and order he can call his but the substance of all is theirs as to Justification by works and from them in common with the Socinians and Arminians as to Justification by Faith as an Act or Worke. This I could easily make evident by affixing but marginall quotations of those Popish and Arminian Authours to this Worke whom in every particle hee followeth as having spoken the same things before him if I had now that which once I had that which might be called a Library By how much the more I admire some that make their concourse confluence to him from all parts as to an Oracle to learne from him that which at home by their owne fire Eckins Hosius Vega c. or the more ancient Schoolemen before them or Beâ—â—arminâ— with the Jesuits and Arminians since them would have taught them more at large or which besides other hundreds of our Divines one Chamier in his 3 Tome of his Panstratia would have given them to understand at large together with a large and full confutation of all as to the Papists Yet see with what confidence Mr. Baxter speaketh It is most clear and beyond all dispute c. What is so cleare that our proper compleat and actuall justification c. This is cleare by Scripture Yet neither hath he alleadged or can alleadge any one Scripture that tels us of or teacheth any such justification The Papists tell us indeed of a two-fold Justification but both in this life They say Christs judgement or sentence or our account and reckoning not our justification shall thus pass in the last day The Arminians indeed say as Mr. Baxter and hee hath learned to speake as confidently as they proving as little as they Now what boldness is it to call that from a pretended cleare testimony of Scripture our Actuall most Proper compleat Justification which the Scripture doth in no place call or bid us to call Justification in any sense or con-consideration we would grant to Mr. Baxter the use of his owne Phrase and use it with him if he would understand by the Justification in the day of Judgement onely either the publication and open declaration of the justification before given and received or the conferring on Believers the Glorious and eternall fruits above of their justification here or their exemption from the sentence of vengeance which shal be then pronounced against from condemnation which shal be then executed upon the unbelieving world in which sense it is sometimes indeed in Scripture called our Redemption and the day of Redemption to the Saints which to the world will be an evill day a day of judgement But this will not satisfie him and the Scripture grants no more so that we cannot please him without displeasing God Againe when he saith our most Proper Justification will be at the great Judgement according to our workes and according to what wee have done in the flesh whether it be good or evill Doth he meane first that the measure of our justification wil be according to the measure of our works great works and a great and full justification a little Treasury of workes and a little corner of justification This agrees not with his owne phrase in tearming it a compleat justificacation Nor will it cohere with the definition that he gives to this justification Thes 39. making it to consist in Gods acquitting from the Accusation and condemnation of the Law This Act of God or of Christ doth not recipere magis minus hee that hath more works cannot be said to bee more or he that hath less to be less acquitted but iâ— at all acquitted then compleatly acquitted acquitting and not acquitting being contradictories that admit of no medium but the one or other must stand in all its force Or 2. doth he mean that the being or not being of justification doth follow the being or not being of our Works no works and no justification but if works then justification will it not hence necessarily follow both that many which have died in Christ shall be condemned viz. all that after their union to Christ by the Spirit departed out of this life before they had time and oportunity to doe such works as Mr. Baxter after instanceth and many that never believed in Christ never were in Christ shall bee justified by Christ in the last day viz. such as have lived and died such as the Apostle Paul was before his conversion touching the Righteousnesse which is by the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 6. and that of sincerity in opposition to hypocrisie and vaine glory walking in all good Conscience before God As for faith in Christ hee doth not heere touch upon and Acts 23. 1 whether any of his reasons which hee brings to confirme his Thesis will infer it we shall see in examining them 3. When he saith that Christ at that great Assize will not give his bare will of Purpose as the reason of his proceedings c. Let him say whether his intent in this passage were not to cast an Odium upon the Protestants as if they so taught And except hee can produce any one man that hath so taught and hath not still asserted that the damnation of the damned shall be for their sinnes and the glorification of the glorified a free gift of God for the satisfaction which Christ hath made for them with reference to their being in Christ Let him confess that he hath slandered them 4. In the rest that is contained in this Thesis we finde nothing but contradictions his unsaying and gainsaying of what he had before said A little before pag 294 295. to destroy that interpretation of James which our Divines bring that when he speakes of justification by workes hee meanes the declaring to men by works the truth of their Faith and Justification the man is angry and cries out An usurped Judgement and Justification I affirme The World is no lawfull Judge of our Righteousnesse before God neither are they competent or capable Judges of our Righteousnesse or unrighteousnesse neither are works a certaine Medium or evidence whereby the world can know us to be righteous for the outward part an hypocrite may performe and the inward part Principles and ends of the worke they cannot discern Why was it that hee was so hot there against the possibility of manifesting to men the truth of our Righteousness It was against his Cause there to owne it Here contrariwise Justification in the last day must passe by workes to declare to the World not only the righteousnes obedience of the justified but also the equity of the Justifier and to stop every month from speaking against either And now the world is no longer an usurping but a lawfull Judge not an insufficient but a competent and capable Judge not onely of mans righteousness but of Christs equity in judgement and works are become a certaine Medium and evidence to manifest both to the world How comes this sudden change
the Author wisheth all Grace and perfections in the LORD JESUS Madam IT abides I know in fresh remembrance with you by whom and with what transcendent praises both of the Worke its Author the Aphorisms in this ensuing Tractate examined were commended to your perusall to be an Enchiridion or Manual still in your hand or rather a Pectorall and Antidote next your heart to defend it against errors and inward Anguish But so abundantly hath God enriched you with the knowledg of and zeale for that pretious Mistery of Christ that you quickly saw the Misterie of iniquity that lurked in it therefore cast it aside as unprofitable yea noxious Yet afterward finding some of the Ministers with whom you had acquaintance deceived by it you intreated me to take it and give you my judgment of the worke and my exceptions against some Mistakes in it And as the deceit was â—urther propagated so you urged me to increase my exceptions and now at length that which was not purposed at first is come forth to publique view an Answer to Mr. Brs Aphorisms Alas that wee are brought forth in such an Age wherein the defence of Christs cause is left to fools and carkasses of men the Learned and potent declinâ—ng the service that in the midst of our Civill or rather uncivil broyls one against another there should be found such as fall foule with the Grace of God and Merits of Christ also that to preach the Gospel of Christ purely after the example and precepts of Paul and Luther should render a man in the opinion of so many an Heretick but to follow Arminius and Bellarmine gets applause that we are forced to see men violent and using force to subvert not to enter into the Kingdom of Christ If this â—reatise shall by the assistance of Gods mercy be in any degree helpfull to cure this Malady they that finde or see the benefit are bound to praise God for you that by you as a speciall instrument instigating it came to see the Light Whatsoever weakness there is in it will redound to the shame of the Author not at all reflect upon you whose desire it was could you have attained it to have had the best Patron employed in the defence of the best Cause I expect that Mr. Br. will come forth and that speedily with a vehement Reply But whatsoever he saith I shall follow the precept of the Apostle Tit. 3. 10 11. He hath had a first and two hundred of Admonitions as they report which come from him which he laies as heaps of sand not answering any of them how should I follow the Apostles precept in not rejecting in having any thing more to do with him The present Worke had no other relation to him but as to the undeceiving of the simple which had received infection from him But if my beloved and Reverend Brother in the work of the Lord which commended to you Mr. Brs Aphorisms and hath made it long his work to propagate it through many Counties yea undertaken in the Western Counties to be the defâ—nder of all that Mr. Br hath written in that Book the performance whereof is by many Ministers there expected will take it up as his task to Apologize for him and affirm the Apology as in his name so to be his owne I shall in despight of all infirmities of mind and body so long as breath lasteth by Gods assistance Anti-apologize for Christ and that not in such an expression of words as I have used to M. Br whom I look upon as an Impostor but in such a spirit of meekness and Reverence as is meet to be used towards so pious and learned a Divine who cannot dares not against the light of his conscience hold any Truth of God in unrighteousness The Lord give unto you to keep your station firm in the Light and heat of the Sun of Righteousness that the splendor thereof may more and more shine into your understanding and the heat thereof more inflame your affections to the pure Gospel of Christ that you may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height And to know the love of Christ which surpasseth all knowledg and be filled with all the fulness of God This is the request of From my Lodging Decemb. 24. 1653. MADAM Your humble servant and daily Remembrancer at the throne of Grace J C THE PREFACE TO THE READER Courteous Reader IF thou knowest me as well as I know my selfe thou wilt also wonder as much as my self to see me appeare in Print specially in so Momentous a Cause and that against so formidable an Antagonist But the ground of our wondering may somewhat differ That which affects thee may be that a man of so despicable parts should dare to brandish a weapon though the Lords against so great incomparable a Champion as flesh and blood accounts him But the thing which affects me is that the Heroick Worthies of our Land hide their heads and Come not forth to helpe the Lord against the mighty Jud. 5. 23 but leave the defence of Christs cause to contemptible and unqualified persons for such a performance In excuse of my selfe against the imputation of rashnesse and presumption I can say Mr. Baxters Aphorisms had been extant full three yeares before I put pen to paper to except against him A strong expectation still possessed me of seeing something come forth against him from an abler hand When my expectation failed and I found his Tractate of all other that have come forth these many yeares most perillous and pernicious as destroying the very foundation of a Christians hope and comfort at length I thought it fit to do my endeavour for the undeceiving of some private Friends either taken or in danger to be taken in his snares not ceasing still to expect the publication of some work by others openly to vindicate the grace of God from his injurious warring against it At length having finished what I thought fit to be communicated privately to some friends and not with-holding the view thereof from any that craved it I suffered it to sleep many moneths in hope still to see a more learned answer to his worke What should I do more May not I justly say with David when all the armed Worthies of Israel either fled or at least shunned the encounter was there not a cause to stand forth for lack of better weapons with a sling and a smooth stone trusting in the name of the God of Israel whose grace this man had defied When the wise and prudent the high Priests Scribes and Pharisees oppugned the grace of God in giving Christ to be the justifier of Publicans Harlots and Sinners the spirit of Christ enlarged the hearts of the illiterate and vulgar to sing their Hosannahs and out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ordained praise to himselfe Nay if these should hold their peace the very stones should cry out
cannot deny but this opinion was first broached by Socinus and afterward promoted by Arminius But because Mr. Baxter hath taken it up from them end speaks it out in this his Tractate more in the full of the mouth than Mr. Goodwin had done as wee may see afterward Therefore to prevent the like imputation of Socinian and Arminian heresie to himself by his chafe against Mr Walker he affrights all from charging him therewith And yet howsoever he seemeth to decline such an imputation who seeth not that he will yea doth more readily take up a cursed Heresie from any of these learned Sophisters then a blessed truth from such ignorant and unstudied Ministers that glory in nothing but the foolishnes of Christs Cross and dare not to be wise unto salvation beyond the rule of the Gospel Hence he passeth to his third opinion which is wholly one with Page 54. the first in substance and a little dâ—fference onely made in the sound of words for the Question was thus propounded Whether we are justified by Christs passive Righteousnesse onely or also by his active The Assertors both of the first and of the third opinion answer both with one consent we are justified by both Onely Mr Baxter that he may shew his wit and force of his Sophistry that he can at his pleasure exauctorate any Tenet in Divinity laying it all defiled and dead in the dust to be trampled under foot and then give it a resurrection with a new body to shew it self as an eminent and orient Pearl to adorne Christian Religion doth annihilate and vilifie it in one sound of words and after Cannonize it in another And what is the difference betwixt the opinion which he spewes out as filth and garbage and that which he sucks and swallowes as the bread of life and food from heaven Forsooth this only that the one opinion makes the active righteousnes of Christ together with his passive to be imputed to us for righteousnes the other makes the active together with the passive righteousnes of Christ satisfactory to Gods justice to put us into the participation of Righteousnes or Justification A vast difference in sense no less then that was between Doctor Martin and Doctor Luther or that which one put betwixt the operation and working of Pepper that it was hot in the one but cold in the other Mr Baxter knowes that the most judicious Assertors of the first opinion urge no further then to have it granted that the active as well as the passive obedience of Christ is meritorious to our redemption and justification That they are but the more inconsiderate sort that will have it so imputed that we should be accounted before God as those that have fulfilled all the righteousnes and duties of the Law in and by Christ fulfilliing the same Therefore his taking up this opinion as a third opinion under the name of truth is but a taking up again as holy and savory that which before he had rejected as the embryon of ignorant and unstudied brains full of the greatest absurdities But he tels us pag. 55. that for ten years together he held the passive righteousnes onely effectual to justification but since that he hath been converted Should I demand how it came to passe that so Eagle-eyed a man so long doted upon a cloud in stead of Juno and by what means his eyes were at last opened that he saw the delusion and shunned it Himself gives us a hint what to answer and I hope he will not be too angry if we guess so far that our conjecture hath his own conscience if awaked giving consent 1 Then to speak nothing of Mr. Bradshaw whom either by face or writings I never had acquaintance with that great wit Grotius with his deep and sublimated speculationâ— over-poised him in his late reading of him And how hard a thing is it for Mr. Baxter so great an admirer and adorer of humane wit and learning to meet with a brave Sophister indeed and not to close in judgement with him though a Papist an Apostate and more then a Semi-Atheist so far do acute and fine-spun distinctions prevail with him more then the honourable Authority of the plain word of God 2 It is most probable that during these ten years Mr. Baxter held Justification by Faith onely according to the Scriptures and judgement of the Orthodox Churches therefore stuck so long to the Doctrine of Justification by Christs sole passive obedience as cohering very harmoniously therewith But since he hath cast himself into the Channels of Popish Writers and thence derived Justification by works it concern'd him to cast off his former Opinion for the sole passive righteousnes as being much repugnant to Justification by works and to take up this as authentick and somewhat conducing and helpfull to his Cause For if Christs active obedience should not be held meritorious and satisfactory to God with what face could Mr. Baxter attribute a prevalency and power herein to our best works and actions I purpose not to trifle away time and labour to refel this Doctrine or to shew the weaknesse of his fine and plausible Exceptions which he maketh against the Objections that he thinks will be made against it himself knoweth that some of his fore-mentioned Questions being granted and cited Opinions which he neither denyeth nor opposeth would turn his Grotian distinction of idem and tantundem into winde and smoake As for the rest which he speaketh we may grant there is some plausibility but if it were searched to the bottome there would be little of solidity found therein But my purpose is as I have said onely or chiefly to except against his apparently Popish Doctrines and with these he so much aboundeth that I shall not want matter to take up more time and labour then my other Employments can well afford CHAP. IV. What the immediate effects of Christs sufferings are which redound to the Redeemed Whether Believers are under the Curse And whether their Afflictions in this life be a part of the Curs and have the wrath of God in them With Mr. Baxter's Arguments to prove them such IN this ninth Thesis and its Explication Mr. Baxter hewes out crooked timber enough for many of the discreetest Divines to employ their time and labour therein until they are tired and yet they shall not be able at last to straighten it It is like Pandera's box which being opened let out all miseries and mischiefs into the world as the Poets feign Whatsoever the Papists teach of the deficiency and maimednes of Christs and of the necessary supplies of mans satisfaction to be made unto God of Purgatory of the uncertainty of Salvation and many other errors depending upon these are all couched and compassed here within a very narrow circuit some expressed and some implyed But so that while he hasteth to bind together suddenly that he may not be seen so much dreggish Popery in one fardle in his greatest
Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law no flesh is justified Why then do we draw the poor Gentiles to seek any furtherance to their justification by the observation of the Law by which our selves who were most privileged with it could not be justified but by Christ onely without the law So here Even they that had the law and were not a little zealous for and active in the righteousness of the law had need of a redeemer were justified and saved not at all by the lawes righteousness but onely by Christs redeeming of them What madnes is it then in you O foolish Galathians that are not of the holy stock of Israel but sinners of the Gentiles to seek any help to your justification by the works of the law which could not justifie the very Israelites that were born and brought up in it and not to repose your selves upon Christ alone If Mr. Baxter will pretend any other meaning of the Text besides he shall therein wound and not strengthen his Cause For he speaks of the same persons here to be under the law onely in the hand of a Mediator not under the Curse of the law but under such an administration thereof that even before they actually beleeved in Christ the very person of Christ are affirmed ver 1. to be Lords of all all the inheritance which is by Christ ergo not under the wrath of God before they embraced the Faith of Christ As for the other Scriptures which he annexeth yet further to prove that the very elect before and untill they beleeve are under the Law in the sense so oft manifested let him once shew how he will argue and what he will conclude and upon what grounds from them we shall be ready to answer him In the interim I profess I see not any thing in them more prevalent to his purpose than a nights lodging in a bed of snow and ice to cure the Cough Yet from all these wrested Scriptures he Concludes at last that the deliverance which beleevers have by Christ from the Curse of the Law is a conditionall deliverance viz. if they will obey the Gospel i. e. when they beleeve if they will beleeve not onely while they live but also when they are dead and buried For as we say that a conditionall proposition doth nihil ponere so it is true in the sense of Mr Bax. here that this conditionall promise doth nihil promittere The Condition as long as this world lasteth being still in performing not performed and so nothing obteined Yet will he have this new nothing together with the abrogation of the ceremoniall Law to which we never were none but the Israelites ever have been subject to be the great privilege of beleevers and effect of Christs bloud When we poor souls with our dull eyes can see no more privilege that we have herein by Christs bloud than the worst of infidells and reprobates have for they also â—ave this conditionall deliverance from the curse and freedom from the ceremoniall law And this deliverance saith he is yet more full when we perform the conditions of our freedom And then we are said to dead to the Law Rom. 7. 4. and the obligation to punishment dead as to us ver 6. This is indeed a full and perfect deliverance But what doth he mean in saying when we perform c. either when we are performing the conditions That were a contradiction to himself in what he saith p. 74. that we are not perfectly freed till the day of resurrection and judgement And so also it will be hard for another save Mr. Br. to make sense of the words That the deliverance of beleevers is yet more full when they perform the Conditions are performing the conditions of their freedom i. e. more full when they beleeve than when they do beleeve For if we should grant to Mr. Br Faith to be a condition and not rather a mean or instrument of our justification yet would we grant him no other condition thereof Or doth he mean it is full when they have performed the Conditions it seems then that some of the Conditions are left to be performed in the next world because untill then he tells us we can have no such perfect freedom This is the free Grace of God which Mr. Br boasteth himself so much to extoll p. 79. let him that delights in it be his disciple That which he speaks in the upshott for the mitigation of his harsh doctrine aforegoing that he knoweth this Covenant of works continueth not to the same ends and uses as before c. is but a trick of the Jesuits to give sugar after the poyson which was before gone down to destroy Neither can he make out how beleevers are under the law of nature as a Covenant of works and yet not bound to seek life according to the tenor and condition of that Covenant If any marvell that Mr. Baxter should so waste his spirits in abusing both divine and humane learning to prove the Saints to be still under the Curse under the law as a Covenant of works he will cease to wonder if he take notice of a further aim that he hath therein He would not out of doubt have so much insisted on it had he not looked to a further end in it If the beleevers are still under a Covenant of works as to the Curse wrath and Condemnation much more are they under a Covenant of works as unto life and Justification If the former be once granted he accounts the game wonn as to the latter Therefore doth he so much stirr in the former that he may with the more facility and less contradiction bring in afterwards the latter Justification by works which is his very busines in Compiling this book CHAP. XI Whether as the Covenant of Works was made with all mankind in Adam their representative so the Covenant of Grace was made with all the elect in Christ their Representer What relation the Covenants made with Adam Abraham the Israelites and lastly with us under the Gospel have to that Covenant made with Christ B. Thesis 14. p. 89. THe Tenor of the New Covenant is this that Christ having made sufficient satisfaction to the Law whosoever will repent and beleeve in him to the end shall be justified through that satisfaction from all that the Law did charge upon them and be moreover advanced to far greater privileges and glory then they fell from But whosoever fullfilleth not these conditions shall have no more benefit by the bloud of Christ than what they here received and abused but must answer the charge of the Law themselves And for their neglect of Christ must also suffer a far greater condemnation Or briâ—fly whosoever beleeveth in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life but he that beleeveth not shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Mar. 16. 16. Jo. 3. 15 16 17 18. 36.
Divines to have sought an evasion Opera quidem legis saith he quatenus sine fide gratia Campian geruntur nihil habere quod ad justitiam conferant Caeterùm opera sanctorum Hominum cùm ejusmodi non sint sed fide gratia referta ideo justificari dicuntur verè coram Deo ex operibus suis non tamen tanquam suis i. e. The workes of the Law as they are done without Faith and Grace have nothing to contribute to Justification nevertheless the workes of godly men are not of that kind but replenished with Grace and Faith therefore are they sayd to bee justified by their workes yet not by workes as theirs but as wrought by the grace of God in them So also Vega the Monk Duplex est Justificatio altera ex gratia operandi infusa Andr. Vega de Just vag 751. altera ex debito Legis seclusa Gratia Excluditur ergo Justificatio illa quae fit seclusa gratia non Justificatio illa quae fit ex operibus gratia adjutis c. i. e. There is a two-fold Justification one of the Grace to work infused into us the other of the debt of the Law without Grace to enable That Justification is excluded which is sought after without Grace not that Justification which is of good works holpen by Grace And Hosius to Hosius elude that of the Apostle We are not justified by works Verum inquit ex operibus iis quae legis sunt aut quae liberi Arbitrii nostri propria existunt quae cum laborant imperfectione nihil ad justificationem conferunt i. e. It is true saith he of those works which are of the Law or done in the strength of Free-will only which in regard they have their imperfection cannot avail to Justification But as for such works as flow from our Free-will as it is set in operation by the over-powering of Gods Grace He concludeth otherwise Not to trouble our selves with what these Sophistical pratlers speak every and each of them severally let us take them collectively in one bunch and body as Mr. Pemble in his Treatise of Justification brings them in both head and tayle great and small thus disputing against Justification by the righteousness which is in Christ without any righteousness of our own intermixed Against this Doctrine they have two exceptions saith Mr. Pemble Pemb. Treat of Just if page 37. 1. That we are not justified by any work of our own viz. that we our selves do by our own strength without the help of Grace But yet we may be justified by some work which we doe viz. by the ayd of Grace such is the work of Faith 2. That wee are not justified by any workes of our own i. e. by any works of the Law but by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified By this time it is enough evident that Mr. Baxter fights the Popes battel with the Popes weapons that as he maintaines the Popes cause so he rankes and files himself with the souldiers of the Popes Army who then can give any reason why hee should not be thought as sure a friend either to Christ or at least to Antichrist as are the Priests and Jesuits Onely if for no other yet for this cause Mr. Pemble deserves the brand of an Antinomian which in the following part of his Tractate Mr. Baxter gives him pag. 173. for disgracing this sophisticall shift which is common to other Papists with Mr. Baxter telling us in the fore-quoted place that this distinction of works done without Grace and works done by Grace was devised by one and consequently followed by others that had or have neither Wit nor Grace being a trick to elude the force of such Scriptures as exclude indefinitely all works from Justification c. A spightful speech thus at once to cast dirt in the faces both of Mr. Baxter and all his fratres or Fryars of the holy Mother Church of Rome No marvel if Mr. Baxter though he smooth him somtimes for his own ends yet doth carry him in mind to fit him a penny-worth for it when he thinks he hath caught an advantage against him Neverthelesse though Mr. Baxters ingenuity and plaine dealing seldom keep him company in this dispute and controvâ—rfie yet his subtilty and sophistry fail him never In his former positions before examined he affirms that besides the imputed righteousness we must have a personal righteousness inherent in our selves as absolutely necessary to salvation and justification Here now to make that his assertion sufferable he minceth it in its termes and in this Thesis calls it a performance of conditions and in the Explication an Acting of Duties what before he had called justifying righteousnesse Yea further tels us that some think it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to be but the Actors of those Duties though we professe our selves to do it only by the strength of Grace When contrariwise the question is not about either the requisitenesse of Gospel duties nor about the strength by which they are to be performed herein if Mr. Baxter meaneth as he speaketh wee are agreed but about their office and end to which they are to be performed whether these duties are conditions of our Justification and that the end of our performing them ought to be that we may be justified by the righteousness which consisteth in their performance Doth hee meane to tune up a Palinodiam to recant and eat up his former assertions that he doth here so lenifie the roughness and correct the extravagancy both of his words and matter before delivered Nothing less but hee throws sugar after his poyson both that it may goe down the more quietly what he hath given already to his unwary Readers to drink and that they may be ready without suspition to drink deeper and more deadly draughts of the same poyson which thorow the whole sequele of this his Treatise he makes his business to temper for them I shall there answer more fully where he speakes more fully In the mean time all may see his dealing here to be not faire and logicall but fallacious and sophistical He tels us in the conclusion of his Explication that He will not digress from his intended subject so far as to enter here into a disquisition of the nature and workings of that Grace which doth enable us to perform these conditions but refers us to Parkers Theses de traductione peccatoris ad vitam What that Mr. Parker or his work is I know not But that Mr. Baxter will not here deliver his own judgement I think he doth well For if his judgement in the doctrine of Gods Grace working unto mans conversion and sanctification be not more sound then about the operation of the same Grace to mans Justification his silence will be farre more acceptable then his best argumentations to chaste ears and spiritual minds And little cause have we to expect any
signifie But that he means to extoll them he doth enough plainly give us to understand When he saith that the purchase did not Onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper his meaning must be at least that Christ dyed and by his death hath purchased to the pepper-corn of mans righteousness a value and efficacy in part though not Onely to Justifie us so that our righteousness must go Cheek by Cheek with the righteousness of Christ to Justification Now as if Usury as it Consisteth in taking increase be unlawfull a penny of a hundred pounds taken by way of increase is no less in substance Usury and unlawfull than the taking of Tenn pounds of the hundred so if the adding of our righteousness to the righteousness of Christ for our justification be an unlawfull exalting of our own and depressing of Christs righteousness then to bring our own righteousness with the righteousness of Christ in the least part to justifie is as truly an unlawfull depression of Christs righteousness and advancing of our own as if we brought it in the highest degree wholly and alone to justifie us and so by his account Christ dyed to make man though not the Onely yet in part a saviour of himself And herein to follow his doctrine is the ready way to be a self-destroyer Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are faln from grace said the Apostle to a people that did extoll but in part and not Onely their own righteousness to justification Though it be not Onely poyson which a man eateth yet it there be poyson in it it brings death after iâ— If we magnifie one grain of our own pepper to that height that we make it a part of that righteousness by which to stand at Gods tribunall this one grain will sink us down to hell so hot a poyson is Mr. Brs pepper-corn I shall joyn that which followes in the similitude viz. Bax. But thus A personall Rent must be payd for the testification of his homage He was never Redeemed to be Independent and his own Landlord and Master The olde Rent he cannot pay his new Landlords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn With that which is homogeneous to it in the application Bax. Two things are considerable in this debt of righteousness The value and the personall performance or interest The value of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us in stead of the value of a perfect Obedience of our own performing and the volue of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personall performance of homage therefore the personall performance of Faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment as if we had payd the full Rent because Christ whom we beleeve in hath payd it and he will take this for satisfactory homage so it is in point of personall performance and not of value that faith is imputed It is not denyed but a personall testification of homage is required We were not Redeemed to be independent or our own Landlords and Masters to serve our selves and walk after our own thoughts No Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price saith the Apostle Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods 1 Cor. 6. 20. And again He hath given himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works We must live and dye to him that dyed for us in testification of our homage But the thing in question is not whether this homage is to be done but whether when it is performed it be a Cause or an effect of our redemption and justification Whether we are to perform all duty that we may be redeemed and justified or because we are redeemed and justified Whether the relation of the persons go before the relative duties or the relative duties before the relation of the persons Reason tells us that filiall obedience doth alway presuppose the relation of a Son and where there is no Childe there can be expected no Childlike obedience First free and then free service And to this tenor runs the vote and voyce of the Gospel We are delivered out of the hands of our enemies that we may serve him without fear in holines and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life Luk. 1. 74 75. Not that we shall be delivered out of c. because we have so served him all the dayes of our life That we are married to Christ that we should bring forth fruit unto God Rom. 7. 4. Not that we are married to Christ because we have brought forth fruit unto God That he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them 2 Cor. 5. 15. Not that we must live to Christ that we may live by Christ and obtein life by his death If any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Not that he must be a new creature to the end that he may be in Christ Mr. Br shakes the whole frame of the Gospel into a topsie-turnie and might as rationally make our glorification the Condition of our sanctification as sanctification the Condition of our Justification and Adoption As for the distinction which he puts in the application between the value and the performance of Faith i. e. in his sense of sanctification making the value of Christs satisfaction to be imputed in stead of the value of a perfect obedience and the personall performance of Faith to be imputed onely in stead of the personall performance of the Law and so our inchoat sanctification for that he means by the performing of faith is imputed to us in place of performing all perfect righteousness unto justification some pretty witty men may be taken with it as a pretty witty fancy But whosoever Loveth the Lord Jesus up to a due jealousie for his honour Cannot but have his heart full of trembling to see the sacred word and mysteries of Christ to be made the play-game of an audacious and frothy wit and eluded yea vilified and enervate with such absurd and windy distinctions that have no footing in the word of God Himself using this distinction with a purpose not to teach but to Cheat the simple For pag. 141. he doth in express words affirm the worthines or value which he doth here ascribe to Christs satisfaction to lye in our performance or works Either he must be destitute of all natural and moral operations of Conscience or an Anti-Hannibal that hath sworn unreconcileable warrs not for God against Rome but for Rome against Christ that in so holy a busines can so frequently and fearlesly act the wanton I shall conclude therefore in the words which Mr. Pemble hath against the brethren of Mr. Br in this point
us with the leaven of the Papists He saw these 2 Theses which I have examined together viz. Perfection Merits of works if they should come together one in the neck of another without any Calm betwixt them would make so terrible a sound as would be enough to waken and startle all that were but sleeping and not dead for fear the Pope or the Devill had been come to assault them Therfore to keep all quiet he interposeth this Thesis and its explication in which he pulls the ears of our Divines for saying that God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties and actions pag. 134. deinceps in the explication telling us it is a doctrine of dangerous consequence many wayes and except we will take it in his that is in the Popish sense it smells rankly of Popery setts up Justification by works from the very thought whereof he starts startles away as affrighted Notable dissimulation not of a learner but of one learned in the Trade Clodius accusat Maechos Catilina Cethegum He that affirms our Righteousness equall with the righteousnes of Christ to justification that entitles it a perfect righteousnes a meritorious righteousnes is the first man in all the world that fears of the advancing of Justification by works by them whom he hateth for oppugning it If there were that which he calls danger in this phrase or doctrine of setting up such a justification would not himself be the first man to kisse it to eat it up to promote it What is it that makes him to disrelish the phrase so extremely is it not that it inverts his order in Justification that he would have the works to justifie the man when contrariwise this doctrine makes the justification of the person to be the ground of the acceptance of his obedience Is it not the very depth of Satan from which he is moved to guise disguise himself to act Satans part with all guile and subtlety to betray the Saints of Christ and the truth of Christ to damning Popery and yet here and there to transform himself into an Angel of Light a Minister of Righteousnes to blinde the eyes of the simple that they may not espy him untill they be taken in his snare and lost for ever As for the doctrine or phrase it self he knowes our Divines mean this onely when they say God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties actioÌ„s viz. That God having first justified their persons from all the guilt that was upon them doth thenceforth also justifie them in refâ—rence to all the duties which thorow Christ the Mediator they shall perform unto God not imputing to them the imperfections thereof so that they may rest Confident of Gods accepting both the performers and the performance in and through Christ the beloved In this respect and not as Conditions of the New Covenant as Mr. Br dreameth doth the Gospel teach our works to be accepted of God There is yet one link of the Popish Chain wanting without which it will be unperfect and unusefull If it were granted that there is 1 a personall righteousnes of Gods own appointment necessary to justification 2 That this righteousness consisteth in ouâ— own Faith and sanctification or good works 3 That it is a perfect and 4 a Meritorious Righteousness yet all this cannot be effectâ—all either to save or deceive us unless it be a righteousnes also possible for us to perform Thaâ— he may not be wanting therefore to the Popish Cause in any one branch of Popish doctrine he addeth this also Thesis 27 in these words pag. 141. Bax As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of Works by that power which he received by Nature so is it possible for us to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ To which he adds in the Explication pag 142 c. Bax This possibility is to be understood not in Relation to the strength of the Agent But in the Relative sense the Conditions of the New Covenant are possible to them that have the assistance of Grace So that strength which was in Adam to fullfill was a power which he received by Nature But the strength by which we perform is the power which we receive from the grace of Christ If any should have asked him what that grace of Christ is the man was very Coy he could but he would not tell whether it were a Pauline or a Pâ—lagian Grace a grace equally extended both to the Elect and the Reprobats or a grace peculiar to the Elect a grace that comes no further than the ear or a grace operating upon the heart also c. He had other fish to fry and had not the leizure to stay câ—ack these nutts now He bids us to turn over many volumes and specially Parkers Theses to search if possibly we can finde what Mr. Brs judgment would be many years after in this poynt But it is easie to perceive the mans meaning by his gaping in many passages of this book We should have had all this in rank and file in his much promised Tractate of Vniversall Redemption by which as by a second famous atchievement he meant to endear himself to his holy Father but that unluckily there is one of his own spirit step into his Holinesses Parlour to present him with this gift and so anticipated this favour which Mr. Br would have had entire to himself so that now the expected advantage being lost he not using to open his Commodities to sale a day before the Fayr we might possibly for a couple of Capons obtein to know his meaning herein In the mean while it must needs be his intent in reserving to himself what he meant by grace to puâ— upon us a kind of impossibility to say readily yea or nay to his asserted pâ—ssibility of performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by a power which he leaves us uncertain of knowing what it is As for the two fold opposition which he puts in his Thesis 1. between the conditions of the Old Covenant New 2. Between the power which Adam had by nature and the power which we have by the Grace of Christ there is nothing but a windy sound of words therein to deceive his reader into an opinion that he hath some honest and sound meaning in what is here posited or said For neither doth he make any real difference between the conditions of these two Covenants but makes our own Righteousnesse consisting in faith and works to be the substance of the conditions of both Covenants onely he puts a supposed difference in the measure of them One an imaginary perfection of sincerity in doeing them answering to what the New Covenant requireth the other an absolute and gradual perfection in doing them without the least particle omitted or committed besides or against the rigorous exaction of the Old Covenant And this
the natural righteousnesse which it prescribeth shall be effectual and of necessary use to mans justification This indeed were an intolerable absurdity for one of us that have our stations here below under Christ to bee regulated by his doctrine to utter But for Mâ—ster Baxter that hath soared upward in his Aenigmatical and Metaphysical learning unto the sphere of Saturn high above the Sunne of righteousnesse and his light it is no absurdity to deliver it It is but the language of Rome that the righteousnesse of the moral law must under the Gospel still justifie us as when we were perfect in Adam though then in him we could but now we cannot perform it And why so not because Christ hath declared by his word that he will so have it but because the holy Mother Church that hath the power to make the word of Christ to dance into all formes and senses after her interpretations hath so decreed If this be Mr. Baxters meaning that it appears to him to be a plain truth why doth he not make it plain to us that we may see it with him but onely saith it as a cathedral doctor without adding illustration or confirmation to it 3. What he meaneth by that which he next saith viz. and it is so continued in the sense before expressed is not plain to me where this sense is expressed whetheâ— in the former part of this answer then it must be continued by Christ to be the preceptive part of the Covenant of works still or in the question and so it is continued by Christ to be the preceptive paâ—t of the New Covenant or in some one or more passages of the foregoing part of this his treatise so we shall be still uncertain of the sense because we câ—nnot tell and he doth not tell us where it is expressed And for us to seek after a man in his sense who wilfully hides himselfe and his sense in the darke that wee may not finde them were but a senseless peece oâ— wâ—rke especially when wee know it will nothing better our senses in case we should bee so luckie as to finde his I should ghess that hee means the sense expressed in the former part of this answer and so it will be examined in that which hee addeth in his second Answer viz. 2. That the moral Law doth therefore so continue c. as before What else should he mean in saying it doth continue but that as he had said in the former clause of the first answer viz. to be the preceptive part of the Covenant of workes or why doth he say it doth therefore so continue but that his therefore bids us to fetch the cause from the same answer because Christ into whose hands it is delivered hath so continued it And if so to what purpose is all this reasoning Tends it to affirm that it was possible for Christ considered either as God or as our mediator to rescind and destroy the eternal and immutable Law of naturall and eternall righteousnesse or that it would have falne to the ground with its own weight if it had not been delivered into Christs hand to sustaine it Or that it would not bee in it self the rule of Righteousnesse for ever except Christ had assumed our nature in it to give it a second birth and stablishment Or that the Morall Law had lost its power and righteousnesse when we had lost ours and so it needed no lesse then we a reparation Nay whether man had sinnâ—d or not sinned been redeemed or not redeemed the Morall Law was and is stil the same What the Psalmist saith of God Before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and world were formed from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Psal 90. 2 So may I say of the moral Law wheresoever it is and as farre as it is truly held forth and fully too whether by Christ or by Moses by the Old or by the New Testament by the creature by the conscience by the Philosophers Ethicks or by any other way or means whatsoever before the mountains and world were formed from everlasting to everlasting it hath been and is the perfect rule of Moral righteousness stil Neither shall it cease so to be when world and mountains are dissolved but then we shal see perfectly in the face of God himselfe what we now see in his either more or lesse perfect images be perfectly configured thereunto In the mean time evenbeleivers have this as one of their great priviledges to be free fâ—om sin and servant of Righteousnesse Ro. 6. 18. and so the Law of Righteousnesse continueth to command both beleevers and unbeleevers and the perfect obeying thereof is the duty of both and the not obeying their sinne deserving the death threatened in the Old Covenant But so that beleevers having fully done their Law in Christ and being freed from the Old Covenant though still in a sweet conjunction with the Moral Law Rom. 7. 22. have no more their hated irregularities imputed to them but fully forgiven for Christs sake Thus the Word of God and Doctrine of Christ runne smoothly and clearly why doth Mr. Baxter not finde but make whirlpooles and stoppages therein to offend and drown poor soules that cannot yet swim in the deep Good ends have streight wayes leading to them Mr. Baxters crooked windings argue him not to have a streight and upright meaning His unusefull therefore and therefore put out of joynt that which God hath so compacted as that it ought not to bee dis-joynted And if wee would know what hee aimes at in his circumlocutions to circumvent the simple in these his two first answers let us but follow him to the next and we shall in part finde it B. 3. That Jesus Christ hath further made use of the same moral Law for a direction to his subjects c. ut suprà What he saith in this his third answer to the second question of the usefulnesse of the moral Law for direction to Beleivers is granted And this is one great prerogative which Beleivers have that the moral Law which in relation to unbeleivers hath the curse of the Old Covenant as a scourge and sword annexed to it to take vengeance of them for their transgressions is to them that are in Christ a peaceable sweet and unarmed counseller But in the opening hereof Master Baxter shews himselfe to bee himself in foisting in two of his unauthentick paradoxes or falsities call them which ye will the same so finely with slight of hand interwoven in his discourse that his craft might not be easily espyed but being espyed every one that knoweth Master Baxter may know them to be from his Artifice so inserted viz. 1. That obedience to Christ in the performance of all the duties which the moral Law prescribeth is part of the condition of the New Covenant 2. That the Gospel or New Covenant doth not require of men perfect but sincere obedience onely Both
adoption Or lastly is his meaning that our union with Christ is the foundation not only of remission justification and reconciliation which do restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favor which we had lost and faln from but also of Adoption and of a far higher advancement then that from which he fell herein I shall not dissent from him But why then doth he so transpose his words as to make the stream of Gods operations to run backward if not to make mans qualifications the ground of his union with Christ his faith and good works by which he is justifyed to be if not the cause yet the antecedent of this union and not this union to be the cause or antecedent of his both justification and holinesse So much I thought fit to interpose here that this Thesis of Mr. Baxter might not serve as a bridge to carry over the reader captive unto some fallacious untruths in the after-part of this his Tractate contained Hence now let us passe to the 55 Thesis which hath not a totall disagreement with the former that have been examined in this Chapter but a dependence upon them B. Thesis 55. p. 211. Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin the penalty is not due and where it is not due it cannot properly be forgiven therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed though the grounds of certain remission be laid before The strength and evidence of this reasoning will the better appear if we lay by it another to the same tune and upon the same terms It cannot be denyed to be as good an argumentation as this if I should thus argue Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin there is no penalty due and where it is not due it cannot properly be required therefore the sins that have been committed since the death of Christ had not their penalty born by Christ before they were committed and consequently Gods justice remains unsatisfyed for the sins of all that have been committed since the death of Christ and every offender is to bear the condemnation of them in his own bosome though the grounds of certain remission were laid before in God except another Christ be sent from heaven to bear or the same Christ again to bear the penalty of the sins after they are committed Whether this argumentation doth not carry in it as great if not greater likelihood of reason then Mr. Baxters I leave to every rationall man to judge And thus when a proud lust possesseth us to reason from our own brain and not from Gods word we easily reason our selves into hell Neither do I see how Mr. Baxter according to this reasoning can ever look to be justifyed or saved except by one of these two wayes either by asserting his own righteousnesse which hitherto with his fellowes he hath made but a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christ to justifie and save to be at a pinch all-sufficient and effectuall to perfect the work without Christ as it is with partners in a Trade and buying and selling of wares what one doth both do and what bargain one makes both must stand to it Or else by canonizing the Popish masse to offer therein Christ often unto God as a sacrifice for the expiation and forgivenesse of his sins when he hath committed them sith Christs offering himself was in no wise the bearing of the penalty or satisfying of Gods justice for his or our sins because not then committed But let us see whether in any sense the reasoning of Mr. Baxter here may be made good or taken up as tolerable Not to mention here Gods forgiving of sins as an act immanent in God from eternity For this would but make Mr. Baxter startle he is no more patient to hear this voice then was Caligula at the voice of Thunder his bloud riseth at it as do theirs at the sight of a Cat whose natures have an antipathy to that poor creature that never meant them hurt Let us consider forgivenesse and pardon in tearms and wayes as himself granteth a possibility of giving and receiving it And First in foro conscientiae at the bar of God in the conscience of man to which he most limiteth and contracteth remission and justification May not the offender apprehend and apply to himself the pardon of his future as well as of his past and present sins through the Lord Christ in some sense 1. In respect of the seed of all the sins which he shall through infirmity commit in the time to come of his life I mean his corrupt nature or originall defilement and sin from which as from their naturall source all their acts of sin spring every true beleever is and may apprehend himself pardoned this the very Papists acknowledge denying originall sin and defectivenesse to have any mortality of sin in it because the guilt thereof is purged from the soul by the bloud of Christ at his very first admission and entrance into Christ as they say In this respect I doubt not but Mr. Baxter will confesse that all their after acts of sin are remitted in their seed and womb to beleevers before they be committed 2. In respect of Gods not imputing them to the person that shall offend so the sins not yet committed are forgiven to every elect person God hath laid on Christs score all the sins of the elect committed or to be committed and satisfyed his justice for them upon Christ who in their names hath paid the penalty of all therefore their consciences are discharged neither sins past nor sins to come shall be any more imputed to them There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. There is dayly new sinning why not also subjection to condemnation because the person being in Christ though subject to a necessity of sinning yet through the justification of his person is exempted from the further imputation of sin so committed unto condemnation He that beleeveth hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5. 24. He comes dayly into the acting of new sins how is it that he comes not into a subjection and obligation to condemnation by those sins but because they were forgiven to the offender before therefore not imputed to him when committed It is one chief priviledge of the new Covenant Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Jer. 31. 38. c. Heb. 10. 17 18. speaks the holy Ghost here only of sin past and not of those to come that they which are within the new Covenant have remission of them then 1. The same person hath some sins forgiven and some not forgiven by Christ that which is past is remitted that which is to come is retained 2. Then the priviledge is no priviledge if only sins past are not remembred but sins to come are
of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
unlesse it be consented unto in calculum fidei non venire opera sed prorsus Idem ibid. §. 18. separanda esse i. e. that works have nothing to do in the borders of faith to justifie but must be wholly separated from it and proceeds that the Law and faith are here opposed Therefore because works are required to the righteousnesse of the one ergo sequitur ad hujus justitiam non requiri it follows therefore that they are not required to the righteousnesse of the other and further in the same place Herein the Gospell differs from the Law quod operibus non alligat justitiam sed in sola dei misericordia collocat that it binds not righteousnesse to works but placeth it in the sole mercy of God And Fides sine operum adminiculo c. Faith without any proppage of works resteth wholly upon mercy And that wherewith he concludes this Section That the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed is not ushered into our possession by works nec operando nos eam consequi sed vacuos accedere ut eam recipiamus i. e. not that we attain it by working but come with our hands empty of all works to be filled with it With those agreeth Ph. Melanchthon Evangelium offert remissionem per imputationem justitiae vitam aeternam sine conditione legis aut operum nostrorum i. e. the Gospell offers remission by the imputation of righteousnesse and eternall life without condition of the Law or our works Again Vulgo imaginantur homines Evangelium esse promissionem conditionalem at ab hac imaginatione abducendi sunt i. e. Men must be drawn off from that vulgar imagination that the Gospell is a conditionall promise And upon Rom. 4. Credens est salvus sola fide sine operibus Neque nostra obedientia aut causa est aut conditio propter quam accepti sumus coram Deo i. e. He that beleeveth is saved by faith only without works Neither is our obedience either a cause or a condition for which we are accepted before God So Zanchius in Hos 2. 21. Notandum est hanc esse simplicem Evangelicam sine omni conditione promissionem Hic nihil exigit Deus sed simpliciter promittit quod velit ipse c. This is a simple and Evangelicall promise which is without all condition where God requireth nothing but simply promiseth what he pleaseth As for Luther it is superfluous to cite him being every where so full both in the positing and confirming of this doctrine let but his Sermon upon Tit. 3. 5. be read he shall be there found calling it devillish doctrine and the teachers thereof Hypocrites who teach salvation to be far off and not already attained and to be sought for by works concluding Quicunque salutem non ex mera gratia per fidem ante omnia opera c. whosoever receives not salvation out of meer grace by faith before all works he shall never be saved I had a purpose to have annexed the Testimonies of some more of the Chieftains against Antichrist but there is no need Mr. Baxter for his part is not a Zizca warreth not by other mens eyes seeth and knoweth against whom he levelleth is not ignorant that all especially the more antient and unsophisticated worthies of all the Churches speak the same things and in the same tone with these against the Papists Neither was it my purpose to deal at all in this passage with Mr. Baxter but to shew the vanity of some Pharisaicall Cabalisticall Sophisticall but little Scripturall and Theologicall Rabbies who with Anti-evangelicall spirits partly to set up again a Babell or Babylon of works as a mount against Antinomianism as they term the liberty and purity of the Gospell and partly in a prostrate devotion wherewith they sacrifice to every Barbarism and Aphorism of exotick arts to which they must submit though it be to the denying of the whole word of God for fear they should not be reckoned Scholars are ready to gallop after Mr. Baxters Sophisticall Lectures into the very Lateran of Rome not knowing whence they run nor whither whose company they leave and whose they follow such levity and giddinesse hath taken their head-pieces that as having gotten a professed Protestant Divine to lead them into the worst sink of Popery they run with head and shoulders thronging who shall be foremost so no doubt if under the profession or misprision of a Jesuite Paul himself should descend to preach again and maintain the Doctrine of the Gospell in all its verity power and purity and not in a dialecticall phrase they would throw it back in his face as Jesuiticall and devillish For without such lightnesse and emptinesse it were impossible for them to be so suddenly and easily whirled into an applause of an assertion so grosly and palpably Popish and Damning by a peevish veneration of the learning and holinesse of the Penman thereof As if among the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees and Popish Monkes and Jesuits there were not to be found in depth of Learning and strictnesse of Legall righteousnesse many to whom this man may possibly serve and but serve as a shaddow But it sufficeth here to have manifested that the Doctrine of Mr. Baxter is totally the same in this particular with the doctrine of the Jesuits Or if in any respect we shall find it in what remains to be examined not wholly the same I doubt not but in every such difference which we shall meet with to demonstrate that it is far worse then theirs Or if it be not so let him produce any one knowing man within any of the Protestant Churches except he will make the Concision of Socinians and Arminians the true Protestants that hath ever taught or held this doctrine CHAP. III. The first Argument for Justification by Works drawn from Scriptures examined The Scriptures cited prepared to Mr. Baxters hand by the Papists and the Protestants answer to all the Arguments drawn from those Scriptures by the Papists by him concealed and the abhorrency of those Scriptures from the conclusion which they are brought to prove demonstrated HAving in part supplyed what Mr. Baxter would have buryed here in silence some of the Scriptures and Arguments from Scriptures which are brought by the Protestants to remove works from having concurrence with faith in the businesse of justifying let us now examine the Scriptures which he quoteth to prove their cooperation with faith to justifie Here as I said we meet not with words but figures partly therefore because he maintains the same assertion with the Papists partly because the Scriptures which he quoteth are all such as the Papists have urged before him against us so that he hath taken them up at the second hand as they were collected to his hand by the Fryers and Jesuits himself not expressing how he would argue from those Scriptures I conceive it is his desire that we should understand he means so to argue
passed thorough after men are dead With hundreds more of the same kind and worth wherein it seems Mr. Baxter here would imitate them to ingratiate himself into their favour As for the residue of Mr. Baxters quotations in this place they are for the most part if not all urged in another place to prove works the condition of our glorification and future salvation and untill then I forbear to answer them But lest any in the interim should stand doubting at any of the Scritures hâ—re quoted promising either love or life or grace or glory to men thus and thus qualifyed and conceive that such qualifications are the ground and condition together with faith to in right us in that which is promised I think it fit to premonish by the way what all Protestant writers have â—maintained and cleared against the Papists that the ground of our right in such selicities promised is not the qualifications or works of the person but the new relation of the person so qualifyed his union with Christ justification and adoption before God Such promises not being made to all but to the Saints in Christ so doing I shall clear it up to you by a similitude Isaac promiseth his son Esau his blessing but bids him go a hunting and bring him venison and then in eating it he will blesse him what was that which enrighted Esau to the blessing that was the ground or condition upon which Isaac would blesse him the venison caught and dressed nothing lesse for if a 1000. others should have presented him with a 1000. pieces of venison at severall times all dressed and fitted to his appetite the blessing should have been reserved entire for Esau and they all have been sent away empty as appeareth by his dealing with Jacob presenting his made venison how agreeing so ever the dish was to the palate of the old Patriark yet he will examine thorowly who it is whether his very son Esau that brings it before he gives the blessing It was not then the venison but the sonrship yea primo-geniture of Esau that was the ground and condition of Isaacs promise to blesse him So is it also to his justifyed and adopted ones in Christ that the Lord saith Aske and ye shall have seek and ye shall finde knock and it shall be opened to you Run and ye shall obtain Overcome and ye shall be crowned Love and I will love you Be mercifull and I will be mercifull to you Humble your selves and I will lift you up and a thousand more such promises of grace as far as they hold forth spirituall and saving blessings they are the Childrens bread dispensations of God within his own family no stranger hath part in it or right to it Let the world those that are not beloved aske seek knock run fight c. the Lord may possibly out of the goodnesse of his providence infinitenesse of his wisdome and bounty of his nature reward with corporall and temporall good things their carnall and temporall endeavours but untill by the spirit of adoption they are through faith united to Christ they have no right by the new Covenant to make claim to the spirituall and saving blessings promised neither are they any otherwise to be ratifyed to any but as they were beloved of God in Christ before there were any such qualifications and motions in them as Mr. Baxter cals conditions as hath been before declared Yea suppose that Esau could not have brought the venison to his Father had been hindered or drawn aside from seeking it or seeking could not find it or finding could not have taken and brought it should the promise and purpose of Isaac to blesse him for this cause have failed He performed not the condition he shall therefore be bereaved of the blessing Nothing lesse for the generall and fundamentall ground and condition the relation of a son of the first-born son stood still fixed unto which the good will of the Father and the blessing in the Fathers purpose was entailed In like manner though a child of God fail in some of the works and qualifications which Mr. Baxter cals conditions of the new Covenant yet this makes not the promise of the Covenant or the beneficence of the Covenanter promising to be void because these are grounded so far as they are grounded out of God upon Christ our union unto Christ and new relation to God in Christ All which I doubt not shall be made manifest in its own place only what hath been said I thought fit to be said by the way for the prevention of doubts and perplexities that might ingage the weak reader before we come thither I should here have put an end to what I had to say to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures having spoken to all that in this place are quoted saving those which he brings again elsewhere for which place I have put off my examination of them But that p. 310. he comes with a new supply Lest therefore I should make another work of it there or minister occasion to any of saying that where his Argument is most fortifyed there I shun and shrink from answering I shall examine here also what force such of those Scriptures as have not been here quoted and examined have to prove justification by works and so much the rather because he tels us there that the assertion is evident from these following Scriptures B. Mat. 12. 37. By thy words thou shalt be justifyed and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Justification and Condemnation seem here by our Saviours testimony to depend upon the sinfull and blamelesse use of our tongues Ergo upon works We may grant all in our Saviours sense without advantaging Mr. Baxters cause or endammaging our own For the Lord Christ here directeth his words to those Legall Jewish Pharisaicall Justiciaries who stuck fast to the righteousnesse of the Law for justification and in zeal thereof blasphemed as in the precedent part of the Chapter upon which this dependeth is to be seen Christ and his Gospell This blasphemy Christ here reproveth and smiteth with a weapon fetcht out of their own Armory Even your own law forbids such evill words and blasphemies holding forth Justification and Condemnation not only upon condition of good and evill works but words also so that there is nothing spoken of the justification of the New but of the Old Covenant only A reprehension and commination pat to them to whom it was denounced the threat of the Law to them that refused the Gospell and were and would be under the Law But this is nothing to the justification of the new Covenant that followes the rule of the Gospell The next Scripture not contained and examined in the former sardle of quotations is B. 1 Joh. 1. 9 If we confesse our sins God is faithfull to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our iniquities Here confession another work seems to be a condition of forgivenesse and justification
is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a minde to God hath put all his Sons offices into the condition to be received and submitted to Either all or none must be accepted And if all be in the condition then the receiving of all must needs justifie upon the grounds that I have laid down before It is not a new thing to see heresie usurping the chaire to condemne truth of errour The reasoning here is wholly carnall and naturall besides the rule of the Gospell When he calls faith a naturall way of receiving the mercy offered by Christ and our own worth and works implyedly the spirituall way how doth he put light for darknesse and darknesse for light giving to the truely spirituall cause of renewing that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 14. The naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God c. Can Heaven and Hell be more opposite either to other then the Apostles doctrine to Mr. Baxters The Apostle cals the way of faith alone the Spirit and the way of works superadded to faith for justification the flesh Gal. 3. 3. Is it Flesh or Spirit in Mr. Baxter that makes him a contradictor of the holy Ghost speaking by the Apostle The way of faith is the way of grace supernaturall Flesh and bloud cannot reveal it unto us but our Father which is in heaven But the way of works is beneath grace dictated by nature it self therefore naturall but so that all the force of nature cannot effectuallize it to justification It is a slander that he puts upon the Orthodox whom he hateth therefore represents them as Noddies and Simpletons pretending that they teach faith to be nothing but an accepting of pardon and accepting of holinesse c. Nay we make neither pardon nor holinesse nor the c. but Christ Jesus the object of our faith adhere and cleave to him for all yet not confounding his benefits or the means by which he applyeth them but wait by faith at the severall sluces by which he conferreth his severall benefits to receive the washing away of our guilt by the effusion of his bloud and holinesse or sanctification by the effusion of his Spirit and not contrariwise holinesse by his bloud and pardon by the effusion of his Spirit So we repair by faith to Christ for all because in him as in the spring is all yet so as that in coming to him alone that hath all we come to the Sun of righteousnesse for light to the fountain for life and to the Spirit of sanctification which flowes from him for holynesse He cryes against separation and makes it as I have shewed for union and makes confusions Where doth he mention any office or operation of faith to sanctification or use of sanctification but to justification or what is faith with him but a compound of all endowments works and duties And thus he confounds faith and works Christs righteousnesse and mans righteousnesse morall honesty and Gospell sanctification of all together making up one linsy-woolsy justification or righteousness to justification which the Spirit of God never revealed but the spirit of Mr. Baxter hath hatched What he speaketh of Christ stablishing his office either is above my understanding or else is not at all to his purpose And what of accepting as under the notion of accepting or as under the notion of a condition hath been enough spoken to in what was before said about the instrumentality of faith All that followeth is wholly averse from and adverse to the doctrine of the Gospell Jewish and Popish For what meanes he by our title in Law and the wedding garment but the whole furniture of works and duties done in obedience to a supposed legislative authority of Christ Without these and before these to take possession i. e. to dare to adhere to Christ for justification is usurpation and an incurring of Gods vengeance for usurping Thus beating off from Christ sinners chief sinners for whom Christ hath dyed How doth the spirit of the rejected Jewes work upon this man when they heard of righteousnesse and Act. 22. 21 22 23. salvation offered to the Gentiles a common and profane people that were not holy how did they stretch their throats and rend their clothes in a zeal against this indignity So this man hearing of the justificition of Publicans and sinners hath his eye evill because God is good tears himself with anger crying usurpation vengeance hell-fire why because they had not put on the filthy rags of mans righteousnesse which he cals the wedding garment and thereby gotten title to Christ before they were so bold as to beleeve in him and girded on their own gaol-clothes first and then have put on Christ upon them that their own righteousnesse might have been neerest the heart and Christs righteousnesse at a further distance as having no efficacy but from our own righteousnesse effectuallizing it Unto all this I shall use only that oracle of the Lord Christ The Publicans and harlots enter into the Kingdome of God before these Pharisaicall justiciaries and whited sepulchers Let Christ alone be my wedding garment I leave all that unrighteous righteousnesse which Mr. Baxter would wrest out from the Kingly office entire to Mr. Baxter to compleat his righteousnesse to justification I know no other title to the justification of the new Covenant which the chief sinners must look after before they possesse it but the grant of grace in the new Covenant and their closure by faith with Christ in whom God presents himself to justifie and reconcile them to himself One voice of my Bride-groom crying Whosoever thirsteth i. e. is dry and empty of all good in himself let him come to me and whosoever will let him drink of the well of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. is of more force with me then ten thousand contradicting voices such as this of Mr. Baxter There is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a mind to If this man had the imaginary place of Peter to be Porter of heaven how quickly would he forfeit his place by repelling those whom alone Christ will have admitted and admitting those that Christ will have repelled Christ admits beleevers not doers this man rejects all beleevers that are not doers before they are beleevers The rest that he saith here is sacrificed to his Goddesse the Lady Condition A deity that the Scriptures never knew nor yet all the whole University of Athens They erected an Altar indeed to the unknown God Act. 17. 23. see the depth of Mr. Baxter he hath found the Antipodas which the old Mathematicians wrote of but could never find the deity which the learned Athenians worshiped but worshiped they knew not what This Goddesse Condition by some help of the Socinians and Arminians hath M. Baxter brought to light and invested her with more glittering ornaments then they had wit to do only he hath not yet
in his other forementioned operations upon us by his Word and Spirit not only to teach and command but also by his infinite power to enliven us to bring forth fruits of so great a salvation and to walke worthy of it in all holinesse and righteousnesse and exactnesse to fulfill all duties and works of Christian obedience In this he is to be made indeed the object of justifying faith or which is the same of sanctifying faith yet not at it justifyeth but as it sanctifyeth We should not a little maim both the office of faith and the benefits which we have by Christ if we should restrain them all to justification Nay Christ is made unto us as well sanctification as righteousnesse and faith adhereth as fast to Christ for the one as the other else is it not a legitimate but bastard faith Neverthelesse Christ is not in the same respect the object of faith as sanctifying and of the same as justifying Because this is Mr. Baxters supereminent Argument in which himself seems most to trust and by which so many learned Ministers do even professe themselves staggered and astonished I shall omit nothing unexamined that he speaketh in the affirming or confirming of it lest any should take occasion to say that the strongest part thereof is not because it could not be answered Therefore have I left out nothing of what he hath said to the other Proposition though many things were unworthy of Animadversion To the consequent of this Proposition he speaketh more in his next two Theses viz. 73. 74. what is inserted in these two Aphorisms more fit to be examined under another notion I shall here forbear to transcribe leaving it for its proper place What is to the present purpose he thus expresseth B. Thes 73. pa. 289. Faith only doth not justifie in opposition to the works of the Gospell but those works do also justifie Thes 74. Both faith and works justifie in the same kind of causality viz. as Causae sine quibus non or mediate and improper causes or as Dr. Twisse causae dispositivae c. The like may be said of Love and of others in the same station These are but meer affirmations and contain no reasons to confirme only in the latter Thesis seemingly at least is produced the authority of that Antinomian Dr. Twisse but with so fine a conveyance as that he may be kept in or left out at pleasure if Mr. Baxter be dealt with to make good his allegation of him He knowes the name and authority of Dr. Twisse to be great and amiable as an eminent servant of Christ and patron of his truth He concludes therefore that his assertions will be swallowed with the more facility having such an authority to sweeten and fortifie them Therefore so interserteth his Testimony that his Reader may suppose Dr. Twisse to affirm works to be causas dispositivas of justification I neither have read all that Dr. Twisse hath written neither do I so far trust my memory as to deny it flatly and peremptorily Yet by knowing Dr. Twisse aright I am as confident that Bellarmine hath taught the righteousnesse of justification to be meerly by imputation and our justification only by faith as that Dr. Twisse hath any way affirmed works in this or any other respect to prevent or operate to our justification If he did why doth not Mr. Baxter quote the place as elsewhere he doth very diligently when the Testimony of the Author makes for him or why in the end of his Appendix where he sucks out of Dr. Twisse and others all that he thinks may make for his advantage doth he not cite this so pregnant a Testimony But he hath left to himself an evasion that when he hath beguiled whom he can with such an authority being found at last he can answer his meaning is the term or phrase viz. causa dispositiva upon some other not to this Argument is that which Dr. Twisse useth I finde him indeed calling works causas sine quibus non or dispositivas salutis of our salvation or glorification never of our justification And so far is he from attributing under this term what Mr. Baxter attributeth that he seriously abandoneth it So he expresseth himself Vind. Lib. 1. Par. 2. Sect. 2. Proxime finem Vix majus pâ—ceatum est quam justificationem quaerere ex operibus and almost in the next words Nullum opus Deo gratiuâ— acceptius est quam sibi justitiae suae in negotiosalutis renunt iare et in Christo unice confidere But come we now to that which he speaks for confirmation the first part consists in prefacing His own conscience telling him that it is a Pharisaicall Popish principle which he hear positeth he forelayes his Proeme to the proofe thereof thus B. I know this is the doctrine that will have the loudest out-cries raised against it and will make some cry out Heresie Popery Socinianism and what not For mine own part the searcher of hearts knoweth that not singularity affection of novelty nor any goodwill to Popery provoketh me to entertain it but that I have earnestly sought the Lords direction upon my knees before I durst adventure on it and that I resisted the light of this conclusion as long as I was able but a man cannot force his own understanding if the evidence of truth force it not though he may force his pen or tongue to silence or dissembling That which I shall do further is to give you some proofs c. First here a word to such Ministers as being more the disciples of men then of Christ and better versed in Sophistry then Divinity do only not deify Mr. Baxter maintaining all his doctrine in this book to be the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches Why do they anger the man in charging him with so low a spirit that he hath nothing but what is common with him and the most eminent lights in the Church will not he be offended at it doth he not here in some kind pronounce himself a dissenter and that what he here asserteth is that which the Protestant Churches detest as heresie doth not himself even before experience what acceptance his book would have as it were proclaime himself in this point departed from us into the Tents of Papists and Socinians As to Mr. Baxter 1. We have before granted to him that he gives no cause of suspicion that affection of singularity and novelty hath drawn him into this opinion For he is not herein singular nor is his doctrine new but such as the Phariâ—ees in Christs time and the false Apostles in the Apostles times and the worst of Hereticks from thence unto our dayes have unanimously pestered the Church with Yet in this I appeal to Mr. Baxter whether some affection of repute by being a deviser of a new way and new Arguments for the confirmation of this old Popish Socinian doctrine hath not possessed him 2. Whether the searcher of
1 c. some name James the son of Alpheus the Brother of Christ and one of the 12 Apostles others James sirnamed Oblias or the Just of whom Jâ—sephus writeth the Author of it adhuc sub judice lis est Or that the matter method and if I may so speak spirit of this Epistle sounds not in one harmony with the rest parts or books of the new Testament but rather after the writings of the books under the old Covenant or after such as stuck still to the old Covenant as Philo Judaeus and others all which Mr. Baxter better knows to have been by many objected then I know how satisfactorily to answer it By these and other reasons some have expunged it from the Catalogue of Scriptures which are of divine inspiration and have reduced it into the kind and number of writings that are usually termed Ecclesiasticall in a good sense not disagreeing any where from the Canon yet not of that dignity as to be accepted as a part of the Canon it self I shall leave these things to be disputed by others and examine the testimonies which Mr. Baxter hence alleageth what and how far it makes for him as the authority of the holy Ghost himselfe Here it is remarkable that Mr. Baxter who followes the Jesuits every foot and inch in the interpreting of this and all other Scriptures from which he would with them set up justification by works like a man made all of zeal perks up to terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the text and from using apparent violence to it implying that all the Protestant Churches and Saints which have stood in the defence of the faith of Christ against the Papists now almost 200. years have dealt thus sacrilegiously in robbing this Text of its due sense And the Fryers and Jesuites alone good men have stood up as the fast friends of Christ to maintain this truth of Christ and the spirit and meaning of this Scripture against the violation of the sacrilegious hands of these hereticall Protestants And that himself is now at last stirred up by the Spirit that hath wrought so powerfully upon the Jesuits to vindicate and set forth the true meaning of this Text with the same fidelity and sincerity which they his Masters have used before him Therefore to excite all men to gaze on his ingenuity and sincerity and to admire him as the one alone man among Protestants raised up to undeceive all the Churches that have so long strayed from the holy mother Church he thus like wisedome it self uttereth his voice B. Pag. 297. I dare not teach the holy Ghost to speak nor force the Scripture nor raise an exposition so far from the plain importance of the words without apparent necessity but here is not the least necessity there being not the least inconvenience that I know of in affirming justification by works in the fore explained sense i. e. in the sense which Mr. Baxters sense and reason without any help of Scripture hath devised Men seldome are bold with Scripture in forcing it but they are first bold with conscience in forcing it as one M. Baxter who with onespell hath forced all the large and divine disputes of Paul about justification into a cherristone and hurld it at the feet of his St. Sense there to do homage or to be trampled into the dirt After this his protestation of his integrity zeal and tendernesse of conscience in interpreting Scriptures and the impression which he feels or feigns in his soul which the heretick Protestants have made by not expounding this Scripture in the same words which the Jesuits do Let us see with what tendernesse and fear himself in the next words speaketh of it B If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it must be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter in plain and frequent expressions no whit dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scriptuee say what it will to the contrary What is this but with the Papists to make the Scripture a nose of wax If St. James speak it so over and over that justification is by works and not by faith only I will see more cause before I deny it or say he means a working faith He that in all this can see one least spark of that professed sincerity which he protesteth in himself and requires in others worthier then himself let him make it out I can see nothing else but fraud doublenesse and falshood 1 When he sayeth that it is the very scope of a Chapter and not only some one phrase that here holds forth justification by works before God it is the same which he hath from Bellarmine Bel. lib. 1. de justif cap. 15. Scopus Jacobi saith he fuit demonstrare fidem veram atque Catholicam ad salutem sine operibus non sufficere c. i. e. The scope of James in his Chapter was to shew that a true and Catholick faith is not sufficient without works to salvation and with as much truth and fidelity doth this man speak it as did the other from whom he learned it This being no more the scope of this Chapter or of James in it then to deny the salvation which is by Christ and to set on men to seek it by the Law 2 That this phrase of justification by works in Mr. Baxters sense is no whit dissonant from any other Scripture whether he means difference in sound or difference in substance is as very a paradox as if he had said that contradictories are not dissonaÌ„t For if this doctrine after Mr. Baxters sense must stand as true doctrine and for the Gospell of Christ then must we cast away almost if not altogether all the other Scriptures of the new Testament as hereticall and limit our selves to this alone and to Mr. Baxters glosse in it to learn true righteousnesse and the way to life For how vain empty and audacious his annihilating of Pauls doctrine about justification with one breath is we shall see in its proper place and finde that he destroyes the genuine scope and meaning of that Apostle in many of his Epistles to sacrifice all to his imaginary scope of James in some few words here delivered 3 When he tels us of wresting and making a Creed c. he proclaims to the World that all the Protestant Churches which have constantly defended justification by faith without works i. e. by Christ Jesus apprehended by faith without concurrence of works c. have wrested and violated the Scripture set up a Creed of their own in despight of the Scriptures speaking to the contrary For what he cunningly and seemingly fastens upon one Mr. Pemble he layes to the charge of all the Protestant Churches there being not one
himselfe our Divines give an interpretation to this one passage that may declare it though it hath a seeming yet not to have a reality of dissent from the rest Because if this be Canonicall and from the H. G the H. G. cannot contradict himselfe In expounding this dispute of James therefore the Protestants take notice of a two fold homonymy of words one in the word Faith the other in the word Justifying both which Paul and James use but use them the one in one and the other in another sence so that though they seeme somwhat to differ in words yet in sense they speake the same thing 1. They say as when Paul speakes of Faith to justification by Faith he meanes a true and lively Faith which fetcheth power from the merits of Christ to Iustifie and from the spirit of Christ to Sanctifie so Iames here battereth under the name of Faith a bare profession and boasting of Faith which some Hypocrites leaned on to Iustifie them being wholly destitute of Faith indeed that is alive and effectuall to draw from Christ matter both to Iustification and Sanctification 2. They say that as Paul takes the word Iustifying for remission and absolution before God so James takes it as oft as he requires here works to Iustifie for the declaration of the truth of our Faith and Iustification before men Yet let not this their distinction if it may fitly be so termed and exposition bee taken up unlesse it hath sufficient grounds from the Text to beare it up I shall begin first with the latter because Mr. Baxter there begins That Justification by works is by James understood the declaring us to man to have true Faith and to be Iustified by it they bring these reasons to prove 1 James himselfe even in expresse words affirming it ver 18 Shew me thy Faith without thy workes and I will shew thee my Faith by my works where he tels us that by Iustifying he means the shewing or declaring our Faith and Justification not to God but one to another And thus he denieth Faith which is not Shewed by works to Iustifie i. e. to Shew or declare us to men Iustified 2. ver 21 where he saith was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered Isaack his Son upon the Altar doth he speake of Gods Iustifying Gen. 15. 6. him or declaring him to be justified unto men Not the former for God had justified him by Faith many yeares before and there was no diâ—uption according to Mr Baxters doctrine in the intervall by any apostacy made by Abraham that of justified he became unjustified and needed here to be justified anâ—w How then was hee justified by offering his Sonn Can there be any other way not repugnant to reason devised but this that God here by proving and bearing him up in so searching a proof and Temptation to shew so matchless an act of obedience did declare to the world that his Faith was in sincerity his feare and love unfained so that all must be restrayned from charging him with selfe respects and Hypocrisy in all the professions that he made towards God Or what less is to be drawn from those wordâ— from Heaven Gen 22 12. upon this act of Abrahams obedience Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not witheld thy Son thy onely Son from me Did not God know what was what himselfe had wrought in Abrahams hart before this tryall of him doth he need outward actions to manifest to him what is in the heart within M. B. so much cleavs to theÌ„ that make all things which God doth to flow from his prescience that he will not ungod God so much as to deny that he knew as perfectly before as after tryall Why saith he then now I know but to intimate that now he had given a strong evidence both to the present and future generations to know that God knew and therby to convince men of all ages that they also must know the truth of Abrahams Faith feare and justification 3. The same might bee said of Rahabs justification by workes in receiving the Messengers and letting them forth another way ver 25. Did such a work as this justifie her before God or obtain to her remission of sins and deliver her from everlasting vengeance when there cannot be the least probable conjecture that shee had then any Faith in Christ or had ever heard of a Christ to come Then let us disclaime that Fabulam de Christo as one of the Popes termed the Gospell Righteousness is by workes without Faith without Christ and Stapletons glosse â—apleton Anrid p. 82 83. upon Pauls Iustificamur fide i. e. non absque side we are justified by Faith i. e. not without Faith because Faith is necessary to justification though not without works sufficient to it must be rejected as too Evangelicall And then also how shal Mr Baxters Thesis not fal which makes workes collateralls with Faith in Christ to justification workes can do it without Christ But if all this intrench upon Blasphemy then was shee justified by workes to men to the Israelites who by this Act toward them had so farr evidenced her fidelity to them and their cause that thereupon shee was taken into Covenant with them delivered from the ruine which befell Iericho and after as it were adopted or naturallized into the Common-wealth of Israell Ye have one part of the exposition and the grounds of it which Mr Baxter concealed that the unwary reader might despise it as groundlesse Mr Baxter opposeth it tellâ— us it is false and it may appeare thus B. p. 294. The Worlds Iustification frees us but from the worlds Accusation to which it is opposed And therefore it is but either a Iustification from Mans Laws or else a particular Iustification of us in respect of some particular Facts or else an usurped Iudgement and sustification for they are not constituted our Iudges by God and therefore wee may say with Paul it is a small thing with me to be judged of you or of mans judgement And so a small thing to be justified by men from the accusations of the Law of God But the justification in James is of greater moment as appears in the Text. For 1. It is such as salvation dependeth on ver 14. 2. It is such as followeth only a saving Faith But the world may as well justifie us when we have no faith at all I therfore affirm 1. That the world is no lawfull judge of our righteousness before God c. 2. Nor a competent capable judge and cannot passe any certain true sentence c. 3. If they could yet works are no certain Medium or evidence wherby the world can know us to bee righteous For there is no outward work which an hypocrite may not perform and inward works they cannot discern c. So that if it bee not certain that the Text speaketh of justification before God I scarce know
justified by works will it follow for all this that justification and salvation have the same conditions on our part The reasoning is one and the same in reason as if I should thus argue Having 1. slandered the Scriptures and said they say what I say I should further proceed Therefore are we created that we may be saved neither is there any way to salvation but by creation It would be as derogatory to the grace of God to be created by our own working as to be saved by our own working Therfore though Glorification be adding of a greater happinesse than we had by Creation and so Creation is not enough therto yet on our part they have the same conditions The reasoning after the Principles of true Protestants would not in its conclusion though in its premises seem altogether absurd Because they affirm the absolute will and good pleasure of God without any conditions on mans part in Mr. Baxters sense of Conditions to be the alone cause both of his creating and saving us But after Mr. Baxters Principles it would bee both absurd and odious for so our good works must bee the condition of our Creation because they are so of our salvation that we must be created by ouâ— sincere obedience bâ—bâ—cause by it we are saved and that our sincere obedience must go before our Creation because they so do before our salvation and so when we have perseveringly obeyed without a being we shall at length bee created and have a being They that are taken with such Arguments I doubt are in the number of them that are made to be taken 2 Pet. 2. 12. And who can hold that which will away Mr. Baxter saw the wall gaping and ready to fall before hee had finished it therfore hastens to plaister and dawb it thus B. Yet heer I say still our full Justification because as I have shewed i. e. said our first possession of it is upon our meer Faith or contract with Christ But I think our glorification will be acknowledged to have the same conditions with our finall justification at the bar of Christ and why not to our entire continued justification upon earth These are but words comparing that which is reall with that which is but imaginary We still deny such a full and finall justification at the bar of Christ compleating that which was but unperfect conditionall and reversible heer upon earth All that hee hath said to prove it hath been examined and found insufficient We look for proof indeed and meet with nothing but words They that are once possessed of it by faith are fully and finally possessed of it His peremptory and bold conclusion is now come even upon his own grounds to I think and why had hee not kept his thoughts to himself untill he had known reason enough for rationall men to have concluded with him yet upon this thought he addeth and why not to our entire continued justification upon earth To which we need say no more in answer but this because wee must not build any Article of our Faith upon the thoughts of men but upon the word of God To the objection which hee supposeth some may make and to which he answereth before it be made against him I say no more but let him answer our reall not imagined objections and such we shall so long defend untill by the light of the word wee finde them unworthy of defence The Scripture which hee brings to prove the perseverâ—nce of Faith to be the condition of our persevering justification runs thus Heb. 3. 14. We are made partakers of Christ if wee hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast to the end Here perseverance is made a declaration and evidence of the truth of our Faith and of our participation of or Communion with Christ at present not a condition either of our justification or the perseverance therof By this it shal be evidenced that ye are truly in Christ and justâ—fied by him if ye persevere for thâ—se that fall away wâ—re but seemingly never truly in Christ They that are his in truth continue so to the end Like that v 6. We are the house of Christ if we hold fast our confidence to the end compared with 1 Jo. 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would without doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us So the perseverance or not persevering of these would manifest who had been who had not been truly pertakers of Christ and the house of his habitation not the condition of their persevering justification for then should it be for a time at least the condition of the perseverance of their justification who were never truly pertakers of Christ and consequently in Mr. Brs. phrase had never a beginning of justification Hitherto of what Mr. Baxter hath said to confirme the Proposition Hence he descendeth to prove the Assumption That Obedience is an undoubted condition of our salvation That wee may not here beat the winde we do first understand his obedience to be the obedience of good workes else is it the same with Faith as I have shewed and that of Faith in Scripture sense and not in Mr. Baxters large unscripturall and uncircumscriptive definition So much also many of the Scripture testimonies which hee alleadgeth here elswhere which I shal reduce to this place declare Yea himself in many places before hath set to his hand that it is his meaning 2. We understand him here by Salvation to mean that which he a little before calls glorification and not simply the salvation which is one and the same with Iustification But 3. We except against him that whereas without ceasing he beats our eares even into deafnesse with that Roman Rampant Exotick word CONDITION scarce uttering a sentence which he doth not blesse or curse with it though hee know the holy Scripture hath upon this Argument not the least mention of it that wee might thence learn that it is but borrowed from the Papists and improved much by the Arminians with whose common language through his familiarity with both parties hee is more acquainted than we can be who have no trafficque with them yet he will not fully make knowne to us the meaning of the word whether the signification thereof be boundlesse or within what limits it is bounded whether it comprehends under it all the necessary Antecdents of glorification or no if so whether it comprehends not under it as well much disobedience as obedience and works of the Divel as of God as the Cansas sine quibus non we shall obtaine salvation by Christ Or whether by Conditions we must understand onely Duties and if so whether those alone which go before or else also those that accompany and follow justification and glorification And withall whether those duties as morall or as spirituall because his Divinity
dead from further labouring and moving to this end For what righteousness what works can bee sufficient to such an atchievement So obedience to the Faith is nipt in the very budde where there is a sense and conviction of a mans naughtiness and nothingness 3. By taking off the spirits of a Christians love joy and alacrity in beleeving and serving when a humble and selfe-denying soul is once choaked with Mr. Baxters Doctrine that all the benefit which he hath or can have by Christ is to be only a probationer for justification and life even to his dying day that till then hee is but conditionally pardoned and conditionally adopted that Gods love to him may be anon turned into hatred his sinnes againe imputed and himselfe hurried into hell That his safety still depends upon his own works righteousnes no peny no Pater noster that the grace of God is let to farme for fine and rent no one promise of the word in all this his Booke being alledged by Mr. Baxter which I can remember of any support which the beleever shall receive from God in the state of Grace but all Selfe doe and selfe have This Doctrine eyther benummeth and freezeth up all a poore Christians love and delight in serving God emasculating his spirits to obedience or reduceth him under a yoke of bondage making him to worke possibly but in feare not of love as under the rod or rather in the fire fearing death and hell all his life time And whether this bee saving in Mr. Baxters accompt obedience or disobedience let them that are spirituall judge 4. By turning the very obedience of his Disciples into disobedience and rebellion The best works done to be justified by them and for them are the greatest abhomination in Gods accompt his Grace and Salvation are either denied or refused when wee bring works to appropriate it to us Rom. 4. 4 5. what is righteousnesse in its matter is sin in its end Therefore shall wee finde still that whosoever are admitted to those that seek to ingratiate themselvs by their good works though done in Christs name are hurled off from Christ I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance I know you not depart from mee yee workers of iniquity More joy for one sinner that repenteth than for ninety nine just persons that need no repentance For a more full and satisfactory answer to the Argument contained in this Quere I leave the Reader to the perusing of the Protestant Divines that have written upon this Subject and abundantly refuted this calumny of the Papists what I have here said is rather an addition to them then a full answer to the Quere which I leave to be fetcht from them What he speakes in the Amplification of this Quere needeth no large examination First he grants That love and thankfulness should be enough to hold us to obedience and duty and will bee so when all our ends are attained in our ultimate end then wee shall act for these ends no more c. How untowardly doth this passage and and another passage of the former Quere hang together what he pronounceth here that love and thankfulnesse should be enough to hold us to duty without doing for justification and salvation and that which here should be and hereafter shall be our perfection the same he affirmes there if practiced will undoubtedly damne the Practicer So according to Mr. Baxter if a Christian endeavour sincerely to do what he should and to come as neere in this life as it is possible to the perfection which he shall enjoy in the future hee shall undoubtedly bee damned for it Who then goes about to drive obedience out of the world he or they whom he opposeth What use is to be made of the affections of feare desire hope and care to the attainment of our great ends hath been enough discussed in the examination of the former Quere and would be a meere Tautology here to do it againe Let it be proved once that God hath left Justification by workes to be a motive to obedience it shall be granted to bee a help to the destroying of Obedience to take downe this one Motive But if contrariwise Justification of sinners by Works and Morall Obedience bee erected not by God but by the Devill Mr. Baxters neither Sophistry nor Oratory shall induce us to leane upon the Devils crutch both to the forfeiting of our Justification and turning our Obedience into sin CHAP. XII Whether the doctrine of justification by Faith without workes be a soul-cozening doctrine or harden the people in a soul-cozening Faith what the doctrine of Faith which the Protestant Churches holde is and how farr from deserving this Calumny with something about the facility or difficulty to perswade the multitude to such a Faith HIs fourth Quere by which as by another Argument he goeth about to make odious and to destroy justification by Faith without works runs thus B. pag. 326. Doth it not much confirme the world in their soul cozening Faith surely that Faith which is by many thought to justifie is it that our people doe all most easily embrace that is the receiving of Christ for their Saviour and expecting pardon and salvation by him but not withall receiving him for their Lord and King nor delivering up themselves to be ruled by him I meet not with one but is resolved in such a Faith till it be overthrowne by teaching them better They would all trust Christ for the saving of their soules and that without dissembling for ought any man can discerne Are all these men justified c. A Chip of the same blocke with the former in the use of it Mr. Baxter as he hath learned of them from whom he hath received it levels against the very heart of Christ and his Gospell Had hee said with Iames that to say we have Faith and not to have workes is to cozen our souls I should have said with him But in that he speaketh not of a soul-cozening profession of Faith but layeth so horrid an imputation upon Faith it selfe this gives us cause to examine what Faith he meaneth that we may be able to discern whether that Faith or else Mr. Baxter by defaming it goe about to cozen our souls and so embrace the true friend and reject the Cheater This cozening Faith according to Mr. Baxter must needs bee that which squareth not in its nature and manner of justification with the justifying Faith viz. that Gospell Faith which neither as a deed and worke as a worke of Morall duty and worke of our owne righteousnesse of our perfect and meritorious righteousnesse doth begin and but begin to inright us to Christ and justification by him leaving to eyther vertues and works to perfect it but as an instrument ordeyned and given us of God by which we receive Christ alone offering up himselfe a sacrifice for us to bee cur whole righteousness to justification and that without
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâ—st speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌ„s Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ„ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
He tells us he knows no one word in St. Paul or the Bible that hath any strong appearance of contradiction to his Doctrine To which I answer 1 That wee look not to appearances whether they be weak or strong But if there be not strong Contradictions in the doctrine of the Apostle and of the Gospel to his there is no cause of dissenting from him 2 Who more blind and ignorant than hee that will not know and see 3 No marvail if hee see not while hee looks thorow the spectacles of Naturall reason and sophisticall reasonings whereas spirituall things cannot be discerned but spiritually 1 Cor. 2. 14. 4 Let him examine whether the words of Christ be not verified upon him For judgment I am come into the world that they which see not might see and they which see might be made blind Joh. 9. 39. But blessed be God who hath hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes Mat. 11. 25. 5 If he see not know not his wilful ignorance and blindnesse must not be made the rule of other mens Faith and Judgment nor prejudice their happiness in seeing and knowing It is somewhat a lofty language he hnoweth not What then Therefore either there is no such thing or no man can know it or it is a fancy in any other to believe it Not Mr. Br. but Christ is our ipse dixit wee draw the Treasures of wisedom and knowledg from Christ not from Mr. Br. 2 Hee acknowledgeth that other men at least seem to know what he denies himself to know Scriptures that have if not a strong yet some appearance of Contradiction to him and quotes the Scriptures which he saith are usually quoted viz. Rom. 3. 28 c. Here 1 I demand of him who they are that quote and against whom they quote those Scriptures That they which quote them are the Protestant Churches and writers and that they are the Papists against whom they are so usually quoted he must needs confess because he can produce none but Protestants that do none but Papists against whom they do alledg these Scripures For although the Arminians do enough declare themselves in their writings that they hold in common with the Papists Justification by works yet I could never find that they would suffer this Tenet to be brought to a dispute but being charged therewith they have with sacred protestations adjurations denyed any such thought in their hearts and so never permitted these or any other Scriptures to be quoted against them about this question still declining the dispute It must be therefore the Papists against whom Mr. Br. saith these Scriptures have been usually quoted And this speaks out to us in many respects what the frame of this mans spirit is 1 The integrity and ingenuity of his Conscience that having but 2 pages backward verbally renounced the Papists and all concurrence of his doctrine with theirs he useth only a short digression to smooth the face end spit in the mouth of Socinus and then forthwith makes a bridg of St Paul to return and make peace and confirm a league with the Papists as it were stroking the shavelings and telling them Notwithstanding all that I have said I doubt not but ye well perceive therein the equivocations and mentall reservations which I have learned from you Still my horses are your horses my charrets your charrets I am as yee are and your Adversaries my Adversaries Mark ye well how finely I shall here divert from you the Scripture darts which the Hereticks fling at you This all may see to be the sum of his words or at least implyed therein 2 His consistency with himself that what ere-while he denyed here he affirms viz. that he is not only Popish in this point but also a patron of the Popish Cause And thus also while he endeavors to purge his doctrine from all contradiction of Scripture he becomes a Contradictor of himself 3 His honesty in explaining his meaning at last whom he pointed at throughout his Treatise under the name of ignorant Antinomians viz. all that have quoted those Scriptures against justification by works 4 His good will to the Protestant Religion and to the doctrine of grace that rather than these shall stand he will say and unsay joyn with and borrow from Papists Socinians Arminians and why not the Turkish Alcaron also or whatsoever prodigies of Doctors that send men to blessednesse by the merit of their owne works 5. His matchles worth arising out of all these for which such a confluence of Divines from all parts of England is made to him even such as were ere-while Zelots against Popery Socinianism and Arminianism untill they had fatted themselves with the spoyls of the friends thereof Hath not the Lord cause to visit upon these men the breach of his Covenant whereof they professe themselves at this day transcendently zealous Is not this one principall branch thereof Let others dream waking of the further exaltation of the present Ministry of this Land I see no ground of expecting any Change but to the abasing thereof though my self must take a share in such an abasement With such plausibility every where is this man and every seducer received in their sowing the worst errors if they will but pretend a zeal against supposed Antinomians And so generally is the doctrine of grace slighted I undertake to defend against all Opponents that Mr. Br hath no one assertion in his whole Book about Justification by works nor more than one if one proof or argument to confirm such an assertion nay scarce any word phrase or Apex which hee hath not received from the Papists Socinians or at the best from the Arminians I acknowledg in some places he runs more in the Arminian than Popish method and dialect when they speak more to the extolling of mans righteousness and annihilating of Gods grace But in no one particle is he better then they I appeal not only to the Learned but also to the rationall among the Readers of his Book when they looked upon its Title Aphorisms of Justification whether they expected not that the truth of the Gospel and doctrine of the Protestant Churches should have been stoutly defended by so Scholastick a man against Papists Arminians c. But when contrariwise they find him undertaking no Combat against them but all for them and making none other his Aversaries but Protestants sometimes under sometimes without the nick-name of Antinomians Is it not a strange piece of incredulity when hee so plainly discovereth himself not to believe him to whom he is a Friend and to whom an Adversary And a gross delusion to lick up as honey from the dirt of Mr. Brs. shoos what they detest as poyson from the lips of Bellarmin Socinus and Arminius But I incurr blame by digressing therefore return to the matter 2 I except against his quotations as done partially and unfaithfully to beget in his weak and credulous Reader
required to justification Or Mr. Br. that without craving leave of Paul by such gross distinetions goes about to make him unsay what he hath said and the world to believe that in all what he wrote of Justification hee meant to be understood on the contrary to what hee speaketh 6. If we bring works at all to procure justification by Christ we do by evacuating the grace of God and merits of Christ to our selves oblige put a bondage upon our selvet to fulfil the whole Law legally in its perfection else can we never be justified but abide under the Curse for ever For he that worketh requireth the reward as a debt in law and not as a gift of grace therefore except his work be so perfect as that it can in strict justice save him hee can never attain salvation as by comparing together these Scriptures will be evident viz. Gal. 5. 3 4. 3. 10. Rom. 4. 4 5. 9. 30 31 32. 7. As to the rules or qualifications which he gives to covenanting and obedience that it may be sincere they are in substance meerly legal the Name of Christ being only put in stead of the Name of God And who is there not only of the Jesuits Socinians with the Arminians from whom he borroweth most of his principles but even of the reall Antinomians whom he pretends to oppose who in all those particulars thinks not himself or gives not cause to all to think them as sincere as Mr. Br what ground have we to conclude but that they know the ends nature and conditions of the Covenant so truly and obey with so much deliberation and as little fittishness and rashness so seriously without dissimulation and slightness so freely intirely and singly aâ— Mr. Br. doth Thus every stigmatized Heretick in his own way bringing with him such a sincerity of obedience shall thereby be possessed of the investiture of Christs righteousness though he seek it in his own not in Gods way by his own righteousness and not by Faith alone which alone God hath stamped with an aptitude and efficacy to this work B. 2. The Law saith he requireth obedience and doing by its own righteousness to justifie us but the Gospel requireth it as a Medium to acquire to us Christs Righteousness by which wee may be justified So that the one requires works to justifie us withoutt the other the same works to justifie us by a Mediator This he saith so frequently in substance that it were lost labour to quote the places And it hath been almost so oft answered as said Therefore I shall referr the Reader to the places where it hath been answered and specially to the examination of those his disputes in which he labours to cleer his doctrine from all tincture of Popery from all contradiction to Paul and from being derogatory to Christ his righteousnes Here only I add that this doctrine is the same with that of the most legal Pharisees against whom the Apostle so much inveigheth wishing them accursed cut off for troubling the Churches therwith Gal. 1 9. 5. 12. For they arrogated to themselves alone part in Christ his Righteousnes because of their own personall righteousness in the works and obedience which the Law requireth resisting the Gentiles denying to them all possibility to partake in the Justification which is by Christ by means of Faith alone except they also fulfilled the righteousnesse which the Law required to give them right to him and it Yea Mr. Br. with these ascribes more to works than the very unbeleeving Pharisees For these claymed Justification only by their works but he and the beleeving Pharisees challenged for their works right both in the Justifier and in his justification also For Causa causae est etiam causa causati As farr as they ascribe to their works a Causality to make Christ theirs they make them causal to render the Justification which is by Christ theirs also B. 3. That neither is his Doctrine legall nor doth he ascribe too much to works because he maketh Faith and obedience to be but a Condition or a Mâ—dium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non of our Justification Aph. pa. 223 224. and our doing no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness for this hee seems to have ascribed before to our sufferings in bearing the Curse but to be our Gospel-Righteousness or the Condition of our participation in Christ who is our legall Righteousness so of all the benefits that come by him App. p. 78. I say that subjection and obedience justifie 1 Not as works simply considered 2 Nor as legall works 3 Nor as meritorious workes 4 Nor as good works which God is pleased with 5 But as Conditions to which the free Law giver hath promised Justification and life Nay your i. e. the Protestants doctrine ascribeth farr more of the work to man than mine For you make Justification an effect of your own Faith and your faith an instrumentall cause of it and so make your self your own Justifier And you say your faith justifieth as it apprehendeth Christ which is the most intrinsicall essentiall consideration of Faith so faith hath much of the Honour But while I affirm that it justifieth only as a condition which is an extrinsicall consideration and alien from its essence and Nature I give the glory to him that freely giveth mee life and that made so sweet a condition to his Covenant and that enableth me to perform the said Condition App. pag. 120 121. All this hath been oft and fully examined before in its place also and how little truth there is in any part or parcell thereof discovered It would be weariness to the flesh and vexation to the Spirit but to look so often upon his great Goddess his Queen of Heaven CONDITION as he blesseth her O that his conscience had been so well acquainted with Christ as his fancy is with this Idoll he would not then have pestered the Church with such an imaginary Deity nor prostituted all that is called God at the feet of such a Proserpina I am weary any more to attend to him making the will of God i. e. God willing conditional and so the immutable God a conditional God the salvation of Christ conditional so Christ a conditional Saviour or the witness seal of Christ a conditional seal and witness and so the Holy Ghost a conditional Spirit of Adoption or the gospel of righteousness forgiveness and life a conditional Gospel and consequently nulling all thâ—se and pronouncing them no God no Christ no Holy Ghost no Gospel For a conditional proposition doth Nihil ponere and after Mr Brs. principles it is in mans righteosness to give or destroy the actual existence of every of these But I leave to him that delights therein to bury himself in this guâ—ph I conceive my self obnoxious to censure for spending and spilling so many words already to shew the deformity and
ugliness of this imaginary Chimera Here therefore it shall suffice leaving the Reader to the perusall of what hath been said already upon this subject to mind him of these two things 1. That both the whole and every least fragment of all that is here collected whether we look to the substance or Artifice used about it is not his but borrowed partly from the Papists partly from the Socinians and their Apes the Arminians as hath been before shewed and if I shall be called thereto I am ready more fully to shew by quoting the Authors out of whom he hath transcribed all almost word for word to his use So that the Reader may consult with such of our Writers that have answered their sophistry if he desire to read more fully and largely upon this subject and not expect it from mee who have already transgressed as some will judg by my too much largeness thereon as to Mr. Baxter 2 That although the voyce here be the voyce of Jacob yet the hands are the hands of Esau Sweet words but subverting doctrine in matter and substance Pills of poyson wrapt up in gold we except not against the gold but the poyson therein inclosed not against the Terms of words considered by themselves but against the pernicious doctrine which they palliate Whether we ascribe too much to Faith by making it an instrument see the examination of his answer to the last question which he propoundeth in the explication of Thes 56. But how false and fallacious his flaattering words which he useth here to make tolerable yea sweet his arrogant doctrine of Justification by works viz. that Wee that is I and the Papists with Socinus and Arminius make our righteousnesse but a Condition or Medium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness Not as works simply considered nor as Legall works nor as Meritorious works Nor as good works with which God is pleased but as our Gospel-righteousness and conditions to which the free Law-giver hath promised justification and life will easily appear to him that considereth what how much hee ascribeth to works Though he cals works a poor Causa sine qua non yet himself affirmeth that some Causes sine qua non deserve farr greater praise in morall respect than some that have a proper Causality do Aph. pa. 216. which though in words he deny of Faith meaning by faith all obedience and good works which hee calls the severall Acts of Faith Aph. p. 126. that it doth so deserve Aphor. p. 224. yet in matter and substance he affirms it And Nulla fides verbis cum res adversa loquatur For as I have more than hinted before 1 He maketh our righteousnes of works and Christs satisfactory righteousness co-ordinate and collateral in the procurement of our Justification the one as absolutely necessary as the other to the attainment of this end the one to purchase a possibility of Justification the other to render that which was but in possibility actual and effectual to us Both satisfactory the one as a sufficient Fine and payment the other as satisfactory Rent and homage Aph. Thes 17 18 19. pa. 129. 2 He puts both in the same order and kind of Causes making our righteousness and Christs satisfaction to be both the Causa sine qua non Thes 56. For although he names Faith there yet himself declares himselfe under Faith to mean and comprehend obedience also This Civility alone he vouchsafeth to Christ that he names Christs satisfaction before our faith or obedience because it seems that is the elder But in order power and authority to the producing of this effect Christ hath no pre-eminence given him above man 3 He affirms mans righteousness to be as perfect as Christs righteousness in order to Justification viz. both perfect in suo genere Christs righteousness perfect to do its work mans to its work or as he explains himself both perfect in the perfection of sufficiency in order to its end So that here also is a parity no efficiency in Christs righteousness without mans nor in mans without Christs to justifie But when the two perfections meet if neither lose its perfection they may after the world is ended perfect our justification Thes 24. p. 132. In the mean while till our works be added to Christs satisfaction what he saith of faith that he every where implyeth of the satisfaction of Christ that it is dead being alone as to the use and purpose of justifying And so as works make faith alive so they make Christs satisfaction alive as to the attainment of its end justification 4 That works justifie in the same kind of Causality and procurement with faith not only proving Faith to be sound but themselves being in the same obligation with Faith not idle Concomitants only standing by while Faith doth all which some fools might imagine hee meaneth when he calls them onely necessary Antecedents of Justification pa. 223. Nay they are Concomitants with Faith in the very Act of procuring it and in that kind of Causality which they have p. 299 300. 5 They do all this as they are works Even Faith it self justifieth as it is an Act of ours Append. p. 80. and as a morall duty Append. p. 102. So do all other Morall duties as they are part of our sincere obedience to Christ ibid. 6 That we are justified not only by works Aph. p. 300. and according to our works but also for our works pa. 320. that good works are a ground and Reason of it p. 221. 7 That we are justified for our works that is for the Merit of them Not Merit in the most proper and strict sense which is the performance of somewhat not due by one that is not under the Soveraignty of him to whom it is performed of that worth in it selfe which bindeth him to whom it is done in strict and naturall justice to requite him Such an obligation can no creature lay upon God Neither could perfect obedience in respect of the Law of Works if man had continued still upright have so merited But so far as it was possible for a perfect man to have merited under the Covenant of works hee may now merit also under the Covenant of Grace by his works viz. in an improper way of Meriting where the obligation to reward is Gods Ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthinesse lyeth in our performance of the Condition on our part Thus farr might Adam in his perfection have merited according to the Law of works and so farr may wee merit according to the Covenant of Grace Aphorism Thesis 26. pa. 138. 140 141. Let all this be laid together and who can but per-force acknowledge together with the horns of the Lamb the voyce of the Dragon also and all that he hath spoken pretendedly to the diminution of works under the fine terms of his causa sine qua non his
Gospel Condition and necessary Antecedents to be really but a Cloke to hide his diminution of Christ and exaltation of sinfull man A Syrens song to draw poor souls to dash against the Rocks and be drowned in the gulph Why had he not made our works conjunctly vvith Christs satisfaction in his Thes 56. the procatarctick and meritorious cause of our Justification as well as he doth the satisfaction of Christ conjunctly with our Faith or obedience in the same Thesis the Causa ssne qua non thereof Had he so done could he have ascribed more to vvorks under the name of a Meritorious cause then he doth under the title of a poor improper Causa sine qua non But by so doing he should have shewed himself in the light when contrariwise he that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved Let now any of his Disciples produce I will not say one Arminian but one Socinian Papist yea or Jew that ascribes more to works then this man in derogation from Christ and Grace else let him cease to be a follower of him or openly and ingenuously profess that he followeth him as a Jew Papist or Socinian and consequently that he hath made not Mr. Br. but Mr Brs Masters his Master also in the doctrine of Justification And that in advancing self so high as to affirm he meriteth no less fully and properly then Christ himself hath or could have done For his merits are in order to Gods ordinate not naturall justice But to shew the vanity of his distinction here how carelesly he eludeth the holy Scriptures as meer shaddows and play-games the Apostle denyeth man in this or that or in any sense to be justified by works He saith not Not by works as the efficient or meritorious cause or as the Medium or Antecedent or Condition or Causa sine quâ— non lest any man should boast but positively and peremptorily not by Works as by Faith yea not by works in any acceptation upon any score and accompt Mr. Brs chippings therfore have no more force then a chip to make the Holy Ghost to unsay what he hath said And it is as good sense as if I should say Mans bread doth not apparrell him as it is the maker or matter or instrument or merit of his clothing but as it is the antecedent or medium or condition or Causa sine qua non of his apparrelling when contrariwise it doth not at all in any sense apparrell him CHAP. XXIV Mr. Baxters Sophism to prove that his Doctrine of Justification by Works doth not at all derogate from the Doctrine of Faith examined and found to be meer vanity BEcause the Scripture attributeth Justification to Faith without works and to Faith in opposition to works excluding works and requiring Faith alone to apprehend the Righteousnesse which is by Christ and denominating it the Righteousnesse of Faith Rom. 4. 11. The Righteousnesse which is of Faith Rom. 9. 30. 10. 6. in opposition to the Righteousnesse of works He easily seeth that he shall be excepted against for his antiscripturall doctrine in making Faith and works Concomitants in the same kind of causality and procurement of Justification Therefore he makes it his sixth task to vindicate this his doctrine from all derogation from Faith and from all unscripturall confounding of Faith and works together To prove himself as innocent in this as in all the rest he brings these Reasons B. Thes 62. 1 Because though he makes Works and Faith to be the Conditions of our Justification yet according to Scripture phrase Faith may be called the onely Condition of the New Covenant 1 Because it is the principall Condition and works but the lesse principall And so as a whole Countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the Conditions of this Covenant from Faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it Either being presupposed as necessary Antecedents or means or conteined in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necessary subservient means or consequents All without Book one of Mr Brs Mysticks that hath no one sound of Gods word patronizing or favouring it Witnesse Mr. Br. who neither in his Thesis nor in its Explication hath alledged one Scripture to make it good Is Pythagoras come among us in a new body speaking nothing but Parables and Paradoxes which vulgar capacities can no more comprehend then they can Plato's Idea's or Democritus his Atomes If so it shall be needfull for him to injoin upon his Schollars as he did of old five years dumbnesse or silence Els if the mouth of a very Asse should be open it would rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet for delivering things so contradictive to the word to himself and to reason 1 To the word and the Holy Ghost speaking by it who every where opposeth Faith and works as to Justification making them to exclude not to infer or imply either the other By faith therefore not at all by works not by works therefore by faith alone But this man puts them in a conjunction makes Faith and works together the Condition of our justification from thence to conclude that Faith is the onely Condition and justifieth alone So much a greater Artist is Mr. Br. then the Holy Ghost and so ambitious of the praise of wisedome that he thinks himself to be but a vulgar idiot if his wisdom be not stretched Nine whole words by measure beyond and above the wisedom of the Holy Ghost 2 Contradictive to himself For Aph. p. 300. He denyeth that which he calleth an idle Concomitacny of works with Faith that they onely stand by while Faith doth all and concludes that they act together with faith in the same kind of causality to procure Justification and so denyeth that we are justified by Faith onely Here contrariwise he denyeth all such co-working of works with Faith but that faith may be said to be the onely Condition and to justifie onely 3 Contradictive to reason also and yet this next to Condition he seems to honour as the greatest God it must be to the Goats and sheep of the mountains not to Christs sheep to men that have reason that Mr. Br. must deliver this doctrine That we are justified not by faith alone but by works also yet it stands nevertheles as a firm Maxim faith is the onely condition or justifieth alone If the lips were shut and sealed up yet reason would use a ventriloquy or force a way thorow the ears to reclaim against such an absurdity If I should so reason of Condemnation the contrary to Justification that when the blind lead the blind and both fall into the ditch when seducers pervert those that are made to be taken and destroyed and so all utterly perish and are damned That tho all are damned yet it is but the leader and seducer alone that is damned he for all that he hath
Part 1. p. 277. to the 286. More of Justification see Bellarmine Repentance Faith Works Condition Scripture Lord Prayer Forgiving Love Easie Christ Papists Paul Cozen Grace Causes Reconciliation Degrees K. The kingdome and pardon of God and of Christ are one and the same Part 1. p. 228 229. L. VVhether beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works largely discussed against Mr. Br. part 1. p. 61 to 97. Protestants reasons for the Negative ibid. p. 62-66 Mr. Brs Sophistry in stating the question ibid. p. 66-70 The Law not repealed as a Covenant of Works to any but in a right sense nulld to beleevers part 1. p. 71-74 The vanity of the distinctions fallaciousness of the Arguments which Mr. Br brings to prove the Affiâ—mative ibid. p. 75. to the 97 Many abuse the Law in preaching it first not onely to kill but then also to make alive again Pref. p. 11 12. Distinguishing the same works into works of the Law and works of the Gospel viz Paul and Moral Law-giver vid. Lord. Legal or Law teacher vid. Gospel Secular Learning see Arts Sophistry Tertullion Bullinger The doctrine of Faith gives not the Reins to carnall Liberty Part 2. p. 286. to the 295 The doctrine of Mr. Br so accusing it doth se ibid. p. 170 171 c. Do and Live whether and in what respects the voyce of the Gospel and in what sense to work for Life not from Life or from Life not for Life are either and both sound doctrine Part 2. p. 137. to the 153. 158. Part 1. p. 179. Whether Christ Justifie as our Lord and Law giver and that it follow thence we are justified by works as well as by Faith Part 2. p. 64. to the 84. How farr and in what sense onely the affirmative may be granted ibid. p. 79. The question stated ibid. p. 65. Mr. Baxters Arguments to prove the affirmative answered ibid. p. 71. to 84. VVhether Love cooperate with Faith in Justifying Part 2. p. 37. 40. Our Acting from Love to God denieth not a regular Love to our selves Part 2. p. 293 294. M. Mr. Brs Magisteriall and usurped Authority in saying without proving Part 2 p. 252 253. Marks vid. Evidences Metaphysicks see Arts. Mr. Brs doctrine of Merits examined in which he shews himself as high-flown a Papist as any of the Jesuits Part 1. p. 186. to the 194. An Admonition to such Ministers as inconsiderately suck up Mr. Brs doctrines Part 1. p 59 60. What the Moral Law is as considered in it self and in what sense taken Part 1. p. 197-199 VVhat Relation it hath to the severall Covenants ibid. p. 201 202 c. Why the Gospel continues it as a Rule and that it can be no more repealed or abrogated than God un-Godded ibid. p. 199 200 203-206 N. Novelty or Newnes of words and phrases used oft for the Vshering in of errors Part 1. p. 128 129. O. Obscuring see Darkening How all the Offices of Christ concur in our Justification yet nothing concludible thence for Justification by works Part 2. p. 63 64. Origen how great a Scholar and how great an abuser of his Learning and corrupter of the Gospel Pref. p. 33 34. P. VVhether our doctrine by excluding works from justifying be a stumbling block to Papists hindering their conversion and an occasion given to many learned men to turn Papists and therefore unsound Part 2. p. 188 to 197. Mr. Brs doctrine compared with the worst of the Papists and found one and the same with theirs Part 2. p. 215. to p. 222 His doctrine compared with such of the Papists as write more moderately found worse than theirs ibid. p. 223. to the 229. VVhether his doctrine contradicts Pauls or not ibid. p. 234. to the 258. His first Reason refuted viz. that Pauls question was what is the proper Righteousness by which we are justified but his own by what means we may attain this Righteousness though they answer differently to these differing questions they consent in Judgements ibid. p. 239 to the 250. His 2 reason that Paul excludes the works of the Law not of the Gospel vain and Popish ibid. p. 251. to the 257. His 3 reason that Paul under the word Faith implyeth works and obedience vitious in the same kinde with the former ibid. p. 257 258. It is no sound reason that Christ commands not the Perfect Righteousness of the Law because Mr. Br seeth no Reason why he should require what he enableth no man to perform Part 1. p. 215. 217 VVhat Reasons thereof may be given ibid. p. 216 217. Perfect See Sincere and Righteousness Person vid. Work Philosophy vid. Arts. Whether Mr. Brs doctrine be as he contendeth free from Popery Part. 2. p. 209 to 215. VVhether it be possible for us to perform a Righteousness perfect to Justification Part 1. p. 194. 196. Whether and in what sense Praying for pardon may be said to be a condition of pardoning and justifying Pa. 2. p. 31-33 Promises see Qualifie Punish and Punishment vid. Curse and Affliction VVhether Mr. Br hold for Purgatory Part 1. p. 54-56 Q. Promises of life made to persons so and so Qualified describe the Justified but demonstrate not for what they are justified Part 2. p. 40 41. 269. Rules given by our Divines for the right understanding of such promises to persons of such qualifications P. 2. p. 112 c. Quotations without the words of Scripture or shewing how he would argue thence why so frequent with Mr. Br. P. 2. Cha. 2 3 in the beginning thereof R. Whether ReconciliatioÌ„ denotes the same thing with or different from Remission and Justification Part 1. p. 227 228 308 309. VVhether and in what Respects sin may be Remitted before it be committed Part 1. p. 310. to the 313. Whether and in what sense Repentance may be said to officiat in Justifying Par. 2. p. 26. to the 31. Scripture seemingly asserting it examined ibid. What Legal Repentance is ibid. p. 26. What the life promised and death threatened under the Law to this legal Repentance are ibid. p. 26-28 What Gospel Repentance is and how manifold ibid. p. 29-31 Sometimes one with Faith ibid. p. 29 30. In what sense life is promised to it ibid. Repentance either in its large or strict sense how it giveth life ibid. p. 28 29 30. Mr. Brs doctrine of a twofold Righteousness absolutely necessary to Justification the one Legal the other Evangelical this in our selves that in Christ and his Reasons to make good 1 his phrase 2 his matter examined and refelled Part 1. p. 119. to p. 143. His dispute that his doctrine is not derotory to Christ and his Righteousness proved fallacious and false Part 2. p. 259. to the 265. VVhether Righteousness be a Reall Being or else but a Modification of a Being Part 1. p. 149 150. 159. to 161 VVhether the Scripture call men Righteous only for performing the Cnnditions of the New Covenant Part 1. p. 144. to 163.
heâ—r it tends to the promoting of his cause to affirme it And this alters the Case quoth Ploydon How rightly did Mr. Baxter describe his owne acting in this businesse p. 291. I resisted saith he the Light of this Conclusion as long as I was able It is the light of the Conclusion not of the Premises that swayeth him First hee pitcheth upon this Conclusion Works justifie there was light in this Conclusion it fell out of the Lant-horne of the Jesuits sophistry into his bosome and by that light he is swayed and having taken up the conclusion in such light of its owne from them now he digs downward for day and takes up that which erewhile he shook off as darkness for light to illustrate and prove it So his light conclusion is first formed and afterward he seeks for Crutches and reasons what come first to hand to support it sacrificing here more to hast than to reason lest his idol should fall before he returnes with his props to sustaine it And what if upon new thoughts we shall finde all that is here said all so unsaid again Let us passe to his explication peradventure we may stumble at such a stone before we come off from it B. Explication Heere I have these things to prove 1 that the Justifying sentence shall passe according to works as well as Faith 2. That the Reason is because they are parts of the condition For the first see Mat 25. 21. 23. well done good aâ—d faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the ioy of thy Lord. And most plaine is that from the mouth of the judge himselfe describing the order of the processe of that day Mat. 25. 34 35. Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdome c for I was hungry c. So 1 Pet 1. 17. who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans worke So 2. Co 5. 10. we must all appeare before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body acording to that he haâ—h done whether good or bad So Rev. 20. 12. 13. They were judged every man according to his works Heb. 13. 17. Phil 4 17. Mat. 12. 36 c. but this is evident already The Scriptures that he brings to prove that the justifying sentence shall passe according to workes as well as Faith are first here put and therefore first to be examined And against his reasoning from them I except 1. as well as Faith is here foysted in being wanting in the position And why heere supplyed but to beguile the simple with a good opinion of his assertion as if he attributed something to Faith also in Christs and Pauls sense When contrariwise he teacheth that Faith hath nothing to doe in this businesse but in the notion of our Act our righteousnesse or worke so that with him to be justified by Faith is to be justified by our owne worke 2. That there is no one of these Scriptures but is alledged by Bellarmin and his fellows against the Protestants and by them fully answered manifested to make nothing for justification or salvation by works scripture after scripture no one of them pretermitted When Mr. Baxter now stands up in Bellarmins place against us is it sufficient for him to tel us what Bellarmin hath said against the truth as if we could not without him know it and to leave unanswered yea unmentioned the hundreds of our side that have retorted upon him his owne arguments to the subverting of his owne cause that by these Scriptures he would have maintained If he would have another answer ought he not to have excepted against the validety of those that have beene already given Is he worthy to heare more from vs that hath stopped his eares against all that so many worthies have said already scorning to take notice thereof Nay when he will onely alledge the Scriptures and not take the labour to tel us what or how he will conclude from them he leaves us not in a capacity to declare so much as our consent with him or dissent from him Yet for the use of the weaker sort of readers that have not ability to make recourse to those learned workes where these controversies are handled or to understand them in that language in which most of them are written I shal speak something in generall to all these Scriptures First of that of Mat. 25. 21. 23. or rather taking the whole parable together beginning at ver 14. and ending at v. 30. granting it on both sides to be the same Parable which Luke recordeth chap. 19. beginning at the 12. and ending at the 27. verse which very few have questioned no one hath had cause to deny then it suits not at all with Mr. Baxters purpose or his Judgement dayes justification For the Kingdome of Heaven and the Lords comming and reckoning with his Servants and retribution of their service is to be taken for Christs comming to preach first in his owne person and then to set up and stablish the Gospel by the Ministry of his Apostles The servants to be reckoned with are principally the Teachers of the Iewes the Talents used or abused are the mysteries of the Gospel revealed though veyled under the Law The matter of the Account is what each by his serious studies and labours had cleared up to himselfe and others of this Gospel and saving knowledge of Christ before his comming for the advancement and advantage of Christ at his comming They which had spent their labours this way received at Christs comming a double measure of the spirit of illumination in the knowledge of Christ and salvation by him and were intrusted with a fuâ—ler measure of this sacred Treasure to bee the dispencers thereof to the world But hee which â—ad wrapt his Talent in a Nâ—pkin and hid it in the earth left the Doctrine of Christ scattered throughout the old Testament under a veile as he found it without searching into it and clearing it up to others was lâ—ft in the state of infidelity rejected and bound over hand and foot by his unbeliefe to perdition And his Citizens which sent word after him wee will not have this man to rule over us we will have a Christ such a one as wee have framed to our selves in our owne immaginations but not this Christ have their doom not only denounced but executed also upon them bring them hither and slâ—y them before me Who are these but the great Body and Nation of the Iewes that professed themselves Citizens and the onely Saints of God but for their refusall of Christ were slaine and destroyed by the sword of the Romans And so the parable comprehends in it a Prophecy of the successe of the Kingdome of Grace now in the way of erecting in its power as to the Iews So saith Luke in that 19. Chapter verse 11. Hee added and spake a parable because