faith mentioned so oft in Scripture that is Upon and by believing we are first made just by free-given pardon and right to life and true sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just But this is not without our Faith and Repentance 2. And that Faith and Repentance are a Righteousness Evangelical that is a performance of the conditions on which the Covenant of Grace doth freely give us right to Christ pardon and life and so are the Constitutive causes of that subordinate Justification Lib. But your subordinate Righteousness hath no hand in our Justification P. This is but singing over the old Song by one that will not consider what is answered Have you thought on all the Texts even now cited Hath faith no hand in our Justification Hath the performance of a Condition and the Moral Disposition of the Receiver no hand in the Reception of a Gift What think you is the meaning of Christs words Matth. 12. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned What meaneth St. James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only Are men justified by that which hath no hand in their Justification Lib. Christ meaneth before men and so doth James and not before God P. This is notoriously false as contrary to the plain Text Christ speaketh of the Account to be given of our words in the day of Judgement vers 36. And James speaketh of that which men are saved by vers 14. and that Justification which Abraham had and that in an instance where Man did not justifie him and of that which was faiths life and perfection vers 17 22. and of Gods imputing faith for righteousness as to a friend of God vers 23. And is this nothing but Justification before men Lib. This is not the justifying of the man but of his faith P. 1. You contradict the Text which saith Abraham Rahab A man is justified by Works 2. You contradict your self For if the faith be justified the man is justified to be a true believer For how could a man that fulfilled the Law as Christ and Angels did be justified but by justifying his actions And how can he that fulfilleth the Gospel conditions be justified in that point but by justifying that he fulfilled them Lib. At least I may say that this is not the great and notable Justification which is only by Christs Righteousness P. We are not contending for its preheminence but its truth and necessity in a subordinate place Indeed we have one Justification by our Judges sentence which hath many parts and causes God as Donor is one cause and God as Judge another And Christ as meriting is the only meritorious cause of the Justifying Gift and Covenant and Christ as Intercessor another cause and Christ as Judge another And our Righteousness as it is our Right to Impunity and life another and our faith and Repentance are conditions All this is sure Lib. But the Justification by faith is our Universal Justification and that can be only by Christs Righteousness And we are not to trust to a Righteousness mixt of Christs and ours nor doth Christs Righteousness need to be patcht up with our menstruous rags P. 1. No question but Christs Righteousness is perfect and ours imperfect and ours is no patch or supplement to Christs He is not made righteous by our righteousness but we by his 2. But that which is perfect in him is not made perfectly ours nor formally ours in it self as distinct from its merited effects It is not ours as it is Christs Christ that is our Righteousness is also made of God to us wisdom and sanctification And will you say therefore that we are not to be Wise or Holy by any Wisdom or Holiness of our own for fear of adding our patch to Christs 3. You use to say that Christs Righteousness is ours as Adams sin is ours and say some as Adams Righteousness would have been had he persevered But 1. Adams Righteousness would have indeed made an Infant initially just by propagation that is the innocent Child of an innocent Parent But as soon as that Infant had the use of Reason and Choice he must also have a Righteousness of his own or perish And this is no patch to Adams righteousness And indeed in his Infancy he must have a seminal Holiness of his own to justifie him as well as the relation of a Son of Adam 2. So also though we are guilty of Adams sin by propagation yet we have with that guilt 1. An inherent pravity of our own 2. And at age our actual sin And both these are our unrighteousness as well as Adams sin imputed to us Even so Christ the second Adam is a Root of a righteous seed Our Contract by faith is as to him what our Natural propagation is as to Adam that is the Condition of our Interest in his merits We have as believers an initial righteousness in our relation to Christ But we have also from him 1. Inherent habitual righteousness 2. The actual righteousness of faith and true obedience and love And these have their proper use and office without which we must perish 4. And I must tell you that the word Universal is too big to be properly given to any mans justification or righteousness but Christs Properly he only is Universally justified or righteous who hath no unrighteousness at all imputable to him and is justifyable in all things But the best believer 1. Was once a sinner originally 2. Did oft sin actually 3. Hath still sin in him 4. And for some sin may be punished by the Magistrate 5. And for sin is judged and punished by chastisements and death by God 6. And the earth still cursed for our sake 7. Yea which is worst of all we are still under the penaâ—ty of some privations alas how great of Gods Spirit and its Grace and our Communion with God And all this must be confessed And such a one is not Universally justified or just Lib. But still our own Righteousness doth but make us such as thankful persons must be for their Justification by Christ and is no part of that Justification by faith For if faith it self be that Righteousness we have not faith by faith and faith is not imputed to faith but Christs Righteousness is it that is imputed P. Of Imputation in due place 1. What need you talk against that which none of us assert Do we not all hold that our personal Gospel-Righteousness is subordinate to Christs and is by his Gift as ouâ— Wisdom and Sanctisication is Who dreameth that our faith is any part of Christs Righteousness But why do you waste time in vain cavilling against plain certain truth Is there any thing in Name or Thing asserted by us that you can deny or question Quest 1. Do you deny that Scripture commandeth us to Believe that we may be justified Lib. No. P. Quest 2. Or
the believing sinner may stand before this righteous and holy God is to affirm the eternal damnation of all the World VII The Covenant mentioned justifieth not but declareth our Justification which is the immediate proper effect of Christ's righteousness VIII Never any man in his wits affirmed that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification Give us but leave to call it the material cause or the meritorious cause immediately and properly of Justification c. Some will think that they are great and heinous errors which either these words or some of mine that seem contrary import But I must crave leave here to follow my usual method in separating the Controversies de re de nomine and then I think that even these strange words prove not him and me at so great a distance as they seem to intimate For I grant him as followeth de re 1. That God hath such a decree of Election or eternal purpose as he describeth and calleth the Constitution of the Covenant 2. That God doth wisely and graciously execute this Decree 3. That all Grace and Mercy is given by Christ And therefore so far as Mercy is common Christ is the common cause of it 4. That Christ himself is a blessing or gift decreed and also freely given by God even from his love to the World Joh. 3. 16. 5. That God's electing Act or Decree as in him hath no condition nor his purpose to give Christ as a Saviour to mankind 6. On our part no condition is required either that God may elect us or that the first promise of a Saviour be made or that Christ come into the World or that he fulfill all righteousness or that he obey or die or rise or be glorified or come to judgment or raise the dead or that he enact it as his Law of Grace that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned 7. Nor is any condition on our part necessary absolutely necessitate medii that the Gospel or the first Grace yea the first special Grace be given us 8. That Christ by his suffering and merits hath procured to his elect not only pardon and life if they believe and obey him but Grace to cause them effectually and infallibly to believe repent obey and persevere 9. That no man can or will believe and repent but by his Grace 10. That to give men a promise of pardon and life if they will believe repent and obey the Gospel is not the whole of Christ's Grace to any but where-ever he giveth this he giveth also much means and gracious help by which men may do better than they do and so be more prepared for his further Grace 11. That if God only gave men a promise of pardon if they believe and gave them no Grace to enable or help them to believe it would be no saving Covenant 12. God did not repeal his Law of Innocency or as he had rather call it of Perfection nor did properly dispense with or relax the preceptive part of it Nor is it absolutely ceased as to a capable subject And therefore Christ was bound to perfection 13. God would not have his Law to be without the honour of the perfect performance of mans Mediator though it be violated by us all 14. No man is saved or justified but by the proper merit of Christ's perfect obedience yea and his habitual holiness and satisfactory sufferings advanced in dignity by his divine perfection 15. This merit as related to us supposeth that Christ as a Sponsor was the second Adam the Root of the justified the reconciling Mediator who obeyed perfectly with that intent that by his obedience we might be justified and who suffered for our sins in our room and stead and so was in tantum our Vicarius poenae as some phrase it or substitute and was made a curse for us that we might be healed by his stripes as he was obedient that his righteousness might be the reason as a meritorious cause of our Justification which supposeth the relation of an undertaking Redeemer in our nature doing this and in our stead so far forth as that therefore perfect obedience should not be necessary to be performed by our selves And righteousness therefore is imputed to us that is we are truly reputed righteous because we as believing members of Christ have right to impunity and life as merited by his righteousness and freely given to all penitent believers And Christ's own righteousness may be said so far to be imputed to us as to be reckoned or reputed the meritorious cause of our right or justification as aforesaid Thus far we are agreed de re And then de nomine I willingly leave men to their way of speech 1. If he will call God's Decree his Covenant in Constitution 2. If he will call the execution of his Decree his Covenant in execution 3. If he will call nothing else the Covenant of Grace or at least nothing of narrower extent but what comprehendeth God's eternal Decrees and the promise and gift of a Redeemer and so of the rest I cannot help it his language is his own But I shall tell you further my thoughts de re de nomine 1. De re 1. God's eternal decrees purposes or election give no one right to Christ Pardon or Life and so justifie no man 2. The execution of God's Decrees yea of Election hath many Acts besides Justification 3. It must therefore be some transient Act done in time ad extra by which God justifieth men 4. There are divers such acts concurring in several sorts of causality or respect 5. Christ's meritorious righteousness and satisfaction are the sole proper immediate causemeritorious of all the Grace or Mercy procured and given by him there being no other meritorious cause of the same kind either more immediate or at all co-ordinate and copartner with him 6. As Christ giveth us Holiness qualitative and active by the real operation of his Spirit though he merited it immediately himself so doth he give us right to impunity to the further Grace of the Spirit and to Glory by the instrumentality of his Covenant as by a Testament Deed of Gift or Law of Grace Which by signifying God's donative will doth not first declare us justified or to have the foresaid right to Christ and Life but doth first give us instrumentally that right and so immediately justify us And God's will giveth us not right as secret or of it self but by such instrumental signification 7. God hath signified his will to us partly by absolute gifts and promises and partly by conditional that such there are he that denieth must deny much of the Scripture Christ was absolutely given to fallen mankind for a Redeemer and so was the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and many other mercies But he hath made and recorded a conditional Gift of Christ as in special Union to be our
all his Benefits are ever free Gifts â—â— to the matter and value first and then the relation of a Reward is bâ— secondary as to the Order of collation and the reason comparative whâ— one man hath them rather than another as a thankful Child hath the Gift which the Contemner goeth without 2. And that here Not to have this Gift forfeited by our sin is to be punished And so hâ—â—â— non-donari is puniri materially though the relations differ 3. And that it is the same Righteousness of Christ which meriteth our Impunity quoad damnum sensum and which meriteth our Right to the Gift of Life both sub ratione doni as a Gift and sub ratione condonationis as a forgiveness of the forfeiture and of the poena damni So that here â—â— no room for the conceit that Christ's death was only to purchase Pardon and his Righteousness to merit Life That which confoundeth men here is their taking the divers Respects and Connotations and Coâ—ceptions of one and the same thing to be divers separable things Thâ— same Law hath the Preceptive part to do and not do and the Retributing part penal and rewarding The same Obedience of Adam was â—â— doing what was commanded and a deserving what was promised â—â—â—â— more was promised to persevering Perfection than to the first act of Obedience One Sin deserved death but one act of Obedience desernâ—â— not immutable Glory And as the same Act is formally Obedience related to the Command and formally meritorious or praemiandus â—â— related to the Promise And the same Act is sin and punishable as related to the Precept or Prohibition and Threatening so the same Glory is a free Gift in one respect as related ut bonum to God as Benefactor and a Reward in another as related quoad ordinem conferendi to God â—â— Rector And the same loss of Glory is poena related to the Threatening and it is the loss of a Reward as related to the Promise And so the sâ—â—â— Merits of Christ's active and passive and habitual Righteousness because our Glory both by giving us pardon of our forfeiture and by Covenant-Donation and as a Reward to Christ and to us when â—â— perform the conditions of his Gift 133. And it is certain that Christ's Sufferings are first satisfactory and then meritorious being a part of his Active that is voluntary Oâ—dience And Christ's Holiness and Obedience are meritorious of pardon â—â— Sin as well as of Salvation 134. If there be as there is any thing which is given us througâ—â— Christ more than our own Innocency or Obedience would have mâ—â—â—ted the Gift of that is more than remission of Sin And is to be ascribeâ— accordingly to the Purchase of Christ's Merits But yet both his Holiness and Sufferings though not as sufferings did merit it And that was not a fulfilling of the Law in our stead 135. This superadded Gift what-ever it is seemeth in Scripture to be included in Adoption and not in Justification But yet it may in this sense be called Justification in that when our Right to that Gift is questioned that Right must be justified by the Covenant-Donation and by Christ's meritorious Purchase of it But this is only de nomine We are agreed of the thing 136. It is greatly to be noted that as a Reward is in the formal notion more than not punishing where materially they are the same so Christ hath not at all merited that eternal Life should be ours by way of Reward for our fulfilling the Law in him but that it should ours by his free Gift as a Reward to Christ for his own Merits So that the Relation of a Reward for Perfection belongeth only formally to Christ who taketh it as his benefit that we are saved through his love to Souls but not at all to us And to say as too many hold that Heaven is our Reward for our perfection of Holiness and Obedience in and by Christ is a Humane Invention subverting Christ's Gospel or unfit speech if better meant 137. Yet a Reward it is to us to be glorified but that is not for our fulfilling the Law of Innocency by Christ but for our believing in Christ and performing the conditions of the Covenant of Grace which giveth us Life as a free Gift but yet in the order of the condition it hath the relation and name of a Reward to us in the Scripture 138. So that here are three rewarding Covenants before us 1. The Covenant or Law of Innocency rewarding man for perfection to the end And this rewarded none but Christ And it is false that we are rewarded by that Covenant or justified by it for Christ's fulfilling it But it All the stir of the Papists is to prove that we have inherent Righteousness as well as pardon which Protestants are as much for as they The rest is de nomine justificationis Malder 1. 2. q. 113. a. 2. p. 572. Apostolus 2 Cor. 5. non aliud vult quam Christum cui nullum debebatur supplicium factum fuisse hostiam pro nostro peccato ut nos qui apud Deum nihil merebamur praeter supplicium justitia Dei fieremus in ipso id est gratis sine nostris operibus consequeremur per ipsius merita justitiam coram Deo What doth this differ from the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches Idem ibid Quando Apostolus dicit multos constitui justos per unius obedientiâ—â— significatur causa meritoria non autem formalis And so say we But some call Christ's Righteousness the causa materialâ—s meaning no more but that it is the matter of that Merit for which we are justified As if Adam had perfectly fulfilled the Law his fulfilling it had been meritorious of his sentential Justification and yet the matter of his constitutive Justification that is of his Righteousness And some uâ—â—ptly call it the formal cause But an unapt logical notion is not an error in Faith or Theology Idem ib. p. 573. Quamvis â—x omnino rigida justitia solus Christus Dominus satisfactat de condigno tamen ita ut merces operi â—ono debeatur post Dei promissionem meretur justus coronam justisiâ— quam reddet in illa die justus judex Est nostra justitia tota totum meritum tota satisfactio dependens a meâ—ito satisfactione Christi Still here is a wordy Controversie justified Christ 2. The Law or Covenant made only to and with Christ the Mediator And this Covenant further rewarded Christ as Mediator giving him all that it promised to himself and us for his performing the mediatorial conditions And so our Life is Christ's Reward 3. The Covenant or Law of Grace for it is the same thing in several respects that 's called the Law and the Covenant which giving Life on the condition of Faith doth justifie and reward Believers And we are justified and rewarded by no other Law 139. When Rom. 4. oft saith and other Texts that we are
and the Righteousness which is not in us but in him is â—urs so far as to be for our Good as far as his Office and Covenant do obâ—ige him So that a Righteous Christ and therefore the Righteousness of Christ are ours Relatively themselves quoad jus beneficis so as â—hat we have right to these Benefits by them which we shall possess â—nd for the merits of his Righteousness we are conditionally justified and saved before we believe and actually after But are not accounted to be Christ nor the Legal Actors of what he did nor Christ â—ccounted to be each of us SECT V. Merit 192. The great Controversie about humane Merits which hath made â—o great a noise in the world is of so easie solution that I can scarce Confes August Art 6. Semper sentiendum est nos consequt remissionem peccatorum personam pranâ—nciari Iustam id est acceptari gratis propter Christum per fidem postea vero placere etiam obedientiam erga legem reputari quandam Justiciam mereri praemia Et Art de Bon. operib Quanquam hac nova obedientia procul abest a perfectione legis tamen est â—usâ—iâ—ia meretur praemia ideo quia personae reconciliatae sâ—nt It a dâ— operibus judicandum est quae amplissâ—â—iâ— laâ—dibuâ— orâ—anda sunt quod sint necessariá quod sint cultus Dei Sacrificia spiriâ—â—alia mereantur praemia Ib. Exâ—recitatio nostra conservat ea meretur incrementum uxta illud Habenti dabitur Augustinus praeclare dixit Dilectio â—erâ—ur incrementum dilectionis cum viz exercetur Habent enim bonâ— apera Praemia cum in hac vita tum post hanc vitam in vita aternaâ— â—hink but almost all sober understanding Christians in the world are â—greed in sence while they abhor each others opinions as ill expressed or misunderstood Distinguish but 1. Of Commutative Justice and Distributive Governing Justice 2. And of Governing Justice according â—o Gods several Laws of Innocency Mosaical Works and of Grace â— And of Justifying and Meriting simply and comparatively And the case is so plain that few things are more plain to us that Christians conâ—rovert Viz. 1. To dream of meriting from God by any Creature Man or Angel in point of Commutative Justice is blasphemy and madness that is That we can give him any thing that shall profit him or which is not absolutely his own as a compensation for what he giveth us He maketh himself a God that asserteth this of himself 2. To say that any since Adâ—â— save Christ doth merit of God in point of Governing Justice according to the Law of Innocency is a falshood And he that saith He bâ—â—â— no sin is a lyar 3. To say that we can merit pardon or Justification oâ— Salvation meerly by observing Moses Law was the Jews pernicious erroâ— 4. To say that our faith and performance of the conditions of the new Covenant doth merit by the retributive Sentence of the old Covenanâ— or that it is in whole or part any meritorious Cause that God gave the world a Saviour or that Christ freely pardoneth and justifieth us all conditionally by the new Covenant or that it supposeth not Christ's Righâ—â—ousness to be the total sole meritorious Cause of that pardoning Covenant and all the benefits as thereby conditionally given All this is gross contradiction 5. To deny subordinate Comparative Merit or Rewardablâ—ness as from Gods Governing distributive paternal Justice according to the Covenant of Grace consisting in the performance of the condition of that Covenant and presupposing Christs total merits as aforesaid iâ— to subvert all Religion and true Morality and to deny the scope of all the Scriptures and the express assertion of an Evangelical worthiness which is all that this Merit signifyeth To say nothing of contradicting Catholick antiquity and hardening the Papists against the truth 193. This Comparative Merit is but such as a thankful Child hath towards his Father who giveth him a purse of Gold on condition thâ—â— he put off his hat and say I thank you who deserveth it in Comparison of his Brother who disdainfully or neglectfully refuseth it This last being absolutely said to Deserve to be without it but the former only comparatively said to deserve to have it as a free gift 194. And those that reject the saying of some Papists who in thiâ— sence say that Christ merited that we might merit placing our Evangelical merit in a meer subordination to Christs do but shew what prejudice and partiality can do and harden those who perceive their errors 195. Some man may think that the high things required in the Gospel self-denyal forsaking all running striving working loving overcoming Whether faith be not the meer Acceptance of a free gift according to its Nature Against Merit read of Papists Waldens de Sacram. tit 1. Gregor Armin. 1. d. 17. q. 1. a. 2. Durand 1. d. 27. q. 2. Marsil 2. d. 27. Brugers in Psal 35. Eckins in Centur. de Praedest Et inquit Fr. a Sancta Clara Deus Nat. Grat. p. 138. tribuitur etiam Cusano nec longe differt Stapletonus nostras Leg. Suarez in 3. p. Tho. Disp 10. Sect. 7. q. 3. See the Thomists sence of Merit in Lud. Carbo Tho. Compend 1. 2. q. 23. art 4. p. 240. c. are more than the meer Receiving of a free Gift But 1. If it were so yet our first faith would be no more by which we are Justified from all the sins of our unregeneracy 2. But upon consideration it will all appear to be no more materially For 1. When we say that it is the Receiving of the free Gift we must mean According to the Nature and to the use of that Gift As if you be required to take food the meaning is to Eat it and not to throw it away If you be required to take such a man to be your King your Master your Tutor your Husband your Physician c. the meaning is As such to the use of his proper office And so Accept of God as God that is our Absolute Owner Ruler and End and Christ as our Saviour Prophet Priest and King and the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer to Illuminate quicken and renew us is the suâ— of all the Positives of the Gospel 2. For this very Acceptance of them in this Nature and to this Use includeth the using of them after accordingly And if we do not so use them we thereby reject them and lose our own benefit of them as he that eateth not his meat refuseth and loseth it and he that weareth not his Cloaths and he that learneth not of his Teacher 3. And then Self-denyal and forsaking contraries and resisting impediments is but the same motus ut a termino a quo And he that refuseth to come out of his Prison and Chains refuseth his Liberty and he refuseth the Gold that will not cast away his handful of dirt to take it So that
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by
that we are commanded not only Thankfully to Accept but Thankfully to obey our Lord Redeemer and Saviour Lib. No. P. Quest 3. Date you deny that life or death eternal dependeth on this as a Condition or Moral means and that we shall be judged according to it Lib. No. I deny it not P. Quest 4. Is it not a Law that thus commandeth us and by which we must be judged Lib. Yes If it were no Law there were no duty and sin in belief and unbelief P. Quest 5. Is not a man so far just and justifyable by that Law as he keepeth it and justifyable against the charge of being one that must be Damned by producing the Condition of pardon and life performed Lib. Yes I deny it not P. Quest 6. And doth not the same Law virtually justifie the performer now whom it will justifie as the Rule of Judgement at last Lib. Yes no doubt P. Quest 7. And is not the Name of Righteousness many score times given in Scripture to our own actions done by Grace and measured by the New Covenant Lib. Yes I cannot deny it P. Why then while you deny neither Name nor Thing what wrangle you about And let me plainly tell you that such men as you by indiscreet ever-doing are not the least of Satans instruments to bring the Gospel under scandal and harden the world in Infidelity and the scorn of Christ while you would so describe the Christian Religion as if this were the very heart and summ of it Believe that all the Elect have fulfilled perfectly all Gods Law by another and that Christ did it as personating each of them and therefore no crime of their own is imputable to them nor any kind or degree of Goodness or Righteousness in and of themselves is at least required of God as any means or condition of their present or future justification by their Judge or as having any hand therein As if God were become indifferent what we all are so that Christ be but Righteous for us when as it was Christs grand design to restore lapsed man to God which he doth not only by Relative benefits but by Renewing them to his Image in love and holy obedience Lib. Have you not lately and oft been told that holiness and obedience are necessary now but it is to other Ends than to justifie us as for Cratitude c. P. 1. We easily grant it is for other Ends than Christs Merits were and not to justifie us as they do nor in that Causality They are not to purchase for us a free gift of pardon and life nor the Holy Ghost c. as Christ did 2. But again tell me Hath not Christ a Law that commandeth our obedience to those ends as Gratitude which you mention And is not the keeping that Law a thing that the same Law will so far justifie us for Yea a Condition that life dependeth on And if the Cause in Judgement be Have you kept it or not must you not in that be accordingly Justified or Condemned Give over cavilling against plain necessary truth Lib. By this you will fall in with the Papists who take Justification to be partly by Christs Righteousness and partly by our own and partly in pardon and partly in faith and holiness P. Tell not me of the Names of Papists or any to frighten me from plain Scripture truth 1. Why may not I rather say Why go you from all the antient Writers and Churches even Augustine himself by your new and contrary opinion Was true Justification unknown for so many hundred years after the Apostles 2. The most zealous Antipapists do confess that some Texts of Scripture do so take the word Justification And multitudes of Texts so take the words Righteous and Righteousness And he that will impartially consider them may find that more Texts than are by us so confessed do by Justifying mean Making us Just and so Accounting us on all these causes conjunct 1. As being Redeemed by Christs Merits 2. And freely pardoned 3. And having Right to life 4. And renewed to Gods love and Image 5. And so justifyable at the Bar of Grace by the Law of faith and liberty 3. And the reality of all the Matter of this Doctrine is past doubt if the Controversie de nomine Justificationis were not so decided CHAP. IV. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ Lib. III. YOu bring in your doctrine of personal Righteousness to Justification by feigning Christ to have made a new Law whereas the Gospel is but a Doctrine History and Promise and not a Law and so no Rule of Righteousness and Judgement And this many Protestants have asserted P. I have read some such sayings in some men And some I think meant no more but that Christ did only expound and not add to the Law of Nature called by them the Moral Law And these I have excused for their unhappy kind of expression But for the rest that mean as the words sound universally they subvert Christianity and as the Arrians denyed Christs Godhead so do they his Office and Government and are somewhat worse than the Quakers who say that the Spirit within us is the Law and Rule of Christ which is better than none I pray answer me Quest 1. Is Christ the King and Ruler of the Church Lib. Yes P. Quest 2. Is not Legislation the first and principal part of Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 3. Do not they then that deny Christs Legislation deny his Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 4. Is it not essential to Christ as Christ the name signifying Relatively his Office to be King Lib. Yes P. Quest 5. Do they not then by this deny Christ to be Christ Lib. No for they confess that he hath a Law but not that he made any since his birth P. We grant 1. That the Law of Nature now is His Law 2. And that the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam after the fall was his Law 3. And Moses Law was partly his But you will not say that we are under this last nor I hope that he hath no other than the two first Lib. Why what other can you prove P. It is the Name or the Thing that you deny for you use to confound the cases 1. Whether the name be fit judge by these Texts Gal. 6. 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ James 1. 25. The perfect Law of Liberty Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 3. 27. Boasting is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of faith Mic. 4. 2. For the Law shall go out of Zion c. So Isa 2. 3. 8. 16 20. 42. 41. The Isles shall wait for his Law 1 Cor. 9. 21. We are under the Law to Christ Heb. 8. 10 16. I will put my Laws into their minds and hearts James 4. 12. There is one Law-giver c. Isa 33.
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Camâ—ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial â—cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness â—an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
was not so much as for original sin foreseen that God is said to hate Esau because then he would have hated Jacob also but it must be referred to the â—eer will of God that one was loved to salvation and the other so hated as not to be saved Just as the Synod of Dort saith 693. Francisc à Sancta Clara alias Davenport a Learned Scotist in his Deus Nat. Grat. Probl. 1. pag. 3. describing Predestination out of Augustine Arriba Scotus Suarez c. saith And with all these agreeth the description of Predestination Art 17. of the English Confession 694. And Probl. 2. of the Causes of Predestination he noteth that We mean not the Causes of Gods will ex parte actus volendi sed ex parte volitâ—rum in quantum Deus vult unum esse propter aliud And on that supposition how easie is it to agree 695. But he addeth If you had rather say as Suarez 1. p. l. 2. de praed c. 1. that also ex parte actus divini there is a Cause it must be not as Gods act is absolutely considered for so it is his essence that hath no cause but as terminated on the Creature 696. Pag. 7. he himself professeth that when the Protestants say that on the part of the Predestinate there is not so much as any meritoâ—â—ous Cause Disposition or Condition they speak but the common opinion of all the School Doctors taking it properly and in Scripture senâ—e And what Montague and the Arminians speak of foresight he disowneth as contrary to Paul August Aquin. 1. p. q. 23. a. 5 c. Scotus Bradwardine Estius Smisings Yea he rejecteth Abbot Joachim who denying any Cause of predestination in God yet asserted a cause of it by an aptitude in the Predestinate and the Reprobate one being foreseen more humble and prepared for Grace and the other more proud and unprepared pag. 5 6. 697. Yea ordering Gods Decrees after the usual presumption be Ruiz de Praedefin tr 2. disp 6. sect 2. p. 86 87. Deus pro suo beneplacito decrevit ab aeterno efficaciter causare liberas operationes honestas prius ratione quam illas praevideret ut absolute futuras Unde infallibiliter sequitur liberi arbitrii operatio necessitate consequentiae Pag. 87. 1. Scriptura fidem sanctitatem quodlibet discrimen sanctorum à reprobis reducit ad electionem gratuitam 2. Ex vi sortis c. 3. Divina electio absque meritis est causa quae discernit justos ab impiis Quamvis n liberum arbitrium sit secundaria causa sâ—ipsum discernens qua potuit resistere vel consentire Haec tamen liberi arbitrii cooperatio revocatur in Deum ut in primariam causam suaviter praedefinientem Eâ— Tr. 3. d. 18. sect 3. p. 222. Ea merita nihil obsunâ— quidditati gratiae quae tanquam ex prima radicâ— nascuntur ex prima gratid data absque ullo prorsus merito Atâ—amen quodlibet etiam levissimum remotissimum meritum de congruo si ex illo nascitur prima gratia vel propter illud datur obesse quidditati gratiae Yea he addeth p. 223. Conditio ratio vel occasio prorsus separata à merito impetratione dispositione adhuc repugnaret primae gratiae quoniam adhuc maneret debitum connaturalitatis quamvis abesset debitum obsequii asserteth that God first intendeth our blessedness as the end before he intendeth us grace faith c. as the means And therefore cannot do it for foreseen faith c. Yea that he first decreed to give us blessedness before he decreed to create us as Scotus 3. d. 7. and Ovanâ—â— ibid. q. 3. a. 2. Yea that God willeth all this before he knoweth that it will be as Scotus 1. d. 39. And that seeing all Gods Volitions of giving any good are free without any precedent Cause in man it must needs be that the Decree of glory and not of grace only must be without Merit And he concludeth p. 13. that they have no quarrel here with the Doctrine of the Articles of the Church of England 698. Probl. 3. he resolveth with Smisings that the reason why this absolute decree of God consisteth with free-will is because that God doth not only decree the event but also the mode that it shall be freely done And therefore his decree doth not only consist with Liberty but maketh it necessary 699. His feigned order of the decrees is pag. 27. that 1. God decreeeth to glorifie 2. To give grace and merits to obtain it and that definitively 3. Then he foreseeth that they will concurr with grace 4. Then he decreeth the execution that glory shall be given them by the means of their operations And of Reprobation 1. That God effectually decreeth to do so much as he doth on his part to give them glory 2. And also so far to give them grace 3. Then he foreseeth that they will not co-operate with that grace 4. He decreeth to permit them to fall into sin 5. And then decreeth their damnation I would not cite this man if he were a Thomist or Dominican who are known to go higher than the Synod of Dort though their reputation at home with their party tempt them to rail at the Calvinists But as he is a Scotist and so of a middle profession Though Dr. Twisse perceived how much their founding Gods foreknowledge in his Volitions advantaged him 700. Supposing you to remember the ordo signorum of his Master Scotus before cited I adjoyn the order Doctoris illuminati viz. Fraâ— Mayronis in li. 1. d. 41. q. 4. Sunt quatuor signa Est ergo priâ—â—â— in quo Judas Petrus offeruntur Voluntati Divinae ut neutri tâ—â— Voluntas Divina ordinavit Petrum ad gloriam nullum autem actum positivum habuit circa Judam secundum Augustinum Secundum signum esâ— in quo ordinavit Petrum ad gratiam tunc circa Judam nullum actâ—â— positivum habuit Tertium signum est in quo relinquuntur sibi ipâ—â—sâ—â— uterque cadit in peccatum Quartum signum est in quo Petrus resâ—â—git Quia non potest permanere quia praedestinatus intelligitur ex primo signo Judas autem non resurgit eo quod non habet relevantem in Deo ideo reprobatur Here you see a Reprobation that is no Act of God but a non-acting or is negative quoad actum and not only quoad objectum And he before saith out of Scotus and with him Ideo dico sicut dicit Doctor noster Quod prius Deus videt merita quam reprobum licet prius non vide at merita quam eligat which is the commonest Doctrine of the Schoolmen and other Papists as well as Augustines 701. So D'Orbellis in 1. d. 41. Et dicunt quidam quod non est alia ratio quare Deus istum elegit non illum nisi quia placet Eo enim ipso quod placet ideo rectum est propter summam
after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him we live and move and have our being For we are also his off-spring Act. 17. 25 26 27 28 29. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him For whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved But have they not heard Yes verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Rom. 10. 12 13 18. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance Who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Eternal life Glory honour and peace and to every man that worketh Good to the Jew first and also to the Greek For there is no respect of persons with God For not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their Consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel If the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the Law shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision He is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God Rom. 2. SECT III. Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption 36. In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Rom. 4. 4. But not them only for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him He redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us For he is the Saviour of the world and the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world He is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2. 2. For he tasted Death for every man Heb. 2. being the Saviour of all men but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. For if one dyed for all then were all dead And he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. 37. As the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father in his Divine nature only was the interposing Redeemer by undertaking before his Incarnation and governed the faln world by the fore-described Law of Grace so upon his Incarnation initially and upon his performance plenarily all things are delivered into his hands even all the world so far as it was defiled and cursed by Man's sin Man as the Redeemed the Creatures as his utensils and goods and Devils as his and our Enemies All Power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 26. 19. Joh. 13. 1 3. and 17. 2 3. All judgment was committed to him and the Father judgeth no man but by him But hath given him to have life in himself and to raise the dead Joh. 5. 22 23 24 25. For he hath made him Head over all things to his Church Eph. 1. 22 23. And for this end he dyed rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living Rom. 14. 9 10. For God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name that in the name of Jesus every knee should â—ow Phil. 2. 7 8. And as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15. 22. 38. Christ upon his Incarnation performed but what God had Decreed before the foundations of the world and had obscurely and generally promised after the fall at the first making of the Covenant of Grace Which Decree of God is after the manner of men called by some a Covenant between the Father and the Son especially because the Prophets have sometimes as Isa 53. described it by way of prediction as a Covenant between the Father and Christ incarnate If we conceive of it properly under the notion of a Decree first and a Promise after unto the world so the Will and Mercy of God the Father and Son with the Holy Spirit are the cause of mans Redemption Pardon and Salvation even the fundamental Principal total Cause And the Promise was man's security and Christ as promised was the primary great meanâ— which was to procure us the rest by doing that upon the fore-sight and fore-decree whereof God did before-hand pardon and save Sinners But if you had rather mention it as in the form of a Covenant which before the Incarnation must be improperly taken being only of God to himself or a promise of and to Christ as to be incarnate then the undertaking of the Father and the Son herein must be carefully distinguished and described The Father giveth up to Christ as Redeemer the whole lapsed cursed reparable world the several parts to several uses and especially his chosen to be eventually and infallibly saved and promiseth to accept his Sacrifice and performance and to make him Head over all things to his Church and by him to establish the Law of Grace in its perfect Edition and to give him the Government respectively of the Church and world and to Glorifie him for this work with himself for ever And the second person undertaketh to assume man's Nature to do and suffer all that he did in perfect obedience to his Fathers Will and Law of Redemption to fulfill all Righteousness conquer Satan and the world to suffer in the flesh and be a Sacrifice for sin and to conquer Death and teach and rule and purifie and raise and justifie and glorifie all true believers 39. Before the Incarnation Christ's future death and obedience being * * * Eadem suit sides in antiquis patribus modernis qui alio modo credebant in specialia alia credibilia quam nos Immo aliquid eredebant quod nunc est salsum Alliaco in 3. q. 1. not existent were no real existent Causes in themselves of men's Justification But that Wisdom which foresaw them and that Will of God which Decreed them as such and not they without that fore-sight and Decree as existent were the cause 40. Nor were they either before
he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn But then it must be understood that this distinction iâ— not applyed to the Will of God as he is meerly an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor but as he is the King or Rector of the world and so his Legislation is his Antecedent Will and his Judgment is his Consequent Will And no man of Religion can deny either that Gods Law is the signification of his Will or his Will signifyed or that his Judgment and â—â—cution is his Will declared or that Gods Law of Grace doth conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man's performance or rejection of the condition or that God condemneth Infidels consequently to their Infidelity The Law Antecedently to Mans part acted saith He that believeth shall be saved and the Sentence consequently to his fact saith Judas an unbeliever or impenitent shall perish And thus the distinction hath no doubt or difficulty 103. God by commanding faith and repentance and making theâ— necessary conditions of Justification and by commanding perseverance and threatning the Justified and Sanctified with damnation if they fâ—â— away and making perseverance a condition of Salvation doth thereby provide a convenient means for the performance of his own Decree of giving Faith and Repentance and perseverance to his Elect For he effecteth his ends by suitable moral means and such is this Law and Covenant to provoke man to due fear and care and obedience that he may be wrought on as a man 104. To be justifyed by Faith in general agreeth to the ages before Of Justification by Faith c. Christ's Incarnation and those since But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justifyed For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justifyed by to them that are under the last edition of the Covenant of Grace than was or is to them that were under the first alone Abraham believed not all our essential Articles of faith 105. To be justified by faith in Paul's sence is all one as to be justified What that Faith is by becoming Christians To be a Believer a Disciple and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sence 106. The faith by which we are justified as is aforesaid is best understood The Controversie between the Papists and us about Justification is agitated iâ— vain till we agree of the sence of the words Justification and Remission As I said elsewhere they take not only Justification for a qualitative change such as we call Sanctification but Remission of Sin for they know not what themselves most of them talk as if it were a putting away the Sin in its essence which can be meant of nothing but the Habit for the fact cannot be infectum Others seem to take it for remitting the punishment also with that change Malderus most plainly in 1. 2. q. 113. a. 1. and p. 567. saith that Remission of Sin is Ablatio Reatus culpae At esse longe aliud quam Nolle illud punire non enim tantum facit Hominem non puniri sed etiam non esse Poena dignum Minus tamen est quam in amicitiam recipi though yet no man is in a middle state neque Dâ—i amicus neque inimicus yet cogitations possunt seterari Peccata Remittere idem est quod non imputare si hoc non accipias pro dissimulare sed pro desinere esse offensum cum per Remissionem Deo non imputante est quasi non fuerit By this you may see that these Papists hold the same with those Protestants whom they seem most to resist and cannot hide it But 1. It will be true to eternity that Peter sinned 2. To say so is to blame him 3 His sin deserv'd death 4. The Law and the nature of sin past are the same after pardon as before 5. God doth not change his mind of sin 6. Gods offence or displeasure is not a passion or mutable but his essence as denomina ed from the object to be his Velle punire and Justice that must punish 7. For God to be appeased and no more offended is but his Nolle punire peccatorem and not to be obliged in Justice to punish him but by his Covenant related to him as one that will not punish 8. This change is in the sinner becoming not punishable 9. That is not worthy of it in the Gospel-sence though worthy by the Law of Innocency 10. All this is but that the Reatus pâ—na culpae quantum ad poenam is remitted but not the Reatus culpae simpliciter in se And thus we are all agreed by the Baptismal Covenant and is essentially a Believing Fiducial consent to our Covenant relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Reconciled Creator and Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer connoting the forsaking of all inconsistents For it must needs be the same faith by which we have right to the benefits of that Covenant and by which we are justified because we have our remission and justification by the Instrumental donation of the Covenant it being one of the benefits given by it But Practical Faith or Believing-consent is our condition of receiving our Covenant right to all the benefits in general therefore to Justification in particular 107. The Phrases of Justifying faith and Faith justifying us are humane and not Scriptural at all And though they may be well used with explicatory caution as being well meant yet they are more lyable to mislead men than the Scripture phrase that we are justified by Faith Because the former phrases are apter to insinuate an Efficiency than the other whereas faith is no efficient cause of our Justification nor any other act of Man And the Scripture that speaketh of Justification by Faith sometime useth the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which no more signifyeth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex operibus And though sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used it is to signifie no more than that God hath appointed it to be the Medium of our Justification as a condition but not as any efficient cause 108. The Faith by which we are justified as I touched before hath God the Father for its object as essentially as Christ the Saviour as the said Baptismal Covenant sheweth and that not only secondarily as Christ being the Mediator and way to the Father our faith in Christ connoteth the final object but also directly and primarily as the Father is the first in Trinity and as Creator first related to us and as the end is first in our intention Joh. 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent Joh. 13. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me 109. And as essential is it to this Faith to believe in Christ as the Purchaser of Holiness and Heaven as to
committed And the obligation to duty goeth before the obligation to punishment for that same action because the action cometh between and the first is an act of Gods antecedent Will and the second of his consequent Will that is of the Retributive and not the Preceptive part of the Law And they note not that the question is not what obedience a man is bound to but what he performeth or must be reputed to have performed If they will speak so unaptly as to say that the Law commandeth Lapsed man not to have sin or imperfect man to have been perfect that is that the Command to day bindeth Adam ad praeteritum not to have sinned yesterday or bindeth to Impossibility in nature that existent sin should not be existent in all which I leave them to their â—iberty of words yet it is certain that no man hath perfectly obeyed for one year or day And therefore if Christ's perfect obedience and â—oliness be imputed to them from their first being then they are reâ—uted not-lapsed nor-sinners from the beginning and so not pardonaâ—le But if it be only for the time after sin that Christ's perfection is â—theirs after what sin must it be If after Adam's then we need no pardon of any but Adam's sin If after conversion then we need no pardon for sins after Conversion If after our last sin then Christ's perâ—ection is not imputed to us till after death 126. Others would come nearer the matter and say that we are â—eputed Righteous as fulfillers of the Law and yet reputed Sinners as Breakers of the Law and that though there be no medium in naturals between light and darkness life and death yet there is between a â—reaker of the Law and a fulfiller of it viz. a non-fulfiller and beâ—ween just and unjust that is not-just But this is a meer darkness There â—s a medium negative in a person as not obliged but none between Posiâ—ive and Privative in one obliged as such A stone is neither just nor â—rivatively unjust Nor a man about a thing never commanded or forâ—idden him But what 's this to the matter God's Law is pre-supposed we talk of nothing but Moral acts The Law forbiddeth Omissions and Commissions both are sin Do these men think that he is not reputed Positively just and not only not-unjust who is reputed never to have committed a sin nor left undone a duty in his life Can â—he Law be fulfilled more than so What is Righteousness if that be not Obj. Adam was neither just nor unjust in his first moment no nor till he sinned say some because till then he was not obliged to obey or at least to any meritorious act that is to love God Ans 1. Adam was in his first instant but Habitually just and not by Act because not obliged to impossibilities any more than an Infant or a stone But we speak only of obliged persons 2. It is not true that Adam was not obliged to obey and Love God before he sinned or that he never Loved God as God Obj. At least Adam merited not the Reward though he sinned not till then Ans 1. He merited what Reward he had viz. the continuance o his blessings first freely given but not an immutable state 2. It is yet unresolved what that was by which Adam must merit Immutability and Glory whether 1. Once obeying or consent to his full Covenant 2. Or once loving God 3. Or conquering once 4. Or eating of the tree of Life 5. Or presevering in perfect obedience to the end that is till God should translate him which is most likely His not Meriting Immutability before the time was no sin we confess 3. And we maintain as well as you that Christ hath not only satisfied for sin and merited pardon but also Merited Immâ—table Glory But consider 1. That Adam's not doing that which was to merit Glory was his sin of omission and to pardon that omission is to take him as a meriter of Glory 2. Therefore it must be somewhat more than he forfeited by that omission and his commission which cometh in by Christ's merit above forgiveness 3. That Christ merited all this both by his active passive and habitual Righteousness by which he merited pardon 4. That it was not we that merited it in him but he to give it us only on the terms of a Law of Grace 127. Yet some come nearer and say that To punish and not-Reward are not all one And so the respect that Sin hath to the deserved punishment needed pardon and satisfaction But our deserving the Reward needed Christ's perfect Obedience to be imputed In this there is somewhat of truth But you must avoid the errors that lie in the way and aâ—â— by most supposed truths 1. Remember that man can have nothing from God but what is a meer Gift as to the matter though it be a Reward as to the order and ends of collation And in this case punishment is damni as well as sensus And so the loss of the Reward is the principal part of Hell or Punishment So that if Christ's death hath pardonâ— our sins of Omission we are reputed to have done all our duty And if so we are reputed to have merited the Reward And if he pardon our â—â—â—â— as to all punishment of sense and loss he pardoneth them as to thâ—â— forfeiture of Heaven as a Gift if not as a Reward 128. But say they remission of sin is but part of Justification because a man may be forgiven and yet not reputed never to have broken the Law To put away guilt and to make one righteous are two thing Ans Still confusion Guilt is either of the fault as such or of the punishment and of the fault only as the cause of punishment If all gâ—â— both culpae poenae were done away that person were reputed poâ—â— righteous that is never to have omitted a Duty or committed a â—â— But indeed when only the Reatus poenae culpae quoad poenam is doâ— away the Reatus culpae in se remaineth And this Christ himself never taketh away no not in Heaven where for ever we shall be judged once to have sinned and not to be such as never sinned 129. And this seemeth the very core of their error that they thâ—â— Of this see wotton de Reconcil at large we must be justified in Christ by the Law of Innocency which justified Christ himself and that we are quit or washed simply from all guilt of fault as well as obligation to punishment which is a great untruth contrary to all the scope of the Gospel which assureth us that we are justified by the Law of Grace or Faith and not by the Law of Works That Christ freeth us from the curse and penalty of the Law which he could not do if we were reputed never to have deserved it as never being Sinners If we are reputed such as fulfilled the Law of Innocency by another in our civil
him total resignation and use as such 2. As our Ruler we owe him â—ubjection and Obedience as such 3. As our Friend Benefactor Amaâ—â—lissimus we owe him Gratitude and Love as such which yet is part â—f Obedience too Now Sin being the privation of all this God is to â—e satisfied for it as such in all these three Relations And is pars laesa â—â— all these three Relations that is he is injured though not hurt It is â—â—ue that Government and punishing Justice formally as such belong to God only as Rector And satisfaction is made him eminently in that Reâ—ation yet also to compensate the injury done by sin to him in the other â—wo Relations also SECT IX Of the nature and distinctions of Justification 152. Justification is a word of many significations the Scheme whereof And 1. Of constitutive Justification should I give them all would seem to most Readers a troublesome diâ—tinguishing Therefore I take up with these three most notable senses â— Justification constitutive 2. Sentential 3. Executive The first is to make a man righteous The second is to judge him righteâ—us The third is to use him as righteous 1. By Impunity 2. Reward * * * The Papists are confounded in the point of Justification by sticking to confounding words They talk of Justification and remission of sin but cannot tell men intelligibly what they mean They say that Remission is a putting away the sin it self and not only the Reatum poenae and yet say many that it may be done without any physical change of the Sinner 1. By sin they mean not the Habit for that cannot be removed without a physical change 2. Nor the act For that is past as soon as done 3. When they say it is macula moralis habitualiter remanens they talk gibberish and play with a metaphor and the word habitualiter A true habit is quid physicum and what macula is they can tell no man besides a habit disposition privation â—r relation If they mean that it is the Reatus culpae or culpability that is done away and not only the Reatus poenae they hold â—he same thing which they oppose in those Protestants that go too far from them And it is not sound For the pardoned Sinâ—er will be culpable though not punishable for ever that is will be really the man that sinned and it will be an everâ—asting truth This man sinned though he be pardoned See Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. pag. 509 510 511. The Papists say Homo est formaliter justus per formam gratiae ipst exâ—riâ—secam non tantum per justitiam Christi illi imputatam And yet Nullus actus quantumvis perfectus sive sit contritio sive Amor Dei super omnia est causâ— formalis justificationis Patres diâ—entes charitatem esse perfectam justitiam intelligendi sunt dispositive non autem formaliter Because it is in the Habit and not in the Act â—r rather as others of them say in some internal inclination antecedent to the habits of Faith Hope and Love that they place Justification or as we call it Sanctification Pet. a S. Joseph Thes Univers de grat Hab. pag. 88 89. 153 God never judgeth a man righteous either by secret esteem or open sentence till he have made him such 154. To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense which is To be justifiable or justificandus by sentence 155. A man is righteous 1. Particularly secundum quid as to some particular cause that he is accusable of 2. Or universally as to all causes 3. Or eminently as to all those causes that Heaven or Hell depend upon 156. 1. No man is universally righteous really or reputatively God judgeth no Saint in Heaven to be one that never sinned And he that hath once sinned is unavoidably under the Relation of â—â—â—â— that sinned to eternity ex necessitate existentiae which Relation is the very Reatus ipsius peccati though all the ill effects be remitted 157. 2. Every man hath some particular righteousness For the worst man may be falsly accused and be righteous as to that false accusation But this will not save him 158. 3. That eminent Righteousness necessary to our Salvation though it be not universal or perfect else we should never be afficted by chastiâ—â—ments or denials of Grace or permissions to sin yet is it at least perfect as to its proper use and to our glorious perfection And may be called our universal Righteousness because it is all that we have And â—â— consisteth not of any one or two Causes but of many Of which no oâ—â— must be excluded or set against the rest As there are several Allegatioâ—â— or Accusations against us so there must be several parts of the matter of our Justification 159. Not only an actual Accusation but a possible or a virtual oâ—â— which we are liable to sufficeth to denominate Justification as its contrary in the first Law-sense of Justification 160. It is our Right to Impunity and to the heavenly Glory which is to be justified finally in Judgment and our persons as the Subjects of that Right And our Actions but mediately in order to that end 161. It is only at the Bar of Christ as Redeemer that we are to be judged and justified and not by God only as a Creator Therefore it is by the Law of Grace that we must be judged to life or death finally and not by the sole Law of Innocency 162. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency either by the preceptive or retributive part But we are justified only by the Lâ—â— or Covenant of Grace against the Accusation which may be brought against us from the Law of Innocency Against it not by it 163. We are liable to all these following Accusations which will opeâ— to us the correlate Justifications and the matter of each part 1. It may be said by the Accuser of the Brethren Thou art a Siâ—â—â—â— against the Precepts of Nature and Grace He that denieth this is a Lyar Against this Charge there is no Justification for ever But we must â—â— Heaven confess that we have sinned but Glory be to him that washed â—s from our sins in his blood by Pardon and Sanctifiation 164. 2. Next it may be said that We did deserve Hell by our Sin This also is to be confessed for ever 165. 3. It may be said that by Gods Law of Innocency Hell is ouâ— due and therefore we are to be condemned to it To this we deny the consequence because we have right to Impunity and to Glory freely given us by God our Redeemer by a Covenant of Grace merited for us by the Obedience and Satisfaction given for us by Christ our Saviour Where note that here in this first part of our Justification there are all these conjunct necessary Causes 1. Gods Love and Mercy giving 2. Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction meriting 3. The Covenant
instrumentally giving 4. Right to Impunity and Glory by Justification and Adoption conjunct the thing given which Right is our very Righteousness against â—his Accusation that is a relation whence the other relation of just and â—ustifiable resulteth For if you will not here see relations resulting from â—elations pretend not to true accurateness in your search 166. These four Causes now were enough to constitute and so prove â—s righteous against the Charge of being damnandi if we were questionaâ—le no further But the turning point of the day is yet behind 1. Our â—llegation of Justification by Christ and the Covenant may be denied â—t may be said by the Accuser that the Covenant justifieth none but â—enitent Believers and giveth plenary Right to Glory to none but saints â—nd persevering Conquerors and that we are none such Against this Acâ—usation we must be justified or perish else all the rest will be unâ—ffectual And here to say that it is true I died an impeninent Person â—n Insidel Hypocrite or Ungodly but Christ was a penitent Believer for Of our own personal performance or righteousness how far necessary to our Justification â—e or sincere and holy for me or that he died to pardon this all this will â—e false and vain Christ's Merits and Satisfaction is not the Righteousness it self which must justifie us against this Accusation But our own â—ersonal Faith Repentance sincere Holiness and Perseverance purchased â—y Christ and wrought by the Spirit in us but thence our own acts Mr. W. Thomas of Ubley in his Book against Speed the Quaker saith pag. 42. part 2. This is an old Popish trick to make much of the Doctrine of the St. James in a mistaken interpretation and to lay aside the Doctrine of St. Paul Rom. 3. 28. when they should joyn both together and ascribe to Faith the justification of men as sinners and to work their justification as Believers This is sound and needeth but fuller explication â—e that cannot truly say The Accusation is false I am a true Penitent â—anctified persevering Believer must be condemned and perish Thus â—aith and Repentance are our Righteousness by which we must thus far â—e justified 167. But this is but a particular mediate subservient Righteousness â—nd part of our Justification subordinate to Christs Merits 168. Yet this being the Condition on our part for our Participation â—n all the free Gifts of the Covenant Scripture useth to describe Gods â—udgment as enquiring after this The great thing to be glorified in â—udgment is Gods Love Wisdom Justice and Truth and Christ's great Merits and performance in our Redemption But the great thing questioâ—ed accused tried and judged will be our performance of the Covenant of Grace as to our conditions The day is not to try God whether he be â—ust or Christ whether his Merits and Satisfaction were sufficient and whether he have done his part But to try man whether 1. He have â—rue Right to Impunity and Glory 2. Whether he have performed the Condition on which the Covenant giveth that Right and be indeed the â—rue Receiver of it The Devils hope cannot lie at all in proving Christ or the Covenant faulty or defective on their part but in proving â—s to be none of the persons that have Right This therefore is the Righteousness mentioned Matth. 25. and of Faith imputed Rom. 4 c. â—nd else-where 169. But if we will speak of Righteousness and Justification entirely â—s that which containeth all its Causes we must set all the five forementioned together giving each one its proper place and no one the â—lace or office of the rest And give leave to the self-conceited pievish â—gnorant blindly to revile you for saying that you joyn your Faith and Holiness to make one Righteousness with that of Christ as if it were not sufficient And tell him that Christ's Righteousness is not ours absolutely in it self but to and in the proper effects And that it is perfect as to its â—roper ends And that he never intended it to this end to be instead of Faith and Holiness in us nor to make them needless to our Salvation 170. No man must ascribe any thing to his own Faith or Holiness iâ— the least degree which is proper to 1. Gods Mercy or Grace 2. To Christ or his Righteousness or Merits 3. Or to the Covenant not any thing but its proper part And that must be granted it 171. It is a vain Fiction in them that think our Right to Justificatioâ— or Impunity and our Right to Salvation have not the same causes and conditions but that our own Repentance and Obedience is a condition of our Right to Salvation but not to Impunity or forgiveness Whereas ouâ— very Justification is a justifying of our Right to Salvation and the same Covenant giveth them conjunctly on the same conditions 172. But our Right to both as begun hath less for the condition thâ—â— our Right to them as continued and perfected For our believing consent to the Baptismal-Covenant putteth us into immediate Right to all the benefits of the Covenant which we are then capable of but not to all that we shall be made further capable of hereafter we are pardoned and should be glorified if we presently died But as we have more Grace to receive so we have more Duty to perform as a means yea a condition of obtaining it 173. This over-lookt by many is much to be considered both as to the case of Infants baptized and the Adult Many wonder that the What right the Covenant giveth to the after-helps and degrees of Grace Children of godly Parents prove oft so bad as if by the Baptismal-Covenant they had received nothing from God But the Synod of Dort Art 1. § 17. well concludeth that godly Parents have no cause to doubt of the Election or Salvation of their Children dying in Infancy they being holy and in the same Covenant with their Parents But the continuance of Gods Grace hath a continued condition and means to be used on our part The condition which the Covenant requireth to an Infants first Justification is that he be the Child of a true Believer by him dedicated to God And as the first Condition is to be found in the Parent or Owner so must the Condition of continued Grace as long as the Child continueth an Infant And that is the continuance of the Parents Faith and his faithful performance of his promise made to educate his Child in the way of God But if the Parents should presently both turn Infidels and so educate their Child and give him up as the Jâ—â—izaries are to an Infidel to educate I know God may nevertheless give him Grace above his Promise if he please for a Benefactor as such is free but I know of no assurance of it by Promise For in Baptism both Parties were obliged for the future and not one only And if when the Child cometh to the use of Reason he wilfully
him or that iâ— any part of righteousness but it is all out of us in Christ and therefore they are as justifiable as any But Conscience will not let them believe it as they desire 185. It is arrogant folly to divide the praise of any good act between God and Man and to say God is to have so many parts and Man so many For the whole is due to God and yet some is due to Man For man holdeth his honour only in subordination to God and not dividedly in co-ordination And therefore all is due to God For that which is Mans is Gods because we have nothing but what we have received But he that arrogateth any of the honour due to God or Christ offendeth 186. If all had been taken from Gods honour which had been given to the Creature God would have made nothing or made nothing Good Heaven and Earth and all the World would derrogate from his honour and none of his Works should be praised And the better any man is the more he would dishonour God and the wickeder the lesâ— But he made all Good and is Glorious in the Glory and honourable in the honour of all And to justifie the holiness of his Servants is to justifie him 187. If these Teachers mean that no man hath any power freely to specifie the Acts of his own will by any other help of God besides necessitating predetermining premotion and so that every man doth all that he can do and no man can do more than he doth They dishonour God by denying him to be the Creator of that Free-power which is essential to man and which God himself accounteth it his honour to create And they feign God to damn and blame all that are damned and blamed for as great Impossibilities as if they were damned and blamed for not making a world or for not being Angels 188. Thus also such men teach that Christ strippeth a Christian of two things His Sins and his Righteousness Or that Two things must be That all that are saved have inherent Righteousness or Holiness none of us all deny nor yet that in tantum we are Righteous by it Nor that a man accused as being an Infidel Atheist Impenitent ungodly an Hypocrite c. must be justified by pleading all the contraries in himself or else perish And all agree that this inherent Righteousness is imperfect and in us found with sin and therefore that no man can be justified by it without pardon of sin nor at all against the charge of being a sinner and condemnable by the Law of Innocency And what remaineth then but to trouble the world with contending de nomine whether this imperfect Righteousness shall be called Righteousness and the giving of it called Justifying or making us righteous so far cast away for Christ Sins and Righteousness But they should speak better if they would not deceive nothing is to be cast away as evil but Sin Righteousness truly such is Good and never to be cast away If it be no Righteousness why do they falsly say that we must cast away our Righteousness To cast away a false conceit of Righteousness is not to cast away Righteousness but Sin only Indeed besides Sin we are said justly to cast away that which would be the Object and Matter of Sin And the phrase is fitlyer applyed to a thing Indifferent than to a thing necessary least it seduce There is nothing so Good which may not be made the object of Sin not Christ or his Righteousness or God himself excepted But we must not therefore say that we must cast away God or Christ because we must not thus objectively abuse them So Holiness and true Righteousness Inherent or imputed may be objects of sinful pride and boasting But it is not edifying Doctrine therefore to say that we must cast away Inherent and Imputed Righteousness But yet true self-denyal requireth that we deny our Righteousness Inherent or Imputed to be that which indeed it is not And so when men accounted the Jewish observations to be a Justifying Righteousness in competition with and in opposition to Christ Paul counteth it as loss and dung and nothing in that respect when yet elsewhere he saith I have lived in all good Conscience to this day And Christ himself fulfilled that Law and Righteousness So if a man will conceit that his common Grace will justifie him without Holiness or his Holiness without Pardon and the Righteousness of Christ he must deny this Righteousness that is he must deny it to be what it is not and must cast away not it but the false conceits of it And so if any Libertine will say that Christs Righteousness imputed to him will justifie him without faith or be instead of Holiness to him he must deny Imputed Righteousness thus to be what indeed it is not 189. When we tell them that If we had fulfilled all the Law reputatively More against the wrong sence of Imputation confuting many Sophisms by Christ as our Legal person we could not be bound to further obedience to it They answer that we are not bound to obey to the same ends as Chhist that is for Righteousness or Justification or merit but in Gratitude But this is but to give us the cause and ignorantly to destroy At quis unquam e nostris nos per justitiam Christi imputatam formaliter justificari asseruit Prideaux Lect. 5 de Just cap. 4. their own For 1. This is but to say that when a man is reputed to have fulfilled all the Law yet it is to be reputed unfulfilled as to certain ends As if he fulfilled all the Law that fulfilled it not to all due ends 2. Or as if the Law obliged one man to fulfill it twice over for the same lifes time once simply and in all its obligations and another time for other ends 3. Or as if the Law required any more than absolute perfection 4. Or that absolute perfection had not been in Christ's holy The Papists concur with them that feign a middle state between Just and privatively unjust viz. not just negatively so Brianson in 4. q. 8. Cor. 3. fol. 145. at large But they can give us no instance but in a stone or other incapable creature that is not obliged And we confess that if a man can be found that is not obliged to be Just he is neither just nor Privatively but Negatively unjust But what 's this to our case And the Papists commonly joyn with them that say that God remitteth not only the Reatum vel Obligationem ad poenam but also the Reatum culpae in se But when they come to open it they mean but that God is not displeased with or hath not a punishing Will against the Sinner As if they knew not that as Gods Love is our chief reward so his displeasure is our chief punishment And that Remission doth make no change in God but by taking away Guilt of Gods
may be called 1. A Receiving Cause 2. And a mediâ—â— or dispositive Cause of the effect Justification as Received but not as Given As I said Dr. Twisse chooseth to call it But this causa Dispositiva is pâ—â— of the causa Materialis viz. Qua disposita A cause or more properly a condition why I receive Justification and by receiving it am Justified which is their meaning who call it A Passive Instrument that is A â—â—ceiving Instrument 199. The plain easie truth is that Faiths Nature which is to be â—â—lieving Acceptance of Christ and Life offered on that Condition being â—â— very essence is but its Aptitude to the office it hath to our Justification by which the Question is answered why did God promise us Christ and Life â—â— the Condition of faith rather than another Because of the congruity of its Nature to that office But the formal Reason of its office as to our Justification is Its Being the performed Condition of the Covenant And if God had chosen another condition a condition it would have been Now the true notion in Law being a Condition Logicians would call this improperly a Receiving cause and more properly A Receptive Disposition of the matter reducing it to Physical notions But the most proper term is the plainest We are justified by that faith which is the Believing Practical Acceptance of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as Given us on that condition in the Baptismal Covenant because or as it is made by God the condition of his Gift thereby Understand this plain doctrine and you have the plain truth 200. They that say contrarily that Faith justifieth proximately as it is an Instrument or a Receiving Accepting act and not as a Condition of the Covenant do evidently choose that which they vehemently oppose viz. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere justifieth For the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the â—â—â—â— of Faith is to be an Acceptance of Christ given But if they will to avoid this say that By Faith they mean Christ believed in then they say that by Receiving Christ they mean not the receiving of him but Christ himself And why then do they not say so but trouble the world with such unintelligible phrases But to open the senselessness and coâ—sequents of that Doctrine would but offend All know that Chriâ—â—â—â— the object is connoted as essential to the act of Faith SECT XII How Repentance is joyned with Faith 201. Repentance is a Dispositio materiae recipientis too and a part of the condition of the Covenant And so far a Material or dispositive Receiving Cause But not an Acceptance of the Gift formally in its averting act 202. Faith and Repentance are words used in Scripture in divers significations Saith Malderus Gu. Amesius a parte recedit ab antiquo Calvinismo quiae requirit ad justitiam bonae operâ— tanquam conditionem praerequisitam quod â—tiam extendit ad ipsam â—lectionem See here how little the Papists understand us As Faith is sometimes taken for bare Assent as Jam. 2. and usually for Affiance or Trust and always when it denominateth a Christian or Justified Believer as such it essentially includeth all the three parts Assent Consent and Affiance but yet denominateth the whole by a word which principally signifieth One act which commonly is Affiance as including the other two so Repentance is sometime taken comprehensively for the whole Conversion of a Sinner to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and so it includeth Faith in the narrower sence and is the same thing as Faith in the larger sence but express'd under another formal notion Sometimes it is taken more narrowly and that 1. As to the Act. 2. As to the Object 1. As to the Act and so the word Repentance signifieth only the Aversion of the Soul from evil by sorrow and change of mind And this is the strict formal notion of the word though usually it be taken more largely as including also the Conversion of the Soul to Good which is the usual Scripture and Theological sense though the word it self do chiefly signifie the Averting act 2. As to the Object 1. Repentance sometime signifieth the Turning of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God And so Repentance towards God is distinguished from Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ 2. And sometimes it signifieth only the turning of the Soul and life from some particular Sin 203. Repentance as it is the turning of the Soul from sin and Idols * The Papists take Repentance it self to be part of the Remission of Sins And let the Reader note for the fuller opening of what I have said of their darkness thereabouts that Jansenius Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. maketh four things to be inseparably conteined in Remission though distinguishable 1. The Conversion of the Soul to God 2. The abstersion of the Macula or filth 3. Reconciliation or the remission of Gods offence 4. The relaxation of the aeternal punishment That all these are then at once given us we are all agreed But whether the name Remission or Pardon of sin â—e meet for them all we disagree Is it not visible then how unhappily we strive about words wheâ— we talk like men of several Languages But all is but removation and remitting the penalty of which Gods offense is the first part And Macula is either the sin it self or the relative consequents to God is the same with Faith in God in the large Covenant-sence and includeth Faith in God in the narrower sence Repentance as it is our Turning from Infidelity to Christianity is the same with Faith in Christ in the large Covenant-saving-sence and includeth Faith in Christ in the narrower sence as it is meer Assent Repentance as it is a Turning from the Flesh to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer is the same thing as our Faith in the Holy Ghost in the large Covenant sence and includeth Faith in the Holy Ghost in the narrower sence But when they are the same thing the ratio nominis or formal notion is not the same As man's mind is not so happy as to conceive of all things that are one by one entire single Conception so we are not so happy in our language as to have words enough to express things entirely by one name but we must have several words to express our inadequate conceptions by And so that is called Repentance as the Souls motion from the Terminus a quo which is called sometimes Faith or Affiance and sometimes Love from the motion of the Soul to the Terminus ad quem though the Motus be the same But when Faith and Repentance are distinguished as several parts of the Condition of the new Covenant the common sence is that Repentance signifieth the Conversion of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God which is or includeth Faith in God And Faith signifieth specially Faith in Christ as the Mediator and way
I believe I grant it if 1. This be in it self as evident 2. And as certain to me as Gods Word is otherwise I deny it 236. Obj. A man cannot believe and not know that he believeth Ans But a man may sincerely believe and yet through ignorance either of the Scripture or himself be uncertain that indeed his Faith is sincere and not such as is common to the justified 237. Some Protestants by erring in this point and saying that justifying Faith is a certain perswasion or belief that we are justified and that it is Gods own Word that I or you are actually justified or are sincere Believers and that the believing it is properly fides Divina have greatly scandalized and hardened the Papists to our disgrace 238. And so have those that say that in the Creed the meaning of I believe the Remission of Sin is I believe that my sins are remitted actually And that all must thus believe 239. Some say that the Spirit within them saith that they are sincere Believers and the Word of the Spirit is the Word of God and to believâ— it is to believe God Ans This is the Enthâ—sâ—asts conceit which if true all such have prophetical Inspiration For the Spirit to bring any new word from God is one thing and to give us the Understanding Love and Obedience to such a Word is another thing The Spirit doth indeed assure us of our sincerity but not by a new Word from God to tell us so but 1. By giving us that sincere Faith it self 2. By acting it and increasing it 3. By helping us to know it 4. By giving us the love of God and other Graces 5. By giving us the comfort of all But the reception and perception of these internal Operations is not properly called a Belief of the Word of God Else when we make Gods Word the adequate Object of Faith we shall be still at an uncertainty what that Word is 240. Yet this perswasion that we are sincere and justified is divine where the Spirit causeth it but not a divine Faith Yea it is participatively of divine Faith because Gods Word is one of the premises though the weaker must denominate the conclusion * * * Of this see Albertinus's Disp at large 241. Obj. A Reprobate or Devil may believe all the Articles of Faith without application but justifying Faith applieth Christ and his benefits to our selves Ans It 's true But this application is not a certainty nor a perswasion nor a believing that I am justified no more than that I am glorified no nor that I shall be so neither But it is an accepting of Christ offered that I may be justified and saved So that here are all these applying acts in it 1. I believe that Christ as the Saviour of the World is my Saviour as he is all other mens and is not the Devils that is that he hath done that for me which he hath done for all mankind 2. I believe that he is offered to me personally in the Promise or Covenant of Grace on condition of believing-acceptance and that with and for all his purchased benefits and so for my Justification 3. I believe that if I so accept him I shall be justified 4. By true consent I do accordingly accept him to justifie sanctifie and save me But when all this is done 1. I do not believe that God hath said in his word that I am justified nor that my Faith is sincere 2. And my Faith is so weak that I may long doubt of that sincerity which I have and so of my Justification 3. And when I come to be certain of my Faith it is not by believing God as saying that I do certainly believe but by experience of its sincerity upon just trial by the Spirits help 242. No man can be sure that his Faith is sincere and saving who is not assured that it will help him to love God as God above all yea already doth so and that it mortifieth selfishness and will prevail with him to deny even life it self and all the world for Christ and Salvation So far as a man doubteth of any of this he must needs doubt of his own sincerity 243. So weak is Faith in most that are sincere and so little kept in exercise and so strong is sense and self and flesh and worldly bâ—its and interest and Satan's temptations that in my experience who have conversed with as many that are careful of their Souls as most have done I think it is a very small number that I could ever hear say I am certain of my Justification and Salvation But a great number who have lived in holy confidence hope and peace and some in great joy but most in tollerable fears and doubting and some few oppressed by those doubts So that certainty of Salvation is very rare 244. When Bellarmine saith that our assurance more belongeth to Hope than Faith and that it is but moral certainty by signs that we have of our Justification Sincerity and Salvation he so little differeth from the sense of almost all godly Protestants that were it not through other distances and partiality we had never read in Luther's days that for this one point alone we have cause enough of our alienation from the Romanists 245. They err on one extream who say that all are commanded to believe that they are justified or any as if it were Gods Word And they err on the other hand who command doubting or commend it as if it were a duty or a benefit And they speak the truth who say that our doubting of our own Sincerity and Justification if we are sincere is a sin of Infirmity and a Calamity proceeding from weakness of Faith Hope Love and Self-acquaintance which we should use all possible diligence to overcome But they that are not sincere are bound to know it And first to seek and get sincerity and then discern it 246. It is by the Spirit that all Christians must come to their assurance But not by the Spirit as speaking this in us as a word from God Thou art justified or shalt be saved or art sincere But by the aforesaid Acts The Spirit in us is first Christ's Agent Advocate and Witness to assure us that he is the Saviour of the World And next he is our Witness to assure us that we are Gods adopted Children which he doth by being in us Gods Mark and the Pledge First-Fruits and earnest of our heavenly Inheritance by effectual habituating our Souls to the predominant love of God and Holiness and Heaven Where-ever this Sanctification is there is the Evidence and Witness of our Adoption He that findeth by the Fruits that he hath the Spirit findeth the certain proof of his Justification and earnest of Glory SECT XVII Of Love as the end of Faith 247. This predominant Love of God and Holiness is so proper a Cui non unus idemque vitâ— scopus est hic
make this motion to be somewhat received before we act and yet nothing but our act which is absurd IV. Other Thomists hold that It is somewhat really distinct from our operations and that is Quoddam complementum virtutis activae quo actualiter agat And he that knoweth what predicament this complementum belongeth to and what it is let him take this opinion for more than a meer complement And here they tell you that they speak not of Gods simultaneous concurse for that Alvarez confesseth is nothing besides Gods essence and mans act But of his previous motion which he saith is somewhat more So Amesius Antisynod de Grat. c. 2. pag. 255. Satis esset apud omnes pios dicere Dei Velle sine ulla Impressione intercedente certe posse efficere ut Voluntas consentiat ipsius Vocationi I now meddle not with the truth of this and Twisses argument is easily answered But I intreat the Reader to note into what all our controversies are by these excellent men reduced who yet most aggravate them What now is the Gratia efficax ad credendum Nothing besides Gods esse but ipsa fides Is faith effective of it self No. Is Gods essential will effective of it Who ever denyed it What place is there for Controversies of sufficiency and efficacy when it is but Gods essence and the known effect of which they speak and hold not as Alvarez doth any motion or Impress made by God upon mind or will at all Gods will then is effectual quia vult effectum and it is virtually sufficient for whatever he willeth not but could will But then no man can possibly do any more good or less evil than he doth because no more or less is willed of God which volition is the first necessary Cause of all things And is not all their Volumes de Auxiliis Gratiae and the several sorts previous simultaneous operating co-operating c. meerly vain when there is no such thing as any Grace besides Gods meer will and the Act of man And yet Dr. Twisse elsewhere saith that Gods Decrees do nihil ponere in objecto As if they differed in the nature of motion And he saith that this is true both of supernatural acts which are from Infused habits as faith hope Love and of Imperfect supernaturals as fear of hell and attrition by which man is remotely prepared for Justification ◠which proceed not from supernatural habits but from the spirits special impulse not yet inhabiting but moving And Alvarez thus concludeth I. That which God doth in second causes by which these act is Aliquid habens esse quoddam incompletum per modum quò colores sunt in aere virtus artis in instrumento artificis It is Aliquid incompletum transiens cum ipsa operatione Are you ever the wiser for all this II. Hoc ens incompletum praevium actioni causae secundae producitur in illa effective à solo Deo nullo modo dependet efficienter ex influx◠ipsius causae secundae And therefore herein the will is passive though not in its own Act as he falsly affirmeth Luther to assert for what can act and not be active III. When second causes natural or supernatural have by their inherent form sufficient Active virtue per modum actus primi proportioned with the effect then Gods premotion is not a Quality but proprio vocabulo dicitur Motio Virtuosa by which the universal cause maketh the second actually operate according to its proper mode Therefore it is not a Habit or disposition or natural power IV. Yea in Imperfect supernatural acts as fear of hell which go before habits and by preventing grace are elevated to the acts it is not a Quality but Motio Dei virtuosa by which they are done and is of the same sort with that which causeth acts from habits V. This previous Motion is Really distinct from the operation of the second cause and is not our act it self but is immediately from God Which he useth many arguments to prove And can all this give any man a formal conception what it is which he calleth aliquid incompletum and Motio Virtuosa We know not what the Vis projectis impressa is in corporeals And can we tell how spirits and how the God of spirits maketh his Impressions or what the word Impression or Motion here signifieth We know that we know it not if we know what we know and know-not And why is it called Motio Virtuosa Virtus he maketh a quality It is no quality and yet Virtuosa Omnis motio est Actio Is it Actio Increata Then it is God himself which he denyeth and speaketh of somewhat between God and mans Act. Is it Actio creata Then it is a Modus Agentis for so is every Action as such as distinct from its effect in patiente And if so it cannot be modus Dei for then it is Ipse Deus And if it be modus hominis it is either homini◠agentis vel patientis If the first then it is mans Action If the second it is formally no action For modus patientis is passio though many would confound action and passion with saying after their Masters that Actio est in patiente which is equivocation So that the plain truth is that mans understanding can reach no further than to conceive 1. That our souls are the termini of Gods Volition and Active power 2. That though God act not on us by corporeal contact yet we must call our selves Patients and think of the Attingency of his Active essence with its effects by some Analogie of Corporeal attingency contact and impressed moving force But truly to know how God toucheth moveth operateth on any Creature and by what Impressions or what there is indeed between Gods essence and mans Act we know not at all And if Christ had never said Joh. 3. so is every one that is born of the spirit our own experience might have told us that we know it not Boldly then tell our Church-distracting wranglers that contend about the nature sufficiency efficacy resistibility of this Act of Grace that they know not the very subject of their disputes And shall we still fire the Church by striving about words that profit not but subvert the hearers and tend to the increase of ungodliness Yea and shall bold blind zeal use the Reverend names of God and his precious Truth to colour and countenance these pernicious contentions I grant that the nature of Grace and the concord of it with Free-will may be soberly treated of But when men have followed the controversie beyond the ken of humane understanding and there will proceed to build great Fabricks upon unknown suppositions and perversly contend for them against Love and peace they do but serve Satan against God under the colour of his sacred truth and name And I think it not amiss here to tell you what Alvarez saith to this Question de Aux l. 12. disp 118. p.
yet hereby confesseth that he willeth or decreeth that permission You say then that he decreeth to permit mens unbelief and this is all that the Synod saith of non-Election or leaving men out of the number of the Elect. 2. If you yourselves believe all this with what face can you oppose the same in others If you do not either you believe that none are Infidels and damned or you believe that God doth not permit it to be so but it is done by conquering his Omnipotency or else you know not what you believe choose which you will 3. Do you really differ as Episcopius pretendeth about the cause of Reprobation As to the cause of Damnation all are agreed that sin is the true meritorious cause The question is only of Gods Will or Decree of it And it is not of his sententia prolata or Decree pronounced by Christ in Judgment for of that also it is agreed that sin is the meritorious cause Your oft recurring to your Objections when they have been fully answered puts me on the rediousness of repeating the same Answers Gods * The cause of Gods Will in reprobating Will is considered either ex parte volentis essentially or as extrinsically denominated from the connotation of the Object In the first sense you have not yet declared your selves to deny the common Doctrine of the Christian World that Gods Will is his undivided most simple Essence and that God hath no cause and so his Will in it self hath no cause that in God there is nothing but God Dare you say that a Creature made God yea that so base a thing as Sin made him How then doth it cause his Will which is himself Is Gods Will such a mutuable thing as mans And is it not the first cause of all things And shall men pretending to Learning reproach others for not assigning a cause of the first cause and that Sin which is baser than a Creature causeth the Creator But if you speak of Gods Will as denominated by connotation of the Object mark what we grant you viz. that as thus only Gods Will or Volitions are denominated diverse so are they denominated to be of this or that sort and numerically also distinguished And so they may be said to have a cause but not an efficient cause but only an * Arminius and Arnoldus Corvinus frequently affirm that Faith is not the cause of Gods Election to Glory but only a condition in the object objective cause And what Cause is an Object To let pass the Error of many Logicians it is only as an Object a material constitutive cause at least here And so sin is the objective material cause of that extrinsical denomination and relation of Gods Will called Reprobation to damnation It is that dispositio objecti which is essential to the Object And so as Gods Will may any way be said to have a cause we will say freely after the manner of men that sin is the objective cause of the Decree of damnation And speak now with shame can you say more or less Do you or any of us that are sober and understand our selves differ at all in this 4. And you cheat your selves and others more in saying Not from any ill desert of theirs more than others When if you would speak congruously you should only say that when all deserved to be utterly forsaken God effectually prevaileth with the Wills of his Elect not for any good desert of theirs above others You would infinuate that God must punish no man unless he deserve worse than every man whom he forgiveth which is false Do you not your selves believe that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and that God might justly have let them perish Do you not hold your selves that all men are guilty of resisting or sinning against Grace it self as well as against Nature and that God may justly with-hold his Grace from the Rejecters of it and if he did so by all he did not wrong them If God then leave not all as he might do but resolve to prevail with some infallibly do you represent this mercy as if it were cruelty to others What if it be apparent that you your selves charge God with as much of that which you call cruelty to all the World as the Synod doth to the Reprobate alone or as many of us do For they do but say that God leaveth the Reprobate to their own free Wills And you say that he doth so by all the World You say that God giveth all men that hear the Gospel so much Grace as that they may have Christ and Salvation if they will And they say so too as confidently as you do Tell me if you can then what Mercy or Grace you plead for as common more than they you cannot tell me And will you wrangle as if you differed when you do not Only they say and think that they give more to Gods Grace as to the Elect than you do which is to be examined anon And then you will quarrel about the Cause of the first Cause the Will of God and dream of it as if it were like the Will of Man which is an effect and that of many Causes Is it not enough for you that sin is the cause of all punishment but it must also be the efficient cause of Gods Will which is God Yet again I tell you that all sobeâ— men will agree with you that Gods Volitions of extrinfick Objects viz. Reprobations denominate not Gods Essence as such for we use not to say God is Reprobation or Election but only his Essence as terminated ad extra And to gratifie you to the utmost we distinguish an operating efficient Cause from a recipient Cause And we maintain that a Sinner is the recipient Cause of Gods damning Volition or Reprobation As shutting the Windows is the cause that my Room is dark and opening them is the cause that they are light not by causing the Sun to shine but by receiving or not receiving it so man is a receiving Cause of the Effects of Gods Will and Operation and of the Will and Operation it self as extrinsically denominated and diversified by the Effects But this recipient Cause is nothing but cause materialis objectiva which hath two parts the ipsa materia and the materiae dispositio Take not on you still to differ where you do not The third Crimination A. * Of that Deus vult omnes salves fieri saith Alliaco 1. q. 14. F. 1. Potest exponi de voluntate signi vult id est praecipit vel obligat c. 2. Si exponitur de voluntate beneplaciti potest intelligi de Vol. antecedente 3. Si de Vol. beneplaciti proprie dicta debet intelligi ut dicit Magister i. e. nulli salvantur nisi quos Deus vult salvari 4. Vel de generibus singulorum sed at singulis generum By denying Universal Redemption they deny that
I see more than ever I before observed that God indeed hath set up a Sun an universal medium a Christ who in our nature is a Creature to be the Donor and Convey or of all Recovering Grace to man and to give out the Spirit in that stated order and measure as is suitable to his design and Subjects And as on earth he gave out much light and help which was resisted and rejected I now less wonder that it is so now he is in heaven even as to his Spirit as well as his Word When I consider that though God be Infinite his Grace is given out to mankind finitely by a finite Creature Christ as man even as God shineth to us not immediately but by the Sun I will no more then account it an injury to God that he should be said to give limited and resistible degrees of Grace by Christ but repent that I have so much grieved and resisted the Spirit of Christ my self B. Proceed now to your other accusation The eighth Crimination C. They make mans Free-will and not Gods differencing Grace to be the cause that one man by Faith doth differ from another that hath Remonstr Synod ubi supra Si quaeratur quae sit causa cur hic convertitur non autem ille Respondemus hic convâ—rtitur quia Deus bunc non apponentem novam contumaciam convertit Ille non convertitur quia novam contumaciam opponit Quaeres cur hic opponit novam contumaciam alter nons Respondemus Hic opponit quia oppoâ—ere vult Ille non opponit quia a gratia movetur ne opponere velit Quaeres annon ille qui non opponit novam contumaciam per consequens convertitur majorem â—abebat gratiam quam qui opponit per consequens non convertitur Respondemus Antecedentem praevenientem gratiam aequalem esse posse sed coopelantem habâ—t prior non posterior no Faith Contrary to Paul's supposition who made thee to differ Tilenus could not answer Camero to this charge B. I doubt here again is a Controversie about words I will speak to you as to one that would know the truth 1. De re as to the Controversie 2. As to the meaning of the Text. I. Let us here consider 1. What it is to Differ 2. What are the causes of such difference I. To DIFFER is nothing but to be dissimile unlike Dissimilitude or Difference is a Relation This Relation as Ockam truly and largely sheweth is nothing extra intellectum besides its fundamentum subjectum terminus the Absoluta II. Difference then being a Relation is the dissimilitude of divers persons compared Here the natural numerical difference of persons and abundance of other differences are presupposed And it is the Difference between a Believer and an Unbeliever the Penitent and Impenitent as such that we have to consider of Now here are two Subjects differing and in each one if not two differences from the other So that here are two if not four several Relations of dissimilitude between them 1. Paul is a Believer by which he differeth 1. From Nero as a Privative Unbeliever 2. As a Positive Unbeliever On the other side Nero 1. as a privative Unbeliever 2. and a positive differeth from Paul Now every one of these Differences or dissimilitudes have a several cause 1. The fundamentum of both Paul's differences from Nero are hiâ— own Faith and the Termini are Nero's Privative and Positive unbelief 2. The fundamenta of Nero's difference from Paul are his Privative and Positive unbelief and the Termini are Paul's Faith to both Now if the question be what doth Constitutive make Paul differ from Nero it must be answered Paul's Faith and Nero's unbelief For dissimilitude resulteth from the one compared with the other And if both had been Believers there had been no difference And so were this the question there were no difficulty in it at all But the meaning of the question is not of the constitutive cause of the dissimilitude or the fundamentum but of the efficient cause of that fundamentum or else of the diversifying Dispositiv Receptiva Now supposing that Faith and Unbelief are the constitutive differencing causes the efficient causes of both must be sought as the Ratio discriminis and not of one only Quest 1. What is the cause efficient of Nero's unbelief Ans His own will or wicked heart Quest 2. What is the efficient cause of Paul's Faith Ans 1. The Principal efficient is God by his Spirit 2. The meritorious cause is Christ 3. The chief ministerial efficient is Christ as giving the Spirit to work it 4. The Instrumental efficient is the Gospel 5. The Immediate efficient is Paul For it is he that believeth and not God Is there any one that denieth any of this C. I doubt they think that mans will is more the cause than the Spirit because they suspend the Spirits success upon mans will B. Accuse not men by suspicions and doubts without proof yea contrary to their own professions Your crime of uncharitableness is not theirs nor doth it follow that they are faulty because you are suspicious * Alliac Camer â— â— q. 12. B. Dâ—us nullum praedestinavit ant praedestinat accipiendo predestinationem secundo modo propter aliquod bonum aut aliquâ—m causam praevisam in praedestinato quia non stat aliquem noviter aliquod bonum habere quin Deus prius voluerit aâ—â—terno c. You may read Corvinus to Tilenus expresly assigning the efficiency of all that Grace that maketh us to differ principally unto God Some of them only say man cannot effect or convert himself but he can resist and so require no more of man to his conversion but not to resist yea not to resist in an obstinacy and high degree Others of them require of man also an actual concurse of his will by his power received with the concurse of God But they make God here incomparably the chief efficient not only as to Priority of operation but as to his causation of the effect And they use to illustrate it some time as Scotus by the similitude of two drawing at a Ship sometime by a Father that should bid his Son lift at a heavy weight and resolveth to put to 900 degrees of the force himself if his Son will but endeavour and put forth one degree In this case if the Son will not put forth that one which he can do and so the event fail it is not by the Impotency nor absolute unwillingness of the Father And if the child do put forth that one degree will you say that he doth more to the effect than the Father that doth 900 parts and that only because that the Father would not do all himself But this carrieth us from the matter in hand and is after to be spoken to C. But if you make so many things go to make the difference the question who made thee to differ must have
or degrees II. But if your question be of the Effect it is ridiculous or past question Do you ask what Grace in us it is that maketh the Difference between a Believer and an Infidel Why your question answereth it self It is Faith and that maketh the difference in one as Infidelity doth in the other Do you ask what is sufficient To what If to Salvation it is perseverance in Faith and Holiness If to Justification it is Faith if to Faith and Conversion nothing pre-existent in us Do you ask what maketh Grace effectual what Grace mean you If Faith it 's none of the doubt or Controversie It is improperly effectual to Justification being no efficient of it but a Condition which is a Receptive dispoâ—ition ex ordinatione divina virtute foederis You must recur then and ask what maketh Gods Essence or Spirit effectual As if Gods essence had a Cause or suffered from the Creature But if you mean no more but what are the Causes of Faith that 's another question oft answered Choose now whether you will lay all our Controversies on that fine thred of Gods various Impress on the faculties in order of Nature antecedent to Faith in act or true habit or else confess that we have no difference nor shew of any but have many ages abhominably abused the world C. But seeing you maintain that God as a free Lord and Benefactor doth vary his gifts of Grace as he doth of Nature though we know not when he doth it Morally and by means and when by Immediate differing Impress yet methinks you should hold that by one of the two he always doth it And that equal Grace hath never unequal effects by the unequal free reception rejection or other difference made by man B. To conclude this whole dispute 1. * By Grace here I mean not with Bradwardine Gods Will as denominated from various objects Gods Will in it self is but One and the Effects are many and the Will is variously denominated virtually ex connotatione terminorum vel effectuum If he could prove more diversity in Gods Will or that no man can do any thing but what he doth I should be of his mind That equal universal Grace can end in different effects in the same Man and in divers men by man's own free various concourse or neglect I have fully proved to you 2. And when we have proved that such a Grace there is and so it can do we have great reason to think that sometimes it doth so And no man can prove that it never doth so 3. And de facto I have proved that sometimes it doth so in Adam's case and in Cain's making a difference before God denyed him sufficient Grace And in all bad men and good men in the world who sometimes sinfully omit to do that which by the same Grace they could have done and did another time 4. But de facto How oft and when and in how many God converteth men by the one way or the other no Mortal man can tell And therefore forget not that when I call universal Grace ordinary and the special different Grace extraordinary I intend not to tell you which God most usually doth the work by as distinct from the other But I call one Ordinary because it is common to all or more in it self and also concurreth always with the other in its work and so is never left out And I call the other Extraordinary because it is above the universal degree and way and proper to some as superadded C. You did well to remember that For I was offended that you called that Different Grace Extraordinary B. I say again to conclude I will earnestly intreat you to take heed of these few errors in your foundation here that they mislead not your understanding in all the controversie I. Do not think that God must needs act ad ultimum posse in all his operations It 's certain that as to many possible effects he doth omnino non agere as to make more Suns more Men more Worlds And if he can therein totally not act he can act limitedly or in tantum only as he freely will II. Do not think these degrees of Operation as various ex parte Dei for they are but his most simple essence Nor do not Imagine that there is a certain Vis media called Grace which is somewhat Causal between the Creator and the Creature I doubt such a wrong conceit lyeth at the bottom of all these disputes and men think that besides Gods essence and the effects on the Soul there is some middle force or cause called Grace which is neither God nor a Creature whose kind and degree they enquire after * As Aureoluâ— maintaineth III. Do not overlook the Glory that God designeth to himself in his SAPIENTIAL Kingdom Government and operations I doubt some think so much of Strength and Power alone as if they thought God were Glorified by nothing else or more in an Oxe or Horse than in a Man And whatever is ascribed to Gods Sapiential operation they contemptuously call A Moral Causing and not a Physical As if God must move men as he doth the air the water or a stone Remember that though Gods Omnipotent Activity his Wisdom and his Will do still inseparably co-operate yet they have each its eminent Impress Effect and Glory And so the frame of Nature is the Glorious Impress of Omnipotency with Wisdom and Love The Kingdom of God on earth especially of Grace is the Glorious work of the Wisdom of God directly governing Man as a Moral agent by Moral means And the Kingdom of Glory as foretasted on Earth and perfect in Heaven is the glorious work of Divine Love Separate not these nor undervalue or dishonour any one of them But study the Glory of Gods Sapiential Kingdom and works And remember that Moral Means and Moral Operations of God are not unsuitable to the Government of Moral Agents in Moral works IV. Forget not the great difference between the way of operation suitable to such a Moral Rector as such and to a meer Proprietor or Actor and Benefactor And then you will see that standing Laws are the Rectors Instruments and Judgments and Executions equal according to those Laws And that Life Eternal and Gods Glory and pleasure being the ends of Government it cannot be doubted but Gods Laws to all the world have some aptitude and suitableness on their part to that end And therefore that the frame of Moral means and annexed help hath a certain universal equality antecedent to man's sinful will which by forfeiture and rejection maketh an inequality And therefore it is one of the noblest parts of your study here to find out what Acts God doth as Legislator for those are first and equal and as Judge which man maketh unequal and what he doth as Owner and free-Benefactor For so he may make what difference he pleases And the wonderful varieties through all the
just but needing a particular remission For if a man cannot fall away however he live he may give up himself to lewd carnality and say I cannot fall away B. This is the same shameless self-contradicting Accusation and needs no other Answer As if you said If a man cannot fall away he may fall away To give up himself to carnality is to fall away And you say that he may do this because he cannot The Doctrine of your Adversaries is That God will certainly keep the godly from turning from him to an ungodly fleshly life And how doth this conduce to ungodliness A. The conceit of safety will make them careless B. Not if they conceive that their safety and their carefulness are equally decreed The bad and ignorant will abuse any thing But I am perswaded that very many live the more holily for this belief 1. Because as Prophecies conduce to their own accomplishment in that what men believe will certainly come to pass they all promote and will not oppose So it is in part in this case 2. And when they believe that God will have it be it greatly animateth their endeavours by hope and taketh off their discouragements 3. And when they find that God hath in his Decree conjoyned their care and labour to the end and hath no more decreed their perseverance than that they shall carefully avoid sin and temptations it maketh them fear that they are not Elect when they find these signs of Election to be doubtful and so preserveth them from presumption and security The third Crimination A. Their Doctrine is uncomfortable in two respects 1. In that it alloweth no man to be sure of his present Justification Pardon and Adoption who is not sure that he goeth further yea that he is not quite in another statâ— than any man that ever fell away which it is not possible that many if any one at all should be 2. In that it alloweth no man to be sure of his Justification and Adoption till he have so much Grace as that no Temptation how great soever would turn him from Christ if he were tried by it B. Wherein is the uncomfortableness of these A. I. I have known my self some fall to Socinianism Arrianism yea Infidelity denying Christ or his Godhead which is his chief Essence and the Scriptures and therefore sure had no saving Grace then and died so who had forty years lived in as eminent Piety Humility diligence in all religious Duties charity to others neglect of the World and patient suffering for their Religion oft times as almost any men that ever I knew And that they did not dissemble not only their constancy suffering and whole Conversation shewed but my own intimacy with them assured me by which I knew the very thoughts of their hearts Some of them were not of judgments clear and strong enough to discern the fallacies of Deceivers Others of them were naturally too hasty in judging And some were carried away by the advantages of the constant company of extraordinary able and insinuating Seducers But divers of them even after they apostatized did continue so much strictness of life and charity to all men and religiousness in their Theism and Infidel way and neglect of the World as convinced me that it was more the insufficiency of their judgments than the hypocrisie of their hearts which was the cause of their Apostacy Now by the Calvinists Doctrine none of these men were ever in a state of Grace And of the strictest Professors round about us there is not one of many hundreds that goeth so far as they did And all these must be left uncertain of their Justification till they are certain that they went beyond them all yea and certain that they are unjustified while they are certain that they came short of any one of them B. The case that you describe I have known and it is sad But we know not the hearts of other men There might be more sin and hypocrisie in them than we know of A. Though God only be the searcher of hearts yet long intimacy and near experience may make us so confident of some mens thoughts as that I confess to you you will never change my mind if you plead against so great experience I know their judgments were insufficient But I will never believe that their hearts were false as to what they knew B. God hath made his Word and not other mens hearts the rule for us to judge our selves by A. But if you think that his Word tells us that we are the Children of the Devil till we go beyond any that ever fell away we must look both to that Word and to such Apostates B. The truth is assurance of Justification and Salvation is not easily nor commonly attained And it is not Opinions alone that will procure it And while we have that sin and weakness which is the cause of doubts which Opinion soever we hold we shall find occasion for our doubtings But let us hear your second part of the Accusation A. II. They hold that if any man fall away by what temptation soever it is because he was never sincere And consequently that he is not sinâ—ers that would fall away by the strongest temptation that possibly may assault him So that every poor weak Christian whose Infant-strength is not proportioned to the greatest temptations must needs take himself to be still but an Hypocrite B. We stand not by our own strength of habitual Grace but by the upholding Love and Will of God * Carbo ex Aquin. 1. 2. q. 137. a. 4. Si persevâ—rantia sumatur pro ipso habitu indiget dono habitualis gratiae ut caeterae virtutes infusae si autem accipiatur pro actu perseverantiae durante usque ad mortem non jolum indiget habituali gratia sed etiam gratuito Dei auxilio conservante hominem in bono praedestinatis per gratiam Christi non solum datur ut perseverare possint sed ut perseverent ut Augustin Per se potest perseverare in malo non autem in bono Bradwardine who holdeth that no temptation can be overcome without special help that is a divine Volition or Decree doth yet hold that the same Will of God which saveth one man by overcoming his temptations saveth others by keeping temptations from them A. 1. When we dispute against their Doctrine it is from the immortal quality of the seed of God abiding in them that they plead for certainty of perseverance 2. Who findeth not by constant experience that God worketh on all things according to their Natures And so on man as man and so on Saints as Saints and on the weak as weak and on the strong as strong Do we not see that he giveth men wisdom and all Intellectual abilities before they speak and do as such abilities must fit them to do When did you see Gods Grace make ignorant injudicious fools or weak persons judge speak and live in
have followed thereupon The just Extenuation of this last Controversie IN all these things following the parties are agreed for the most considerable 1. That Adam fell from true Righteousness and Holiness and lost the Spirit 2. That therefore we cannot argue from the Nature of Holiness alone to prove that it cannot be lost 3. That as the word Possible relateth to man's Power to do evil and omit good it is not only Possible to fall away but too easie yea it is not opus potentiae sed Impotentiae except as Natural Power is exercised in the meer Act with Moral Impotency 4. Yea without Gods preserving Grace it is not possible to persevere 5. God hath appointed us much duty to be done that we may not fall away And among the rest to discern and fear the danger of falling away and in that fear to depart from evil and temptations 6. God hath promised us Salvation on Condition that we persevere 7. God oft threatneth the faithful with damnation if they fall away and describeth to us the sin and misery of Apostates 8. The Justified may lose many degrees of true Grace and dye with far less than once they had and so become uncapable of that Greater Glory which they were morally capable of before 9. It 's too possible for them to fall into heinous sin They are not certain that they shall never commit Adultery Incest the Murther of Parents Wife or Children c. nor certain just how oft they may so fall or not 10. Such Sins make them so far morally uncapable of Glory as that See the Brittish Divines Suffrages at Dort of perseverance a sound Repentance for them and from them and a renewal of Faith are necessary to full right or moral capacity 11. God doth not decree any man's perseverance let him live never so securely negligently or vitiously For those that do so are faln already It is a contradiction to persevere in holiness and to live unholily But Gods Decree is ever entire that such a one shall fear danger fly temptations live holily in the use of means and therein persevere unto the end He never separated these in his Decrees 12. Except Hierome truly accuse Jovinian with it there is not that I know of any Father Christian or Heretick that hath written that Lege Vossi Histor Pelag de Perseverant no truly Justifyed persons fall finally away from Grace and perish for above a thousand years after Christ And it 's commonly granted that generally they held the contrary Even Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius not excepted 13. It is confessed to be a sad clog to the contrary opinion that it is held against the Judgment of the Universal Church for above a thousand years and so seemeth to bear the imputation of novelty and singularity Though that be not a sufficient confutation of it 14. It is confessed that the Greek and Roman Church the Lutherans and Arminians and most Anabaptists are against this Doctrine 15. It is confessed that all these Fathers and Churches of old and all these Churches and Christians of late are not void of the Christian comforts of the Gospel even of faith and hope of Glory 16. It is confessed that the Scripture hath many passages so much seeming to favour both the opinions as hath made the controversie thus difficult to so many Learned Godly Men And what the Scripture is it will be to the worlds end 17. It is confessed that none can be sure of Salvation or perseverance who are not first sure of their Sincerity and Justification 18. And to be uncertain whether one be a true believer and justified is more uncomfortable than to be sure of that and uncertain of his perseverance 19. No man can ordinarily be certain that he is Sanctified and Justified that is not certain of the truth of the Gospel and hath Grace somewhat strong and active not clouded by great Soul-wounding Sins nor frightful or melancholy passions nor any that through Ignorance is uncertain of the true Nature of the conditions of the Covenant of Grace 20. Certain experience of the defect of these qualifications and of mens own Consessions assureth us that not one of a multitude of the strict Religious sort have that which we call proper certainty of their Sincerity Justification and Salvation though they hold against the Arminians that certainty of perseverance must be asserted as that which may be attained by them that are first certain that they are in a state of life 21. Yet the fore-mentioned knowledge of Gods Mercy Christ's Love and Covenant with experience and many evidences of great probability may cause even such as are uncertain of their Justification to live in some good measure of true Christian peace though mixed with some doubts and fears Because their Probability is much greater than their cause of fear And much more may they do so that doubt only of their perseverance 22. It must be confessed that the Doctrine that none fall from Justification hath its temptation also to discomfort as in the two or three fore-mentioned particulars which I 'll not repeat 23. It is confessed that if God should condemn those whom he before Justified it would argue no change in Him or his Word but in them alone 24. It is confest that some Justified persons who live in as much sin as will stand with sincerity are at present unfit for assurance of perseverance and salvation For it would not stand with that humbling correction which they are then most fit for 25. Lastly it is confest that this point is no Article of our Creed nor is an agreement in it necessary to Church-communion or Christian Love but difference in it must be accounted tolerable In all this the moderate are commonly agreed On the other side 1. It is commonly granted that all that are elected to salvation shall persevere though how far that election is upon foresight they quarrel Cur ergo id quod Apostolis tunc fecit Christus non concedemus pro omnibus praedestinatis fecisse ut peculiari modo sua merita illis applicaret perseverantiam eis obtineret nam si multi sancti pro aliis orantes conversionem eorum perseverantiam impetrarunt cur dicemus Christum pro omnibus praedestinatis non orasse peculiari suâ oratione tantam gloriam gratiam illis obtinuisse Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. a. 8. d. 94. c. 3. 2. It 's granted by all that not only such election but fore-knowledge of salvation and perseverance maketh it Logically Impossible quoad consequentiam not to persevere that is It Necessarily followeth God foreknoweth it Therefore it will come to pass 3. It is commonly granted that God forsaketh none till they forsake him 4. And that so great is his Goodness that no willing â—oul that solidly understandeth the Grounds of the Christian faith and hope and is in Love with God and Holiness and willing to use means and avoid temptations hath any
whom I recite to shew that he is not singular Alex. Alens 1. p. q. 39. m. 1. Scot. in 1. d. 46. q. 1. in solut arg Richard art 1. qu. 1. Durand q. 1. Palud q. 1. art 1. Capreol in 1. d. 45. q. 1. art 1. Concl. 14. art 3. ad arg S. Thom. 1. contra g. c. 39. ibid. Ferrariens Hosius in Confess Polon c. 73. Ruard art 11. Sot 3. de nat grat c. 7. 3. de Justit q. 5. art ult ad 1. Cajet in hunc art Joh. Bunder in Compend Concert tit 6. art 7. Gabr. Biel supplem in 4. d. 49. q. 4. art 4. dub 3. Bonavent in 4. d. 46. art 2. q. 1. ad 2. S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 114. art 1. Conrad ibid. Durand iterum in 2. d. 27. q. 2. Perrar cont Gent. 3. c. 179. Then because some words of Medina and Cajet and Romaus seem for Commutative Justice he sheweth that it was not their meaning Next he vindicateth Scotus and Gabriel as having no such meaning in some words of theirs Then he cometh to the case of Christs own Merits and saith that some say Christ satisfied for us in rigour of Justice But that Aquin. Bonavent and such ancients use not that form of speech but only teach that Christs satisfaction was perfect that is needed no Acceptilation but to this it is not necessary that it be according to Justice properly but that it was of equal condignity by way of Merit And other Schoolmen that speak as aforesaid mean not that in Christ there was proper Justice towards God but that the equality which he kept by the way and similitude of Justice in his satisfaction was according to rigour that is needed not Gods liberal acceptation but was altogether of equal condignity which is true I except but some late ones who contend that in that satisfaction there was proper justice whom he opposeth But they speak only of Imperfect Justice such as is found in Creatures which is not in God In Cap. 3. he layeth down several foundations against Commutative Justice and confuteth Cajetan and Medina who said that indeed between God and man there was no Commutative Justice but inter res that is inter meritum praemium there is which he sheweth is a contradiction of the former In Cap. 4. he disputeth against commutative Justice in God to man and that 1. Because there is not aequalitas dati accepti and to be short he brings against it the very same arguments as Protestants urge against Merit which sheweth that both sides mean and oppose the very same thing And he is so much against any Merit of ours from God in Commutative Justice that he labours to prove that Christs satisfaction was not such nor can any Creature so merit of God much less is mans penance or satisfaction such yea indeed he goeth too far in his reasons as I think For he argueth that where there is no Damnum damage in the sin against God there is no proper injustice but a common sort of it and therefore there can no merit in proper justice by satisfaction by Christ or us and that our sin bringeth no damage to God ergo c. But I deny his Major There may be injury where there is no Damage and consequently injustice Suppose a King or Father so far above his subject or son as that all his disobedience would no way hurt or damnifie him yet it would injure him because the father hath Right to the sons obedience and love and Juriâ— denegatio est injuria So that I confess that God cannot possibly give us anything by Commutative Justice in a strict and proper â—ence because we can so give him nothing in commutation But I see not but that by sin man sinneth against proper Justice in not giving God his Own or Due to his Injury though not to his damage But I confess the term Commutative nothing mutual Right is improper and their distinction of Commutative and distributive Justice is narrow ambiguous inepâ— and therefore â—eedeth and not endeth Controversies The true distribution of Justice is from the three Grand Moral Relations Dominii Imperii Beneficii vel Amicitiae 1. God hath the true proper Right of Propriety in us and to our service 2. He hath a proper Right of Imperium Rule and so to our obedience 3. By his Goodness Love and Benefits he hath a proper Right to our greatest Love and Gratitude And he that sinneth denyeth God all these and so doth violate proper Justice denying him that to which he hath Right But to return to Vasquez having said That our Merit and Satisfaction can be no benefit to God nor our sin his damage nec ulla inaequalitas inter ipsum nos constituta est quae sit objectum injustitiae proprâ—ae he addeth that his punishments are no parts of commutative justice in resarciendis vindicandis injuriis because here is no reparation of damage as Thom. 2. 2. q. 108. art 2. And Cap. 5. he proceedeth to prove his doctrine from the Condition of God and the Creature we being as Children and slaves absolutely his own therefore there can be no proper justice between us And he cometh to the great objection that As free our Actions are our own and so may merit of Justice and answereth No because the Value of our works to which the Reward is given dependeth on Gods grace which he freely giveth and conserveth to us though as free the actions are of us as Causes And because that Liberty is only a fundamentum of merit but giveth not the work its Value or worth therefore we cannot make God our Debtor by any meritorious work of which he himself is the author and Cause And hence he is so much against this merit of Justice as to inferr that Christ himself could not satisfie God according to strict Justice properly by the works of his Humane nature because the whole Value came from the Godhead it self sanctifying the humanity and making his works worthy Cap. 6. he proceedeth to shew that though it be not true that some say that full equal satisfaction may be refused it being not the ipsum debitum and that he proveth that a full equal satisfaction to proper justice cannot in justice be refused and if it be refuseable it is unequal though it may be equal condignitate meriti quae ad justitiam propriè non pertinet Yet even from Gods promise it self it is no obligation of proper justice that is on God to us Confuting Sotus that saith that Gods Fidelity is not to be referred to the virtue of verity but properly belongeth to commutative Justice If this be not enough Disput 86. he cometh to the other branch Whether God have distributive Justice to us and denyeth this also in proper sence And proveth it by the authority of Bonavent in 4. d. 46. art 2. q. 1. ad 1. Scotus qu. 1. Durand ib. q. 1. in
2. d. 23. q. 2. num 5. Palud in 4. d. 46. q. 1. a. 1. Gabriel supplem in 4. d. 49. q. 4. a. 3. dub 3. Alex. 1. p. q. 39. in 1. Thom. c. ex Anselm Aristot Cap. 3. he proveth it by many Reasons Yet Cap. 4. granteth that Justice distributive is in God secundum quandam rationem generalem non autem secundum propriam concluding Distinguendum est Aut enim Propriè opponitur Metaphoricè aut opponitur Communiter si priori modo Deo Propriè convenit Justitia distributiva si posteriori non convenit If in all this you can justifie this Jesuite and all the Schoolmen who he saith agree with him from giving too little to humane merit and Gods Justice I suppose few Protestants will accuse him of giving too much L. But yet this Jesuite elsewhere is one of the greatest defenders of merit for all that he saith in the words recited R. Do you mean the Name or Thing If the Name 1. Sure you will not make that a matter of much quarrel 2. If you do you must quarrel also with all the ancient Fathers even with Augustine who as Melancthon saith Loc. com de Lib. arb of his use of the word free-will doth use it throughout all his Volumes 3. And if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be well translated Worthiness or Merit you must quarrel with Christ and his Apostles also of which before L. But Aquinas his followers use the word Merits in a worser sense and many a volume they have written partly to assert it and defend it R. I hope you your self would write to defend Gods retributive Judgement and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. If you would let an Infidel carry it that pleadeth that obedience and patience have no Reward the Christian cause is little beholden to you Justice Reward and Merit are Relatives in their sence and you must deny All or none For nothing can be Rewarded but a Rewardable act which they mean by meritorious as nothing can be Punished but a real or imputed sault Poena and Culpa being so related also Though as Affliction may be without the commerit of culpability so a meer Gift may be without Laudable merit And Judicial Justice is the virtue of equal Judicial retribution according to laudable or culpable actions But what Aquinas and his followers hold it 's easie to see in himself in Cajetan in Ferrariensis and abundance such I will now turn you but to such an Epitomizer as Carbo or Vignerius where it 's soonest found Carbo 1. 2. q. 21. art 4. saith Actus humani habent rationem meriti demeriti per comparationem ad Deum Quia omnes actus sunt referribiles in Deum ut est ultimus â—inis ut regiâ— communitatem universi ità debet eis pro justitia retribuere alià s non haberet universi procurationem 2. Homo quantum in se est aliquid subtrahit vel exhibet Deo cum servat vel non servat ordinem à Deo constitutum 3. Homo sic movetur à Deo ut Instrumentum ut etiam moveat seipsum ideo meretur demeretur 4. Homo non ordinat se totum ad rempublicam secundum omnia sua ideo non omnes ejus Actus sunt meritorii respectu reipublicae sed totus ordinatur ad Deum respectu cujus omnis actus est meritorius vel demeritorius So that here is a meriting of God in the same sense as there is a demeriting and a meriting of God as the Rector of the Universe not for any real profit to God but for a free referring all our actions to him as the end and keeping the order he hath constituted in the World quantum in nobis with a loving and honouring mind returning to him that which is his own And do you deny any of all this L. No not the Matter but this is not to be called Merit R. If you will needs be the Master of Language openly profess then that it is the Name that you contend about Indeed Aquinas defendeth that which Vasquez seemeth to deny that in God there is Distributive though not Commutative Justice quia à nullo accipit And that though God do all according to the good pleasure of his will yet he doth all things Righteously because his Will is the Rule of Justice and he willeth what his Wisdom dictateth And that he giveth himself his Due in that he doth all to the glorifying of his goodness and he giveth the creatures their due in that he ordereth one for another as its end and the parts for the whole yet he is not called a Debtor to any because all are ordinated to Him which Justice is called The Condecency of his Goodness And is there any thing to be blamed in all this I am sure that English ears are so used to hear that God is Just yea that the Glory of his Justice is a great End of his Government that good men will hardly endure you to deny it Though yet through prejudice they hardly digest the name of that Merit or Rewardableness which is the object of that Justice because of other mens abuse of the word and some mens hard interpretation of it But God the Righteous Judge will give the Crown of Righteousness 2 Tim. 4. 8. not according to Names and Logical Notions but mens works L. But are other Jesuits of Vasquez 's mind or many other Schoolmen of Aquinas his opinion We commonly suppose them to give more to Merit R. There are many School Doctors so strict herein that they will not grant that there is any such thing properly as Legal or Governing Justice in God Ruiz citeth for this Argentin 4. d. 46. q. 1. a. 1. Bassolis ibi q. 1. Brianson in 4. q. 8. cor 3. sol 152. saith Nullus fidelium fuit ita fatuus quod quaereret si peccator possit dare aliquid condignum vel aequivalens gratiae Dei speaking of Commutative Justice But Ordinative Justice which is that which we call Governing only he defendeth in the case a. 1. Suarez a Jesuite de Just Dei sect 4. n. 8. Pesant 1. p. q. 21. a. 1. disp 1. concl 2. But he thinketh that they differ but in words from others that assert Gods Legal Justice vidâ—licet Scotus Sotus Rubellus Lorca Navarret Yet all agree that God is in some sense Just And Ruiz saith that Suarez passim maintaineth that Gods Promises are but naked assertions by which he declareth his will to give the benefit And Durandus 2. d. 27. q. 2. n. 15. faith that Gods promises signifie not any obligation but the meer disposition of Gods liberality And Greg. Arim. 1. d. 17. q. 1. a. 2. saith that the Crown of Righteousness is not a debt but only of Gods free ordination And Marsil 2. q. 18. a. 4. absolutely denyeth that God is a Debtor or doth any otherwise accept mens deserts than
being superstitious by a great deal of self-made Duty and Sin only theirs and yours are not in the same things They say Touch not taste not handle not some things and you other things while you say that God hath forbidden forms of prayer and many lawful circumstances of Worship and other such like And I now intreat you and all the servants of Christ soberly to consider whether a wild injudicious calling sound Doctrine and Practices Antichristian and using that name as a bugbear for want of solid argument and an injudicious running from Papists into the contrary errors and extreams hath not brought on many the guilt and misery which in all the following particulars I shall open to you 1. Such men have corrupted the Gospel of Christ by bringing in many doctrinal errors and opening a door to the heretical to bring in more Almost all the Libertine Antinomian errors have come in by an injudicious opposition to Popery as if they were the Vindication of Election Free Grace Christs Righteousness Justification by faith Perseverance against mans Works and Merits And it is not to be denyed that the said Libertine Doctrines do more contradict the Doctrine of the Gospel even Christianity it self than the Doctrine of the Papists about the same subjects do I know this to be true who ever is offended at it Aquinas Scotus Gabriel Bellarmine Pererids Tolet yea Vasquez Suarez and Molina are not near so erroneous about Justification Grace Faith and good works as Richardson Randal Sympson Towne Crispe Saltmarsh and many such others are Yet how many Religious people have I known that have gloried in these errors as the sweet discoveries of free grace 2. Such erroneous extreams in opposition to Popery have greatly dishonoured the Reformers and Reformation When it cannot be denyed but such and such errors are found among them it maketh all the Reformation suspected as Illyricus his Doctrine of the substantiality of sin and the non-necessity of Good works to salvation and as Andr. Osianders Doctrine of Justification by Gods essential righteousness did and as many harsh passages in Piscator and Maccovins do to name no more besides those before named What a stir have our later Divines still with the Papists in defending some few harsh sayings of Luther Calvin and Beza about the Cause of sin and some such subjects But downright errors cannot be defended 3. Your injudicious opposition greatly hardneth the Papists and hindereth their conviction When they find some errours in your writings as that all are bound to believe that they are elected and Justified that this is the sense of the Article I believe the forgiveness of sin that this is sides divina that we are Reputed of God to have fulfilled all the Law of Innocency habitually and actually in and by Christ c. and then when they read that such men lay the great stress of the Reformation upon these as the very cause of our rejecting Rome and the artiouli stantisaut cadentis Ecclesiae what can more harden them to a confidence that we are hereticks and that they are in the right As I have known the persons that had been in danger of turning Papists if the errour of Transubstantiation and some few more had not been so palpable as to resolve them These men cannot be in the right even so many Papists were like to have turned Protestants had they not met with some notorious errours in such injudicious adversaries 4. Yea we too very well know that your extremities have occasioned divers Protestants to turn Papists Yea some Learned men and such as have zealously run through many Sects in opposition to Popery themselves And some of my acquaintance that went as far in the profession of Godliness as most that I have known They have been so confounded to find partly palpable errours taken for sound doctrine and sound doctrine railed at as Popery and partly to see the shameful diversity and contentions of all the Sects among themselves that it hath drawn them to think that there is no prosperity of the Church and Godliness to be expected but where there is unity and Concord and no Unity and Concord to be hoped for among Protestants And therefore they must return for it to Rome And Grotius professeth that it was this that moved him to go so far towards them as he did And I must needs say that I believe from my very heart that the shameful divisions contentions backbitings revilings censurings persecutions errours and scandals of Protestants among themselves is a far stronger temptation to turn men to Popery than any thing that is to be found among the Papists to turn men to it and that many are thus driven to it that would not have been drawn 5. And by calling good and lawful if not necessary things Antichristian and Popish you have made Religious people ridiculous and a scorn to many that have more wit than Conscience as if we were all such humorous Novices as would run mad by being frightned with the name of Antichrist And as they deride you for it as Fanatical so they the less fear Popery it self 6. And by these extremities you corrupt the peoples minds with a wrathful and contentious kind of Religion which â—s easily taken up in comparison of a holy and heavenly mind When you should kindle in them a zeal for Love and Good Works the mark of Gods peculiar people you are killing Love and kindling wrath Gunpowder may be set on fire without so much blowing of the coal Long experience assureth us that a siding angry contentious zeal is easily kindled but a lively faith a confirmed hope of Glory a Love to God and man needs more ado S. Stay a little in the midst of your reproofs Would you perswade us to a Union with Antichrist and to live in Love and Concord with the members of the Devil Are not the Papists such Have you no way to reconcile us to Rome but by pleading for Love and peace Must we not contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints and not be Lukewarm to the doctrines of Jezabel that seduceth the people of God to Idolatry P. 1. Were you perswadable I would perswade you not ignorantly to contradict the truth of God and call it Popery nor to set up certain false or incongruous notions and pretend them great and necessary verities nor to make a stir for some odd unsound opinions received upon trust from those that you thought best of and to buzz abroad suspicious of Popery against those that have more understanding and conscience than to imitate you nor to fly in the faces of Gods faithfullest servants much less to use your tongues to backbite them as if they were Antichristian because they are not as shamefully ignorant and deceived as you are And I would perswade you to study and digest well what you take the boldness to speak against and not to talk confidently and furiously against that which you never
Head and of Pardon and Salvation 8. It is Christ's stated Constitution that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned Mar. 16. 16. That if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth Christ's resurrection unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation Rom 10. That except you repent you shall all perish Luke 13. 3 5. That men must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2. 38. And repent and be converted that their sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. So Rev. 22. 14. Matt. 6. 14 15. Ezek. 33. 14 16. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come Call these Laws or Covenants or what you will we are agreed that all this is the word of God 9. These terms of life and death are the rule of our practices and our expectations by which we must live and by which we shall be judged and therefore we may truly say that they are Christ's Law And they are God's signified determination of the conditions of life and death and his donation of our right to Christ Pardon and Life is contained herein and therefore this may truly be called Christ's Testament and Covenant in several respects 10. Though all duties be prescribed by God's Law and so each Precept is a material part yet formally or specifically the Laws to which these material parts belong must be distinguished by the distinct conditions of life and death 11. God hath made more Promises Donations and Covenants than one or two which must not be confounded 1. His Law and Covenant made to and with man in innocency is one 2. And his Law and Covenant made to and with Christ as Mediator is another 3. And his absolute promise of a Saviour to the World with the conditional promise or Law of Grace conjunct was the first edition of another And the Gospel as after the incarnation promulgate was a more perfect edition of it to pass by Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Law as such 12. Though Christ be promised in one of these and be God's antecedent gift he may nevertheless be the Author of another and so far the foundation as well as the meritorious cause 13. That may be of free Grace which is merited by Christ yea and that which is annexed to the Evangelical worthiness of a believer 14. That may be a condition required of us to be done by the help of Grace which yet is the effect of that Grace and given us by God 15. It is a true Covenant between God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and man which is solemnly entred into in Baptism And this is a Covenant of Grace even that proceedeth purely from Grace and of Grace as given by God and by us accepted He that will confound these various Covenants Promises and Laws on pretence of their unity though there is doubtless a wonderful unity of all the parts both of God's moral signal means and his physical works shall confound much of Theology 16. The Law made to Adam never said either thou or another for thee shall obey but it bound man to perfect perpetual personal obedience 17. Therefore that Law as it obliged us is not fulfilled by the obedience of Christ but only as far as it obliged him nor can any man be justified by it as a fulfiller of it by himself or by another nor did Christ fulfil it in any other mans person though in his stead so far as is aforesaid 18. The Law doth not command any man since Adam perfect personal obedience as the means or condition of life nor promise any life on such a condition as is now naturally impossible but though it be not repealed by God is so far ceased by the cessation of the subjects capacity to be so obliged 19. The Laws obligation of us to punishment is dispenced with and dissolved by a pardon purchased by our Mediator 20. Christ's righteousness is nevertheless the meritorious cause of our righteousness or justification though he justify us by the instrumentality of his donative Covenant as giving us right to our Union and Justification and Life and though our Faith and Repentance be the condition of our Title 21. We accept two Concessions as containing that truth which sheweth that we do not much differ de re could we more happily order our organical conceptions 1. That Christ's righteousness is not the formal cause of our Justification 2. p. 596. Seeing the satisfaction was not made IN THE PERSON of the offender but his substitute it was necessary that THE BENEFIT of ANOTHERS satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only motive to his acceptation of a substitute It is the undoubted priviledge of the Giver to dispose of his own gifts in his own way And it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the sinner should be duly qualified to receive such transcendent favours purchased at so dear a rate and fitted to return the glory to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted and unsanctified sinner could not possibly be He that writeth this cannot sure much differ from me hereabouts But he is charitably uncharitable when he saith Never any man in his wits affirmed it so that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification It 's too charitable to hide that which cannot be hid of so great a number whom it seems he never read for all his Commission from all the Systematical Divines of Germany c. p. 696. And it 's too uncharitable to judge so many excellent men out of their wits The truth is so many speak so that I have been doubtful I should be smartly censured for saying otherwise Forma qua justificamur est misericordia Patris perfecta Justitia filii saith Ant. Fayus in his Accurate Theses Th. 60. p. 280. And by misericordia Patris being the form you may see how he understood Imputation The number that thus speak are too great here to be recited so that even the most judicious Davenant lest he should go out of the road was fain to make this the Theses to be proved by him Imputatam Christi obedientiam esse causam formalem justificationis nostrae probatur Cap. 28. p. 362. c. de Instit habit But let none turn this to our reproach nor take all these for mad for it is but an unapt name and by him and many others soundly meant for the greater part of these Divines say but that Imputatio Justitiae Christi Remissio peccatorum are the form not of Justification as in us but as it is Actus Justificantis as Altingius Maresius Sharpius Bucanus Spanhemius Nigrinus Sohnius
Beumler and many others And Paraeus Joh. Crocius de Justif and many more expresly deny Christ's righteousness to be the formal cause And I believe that all they that assert it mean as the rest though they speak incautelously and unaptly And what they mean by Imputation let Davenant speak ib. c. 27. p. 359. Imputantur quando illorum intuitus respectus valent nobis ad aliquem effectum aeque ac si a nobis aut in nobis essent siquis indignus aut ignavus ob paternam virtutem merita erga rempublicam in gratiam regis admittatur gratum nobilitatum dicamus per propter Imputationem virtutis paternae This is Bradshaw's sense but yet the similitude falls short So Altingius states the Question Loc. Com. part 2. p. 679. An justificatio consistaet in Imputatione Justitiae Christi hoc est in Imputationae Justitiae per Christum acquisitae And what Protestant will deny this And Maresius with him saith Cum Paulo justitiae Imputatio peccatorum remissio idem sint prout nullum est discrimen inter satisfactionem Christi illius meritum non est necesse subtilius inter haec dùo scrupulose distinguere cum remissio sit peccatorum tum commissionis tum omissionis per illam jus plenum ad vitam aeternam habeamus But this needeth somewhat more I think Loc. 11. p. 284. And the description of the effect sheweth what the Imputation is which Maresius truly thus describeth Exeg Art 23. p. 326 327. Transit reatu peccatum orig ut non amplius imputetur adhaeret quidem ei inseparabiliter Reatus potentialis sive in actu primo ut sonat intrinsecum meritum poenae sed ablatus est Actualis sive quoad actum secundum ut sonat jus voluntatem Dei de paena illa adhuc exigenda N. B. Thysius in synopsi Leidens Disp 33. p. 413. saith Mirum hic videri non debet Christi justitiam non meritoriae solum materialis imo Formalis causae rationem habere cum id fiat diversi mode nempe qua illa est propter quod in quo seu ex quo per quod justificamur So he taketh Christ's righteousness to be all three the meritorious material and formal cause of our Justification De nomine I add as to our Author 1. I hope few will follow him in calling the Decrees of God the Covenant and confounding Election and the Covenant in Constitution For my part I will not 2. Constitution signifieth 1. actum Constituentis 2. more usually passively statum seu rem constitutam God's Eternal Purpose is not properly the Covenant in Constitution in either sense 3. God's Eternal Decree is nothing but his Essence for there is nothing in God but God and nothing but God eternal denominated as related to its connoted object which from eternity was nothing And the Covenant in Constitution is not God nor shall be by me so called 4. Nor will I call the whole execution of God's Election by Christ the Covenant in Execution nor any part of it but that which Scripture so calleth 5. I grant him that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is usually taken for a divine disposition and constitution but that is not meerly in God's Decree but as Grotius hath at large opened Praef. ad Annot. in Evang. as it is God's signal revealed determination of the terms of life and death or as it is a Law and a Covenant on God's part imposed on us before we consent And Jer. 33. 20. doth not call God's meer Decree his Covenant but his created course and law of nature 6. He that will but try the Texts which his Concordance referreth him to and cannot find a multitude of places where the word Covenant is taken for somewhat else than God's Decrees and their general Execution even for a Law with its premiant and penal sanction and for a free donation or promise which yet hath its proper conditions as the moralis dispositio recipientium and that cannot find divers such Covenants made by God with Christ and us that are really distinct and not to be confounded must not expect that I here trouble other Readers with such a task as his conviction 7. I fully agree that Christ's righteousnrss is fitly called both the meritorious and material cause of our Righteousness or passive Justification Though I lately read one contending that it cannot be both For we mean but that it is that Matter or Thing which meriteth it The First Part OF THE Nature Relations Knowledge AND DECREES OF GOD AND OF FREE-WILL AND PROVIDENCE As the Objects thereof Such selected Verities as are needful to reconcile the common Differences about Predestination Providence Grace and Free-will between the Synodists and Arminians Calvinists and Lutherans Dominicans and Jesuits c. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV THE CONTENTS Sect. 1. WHAT Knowledge of God is here to be expected Pag. 1. Sect. 2. Of mans Soul as the Glass or Image in which God must be seen p. 3. Sect. 3. The several inadequate Conceptions which together make up the most exact and orderly Knowledge of God p. 4. Sect. 4. The Relations and Denominations of Gods Active Power Knowledge and Will as to the Creatures p. 6. Sect. 5. Of Futurity and the pretended Eternal Causes of it and Gods Knowledge of it p. 8. Sect. 6. Of the Co-existence of the Creature with God in Eternity and of Gods Knowledge of them as existent p. 13. Sect. 7. Of the presumptions and uncertainties of many Scholastick Disputes about Gods Knowledge which should moderate our censures of Dissenters in such matters and check our sinful curiosity p. 15. Sect. 8. More of Gods knowing things future and of Permission of sin p. 24. Sect. 9. Of Predetermination Universal Causation Humane Power and the Nature of Liberty of Will Distinguished in a Table p. 27. Sect. 10. Of Natural and Moral Power and Impotency Their difference p. 36. Sect. 11. More of the same and Whether God bind man to Impossibilities p. 39. Sect. 12. Of Scientia Media p. 42. Sect. 13. Of the Will and Decrees of God in general Their simplicity and diversity supposed priority and posteriority Of Negations of Nolitions and Volitions of Negatives c. p. 45. Sect. 14. Several distinctions of Gods Will explained 1. Positive acts and non-agency 2. Positive and Negative as to the object 3. Positive and Oppositive Volitions and Nolitions 4. Immanent and Transient 5. Efficiently Transient and Objectively Transient 6. Natural and Free 7. Efficient and Permissive 8. Beneplaciti signi de eventu de debito Decretive and Legislative Where the true nature of Laws is opened 10. Absolute and Conditional 11. Effectual and uneffectual 12. Antecedent and Consequent p. 49. Sect. 15. Whether Gods Decrees must be said to be diversified and proved according to the order of Intention or Execution Whether