect of all that have age ability and time to perform them necessary Consequents of our Justification and Antecedents of our glorification Let a man pretend what he will of Faith in Christ yet if by Faith hee do not cleave firmly to him to derive from him power to mortifie every sinn to perform all duty if he can allow within himselfe any known evill or continue in the neglect of any known duty without striving to get the victory in the strength of Christs Spirit over every such infirmity wee take such a man so farr from Christ as Christ is from Belial A branch in Christ not bearing fruit which is appointed to be cut off and cast into the fire because he was never in Christ otherwise but by a formall profession never had vitall union to him or communion with him by the ligatures of Faith and the Spirit For sanctification is an individual companion of Justification And the office of Christ is to be the Author of both to all that believe Otherwise the work of his Mediator-ship should not be compleated in either one of these and so he should not be our Christ if a halfe Christ only to us And Sanctification is still begun and carried on towards perfection also where there is time and meanes in the kingdom of Grace before its perfecting and swallowing up into glory in the Kingdom of glory No righteousness and holiness of man is begun in the next life But there shall be the consummation in power of that which here was begun in truth though it laboured of and languished with much infirmity 3 Wee are guiltless of those Crimes wherewith Mr. Br. endeavours to defame us and our Doctrine For 1. Neither doe wee teach or think as M. Br. suggesteth that nothing is preaching Christ but preaching him as a pardoning justifying Saviour Aph. pa. 328. Indeed we preach Justification to consist if not only yet chiefly in the pardon of sinn through the mediation of Christs death That this benefit of Christ is perfected by the satisfaction which he hath made to Gods justice in suffering for us and appropriated to us by faith alone But wee deny this to be all the Gospel-grace exhibited to us by Christ and in and through him We hold him forth as the Light of the world also having all the treasures of wisedom and knowledg hid in him Joh. 8. 12. Col. 2. 3. from whom are all the irradiations and Revelations of all the mysteries of Grace effectuall to life and holiness Mat. 13. 11. 1 Cor. 2. 10. And to the word and spirit of Christ we send all men for illumination And the Life of the world not only to restore them to life in law by Justification but as the Lord and principle of Life to beget in us an inherent life active and moving to all obedience Therefore we endeavour to send all to Christ for life even for this life because the whole judgment and dispensation thereof is committed to him and he is our all to sanctification also Joh. 5. 21 22 25 26. Col. 3. 11. We indeed except against that Doctrine as more Legal than Evangelical that roars thunders Condemnation against poor Exiles in a dry wilderness where is no water fainting and even dead with