Opinionists I confess I begin to have charitable thoughts of a man that is but freed from the charge of gross Popery and if those tongues should free him also from the imputation of all the finer Popery I should begin to suspect that somewhat is amiss Treat ib. 2. Although to maintain faith and Obedience to be the conditions and a causa sine qua non of our Justification be the professed and avowed Doctrine of the Socinians yet some of late have asserted the same Doctrine that yet abhor Socinianism Answ For this also I give you the thanks which you expected on the foresaid grounds But if we assert the same Doctrine with the Socinians either it is the same false Doctrine or the same sound Doctrine If the later you might as well have said the Socinians assert that there is a God and so do we But to what purpose If the former then either it is false quoad terminos or quoad sensum The former cannot be said without absurdity the words can have no other falsness but an unfitness distinct from the sense And if the terms be any part of Socinianism then Christ and James were guilty of Socinianism quod absit If it be the sense First I crave no other favour of the impartial Reader before he judge then to read the Socinians explication of themselves and to read my explication here and in my confession Secondly And if he will also peruse the Allegations in the end of that confession let him judge whether the Orthodox be not guilty of Socinianism Or if he be tempted to believe Dr. Owens intimations as if I had dealt injuriously with the Authors there alleadged I only desire him to turn to the places cited and peruse them in the Authors and freely censure me Treat 220. Neither is the question about the necessity of holiness c. Only the question is upon what account these are required in justified persons whether in some causality or concurrence as faith is only not with such a degree of excellency Whether good works be required as well as faith so that we may say justifying Repentance justifying Law Love it should be as well as justifying faith This is positively and vehmently affirmed by some but certainly those Arguments and Reasons they bring are too weak to gainsay the Torrent of the Orthodox Divines Answ Upon the reading of this I complained of hard measure in the Preface to my confession to which you reply somewhat in your Preface to Sermons on John 17. I shall recite the reasons of my complaint First I did both at large in private writings to your self and publiquely to the world profess that I took neither faith nor works for any causes at all of our Justification was it just then to make this the state of the Question and say I positively and vehemently affirmed it for you deny not that it is me that you mean and I know it by passages here agreeable to your private letters Secondly I never once imagined the difference between faith and holy obedience or sanctification to lie in order to Justification in the degree of excellency I never to my remembrance so thought or wrote or spoke But the difference I laid here first That as to actual obedience yea and Repentance faith hath a peculiar aptitude to this office as being a Receptive act and fited to the object as that object is fitted to our necessity Secondly That as to assent desire of Christ love to Christ offered accepting him as Teacher and Lord they are essential acts of faith and so differ not at all as they are by many supposed to do Nay I rather expected that some should have charged me with preferring Holiness before faith in excellency while I made faith but the seed and holyness as the fruit faith to be but the covenanting and Obedience the performance of what we consented to and in a word while I made perfect holiness the end of faith because the end is better then the means And I was glad when I found you saying the like Vindic. Legis Lect. 4. pag. 45. 13. Holiness and Godliness inherent is the end of Faith and Justification But little did I think to have been charged and that by you for making the difference to lie in faiths higher degree of excellency and only in that Thirdly I never owned the phrase of justifying Repentance justifying Love nor ever said that we may as well use these as justifying faith And when none of these things were ever said or written by me ought you to have left on record to Generations that this is positively and vehemently affirmed On the consideration of this dealing I must say again O what is man and what a sad case were we in if the best of men were our Judges when they will not stick deliberately to publish to the present and future Ages that we positively and vehemently affirm those things which we never thought nor wrote but have by Letters and in printed books both positively and vehemently very frequently professed the contrary Is here any room for further disputing yea when I have told you of this dealing you own it still and defend it in your Preface to your Sermons on John 17. I shall therefore before I proceed examine that Defence Preface pag. 3. Now when I had endeavoured to state the Question in a most candid and fair way between those that deny a Condition sine qua non of our Justification and those who affirm A Reverend and Learned Brother judging himself concerned in this opinion likewise doth complain of the want of Candor and truth in my stating of the Question when I rather expected thanks for my Ingenuity Now let any judicious Reader that is acquainted with controversie decide wherein any and or truth may be desired here For I say causality which is a general word not efficiency or merit Again I say some causality Causalitas quaedam which is terminus diminuens yea I added the word Concurrence which might satisfie any how low I brought the Question Answer Will you call to any judicious Reader to tell you that which I particularly exprest to you Again Then let the judicious Reader judge whether you should have said to the world any of the forementioned particulars First That I give any Causality to works as to Justification Secondly Or that I difference them only in degree of excellency Thirdly Or that I affirm that we may say justifying Repentance justifying Love as well as justifying faith Fourthly And this is affirmed positively and vehemently and all this when I had positively and vehemently denyed them Fifthly Yea and that only this is the question between us And what do your defences do to justifie such dealing you said only Causality in general and not Efficiency or Merit And did not I openly and privately to you deny Causality in general and not only Merit or Efficiency and is that positive or vehement affirming it Secondly you
to learn of Christ as a Master or to be ruled by him yet cannot be justified or saved by him Proposition 10. I easily grant that Faith qud Christum Prophetam et Dominum recipit doth not justifie but only fides quâ Christum Prophetam Dominum recipit quâ est promissionis Conditio praestita But then I say the same also of Faith in Christ as Priest or in his Righteousness Having explained my meaning in these ten Propositions for preventing of Objections that concern not the Controversie but run upon mistakes I shall now proceed to prove the Thesis which is this Thesis We are justified by God by our Believing in Christ as Teacher and Lord and not only by Believing in his blood or Righteousness Argument 1. My first Argument shall be from the Concession of those that we dispute with They commonly grant us the point contended for Therefore we may take it for granted by them If you say What need you then dispute the point if they deny it not whom you dispute with I Answer some of them grant it and understand not that they grant it us because they understand not the sense of our Assertion And some of them understand that they grant it in our sense but yet deny it in another sense of their own and so make it a strife about a syllable But I shall prove the Concession left some yet discern it not If it be granted us that Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Teacher is a real part of the Condition of our Justification then is it granted us that by this believing in him we are justified as by a Condition which is our sense and all that we assert But the former is true Therefore so is the later For the proof of the Antecedent which is all First Try whether you can meet with any Divine that dare deny it who believeth that Faith is the Condition of the Covenant Secondly And I am sure their writings do ordinarily confess it Their Doctrine that oppose us is That Faith is both a Condition and an Instrument but other Acts as Repentance c. may be Conditions but not Instruments And those that have waded so far into this Controversie seem to joyne these other Acts of Faith with the Conditions but not with the Instrument Thirdly They expresly make it antecedent to our Justification as of moral necessity ex constitutione permittentis and say it is the Fides quae justificat which is the thing desired if there be any sense in the words Fourthly They cannot deny to Faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher that which they commonly give to Repentance and most of them to many other Acts. But to be a Condition or part of the Condition of Justification is commonly by them ascribed to Repentance therefore they cannot deny it to these acts of faith So that you see I may fairly here break off and take the Thesis pro Concessa as to the sense Nothing more can be said by them but against our phrase whether it be proper to say that we are justified By that which is but a bare Condition of our Justification which if any will deny First We shall prove it by the consent of the world that apply the word By to any Medium And Dr. Twiss that told them contr Corvinum over and over that a condition is a Medium though it be not a cause and I think none will deny it Secondly by the consent of many Texts of Scripture But this must be referred to another Disputation to which it doth belong viz. about the Instrumentality of faith in justifying us which God willing I intend also to perform Argument 2. The usual language of the Scripture is that we are justified by faith in Christ or by believing in him without any exclusions of any essential part of that faith But faith in Christ doth essentially contain our believing in him as Teacher Priest and King or Lord therefore by believing in him as Teacher Priest and Lord we are justified The Major is past the denial of Christians as to the first part of it And for the second part the whole cause lyeth on it For the Minor also is past all controversie For if it be essential to Christ as Christ to be God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord then it is essential to faith in Christ by which we are justified to believe in him as God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord. But the Antecedent is most certain therefore so is the Consequent The reason of the Consequence is because the act here is specified from its Object All this is past further question All the Question therefore is Whether Scripture do any where expound it self by excluding the other essential parts of faith from being those acts by which we are justified and have limited our justification to any one act This lyeth on the Affirmers to prove So that you must note that it is enough for me to prove that we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus for this Includeth all the essential acts till they shall prove on the contrary that it is but secundum quid and that God hath excluded all other essential acts of faith save that which they assert The proof therefore is on their part and not on mine And I shall try anon how well they prove it In the mean time let us see what way the Scripture goeth and observe that every Text by way of Authority doth afford us a several Argument unless they prove the exclusion First Mark 16.15 16 17. Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every Creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and these signs shall follow them that believe c. Here the faith mentioned is the believing of the Gospel and the same with our becoming Christians and therefore not confined to one part or act of saving saith That Gospel which must be preached to all the world is it that is received by the faith here mentioned But that Gospel doth essentially contain more then the doctrine of Christs Priesthood therefore so doth that faith Object It is not Justification but Salvation that is there promised Answ It is that Salvation whereof Justification is a part It is such a Salvation as all have right to as soon as ever they believe and are baptized which comprehendeth Justification And the Scripture here and everywhere doth make the same faith without the least distinction to be the condition of Justification and of our Title to Glorification and never parcels out the several effects to several acts of faith except only in those Qualities or Acts of the soul which faith is to produce as an efficient cause To be justified by faith or Grace and to be saved by faith or Grace are promiscuously spoken as of the same faith or Grace Secondly John 3.15 16 18. He that believeth in him
many Scriptures against you Put to your self it s enough to ask How can you constantly make Remission an Essential part of Justification and yet say that we cannot call it a state as we do Justification In your first Treat of Just Lect. 17. pag. 145. you say Prop. 4. Remission is not to be considered meerly as removing of evil but also as bestowing good It is not only ablativa mali but collativa boni a plentiful vouchsafing of many gracious favours to us such as a Son-ship and a Right to eternal life as also peace with God and communion with him And why may we not say A state of Sonship or salvation as well as of Justification Treat ib. There is a Justification of the cause and of the person alwaies to be distinguished Answ There is no Justification of his cause which doth not so far justifie the person Nor any sentential Justification of the person but by justifying his cause Though his actions may not be justifiable yet when the cause to be tryed is Whether sinful actions be pardoned by Christ that cause must be justified if that man be justified Even as Accusations are not charged upon the person without some cause real or pretended Treat pag. 152. Not only Bucer who is known to place Justification both in Imputed righteousness and Inherent thereby endeavouring a Reconciliation with the Papists But Calvin li. 3. cap. 17. sect 8. To this purpose also Zanchy Answ Why then might not I have had as fair measure as Lud. de Dieu Bucer Calvin Zanchy especially when I go not so far And yet I take my self beholden to Guil. Rivet for helping me to some scraps of Phil. Codurcus who drives at this mark as you say Bucer doth though I cannot yet get the Book it self Treat pag. 158. O this is excellent when a man is amazed and in an holy manner confounded at his holiness as well as at his offences Answ So you before say they must be ashamed of their Righteousness as well as their sins I do not well understand these distinctions Nothing in all the world confoundeth me so much as the imperfection of my Holiness But I dare not think that imperfection to be no sin left I must think the perfection to be no duty and so come to works of supererrogation and Evangelical Counsels And Holiness considered in it self and not as sinful and imperfect is amiable in my eyes and I know not how to be ashamed of it without being ashamed of God that is its object and exemplar and heaven that is the state of its perfection Treat ib. Set some few even a remnant aside comparatively the whole Christian world both Doctors and people learned and unlearned fasten on a Justification by works Answ I hope not so many as you fear or affirm First all the Doctors and people of your judgement do not And if you thought those so exceeding few among Christians you would not take me for so singular as you do 2. None of the truly sanctified are such as you here affirm 3. The multitude of groundless presumers of Free Grace are not such And truly though I doubt Justiciaries are too common I do not think that such Presumptuous ones are so small a Remnant 4. The Libertines and Antinomians and many other Sects of their mind are none of this great number 5. I will yet hope for all this that you cannot prove it of the Doctors and people of half the Christian world Their hearts God knows And I will not yet believe that in their Doctrine about Justification by works the Greek Churches the Armenians Jacobites Copti's Abasineâ— c. do fasten on such dangerous sands or differ so much from you 6. I heard as eminent Divines as most I know some yet living in a publick meeting say that Bishop Vsher and Mr. Gataker affirmed that the Papists did not fundamentally differ from us in the Doctrine of Justification Treat pag. 167. By all these subtile Distinctions men would be thought Answ Your scope in that page seems to be against any distinguishing whatsoever about works in this proposition We are justified by faith and not by works If so that we must not run to any distinction but say that in every motion or sense Works are excluded and do justifie in none then I profess it is past my uttmost skill to justifie you for accusing Althamer as you do for saying Mentiris Jacobe in caput tuum Yea if he had upon the reading of Mat. 12.36 risen higher and said Mentiris Christe in caput tuum For sure he that saith By thy words thou shalt be justified Or by works a man unjustified and not by faith only can no way possibly be excused from that crime if no distinction may verifie his words but they must then be taken as absolutely false which I will not be perswaded of Treat pag. 219. Serm. 23. Observ That even the most holy and regenerate man is not Iustified by the works of grace which he doth This truth is the more diligently to be asserted by how much the error that confronts it is more specious and refined and maintained by such abettors whose repute is not so easily cast off as the former we spake of Now you come purposely I perceive to deal with me I confess the repute of Abettors doth much to bear up opinions through the world even with them that speak most against implicit faith But you need not despair of casting off the repute of them you mention Mr. Robertson and Mr. Crandon can teach any man that will learn that lesson Treat ib. The Question is not Whether we are Iustified by works though flowing from grace as meritorious or efficient of Justification This the Opinionists we have to deal with do reject with indignation To make Works either merits or efficient causes of our Iustification before God they grant it directly to oppose the Scriptures yea they seem to be offended with the Orthodox as giving too much to faith because it s made an Instrument of our Iustification therefore they are to be acquitted at least from gross Popery Answ This is one passage which I understand by your Preface to you Sermons on John 17. you lookt for thanks for and I do freely thank you for it for the world is such now as that I must take my self beholden to any man that doth injure me with moderation and modesty But you might have done that justice to us Opinionists as to have put any causes at all instead of efficient causes when we had so often told you the Orthodox that we disclaimed all true causality and then your Reader would have been ready to hope that we are free also from the finer Popery as well as the gross But since I have heard of late times what it is that goes under the name of Antichristianity and Popery even with many that are able to call themselves Orthodox and others that dissent from them worse then
grace yet his works would have been a causall Condition of the blessedness promised In the Covenant of Grace though what man doth is by the gift of God yet look upon the same gift as our duty and as a Condition which in our persons is performed This inferreth some Moral Efficiency Answ 1. See then all you that are accounted Orthodox the multitude of Protestant Divines that have made either Faith or Repentance Conditions what a case you have brought your selves into And rejoyce then all you that have against them maintained that the Covenant of Grace hath on our part no Conditions for your Cause is better then some have made you believe and in particular this Reverend Author Yea see what a case he hath argued himself into while he hath argued you out of the danger that you were supposed in For he himself writeth against those that make Repentance to be but a sign and deny it to be a Condition to qualifie the subject for Iustification Treat of Iustif part 1. Lect. 20. And he saith that in some gross sins there are many Conditions requisite besides humiliation without which pardon of sin cannot be obtained and instanceth in restitution pag. 210. with many the like passages 2. Either you mean that Adams works would have been Causall quatenus a Condition performed or else quatenus meritorious ex natura materia or some other cause The first I still deny and is it that you should prove and not go on with naked affirmations The second I will not yield you as to the notion of meritorious though it be nothing to our question The same I say of your later instance of Gospel Conditions Prove them morally efficient qua tales if you can Treat ib. And so though in words they deny yet in deed they do exalt works to some kind of causality Answ I am perswaded you speak not this out of malice but is it not as unkind and unjust as if I should perswade men that you make God the Author of sin indeed though you deny it in words 1. What be the Deeds that you know my mind by to be contrary to my words Speak out and tell the world and spare me not But if it be words that you set against words 1. Why should you not believe my Negations as well as my supposed affirmations Am I credible only when I speak amiss and not at all when I speak right A charitable judgementi 2. And which should you take to be indeed my sense A naked term Condition expounded by you that never saw my heart and therefore know not how I understand it further then I tell you Or rather my express explication of that term in a sense contrary to your supposition â—ear all you that are impartial and judge I say A Condition is no Cause and Faith and Repentance are Conditions My Reverend Brother tells you now that in word I deny them to be efficient Causes but in deed I make them such viz. I make them to be what I deny them to be Judge between us as you see cause Suppose I say that Scripture is Sacred and withall I add that by Sacred I mean that which is related to God as proceeding from him and separated to him and I plead Etymologie and the Authority of Authors and Custom for my speech If my Reverend Brother now will contradict me only as to the fitness of the word and say that sacer signifieth only execrabilis I will not be offended with him though I will not believe him but should so good and wise a man proclaim in print that sacer signifieth only execrabilis and therefore that though in word I call Scripture Sacred yet in deed I make it execrable I should say this were unkind dealing What! plainly to say that a Verbal controversie is a Real one and that contrary to my frequent published professions What is this but to say Whatever he saith I know his heart to be contrary Should a man deal so with your self now he hath somewhat to say for it For you first profess Repentance and Restitution to be a Condition as I do and when you have done profess Conditions to have a Moral Efficiency which I deny But what 's this to me that am not of your mind Treat pag. 229. A fifth Argument is that which so much sounds in all Books If good works be the effect and fruit of our Justification then they cannot be Conditions or Causa sine qua non of our Iustification But c. Answ 1. I deny the Minor in the sense of your party Our first Repentance our first desire of Christ as our Saviour and Love to him as a Saviour and our first disclaiming of all other Saviours and our first accepting him as Lord and Teacher and as a Saviour from the Power of sin as well as the guilt all these are works with you and yet all these are not the effects of our Relative Justification nor any of them 2. As to External acts and Consequent internal acts I deny your Consequence taking it of continued or final Justification though I easily yield it as to our Justification at the first 1. All the acts of justifying faith besides the first act are as truly effects of our first Justification as our other graces or gracious acts are And doth it therefore follow that they can be no Conditions of our continued Justification Why not Conditions as well as Instruments or Causes Do you think that only the first instantaneous act of faith doth justifie and no other after through the course of our lives I prove the contrary from the instance of Abraham It was not the first act of his faith that Paul mentioneth when he proveth from him Justification by faith As it s no good Consequence Faith afterward is the effect of Iustification before therefore it cannot afterward justifie or be a Condition So it s no good Consequence as to Repentance Hope or Obedience 2. It only follows that they cannot be the Condition of that Justification whereof they are the effect and which went before them which is granted you But it follows not that they may not be the Condition of continued or final Justification Sucking the brest did not cause life in the beginning therefore it is not a means to continue it It followeth not You well teach that the Justification at the last Judgement is the chief and most eminent Justification This hath more Conditions then your first pardon of sin had yea as many as your salvation hath as hath been formerly proved and may be proved more at large Treat pag. 230. By this we may see that more things are required to our Salvation then to our Iustification to be possessors of heaven and than it should be to entitle us thereto Answ 1. It s true as to our first Justifying and its true as to our present continued state because perseverance is still requisite to salvation But it s not true as to
answer 1. Righteousness is but a relation And therefore a thing which is naturally uncapable of being of it self physically apprehended This is past doubt 2. If it be physically received then either as a principle and quality or as an object Not the former For so we receive our first and after grace in sanctification but none ever said so in justification Nor indeed can that righteousness which is formally but a relation dwel in us as a principle or quality If we receive it as an object then by an Act Or if the soul were granted to be passive in reception of an object I have shewed that 1. It is but in apprehensione simplici None pleadeth for more But faith is not such 2. And so it would receive Christ no otherways then it receiveth any object whatsoever it thus apprehendeth 3. And this is not to receive Christ or his righteousness but the meer species of it according to your own Philosophers and if righteousness be but a relation and a relation as Durandus Dr. Twiss and many another thin be but Ens Rationis then the species of an Ens Rationis is a very curious Web Knowledge as D'Orbellis saith in 2. sent Dis 3. q. 3. is twofold i. e. sensitive and intellective and each of these twofold Intuitive and Abstractive Intuitive knowledge is indeed de objecto ut in se praesens quando scilicet res in propria existentia est per se motiva Exemplum de sensitiva est ut visus videt colorem yet this is but Recepiendo speciem non rem and this is not it in question Exemplum de intellectiva est ut visio Divinae essentiae à beatis This is utterly denyed to be at all by Doctor Stoughton Camer and other solid Divines against the School-mens judgement And if it be yet doubtless as we know not how so it is not such as faiths apprehension which we enquire after Cognitio Abstractiva est quando species rei movet ad cognoscendum rem ipsam hoc siveres sit in se praesens sive absens sive existat sive non Exemplum in sensitiva est ut phantasia imaginatur colorem Exemplum in intellectiva est ut intellectus cognoscit quidditatem coloris medicante ejus specie So that if it be either of these it were at the utmost but a passive reaception of the species and not of Christ or his righteousness 2. By what physical contact faith doth receive this might be enquired and 3. By what physical act of the Agent to neither of which questions can I imagine what tolerable answer can be given in defence of this cause 2. And if faith be a passive physical instrument it must have a Physical Efficiency and what is that to justifie why even God himself in this life doth that but by a Moral Act by his word and not by a physical as to particulars 3. But that which driveth me to the greatest admiration is How faith should Efficere patiendo If I should rip up this or require a demonstration of it in respect to the justification at judgement yea or in this life yea or of any effect I should lay such an odium on it from its absurdities that in dealing with you modesty doth forbid me to insist on it 4. The fourth requisite will be enquired after in the next Question save one The fourth Question is Whether other Graces may not be as properly called physical passive Instruments as Faith is your sense And I doubt not but they may though its true of neither For 1. If there be no physical reception of Christs righteousness imaginable but that which is per modum objecti and if other gratious acts have Christs righteousness for their object as well as that which you call faith then other Acts do receive Christs righteousness as well as saith but both branches of the Antecedent are true therefore the consequence the bare knowledge or simple apprehension of Christs righteousness per modum objecti may better pretend to this then recombency or affiance Yea and love it self more fitly then affiance may be said to receive or embrace its object which is not therefore false neither because Bellarmine hath it and you know he brings Austines plain words affirming love to be the hand by which they received him c. I confess if I first renounce not the concurrent Judgement of Philosophers I cannot approve of the common Answer which our Divines give to Bellarmine in this viz. That Faith receiveth Christs Righteousness first to make it ours but Love only to retain it and embrace and enjoy it when first we know it to be ours For though this say as much as I need to plead for acknowledging Love to be as properly a physical Reception for retention as Faith is for first Possession yet if affiance be taken in any proper ordinary sence it cannot thus hold good neither for so Affiance must signifie some act of the will in order of nature after love or at least not before it I acknowledge that so much of Faith as lyeth in the understanding is before Love in order of nature sicut ipse intellectus est simpliciter prior voluntate ut motivum mobili activum passivo ut Aquin. 1. q. § 2. a. 3.2 and 12. q. 13. a. 1. C. For as he Intellectus est primum motivum omnium potentiarium animae quoad determinationem actus voluntas verò quoad exercitium actus Aquin 12. q. 17. a. 1. C. But for the acts of the will toward Christ I could give you but to avoid tediousness I must forbear at large the Testimony of Aquinas Tolet Gerson Camero Amesius Zanchius Rob. Baronius Bradwardine Ravio Viguerius c. That Love is not only the first of all the Passions but even the first motion of the Will towards its Object and little or not at all different from Volition diligere being but intensive velle I have much more to say to this which here I must pretermit But still I speak not of Love as a Passion but a true closure as it were of the will with its Object as Good and expect love to be proper to the sensitive and strange to the intellective soul we must make it the same with Velle For Amor gaâ—dium in quantum significant Actus appetitus sensitivi passiones sunt non autem secundum quod significant Actus appetitus intellectivi inquit Aquinas 1. q. 2. a. 1.1 The fifth Question is Whether Faith be any Instrument of our Justification Answer Scotus gives many sences of the word Instrument and so doth Aquinas Schibler and most Philosophers that meddle with it and they give some so large as contain all causes in the world under God the first cause In so large a sence if any will call faith an Instrument of Justification I will not contend with him though yet I will not say so my self as judging faith to be no kind of cause of it at
therefore doth not give it No wonder therefore while you deny this Legal Testamentary Moral Donation that you are forced also to deny Justification constitutive but very inconveniently and unsafely By what way doth God give a father Authority over his Children and a Husband over his Wife and a Magistrate over the people and a Minister over the Church or Flock but only by this Moral Legal Action And even so doth he give Power to them that receive him to become his Sons And it is the same Instrument which performeth this which is called a Promise Covenant Testament Disposition or Law the name being taken from different respects or accidental considerations Again If the word of Christ do judge us then that word doth justifie and condemn For judging in general containeth these special Actions But the word doth judge us and shall do at the last day therefore the word doth justifie and condemn Again It is a Rule in the Civil Law as Vlpian that By the same way as an Obligation is induced or caused it must be removed or destroyed But by the curse of the Law or the Threatning of Penalty was our obligation to punishment and condemnation induced or caused therefore by the way of Law dissolving that cause must it be taken off Now as Reatus est obligatio ad Poenam so pardon is the dissolving of that Obligation or discharge from it Venia Poena sunt adversa And therefore the Law of Christ or this his Promise or Grant is the Instrument of Pardoning And methinks when you are convinced that God pardoneth by Law or moral Action you should easily yield that in the like way he justifieth For if you be not of the Judgement that Remission and Justification are all one yet you must needs yield that they are of so near a nature that the difference is exceeding small and rather notional and respective then real I might to these Arguments add somewhat from the Issue and different tendency of this my opinion and the contrary As that this doth give Gods Laws their honor and dignity by ascribing to them that higher and more noble and effective Action which the contrary opinion denying it doth very injuriously debase the Scriptures or Laws of God Also that this opinion is the only expedient left that I can find to avoid the Antinomian fancy of an Eternal Justification which all they must assert that say it is an Immanent Act which you justly and truly deny For your way lying in the other extream 1. Overthroweth all constitutive Justification which is not to be born Whether All Pardon by the Covenant I yet know not your mind 2. And it Intepreteth all Scriptures that speak of a Justification in this life of a strange feigned Justification which for ought I find hath no ground in Scripture at all and is wholly aliene to our condition and at least utterly unknown to us if not known to be untrue What doth it concern a sinner to be justified or condemned now before a Court of Angels where he is not present nor knows any thing of it nor do we know what Angels have to do in such a business And what Transient Act is it that God then and there puts forth or performeth Can you tell or doth Scripture tell you God speaketh not to Angels by voyce If you think as the Schoolmen some that they see our Justification as other things in the face of God then it is no Transient Act. Else why may not they see it in it self And then either our Justification is Gods Essence and they see it in him as his Eternal Being or else God must be mutable as having something to be seen in him de novo which was not in him from Eternity If you say that this Transient Act is Gods Illuminating the Angelical understanding to know us to be justified then this supposeth that we are justified already by some former Act which can be nothing that I know but the moral Act of his Lawes For their knowing us to be justified is not a justifying us but presupposeth us to be what they know us to be I can think of nothing else that you can say except this that Christ as man may Vocally or by some equivalent Transient Act pronounce us Justified as he will do at Judgement But 1. this is without Scripture 2. and it is God that justifieth 3. And then how were all the faithful justified before Christs Incarnation and Ascension Or do you think none were justified before But I will return to your Exceptions You say This is but Virtual Justification which is in Law Title Answ 1. It is Actual Constitutive Justification and not Virtual only 2. But it is indeed but Virtual sentential justification But yet it is of the highest kind of Virtuality It is that which makes us rectos in curia which I take to be the nature of our Justification in this life And taken divisiâ— it seemeth more excellent in some respect then the sentence or declaration it self for he that by Purchase first and Pardon written after maketh Offenders just in Law i. e. non obligatos ad poenam seemeth to do more for them by that act then after by pronouncing them just Though yet this last I know is the most perfect Justification taken conjunctim with the rest as the end to which they tend and as that which giveth them their full effect Your next Objection is that this Gospel Justification is general and indeterminate to particular persons Answer It cannot be more certain or effectual For when it is to all no man hath reason to think himself excepted who excludes not himself by non-performance of the conditions Every particular man is comprized in All. And for the determination the Description of the person is as certain a way as the naming of him To give Christ and his Righteousness to All that will receive him is as effectual a determinate Gift to each particular Receiver as to give him to Peter Paul John by name If a Pardon be proclaimed or given in the Laws to all Offenders that perform such a condition is it not as effectual to each person as if he were named If a Father bequeath such Lands or Monies to all his Children or a man to all the poor in the town on condition that they come by such a day to such a place and signifie their acceptance and gratitude is not this as sure and good as if they were all named Next You object This is performed before the person justified believes Answer I have said enough to you of this already of Bapt. pag. 100. I add this much you must distinguish between the Physical act of making this Law Promise Covenant Grant or Testament and the Moral Agency of this Law Grant or Testament once made The former was before we Believed but the later was not properly and fully till after Do not all Philosophers and Divines in the world that meddle with
it tell you that this is usual with moral causes that they may have all their absolute Entity and vim agendi long before they produe their effects and may be Actu primo etsi non secundo effectum producente in being long before The Law that determineth of your right to your Possession or that doth give a Reward to every man that killeth a wild hurtfull beast or that condemneth every man that murdereth or committeth Felony c. was in Being before those persons were born perhaps And yet it did not hoc agere it did not Praemiare Punire Praecipere c. as to this man before A pardon from a Prince to a Traytor on condition doth not perform the moral act of his discharge till he perform the condition though it were in being before The like I may say of a Testament or Deed of Gift But what need many words in a case where the Truth is so obvious If some moral causes may be causes and Agere moraliter or produce their effects even before they are naturally in Being much more may they suspend it and so produce it long after they are in Being Causae enim moralis ea ratio est ut etiam cum non est actu sit efficax modò habe at ut loquuntur in scholis esse cognitums inquit Rivetus Disput 13. de satisfact Christi pag. 282. Next you say Yea it is the same though none were actually justified Answer This requires no other answer then what is given to the former It is the same Physice considerata vel in Entitate naturali But the moral action of pardoning and justifying is not the same nor is at all A conditional Pardon Deed of Gift Testament c. doth not at all pardon or Give till you perform the condition For it is the proper nature of a condition to suspend the act of the Grant so that till it be absolute or equal to Absolute it is not Actual Remission Justification c. The reason of all this is because these Laws Testaments or Promises are but the Law-makers Testators or Donors Instruments and therefore act when and how he pleases and it is his pleasure that they should act no otherwise then as is aforesaid and as in the Tenor of them he shall express Next you add To be justified notes a passion which presupposeth an Action transient not immanent or only Gods purpose to justifie Answer 1. So far as the Reception of a Relation may be called a Passion this is true And no doubt you are in the right that it is not Actus immanens But now What transient Act it is I remember very few Divines that once tell us but only in general say It is a Transient Act. Now you and I that have adventured to enquire do happen to be both singular from others and differing between our selves only Mr. Rutherford and some few others I find saying oft that we are pardoned and justified by the Gospel by which they seem to mean as I But for your way of Justification by a sentence before the Angels as I never met with any that judged that to be our Justification by Faith so as I have said it seems to me very groundless and strange And then if yours stand not mine only must for any thing that is yet discovered that I have seen for I know of none that tells us of any third Your next Objection is the same before answered that God 's Promise to justifie is only a declaration what he will do and therefore a man is not by Covenant without a further Act justified but justifiable Answer Grotius de satisfact will tell you that Promises give right to him to whom they are made and that therefore they cannot be reclaimed though threatnings may But if these were only Promises that God will by another Act do this or that for us then it were to the purpose that you say but that you cannot prove Nor needs there any other Act but the moral Action of the Instrument it self to change our Relations here Et frustra fit pro plura c. Indeed an Act of ours Believing must come in before the effect but you and I are agreed that this is but conditional and not effective These Promises therefore being also Gods Law Testament of Christ Deed of Gift Covenant c. they do not only foretell an Event to come to pass by some other Action but they do confer a Right or make due the benefit or relation and so effect it only the Author is pleased to suspend the effect of his Instrument till we perform the Condition As if by a Lease or Deed of Sale there be some Office or Dignity made over to you or some command in Army or Court or Country or by a Law a Foraigner be Naturalized or Enfranchized on such or such a Condition This Lease or Deed or Law doth not only foretel but effect the thing You add that Justification is a Court-term importing an Act of God as Judge whereas his promising is not his Act as Judge but Rector Answer 1. If by a Court-term you also mean a Law-term verbum forense or judiciarium in the full sense I agree with you But if you confine it to the sentence as pronounced I require Proof as also proof of any such sentence before Judgement particular or general A Rector is either Supremus or Subaliernus A Judge is either supreme above all Laws as being the Law-giver or sub lege God is both Rector and Judge only in the first senses and by judging he Ruleth and Rector is but the Genus whereof Judex is a species As Rector supremus God is the Legislator and so acteth and justifieth by his Laws Grants c. as Judge he sentenceth and absolveth those that were first made just A man is accused for killing another in fight at the command of the Soveraign Power Is it not as fit and proper a saying to say The Law doth justifie this man for so doing against all Accusers as to say The Judge will justifie him Nay Is it not more ordinary And in a sort the Supream or Soveraign may be said to be though in a different sense justified as well as an Inferior when yet the said person in Supremacy hath no Judge nor is to have any by Law and so cannot be justified by sentence God will be justified in his sayings c. as he hath in a sort bound himself by his own Laws that is signified his Resolution to observe them so in the sense of these Laws his works are now just and shall be hereafter so be manifested but not by any sentence of a Superior But this I confess differeth from our Justification Next you say You know not whence it should be that Angels should judge us righteous and rejoice therein but by a sentence passed in Heaven Answer If you think and prove that Angels cannot know us to be righteous then I will not affirm that