is to Papists who make justification the expulsion of the habit of sinne and the bringing in of habituall righteousnesse which expelleth all sinne except venials which indeed are no sinnes for sinne pardoned to Antinomians and Papists who are harmonious in this point are no sinnes 2. Nothing be it adultery or parricide or any worke of the flesh committed after justification can bee sinne for it is against no Law by this way and doth not so much as prâ—judge salvation by demerit it onely scandalizeth men but cannot offend God My soule enter thou not into these mens secrets 3. Sinnes against Christian conversation such as the adulteries of the justified are no sinnes before God because all sinnes as sinnes stand in the way as contrary to salvation then aske Antinomians is a justified person obliged to eschew Adulterie they shall answer Yea hee is obliged but how There is a two fold obligation one of Law another of the free Spirit the former is removed the justified man by no Law or Law-obligation is to eschew Adultery as a sinne against God 1. Because hee is freed from the Law and all directing and obliging power of the Law 2. Because it involveth a contradiction that his Adultery should be sin when committed by him and pardoned before it be committed for so it should be sinne and no sinne How then is he obliged to forbeare Adultery Onely by an obligation Physicall and of the Spirit such as we call an obligation of naked courtesie if he forbeare it is an act of love and arbitrary freedome but if hee commit it it is not sinne because it is in him against no Law-obligation no more then an Englishman committing felony against the Lawes in England it is the Antinomians owne comparison or killing a Swan in Thames which is forbidden by the Lawes of England does faile against the Lawes of Spaine So his sin is against love not Law as if the Law commanded not all love and love with all the heart and as if these two were contrary and the Law and the Gospel did involve two contrary and contradictory wills in God and the Lord should be changeable and unconstant in Law and Gospel and his Adultery should bee contrary to men and Christian conversation onely not to God 4. All acts and personall duties of sanctification which we must persue and follow else wee cannot see God are but degrees and parts of the compleat Sanctification that wee hope for in heaven and the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more till the perfect day therefore they must be commanded as the way to salvation and not as arbitrary acts of good conversation before men but I shall here answer M. Townes objections tending to prove that good works are not so much as the way to salvation 1. If good works bee such necessary conditions that without them happinesse is not attainable then 1. though the grace of God doe save as the alone cause yet it doth not freely for what God doth freely it is without all condition or consideration of mans workes or worthynesse Answ. It is good that Towne granteth though good works be commanded in the Gospel yet grace may for all that bee the onely cause of salvation but contradicting himselfe hee saith If good workes be commanded in the Gospel then grace is not the onely cause of salvation but grace and works Law and Gospel must be confounded We say not they are so necessary necessitate medii by necessity of meanes but that any savingly beleeving at the nick of the extremity of his twelfth and last houre God taking away all opportunity of good works is undoubtedly saved but in the worke of that faith there is a seed and supernaturall disposition to good works Now that this mother never bringeth forth the birth hindereth not but good works are necessary to salvation necessitate precepti in regard of Gods commandement but Antinomians deny good works to be necessary by any commandement of God 1. Because to omit them maketh the justifyed partie lyable to no guiltinesse or sinne before God say they Because he is under no Law and where there is no Law there is no transgression nor guilt saith Saltmarsh 2. Wee being justified are under no Commandement so as wee can violate this Commandement be it of Law or of Gospel for it is pardoned before it be committed 3. What God doth freely is without conditon as a meriting cause or as a cause or condition slowing from the strength of our nature without grace Without a perfect condition free of all sinnefull imperfection adhering to it such as the Law required it is true but now the assumption of the objection is false What hee doth freely is without all condition Evangelicke wrought by the strength of grace and mixed with sinnefull infirmities so the major is most false for Faith should not then be a condition of justification good works are so conditions as they be graces also How often said Augustine with Scripture God crowneth his owne free gifts in us not our merits 4. The same way I distinguish the consideration of good works either Legall or Evangelike And 5. Towne doth conjoyne our worthinesse which is none at all with our good works which are something for they are conditions of meere grace Object 2 So saith he Yee make works the causes of salvation Answ. It followeth not that they are con-causes or joynt-causes with Christ but onely conditions just as a mans journeying on foot or horse to a City or a Kingdome to inherit it is the way condition of his entring the City But it is not his Charter or Law-title or right to enjoy the Crowne as his inheritance any effective influence to the title of the Crowne of heaven I dare not ascribe to any works in us or to any but to Christ but undeniably good works are not so much as conditions of justification they follow a man justified but goe not before justification no more then the Apple goeth before the tree or the cisterne before the fountaine nor are they the conditions of the Covenant of grace they are the conditions of covenanted ones not of the covenant Object 3. If salvation depended on condition of our good works or dignity it would be uncertaine and doubtfull Rom. 4.16 Answ. The Apostle Rom. 4.16 clearely is on the theame of Justification by faith and the condition of it which is faith onely 2. Wee say not that salvation dependeth on works as a condition but on the grace of God which worketh every good worke in us freely without hire or money neither works nor free will are our sure free hold of heaven Object 4. Yee confound Law and Gospel and runne on that common error that the Gospel is conditionall remission of sinnes dependeth not on works Answ. It is a new heresie of Antinomians to deny a conditionall Gospel it is all one as to bely
you and to you who are troubled rest with us c. And Merit-mongers say our good works are made condignely and morally meritorious from Christs merits and so are made and dignified with a sort of infinitenesse to buy heaven as Antinomians say they have sinnelesse perfection from Christs merits and are made as white faire spotlesse as God can see no sinne in them but looking on them seeth them as faire as the works of Christ or the elect Angels Wee judge that there is no worth to come neere in value or proportion to grace or glory and that no reward is promised for them none to them but as to signes and fruits of grace CHAP. XLVI That there is grace inherent in the Saints beside that free favour and good will that is in God WEe accord not with Antinomians who say that grace is onely in Christ none in us they are but gifts and effects of grace in us saith Towne The new creature the armour of God and love is nothing but Christ. But wee say Grace or free favour is in Christ as the cause root spring but this is the infinite God freely of meere grace imparting his goodnesse mercy redemption calling us without hire or money and this indeede is not in us but in him but there is a grace created the fruit of this free grace in God that is in us subjectively and inherently and denominates us gracious and new creatures grace is in Christ as the floure in the root but in vs as the smell that comes from the floure and is communicated to us who have senses The Scripture saith 1. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature a new creature cannot be Christ the Creator the new man is created in righteousnesse and true holynesse and these be created graces in us as the lusts of the flesh contrary to these are not the first Adam but the fruits of this sinne so neither can these bee the second Adam 2. The Armour of God Ephes. 6. Faith Hope the Word of God Prayer the chiefe parts of that armour have Christ for their object and subject and wee are to pray in Christs name then they cannot be Christ himselfe faith may be weake Christ cannot be weake prayer lesse fervent Christ not so 3. The Scripture saith God putteth in the Saints a heart of flesh a new heart powreth water that is his spirit on the thirsty ground the Spirit of grace and supplication on the Family of David writes his Law in our inward parts gives a circumcised heart 4 There is an in-biding principle The seed of God remaining in the Saints the annoyting that teacheth them all Grace in Timothy faith unfained dwelling in him and his grandmother 5. The Saints are denominated new creatures from grace inherent faithfull and sanctified in Christ Jesus borne againe of God Sonnes and heires partakers of the Divine nature Kings and spirituall Priest to God changed and renewed 6. From this Libertines say there is no difference betweene hypocrits and beleevers whereas they are blessed meeke shall see God shall be satisfied have a great reward in heaven which is falsely said of hypocrits and it s neere of kinne to that foule errour The Spirit works in hypocrits by gifts and graces in the Saints immediatly whereas the Saints doe many things from the feare of God from Faith from humility and meekenesse which are graces in them and it neighbours with that heresie that Christ acteth immediatly in the Saints hee being incarnate in them and they Christed and Godded with him Christ dwelling in their flesh which maketh every Saint Christ and the onely begotten Son of God and it sides with that error that the efficacie of Christs death doth kill the activity of all graces and that all the activity of a beleever is to act sinne there being nothing in him but sinne Christ without acting all in him CHAP. XLVII That we are not meere patients in the acting of the Spirit of Sanctification SO doe Antinomians hold that we are meere patients under the actings of the Spirit the Spirit acting in us immediately as on blocks and stocks So there is say they no obligation to pray at set houres and times but when the Spirit acteth and stirreth us immediatly thereunto And Saltmarsh saith this is a bondage to times and no spirituall serving of God So hath Randel the Familist prefixed in an Epistle to two Popish Tractats furnishing to us excellent priviledges of Familisme the one called Theologia Germanica and the other the Bright starre which both advance perfect Saints above Law Gospel Scripture Ordinances Praying hearing to a Monastike contemplative life in which their perfectists see injoy live in God without beholding him in formes or materiall images the signe of the Crosse lawfull books as they thinke to young beginners without any acting in them either of understanding will desire or any power they and their love desire joy being all drowned annihilated and swallowed up in God immediatly injoyed and the Spirit acting immediatly Euthysiastically in them as men dead crucified mortifyed and if they have any acts of knowing or willing or loving they bee acts of the old man and the flesh And upon the same ground God not efficatiously and immediatly concurring in morall actions to act upon the creatures men and Angels The Libertines of old some Familists and Antinomians of late have said that God is the author of sinne that his working or not working on the creature is the cause of good and ill righteousnesse and unrighteousnesse 1. Because sinne is nothing but Gods not working 2. It cannot hurt God and why should he hate it 3. It hath its first being in God 4. It is his servant and conduceth to heighten free grace and rich mercy I doe not impute this to all Antinomians yet some have said it and written it the same principles common to Libertines and Antinomians as you may reade in worthy Calvin incline to the same conclusions It is true Saltmarsh comes not up to truth in this Mans sinnes was serviceable saith hee to the glory of Redemption and was but for the bringing forth of this though not decreed of God but occasioned by man God foreknowing the changeablenesse of his creature c. In which words not knowing what to make out of the Protestant doctrine out of ignorance hee makes sinne the mother and glorious Redemption the birth that was warmed with life in the wombe of sinne and was serviceable for the bringing forth of this We know what M. Archer said of late I scarse beleeve that that godly man would have spoken so faire and glorious grace was warmed and enlived from eternitie in the sweet bowels and heart of God and never lay never fetched heat of life from the foule wombe of
the Angel and prevailed he wept and made supplication to him Gen. 32.24 25 26. nor is this an old Testament-Spirit the parable of the unjust Judge and the Widdow is in scope a doctrine of prevailing with God by importunitie of prayer Iames bringeth the example of Elias for the prevailing of prayer and Christ This kinde of devill is not cast out but by fasting and prayer and so the Spirit of adoption worketh freely Object 2. Saltmarsh The Spirit worketh not freely when wee take in Christ but by the way and rest not wholy on him Answ. They looke on Christ by the by who take in their good works as fellow-fellow-causes with Christ thinking to be heard for them Christ is but a by-Mediator if he bee not whole Mediator it s a practicall error naturally in us to improve the the sufficiencie and incomparable weight of Christ to little purpose and dote more upon done duties then on Christ yet this is not our Doctrine but our sinne that we are to be humbled for Obj. 3. Saltmarsh When we are in bondage to some outward worship of circumstances as time place person the Spirit works not freely Answ. It may be Saltmarsh thinketh the Lords day under the New Testament legall men of his gang doe it 2. And not to pray but at such houres as the Spirit moves him because the Spirit onely and the Spirit acting and ravishing is the only obliging Law and command under the New Testament the Letter or written Scripture to pray continually in all things to give thanks to bee abundant in the worke of the Lord to be rich in good works and to make our selves friends with the Mammon of unrighteousnesse at any time ere we bee put out of our stewardship except when the Spirits wind bloweth faire that so they may receive us into the everlasting habitations is a law bondage yea to abstaine from adulterie murther swearing except the Spirits acting which is our onely obliging Law now is a legall not a Gospel-service nor can a beleever sin when he commits adultery murther for hee doth nothing against the only obliging New Testament Law the acting of the Spirit when the Spirit actually doth not act him and stirre him to duties of charitie and love of the brethren and doth not actually deterre and pull him back by his immediate impulsions and breathings from adulterie and murther I desire an answer intimating a difference between sins of Adultery and Murther and so sinfull omission of duties of Chastity and saving the life of innocent brethren for a Moneth which must involve a sinnefull not-loving our brother for a Moneth and the not praying to God for thirty dayes as the heathen Kings Law was upon supposition that the Spirit act not and stirre not up to prayer for thirty dayes and if so it is a question if Adultery be sinne and if abstinencie from Adultery upon the conscience of the seventh Command be not an impeaching of the free working of the Spirit of Adoption and a spece of legall bondage As for Saltmarsh his fourth ground of bondage to wit that to doe any thing from the power of an outward commandement or precept of the Word that it brings forth but finer hypocrisie and his seventh To take any outward thing to move them rather then apply Christ for strength life and Spirit is meere bondage I have answered alreadie it is an Enthusiasticall opposing of the working of word works and well grounded experiences of the Saints to the actings of the Spirit and a looseing of us from beleeving and obeying Scriptures from trembling at the Word and a most wicked way of Enthusiasme Object 5. Saltmarsh when they doe because of some vow or covenant they have made c. It is more properly the service of the Old Testament and part of their bondage for wanting the power and fulnesse of the Spirit of adoption to worke them to obedience freely from within they were under the power of outward principles to put them on from without Answ. 1. If nothing move men to doe but the Letter of the Covenant Vow or Promise not the Spirit of grace then can the Spirit never be said to worke Legally or not freely because the Spirit works not at all nor can this bee called properly the service of the Old Testament except Antinomians say the Spirit of grace wrought none at all in the Old Testament but onely the Letter contrary to all the heavenly Psalmes made by the Holy Ghost and the acts of faith in Moses David Job Jeremiah which every Page of Old Testament refuteth and we must say meere nature and the dead Letter without the Spirit acted them So Hebr. 11. Psal. 51.10 and infinite other places on the contrary 2. Nor can yee say by the same reason that a naturall conscience a desire of a name lest they should be reputed covenant-breakers moved these in the Old Testament to act for so none could have been tearmed men according to Gods heart nor perfect and upright men as David Job Ezechiah Noah because upon this Antinomian ground they were all but fine hypocrites If I mistake not Saltmarsh condemneth all who have taken the Covenant in the three Kingdomes and are moved for feare of the oath of God to stand to it as Legalists and Old Testament Spirits The Covenant that Asa Josiah caused the people to stand too was a Law-bondage that we are not now obliged to and upon the same grounds to keepe faith and promise upon lawfull contracts and oathes between King and people or made to God to keepe Marriage-covenants contracts legues and bargaines betweene man and man which we conceive to be of the Law of Nature must all be the proper service of the Old Testament and contrary to the Gospel to keepe my lawfull promise made to a man to pay my debt because I promised when I borrowed money To keepe the Covenant of God made in Marriage because it is an outward covenant is to doe because of some Covenant and to be in Law-bondage and to doe as being under the power of outward principles and Paul must writ to Philemon as under the bondage of the Old Testament If Onesymus hath wronged thee or oweth thee ought put it on my count if he should pay Philemon seeing he became his debter by an outward promise and covenant he did not pay him by the Spirit of adoption working freely but by a Legall Spirit as being under the Law not under grace by this learning A Jesuiticall way to loose men from all covenants promises bargaines in buying and selling treatise and Indentures betweene persons Nation and Nation to loose us from all the bonds of the Law of Nature and Nations and free us from that which is the Law and the Prophets Whatsoever yee would men should doe to you the same doe ye to them Then shall nothing bind us under the New Testament Doth the Spirit of
in scripture and matters of faith 123 124 Though we be regnerate yet we need scripture-teaching 124 The written scripture not given to the flesh 124 125 Chap LXV The Gospel is a rare Covenant in al things 127 128 Chap. LXVI Antinomians errours touching the Covenant of grace 128 129. In the conditions thereof ibid. The time of it 129 130. And in the parties 130 131 Chap. LXVII Of legall and Gospell-conversion 131 How meere commands worke no change 132 133 Naturall men cannot propose a supernaturall end 134 Obedience at set houres not legall 135 136 Whether Covenants Vowes Promises be legall 136 137. What other things are legall 138 139 Chap. LXIX The dead and bastard faith of Antino 140 141 Faith and nothing commanded but only faith in the Gospell how true 140 141 Of Antinomian faith 143 144 Reason for immediate beleeving without all preparations 143 144 145. Taken off Who immediatly invited 144 145 146 Chap. LXX Faith not the onely worke of the Gospel as Antinomians say 148 149 Doing subordinate to sweet Gospell-attractions 149 The way to heaven not so short as Antinomians dreame 149 150 Chap. LXXI The justified obey not God by necessity of nature as the fire burneth 151 152 Chap. LXXII Glorifying of God in sanctification needfull 153 Of our active and passive glorifying of him 153 154 Chap. LXXIII Sanctification concurres as well as justification to make Saints 155 156 Chap. LXXIV The harmonious compliance of old Libertines Familists and Antinomians 157 158. In seventeene paralels to chap. LXXXVI p. 221 Antinomians with Libertines refute all personall mortification 158 159 Chap. LXXV Libertines Familists and Antinomians free us from all law 161 Chap. LXXVI Libertines and Antinomians deny all scripture 163 164. H. Nicholas maketh two words of God 164 165 Antinomians turne Perfectists with Libertines 166 167 The Fathers of old saved as we 167 Chap. LXXVII Antinomians and Libertines foule opinions touching God and the authour of sin 169 170 171 Chap. LXXVIII Libertines and Antinomians take away all sense or remorse of conscience for sin 172 173 Chap. LXXIX Libertines and Antinomians paralel beleevers with Christ incarnate 173 174 Chap. LXXX To follow sense and naturall inclination as a law is our rule say Libertines and Antinomians 174 175 Antinomians sin according to their owne lying sense and declaratively not truely not really and in the Court of God 175 176 Chap. LXXXI Antinomians plead for liberty to popery and to all Religions 177 178 Chap. LXXXII Libertines and Antinomians doubt of the resurrection and of the life to come 178 179. H. Nicholas and New England Familists teach the same 179 180 181 Chap. LXXXIII Familists Libertines Anabaptists go before Antinomians in denying all externall worship and obedience 181 182 183 Chap. LXXXIV M. Del Saltmarsh and Familists deny all outward Reformation scripture seales and ordinances 187 188 Del denies any worke of the spirit or conversion to God in the Old Testament with Socinians· 188 189. Del a Familist 180 181. Del a Libertine 193 194. He denies all lawes 195. Del a disciple of Muncer an Anabaptist 196 197. How ecclesiasticall reformation is spirituall 198 199 Del a Libertine in removing all the working of second causes 199 200 Dels arguments for onely internall reformation against all the Ministery and Ordinances of the Gospell as Swenckfeldians taught 201 202 Beleevers as spirituall as Angels saith Del What need then of preaching to them 204 205. Outward Reforming no more our duty then to redeeme the World 206 207 Del maketh Gods absolute decrees to destroy all the working of second causes 208 209. Del and Familists deny the scripture and contend for an internall enthysiasticall word 210 211 212 213 The middle way between Papists and Enthysiasts 216 217 218 Chap. LXXXV Libertines and Antinomians come neare to other in making God the author of sin 219 220 Chap. LXXXVI Libertines and Antinomians would have us doe nothing â—ecaâ—se God doth all things 221 Chap LXXXâ—II Antinomians refuted in saying that we make the actings of the Spiâ—it like to the acts of morall Philosophy and the differences between these two 222 223 224 225 Chap. LXXXâ—III That wee are tâ—uly righteous in the sight of God and yet sinners in our seâ—ves proved against Antinomians 225 226 227 228 Chap LXXXIX Antinomians are ignorant of faith to dreame that its faith to beleeve against sense that our sins are no sins 230 231 Chap. XC Antinomians free all converted or non-converted from obligation of obedience 233.234 Chap. XCI How and for whom Christ intercedeth for in heaven 234.235 Chap. XCII Antinomians contend for the faith of assurance and reject the faith of dependence 235 236 Chap. XCIII Antinomians deny the Law to be an instrument at all of our sanctification 236 237 Del with Libertines maketh the word and the Spirit all one 238 239 Errata Pag. 14. line penult for the r. that p. 15. l. 18. d p. 17. l. 5. till he made r. till he be made p. 21. l 17. r. from p. 44. l. ult for 4. r. 5. p. 50. l. 14. for and r. an p. 53. l. 37. for they r. there p 64. l. 3. d. in p. 99. l. 7. r. simply p. 101. l. 33. for none r. now p. 123 l. 4. r. claram p. 135. l. 32. r reatu p. 162. l. 25. a castro p. 194. l. 18. but. r. both p. 223. l. 25. for not be r. not to be p. 235. l. 11 forme to Scriptures and ordinances then r forme to Scriptures and ordinances Then p. 254. l. 5 for is r. as at Troas p. 268. in marg will it r. will have it p. 275. l. 3 r. yeelded 290. in mar r. 1 Cor. p. 307. l. 34. r. contrariety p. 316. l. 33 r. because Errata in the II. Part. Pag. 3. l. 12. who ever will have Christ. r. who ever will have Christ and pay not a penny p. 17. l. 18. r. makes p. 65. for Chap. XLVI r. Chap. XLIX p. 65. l. ult r. calleth p. 72. l. 17. r. giveth p. 83. l. 9. for hath r. have p. 96. l. 5. d. and. p. 159. l. 27. for glorification p. 80. l. 28. d. â—hen r. gloriation p. 199 l. 21. d. is 209. l. ult for them r. him p. 223. l. 15. r. in spicitis 236. l. 16. without was r. was without THE DISCENT OF ANTINOMIANS and FAMILISTS PART I. CHAP. I. The Originall of Antinomians and of other unclean Sects who have taught the same things not unlike to their blasphemies THOUGH out of doubt Antinomians have given signification of the first dawning of that Heresie in Paul the Apostles time Shall wee continue in sin that grace may abound Rom. 6.1 and Is the Law sin God forbid Rom. 7.7 and James his arguing against the dead faith voyd of good works Jam. 2. intimateth they were peeping up in his dayes and John hinteth at some denying signes of Justification Yet their Originall seems to be from the old Katharoi called Puritans who rose
in all things sinne excepted Luk 24.39 40. Ioh. 20.26 27. 18 The second birth is the Godhead and Gods true being obtaineth the victory beareth rule with God and bringeth forth the name of Israel or Christ it selfe sect 12. 19 Christ is not true man nor Abrahams seed after the flesh but God only in so far as he followeth Abrahams faith 20 H. Nicholas and all his illuminated Elders are Christ all not of his way the Antichrist so some Antinomians now at Oxford Say 1 That Iesus Christ is not God essentially but in name 2 That his nature was defiled with sin aswel as ours 3 It is as possible for Christ to sin as for any of us 4 The Trinity of the Persons is a fiction 5 The fulnesse of the Godhead doth dwell bodily in the Saints as in Christ and that when this Godhead shall be manifested in them they shall have divine honour and have more power then Christ and doe greater workes then hee 6 The scripture is but a shadow and a fiction now the word saith 1 The father and Christ are one and he thought it no robbery to be equal with the father Phi. 2 and maintained he was the consubstantiall sonne of God Ioh. 7. Ioh. 10 else the Iewes would never have said he blasphemed in calling himselfe the sonne of God by adoption for they knew Godly men to be so the sons of God 2 By him the word the heaven and earth were created Ioh. 1.1 2 3. Col. 1.16 17. now God onely created the World Ier. 10 11 12. Esay 44.24 Gen. 1.1 Psal. 33.6 7 8. 3 Hee was anoynted above his fellowes with grace Psal. 45.2.7 and wee receave out of his fulnesse and light our halfe-penny candles at this sunne of righteousnesse Ioh. 1.14.16 and he giveth the Holy Ghost Ioh. 16.14 And hath received a name above all names Phil. 2 9 10. and God said to none of the Angells farre lesse to any man save to the man Christ sit thou at my right hand Heb. 1. 21 The Familists are perfect in this life and so are Antinomians Towne as p 77 78. Saltm free grace 140. 22 To say the three persons are one God is a foolish making three Gods Antinomians professe that Antitrinitarians Arrians Socinians are their brethren so they beleeve and love God as they doe 23 There is but one Spirit in all creatures and that is essentially God Epist to the the two daughters of Warwicke 24 Love and well doing and good workes are the cause of our re-reconciliation and the very saviours that beares our sins whereas Christ bare our sinnes in his body on the tree Esay 53.6 7 8. 1 Pet. 2.23 24. 25 Christs dying on the Crosse is nothing but H.N. and his illuminated Elders their obeying constantly the doctrine of H. N. so as no suffering could cause them to forsake it 26 Then is Christ put to death when any of the Family of Love is no longer led by the Scripture but by the Spirit of revelation that is as sure as the Scripture so said Mrs. Hutchison Rise reigne p. 61. er 27. 27 Mortification is to H. N· justification and removing of sinnes so doe Antinomians confound these two 28 The resurrection of Christ was but a passing out of the flesh or letter of the law to the spirituall being of illuminated Elders 29 Christ sitteth not in our flesh at the right hand of God but in the spirit 30 The comming of the Holy Ghost in cloven tongues was the comming of Christ againe from heaven in the Spirit 31 Christs ascending to heaven was his comming to heavenly mindednesse and fulnesse of knowledge 32 The resurrection of the body is a rising in this life from sin and wickednesse 33 In H. N. God this present day judgeth the world the family of love are the many thousands of his saints that Judgeth with him even now and reigneth on the earth Evang. c. 1. sect 9.10 34 The Marriages of all not enlightened are unlawfull 35 Men shall marry and have wives at the resurrection 36 The illuminated Elders cannot sin nor pray for forgivenesse of sinnes so Antinomians hony-combe c. 3. pag 25. c. 7 pag. 139 forgiven sin is not or hath no being before God Saltm free grace pag. 44. 37 Heaven and Hell are in this world Antinomians say we are fully and compleatly not in hope onely saved in this life 38 The family of love is under no law 39 All things are the act of God 40 Angels and Devils and wicked men are acted immediately by the Spirit of God 41 The Scripture is a shadow 42 Ordinances are for babes in their family of love only 43 The perfect are to live above all ordinances 44 Jf temptations lay hold on us and force us to sin and we cry to God for helpe and finde no helpe we are as guiltlesse as the maid forced in the field who cryed and had no helpe and is not for that a whore H.N. documentall sentences sect 13. sect 8. It is true the beleever shal not be charged to eternal condemnation for sins of infirmities that are his burthen and affliction aswell as his sin but sins of infirmities are essentially his sinnes who acts them and make him lyable to wrath If God should contend with David for his adultery and murther displeased the Lord but God cannot charge the sinne of whoredome on a maid that is forced and doth cry out if she doe cry out and have no helpe it is no whoredome on the maids part 45 All the scriptures are to be exponed by allegories This makes 1 The Scripture a masse of contradictions and lyes 2 This turnes our faith and knowledg into a phancie for the scripture it selfe cannot be a rule of exponing scripture if the glosse destroy the text 3 The scripture shall not Judge all controversies as Christ referres the gravest question that ever was Whether he be the sonne of God or no to this tribunall Search the Scriptures for they testifie of me Ioh. 5. 4 All the articles touching Christ his birth life death buriall resurrection ascending to heaven sitting at Gods right hand his second comming c. Creation providence histories shall teach nothing an Allegory shall cause scripture say the contrary Antinomians call all their allegories the spirituall sense of Scripture Bread may in an allegory signifie comfort then the love of God dwells in a brother who seeth his poore brother famishing and gives him neither cloathing nor bread but onely faith in good words Brother goe in peace and be warmed and cloathed an◠feed for he gives the poore man allegorically bread and cloathing contrary to Iames 2.14 15 16 17. 1 Ioh. 3.17 18. yea so all scripture shall be turned over in lyes dreames and phancies all covenants violated all faith private and publike among Christins may be broken and yet truth kept in an allegoricall sense according to scripture A man may murther his brother and have life eternall Contrary to 1 Io. 3.15
be sweetly handled and ought not to be terrified with examples of Gods wrath but Paul teacheth another thing 2 Tim. 2.3 when he saith The Scripture is profitable to rebuke to correction So Saltmarsh Crisp Den Del Town Randel preach a honey Gospel and a short cut to heaven and exclude all gall and vinegar from the law Let 's not fall to the madnes of Antinomians who remove the law out of the Church as if they were all holy that are in the Church the world loves such teachers and say preach to us pleasant things Antinomians teach that all sinnes are simple taken away and are not to be rebuked and that because they are pardoned and damnation is removed and sin is nothing so Honey-combe c. 3. p. 23. Saltm free grace 140. Towne asser gr 71.72 Beleevers are as cleane from all sinnes as Christ or the glorified Saints pardoned sin is no sin God cannot see adulteries to be sinnes in them 2 Conclusion Luther saith for justification the law is unpossible but it s given to show sin to worke wrath and to make the conscience guilty But lay aside the matter of justification saith he no man can too highly commend good workes commanded of God and Its necessary that Godly teachers presse as diligently the doctrine of good workes as of faith Satan is angry at both and resisteth with all his strength both k Faith onely is not sufficient and yet only faith justifieth for if it be true faith it obtaineth the spirit of love This Spirit fullfilleth the law and obtaineth the kingdome of heaven Except faith be without the least good workes it justifieth not yea it is not faith it is impossible that faith can be without assiduous and great good workes Faith justifieth not as our worke but as a worke of God for the promise is a worke of God not our worke in which we doe or give something to God but in which we receave something from God and that through his mercy Thou holdest in thine hand seeds of divers kinde but I aske not what seeds are conjoyned with these or these seeds but what is the proper vertue of every seed in this case shew plainly what faith it 's alone doth in justification but not with what other vertues it is conjoyned faith it alone apprehendeth the promise beleeveth God promising and puts to its hand and receaveth something that God promiseth this is the proper worke of faith only Love hope patience have objects about the which they worke and other bonds within which they consist for they embrace not the promise but fulfill the commandements So Luther in the matter of justification putteth reproach on good workes just as Paul Phil. 3. maketh all his priviledges and his very workes of righteousnesse that he doth by the grace of Christ dung and losse in the comparison of imputed righteousnesse Workes saith he cannot be taught except yee hurt faith seeing faith and workes in the matter of justification are extreamely contrary so that the doctrine of works must necessarily be a doctrin of Devils and a departure from faith Pernitiosi Doctores sunt qui hodie nescio quibus occasionibus adducti contendunt legem in ecclesiâ non praedicandam Tu legem non doceres ubi verus legis populus est scilicet avari supeâ—bi adulteri usurarii Idololatrae In Antinomorum dogmate erat haec propositio sigâ—is esset adulter tantum ut crederet se habitu rum Deum propitium Sed qualis quaeso Ecclesia in quâ tam horribilis vox sonat faciendum discrimen erat docendum quod adulteri sâ—u peccatores duplices sunt quidam qui agnoscunt adulterium seâ— pâ—ccatum suum alii securè indulgent Quomodo predicatio legis potest as debet ex Ecclesiâ ejici nonne simul excludis timorem Dei maximam partem operum Dei Luth. tom 2. in Ge. Antinomi novi isti prophetae contendunt homines tractandos suaviter nec terrendos irae divinae exâ—mplis sed diversum Paulus dicet 2 Tim. 2.3 Vbi dicet scripturam utilem ad objurgandum ad castigandum Ne in Antinomorum insaniam inâ—idamus qui legem ex Ecclesia tollunt quasi vero in ecclesia ommes siâ—t sancti mundus quidem tales doctores amat sicut apud Hierem. dicunt loquerâ— nobiâ— placentia Antino docent omnia peccata sublata nec arguenda esse nec homines terrendos lege pescatum esseremissum nibil damnationis igitur peccatum est nihil et prorsus sublatum Lex non tantum non est necessaria ad justificationem sed plane inutilis et impossibilis sed data est ut peccatum ostendat iram operetur hoc est conscientiam ream faâ—it Extra causam iustificationis nemo potest bona opera a Deo praecepta satis magnifice praedicare Aeque necessarium est ut pij doctores tam diligenter urgeant doctrinam de bonis operibus quám doctrinam de fide Satan enim utrique sensus est et acerrimé resistit Non sufficit sola fides et tamen sola fides iustificat quia si vera est impetrat spiritum charitatis sic legem implet et regnum Dei consequitur fides nisi sit sine ullis etiam mini mis operibus non iustificat impossibile est fidem esse sine assiduis et magnis operibus Fides justificat non tanquam opus nostrum sed tanquam Dei opus promissio enim non est nostrum opus cum nos Deo facimus aut damus aliquid sed accipimus aliquid a Deo idque tamen per ipsius miserecordiam Texes manu varia semina non autem quero ergo quae cum quibus conjuncta sint sed quae cuiusque propria virtus hic aperâ—e die quid faciat sola fides non cum quibus virtutibus conjuncta fit sola enim fides apprehendit promissionem credit promittenti Deo Deo porrigenti aliquid manum â—â—mâ—vet et id accipit hoc proprium solius fidei opus est charitaâ— â—pes patientia habent alias materias circa quas versaâ—tur habent alios limites intra quos consistant non enim amplectuntur promissionem sed mandata exequuntur Opus non potest doceri nisi laedas fidem cum fides opera in re justificationis extreme adversantur ita a fit ut doctrina operum necessario sit doctrina daemoniorum et discessio a fide Luther speaketh so of Good workes only in the matter of justification But our Antinomians speake so of the whole course of sanctification in order to heaven and as they are the way to the Kingdome not the cause of the crowne as both they follow the person already justified and as they goe before him who is yet to be justified for Crispe saith vol 1. ser. 4 pag. 89. But withall I must tell you that all
sense but to faith and the promises for the unrenewed part never told us good news of our selves our Spirituall estate or of Christ except it speak truth as the Deviâ—l speaketh to deceive and to render us secure sluggish haughty proud vaine but Antinomians say all the murthers and adulteries of beleevers are sins onely in our sense that is in the apprehension of our unrenewed part not to the light and judgement of faith now so Antinomians follow sense But 1. I should as soon beleeve the Devill saying that the adultery of a beleever is no sin as beleeve sense that is the inditement of flesh and the unrenewed part it is true the devill can say truely as the flesh also the adultery of a beleever is a sin that actually condemnes for ever to hell and argueth the committer thereof to bee in nature not in Christ which is a lye both in the matter and specially in the end to cause a beleever despaire 2. The sense and apprehension of a beleever that saith adultery in him is no sin because it was pardoned before it was committed is as false as the Devill Now the light of faith saith the contrary the Word of God saith adultery in justified David is sin but the inference and logick of the flesh is not to be beleeved therfore David is not in Christ and so farre sense is not to be beleeued 3. Antinomians know no sense but the sense and inditement of the lying flesh which they teach men to beleeve when it saith falsely that the adultery of a beleever is no sin now no whorish mother will call her own childe a Bastard and it s no wonder that the flesh especially in the fleshly Antinomian plead for the Devill and sin but sense is taken in another meaning in the Scripture for the spirituall knowledge and apprehension of the Spirit as Heb. 5.14 The strong in Christ have their senses exercised to discerne both good and ill so the use of the spirituall sense is spoken of Cant. 2.3 I sate down under his shadow with great delight and his fruite was sweet in my mouth Cant. 1.3 Because of the savour of thy good oyntments thy name is as anoyntment powred out therefore the Virgins love thee Joh. 6.45 All that have heard and learned of the Father come to mee Here is the actuall exercise and use of the spirituall and renewed sense which we are to believe no lesse then faith and what this sense indyteth that the Holy Spirit in us indyteth and teacheth and that we are to beleeve Luther never willeth us to close our eares and to hear nothing that this sense saith to us 12 Conclusion Luther speaketh pathetickly of the slavery and impotency of our free-will by nature but no wayes to favour Antinomians and Familists who would have us blocks and stones in all wee doe and not to pray but when the Spirit acts us immediately Man cannot naturally desire God to be God for he would have himselfe to be God and God to be no God Non potest homo naturaliter velle DeuÌ„ esse Deum imo vellet se esse Deum Deum non esse Deum Luther in regard that the efficacy and successe of free-will as of all second causes is from God depresseth the creature to heighten God Tom. 3.103 Deus labore nostro utitur sâ—u larvâ quadam sub quâ benedicit nos sua largitur ut fidei sit locus God useth our labour as a shadow or cypher under which there is place for faith Luther meaneth of imperated acts of the will flowing from the corruption of a naturall man desiring to be above a Law and without God that he may sin without being awed of Justice or of a God but there is a naturall inclination going before acts of will and reason by which a naturall man desires the being of God in so farre as he desires his own being that he may subsist in God if we suppose reason to bee in no shadow we cannot think it naturally and simply would desire that the body on which it depends were just nothing or that the rayes of the Sunne would wish the Sun to be turned into pure nothing or the streames that the fountaine were nothing Luther The will of every man would desire there were not a law if it were possible and that it selfe were altogether free grace is necessary to friend the law and the will and the Gospel Free-will since the fall by a subjective power can be carryed to good by an active power ever to ill nor could the wills active but only its subjective power stand even before the fall or promove into good Luther Free-will is meerly passive in every act that is called willing because the will is nothing except it be pulled drawn moved which drawing having influence on the members and strength either of soule or body is the wills activity and no other as the drawing of the Saw cutting the wood is to the Saw meerly passive from the Sawer nor does it conferre any thing to the drawing by way of co-operation but onely being drawn it workes on the tree being more drawn then drawing which Sawing is called the work of the Saw with the Sawer when yet it meerly suffers Luther Voluntas cujuslibet mallet si fieri posset esse nullam legem se omninò liberam necessaria est mediatrix gratia quae conciliet legem evangelio voluntati Liberum arbitrium post peccatum potest in bonum potentiâ subjectivâ in malum vero activâ semper nec enim in statu innoceÌ„tiae potuit stare activa sed subjectiva potentia nedum in â—onum proficere Liberum arbitrium est merè passivum in omni actu suo qui velle vocatur quia voluntas non nisi rapitur trahitur movetur qui tractus redundans in membra vires seu animae seu corporis est ejus activitas nulla alia sicut tractus serrae secantis lignum ' est serrae merè passivus a sectore nec ad tractum suum quicquam cooperatur sed tantum tracta jam in lignum operatur impulsa magis quam impellens quae serratio opus ejus cum serratore dicitur cum tamen merè patiatur It is cleare that Luther makes us not blocks and stones in beleeving praying or other supernaturall works as if after our conversion we were mere patients and ought not to pray but when the winde of the Spirit bloweth faire upon the flowers and the Garden Or as if the person of the Holy Ghost and Christs grace were the onely formall efficient cause and principle in all supernaturall works and we truncks and stones and not to be rebuked as slothfull servants in sins of omission or commission Luther saith the contrary To. 2. in Gen. c. 24. f. 232. Antinomoi docent simpliciter omnia peccata sublata nec arguenda esse nec homines terrendos lege Antinomians say simply
Historicall Literall and Grammaticall sense but in the Mysterious Allegoricall and Spirituall sense is the way of Legalists who say they follow the Letter and know nothing of the Spirit but the Letter killeth and the Spirit quickneth Read Philosophy dissected and the peeces called Theologia Germanica and the Bright Star and H. Nicholas his Exhortations and Documentals and you shall find strange Allegories And Saltmarsh is as Monkish in Allegories as they 2. Antinomians tell us often of imputed righteousnesse which supposeth Christ was a true reall Man and God-Man in one person and that we are saved by the merit an satisfaction of his obedience and death imputed to us But Saltmarsh and Familists herâ— tell us Christ is a meere figure sampler document or example onely in which God discovers to us grace and love And all that is spoken of Christ as in that person not in that person really but figuratively as in that person that was borne of a virgin who was circumcised c. is spoken in figure of the whole nature What Was not Christ reall and very Man our only surety Mediator High Priest who offered a reall sacrifice for us Is he nothing but a figure and if Adam was not the first man in whom all stood and fell so that all have sinned in him neither can Christ be the second Man in whom all his sonnes are justified redeemed and saved But Familists deny that Adam was the first man in whom all stood and fell as Saltmarsh told us before and therefore Familists deny that doctrine of the first and second Adam Rom. 5. and 1 Cor 15. 3. It is a mystery that all that Christ did from his childhood to his crucifying death and crosse was a discoveâ—y of God by this Figure in the whole mystery how God is in all his and works and hath his times of Law-crucifying c. Was his crucifying but a discovery or a document of God by this figure The Scripture riseth higher He was wounded for our transgression he was bruised for our iniquity the chastisement of our peace was upon him with his stripes we are healed Esai 53. And him that knew no sinne God made sinne for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him as it is 2 Cor. 5.21 And in his own selfe on the tree he bare our sinnes 1 Pet. 2.24 The Familists make Christ a discovery and a teaching figure not a true Man The Socinians make him a Man but a meere example of patient suffering if we follow him his example will save us but they denyed he payed a reall satisfactory ransome to Gods justice for us 4. By Christs death say they God witnesseth to his people that he is their God and they his people by killing all their strength and life and power of the first creation and carrying it up to a more excellent and glorious life his own Spirit How killed Christ the strength life and power of the first creation Christ is but a figure and Christ but suffers sayth Gortine and dies in us when we who beare his Image For Man saith Saltmarsh p. 3 4. is created according to the Image of God which was Jesus Christ doe suffer and die for God cannot die And to this agreeth well what Saltmarsh saith p. 288. Others say he himselfe and Familists in opposition to Protestants who make Gospel-administration to stand in repentance faith sanctification justification 285 286. the mystery of salvation is no other then Immanuel or God with us Christ being no more but an anointed one and that anointed one is our nature or weaknesse anointed with the Spirit even God himselfe who is strength And this mystery of great and exceeding glory is revealed in peeces and parts and after the manner of men according to the infirmity of our flesh within the Christian in graces c. and in the Scriptures or expressions and formes without the Christian then is Christ crucified nothing but a beleever graced within with Gods Image And p. 283. he saith O how doth the pure appearance of God powre shame upon all flesh and fleshly glory Either by letter or by graces the day of the Lord will be upon all our Cedars and Okes. Now a Saint anointed is God manifested in the flesh to Saltmarsh and will the Lord powre shame on God manifested in the flesh or is the day of the Lord against Christ â—evealed within the Christian in graces and in the Scriptures without the Christian Then is Gods wrath kindled against grace within and Scripture without brave Divinity The Scripture saith not that Christ on the Crosse killed the strength life and power of the first creation that is Gospel-grace beleeving and God manifested in the Saints that is the new creature in them and the first creation that is as they say the natuâ—rall faculties of knowing willing nilling so as the holy Ghost and the Lord Jesus must come in place of these faculties and in us love feare beleeve rejoyce and we all our powers that we had in creation must be dead passive organs Industry Arts Sciences Tongues Labouring acting of Duties quite removed as flesh and corruption and we turned in all spirit See Rise reign Er. 1 2. For Saltm saith Sparkles of Glory 230 231. all other askings or seekings of God which are not thus in Spirit or in the will or mind of God in some evidence or pure work of the Spirit is but the askings of creatures as creatures All exhortations in Scripture to this duty as Seek yee my face Pray continually are onely then rightly effectually and properly applied and obeyed when the Spirit of God doth it in the Christian when the Spirit of God breathes in and reveals the will of God and acts in the duty or expressions and the Christian speakes in himselfe or the presence of others that mind of God and so the Spirit of God cloathes it selfe in flesh or letter or expressions as to the outward man If by a pure work of the Spirit Saltmarsh mean that the Spirit acteth as the principall determining moving acting cause carrying on the work so as our Spirit and naturall faculties of mind will affection have their own subordinate and inferiour active influence in the work the holy Ghost helping our infirmities it is good but this is no new light nor Familisticall secret of all Spirit but that which Protestants teach against Den and other Arminians old liers and new lights But â— feare a pure work of the Spirit is as much as the Spirit acts purely wholly only in praying and all supernaturall acts and the naturall faculties strength power and life of the first creation are destroyed and annihilated so as we are dead passive Organs doing nothing but the Spirit doth all as Libertines say Second causes work nothing but God as the soul of all worketh all in all creatures This is the secret and so the praying and all the supernaturall duties of beleevers are pure
right to heaven of which the Law saith nothing 6. The Law gives a reward as a due debt though not merit the Goâ—pel giveth a reward against merit CHAP. IX Of the threatnings of the Law and Gospel TOuching the third part as the Law is in strict tearmes divided from the Gospel 1. The Law-threatnings are on the person for the actions and for the least faile in thought word or deed but the Gospel-threatnings are rather on the â—tate then the actions or if they be on the actions it is for the condition and state therefore the learned Pareus saith that the Gospel as the Gospel hath no threatnings at all For indeed the state of the kingdome of the beleever fenceth him from the curse he is free from condemnation because he is under another King then the man that is under the Law As the man in Scotland is free from Murther which he committed in Spaine not because his act of Murther deserveth not hee should die but because he is a member of the state of Scotland and no penal law of Spaine can reach him in that Sate Pareus thus farre saith true that it is the Law properly that curseth and that the Gospel as the Gospel curseth not but is properly glad tydings For 1. He that beleeveth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is already condemned that is before his unbeliefe sentence is passed on him by the Law and the Gospel doth but ratifie the sentence For if we suppose there had never been a Gospel nor a Mediatour the sinner should have been a cast-away and sentenced man but now because he beleeveth not he shall not see life but the wrath of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abideth on him then it was on him before if hee should beleeve in the Sonne of God the sentence of the Law should be taken off the Prince offereth a pardon of grace to a man that hath 〈◊〉 hâ—s Sonne so he will accept of it he refuseth to accept of a Pardon and therefore dyeth rather for his bloud-shâ—d then for his not accepting pardon it would seeme among men too lâ—w a cause of death to put him to death for refusall of a pardon at 〈◊〉 the sentence was given out for killing the Kings Sonne onely he dyeth more deservedly that both he killed the Son and despised his Princes grace or rather his doome is aggravatâ—d and the chaines of Capernaum are made heavieâ— because they comparatively justifie Sodome and so the Gospel-vengeance is an addition to the Law-vengeance as he that dyeth of an extreame distemper of body and by a gracious Physitian may be cured but refuseth the medicine the distemper is the Physicall cause of his death his contempt of the art of the Physitian is the morall cause and a reason why he dyeth without the compassion of his friends and with greater torment of mind to himselfe Yea Faith is not properly the cause that hath any effective influence on so noble effects as are free pardon and free salvation farre lesse is it any meritorious cause Christ hath no joint causes with him in this excellent worke of saving a sinner unbeliefe is a morall cause non removens prohibens 2. The Gospel is an exception of grace against the Law for the Law saith He that sinnes shall dye the Gospel addeth except he beleeve or he shall certainly dye except he beleeve in him who justifieth the ungodly so that the Gospel saith Amen to the Lawes threatning and taketh them not off nor contradicteth them in their owne nature 3. What ever threatnings are executed against an unbeleever they are the Law-threatnings it s a Law-death that the unbeleever dyeth for all that eternally perish doe perish under the law and the covenant of works never man is lost under Christ if therefore the Gospel say Whoremonâ—ers Adulterers Murtherers Drunkards shall not inherite the kingdome of God this threatning doth necessarily presuppose a Law-state if they which doe such things remaine under the Law otherwise the Gospels intent is not that they perish but that they beleeve and be saved CHAP. X. Of Gospel feare 〈…〉 with Gospel-freedome to feare hell so wee 〈…〉 and punishment more then sinne for sinne is a 〈…〉 then punishment For 1. we are commanded to 〈◊〉 him who can cast both soule and body into hell 2. It s not a Law-spirit of bondage that some tremble at the word of 〈◊〉 nor for Josiahs hâ—â—rt to melt at the reading of the â—aw 3. Not to be affraid of judgement is a part of a heart rockie and hardened Though Felix his trembling at judgement did prove him to bee under the Law because hee feared onely â—udgement and judgement as a greater evill then sinne Nor is it mercinary to love the reward so it be not more in our intention then a holy communion with God For 1. Moses by Faith had an eye to the recompence of reward Paul set the garland before him as his end 2 Wee are commanded so to runne that we may obtaine to lay up a sure foundation that we may lay hold on life eternal Onely wee are not to make happinesse and our created blessednesse so much out formall end in running our race as holynesse and our objective happinesse which is God himselfe If Antinomians would difference betweene love of a hire and hireling love then should not Towne condemne the just nor can the Fathers under the Law be said to have served the Lord with an upright heart if they served him for hire which Satan judged hypocrisie in Job cap. 1. vers 9.10 See Psalm 73.25 Job 13.15 CHAP. XI Law-feare and Gospel-faith consistent NOr doth Master Towne and Antinomians inferre by good arguing because beleevers may bee stricken off sinnes upon the consideraton of Law-threatnings that their sinnes deserve not wrath as well as the sinnes of others as â— Job saith What then shall I doe when God riseth up and â— Destruction from God was a terror to me But it followeth not that therefore to obey God sub paenà for feare of the condemning Law is not free Gospel-obedience For it s most false seeing this obedience for feare of the desert of sinne was in Paul though he was perswaded that eternall wrath should never be inflicted on him as is cleare by his words Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord wee perswade mâ—n And we know if our earthly house be dissolved we have an house not made with hands but eternall in heaven 2. Law-threatning when Faith assureth the conscience of freedome from the wrath to come and love-perswading are most consistent For most cleare it is that Christ and his Apostles doe command and strictly charge in the Gospel So Antinomians erre who teach that the Gospel perswadeth rather then commandeth and reasons and argues us to duties rather then bindes and enforces and that holinesse and sanctification now is not such as is faâ—hioned by the Law of outward command but by
bloud he washeth us 4. Wee behoved to beleeve from eternity for wee are justified by Faith 5. All the justified have a reall union and interest in Christ to live by faith and wait on God in all their troubles by faith but though their be an union of love in Gods minde from eternity betweene the elect and God yet a compleat union betweene us and Christ without the Spirit and without any faith though it be boldly asserted by Familists is against the Scripture for then might wee bee borne againe and not receive Christ by faith contrary to the Scripture and be united to Christ as branches to the Vine-tree and not abide in Christ have Christ dwelling in our heart and not by faith contrary to Paul so might Christ live in us and we eat and drinke him as the true Manna have the Sonne and yet want faith contrary to the Scriptures All which or most of them prove that wee were not justified when Christ dyed on the crosse 6. All that are justified are unseparably sanctified and called â—nd the blessing of justification hath with it the receiving of the promise of the Spirit through faith and peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ accesse by faith into grace whereby we stand rejoycing in the hope of the glory of God glorying in tribulation patience experience hope but many for whom Christ dyed have none of these till they be justified by Faith the distinction of justification in or before God or to our own sense by faith will not help this for the Scripture no where speaketh of justification but by faith onely the meritorious price of our justification is payed on the Crosse but that is not justification CHAP. XIX Gods love of good will and of good liking a warrantable distinction NOr can wee stand to that Antinomian ground that in Justification there is no change of our state and spirituall condition before God and that God hath the same love to us before and after conversion and that it is a vaine distinction of Gods love of good will called amor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel benevolentiae and good liking amor complacentiae because God loveth because he loveth and for no cause in the creature not their most eminent works done by the influence of Gospel-grace But if this distinction bee right taken it hath an evident ground in Scripture We teach that the love of benevolence and good will is the liking free delight and choise of the person to glory and to all the meanes even to share in Christs Mediatory love and the fruits of his death in this love he willeth and ordaineth and layeth up good and happinesse for us expecting no payment at our hand the other love is onely denyed by Antinomians but without ground for this love of complacencie is of things not of persons and when we say God loveth his Saints for their inherent holynesse and delighteth in them for it we meane no other thing then that God loves the sparkles of his owne rarest worke his saving grace so farre as to make it a meanes to fulfill the love and gracious decree of good will of free election not that any new immanent act of love arises towards the person loved that was not in God toward that person from eternity but the truth is God first createth a lovely and love-worthy object and then out of that love that createth being and the lovely object hee goeth on to continue the former act of loving and delighting in that object and rendreth it more lovely Creatures cannot create the object of their love but find it created to their hand and expect to have some perfection added to them in an union of love with that excellent thing they love and they are often deceived and ever their love hath a cause and hire and reward in the thing loved Now when it is said that God loveth all that he hath made then he created his owne lover and his owne love 2. When hee loveth the chaines and bracelets about the neck of his Spouse Cant. 4. He there createth in his Christ a new rare piece liker to himselfe then the works of pure and simple creation this is not pure love but a continuation of his creating good will nor doth the creature engage God to love it but as divine love gave being to these ornaments of grace the inherent holinesse in his Bride so that the same love continueth it selfe in delighting in his owne worke 3. So he is said to love his Bride for or because of her excellency and beauty that he putteth on her and still he loveth his owne in Christ for his owne rare workmanship not that the creature was cause or begetter of that love and he crowneth his own gifts not our merits saith Augustine his owne worke not our worke for we are meere vessels to containe grace as grace and meere patients in this love and so he loveth Christs imputed righteousnesse in us and this righteousnesse imputed is not simply eternall but hath its rise in time If then Antinomians say we make our time-holinesse a cause and condition of eternall love they must remove this objection themselves for imputed righteousnesse which they make the cause of eternall love will stand against them more then against us For wee say both imputed and inherent righteousnesse are meere conditions no causes of eternall love and that not simply but as they are protracted and continued to carry us on to glory yea imputed righteousnesse is no more a cause of eternall love being onely a thing temporary and not eternall à parte ante nor inherent righteousnesse so must all these be expounded The Lord loveth the righteous The Lord loveth truth in the inward parts he taketh pleasure in them that feare him The Lord is ravished with one of his Spouses eyes with one chaine of her necke to him she is all faire and not a spot in her All these include not onely inherent holynesse but imputed righteousnesse and both have their use in time but can never prove that our time excellencie whether imputed or inherent is the cause condition reason merit or ground of the Lords eternall immanent and unchangeable love but the fruits thereof and the condition of its continuance And that our Lord loves us with the same love of complacency that is that he driveth on his chariot paved with love in sweet fruits of free election the same way with the same delight But that when the justified person whores swearers kils the innocent denieth the Lord Jesus as did Peter and David God loveth us as much as when they beleeve pray walke in all holy conversation and that God is not a whit displeased with the Saints for these sinnes because all his displeasure or revenging justice was drowned and swallowed up in Christs sufferings is to us abominable CHAP. XX. There
the state of justification a state of sinnelesse and absolute perfection and of compleat sanctification to which nothing can be added which is not possible in this life and then we should yeeld a scepter of highest royalty to faith 3. If the Law of Faith did free us from the Law as a rule of righteousnesse good works were not our convoy and friends to accompany us to heaven CHAP. XXV The Antinomians ground that God seeth no sinne in the justified refuted WEe judge it abominable to say that God can seen no Adultery no lying no blasphemy no cousening in beleevers though they doe fall in such enormities It is true he seeth no sins in beleevers as a just Judge to condemne them therefore but will Antinomians who deny that the Jewes under the Old testament and first covenant had a compleat and full pardon of all their sinnes say the Jaakob of God with whom God was in covenant in Balaams time and therefore that false Prophet could not be able to use enchauntment against them were capable of such a compleat remission as that God could see no iniquity in them God then must see some iniquity in Jaakob and no iniquity in Jaakob But sure God must as God that knoweth all things and as a Father see all the sinnes that justified persons commit But Antinomians deny that the sinnes of beleevers committed after they are justified are sinnes at all and so God cannot see them to be sins which are not sinnes but so we cannot see sinne in our selves except by the sight of unbeliefe which is a false sight And that is their meaning which I prove Because saith Eaton of that which is not there is no temporall punishment correction or paine forgiven sinne is not or hath no being before God Joh. 1.29 Therefore of forgiven sinne there is no punishment I assume But Davids Adultery Peters deniall all the sinnes that the justified yea of all the elect are say Antinomians pardoned and remitted before they be committed and taken away on the Crosse by Christs bloud then the sinnes committed by justified persons are no sinnes 2. To faith there is no sin saith Towne 3. There is no sinne under the raigne of faith 4. Nothing remaineth in a justified person that is sinne But that God seeth sinne in the justified though not as a Judge to condemne them for sinne is cleare 1. Hee seeth the thoughts a-farre off and knoweth all things and so must know evill and sinnefull thoughts 2. He forbiddeth Davids Adultery in the 7. Command and Peters deniall of his Lord in the 3. Command even after they are justified persons except David because justified have a dispensation to sinne under the Gospel contrary to the Word 3. The Lord rebuketh sinnes in the justified in David in Peter Get thee behind me Sathan 4. The Lord punisheth sinnes in the justified 5. He is displeased with them doe yee provoke the Lord to jealousie But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Sure not so as to condemne David eternally then there must be in God another displeasure for sinne by which he must see it as sinne then his everlasting displeasure 6. The Lord recordeth the sinnes of justified persons in his Word as of Moses David Peter John 7. He hateth them 8. Giveth his Saints grace to see and bewaile them 9. Directeth them as sinnes to his owne glory which hee could not doe if he saw them not as sinnes committed by his elect to manifest the glory and riches of his free grace CHAP. XXVI Confession required in the beleever TO confesse sinne in the justified cannot be a worke of unbeliefe I have sinned saith David 2. And forgivenesse is promised to the sinnes confessed by beleevers nor can it bee said that the justified may confesse their sinnes committed before their effectuall calling as Paul doth or that the Church may confesse their sinnes according to the unjustified and unregenerated number that are mixed with the visible Church because these truely as they make one visible body with the justified have sinned To which I answer 1. By the Antinomian grounds Pauls sinnes which he confesseth 1 Tim. 1.13 14 15. were pardoned before they were committed and so taken away as if they were no sinnes before they can be named blasphemy or persecution and so Paul must lye in calling himselfe the chiefe of sinners for hee could never truly say to God he was a sinner pardoned sinnes to Antinomians are no sinnes 2. Antinomians must say there were not one elect nor regenerated of that part of the Church of which Moses speaketh and Esaiah Daniel Jeremiah when the Church saith Thou hast set our sinnes in the light of thy countenance and our trangressions are multiplied before thee and our sinnes testifie against us which Antinomians can never prove and is a meere conjecture and manifestly false for that company confesseth Psalm 90. Who had God their God from everlasting to everlasting Vers. 2. and that saith Esai 64.8 But now ô Lord thou art our Father and who acknowledgeth God to be their hope and Saviour Jer. 14.8 Nor is it confession that we have sinned as Crispe saith to acknowledge that Christ hath satisfied for our sinnes 1. Because confession is an acknowledging what wee have done against the law of God that is to acknowledge not what we have done against the Law or what we are but what Christ hath suffered according to the Law and will of God 2. Confession is an act of sorrow expressed in words But that is an act of Faith flowing from joy and assurance that Christ hath dyed for our sinnes CHAP. XXVII The Law is yet to be preached to beleevers THe Law is yet to be preached as tying us to personall obedience whatever Antinomians say on the contrary in the covenant of works personall and perfect obedience was craved Antinomians judge that by the Gospel Christ hath done all for us which is most true in the kinde of a meritorious and deserving cause satisfying justice but they doe loose us from all personall duties or doing our selves or in our own persons so as we should be obliged to doe except we would sinne We thinke the same Law-obligation but running in a Gospel-channel of Free-grace should act us now as if we were under a covenant of works but not as if the one were Law-debt and the other wages that we sweat for and commeth by Law-debt Antinomians make all duties a matter of courtesie Yet would we wish 1. Preachers to extoll Christ and study Christ as their dayly Text and heighten free-grace 2. Preach Christ the garland crowne and floure of all duties 3. Presse duties as taking their rise from Gospel-grace and running as in a channell of free grace and into Christs bosome 4. Let people often know doing is no merit 5. That selfe-righteousnesse is
but a change of the endeavours to please God whereas before selfe was our God and an endeavour to turne from dead works 2. True repentance is sorrow according to God and hath acts different from Faith 3. To repent is out of godly sorrow to endeavour new obedience and amendment of life Faith is an apprehension of Divine truth to which wee give credit or an heart-dependance and recumbence on God through Christ 4. Wee are justified by faith never by repentance Wee thinke not that teares wash away sinnes Protestants speake not so 2. Nor that they make peace with God by teares they make way to sense of peace or awake us to runne to a promise the formall bottome of our peace in regard that the Lord promiseth to revive the contrite Spirit to accept broken bones to comfort mourners in Zion and wee thinke neither repentance nor good works proper and formall conditions of the covenant of grace but rather conditions of the covenanted CHAP. XXXVII How good works are necessary FOr good works 1. We call not these good works that are extorted by the terrours of the Law as a captive keepeth the high way because his Keeper leadeth him in an iron chaine Nor 2. these which flow from the sole authority of God as Lawgiver Or 3. which issue from meere morall principles without saving grace but these we call good works in an Evangelicall sense that not onely are done from the authority of the Law-giver but also from a mediatory and Evangelike obligation from the sweet attractions and drawing coards of the secrets of Christs love And 2. from Evangelike faith that purifieth the heart 3. From Physicall principles and supernaturall habits of grace good works are this way necessary 1. That as grace and glory differ not in nature but gradually as the morning dawning of twy-light and the noone-day-light so the good works done by the grace of Christ and that perfect love of God and our brethren in heaven are of the same nature different in degrees and the one degrees and waies to the other especially when from Gods free promise of the blessings of this life and that which is to come the Lord hath made a passe betweene the one and the other and the Lord hath tyed himselfe to himselfe not to us to carry on grace out of meere grace Every branch that bringeth forth fruit in me saith Christ my Father purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit unto every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance He that soweth to the spirit shall of the Spirit reape life everlasting There is a harvest promised to this sowing as to a speciall furtherance of our reckoning in the day of Christ hee that soweth bountefully shall reape bountefully yea sent once and againe unto my necessitie not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound to your account if ye through the spirit doe mortifie the deeds of the flesh yee shall live But being made free from sinne and become servants to God yee have your fruit unto holinesse and the end everlasting life Blessed are they that doe his commandements that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in thorow the gates into the city And lest we should think the commands are all but one only precept of beleeving hee addeth for without are Doggs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murtherers c. He that hath my commandements and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my selfe to him All these evidence to us that holy walking is a way to heaven as sowing is to harvest and that Christ maketh a promise of life eternall to him that doth his Commandements onely the question is in what tearmes the promise is made to the doer of Gods will as a doer or as a beleever whose faith is fruitfull and with childe of Evangelike doing But wee may say the formall promise of the covenant of grace is made to beleeving as the Law-promise is made to doing Legally and perfectly out of our own without grace and that the Gospel as it is larger then the covenant of grace and as it containeth the whole doctrine of grace taught by the Prophets and Apostles is a promise of life eternall made to Evangelike and unperfect doing through the strength of grace And that because 1. God commandeth good works through the whole New Testament 2. They are so necessary as without them our faith is a dead and vaine faith and cannot justifie us 3. They are the end for which Christ redeemed us that we should live to him bee redeemed from our vaine conversation from the present evill world that we should bee a purified peculiar people to him zealous of good works and in this title also they are commanded 4. They are conditions without which wee cannot bee saved For John Baptist taught this with the Gospel Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewen downe and cast into the fire What shall we doe to be saved receiveth this answer Repent and be baptized every one of you Except yee repent yee shall all likewise perish 5. They are commanded as acts of the new creature and partly as contrary to sinnefull fiery and mighty temptations of Satan and the flesh as mortification to fleshly lust faith to unbeliefe Partly as expressions of thankfulnesse for the free redemption in Christ and commanded in the Law in the great Commandement of the loving of God with all our heart just as this Law of loving God did oblige Abraham to offer his Sonne Isaak for God and Judah to be thankefull to God for redeeming them out of the Babylonish Captivity though the Law neither commanded any father to offer his Sonne nor the people to returne from Captivity yet the eternall Law of love commandeth both these and us to doe what ever God-Redeemer commands us as well as what ever God the Law-giver injoyneth onely we cannot say Good works doe merit salvation or purchase right to life eternall Christs bloud is onely so a ransome of life 2. Nor have they any proper condignity to such a high reward being so imperfect 3. Nor can they have any effective influence or proper causality thereunto nor are they causes or conditions of justification but that which Crispe saith is not of God But withall saith he I must tell you that all this sanctification of life is not a jot of the way of a justified person to heaven it is true they are not the meritorious the efficient cause or way nor the formall covenant-condition but a way they are as sowing is to harvest running to the garland wrestling to the victory CHAP. XXXVIII The Gospel is conditionall ANtinomians deny all conditions of the covenant
without the more forced and unnaturall is all such obedience and the lesse from a spirituall power within The beleever is saith Towne washed from all sinne made perfectly just and holy the friend and Sonne of God the Spouse of Christ the heire of all things the conquerour of all his enemies advanced to sit and remaine in the glory of heaven with Christ for ever and ever he is out of the power kingdome and limits of the Law he is one Spirit with Christ hence is peace securitie consolation joy contentment and happines of a Christian. Hee is a compleat man if wee beleeve Antinomians 1. The word preached though it dwell within him yet that it bee applyed by a Preacher from without is necessary and that Peter writ Stirre up and put in remembrance the Saints that Paul be comforted by Titus and that Christ from without blow on and act the soule to will and to doe and that Paul beseech Christ thrise and have a new answer my grace is sufficient for thee is most needfull 2. There shall be no ground of new emergent complaints to God And 3. of praises to Christ for particular victories over our lusts and the world 4. Nor any ground of spirituall submission and patience while the Lord be pleased to deliver And 5. of trusting in God and exercising faith in him who delivereth us from so great a paâ—ticular death as came on Paul in Asia and from heavinesse through manifold temptations if need be for the triall of our faith Now if all were within us and the obedience more violent and Legall lesse free and connaturall because we must goe to helps without faith needed not goe without doores or without it selfe to Christ and the in-dwelling Spirit should be one for all meanes and ordinances and new showres and bedewings and fresh drops from Christ the honey-combe of heaven should be uselesse our stock within should doe all nor should we know what it is to walke or stand on our owne clay-legs It s true if externalls and the Crosse or the Letter of Law or Gospel onely move us to obedience and there be no internall principle of grace within us then the obedience is but finer hypocrisie and lesse free and more violent and as it were forced But Antinomians imagine a beleever to bee so perfect because pardoned that the Spirit within him doth all and needeth neither Ministers nor ordinances because helps without are Legall not Gospel-like CHAP. LIV. What peace we may fetch from gracious performances THe Spirit acteth Legally say Antinomians when men measure forgivenesse by their sinne and sanctification and can beleeve no more then they have peace for and that peace dependeth on some of their owne performances in so doing saith Towne Legalists had rather gather peace and securitie from repentance and reformation of life then from justification which is onely effectuall to make and cause true peace But our minde is this Asser. 1. We are not to measure forgivenesse so by sinne and sanctification as the measure of pounds and talent-weights of pardon should arise from the like weight of pounds and talents of sinne and sanctification because great sinfulnesse and drames and halfe ounces of sanctification and love to Christ may argue to the beleever the pardon of tenne thousand talents Christ argued the woman loveth much ergo many sins are forgiven her we read not that this was the womans owne Logicke 2. We draw peace and pardon not from so many yards or ells of obedience as merchants measure cloth the Spirits consequence is not from the quantity but from the quallity of sanctification sparkles of gold may prove there is a gold mine in that ground and that in abundance nor draw we the consequence from sinnes simply but from sinnes hated subdued resisted Asser. 2. Peace with God or the peace of faith is not every way the same with peace with our selves and of our owne spirituall sense and apprehension Peace fundamentall and with God is solidly grounded on pardon Being justified by faith we have peace with God it s often so with the Saints that they have faith for pardon and yet no feeling for peace Asser. 3. We may have peace with God when wee have not peace with our selves as the covenant stands sure between God and us when we have great disquietnesse of minde either through some hainous transgression or present unbeliefe and it is not fit wee should have peace with our selves under some great sinne it is but carnall security if Peter after the deniall of Christ be quiet in Spirit and have deepe peace the disquietnesse of unbeliefe apprehending eternall wrath is sinfull but in regard of anxiety of godly sorrow its kindly there be stormes in winter when there are causes of them and faire Sommer-like weather is not so good for the season in Winter because not so kindly and sutable to a right frame of nature Asser. 4. Peace with our selves may arise from the works of saving grace but neither assurance nor peace can flow from naked acts of love and sanctification not quallified and goldned with Christ and his grace as Towne falsely slandereth us because such bastard works as are but white and comely sinnes and being in men out of Christ can but produce sandy and rotten peace but such acts of holynesse as essentially flow from heightned principles of soule-saving grace and are floured and crowned with Christs merits may bee grounds of solid peace though not causes and though some of our drosse still accompany our best performances yet may we difference in them Christs gold from our oare his wine from our dregs this peace is a heart not smiting but smiling and saying Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience c. and where there is joy there is peace both are fruits growing in the same soile so speaketh the Church with my soule I have desired thee in the night whence followeth Lord thou wilt ordaine peace for us Why For thou hast wrought all our workes in us But wee had not rather draw our peace from walking with nor from beleeving in God thorow Christ nor did wee ever meane that faith farre lesse holy walking should bee the cause of that fundamentall peace of peace betweene God and the sinner as Towne supposeth works are not fellow-mediators with Christ works had no bloud to interpose as Christ the peace-maker had for he is our peace works faith nor any thing in us were not actors nor commissioners in the treaty of pacification and the truth is the peace we have in our conscience and apprehension even from faith is the result the bloome that groweth on the stalke the floure or rose of Jesse rather then peace and it hath the right hew and resplendencie of peace because there is so much of Christ in either our faith or holy performances the rosie pleasant and
dreameth or that wee labour to draw assurance of a good spirituall estate from outward reformation which saith Towne Protestant Legalists labour for when the heart is naught Antinomians say that all our evidences are dung True they are not evidences of Legall perfect righteousnesse more they prove not Asser. 1. Love to the brethren sincerity and the like that have not grace for their stocke a right fountaine and principle the Spirit for their Father Christ for their Crowne and garland are no evidences at all that wee are in Christ for they rather darken then render justification evident Could wee looke over our selfe and abstract our thoughts from our selfe as if we were nothing and dead and behold the actings of grace and Christs love-raptures and the glancing of love on his members as on bits pieces and little images of a super-excellent transcendently glorious Christ and see these in the Spirit the worker then were surer inference to be made thus then when we eye our selves As beholding the excellencie of a Godhead in Sunne and Moone when we looke above the shaddow-creature and with senses abstracted and the elevation of the Spirit wee see these created excellencies in the deep and boundlesse Sea which hath no shoares nor coasts nor bottome in a vast and great God we are farther from Idolatry then when wee pore on and pine away in the minds restings in this side of an infinit Majestie and so is it here If it be naturall Logick and the light of our owne sparks that make the inference I love the brethren therefore I know I am translated from death to life it s but Moone-light of one halfe sleeping that is suspected to bee day-light but if naturall light by the day-light of saving grace make the inference it is sure arguing As And hereby doe we know that we know him if we keepe his Commandements and we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren 2. All these are equivalent to the same But if we walke in the light as hee is light wee have fellowship one with another and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Sonne clenseth us from all sinnes And He that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him And if yee know that he is righteous yee know that every one that doth righteousnesse is borne of him This is written for our own personall security and knowledge of our owne state as all the Epistle aymeth at this and not so much as we may know one another as is cleare when John sheweth us the scope of his Epistle is to give marks and I nothing doubt but the Holy Ghost aymeth at the discovery of a dead faith and to refute the Antinomians as is cleare These things have I written unto you that beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God that yee may know that yee have eternall life and that yee may beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God So saith he 3. Putting a difference betweene the children of the world and the children of the devill in this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devill whosoever doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither hee that loveth not his brother Then certainely some hath said in Johns daies It is enough to salvation if a man beleeve in Christ he is obliged by no Law nor Commandement that is outward and written to doe righteousnesse John saith such a one is not borne of God And My little children let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth and hereby by reall loving of the brethren we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him And Whatsoever we aske we receive of him because we keepe his Commandements and doe the things that are pleasing in his sight Now sure this cannot make the keeping of his Commandements and our good works fellow-Mediators with Christ. Then John must argue from the effect to the cause and intimate that its false that some may bee borne of God who keepe not his Commandements as Antinomians say When one that walloweth in fleshly lusts is to beleeve without more adoe in Christ and he is a saved man So saith John Little children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousnesse is righteous as he is righteous he that committeth sinne is of the Devill Then some have deceived themselves and others in saying That doing of righteousnesse was neither condition nor way nor meane to salvation nor any infallible signe of a mans being in the state of grace Now who saith all these this day but the Antinomian Now if Antinomians as they doe say that a discourse by way of a practicall Syllogisme or naturall Logick can produce no Divine but onely a humane Faith And that all Logick is to be abeted the carnall and corrupt discoursings by Logick that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God are to be abeted but that the use of naturall reason not corrupt should be disclaimed is against the tenour of the Old and New Testament in which there bee Lawes Ordinances reasonings practicall Syllogismes to beget faith to cause us slee sinne follow holynesse which no man can say is a humane thing except Antinomians following their old Masters the Libertines who said to lay aside naturall reason discoursing to know neither good nor ill was true mortification and naturall reasoning and knowledge of sinne or righteousnesse sense of ill doing or feare of sinne or judgement are but the tastings of the old Adams forbidden fruit as wee shall heare afterward Asser. 2. Yea we may know our selves to bee in the state of grace by holy walking and acts of beleeving and we may know our holy walking to be true by other acts of holy walking and beleeving so John saith by the loving of the brethren we may know we are in Christ and so that wee beleeve and love God and againe reciprocally By this wee know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his Commandements for this is the love of God that we keep his Commandements Then the loving of God that may argue that wee beleeve may also evidence our Justification and all dependeth on this as the Spirit joyneth the light and evidence of grace to cause us know our loving of God and translation into Christ by our loving of the children of God and againe our loving of the Children of God by our loving of God 1 Joh. 3.14 1 Joh. 5.2 Asser. 3. One and the same cloud that is the cause of our doubting whether we beleeve or no is not the cause of our doubting whether wee love the brethren or no and so they must furnish different evidences from a misty twylight or evening of desertion from some apprehension of the sinnes of youth often our faith is clowded
Holy Ghost and that none can doe these works in them but Châ—ist and the inference made from them are the reasonings of the Holy Ghost and the result is an infallibly assurance Antinomians thinke both they may be counterfeit works and the reasoning and inference from thence to be a worke of our owne Spirit onely We say of the Spirit of grace joyning with our Spirit as is cleare 1 Cor. 2.12 3. The inference say they breeds no certaine and infallible assurance but probable onely and conjecturall evidence 4 If these works were not done in faith and known by us to be so done I should grant they could give but an uncertaine and controverted evidence Antinomians say wee separate them from faith and saving grace and that thus separated they beare testimony that wee are in Christ which is a calumny of theirs not our Doctrine Asser. 6 The assurance of our spirituall acts resulting from our Christian walking is a mediate assurance collected by inference not immediate as when we see the Sunne 2. It is called knowledge and assurance in the Word 1 Joh. 2.3 1 Joh. 3.14 vers 18.19 but it is not properly Faith but sense therefore we doe not build assurance of justifying faith on works of grace Antinomians say that we make our works the pillars and causes of our Faith But the promise the sufficiency of Christ the free grace of God to us are the onely pillars of our faith and our works of grace are the ropes by which the ship and passengers are drawne to the rock that is higher then themselves but they are not the rocke they are not the formall objective Sunne-light by which we passe our judgement and determination of Christ the Mediator his sweetnesse and power to save nor the causes of the soules resting on the bloud of attonement as Sunne-light is the formall reason and medium without of our judging of colours and their beauty They are onely land-marks by which we may the better judge of our state and not the shoare the land-marke onely sheweth how neere wee are to shoare by them we know that we know and beleeve in Christ. Finally they are rather negatives against unbeliefe then positive evidences of faith and serve for incouragements that we cast not away our confidence For if I doubt of my state whether I be translated and in Christ or no I cannot but doubt of my actions if I doubt if the tree be a naturall Olive I cannot but thinke the fruit must be but wild Olives and when we shall be unclothed with our darkenesse of body we shall not need such crutches to walke by Faith for sight shall leade us CHAP. LVI How duties and delight in them take us not off Christ. HEnce Antinomians when they say we must not so much as see our good works for not to see them is spirituall poverty and we cannot see them but we must trust in them and build on them And therefore best remove such chalke stones and rotten foundations as holy walking and live loosely that wee sowing sinne may reap pardoning grace So they say I know I am Christs because I doe not crucifie the lusts but beleeve that Christ hath crucified them for mee And our sanctification when darke and lesse maketh justification brighter And frequencie and length of holy duties are signes of one under a covenant of works and so under the curse of Law And to take delight in the holy service of God is to goe a whoring from God And the Spirit acts most in the Saints when they endeavour least All these say to be rich in works of sanctification is to be poore in grace 2. To doe and act nothing and so sinnefully to omit the duties that the grace of God calleth for Tit. 2.11 is the way to have the Spirit acting graciously then sinne that grace may abound be sicke and exceeding sicke that Christ may bestow on you much Gospel-physicke To be aboundant in the worke of the Lord to delight in the Law of the Lord in the inner man to labour more aboundantly then they all to bee rich in good works are nothing else but to goe a whoring from God So Saltmarsh expoundeth these words I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me Such were yee but yee are justified but yee are sanctified c. That Christ beleeved repented sorrowed for sinne mortified sinne perfectly for me and this saith hee is sanctification and the fulnesse of his the All in All. Then to doe nothing my selfe but sinnefully to omit all duties and let Christ doe all is full sanctification and the lesse yee doe the more Christ doth for you Object 1. Christ saith not Peter be encouraged to beleeve because thou art an holy obedient loving Apostle But I have prayed that thy faith faile not Saltmarsh Free grace pag. 32.33 Answ. In that place he doth not shew Peter how he should know by such and such signes that hee beleeved but for Peters comfort and faith he sheweth him the true cause why he should not fall away to wit because his Advocate interceedeth for him Object 2. Christ saith not to his Apostles O my Disciples though I be from you yet yee have been thus and thus humble penitent obedient and let this be your ground and assurance when I am gone but hee layes in promises yee beleeve in God beleeve also in me I will send the Comforter Saltmarsh pag 33. Answ. We make no qualifications object or ground or cause of faith but onely signes to know wee have faith therefore might Christ haue said ye shall know yee love me and beleeve because you love those begotten of me 1. But we thinke though naturall sweating at duties setteth not the Spirit on edge to worke graciously yet to worke by the grace of God increaseth both talents and grace 2. Nor the frequent actings of grace nor the simply looking on them especially under sad houres to wine to our feet againe are ill but the abuses to bee avoided As 1. the comparative poring and the more frequent living on the comforts of our owne gracious actings more then on Christ himselfe and his death is as if I would live to much on a sight of a new created birth in my selfe and the Image of the second Adam when I have Christ himselfe to live on 2. Excessive out-running and over-banke-flowings of wondring at what is done in our selves by the grace of Christ cannot want a great deale of mixture of our selfe for we are not so found on acttings of grace in others and that is a token there is a selfe-reflection in the worke and that I sit downe and write of my selfe a hundred in stead of fifty 3. All comparative over-loving of created comforts must take the heart in so farre off Christ. 4. We should wonder more at the depth and height of free grace in the Creator and in Christ the well-head then in our selves for
was not in onely beleeving that GOD walked with God or the Sonne Christ with the Father for him as Antinomians say making imputative sanctification all in all that is required in us but also in Enochs personall holy and sincere conversing with men Hence that goeth as a description of the good Kings of Israel and Judah He did right in the sight of the Lord. Which includeth their conversation on earth with men as well as their faith in God So to walke as the children of the day As wise men not as fooles in Christ as we have received him and to live no longer the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God to have our conversation in the world by the grace of God in simplicity and godly sincerity All these and many the like hold forth necessarily a sincere walking before God as in his sight in our dayly conversation with men and the Antinomian doctrine in this is that though beleevers walke as carnall men serve their lusts whore lye cousen deceive yet they are strongly to beleeve that God seeth them not nor any fleshly and sinnefull walking in them God seeeth not their whoring lying cheating cousening to bee sinne and their beleeving that God seeth not their wickednesse is their living by faith and walking in the Spirit with God up in heaven as Enoch did 2. Nothing of beleeving Antinomians sinneth but their flesh as the Libertine said in Calvines time I sinne not but mine Asse the flesh the conscience the justified person that is in Christ sinneth not because the flesh is under the Law as Towne saith nor is this sinning of the flesh sinne because sinne essentially is against a commanding Law and cannot but in the sight of God be accounted sinne for God cannot seeing all his judgements and wayes are according to righteousnesse but account Adultery to be Adultery Murther to bee Murther but Antinomians say nothing that a beleever doth no Adulteries nor Murthers are sinnes nor can God see them as sinnes For how can the Lord see sinne saith Eaton where there is none There is no more sinne in a beleever then in Christ himselfe 3. It is no matter saith Eaton that we feele sinne and death still in us as if Christ had not taken them away because God thus establisheth the Faith of his power and therefore that there may be place for Faith we feele the contrary for it is the nature of Faith to feele nothing but letting goe reason shutteth her eyes and openeth her eares to that which iâ— spoken by God and cleaveth to the word spoken both living and dead It s true Faith beleeveth pardon and freedome from the guilt and obligation to eternall wrath which is a Gospel-truth farre from sense but faith closeth not its eyes to beleeve a lye that Adultery is no sinne before God because a justified man committed it The glory of God needeth not to begge helpe of a lye that it may be manifested 4. By this the justified man liveth and abideth as Towne saith for ever by faith in the sight of God But what haste The Resurrection is not past yet except Antinomians with Familists follow Hymeneus and Phyletus nor are the justified yet glorified they abide not ever under Gods eye sinnelesse and as cleane as Christ as Eaton blasphemeth to his everlasting shame for the Jebusite saith Towne remaineth in the Land the Law of the members and sinnefull corruption of the flesh dwelleth in them 2. They must say dayly Forgive us our sinnes if God be their Father else they neede not pray dayly Hallowed bee thy name thy Kingdome come c. 3. The flesh of sinne dwelleth with the Spirit Rom. 7. while they live 4. Death is not an imaginary lye and fancie so as Faith must beleeve the contradicent that is that beleevers breath goeth not out they returne not to their dust they are to beleeve sure beleevers see corruption Acts 13.36 Act. 2.27 28 29. 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. Then Antinomians cannot say true that there is no more sinne in beleevers nor any thing having the nature and being of sinne then is in Christ. 5. They are not yet enjoying God in a vision of glory as Christ did even in the dayes of his flesh for he was both viator and comprehensor a traveller to the Crowne and an enjoyer of the crowne and therefore though justified they must walke here below and cannot chuse but sinne though they be not forced to sinne as Towne saith CHAP. LIX How Justification is one indivisible act not successive as Sanctification and yet God dayly pardoneth sinnes WEe make no question but we are at once justified and not by degrees and succession as wee are sanctified because justification is a foreinsecall and Law-change or judiciall sentence of God absolving the person of the sinner from all punishment or obligation to punishment due to him for sinnes past present and to come according to the rule of revenging and Law-persuing justice and that for the alone righteousnesse of the surety Christ freely imputed and by faith received of him and the bloud of Jesus Christ shall purge you from all your sinnes in whom wee have redemption the remission of our sinnes in his bloud Now the Scripture no where intimateth a favour of free grace in purging us from sinnes by halves or quarters as if some were halfe washen halfe delivered from the wrath to come and halfe unwashen and half under wrath 2. There is no condemnation to a soule once in Christ and justified Rom. 8.1 then there can be no re-acceptation or second receiving of a soule into the state of a justified person from the state of an ungodly man as if he had fallen from the former state and there can bee no second deliverance from eternall wrath to be inflicted for a new committed sinne Yet doe I not see that one and the same justification negagatively because it is never retracted is therefore a successive and graduall worke that groweth more and more as sanctification doth for so predestination to glory which is negatively one and the same should bee a graduall growing worke for as no shaddow of change can fall on God so neither can Predestination be retracted Yet is there no cause to deny that sinnes are dayly pardoned and remitted as they are committed for God is said to remit sinnes dayly when he reneweth the sense of the once passed act of attonement and applyeth what he once did to the feeling and comfort of the beleever for we never taught that Faith is a cause or so much as an instrument or condition without which Christ doth not on the Crosse by the power of his bloud take away sinnes now he that denyeth that God by his Spirit reneweth the lively apprehension of this act of attonement must deny that a beleever can oftner then once lay the weight
any preparation to beleeve and relie on Christ for Salvation This we judge to bee presumption and in regard of Gods order simply impossible that they that say they see can see remaining such but rather bee blind and their sinne remaine that the wearie and laden and those that are judicially blinded and hardened remaining such and as such should be invited without any preparatorie sense of their damnable condition and of their neede of a Saviour and that both are invited equally of Christ to relie immediately on him for Salvation and are as such forthwith to cast themselves upon Christ is unsound For 1. Christ decreeth and holdeth forth the very contrary order and method of beleeving not the merit thereof 2. When he saith How can ye beleeve that seeke honour one of another He clearly intimateth that there must bee some preparatory abating of that swelling lust or then they cannot as such beleeve in Christ. 2. To beleeve now say they is the onely worke of the Gospel and Saltmarsh proveth it to be the onely worke this is the worke the onely worke hee must meane if he prove his conclusion That yee beleeve on him whom hee hath sent Joh. 6.29 This is the commandement that is the onely worke commanded in the Gospel That yee beleeve in his Sonne Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 3.23 Then nothing falleth under a Gospel-commandement but beleeving now I would hold Antinomians at this that nothing is a commandement or a commanded dutie but that which if we contravene it maketh us guilty of sin before God and in his Court if he would actually enter in judgement with us so then the Gospel as the Gospel commandeth not brotherly love meeknesse patience temperance and forbideth not rebellion to Rulers murther the hating of our brother adulterie robbing stealing lying idolatrie swearing so as these should be acts of obedience or of sinfull disobedience to God but as acts arbitrary and of meer courtesie and simply free to beleevers and to be done or omited onely as the immediate rapture of the Spirit without any commandement obliging to obedience rewardable or to sinne punishable by Law doth act and draw them for the Law forbideth none of these to a beleever who is under no Law if I mistake I crave pardon for I cannot make sense of their commandements but in this sense one thing I complaine of Antinomians by any sect They seeme to mee confused and obscure and to dissemble because they have not yet set downe in right downe ingenuitie that which I perswade my self is their minde that the beleever cannot sin his adulterie and his murther is no adulterie no murther except they difference between these two The beleever is free of all sinne as Christ himselfe and the beleever doth and can truly sinne lie murther deceive c. And between these sin is wholy removed out of the beleever no sinne dwelleth in him and the beleever daily sinneth nor are they plaine whether the Gospel command chastitie and forbid adultery and command the loving of our brother and forbid murthering and hating of our brother as acts arbitrary and meerly free or whether no Law command or forbid such things to beleevers nor any Gospel at all so as to contravene them were sin Yea nor so is beleeving the onely worke commanded in the Gospel for by their way faith is not commanded as a cause or merit of righteousnesse and life which we also thinke nor as a condition or necessarie duty at all more then other duties For the Elects sinnes were all removed either from eternity or their first conception or Christs suffering on the crosse Antinomians fall out among themselves touching this poynt so their unbeliefe and finall impenitency cannot be sinnes Nor can Christ as God or Law-giver command beleeving for the notion of Law or Law-giving under penalty of sinne and curses is contrarie to Christs Gospel-love so Christ must renounce his office of Law-giving and his authoritie as God to command faith and forbid unbeliefe and must onely as Mediator put on love and counsell and advise us to beleeve as one friend doth another so as wee have no command obliging us except wee would sin to beleeve for a command of love being contra-devided from a command of Law to Antinomians obligeth neither to sinne nor to wrath if it be disobeyed 3. If beleeving voyd of all working and such an empty faith be the onely commanded worke in the Gospel it is like John the Apostle so often commanding love to the brethren and forbiding hateing of our brother doth not act an Evangelist or Apostle but speaketh as a Moses and a Law-giver and that amongst the Lords Apostles who wrot canonick Scripture in the New Testament some were more legall preachers and leaned more to a covenant of works as Peter the Familists of New England should take in John and James for Saltmarsh saith they speake more for marks and signes then Paul who stood most for free grace yet is Paul as much to command some other works then Faith as Peter James or John 4. For the object of saving faith Antinomians looke beside the Gospel for Saltmarsh proving that Christ is offered to sinners as sinners saith none can be such a sinner to whom Christ and his blood may not be tendred and offered his words may beare truth that Christ and his blood may be offered to all within the visible Church elect and reprobate and so say we but consider his reasons 1. From the order of Gods decree saith he He loved us and gave Christ for us when we were sinners Rom. 5.8 God commendeth his love c. Joh. 3.16 God so loved the world And this offer saith he is an offer of that love with which God loved us from everlasting So then here is the Antinomian faith that all and every one immediately without sense of sin or any sicknesse for Christ be they Elect or Reprobate beleeve and be perswaded that God decreed to give his Son for them in particular loved them with the speciall love of Election from everlasting and hath satisfied and was crucified for their sinnes Sure this is not the object of Gospel faith but is a transparent untruth and a lie there was never any such decree nor such a love in God nor is it revealed in the Gospel that God decreed to give his Son to all and for all Elect and Reprobate and that God loved all so even the world of Elect and Reprobate as Christ speaketh John 3.16 and yet to all Elect and Reprobate is Christ offered Nor can Antinomians or Arminians say that the tender and offer of Christ and his blood to all and every one Elect and Reprobate within the visible Church is an opening and bringing forth of Gods eternall love of election to glory of all and every one Elect and Reprobate Salmarsh should not speake of poynts of Divinity of which he is as ignorant as a child
deliberation knowledge action from the soule in either supernaturall works of grace or sinne as if the soule were turned in a rock or a stone 5. All the sinnes of beleevers their Adulteries murthers lying cousening must be counted on the Lords score I tremble to speake it upon his honour be it if he will suffer perfect Angels to sinne more then he can suffer Angels and the glorified that stand before the throne to fall or transgresse CHAP. LXXII Glorifying of God in sanctification needfull ANntinomians tell us of a two fold glorifying of God one in the eyes of God primary immediate passive divine by faith in which God glorifieth himselfe in us justifying us Faith being the Creator as it were of a certaine divinitie as Rom. 4.20 Abraham gave glory to God whereas unbeliefe maketh him a lyar There is another glorifying of God that is outward more fleshly and humane secondary mediate in the eyes of men by good works in sanctification in which we are agents and glorifie God by the Spirit by which wee are partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 and it is done in a grosser manner by declaring God glorified before men by our good works Math. 5. and greatly inclineth to the glorifying of man by this Abraham hath to glory and rejoyce in holy works but not before God Answ. 1. We are not meere passive in beleeving for then should we not be commended for beleeving nor should wee know rely and trust in an all-sufficient Saviour in beleeving on him though there be a passion in beleeving 2. These enemies of Sanctification abase all holy walking and works of sanctification calling holy walking 1. glorifying of God outwardly and before men in a fleshly manner Whereas God seeeth it and acknowledgeth it in his owne sight sincere unfained perfect in its kind with perfection of parts not of degrees they would have all Sanctification finer hypocrisie I know thy works saith Christ to Smyrna and tribulation and poverty but thou art rich That wee might serve him without feare in holinesse and righteousnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before him all the daies of our life And whatsoever yee Servants doe doe it heartily as to the Lord not to men Commending our selves to every mans conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the sight of God Abraham walke before mee and bee thou perfect saith the Lord. How many of the good Kings did right in the sight of the Lord It s true our best works are polluted with sinne and in the matter of justification cannot endure the strict Law-censure of the Judge of the world if God narrowly marke iniquity But Antinomians are so at odds with holy walking that they will have all the sincere works of the Saints wrought by the grace of God to bee in their substance before God plaistered hypocrisie and yet in the justified these hypocriticall works are no sinne there being no more sinne in the justified nor any thing contrary to a Law which the Lord can see as a sinne more then in Jesus Christ. So here is holy sanctified and lawfull sinne and an innocent hypocrisie and holy and harmlesse corruption and flesh 3. A declarative glorifying of God in the eyes of men not of God must argue the beleever to be lawlesse and a Libertine before men and that he needeth not before men and in his conversation with wife brother children neighbours in his words promises covenants buying selling works of his calling doe all as in the sight and presence of God for if he walke rightteously in his conversation with men hee is behinde Gods backe the Lord seeth him not if he walke unjustly in fornication uncleannesse cousening lying God seeth not these to be sins 4. Why doe Antinomians exclude from works of sanctification the worke of beleeving Are we not to doe all good works in faith as well as for the glory of God and are we not to eat and drinke in faith Rom. 14. vers 22.23 are they not bastard works that come not from such a root as faith As the fruit is ill if the tree be ill and so we must glorifie God primarily immediatly in the sight of God passively in this declarative and active and secondary glorifying of God 5. The Antinomians exclude a third sort of glorifying God to wit in private when neither God seeth them nor men but they are done in a secret closet as praying praysing meditating and soliloquies of the soule with God almes given in private that men see not nor doe the poore know of it this is neither passive nor active glorifying of God and so the division is lame except Antinomians will have us comming with our secret prayers and almes to the streets and cause a trumpet to be blowne as Pharisees doe 6. The gloryfying of God by men that see our good works incline of it self to no glorifying of man more then Abrahams giving glory to God but onely as we either trust to our good works or vainely conceit we are justified by our good works and then being abused they incline to glorifie men and make us vainely rejoyce and boast in them before God So if Abraham should thinke his act of beleeving were his onely righteousnesse before God his beleeving in God should be as fleshly a glorifying of man as any his works of Sanctification CHAP. LXXIII Sanctification concurs as well as Justification to make Saints THough Sanctification say Antinomians make men Saints declaratively to men-ward yet the true cause that makes them Saints in the sight of God is justification To this wee say 1. Take Sanctification as Eaton and Saltmarsh and Denne say Protestant Divines whom they are pleased to call Legalists doe for such holinesse as they say is in Anchorits Eremits and Monks for externall works done without faith it makes men neither Saints before God nor men but meere faireded hypocrites such a sanctification wee disclaime But take Sanctification for holy walking in the strength of the grace of justification and grace inherent in us so we say Justification and Sanctification ought not to bee separated but both concurre to make us Saints the one as the cause the other as the unseparable effect And most false it is that Eaton saith That Sanctification is so farre from being the cause of making us Saints to God-ward that properly it doth but declare that we are Saints to man-ward for so Antinomians make Sanctification nothing but a poore shaddow like an Yvie bush that is no cause of wine but a meere signe to declare and shew in this there is wine Now sure by Sanctification we are partakers of the Divine nature and the Spouses beauty not onely in regard of imputed righteousnesse but also a holy and sincere walking and blamelesse profession of the truth in a chaine of the Spouses necke and in her personall acts of praying and praysing and the sweet ministery of the Gospel in regard of
make the Law a meere dead Letter and the Gospel all Spirit and to free us from the Letter of all Scripture And Saltmarsh upon this ground of the free working of the Spirit of Adoption freeth us from outward Commandements Covenants Vowes as if the Word or Scripture and the Spirit were two contrary and different things and the one not harmoniously subordinate too and complying with the other CHAP. LXXVII Antinomians and Libertines foule opinions touching God and the Author of sinne Paral. IX LIbertines said There was but one Spirit in the world that lives and moves and acts all things in stead of our soules yea and in all creatures And that God was the Author of all good and ill sinne and righteousnesse because hee workes all our workes in us and the Creature workes nothing and that sinne was but an opinion the Devils and Angels but motions And so taught David Georgius That Devils were but ill motions and the good Angels are but qualities and motions of mens minds And the same is like unto the minde of New England Familists who say That in conversion the faculties and workings of the soule are destroyed and instead of them the Holy Ghost yea and in place of all love and graces Christ himselfe comes in and Christ incarnate and made flesh is in every beleever Now Randell the Familist and Antinomians hath prefixed a commendatory Preface to a peece called Theologia Germanica which saith That all good is onely God and he maketh no difference betweene created and uncreated good and God becommeth all things in man nor is there any thing that can challenge to it selfe being or goodnesse that true Christ is in man and that the true and perfect God and true and perfect man are one and man doth so yeeld and give place unto God that where God himself is there is man and that God also is there present and works his alone and does and leaves undone any thing without any I to me much or the like where these things are and exist there is true Christ and no where else And he that is illuminated with the eternall love is a divine and deified man And the Author of the Bright starre set out by Randell also Nothing is or hath being but God and his will And God is all the creature nothing Man is nothing because he is not good nor infinite being and good are convertible They say The Devils and Angels also are nothing If any say that I cannot impute any such opinion to our Antinomians But 1. Antinomians confute them not but still come up to all that the Libertines of New England hold 2. They never refused Randell the Familist to bee theirs but Antinomians are his constant hearers and Disciples 3. Archer and many Antinomians say Sinne is nothing and God cannot hate it 4. I have proved they hold that the personall acts of Sanctification and sins of the justified are sins onely in the conversation to the sense to the flesh to unbeliefe and seeming to be so not in conscience not really not before God not truely not to faith 5. The Antinomians say that the Spirit acteth in the Saints immediatly and the Saints are meere patients in all their works because Saltmarsh saith The Spirit of adoption works not freely when men are in bondage to some outward circumstance of worship as time c. and they cannot pray but at such houres no Protestant doth teach any such thing but Antinomians thinke We are holden to pray at no certaine houre nor at any time unlesse the Spirit stirre us thereunto which is to make neither Law nor Gospel our rule of walking as if the Commandements in the Letter held out not any obligation to us to doe good or omit evill but the immediate acting of the Spirit were our onely rule so Saltmarsh The Law is now saith he in the Spirit and holynesse and sanctification is not now such as is fashioned by the Law or outward Commandement as if in the time of the Old Testament not now holynesse were wrought in us by a meere outward Commandement without the Spirit And yee may remember D. Crispes Argument to prove that Faith is no condition of the covenant of grace because its God onely who worketh Faith in us and beleeves in us as M. Towne saith We being meere patients and if wee beleeve not then God should breake the Covenant not wee because God doth not what is his part when he works not faith in us which is a strong Argument to prove that the Holy Ghost is the immediate and onely Author of sin in the beleever Because the holy Ghost onely by this reason without us works in us to will and to doe and keeps the beleever from Adultery Murther sinnefull non-calling on God not beleeving when therefore the beleever whoores murtherers repents not beleeveth not God is the cause and the onely cause thereof So Crisp saith The Covenant it selfe doth plainely shew that the whole performance of the Covenant lies onely upon God himselfe and that there is not one bond or obligation upon man to the fulfilling of the Covenant or partaking of the benefits of the Covenant And must not saith hee the fault or failing to performe the Covenant be his who is tyed and bound to every thing in the Covenant and saith he will doe it If there be a condition and there be a failing in the condition hee that undertakes all things in the Covenant must needs bee in the fault So he Now this Argument hath no strength but upon this Antinomian supposition that there is no tye no obligation lying on us to beleeve and lay hold on the Covenant as Esaiah saith cap. 56. and by faith to subscribe and signe the Covenant and to walke in the Lords Commandements and it must suppose that we are patients in beleeving and walking in Gods Commandements and that God onely worketh these in us as in stones and blocks and whether Faith bee a condition or a duty or no condition it is all one if God only worke faith in us we being dead and passive As Libertines speake and if God promise and undertake to put his Spirit in us and to cause us walke in his Commandements as hee undertaketh Ezech. 36.26 27. Jer. 32.39 40. Deut. 30.6 Jer. 31.33 34. Ezech. 11.19 20. Hebr. 8.9 10 11 12. And if Gods promise to worke in us to will to doe to walke in his Commandements to abstaine from fornication bloudshed lying violence oppression unbeliefe free us from all tye and obligation to these duties as Crispe saith then the Lord must bee the onely and immediate Spirit that doth in us beleeve mis-beleeve walke in Gods wayes or whoore lye for saith Crispe Must not the fault or failing to performe the Covenant be his who is tyed and bound to every thing in the Covenant and saith he will doe
in our selves but that the justified must be as free of all indwelling sinne as Christ Jesus or as the glorified in heaven and so absolutely perfect in our person and our works maketh all sanctification no sanctification before God and that inherent holynesse rendreth us not a whit lovely and acceptable to God more then if wee were wallowing in our lusts and serving the Devill contrary to the Scripture that saith That our sanctification is the will of God that our service is holy living and acceptable that God is well-pleased with our sacrifices of almes in Christ Jesus And that a holy and sincere profession and walking doth take the love and ravish the heart of Christ yea by this way we sinne onely in dishonouring Christ and in not walking in him contrary to the end of Redemption which calleth us to sanctification not in the sight of God but meerely declaratively for Eaton tells us that if any more be ascribed to Sanctification but a meere declaration to the eyes of men that we are healed we goe on with Papists and Bellarmine to make sanctification the onely formall cause why we are justified But the man is farre out Bellarmine and Papists say that God so farre accepteth works of inherent holynesse that without Christs imputed righteousnesse we are justified for these works we acknowledge that God for Christ loveth and accepteth works of sanctification and obligeth us to them by a command to doe them except we would sinne in omitting them but that God loveth and accepteth them as the cause of our righteousnesse in part or in whole in the matter of our justification wee utterly deny Antinomians would have all acts of sanctification meerely arbitrary and of courtesie and to come from no obligation of a command or Law and so that these acts being omitted are no sinne before God and being omitted they are but arbitrary no declarations we are not healed or discourtesies to Christ no sinnes against a Law and being performed God loveth them no more then he doth Adulteries or Murthers acted by justified persons Master Eaton ignorantly objecteth That God by justification shall place us in two contrary states of salvation and damnation to bee the members of Christ and of the Devill that God shall come short of his end of Redemption if wee be sinners in our selves then cannot the bloud of Christ clense us from all sin divers other things that are Characters of weakenesse and poore Divinity he objecteth as all his gang doth Answ. Sinners are taken two wayes in Scripture 1. For wicked men servants of sinne sinne having a dominion and Lordship over the party as in many Scriptures is cleare So we say not that we are both righteous before God and sinners in our selves we should then be both sanctified and not sanctified members both of Christ and of Sathan as hee objecteth But we take sinners in this for these that are sinnefull and have sinne dwelling in them and for such as If they say they have no sinne they are lyars and so the Scripture also taketh sinners Now Antinomians deny the justified to sin at all or to have any sinne dwelling in them because Christ hath washed away all sinne But ignorant men they should know that justification is a forinsecall and judiciall freeing us from all sinne that is from the Law-guilt and condemnation of all sinne and so all our sinnes are removed as a cloud are taken away as if they were cast into the bottome of the Sea but justification is not a Physicall washing away and expulsion of all indwelling and inhabitation of sinne and an introduction of the contrary habit as when heat commeth in the same subiect in the place of coldnesse light in the place of darkenesse whitenesse in the subject in which blacknesse did reside as Antinomians with Papists fondly conceit this is sanctification which is imperfect and graduall in this life not justification and so it followeth not that one and the same person because sinne dwelleth in him after justification but subdued and having lost his dominion is now both under the dominion of Sathan and also a member of Christ. 2. Christ obtaineth his end in Redemption which is to free the sinner from sinnes condemnation in justification fully and in sanctification by degrees not fully while we be perfected in glory Christ can well dwell in the heart by faith where sinne dwelleth as an underling but not where it dwelleth as a King and Tyrant in its full dominion which dominion is not removed formally by justification though the state of justification and the full dominion of sinne cannot stand together in the same person but properly and formally by sanctification It s true God seeth sinne pardoned and the sinner freed from the guilt but he seeth it dwelling in us not to our condemnation for the Lord imputeth it not and therefore it followeth not that the Lord both seeth us righteous in Christ and not righteous in Christ but onely hee seeth us righteous in Christ by imputation of grace and freed from condemnation and sinnefull in our selves by the inherencie and in-dwelling of sinne pardoned and subdued which is the doctrine of Prophets and Apostles delivered in the Scripture CHAP. LXXXIX Antinomians are ignorant of Faith to dreame that its Faith to beleeve against sense that our sinnes are no sinnes IT is the true nature and essence of Faith say Antinomians To beleeve cleane contrary to that which we see and beleeve in our selves if God hath spoken the contrary as if God were not able to abolish that sinne which wee dayly feele dwelling in us out of his owne sight above our reason sense and feeling The Mystery is this as for the Adulteries Oppressions treacherous Covenant-breach Lying that justified Antinomians commit Faith is to beleeve they are no sinnes before God against no Law but meere nullities in the Lords Law-court as Towne saith though Lying and deceiving reason beleeveth them to be sins for its true faith To beleeve the contrary of what sense and reason apprehendeth because God so saith and giveth his Sonnes bloud to cleanse us from all sin and sweareth the same But this is a dead false lying faith of Antinomians 1. Because the light of faith discovereth the sinnes of a justified person to bee hainous provocations of the majestie of God so David I acknowledge my transgression and my sinne is ever before me And the Church For our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them And Paul in the New Testament I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good And I find then a Law that when I would doe good evill is present with me And I see another Law in my members rebelling against the Law of my minde and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sinne which is in my members these three words 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know I find I see rebellion and sinne in me were words that came from the light of Faith not from lying sense And Faith and a sight of God can discover more corruption to Esaiah Job to Paul to the woman that washed Christs feet with teares then reason can reveale to them 2. Faith doth not stupifie the conscience to blot out all sense of sinne out of it its true the Libertine Pocquius spake in the stile of Eaton◠now we are quickned in the second Adam Christ through seeing sinne in our selves no more because it is dead But the second Adam commeth in the soule with a candle to make us see and know and feele by the light of Faith sinne which was hidden before 3. The Antinomian dead faith is against confession of sin because we must know and beleeve we have sinne if we confesse it this was Gods challenge to a heardned people Yet thou sayest because I am innocent surely his anger shall turne from me Behold I will plead with thee because thou saist I have not sinned This is that which the Lord commandeth onely acknowledge thine iniquity Antinomians say lying sense and corrupt reason knoweth iniquity but Faith is as blind as a Mole and seeth no sinne in the beleever 4 This faith of Antinomians is repugnant to the godly shame confusion and selfe-indignation that the justified man in Scripture beareth against himselfe for sinne The want whereof is the Whores forehead that cannot blush and therefore must Faith see and know sinnes that are the cause of shame 5. This lying faith is to beleeve that Adultery and Lying to come as well as the past sinnes are pardoned and abolished and so that they are no sinnes before ever they bee committed what feare then what holy care what challenges of conscience can be required to an Antinomian lying faith to eschew and feare these sinnes ere they be committed For its the act of lying sense say Antinomians to apprehend them as sinnes then sure they cannot lawfully be apprehended as ills to bee feared and eschewed if it bee a lying apprehension to thinke that that is a snare to my feet which is no snare at all but a boggle to affright a childe it must be a lying apprehension to conceive that a fancied snare to be an evill to bee shunned and declined If the Whore be no Whore the Antinomian needs not eschew the going neere her house for feare the house fall on him as Salomon intimateth Prov. chap. 5. And surely the justified Antinomian may goe on in Adulteries and blouds before he act them and feed his lusts without feare for if he conceive these to be sinnes it is his lying sense and deceiving reason for faith is to beleeve the just contrary that they are no sinnes and so not to bee eschewed as sinnes because an antedated pardon doth no lesse abolish their being and nature before they bee committed in which case they are remitted and so nullities and shaddowes before God then a pardon doth utterly abolish their being when they are committed in the Antinomian way CHAP. XC Antinomians free all converted or non-converted from obligation of obedience or practise of Christian duties ANtinomians cry out against Preaching of duties as a Legall way and destructive to Gospel-preaching of Christ and Faith 1. Because there bee no acts of Sanctification commanded in the Gospel so as the beleever sinneth either in omitting these duties or in doing contrary to them I appeale to all their writings for any such Commands either of Law or Gospel 2. They cry out against Preaching of duties as Legall preaching without any limitation wee cry out as much as they against this Preaching in an unjust way 1. If duties be preached without Christ and not issuing from the grace of Christ. 2. If they bee more Preached then Gospel-grace and free Redemption in Christ. 3. If duties as conditions of the Covenant of Works as parts conditions or causes of our justification are fellow-saviours with Christ be pressed 3. It will be found they free the unconverted from all doing or eschewing of sinne because they can doe nothing out of faith and out of saving principles of grace So Saltmarsh adviseth the troubled in spirit onely to beleeve immediatly everlasting love without any foregoing humiliation desire of the Physitian sense of sinne or setting on any duties Much like the Familists of New England who say that the Spirit acts most in the Saints when they indeavour least as if our doings desire sense of sinne going before conversion did so much the more hinder conversion 2 Nor can our impotency to doe good without the grace of God loose us from an obligation of doing our dutie seeing the omitting of these duties in the substance of their acts is a greater sinne then the doing of them for so the unconverted should not sinne in not giving to the poore because they cannot give it for God nor in abstaining from murther because they cannot abstain out of sonly feare or in not praying because they cannot pray in faith whereas Peter Act. 8. commandeth Simon Magus to pray though being in the gall of bitternesse hee could not pray in faith 3. The converted so should be under no obligation to pray heare beleeve but when the Spirit wrought actually in them to will and to doe for without such an actuall influence they can doe nothing CHAP. XCI How and for whom Christ intercedeth in Heaven ANtinomians hold that Christ advocateth at the right hand of God for the unbeleeving and unconverted elect as well as for beleevers onely Christ intercedeth not say they for the manifestation of the purchased Redemption to the elect not converted It s true the purchased Redemption and bloud-shed of Christ is for the elect as well not converted as converted But Antinomians goe on another ground that sinners are justified and pardoned before they be converted and beleeve But the Scripture knoweth not any intercession of Christ but for applycation of the purchased Redemption 1. Because Christ liveth againe that hee may bestow the blessings of his Testament actually upon his friends Christ confirmeth his owne Testament which no other dead friend doth and the goods of his Testament are peace Joh. 14.27 The sprinkling of the Conscience from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.14 15 16 17 18 19 20. As Moses sprinkled the booke and the people the Tabernacle the vessels 19.20 So that Christ as our high priest is entred into heaven as a sprinkler Now he is no sprinkler to the unconverted 2. The thing he prayeth for as intercessor is the not failing of the faith of the Saints and he liveth to save the commers to God through him that is the beleevers and is touched with our infirmities and that we should hold fast our profession and by him as intercessor We have boldnesse
to Sir Tho Fairfax the Generall An. 1646. Nov. 25 a Del Ser. pa. 3.4 b Den Doâ—â— Joh. Baptist pag. 51.52 The knowledg of both actuall and eternall remission was no Article of the Jewes Creed M. Del is ignorant of his owne â—ext and followes a â—ocâ—â—â—an and Popish seâ—se c Pag 3. Del of the 〈◊〉 minde and his Antinomians with Papâ—sts Soâ—iniâ—ns and 〈…〉 the faith of the â—ewes in the old Tesâ—ament and â—urs in the new d Pag. â— e Pag. 4. â— Pag. 6 Pag 7. f Epistle to the two daughters of Warwick Sect. â— h Epist Sect. 5 Sect 7. Sect. 10. i H. Nicholas Epist. 〈◊〉 10 k Del. Sect p. 6 pag 7. l Epâ—st Sect. 27 m See Blesdikiuâ— Histor. Dav. Georg. pag. 20.21 ar 1.2.3 4. Del for the fashion onely requireth an outward reformation i Theol. Ger. cap. 28. p. 71.72 k H. Nicholas Epist. sect 8.9 l Del Serm. p. 6. m Del Serm. pag 5. n Pag. 6. Del rejecteth all outward worship Scriptâ—re Preachiâ—g Hearing Ordinances Seals as Familists Libertines did before him Pag 6. p Rise raigne er 1.2 q er 49. r Er. 14. s Er 21. er 36. er 59. t Er. 4.5 u Iam. 4.8 x Ephes. 4.29.30 31. y Ephes 5.3 4 5. z Ephes. 5.5 6.7 Col. â— 3.5.6 1 Cor. 6.9 10 a Bullingeros advers Anabapâ—is lib 1. cap. 1. Doceb it The. Muncerus Concionâ—tores qui illis temporibus praedicaâ—ant neque â— Deo missos neque verum Dei verbum pâ—â—edicâ—re sed esse Scribas prâ—edicare tantum mortuâ—m Scripturae literam extâ—r umque verbum non esse verum Dei verbum sed solum testimonium veri verbi hoc autem intâ—râ—um celeste esse immediate ex ipso Dei ore prodire hoc interius doceri oportere non autem Scripturlâ— concionibus Baptismum aquae vilipendâ—bat infantium a Deo non esse Somnia ut inspirata a Spiritu sancto dicebant voluntatem Dei esse borum meritricium Diaboli prosibulum esse verum torum et impollutum Cap. 2. Celestes quasdam revelationes visiones jactabant b Calvin advers Liber in cap. 10. pag. 442 Verbum Dei Spiritum esse aiunt quia Dominus ait veâ—ba quae loquor Spâ—râ—tus vita sunt Pag. 441. Verbum Dei nihil aliud quam Spiritum esse similiter Christum esse Spiritum nosque cum ipso spiritus esse oportere vitam etiam nostram spiritum esse debere c Pag. 141. Scripturam in naturali sensu suâ— acceptam Literam mâ—râ—uam esse atque oâ—cidere ideoque missam esse faciendam ut ad spiritum vivificantem veniamus d Bullinger advers Anabap Lib. 2. ca. 4. Statuebant Pedobaptismum magistratum jus-jurandum esse res liberas medias exterâ—am praedicationem sacros coetus Sacramenta nihili faciebant fideles omnes eum habeant Spiritum externis signis non indigere Liberum esse fidem confiteri Si gravia pericula vrgent tum posso sideles dissimulare ac sacere satis enim esse coram Deo si quis veritatem in corde retinent etiamsi extâ—rius coram hominibus contrarium faciat d Ephes. 5.15 e Col 26. f Mat. 10.32 g 1 Cor 14.32 33 40. Col. 2.5 h 1 Thes. 5 23 How Ecclesiasticall and externall Reformation is spirituall not carnall Externall and Spirituall reformations are not contrary Dâ—l removeth with fleshly Libertines all the working of second causes The covenant of grace and the Gospel commandeth externall as well as internal holines and refâ—rmation whatever Del and Familists say on the câ—â—trary k Honey comb c. 3. p 25. l Towne asser pag. 77. m Saltmarsh Free grace pag â—40 n Calvin adv Libert ca. 18. pag. 45â— o 1 Cor. 4.15 1 Tim 4.16 Dels Argument for onely internall reformation is against all the Ministery and Ordinances of the Gospel as the Swink feldiaâ—s of old and the â—eekers now teach p Bullinger advers â—â—abapt lâ—b â— cap. 9. Del. Del proveth that there is a difference betweene internall and externall Reformatiâ—n which is not in question but not that extâ—rnall Reformation appâ—râ—aineth not to the Gospel q H. Niâ—â—ols Epist. to the daughters Sect. 1. r H. Nicholas Evang. cap. 8. Sentence 3. s Assembly of Divines of both Kingdoms at Westminster cap. 26. art 1. art 3. Del holdeth with Familists that Gods nature dwelleth in our flesh t Rise raigne er 21. u Bright Star cap 19. pag. 225 226. x Pag. 19 pag. 244. y Saltmarsh 〈◊〉 gâ—ace â—ag â—40 z Del. Ser. pa. 2â— Beleevers are no more in need of preaâ—hing or outward râ—formation saith M. Del thâ—n the Aâ—gels in heaven a Rise raigne er p. 59. â—r 3. b Ibid. â—rt 1.2 c Pag. 90. art 5. d Calvin Instruct advers Libert cap. 22 pag. 458. e Towne asser of grace pag. 158.159 f Saltmâ—rsh Free grace pag. 140. g Theolog. Germâ—nica p. 28.71.72 h H. Nicholas Epist. Ser. 6. p 7.10 i Bright Stâ—r cap. 2. p. 11. k Bâ—ight Star cap. â— p. 13. Bâ—â—ght Star cap. â—â— pag. 106.107.118 109. â—10 Externall Reformation constant in its owne kind as well as inward Del with Libertines mâ—ke it 〈…〉 aâ—tempâ— to Redâ—em and save 〈◊〉 m Calvin Instruct advâ—rs Liber cap. 13 ca. 14 15.16.17.18 pa. 44â— 446.447 c. Covenant of the thrâ—e kiâ—gdomes Art 1. M. Del with other Familists mâ—rre all use of meanes ceaseth â—f God decries absolutely n Rise raigne Er. 64. o Isa 6.8 9 10 Ezech. â— â— 5. ch 3 4 5 6 7. Math. 13 â—4 15. Math. 21.40 41 42. Ioh. 9.39 ch â—â— 37 38. Act. 28 2â— 25 â—6 Rom. 9.30 31 32. ch 10.14 15 16 17. ch 11.5 6 7 8 9 10. p Rise raigne Vnsavory spâ—eches pag. 19. er 4. q R monstr in Script Synod art Object 4. Infringit praecipuas rationes pietateni promo ventes quae sumuntur ab utili inutili periculoso facili ergo inanes preces Art 1. in expos cap. 9. ad Rom. pag. 90 91. c. r Calvin advers Libert ca. 13.14 c. pag. 445.446.447 s Theologia Germanica ch 4. pag 8. t Theol. Ger. ch 55. p. 158.159 u Bright Star c. 8. p. 69.70.71 x Bright Star c 8. p. 72. Del and Familists seem to extoll the word but they intend to extoll an Enthysiasticall Spirit Del Saltmarsh Familists and Antinomians deny the Scriptures to bee the Word of God and call it a dead Letter as Libertines doe y Rise raigne p. 61. art 27. The Antinomian Spirit cannot Dyte Scripture The immediately inspiring Spirit in Prophets and Apostles is a Spirit or acting of God farre different from the Spirit of Sanctification in all Saints Antinomians by the Word of God meane the Spirit of God and the inward word as Swinckfâ—ld taught them y Free grace 151. The spirituall word of Dav. George and of the Antinomians one and the same a Bullinger advers Anabapâ—ist lib. 2. cap. 15.