who not acknowledging the riches of Gods Wisedome and Grace in that course of our redemption which God hath followed would accuse God of indiscretion for making much aâ— do about nothing and teach him to go a more compendious and easie way to work then his wisdom hath chosen These Criticisms upon Gods glorious wonderfull proceedings in his administrations we leave to Socinus and Arminius with their followers It is our part sapere ad sobrietatem and to understand what God hath not to tell him what he might or should have done To the Eighth Because he knoweth his assertion false he therefore saith something but conceals from us what it is tells us that all the Scriptures and reasons which are brought against his opinion do not hit it nor hurt it but will not let us to know one particular of all those Scriptures and Reasons that he hath heard or read urged against him lest that some one answering might manifest the falshood of the assertion This is safe disputing to speak so as â—o leave no footing for an answer Such baites may catch Froggs possibly but never a Fish And as he affirmeth neither Scriptures not Reasons prove more then this That our afflictions are not the rigorous execution of the Law what Scripture or Reason can be given why that believers shall not be damned in hell together with unbelievers For what is the rigor of the Law but the infliction of the Curse in its utmost extent and extremity But if the Saints be beaten with few stripes when the rebells are beaten with many and be damned but to the uppermost when the other are cast into the nethermost hell then is not the Curse of the Law executed upon them in its utmost rigor If this be not to abase the merits of Christ that hath purchased and abuse the grace of God that promiseth and abate if not to destroy the hope and comfort of believers that shall receive according to Mr. Baxter no better priviledges then this surely then nothing can do it As for that which he addeth of a mixture of love and hatred in God when he curseth the wicked and of love and anger when he curseth the godly This is a meer Chimaera of his own brain a making of God to be in a commotion against himself to carry fire in the one hand and water in the other to fight with the right against the left and with the left hand against the right sometimes the one and sometimes the other overcoming but of which side soever the Victory resteth still must the poor believer be cursed and when most under the curse we must believe Mr. Baxter telling us a strange wonder he is not at all under the hatred of God An excellent disputer to have stood alway at Marcions elbow prompting him with argument to prove this God to have been a malignant and envious God the author of all evill to mankinde what less doth Mr. Baxter affirm when he tells us that he curseth his very Friends those that trust in him those whom he hateth not yea those whom he loveth But doth he bring no Scripture to prove all that he hath said Yes one in steed of all and that as pertinent and proper to his purpose as a Pearl to a Swines snout Death hath lost his sting 1 Cor. 15. 55 56. There is no unpardoned sin in it Yet when God hath pardoned every of their sins he will neverthelesse powre upon them the Curse when they are without if not also because they are without sin ipse dixit and I must be silent To the Ninth It greeves me lesse when I finde Mr. Baxter leaving the pure fountain of Scripture stirring in his own element the puddle of humane art and wisedom then when he meddles with the word becaus he seldom toucheth it but with a defiled and defiling hand to pervert maim or add to it and so to prophane it So that his sin is greater in this than in the other The place which he quotes here 1 Cor. 15. 26. saith not that as he untruly alleageth Death is not yet overcome but onely saith The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death it is overcome already though not destroyed Yet not to strive about words Death is overcome and it is not overcome but in different respects It is overcome 1 In relation to Christ himself and his naturall body that it cannot reach or seize on him Els is not Christ risen from death and then our faith is vain But he is risen in the power of the Godhead having loosed or dissolved the pains and Chains too of Death it being unpossible he should be held by it Acts 2. 24. For how should a power finite over-power the power of God which is infinite Neither will any say that Christ escaped from the bonds of death by Treaty but by Conquest He ascended on high leading captivity captive Eph. 4. 8. Having spoyled principalities and powers he made open shew of them triumphing over them Col. 2. 15. By his death he hath destroyed not onely death it self but him also that had the power of death i. e. the Devill Heb. 2. 14. 2 In relation to the mysticall body of Christ the believers it is so overcome that it hath in it no curse to vomit out upon them That was carried away in Christs naturall body that this his mysticall body might be freed from it He took to himself saith the Apostle part of our flesh and blood that by death he might destroy him that hath the power of death i. e. the Devill and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. What was that in death that the Saints so feared under the Law before the Gospel had fully cleered to them their liberty but the Curse The Law threatned them with death as with the Curse and vengeance of God This made them to live all their life-time in a sad bondage for fear of death of the curse and vengeance in death at the last But Christ hath by his death delivered us from the Curse that was in death so that now we live not in fear and bondage in expectation of death It is but a sweet dormitory to the Saints in which they put off their corruptible and dreggish that at last they may put on immortall and spirituall bodies in them to meet with Christ in the day of Judgement and be for ever with him 1 Cor. 15. 44. 1 Thes 4. 17. In these respects death is overcome But it is not so overcome but that it hath its being yea full dominion with its curse over the wicked and in this respect it is said The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is death as will appear by reading the former vers with this Christ must reign till he hath brought all his enemies under his feet The last enemy c. The Apostle here from the Authority of that Prophecy Psal 110. 1.
of our assertion or refuting of Mr. Baxters The Holy Ghost saith not Christ hath purchased to us a liberty for the future that in time we may be delivered from the Curse but he hath redeemed us hath obteined a present freedome for us from the Curse of the Law And how being made a curse for us He hath made present payment that we might have present deliverance Even as a surety making full satisfaction to the Creditor for the principalls debt obteins thereby for him a present discharge from his obligation not that he shall be for a season liable to arrests and imprisonments and after much fear and sufferings in this kinde be at last discharged This were enough but the wisdome of the Holy Ghost proceeds yet further to evidence this truth and to stop every mouth that shall presume to open it self against it That the blessing of Abraham might come even upon the Gentiles beleeving viz. the promise of the Spirit or Spirit promised by faith All must acknowledg that the entrance of the blessing and removeall of the Curse by the vertue of Christs death are coaetanea of one time and standing But the blessing which is the receiving of the Spirit is actually and oft in the beleevers own spirituall feeling existent and working in him assoon as by faith he is united to Christ Therefore also assoon as he is united to Christ he is actually freed from the Curse of the Law Again Rom. 8. 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus It will not be denyed here that condemnation is either put for or includeth in it the punishment to which the offenders are adjudged or condemned and so the meaning of the words must be this that there is remaining no curse no vengeance to which they that are in Christ might be condemned nor any sentence to adjudge or condemn them to it viz. because Christ hath born both for them and in thier stead This is fully confirmed in the second verse but I forbear to annex it because it is capable of many interpretations which would be too long here to insert but all tending to the Confirmation of this truth laid down in the first verse And if there be no condemnation no vengeance no curse to which beleevers are subject than are they freed from the Curse as well in its parts as in the whole So Rom. 6. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace In what respects shall not Sin have dominion over beleevers It is expressed partly ver 12. It shall not so reign that they should obey it in the lusts thereof And more fully before cap. 5. 21. It shall not so reign as formerly it hath reigned unto death i. e. to expose them to the curse and wrath Why Because they are not under the law but under grace The law denounceth and Gods revenging justice inflicteth the Curse yet upon none besides them which are under the law But beleevers having done their law in and by Christ come no more under the dominion of the law to be cursed by it but ever after they are in Christ they are under Grace at the disposition and under the dispensation of Gods grace from which all blessings but no curse hath its derivation No less absurd therefore is it to say that beleevers are liable to the Curse than to affirm that the Curse is an effect of Gods grace and not of his revenging justice And is there any thing less to be gathered from thapostle affirming Col. 2. 14. That Christ hath blotted out that Hand-writing of ordinances which was against us and contrary to us and taken it away nailing it to his Cross What was there in that hand-writing of Gods lawes and ordinances more against us and contrary to us than the curse but this th'apostle affirms Christ to have blotted out cancelled crucified in respect of any further power that it can challenge over the Saints Or when the promise of God is thus gone forth I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sinns and their iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 8. 12. Who will give any other interpretation to these words but this that God will not be wanting in his grace to remember the iniquitie of beleevers to purg them from it yet he will never more so remember it as to inflict the curse and wrath upon them for it Not to heap up scriptures beyond measure to this purpose I shal conclude with that of the Apostle Rom. 8. 15. Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father When was their time of bondage and fear but when they were under the law or what did they fear but the curse death and wrath which the law threatned But now being in Christ freed from the law they have received together with a new Condition or relation a new Spirit a Spirit not of fear but of Confidence not of fear because they have a freedom from the law and curse which before held them all their life time in fear but of Confidence because that being in Christ they are adopted to be the children of God no more to fear the curse from him as a Judge but to dwell upon his mercies as the mercies of an indulgent Father Enough for the confirmation of the first assertion and in all that hath been said there is nothing of the fallacies and querks of mans wit and learning but the very demonstration of the Spirit by the word The proof of the second is included in this If true beleevers are not obnoxious and liable to the Curse and wrath of God it must follow by necessary Consequence that then the afflictions and sorrowes which befall them here are no parts of the Curse or effects of Gods vindicative justice upon them But further to manifest that they are fruits of Gods love and discending from the grace of God I shall annex some Scriptures that give their suffrage hereunto First that in Heb. 12. 5 -8 may stand in stead of all in which the Apostle doth so fully dispute and determine this question as if it had been in his dayes Controverted He will not have us to forget that exhortation which speaketh unto us as to children My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord neither faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what son is he whom he chasteneth not But if ye are without chastisement whereof all are partakers ye are bastards and no sonnes Three Arguments eminent above the rest we here receive from the hand of the Apostle full to our purpose 1 He calls the afflictions of the Saints Chastenings or Chastisements not punishments or judgements insinuating that the troubles which they suffer toto coelo
necessary consequent of Adams disability to overcome deaâ—h and deliver himself which God was not bound to do And whether the loss of Gods image were part of the death threatned or rather the effect of our sin only executed by our selves and not by God whether God did take away his image or man did thrust it away Admirable profoundness and learning but after all this stirr and such egregiously deep speculations as preparatories to the determining of the first question whether Christ did discharge our debt by way of solution or by way of satisfaction how doth he at length determine it Bax. P. 29 30. Much may be said this seemeth that is unlikely one thing probable another possible But for a finall conclusion p. 31. It is hard to conclude peremptorily any thing in so obscure a case And so he leaves us so wise as if he had slept and said nothing But afterwards recalling himself though he can conclude nothing as to the forementioned particular preparatories to the determination of the question yet p. 35. to the substance of it in generall he thus answereth Bax. I canclude then that in regard of the proper penalty Christ did suffer a pain and penalty of the same sort and of equall weight with that threatned but yet because it was not in all respects the same it was rather satisfaction than the payment of the proper debt being such a payment as God might have chosen to accept I list not to quarrel with him about the conclusion it being not a point mainly controverted between us and the Papists Only who sees not that he might as easily have thus concluded without medling with so many frivolous and arrogant questions leaving them where he found them as not giving the least fulture to such a conclusion And when he hath thus determined the question they that lock up to themselves his Conclusion as a treasure shall gaine so much by it as he that rejoyceth of a chip in his pottage Possibly it may do no hurt but certainly it will do no good to salvation But the answer to the second question comes without the help or push of a leaver to heave it after viz. whether the threatning was executed or relaxed and dispensed with B. The answer to this is plain in the Answer to the former p. 35. Both alike for were it worth the scanning we should find both either answered or unanswered and the things searched after no less plain to be seen and taken up than a needle in a bottle of hay And so much M. Baxter seeth for he comes after 1 with his distinction B. In regard of the meer weight of punishment considered as abstracted from person and duration it was executed and to avoid the mistake of the Printer I conceive it should be not relaxed Yet taking the threatning entirely as it was given out and we must say viz. if we say after Mr. Baxter it was dispensed with for mankind doth not suffer all that was threatned When I attain the meaning of the words I shall be able to judg of the strength of the reason therein contained And 2ly he brings in a doubt viz. B. If the death threatned did consist in our present miseries and temporall death only then the answer must be recanted c. And a little further Conference with these Diviners rather than Divines it seemeth would make him of their minds And so the answer to the question depends upon ifs if Mr. Baxter change his mind his answer must fall after him In the mean while the third question must depend upon the uncertain answer to the second B. If the threat be dispensed with how it can stand with the truth and justice of God so to dispense with it Lo the answer to the former question is stuck so deep in the mire that the best Team in Worcestershire cannot draw it out Nevertheless such an artizan is Mr. Baxter that with the spell of a few distinctions he doth it while a man would wipe his mouth thus B. Concerning the justice of God the question is not difficult and I shall say nothing to that See he is half out of the labyrinth already and never moves a finger for it O rare dexterity It costs a little more labour to get free from the other half and thus de doth it B. The question is how to reconcile this dispensation with Gods truth Here you must distinguish 1. Betwixt the letter of the Law and the sense 2. Betwixt the Law and the end of the Law 3. Between a threat with exception either expressed or reserved and that which hath no exception 4. Between a threatning which only expresseth the desert of the sinn and what punishment is due and so falleth under the will of precept and that which also intendeth the certain prediction of event and so falleth under the will of purpose also And now I Answer 1. The end of the Law is the Law and that being the manifestation of Gods justice and hatred of sin c. was fulfilled and therefore the Law was fulfilled a Let the Judg of assizes then chide and lay by the feet a murtherer for an hour declaring therby his justice and hatred of the offeÌ„ce M. Baxter must conclude him to be a just Judg to have fulfilled the Law if hereupon he forth-with discharge him 2. Most think that the threatning had this reserved exception Thou shalt dye i. e. by thy self or thy surety and though it be sinfull for man to speak with mentall reservations when he pretends to reveal his mind yet not in God because as he is subject to no law so he is not bound to reveal to us all his mind nor doth he indeed pretend any such thing 3. So that the sense of the same is fulfilled 4. But the special answer that I give is this when threatnings are meerly parts of the Law and not also predictions of the event and discoveries of Gods purpose thereabouts then they may be dispensed with without any breach of truth For as when God saith Thou shalt not eat of the tree c. the meaning is only It is thy duty not to eat and not eventually that he should not eat So when he saith Thou shalt dye the death the meaning is Death shall be the due reward of thy sin and so may be inflicted for it at my pleasure and not that he should certainly suffer it in the event b This Doctrine wipes off all feare from scandalous sinners having this plea put into their mouth by Mr. Baxter God hath said thou shalt not so offend but his meaning is not that I should eventually abstain and hath said Thou shalt be condemned not meaning eventually to execute it Ergo I may go on in sin without fear Read the rest he that loves it I have enough even to nauseousness What Jesuite reading this will not cry out O delicatum animulum a babe of the same mould with the Scholastick
home into their apprehension and Conscience that their sinns are remitted For so run the words in that 10 of Act. v. 47. that Whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sins not denying that Christ had received it for them before but affirming only that now they should receive it from Christ Besides this promise is held forth there promiscuously to all both elect and reprobate and it is but an offer not the gift of pardon to distinguish betwixt them for whom Christ had and those for whom he had not effectually satisfied and received absolution from the Father by the ones beleeving and receiving by faith from the hand of Christ the pardon and the others refusall and manifesting thereby their abode under death and the Law still The surety had paid the penalty of the obligation taken up the bonds and acquittance or discharge of the debt Thenceforth the Creditor had no more plea against either principall or surety Nevertheles the principall knew it not therefore playeth least in sight is in continual fear of arrests thinks every bush hath a Sergeant or Bayliff under it but at length the surety gives and delivers into his hand both the acquittance the obligation Cancelled Now is his first receiving of a discharge now he first finds himself free from his Creditors obligation now hath he the first comfort of the benefit but he was discharged before though he knew it not so is it with the elect c. Therefore Mr. Baxters inference hence is unsound He addeth the Testimony of Paul Eph. 2. 3. That the redeemed were by nature the Children of wrath who denyeth it But this is nothing to the question It is not here enquired whether the redeemed drew not the seeds of sin and death by naturall propagation from their parents as much as others But whether by the satisfaction which Christ made for them according to the Covenant of grace they were not redeemed from that wrath before they yet beleeved It is true what Mephibosheth said of himself and his brethren to David We were all as dead men before my Lord the King c. 2 Sam. 19. 28. because they were the progeny of Saul that fought against David Nevertheles by means of the Covenant that intervened between David and Jonathan Mephibosheth had right to all the favour that King David could express As for those testimonies cited by way of Thesis and Antithesis out of Gal. 5. ver 3 4. ver 18 23. they make wholly against him nothing for him The 3 4 verses speak nothing to the question in hand but utterly destroy that to which in this whole dispute he driveth nothing to the question in hand The circumcised are bound or debtors to the whole Law and Christ is become of none effect to them He was to have proved that beleevers were before they beleeved under the Law This Text speaketh not of the elect before they beleeved but of professed beleevers returning to Circumcision and the Law to fetch thence help unto their justification after that they seemingly at least beleeved in Christ so here is nothing that makes for him because nothing to the present question But much against him in reference to the grand thing which he laboureth for to bring beleevers under the Law as a Covenant of works Whosoever doth so saith the Apostle in the least mite that contents not himself with Christ alone takes in but so poor a peice of the Law as Circumcision to help with Christ to Justification the same person hereby forfeiteth all his claim to Grace and Christ and must gain heaven by his perfect fullfilling of the Law or must be damned in hell for ever Into this state Mr. Baxter striveth to bring himself and his disciples I shall not wish them joy in it because I use not to wish impossibilities Touching the verses which he puts in opposition to these ver 18 23. But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law against such there is no law If he mean simply and sincerely what the Apostle here meaneth by being led by the Spirit viz. the seeking of righteousnes by Christ alone as the same Apostle more fully expresseth himself Gal. 3. 3. Phil. 3. 3. Then by granting that such are not under the Law there is no law against them he destroyeth and recanteth all that he hath before spoken to prove beleevers under the Law But if by being led by the Spirit his aim be to bring in works to justification under the name of the fruits of the Spirit we shall here forbear to answer him because it is besides the present question leaving it to its fit place where he openly explaineth himself And no less abhorrent from the question is his next proof Gal. 3. 22. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ may be given to them that beleeve What is this to the purpose in hand we deny not the promise of or the promised Justification and remission of sinns by faith in Jesus Christ to be given to them that beleeve into their hands and possession when they beleeve by affirming that Christ hath taken possession thereof for them before they beleeve that he may let it down into their hearts when they beleeve He ascended up on high and led captivity captive and gave gifts to men Eph. 4. 8. The Apostle fetcheth his authority from the word in Psal 68. 18. where it is said He received gifts for men viz. to give them in his time But the Apostle contents himself with the scope of the word not binding himself to the bare letter and sound thereof So Christ at his ascension received for us the gifts of Justification and remission and all other benefits of his passion They were then laid up for us in his Custody so that we had them in him before our actuall existence upon earth But he gives them to us into our sensible possession when we come to be to live and to beleeve That which he citeth from Gal. 4 5. is altogether besides the question also Himself acknowledgeth that it proveth us onely to be under the Law when Christ redeemed us or undertook to pay our ransom Not that we were under the Law after he had redeemed us by paying our ransom before we yet beleeved The words are these in the 4 5 verses God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law The scope of the Apostle here is one and the same with that to which he drives Gal. 2. 15 16. We who are Jewes by nature a holy seed within the Covenant and have all the privileges of the Law and not sinners of the Gentiles that are without the Covenant and the Law knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have beleeved that we might be justified by the faith of
Baxter how is not then himself in famous in reference to that for which he pronounceth them famous Or in granting them at the highest the name of Theologers doth he not inure upon himself the brand of a Theologaster But peradventure he thus insignizeth them in respect of the opinion that others have of them though in his own accompt or in comparison with himself he knowes not whither to terme them Cranes or Pigmies Or it is a peece of that subtlety which elsewhere he useth frequently to abuse the ignorant with a conceit that all which he delivers is orthodox because of his pretending himself to be an admirer of such in whom verity and Godlines with profoundness in learning are met together Or lastly Ambition of popular glory and praise might invite him so to magnify them The greater the Champions are with whom he Combateth The more glorious he may conceive his victory to be if he return out of the field Conqueror And he might expect that the lesser and lower rank will be as mute as fishes when they see the Classicall Doctors of highest esteem once battered by his disputations Two Kings could not stand before him how shall we stand 2. Kin. 10. 4. so c. However it be all that know them and him will conclude certainly that hee doth in no wise so speak of them because he can say of them in the words of John whom I love in the truth 3. Jo. 1. But note ye out of the same mouth in the same breath come Blessing and Cursing The Kiss and the stab of Joab go together Majestically rather than Magisterially he mounts them to the top of the Stage to hurl them down thence in the same Momâ—nt headless Master Pemble long since while he was yet a young man slâ—pt in Christ But Doctor Twisse not untill of late in a venerable old age was laid in the grave and Master Baxter a Punie to him throwes his curses after him that he was erroneous hereticall yea one that set up the Pillar of that which he calls and detesteth as the worst of Heresies Antinomianism Dared he but to have whispered so while Doctor Twisse was yet living It is come to passe what I conceived and intimated to divers of my friends at the first coming abroad of Doctor Twisse his works that during his life we should finde none that would write against him but after his death there would be many censurers though never an answerer of him Our eyes have seene since his death brought forth into the light those Tractates which while he lived dared not come forth out of the womb of darknesse And those mouths now open after his death to snarl at him which for fear of him were as fast shut while he lived as the Egyptian doggs at the presence of an Israelite Exo. 11. 7. yet may some take it to argue an ignoble Spirit in Master Baxter so to tread on the neck of a dead Lion having not so much as looked thorow the Grate upon him while yet living and to seek honour by the Conquest of them Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ But there is but little harm where there is but barking onely without biting And how little impression upon Doctor Twisse his either Doctrine or reputation Master Baxters sugillation hath made we have in part and in generall seen already and may yet take notice more particularly 2. Then when in opposition to Doctor Twisse his Major proposition vizt All Acts immanent in God are Eternal he tells us that Immanent in God must needs be taken Negatively not Positively § To speake more scripturally than Metaphysically I answer I see no ground of such a necessity but that it may be understood as well positively as yea rather positively than Negatively What is immanent in God but abiding or residing in God or to use the Scripture terms hidden in God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 3. 3. Yet so that when it is revealed it abides notwithstanding and hath its immanency in God still Approbation Acceptation accounting us just and loving us in Christ are Acts of Gods Knowledge and will and both before and after we have the revelation thereof to our soules they are immanent and abiding in God fâ—om everlasting to everlasting Are there not immâ—nent Acts in the soul of man much more in the minde and will of God What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him Even so none knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. By the things of God and the things of a man I doubt not but it will be granted that we must understand the apprehensions volitions purposes and affâ—ctions if I may so speak of God and of men And are not these things in God as well as the things of God So they are as properly termed Acts immanent in God in a positive sense as actually abiding in God as in a Negative in opposition to their Transiency and termination upon a subject without God The latter is not onely or so much denyed as the former affirmed And thus our justification is positively and depositively immanent in God from eternity Posited in the bosom of God the Father as in the Cabbinet of his counsells and deposited in the hand of God the Son as in the hand of a faithfull Mediator and surety for us upon his undertaking to make satisfaction which God the Father accepted as present satisfaction made for our sinns 3. The reason which he annexeth to prove that Acts are not positively immanent in God is insufficient and reasonlesse For Acts saith he have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause As if Acts and effects could not also abide and remain in their cause Master Baxter no doubt hath read Bellarmine Arminius and Corvinus in their disputes against the Doctrine of the reformed Churches suppose now an act of approbation hath passed within him so far as that their Faith is become his Faith also but secretly and not fully yet manifested to the World Is not this approbation an Act of Master Baxter if so is it not also an immanent Act abiding in himselfe within his owne minde as well positively the râ—siding as negatively not transient upon those Writers to produce any new relation or passion in them Himselfe and his Master Grotius concurre That the effects of efficient voluntarie causes do not alway immediately follow them That God hath decreed from eternity the transient Justification of the Elect in their own consciences yet the execution thereof follows not untill they beleeve Thes 15. and its Explication and here againe pag. 177. I demand now where this decree this act lyeth hid untill the execution thereof It must be either no where and consequently null and annihilated or else abide still and bee Immanent in God and so what was in God from eternity is immanent in him from eternity
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
of Justification by Christ doth not give them any part of the work of Christs righteousness For it belongeth to Christs righteousness by it self alone and to Christ by his Mediatory righteousness alone to perfect for ever the Justification and salvation of his redeemed ones Heb. 10. 14. And that without any accessary help of their own righteousness John 13. 10. But Mr. Br. so parteth justification between Christs righteousness and our righteousnesse as that he makes them equally concurrent to our salvation and justifying That Christs Righteousness without ours can no more profit us than ours without Christs yea makes Christs righteousness wholly unprofitable to every man till by the serving and deserving of each man it be purchased and made usefull to benefit him And so by making the efficacy of it the fruit of our Merit he dis-robes it of its honour and ornament derogating from it its all-sufficiency by it self to perfect us that he may arrogate to our righteousness what is stoln from his But how farr this doctrine of his derogates both from the grace of God and merits of Christ hath been oft discussed After all that hee hath said to the defacing of both here he wipes his mouth and saith it was never foul and will have his Reader conclude that when his face of Christ is spittled yet if it be from Mr. Brs. lips touched with a Cole from Bellarmine and Arminius it is a blessing of him This one truth I acknowledg implyed though not expressed in this Argument of Mr. Br. that he acknowledgeth himself to be the man that hath made obedience or works condition of the New Covenant or of justification by Christ In this I contradict him not It is of mans not of Gods making it 's a creature of his own not created by God at least not by God assigned to this use and end It being therefore not formed to his hand but a graven image the work of his own hand we leave him sith he will do it alone without us to persist in worshipping it CHAP. XXIII Whether the Reasons which hee bringeth prove him not to be a Legallist and Anti-gospeller HIS fifth endeavour is to vindicate his doctrine from being legall and Anti-Evangelicall That although it hold Beleevers not only under the bondage but also under the Curse of the Law in life and death till the day of Judgment Thes 9. pa. 65. p. 73. and else-where oft Though it makes works the condition of the New as well as of the Old Covenant though he maintains that Doe and Live is the voyce of the Gospel as well as of the Law Append. p. 81. Yet is he not a Pharisee or Legallist nor his doctrine ungospel-like It is purely Christian and full of sweet and ravishing Consolation to a Beleever not the least tangue of the Covenant of works but the odour and very marrow of the Covenant of grace in it It would be too long to set forth in his own words all the reasons that scatteringly throughout this Book of his hee bringeth to prove a probability and likelihood of truth in this his Paradox The sum of it is this B. 1. As to the bondage and Curse of the Law though they that are in Christ are under it in part yet they are not under it in the whole as all sinners under the Law wholly out of Christ For they are conditionally pardoned and justified as he frequently expresseth himself and so there is some ground of hope to take off the extreamity of despair And it is not the whole but some part of the Curse of the Law that lyeth upon them p. 65. Thes 9. Christs death hath suspended the RIGOROVS execution of the sentence of the Law that it doth not immediately fall upon his Redeemed ones p. 67. though they suffer after they are in Christ much of the Curse in execution of the threatning of the Law and that not without rigour yet is it not in its full rigour p. 69. And Christ which hath suspended the rigour of the Curse manageth that which lyeth on them to their good and advantage pag. 72. And is not this cordiall Gospel the balm of Gilead and the healing of Christs wings to a wounded soul The force of all this hath been examined already as else-where so most copiously in the Examination of his ninth Thesis and the explication thereof to which for the prevention of Tautologizing here I refer the Reader Only let him by the way consider with me how fitly these glosses of Mr. Br. do agree with many plain and evident Sriptures Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. i. e. saith M. Br. from the rigour of the Curse not from the Curse it self for it lyeth upon us still or from the Curse that it shall not follow us to heaven after the world is ended not but that untill the worlds end it shall torment us both dead and living There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walke not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. i. e. No condemnation in its full rigour but condemnation unto and the execution of the Curse they must bear untill the day of judgment and after that he knoweth not what will become of them Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sinns are covered Rom. 4. 7. i. e. in part blessed and in part cursed The blood of Christ purgeth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. i. e. from all sin not from all the curse and vengeance due to any one of our sins are we delivered God for Christs sake hath forgiven you all your sins and trespasses Eph. 4. 32. Col. 2. 13. i. e. hath forgiven you the fault but not the curse and punishment By one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctifird i. e. hath laid a ground to perfect them if he will in the next world not that he hath perfected them in point of Justification here The time past is put for a time to come and a certain for an uncertain time Heb. 10. 14. They that are once purged by sacrifice have no more conscience of sinn i. e. when they are wholly purged in heaven not while they are but in part purged upon earth Heb. 10. 2. Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 10. 17. i. e. no more as forgiven to spare them But as long as the Sun and Moon endure I will remember to pour out the Curse and vengeance for them Wee are justified by the blood and reconciled to the Father by the death of the Son Rom. 5. 9 10. That is we have right and title so to be reconciled and justified in another world if we lose it not by the way He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and with his stripes we are healed Isa 53. 5. i. e. So healed with his stripes that he shall wound us