be really his meaning and he be of that mind that he will neither repent of his sins in order to obtain the pardon of them nor pray for the pardon of them for fear lest he should seem to merit the pardon of them we cannot but think him to be a very weak man and that he fears where no ground of fear is For assuredly if he do but exclude out of his own mind the proud Conceit and Opinion of meriting by his Repentance and Prayer he needs not forbear repenting and praying for the pardon of his sins for fear of thereby meriting pardon or for fear of doing that which looks like meriting pardon His own common Sense and Reason may teach him that by the very acts of repenting and praying for pardon he doth renounce all pretence to merit as well as by the Act of believing in Christ for pardon he doth renounce all pretence to the meriting of his pardon 4. We do not believe that Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience are the legal but evangelical Condition of the Covenant of Grace Which that our meaning may be understood by all we explain thus we do not believe that our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience which are the Conditions of Justification and Glorification according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace have the same Place and Office in this new Covenant and Law of Grace which most perfect sinless Obedience had and was to have had in the first old Covenant and Law of Works for in that first old Covenant personal perfect sinless Obedience was to have been Mans Righteousness by which alone he was to have been secured from Death and to have had still a Title and Right to Life but in the new Covenant and Law of Grace neither our Faith Repentance nor sincere Obedience are or can be that righteousness which secures us from Eternal Death and purchases for us a Right and Title to Eternal Life when God first made the new Covenant with us in Christ we had all lost our Right and Title to life and were become guilty of Death In which state we could never by any Act or Acts of ours by any Righteousness in us or done by us secure our selves from Death and recover our Right and Title to Life It was the satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of our Lord Redeemer Christ Jesus that could do and did do this for us It was Christs Righteousness alone that satisfied for our Sins and redeemed us from Death and that merited and purchased for us a Right and Title to Life Christ's Righteousness alone procures us the pardon of our sins and a Right and Title to Life so that it is Christ's satisfactory meritorious Righteousness alone that comes in the place of that perfect sinless Righteousness which was the Condition of the first Covenant and Law of works It is Christ's Righteousness that stands us in stead of that perfect sinless Righteousness which we should have had but have not It is Christ's righteousness alone that procureth to us the Restauration of all the good we had lost and more and better Our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience have nothing to do at all in this matter This was Christ's work alone and we give him all the Glory of it with all our Hearts and Souls And as it was Christ's Righteousness alone that merited our pardon of sin and deliverance from Death and that purchased our acceptance with God as righteous in his sight and our Right and Title to Life so it is by his Promise and Law of Grace that the Lord gives us that which he had merited and purchased for us that he gives us the pardon of our sins and Right or Title to Life upon our repenting and believing so that our repenting of our sins and believing in Christ are but the immediate nearest means which God hath ordained to be used on our part that we may be fit to receive and accordingly may receive those blessings and benefits which Christ hath purchased and which by the promise are given unto us The use of this means the performance of those Duties of Faith and Repentance is that which our Orthodox Divines call the Condition of the Covenant of Grace For upon Condition that through Grace we do those Duties we shall have those blessings and benefits The Lord will graciously give us them according to his promise on condition that we by Grace do such and such Duties according to his Command Our Faith and Repentance are not our Legal Righteousness nor instead of it that is the Place and Office of Christ's Righteousness only but they are the Condition which the Lord in the Gospel hath required of us that according to his promise we may be blessed with the pardon of sin be accepted at Righteous in his sight and have a Right and Title to Eternal Life From the premisses it is manifest that according to our Principles Faith and Repentance are not a Legal but an Evangelical Condition of the Covenant of Grace and that they do not in the least detract from the Grace of it And we desire it may be remembred that though speaking of Faith and Repentance joyntly we call them sometimes the Condition of the Covenant or the Condition of Justification yet we make a difference between them and because Repentance includes an hearty sorrow for sin and purpose to for sake it and to return unto the Lord we call it the disposing Condition but finding by Holy Soripture and the Nature of the thing that Faith above other Graces hath a peculiar respect unto Christ and his Righteousness we call it the receiving Condition so doth our Reverend Brother Mr. Williams call it in Gospel truth stated c. page 114. and we approve the distinction He was not the first inventer of it for it was used by others before either he or we were born Now if this be true as the Lord who searcheth all hearts knows it to be then let the World judge how false and injurious that Authour is unto us when in page 6. he giveth the People an account of our Principles as to this matter in these following words They will not allow this personal Righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us any otherwise than in the merit of it as purchasing for us a far more easie Law of Grace in the observation whereof they place all our justifying Righteousness Vnderstanding hereby our own personal inherent holiness and nothing else They hold that Christ dyed to merit this of the Father viz. that we might be justified upon easier terms under the Gospel than those of the Law of Innocency in stead of Justification by perfect Obedience we are now to be justified by our own Evangelical Righteousness made up of Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience And Page 28. Many manage the Ministry as if they had taken up a contrary determination even to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified We are amazed to see so many
ashamed of the Cross of Christ and to behave as if they accounted the Tydings of Salvation by the slain Son of God an old antiquated Story and unfit to be dayly preached And what comes in the room thereof is not unknown nor is it worth the mentioning For all things that come in Christ's room and justle him out either of Hearts or Pulpits are alike abominable to a Christian Again in Page 33. by an Innuendo he gives the People to understand that we teach that sincere obedience unto the Law is the Righteousness we must be found and stand in in our pleading for Justification and that in so doing we neither understand what we say nor whereof we affirm 1 Tim. 1.7 Lastly In his Appendix Page 39. by another of his Innuendo's he gives the People to understand that we bring our own pitiful holiness into Justification and thereby make it sit on the Throne of Judgment with the Precious Blood of the Lamb of God By these Passages that we have transcribed word for word out of his Letter it appears that he hath told the People a very tragical Story of some Ministers and if he mean it of us we know our selves to be so clear of those horrid Crimes he charges us with that we can declare with a good Conscience in the sight of God who will judge us all that it is as false with respect to us as any Story that ever came out of the Mouth of the Father of Lies For it hath been our chief desire and endeavour to preach Christ to the People to preach Christ both as humbled and exalted as crucified and glorified To convince them of their need of Christ of their being utterly undone without him that there is no help nor hope for them from any thing in themselves and of themselves or from any meer Creature either in Heaven or Earth that Christ is the way the truth and the life and that there is no coming to the Father but by him that there is no Salvation in any other but in Jesus Christ because there is no other Name under Heaven given unto Men whereby we must be saved That there needs no other because Christ being not onely Man but God also being God-man he is an all-sufficient Saviour able and willing to save able to save to the uttermost to save perfectly to save evermore all that come unto God by him It hath been our care and endeavour to teach the People that Christ hath not onely procured for us the new Covenant or Law of Grace according to which we may be Justified and saved if we comply with the Terms and Conditions of it but that he hath by his Humiliation and Obedience his Obedience unto Death even the Death of the Cross fully satisfied the Justice of God for our Sins merited for us the pardon of them with the acceptation of us as righteous in the sight of God and a Right or Title to Eternal Life if we sincerely Believe and Repent And moreover that he hath merited for us by his Blood and gives unto us by his Spirit all that Grace whereby we do both sincerely believe and repent and obey the Gospel We tell the People that God made with us the new Covenant or Law of Grace in and through Christ the Mediator and Surety of it That it is founded upon and ratified and confirmed to us by his Blood-shedding and Death and that he hath purchased for us all the Grace Blessings and Benefits of it We tell them and prove to them that Christ hath fulfilled all Righteousness that he most perfectly kept every Law of God that he was under the obligation of that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross That it was for us Men and for our Salvation that he came down from Heaven and was humbled and became obedient unto death That his Obedience active and passive was equivalent fully equivalent to all that we ought to do and to all that we deserve to suffer for not doing what we ought for not doing what is commanded us and for doing what is forbidden us That by his Obedience and Sufferings he hath paid the full price of our Redemption and by paying that Price hath made full satisfaction to the Justice of God for our Sins and hath merited for us the full pardon of our Sins and Eternal Salvation of our Souls if we sincerely believe repent and obey the Gospel by that Grace which he hath also purchased for us by his Blood promised to us in his Word and gives unto us by his Spirit So that we are compleat in him we have all in and from him who is the Head the living and Life-giving Head the ever blessed and glorious Head of the whole Church in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell that out of his fulness we might receive and grace for grace Moreover we call People we command them we exhort and beseech them in God's Name to believe in Christ the Son of God and Saviour of Men to repent of their Sins and to be subject and obedient unto him The more effectually to encourage and perswade them so to do we assure them in God's Name that if they do indeed through Grace believe repent and obey they shall be first justified and afterwards glorified and that not for their Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience but only for the satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of Christ imputed to them So that we teach People to plead Christs Righteousness onely as that which satisfies God's Justice for them and as that which procures and purchases to them the pardon of their Sins the acceptation of their Persons as righteous in God's sight with their Right and Title first to eternal life and at last the actual donation of eternal life for their everlasting portion and inheritance On the other hand we faithfully declare to them that they ought by no means to ascribe unto their Faith Repentance or Obedience any of these things that belong to Christ's satisfactory meritorious Righteousness That the place and office of Faith in reference to Justification is to be the consenting receiving trusting Condition of it or the Instrumental means of receiving Christ as offered in the Gospel and with him his Righteousness for which alone we are justified That the place and office of Repentance is to be the disposing condition of Justification or rather if you will of the Person to be justified it not being consistent with the Truth of God's Word nor with the Perfection of his Nature to pardon a Sinner whilst he continues his full obstinate Resolution to go on in his Enmity and Rebellion against the Divine Majesty And lastly that the place and office of sincere obedience in the notion under which we now consider it is to be a condition of obtaining Eternal Life and Glory we do not say that
Spirit together because according to the Principle aforesaid the Written Word is supposed to say nothing at all of that matter Therefore if ever it be Revealed to the Man and so if ever he be comforted in this World it must be by the Spirit without the Word And then all the poor disconsolate Mans ground of Comfort must be reduced to this That God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word But then we demand how our Authour will be able to assure the poor disconsolate dying Man that God will really do so that God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word For that immediate extraordinary Revelation being a thing that depends also upon Gods Arbitrary Free Will he may do it or not do it as he pleaseth and if God may freely not do it how can our Authour ever assure the Man that he will do it That is that he will by his Spirit immediately and extraordinarily reveal to him without the Written Word that he shall have Eternal Life and not Eternal Death for his Portion But now if our Authour should say that God hath given unto Man a Promise in his Written Word to ground his Faith upon though he hath not given a stated Rule and standing positive Law according to which he will proceed with Man at Death and Judgment We would readily reply thus Either the Promise in the Written Word made to the dying disconsolate Man is an absolute Promise that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life however it be with him whether he be converted or unconverted penitent or impenitent believer or unbeliever And we are sure there is no such promise in the Bible and to tell him of such a Promise would be at once to belie God and to delude the poor Man Or 2. It is a conditional Promise That God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life If through Grace he unfeignedly repent of all his sins and believe on Christ with a lively effectual Faith a Faith working by Love which he is bound to do under the pain of Eternal Death If this be the Promise that the poor dying Man must ground his Faith upon that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life then this is the very thing which Dr. Twisse and we after him call the Law according to which God proceeds in dispensing to his People the subsequent Blessings of the Covenant such as Justification and Glorification are And so our Authour comes over into our Camp which he must do at last and confess if not to us at least to God that he hath grosly misrepresented and falsly accused Christ's faithful Ministers and hath endeavoured to delude the People and to render the Ministers odious to the People and thereby to hinder the success of their Ministry And he must sincerely repent of having done so But if he will yet go on in the way of his own heart we shall be sorry for him and not cease to pray the Lord if it be his will to have Mercy on him and to give him repentance for the scandalous sin which he hath committed in publickly slandring Christs Ministers and in boldly asserting a notorious falsehood in matter of fact saying That the new Law of Grace is a new Word of an old but ill meaning And that he hath really done so we have not only said but proved by the plain testimonies of credible Witnesses whereof two Sealed the Truth of the Gospel with their Blood above fourteen hundred years ago SECT II. Of his second Error that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional SEcondly the Author of the Letter asserts that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional as appears from page 18. at the end and page 24. And particularly he denies that Faith in Christ is the Condition of Justification page 8. Some say that faith justifies as it is a fulfilling of the condition of the New Covenant if thou believest thou shalt be saved This he finds fault with and opposes to it the old Protestant Doctrine as he calls it That the place of Faith in Justification is only that of a Hand or Instrument c. Where we observe 1. That he makes faith its being a Condition and its being a hand or instrument to be two opposite things the one whereof is inconsistent with and destructive of the other and so in this he not only fights against us but likewise against the Assembly of Divines at Westminster who held Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition in the matter of Justification as was shewed before 2. He makes it to be New Doctrine and contrary to the Old Protestant Doctrine to hold that Faith is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace and that we are Justified by Faith as a Condition of the Covenant wherein he makes the Assembly as well as us to be Preachers of a New Doctrine and Corrupters of the Gospel since they likewise held Faith to be a Condition of the Covenant as aforesaid And again in page 9. We say that Faith in Christ is neither Work nor Condition nor Qualification in Justification but is a meer instrument and he affirms that their saying so is that by which the fire is kindled So that saith he in page 10. It is come to that as Mr. Christopher Fowler said that he that will not be Antichristian must be called an Antinomian Here it is very remarkable that he not only denies Faith to be either Work Condition or Qualification in the matter of Justification but he also in effect affirms that it is Antichristian to assert that Faith is either Work Condition or Qualification and that he will therefore rather choose to be called an Antinomian for denying than to be an Antichristian for affirming it This is and must be his meaning or else he was dreaming and knew not what he did when he cited Mr. Fowler and brought in his Judicious saying with a so that it is come to that as Mr. Fowler said c. Finally in page 25 at the beginning he says that Faith in the Office of Justification is neither Condition nor Qualification but in its very act is a renouncing of all such pretences From all which it is plain that we do not wrest his Words nor charge him with an Opinion which he doth not hold for he so firmly holds the Covenant of Grace to be Absolute and not Conditional and particularly that Faith is neither the Condition of obtaining Justification nor a qualification of the Person then Justified when he believes that he glories to be accounted an Antinomian rather than renounce that Opinion page 24. And he holds it to be New and Antichristian Doctrine to maintain that Faith is either a Condition of obtaining Justification or a qualification of the Person justified or to be justified in that instant of time wherein he believes Before we refute this Opinion we will briefly
him occasion to speak there of God's Law according to which he glorifies or damns men eternally and not of the Gospel-law according to which he either justifies or not justifies Men. But 2. We say that the Doctor 's Judgment was the same as to both to wit as to Justification as well as to Glorification and that 1. Because in his Answer to the foresaid Arminian Book called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to Practice Pag. 16. these are his express Words We say that Pardon of Sin and Salvation of Souls are benefits purchased by the death of Christ to be enjoyed by men but how not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case and onely in case they believe And Pag. 28. Men are called upon to believe and promised that upon their Faith they shall obtain the grace of remission of sins and Salvation and these graces may be said to be offered unto all upon condition of Faith And Pag. 189. The Promises assured by Baptism according to the Rule of Gods word I find to be of two sorts Some are of benefits procured unto us by Christ which are to be conferred on us conditionally they of this first sort are Justification and Salvation And Pag. 190. Justification and Salvation is promised in the Word and assured in the Sacraments upon performance of a condition on mans part Now the condition of Justification and Salvation we all acknowledge to be Faith And in his other Book against Hoard Some Benefits saith the Doctor are bestowed upon man only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sin and salvation of the Soul Twiss against Hoard p. 154. and these God doth conferr onely upon the condition of Faith and Repentance All these are the Doctor 's own express Words by which it plainly appears that his Judgment was the same with respect both to Justification and Glorification and that he held that God dispenseth to us both these benefits for Christs sake according to a Law 2. We say that the Doctor 's Judgment was the same as to both because there is the like reason for both and the Doctor 's own Argument holds for the Law of Justification as strongly as for the Law of Glorification since God hath as much constituted and ordained that all penitent Believers and none of ripe years but penitent Believers shall be justified as that all penitent persevering Believers and no others shall be glorified As it is written John 3.18 He that believeth on Christ the Son of God is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already Acts 3.19 26.18 because he hath not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God Luke 13.3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Acts 2.38 Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins Acts 10.43 To him give all the Prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 13.39 By him all that believe are justified c. Rom. 3.25 God hath set him forth to be a propitation through faith in his Blood Rom. 4.24 It shall be imputed to us if we believe These Testimonies of Holy Writ do as certainly and evidently shew that God proceeds according to a stated Rule and standing Law of his own making in Justifying or not Justifying Men as any other Testimonies do shew that he proceeds according to a stated Rule and standing Law in Glorifying or not Glorifying Men. 3. We Answer that our wise Accuser in the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Pages of his Letter seems plainly to be as much against God's proceeding according to a Law in Glorifying Men or not Glorifying them at death as he is against God's proceeding according to a Law in Justifying them or not Justifying them before death Otherwise we would fain know what he means by saying that the Doctrine of Conditions Qualifications and Rectoral Government and the distribution of Rewards and Punishments according to the new Law of Grace will make but an uneasie Bed to a dying Man's Conscience and will leave him in a very bad condition at present and in dread of worse when he is feeling in his last Agonies that the wages of sin is death if he cannot by faith add the Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We profess we cannot see what our Authour should design by this passage but to reflect upon us as Subverters of the true Grounds of Christian Comfort and as driving People to despair by our Doctrine of God's being a Governour and Judge who distributes eternal Rewards and Punishments unto Men See Rev. 11.18 who live in the visible Church according to the Rule of the Evangelical Law and as he finds them to be qualified through Grace or not qualified to have performed the Condition or not to have performed the Condition to have complyed with the terms of the Evangelical Law or not to have complyed with them We say we cannot see what other design he should have therein but thus to reflect upon us And if this was really his design then he denies that God proceeds according to a Law as well in Glorifying or not glorifying as in Justifying or not Justifying Men And therein he opposes Dr. Twiss and all our other Divines that he knevv of as well as us And further upon that Principle that there is no such stated Rule and known standing Law according to vvhich God hath assured us that he vvill either give eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord or inflict eternal death We chalenge our Authour to shevv us hovv in an ordinary vvay vvithout a Miracle the dying disconsolate Man can be assured by Faith that God for Christs sake will give eternal life to him in particular and not inflict upon him eternal death for his Sins For if God have not revealed in his vvritten Word to Men that through Christ he vvill give eternal life unto all penitent Believers and consequently to that dying Man in particular if he be really a true penitent Believer We say if God hath not revealed this in his vvritten Word but kept it secret vvithin himself as a thing vvhich he vvill give arbitrarily as he pleaseth without regard to any stated Rule or knovvn Lavv hovv is it possible for the poor dying Man vvithout an immediate extraordinary Revelation to knovv but that eternal death vvhich he knovvs he hath deserved and not eternal life vvhich he cannot possibly deserve shall be his everlasting portion What depends upon the meer arbitrary will and pleasure of God can never be knovvn by Man unless God reveal it either by his vvritten Word alone or by his Word and Spirit conjunct or by his Spirit immediately vvithout the Word But the poor disconsolate Man can have no hopes that God will reveal it to him by his Written Word alone or by his Written Word and
be sincere consisting in a real true hearty desire and endeavour to be faithful unto the Lord and through Grace to stand perfect and compleat in all the Will of God Col. 4.12 3. This sincere Obedience doth not satisfie the Justice of God for the least sin nor doth it purchase or merit the least mercy not so much as a Cup of cold Water much less the unconceivably great blessing of Eternal Life and Glory 4. As this Obedience doth not purchase or merit Eternal Life and Glory it self so neither doth it purchase or merit our right to it and God's actual donation of it For it was Christ alone that purchased our right to it by his Obediential Sufferings unto Death for us and in our Justification God by his promise for Christ's sake gives us our right to it and at the end of our days when we leave this world God will actually give Eternal Life and Glory to us for the sake of Christ and by the hand and power of Christ John 17.2 Rom. 6.23 So that 5ly Since our sincere Obedience neither merits nor gives us right unto nor yet actually gives us possession of Eternal Life and Glory it remains that it must be the means to be used and condition to be performed on our part that God for Christ's sake according to his promise may continue our right to and may give us possession of Eternal Life and Glory Now this we prove first by plain Scripture First Argument from Scripture for we find in Holy Scripture that God requires our Obedience as aforesaid for obtaining the promised Benefit of Eternal Life and Glory so as to suspend our obtaining of Eternal Glory in his Heavenly Kingdom on our performing of sincere obedience unto him and continuing therein to the end 1. Here is to be proved first That sincere obedience is required of us and for that see Mat. 11.29 30. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for my yoke is easie and my burden is light Mat. 12.50 Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven the same is my Brother and Sister and Mother Mat. 28.20 Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and Lo I am with you always even unto the end of the World Luke 6.46 Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the thing which I say See also John 13.34 and 14. v. 15 21 23 24. and 15. v. 10 14. Rom. 6.12 13. and 8. v. 12 13. and 12. v. 1 2. 1 Cor. 15.58 Eph. 5. v. 1 2 3 4 15 16. 1. Thess 4. v. 1 2 3 4 c. Tit. 2.12 Heb. 6.11 12. and 12. v. 1. and 13. v. 1 5. Jam. 1. v. 4 5 19 20 21 22 27. and 2. v. 12. and 3.13 1 Pet. 13 14 15 16 17. and 2. v. 1 2 11 12. and 3. v. 8 9 10 11 12. and 5. v. 2 5 6 7 8 9. 2 Pet. 3.11.17 18. 1 John 2.4 5 6. and 3.18 and 2 John v. 8 9. Jude v. 20 21. Rev. 2.5 Rev. 14.6 7 12. Secondly It is to be proved that God hath suspended our obtaining of Eternal Glory in his Heavenly Kingdom on our performing of sincere Obedience unto him and continuing therein to the end And to prove this there needs no more but to demonstrate from Scripture that if we be obedient unto the Lord as is said we shall obtain the possession of Eternal Glory in Heaven but if we be not so obedient we shall not obtain it Now both these are so infallibly certain and evident that really it is a shame that we should be put to prove them unto Men that own themselves to be Christians For 1. That none shall obtain the possession of Eternal Glory in Heaven but penitent obedient persevering Believers is it not as clear as the Sun from these Passages of Holy VVrit Not every one that saith unto me Lord Matth. 7.21 Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven 26 27. Compare this with the following Verses and you will see that our Saviour himself hath declared that Man to be a Fool that doth not do his Commandments and yet hopes that so living and dying he shall be saved by him from the Flood of God's Wrath and Vengeance Of all such disobedient Rebels the Lord Christ will say Those mine enemies who would not that I should reign over them Luke 19.27 bring hither and slay them before me And Blessed Paul assures us that when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels 2 Thess 1.7 8. he himself will in flaming fire take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel St. Peter asks the Question 1 Pet. 4.17 What shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel And St. Paul answers it in the place now cited that Christ himself will take vengeance of them in flaming fire and they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power The same Apostle saies again in another place The Just shall live by faith but if any man draw back Heb. 10.38 my soul shall have no pleasure in him The Words Any man are not in the Original and therefore they are Printed in a different Character It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he draw back if the Just Man that lives by Faith if he draw back if he Apostatize the Lords Soul will have no pleasure in him that is the Lord will abhor him unto perdition As appears by the Context This passage is parallel to that of Ezekiel when or chap. 18.26 if a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity and dieth in them for his iniquity that he hath done shall he dye And if any man should go about to perswade people to believe that they may be saved though they dye in such sins without Repentance Blessed and Holy Paul by the Spirit of the Lord hath cautioned us all against such as Deceivers saying as it is written Ephes 5.6 Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Heb. 12.14 And assures us that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And 2. On the other hand is it not as clear that all persevering penitent obedient Believers shall certainly obtain the possession of Eternal Glory in Heaven through the Infinite Mercy of God and Merits of Christ For doth not our Lord himself say Verily verily if a man keep my saying Joh. 8.51 he shall never see death That is the second and eternal death And as for bodily death he shall at the last day be saved and delivered from that also For as it is written John 5.28 29. Then they that have done good shall come forth of their graves unto the resurrection of
life And therefore as he saith again John 13.17 Rom. 6.23 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them And his Apostle Paul saith that God gives eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But to whom doth he give it Why that is visible from the 22. Verse immediately before It is to them who being made free from sin and become servants to God have their fruit unto holiness It is we say to them that God through Christ gives Eternal Life as a Reward of their Holy Obedience and well-doing God in Christ is most certainly a Rector or Ruler who according to his Law of Grace will distribute at last glorious Rewards to all that fear his Name Revel 11.18 2 Cor. 5.10 James 1.25 Rom. 2.6 7. small and great And as St. James saith Then shall the Obedient Believer the doer of the Lord's Work be blessed in his deed Then as Holy Paul says To them who by patient continuance in well-doing have sought for glory and honour and immortality God will render eternal life This God will do at the Last Day to all that have so continued in well-doing to the end For so the Spirit of Truth hath plainly said by Paul and it is infallibly true and will continue to be for ever true 1 Cor. 7.19 with Gal. 5.6 Let who will contradict it and say it is false Blessed Paul assures again that Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumeision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Heb. 5.9 And that Christ is become the Authour of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Yea our Lord Christ himself saith Be thou faithful unto death Rev. 2.10 and 3.21 Rev. 22.14 and I will give thee a Crown of life and that he who overcomes shall sit with him on his Throne To all which agrees that we read in the Last of the Revelations Blessed are they that do his Christ's commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city Here we see the Lord himself hath declared them blessed that sincerely keep his Commandments because thereby 1. They have a Right to the Tree of Life whilst they live And 2. When they dye they enter upon the full possession of that which before they had a Right unto They enter in through the gates into the city But you will say how have we right unto and entrance upon full possession of Eternal Life and Glory by keeping Christ's Commandments We Answer the keeping Christ's Commandments doth not merit or give us either one or the other of them but it is the way and means which we use and the Condition which through Grace we perform for the having our right to the Tree of Life continued to us or not taken from us whilst we live And for our having full possession of Life and Happiness given us when we die So that 't is God who first for Christ's sake gave that still continues our right to us and at last will for the same cause that is for Christ's sake give us full possession But he will do all this for us in the way of continued Faith and Obedience and on Condition that we sincerely believe in Christ and keep his Commandments unto the end Thus we have proved from Scripture That sincere Obedience to the Law of Christ is a Condition of Glorification as our first believing and repenting is the Condition on our part of our Justification and of the pardon of our Sins For as the definition of a Gospel-Condition agrees to Faith and Repentance with respect to our Justification and Pardon of Sin so it agrees to sincere Obedience with respect to our Glorification and Eternal Salvation And to whatsoever the definition of a Gospel-Condition agrees to that the Nature and Essence of a Gospel-Condition must agree also From all which we conclude that the Covenant of Grace is Conditional with respect to the subsequent blessings and benefits of it The two principal promises to wit of Justification and Glorification are certainly conditional which was the thing to be proved And having first demonstrated it by Scripture Second Head of Arguments We Secondly prove it by reason agreeable to Scripture And Reason 1. First If the Covenant of Grace be not Conditional with respect to its subsequent Blessings and Benefits particularly if the Promise of Justification and Pardon of sin be not conditional we do not see how it is possible for a Minister to be faithful to God to his own Conscience and to the Souls of the People in preaching the Gospel to them It is true it is easily conceivable how a Minister may be faithful in laying before People the Commandments of the Lord and in telling them that those Commandments oblige them to believe and repent And that if they do not believe and repent they will grievously sin against the Lord and draw down his wrath upon their own Souls But now whâ—n he proceeds to encourage them to believe and repent by setting forth to them God's Promise of Justification and Pardon of Sin we do not conceive how he can do it honestly and faithfully if the Promise of Justification and pardon of Sin be not conditional For when a Minister is preaching to a promiscuous mixed Multitude of People and for their encouragement to believe and repent is declaring to them Gods Gospel-promise of Justification and pardon of Sin either he must declare and preach this Promise to them conditionally or absolutely If conditionally assuring them from the Lord that they shall be justified and pardoned through Christ's Righteousness imputed to them if they sincerely believe and repent then the Promise it self is conditional and the Covenant also is in that respect conditional For if there be no Condition in the Gospel-promise and Covenant how can the Minister preach it conditionally to the People Doth he not take God's Name in vain and abuse the People also by telling them from the Lord that all they who perform the Condition of the Gospel-promise by believing and repenting shall have the promised Benefit to wit Justification and pardon of Sin if there be no Condition in the Promise necessary to be performed by them for obtaining the promised Benefit Either then a Minister must not preach the Promise conditionally to the People or there is and must be a Condition in the Promise and if there be a Condition in the Promise then we have what we aim at for we desire no more to prove the Covenant of Grace to be conditional But 2. If our Authour will say that the Minister must preach the Promise of Justification and pardon absolutely to all the People assuring them from the Lord that they are or shall be justified and pardoned through Christ absolutely whether they perform any Condition or not whether they do any duty or not whether they believe and repent or not Then we Answer That the Minister who shall preach
were then any such foolish ignorant Christians in the World but in regard he was not acquainted with every individual Christian he did not absolutely deny it only he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps there might be some such Christians in the World And if there were as there might be or not be some for ought he knew they were none of the right breed of Christians they were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish ignorant Christians 3. Origen acknowledges that that senseless Opinion did impute unto the Holy God a thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most unjust 4. Therefore in the Name of the Christian Church he declares to Celsus That Christians believed that God pardons and receives into Favour no unconverted impenitent Man and that he rejects no good Man no penitent Believer 5. He declares that according to the Faith of Christians a Man must always repent before God pardon him and receive him into his Favour 6. That the Repentance which goes before Pardon and to which pardon is promised must be such as makes a real change in a Man's Heart and Soul and that the change is so great as that the Man greatly condemns himself on the account of his sins he mourns for them and turns from them unto the Lord in Heart and Affection yea it is so great as that the reigning power of sin is in a good measure broken and it is cast down from its Throne in the Heart 7. That upon this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God immediately grants unto the Man thus changed the graciâ—â— beneâ—t and Feuiâ— of his Repontance that is the pardon of his sins which in the very next Sentence Origen calls an Amnesty or an Act of Oblivion And here by the way those who are intelligent may see that we were in the right before when we said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grace of Repentance in Clement doth signifie pardon of sin as the Gracious Fruit of Repentance for here the self-same words are used by Origen where they are capable we think of no other meaning 7. Origen declares that if the Gracious Principle that comes to take possession of the penitent Believer's Soul be not at first a confirmed habit of Christian Vertue yet it is such as at that present time doth in a good measure purge out sin and for the time to come makes it well nigh impossible for sin ever to recover its power in and over the Soul again This Book of Origen against Celsus is acknowledged by all learned Men to be genuine and uncorrupted and so far as we know he was never yet taxed with errour by any Man for asserting â—â— here he doth that Repentance is antecedently necessary to Justification and pardon of sin If our Authour have the confidence to affirm that he ever was by any mortal Man taxed with errour for this let him prove his assertion if he would be believed The same Doctrine was taught by Justin the Martyr writing in defence of the Christian Religion against a learned Jew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Mart. Dialog cum Trypho pag. 370. Edit Parisâ— Anno 1636. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So then saith â—ustin if they repent all that are willing to receive mercy from God they may and the Word hath before declared them to be blessed saying blessed is he to whom the Lord imputeth not sin And that is thus that whoso repenteth of his sins shall receive from God remission of sins but not so as ye deceive your selves and some others also that are like you in this matter who say that though they are sinners yet if they know God i. e. believe the Lord will not impute sin unto them We have a Testimony and Evidence of this in one of David 's sins which he fell into by his pride and vain-glory which was then forgiven when he had so wept and lamented as is written of him And now if Pardon was not granted to so great a Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before he had repented but when that great King and anointed One and Prophet â—had wept and done such things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how cau filthy and foolish witless Men or Men quite out of their right mind unless they lament mourn and repent have hope that the Lord will not impute sin unto them Here it is observable that Justin Christ's blessed Martyr Fifteen Hundred Years agoe positively denies that God pardons Sinners before they repent and declares that they deceive themselves that they are desperate or witless Creatures quite out of their right mind who perswade themselves that if they know God he will pardon their sins before they repent mourn for and turn from their sins About the beginning of the Third Century Tertullian in his Book of Repentance Chap. 4. writes thus Omnibus delictis c. that is The same God who by his righteous Judgment hath ordained punishment for all sins that are committed either in the Flesh or Spirit either in the outward Deed or inward Will and Desire hath also promised pardon by Repentance saying to the People Repent and I will save thee And again As I live saith the Lord I had rather Repentance then Death Therefore Repentance is Life that is it is the way and means to Life since it is preferred before or more desired than death And a little after Poenitentia quae per Dei gratiam ostensa indicta nobis in gratiam nos Domino revocat Repentance saith he which by the grace of God is revealed to us and commanded brings us into Favour again with the Lord that is Repentance is a means and condition of God's own appointing upon the use and performance whereof we are received again into favour with the Lord. And after the middle of the same Book desertam dilectionem Ephesiis imputat c. The Lord imputes unto the Ephesians that they had left their first Love he upbraids them of Thyatira with Fornication and eating of things sacrificed to Idols He accuses them of Sardis that their works were not perfect before God he reproves them of Pergamus for teaching perverse Doctrine he rebukes the Laodiceans for trusting that they were rich and needed nothing And yet he admonishes them all to repent with threatnings indeed but he would not threaten to punish the impenitent if he were not willing to pardon the penitent and saith if any doubt of this for the removing of such doubts illum etiam mitissimum patrem non tacebo qui prodigum filium revocat c. I will not forbear to mention that most meek Father in the parable who calls back his Prodigal Son and after his poverty and distress gladly receives him upon his Repentance kills the fatted Calf adorns his Joy with a Feast and why not For he had found his Son whom he had lost and he had felt his love to be the greater towards him because he had regained him Now whom must we understand by
required of Believers under the new Testament Here we 1. See that they affirm the Covenant of Grace hath Conditions in the Plural number 2. That Faith and sincere Obedience walking before God and being perfect upright or sincere were the conditions of it under the Old and now are the Conditions of it under the New Testament 3. That this Doctrine was approved by the Synod of Dort Next Martintus one of the Bremen Divines is so clear for the Conditionality of the Covenant that none who understand what his Judgment was can doubt of his being on our side We need not quote his words they that please may see them in the Acts of the Synod The Sum of his Opinion approved by the Synod is this That pardon of sin and Eternal Life are blessings promised to all Men through Christ Ibid. part 2. page 136 137. But how Not absolutely but conditionally if they believe As we heard before from Dr. Twiss Of the fume mind were his two Collegues Ibid. p. 150 151. Iseâ—burgius and Lud. Crocius and especially Crocius most clearly as is there to be seen Lastly our own British Divines are clearly for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace no body could ever doubt of this that ever read their suffrage either in Latin or English For thus they write For howsoever Salvation in the execution thereof dependeth upon the conditional use of the means yet the will of God electing unto Salvation is not conditional Saffrage of the Divines of Great Britain Art 1. in English page 9. incomplete or mutable because he hath absolutely purposed to give unto the Elect both power and will to performe those very conditions namely Repentance Faith Obedience Perseverance By this we see that they taught not only that Faith is a Condition but that Repentance Obedience and Perseverance are Conditions of the Covenant which is the whole of what we say and it was received and approved by the whole Synod of Dort above seventy years ago Again In opposition to and refutation of the eighth erroneous opinion of the Arminians they write thus Ibid. p. 28 29. We do not deny but that there is such a good pleasure of God laid open or revealed in the Gospel by which he hath decreed to choose Faith as a condition for conferring Salvation that is by which he would have the actual obtaining of Salvation at least in respect of those which are of ripe years to depend upon the condition of foregoing Faith And this is that joyful and saving Message to be published unto all Nations in the name of Christ But this is not the very decree of Election properly taken and so much set forth or celebrated by the Apostle St. Paul For that Decree is Active or Practical ordaining some particular Persons unto Salvation not disposing of things or the connexion of things in order to Salvation and it is confined unto or terminated upon Humane Creatures themselves and not upon their qualities Ephes 1.4 He hath chosen us to wit men Rom. 8. Those whom he hath praedestinated to wit men Matth 20. Few are chosen that is few men From this passage we observe 1. That according to those Learned Divines there is an absolute pleasure and purpose of God that Faith shall be the condition of Salvation in the Covenant of Grace 2. That this absolute pleasure and purpose of God refers to things and absolutely constitutes a conditional connexion between them that is between pardon of Sin and Salvation as the benefit or grace promised and Faith as the condition in whomsoever it shall be found This good pleasure and absolute purpose of God terminating upon and constituting the conditional connexion of things is the foundation of the general conditional promises of the Gospel which we are ordered to preach conditionally to all the world as we have a Call Mark 16.15 16. Rom. 10.8 9. not making any difference between Persons and Persons as to that matter But now the Decree of Election formally and terminatively considered is quite another thing as to our Conception of it It is the good pleasure and absolute purpose of God terminating upod particular Persons singling them out from others and appointing them to obtain Salvation in such a way and by such means And this good pleasure and purpose of God in his time and way according to his word of Promise never fails to have its powerful effect upon those select persons to make them first gracious and then glorious for evermore Again In treating of the second Article their fifth position is this In the Church â—â—id art 2. p. 49 50. wherein according to the promise of the Gospel Salvation is offered to all there is such an administration of Grace as is sufficient to convince all Impenitents and Vnbelievers that by their own voluntary deâ—ault either through neglect or contempt of the Gospel they perish and come short of the ceneâ—â—t offered unto them This position they lay down as a Truth then they proceed to prove it and thus they begin Christ by his Death hath not only established the Evangelical Cwenant but hath moreover obtained of his Father that wheresoever this Covenant should be published there also together with it ordinarily such a measure of supernatural Grace should be dispensed as may suffice to convince all Impenitents and Vnbelievers of contempt or at least of neglect in that the Condition of the Govenant was not fulfilled by them These are their own words then they prove two things 1. That some measure of supernatural Grace is ordinarily administred in the ministry of the Gospel which they demonstrate by several Testimonies of Scripture 2. That that Grace is sufficient to convince all Impenitent Unbelievers either of contempt or at least of neglect which they demonstrate from John 15.22 John 3.19 Heb. 2.3 Heb. 4.12 Matth. 11.24 Heb. 6.4 5 6 7 8. And before this their second Position with respect to the Elect is that out of the special love of God by and for the merit and intercession of Christ Faith and Perseverance are given unto the Elect Ibid. page 45. yea and all other things by which the condition of the Covenant is fulfilled and the promised benefit namely Eternal Life is infallibly obtained This is their position and they prove it by Rom. 8.32 33 34. and Heb. 8.10 Again In Refutation of the Third erroneous Opinion that Christ's Death hath obtained for all men Restitution into the state of Grace and Salvation they both assert the Conditionality of the Covenant Ibid. Art 2. p. 61 62 63. and also at the same time lay the Axe to the Root of Huberianisme Puccianisme and Antinomianism or Crispianisme Their words and Arguments are these following 1. Reason Salvation is a thing promised in the New Covenant neither is it promised but upon the condition of Faith whosoever believeth shall be saved since therefore all men have not Faith in Christ under which condition only
Salvation is promised It is certain that the Death of Christ did not obtain for all but for the faithful alone a restoration absolute into the state of Grace and Salvation This they prove from Rom. 5.1 Rom. 3. and 4. chap. and Gal. 2.16 2. Reason Without faith in Christ Man remains in the state of Condemnation John 3.18 John 3.36 But they who are restored into the Bosom of Grace every one of them have remission of sins which makes men happy Psal 32.1 Neither do they remain in Condemnation neither doth the wrath of God remain upon them They therefore who want Faith are not restored by the Death of Christ into the state of Grace and Salvation Since through the Name of Christ no Man obtaineth remission of sins except he who believes in him Acts 10.43 Reason 3. If the Death of Christ hath obtained restitution for all then are they restored either 1. When Christ from all Eternity was destinated unto Death which is false for so no man should be born a child of wrath neither should Original sin any whit dammage mankind being according to this Opinion forgiven them from all Eternity Or 2. They were restored in the Person of our first Parents when the promise concerning the Seed of the woman was proclaimed which is false For our first Parents themselves were not restored into the state of Grace but by Faith in Christ and consequently neither were their Posterity restored but in like manner that is by Faith Therefore not all whether Believers or Vnbelievers are restored Or 3. They were restored when Christ himselfe suffered Death upon the Cross but that is false also and cannot be for so no man before that moment should have been restored which none will grant Neither are all restored from that time because without doubt even at that moment and afterward the Wrath of God burned hot against some of Christ's Accusers Condemners Crucifiers and Mockers Thus our Divines argued in the Synod and their Arguments were approved by the Synod Now let any man of judgment consider the force of these Arguments and he will plainly see that they do prove that no Man no not the Elect can be admitted into favour with God and be justified before he believe and performe the Condition of the Covenant as well as that all men are not and cannot be so dealt with The Elect themselves before their Conversion are not absolutely and actually in Grace and favour with God they are not in a state of Justification and Salvation because they yet want Faith the Condition of the Covenant upon which Condition those subsequent Blessings of the Covenant are only promised so that by this we may see the Synod hath in effect before-hand judged between us and the Antinomians and hath given Sentence according to Scripture on our side Lastly We find that our Divines in the Synod declared and proved that Perseverance in Holy Faith and Obedience which is the Condition of our obtaining Eternal Salvation is it self promised absolutely without any proper Condition yet not so as always and in all Elect Justified Persons to exclude and prevent a partial temporary Apostacy and Back-sliding Here then are two things held by them 1. That the Perseverance of the Elect after they are once converted and justified though it be a Condition of obtaining Eternal Salvation yet it is promised and given without any other proper Condition Therefore writing on the Fifth Article they reject the erroneous Opinion of the Arminians Ibid. Art V. pag. 157 153. That Perseverance is a Benefit offered equally to all the truly Faithful upon this Condition namely If they shall not be wanting unto sufficient Grace and give their Reasons why they rejected it 1. Say they It is not true that Perseverance is a Gift onely offered but not given For the Scriptures witness that God doth not onely offer unto his the Grace of Perseverance but also that he gives it them and puts it into their Hearts Jer. 32.40 I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me and John 4.14 1 Cor. 10.13 Again It is false say they that Perseverance is a Grace offered upon Condition for it is a Gift promised absolutely by God without any respect to a Condition The Reason is this Some Promises of God are touching the End others touching the Means which conduce to the End The Promises concerning the End that is to say Salvation are conditional Believe and thou shalt be saved Be faithful unto death that is persevere and I will give thee the Crown of Life But forasmuch as no Man is able to perform the Conditions God also hath made most free and absolute Promises to give the very Conditions which he works in us that so by them as by Means we may attain the End Deut. 30.6 And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maiest live The End here promised is Life which the Israelites could never attain without the performance of the Condition namely their Love of God But here God promiseth absolutely that he will give unto them this very Condition Since therefore the Promises of Faith and Perseverance in Faith are Promises concerning the Means they are wholly to be reckoned among those absolute Gifts by which God considering Mans disability hoth to attain the End without the Means and also to perform or effect the Means or Conditions of himself doth promise that he will make them able to performe the Conditions God promiseth Life to those that constantly fear him The Promise of Life is conditional but of constant Fear is absolute I will put my fear in their hearts that they may not depart from me And lastly Be it so that this Gift were conditional yet it is not offered upon this Condition if Men will not be wanting to themselves in the entertainment and use of sufficient Grace Fâ—â— 1. It will from this Condition follow that we do in vain pray to God in the behalf of any Man that he would give unto them the Gift of Perseverance because of Course he offers them unâ—â—ersal and sufficient Grace to which if they themselves will not be wanting they shall pâ—â—â—â—vere 2. Tâ—is is an idle Condition for it makes Perseverance to be the Condition of â—erseverance For to persevere is nothing else but not to be wanting unto this sufficient Grace If therefore God offers Perseverance upon this Condition he offers the same upon Condition of it self Thus they shewed that Perseverance is absolutely promised and given without any other proper Condition Yet for all this 2. they do not say that Perseverance is so promised and given as to exclude and prevent always a partial temporary Aposâ—acy and Back-sliding For we find that discoursing of Perseverance as it concerns the Elect their Third Position is These very same Persons thus Regenerated Ibid. Art V. pag. 121 122 123 124
125. and Justified do sometimes through their own default fall into hainous sins and thereby they do incur the Fatherly Anger of God they draw upon themselves a damnable Guiltiness and lose their present â—tness to the Kingdome of Heaven Thon they prove their Position It is manifest say they by the Examples of David and Peter that the Regenerate can throw themselves headlong into most grievous sins God sometimes permitting it that they may learn with all humility to acknowledge that not by their own strength or deserts but by Gods Mercy alone they were freed from Eternal Death and had Life Eternal bestowed upon them Whilst they cleave to such sins and sleep securely therein God's Fatherly Anger ariseth against them Psal 89.31 Rom. 2.9 Besides they draw upon themselves damnable Guilt so that as long as they continue without Repentance in that state they neither ought nor can perswade themselves otherwise than that they are subject to Eternal Death Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die For they are bound in the Chain of a Capital Crime by the desert whereof according to God's Ordinance they are subject to Death although they are not as yet given over to Death nor about to be given over if we consider the Fatherly Love of God but are first to be rescued from this sin that they may also be rescued from the guilt of Death Lastly in respect of their present Condition they lose the fitness which they had of entâ—ing into the Kingdome of Heaven because into that Kingdome there shall in no wise enter any thing that is defiled Rev. 21.27 or that worketh Abomination For the Crown of Life is not set upon the Head of any but those who have fought a good fight and have finished their course in Faith and Holiness 2 Tim. 4.8 He is therefore unfit to obtain this Crown whosoever as yet cleaves to the Works of wickedness The Fourth Position is The unalterable Ordinance of God doth require that the Faithful so straying out of the right way must first return again into the way by a renewed performance of Faith and Repentance before he can be brought to the end of the way that is to the Kingdome of Heaven By the Decree of Election the Faithful are so predestinated to the End that they are as along the Kings High-way to be led to this appointed End no other ways than by the Means ordained by God Nor are these Decrees of God concerning the Means Manner and Order of such Events less fixed and sure than the Decrees of the End and of the Events themselves If any Man therefore walk in a way contrary to God's Ordinance namely that broad way of Vncleanness and Impenitence which leads directly down to Hell he can never come by this Means to the Kingdome of Heaven yea and if Death should overtake him wandring in this By-path he cannot but fall into Everlasting Death This is the constant and manifest Voice of the Holy Scripture Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.3 Be not deceived neither fornicatours nor idolaters c. shall inherit the kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 They are deceived therefore who think that the Elect wallowing in such Crimes and so dying must notwithstanding needs be saved through the force of Election For the Salvation of the Elect is sure indeed God so decreeing But withal by the Decree of the same our God it is not otherwise sure than by the way of Faith Repentance and Holiness Heb. 12.14 Without holiness no man shall see God The foundation of God standeth sure And Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 Again their Fifth Position is that In the mean time between the Guilt of a grievous sin and the Renewed Act of Faith and Repentance such an Offender stands by his own desert to be condemned by Christ's Merit Ibid. Art V. pag. 126 127. and God's Decree to be acquitted but actually absolved he is not until he hath obtained pardon by Renewed Faith and Repentance And for Proof of this Position they say in Page 128. The Father of Mercies hath set down this Order That the Act of Repentance must go before the Benefit of Forgiveness Psal 32.5 Ezek. 18.27 Thus those Excellent Divines and Judicious Faithful Ministers of Christ By all which it is clear as the Sun That the Synod of Dort taught the conditionality of the Covenant and held Faith Repentance sincere Obedience and Perseverance to the End to be the indispensably necessary Conditions of obtaining Eternal Salvation and therefore if there happen to be a partial Intermission of sincere Evangelical Obedience for a time by Christians falling into hainous wilful sins there must be a renewing of Faith and Repentance and a returning to their Obedience again before they can obtain the pardon of those Sins and the Eternal Salvation of their Souls which is all that we hold in this matter And it is alserted explained and solidly proved by the most Learned and Judicious Dâ—â—â—â—â—ant who was a Member of the Synod of Dâ—â— in another Book of his in these Words Bond Opera sunt necessaria ad Justificationis statum relinendum Praelect de Justitiâ Habit. Act. cap. 31. p. 404 405. conservandum non ut causae c. that is Good Workes are necessary to retain and preserve the state of Justification not as causes which of themselves effect produce or merit this Preservation but as Means or Conditions without which God will not preserve the Grace of Justification in Men. And here may be reckoned up the same Works which we mentioned in the foregoing Conclusion For as no Man receives that general Justification which froes from the Guilt of all former sins unless Repentance Faith a Purpose to lead a New Life and other Actions of that nature concurre So no Man retains a state free from Guilt with respect to following sins but by means of the same Actions of believing in God calling upon God mortifying the flesh continually repenting and grieving for the sins that are continually committed The Reason why all these things are necessarily required on our part is this because these things cannot be always absent but their contraries will begin to be present which are repugnant to the Nature of a justified Man For if you take away Faith in God and Prayer there succeeds unbelief and contempt of God's Name If you take away the endeavour of Mortification and the exercise of Repentance there breaks in upon the Man predominant Lusts and Sins wasting the Conscience Therefore because it is not God's will that Men who are Vnbelievers obstinate carnal should enjoy the benefit of Justification he requires continual Works of Faith Repentance and Mortification by whose presence are thrust as it were out of Doors and driven far away Vnbelief Obstinacy Security and other Poysons of Justifying Grace and also of particular sins there is a particular pardon
that Pelagian Opinion for he was himself Erroneous in the Point of Justification and held that we are justified before God by inherent Holiness and in this very place endeavours to prove against Pelagius that Grace is before Remission of Sin because Sin is a Privation which is no otherwise remitted than by the Habit of Grace its coming in and driving Sin out of the Soul just as Death is expelled or driven away by Life Blindness by Sight Darkness by Light Ignorance by Knowledge Thus he Confuted Pelagius's Error in the Point of Justification And now let all Protestants Judge whether Pelagius was not well Confuted and whether England was not greatly blessed with such a Confuter of Pelagius in the Point of Justification We are Confident our Authour was wholly Ignorant of the Principles of Bradwardin otherwise he would have been wiser than to have quoted him against us in this Controversie But it is his way to talk Confidently of what he doth not understand Yet our God is infinitely Wise and brings Light out of his Darkness for by this we come to understand by the Testimony of Bradwardin who we Hope may be believed in a matter of Fact that it was a piece of Pelagianism to hold that we are justified and our Sins pardoned before there be a real change made in us and Holy Dispositions or Qualifications wrought in our Souls by Christs Holy Spirit And if any Body should Question the Truth of Bradwardins Testimony concerning Pelagius's Opinion about Justification we can prove the same matter of Fact by the Testimony of a better Witness and that is the famous Augustine who was Contemporary with Pelagius and wrote against his Opinions at their first appearance in the World The other Secret which we have to tell our Authour is that it is a Popish Opinion to assert that there is no Gracious Principle infused no Holy Disposition or Qualification wrought in us by Gods Spirit before the Remission of our Sins Of this Opinion was Jacobus Almainus a Doctor of the Sorbon who lived in the 15th Century a little before the Reformation as appears by what he writes in his Book of Morality Lib. Moral Tract de charitate Ista rationalis est vera quia Deus acceptat aliquem ad vitam aeternam dat illi Charitatem non è diverso nam ista est falsa quia dat Charitatem acceptat ad vitam aeternam ergo prius naturâ acceptat ad vitam aeternam quam det Charitatem infusam This way of reasoning is true because God accepts a man unto Eternal Life therefore he gives him Love or infuses into him a Principle of Grace but not on the contrary for this is false that because God gives him Love or infuses into him a Principle of Grace therefore he accepts him unto Eternal Life and therefore God doth first in Order of Nature accept a man unto Eternal Life before he give him infused Charity Thus Almain whereupon we observe that he held Justification taken in the Protestant Sense to be before any real Holy change be made in the Soul by infused Grace in Regeneration and Effectual Calling For 1. By Acceptance unto Eternal Life he meant that we call by the Name of Justification 2. By Gods giving infused Love he meant that which we call Regeneration and Effectual Calling or the Holy change that is thereby begun in the Soul But so it is that he held Acceptance unto Eternal Life to be before the Gift of infused Love or infused Grace which they call by the Name of Love therefore he held Justification to be in Order before Effectual Calling or any Holy Principle put into or change wrought in the Soul thereby And the Popish Bishops of Walemburgh are yet more clearly for this for thus they write Walemb de justificat cap. 11. Num. 9. Remission of Sins taken for the not imputing of them in Order of Nature goes before inherent Justice That is in their way of speaking before the Infusion of any Principle of Grace and Holiness and this they prove by the Worde of the seventh Chapter of the Sixth Session of the Councel of Trent whereunto they adde that Remission of Sins is not the same thing with inherent Justice because that according to Bellarmine Vasquez and many other School Divines our Sins may be absolutely pardoned and remitted by the meer Non-imputation of them without the Infusion of Inward and. Inherent Justice or Holiness and consequently the Remission of Sins or Justification as the Protestants speak and Inward Inherent Justite which according to them is Sanctification begun may be separated and may be given unto us the one without the other These are the very Words truly Translated of Monsieur Le Fevre a Doctor of the Sorbon in a Book written against the Famous Monsieur Arnauld in the Year 1685. The Case was this Monsieur Arnauld in his Renversement de la Morale had laboured hard to prove that such Calvinists as our Author Replique a Monsieur Arnauld pour la Defence du livre des motises invincibles p. 61 62. had so corrupted our Christian Morals by their Errours about Justification that they are the vilest of Hereticks and can never be good Catholicks this was the Judgment of the Ring-leader of the Jansenists whom our Authour commends P. 21. of his Letter that such Protestants as he is are damned Hereticks by Reason of their Errors in the matter of Justification but on the contrary Monsieur Le Fevre undertakes to prove by Invincible Arguments that such Calvinists as our Authour may be good Roman Catholicks notwithstanding all that Monsieur Arnauld hath written to prove them Hereticks for tho' they hold that men may be pardoned and justified before there be any real change made in them or any holy permanent Principle of Grace Disposition or Qualificatien wrought in their Souls by the Holy Spirit yet they may be good Catholicks for all that because Almain and the Bishops of Walemburgh were of the same Opinion concerning Justification and tho' Bellarmine and Vasquez do not think that de facto Justification is after that manner yet they confess it is possible it may be so and the Council of Trent is not against but rather for its being so de facto And these were all good Roman Catholicks Therefore such a Calvinist as eur Author may likewise be a good Roman Catholick for in this matter he agrees with the Doctrine of the Roman Church This to us seems to have been the design of that Learned and Politick Sorbonist to shew that such Opinions about Justification as this is should not hinder a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome since she holds the same Doctrine her self Whether Le Fevre do right to his own Church or not in fastening that Opinion upon her concerns not us to inquire after but we think he has sufficiently proved that it is a Popish Opinion that is an Opinion that hath been long in the
against the Papists Institut lib. 3 cap. 15 § 6. They have found out I know not what moral good Works whereby men are made acceptable to God before they are ingrafted into Christ as if the Scripture lyed when it saith they are all in death who have not the Son 1 John 5.12 If they be in death how should they beget matter of Life As if it mere of no force whatsoever is without Faith is sin Rom. 14.23 As if an evil tree could have good Fruit But now what place have those most Pestilent Sophisters left unto Christ where he may put forth and display his Vertue Why they say that be hath merited for us the first Grace that is he hath given us occasion of meriting And that now it is our part not to be wanting in improving the occasion offered By this passage of Calvin quoted here more fully than it is in the letter we see more clearly what it is that Calvin is there disputing against to wit the Popish Doctrine of mans meriting his Justification and Acceptance with God as righteous unto eternal Life by moral good works done by him before he be justified and that is in their sense before he be initially sanctified in Regeneration and Conversion for they perpetually confound these two Justification and Initial Sanctification on the infusion of habitual Grace as signifying the same thing This is that which Calvin there denies and disproves Now this being premised to give light unto the whole matter We answer That this is nothing to our Authors purpose who brings this passage to prove that Calvin denyed all preparations and dispositions before Regeneration and Conversion and consequently before Justification whereas Calvin here denies no such thing the onely thing that he here denies against the Papists Is that a man by moral good works done before Justification can merit Justification which we deny as much as he doth and that for the same reason too because there neither are nor can be any moral works before Regeneration and Conversion that are so good as to merit Justification and render a man acceptable unto God But elsewhere he is so far from denying that he expresly affirms and maintains that there are some preparations and dispositions in man previous to his Justification as we have plainly shewed before And particularly in his answer to Pighius he only denies that a man by his meer natural power without any supernatural Grace can prepare and dispose himself for special saving Grace but at the same time he confesses and proves that by the gracious influences of Gods Spirit upon a man he may be and is prepared and disposed for Justification for though the man be Spiritually dead yet he hath a natural life and the use of his reason and the living and life-giving Spirit of God can use his naturally living and rational Faculties to produce such actions as by the Ordination of God shall prepare and dispose him to receive the first principle of Spiritual Life from the Lord of Life and upon the exercise of that first principle of Spiritual Life in acts of Faith and Evangelical Repentance God for Christs sake alone pardons his sins and gives him a right to eternal Life This is all that we with Ames Twiss and Owen after the Synod of Dort hold and maintain concerning dispositions previous to Regeneration and Justification and Calvin in this passage doth not contradict this opinion but in his other Books maintains it himself If our Author should yet object that at least one of the places of Scripture which Calvin alledges against the Papists to wit Rom. 14.23 Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin will be of force against us and against the previous dispositions which we with the Synod of Dort maintain We answer That he will find himself very much mistaken for it is of no force at all against us and our opinion And to speak our minds freely as it becomes all ingenuous men to do we do not see that in it self it was of any force against that opinion of the Papists which Calvin was there Confuting Yet to excuse Calvins arguing from it against them it may be said that he did not speak his own sense therein but the sense of Augustin who mistook the true sense of that place of Scripture as if the word Faith there did signifie a Justifying Faith and so urged it frequently against the Pelagians Now the Popish Schoolmen pretended to have a great Veneration for the Authority and Judgment of Angustin therefore Calvin knowing this might argue ad hominem against them from that place of Scripture taken in Augustins sence and the argument might be of some use to stop their mouths But otherwise the Argument in it self was of no force at all because it is grounded upon a false Interpretation of the word Faith in that place And this Calvin knew well enough therefore not only in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans but several times in his Institutions when he speaks his own fence of Rom. 14.23 Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin he says that by the Word Faith there is not meant a justifying Faith but a firm perswasion of Mind in opposition to doubting that a thing is lawful and that it may be done without sin so that according to Calvin the true and genuine sence of the place is That whatsoever a man doth without Faith that is without a firm perswasion of mind that he may lawfully do it whatsoever a man doth with a doubting Conscience it is sin to him who so doth it though the thing be never so lawful in it self Thus Calvin expounds it in the Third Book of his Institutions Chap. 5. § 10. Quum nihil operis debeant aggredi fideles nisi ceriâ Conscientiâ ut Paulus praecipit Rom. 14.23 in oratione potissimum requiritur haec certitudo Since Believers should undertake no work but with a sure Conscience as Paul Commands in Rom. 14.23 This assurance is chiefly required in Prayer to wit that we pray to no person See also Instit lib. 4. cap. 13. §. 17. but with a sure and well Grounded Perswasion in our Conscience that we may Lawfully pray to him Again in the Fourth Book Chap. 15. § 22. In rebus etiam minutissimis ut in cibo potu quicquid dubiâ conscientiâ aggredimur Paulus aparte clamat esse peccatum Rom. 14.23 Even in the most minute little things as in meat and drink whatsoever we do with a doubting Conscience Paul doth plainly declare it to be sin Rom. 14.23 For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin In these passages Calvin speaks both his own sence and the true sence of the Apostle and therefore in the other passage quoted by our Author he must either speak the sence of Augustin and from it argue ad hominem against the Papists or else he plays the Sophister and wrests the Scripture against his own knowledg and Conscience which we are
Divines But cui bono to what good end and purpose did it serve to tell simple injudicious people that there are so many differences amongst Protestant Divines about Justification Whatever our Author may think of it others cannot but judge that this course tends rather to confound distract and unsettle injudicious people than to edify and stablish them in the Faith For it is not probable that there are many so very injudicious as to believe that he can lay the Spirits again which he hath raised we mean that he can infalliblydecide the Controversies which he hath brought upon the Stage before the People and so quiet the minds of those whom he hath perplexed and discomposed To us he seems not altogether so well qualified for deciding of Controversies and quieting peoples minds as for throwing dirt on his Brethren and calumniating them to the People as if they differed not from the Papists in holding Christs Righteousness to be the meritorious cause of Justification which if it be not a lye we are sure it is a swinging falsehood and a very great mistake Third Calumny HIS Third Calumny is to be seen in the 8th and 9th Pages of the Letter and it is That we deny the Headship of Christ and not only deny his Suretiship his being the Second Adam and a publick Person but also treat these things with contempt All which is utterly false and on the contrary we declare that with all our hearts we own Christs Headship and Suretiship his being the Second Adam and a Publick Person For his Headship we believe according to the Seventh Canon of the Synod of Dort on the first head of Doctrine concerning Divine Predestination Tâ—at Deus Christum ab reterno Mediatorem omnium Electorum caput salutisque fundamentum constituit God from eternity ordained Christ to be the Mediator and Head of all the Elect and the foundation of Salvation We believe also according to the Suffrage of our Brittain Divines read in and approved by the same Synod That Christ is the head and foundation of the Elect so that all saving Graces prepared in the Decree of Election are bestowed upon the Elect only for Christ and through Christ English Translation of the Suffrage p. 5 6. This was their Position upon which they say That God in the eternal Election of particular Men by one and the self same Act doth both assign Christ to be a head to them and also doth appoint them according to his good pleasure to be the Members of Christ to wit in time when they believed For his Suretiship doth this man think that he can make the simple People believe that we are so impious as to deny it and treat it with contempt when as the Apostle saith expresly that Jesus was made a Surety of a better Testament Heb. 7.22 But it may be our Author means that some of us deny the Aminomian notion of a Surety and treat their notion with contempt and indeed that may be but what then Doth it follow that therefore we deny Christs real and true Suretiship which God hath revealed in his Word for our Faith and Comfort Before that consequence be admitted our Author must prove that the Antinomian notion is the real true Scripture-notion of Christs Suretiship which we do indeed deny and contemn as a very false unscriptural notion and challenge him to prove it by Scripture As for Christs being the Second Adam it is an abominable falshood that we deny it or treat it with contempt so far are we from so doing that on the contrary we do most firmly believe it and openly confess that as the First Adam was the cause of Sin and Death unto all who in the ordinary way of human Generation partake of the natural Bitth so Christ as the Second Adam is the cause of Righteousness and Life unto all who by Divine Regeneration partake of the Spiritual Birth But as no man suffers any actual prejudice by the first Adam before he be naturally begotten and generated so no man actually receives in himself any saving benefit from Christ as the Second Adam before he be Spiritually begotten and regenerated our meaning is that no man actually receives from Christ before the time of his Spiritual Regeneration any benefit that hath a necessary and infallible connexion with Salvation by the Constitution and Ordination of God Lastly That we deny and contemn Christs being a Publick Person is false So far are we from that That on the contrary we sincerely declare to all the World that we most firmly and stedfastly believe that Christ is a Publick Person that he is the publick Prophet Priest and King of the whole Catholick Church and that it is his proper incommunicable Glory to be such a publick Person Fourth Calumny HIS Fourth Calumny is that we teach such Doctrine in the point of Justification as neither we our selves nor any other sensible man dare stand to at Death This is to be seen in the 18th and 19th pages of his Letter If this were true we confess it might justly prejudice People against our Doctrine and give them and our selves too cause enough to suspect it to be false But this is like the rest utterly false and contrary to Experience For our Doctrine is as we have said often that Christs most perfect satisfactory Meritorious Righteousness is to us and all that are saved instead of that perfect sinless Righteousness which we ought to have had in our selves but since the fall neither have nor can have and that by and for the said Righteousness of Christ alone we are justified from the guilt of all our sins of Omission and Commission Original and Actual and are accepted as Righteous before God and receive a Right and Title to Eternal Life This is the only Righteousness which we crust to as the cause of our Justification this Righteousness we hold to be given unto us if through Grace we sincerely believe in Christ and repent of our sins and that on the account of this Righteousness we shall obtain eternal Life and Salvation if through Grace we persevere to the end in Faith and Repentance and in leading a holy Life as was before explained But on the contrary we maintain that the forsaid Righteousness of Christ is not given to any for their actual Justification before they first through Grace sincerely believe and repent and that none shall obtain eternal Life and Salvation on the account of Christs Righteousness but those who after they have first believed and repented do not Apostatize either totally or finally but in opposition to such Apostacy persevere in Faith repentance and holy Gospel-obedience unto Death This is the summ and substance of our whole Doctrine in the point of Justification Now why we or any sincere Christan should be afraid to stand to this Doctrine at the hour of death and in the day of Judgment it is above our Capacity to understand for this is the Doctrine which
the Lord himself hath taught us by his holy Spirit in the Canonical Scriptures And therefore if the Scriptures be true this Doctrine cannot be false but is and must be true and it is very strange and wonderful if all true Christians be afraid to dye in the Faith of the true Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures We rather think that if they be not delirious but have the use of their Reason they are not true Christians but meer Hypocrites that renounce the foresaid Doctrine of Justification and are afraid to stand to it at Death We are sure that good Hezekiah was not afraid to stand to this Doctrine when he justly apprehended himself to be under the Sentence of Death since we find it written in Isa 38.3 4. That he prayed thus unto the Lord Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in Truth and with a perfect Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight c. And God was so far from being displeased with this his Prayer that he most graciously accepted it and shewed himself so well pleased with Hezekiah that he gave him a further Lease of his Life for fifteen years and Sealed the Lease with a Miracle a thing we do not find that ever the Lord did for any other Man before or since We have also read of many in History and have heard of others and have our selves known some who have not been afraid to stand to our Doctrine aforesaid at Death but have died comfortably in the Faith of it As for our selves we live in the Faith of it and desire to die also in the Faith of it and as we account it our Duty to stand to it in Life and at Death so we trust and hope that if the Lord be pleased to preserve to us the use of our Reason and to continue to us the Presence of his Spirit and Assistance of his Grace we shall be enabled to perform our Duty in owning at Death and if he call us to it in Sealing with our Blood the said true Doctrine of Justification which we have preached to his People in the time of our Life As for our Author we hope he agrees with us that Christs Righteousness is never to be renounced but always to be trusted to and relied upon as the cause of our Justification and Salvation both in Life and at Death What then would he have us to renounce If it be our own Merits he knows very well that we admit not the very possibility of any proper Merits of our own and that we renounce all Confidence in such a Chimera as much as he or any Man can do If it be our own good Acts or Works as the Cause of our Justification He may know by what we have said before that we renounce as much as he doth and something more too all causal Influence of any good Acts or Works of ours upon Justistification If it be Faiths being the Condition of Justification that he would have us to renounce That we can never do either in Life or at Death for the Reasons we have given before Besides he himself ascribes as much and we think something more to Faith in the matter of Justification than we do for he maintains Faith to be the Instrument of Justification and if it be a proper Instrument it must have an Instrumental Causality upon Justification and so must be an Instrumental Cause and to be an Instrumental Cause is more than to be a Receptive Condition of Justification If we may be afraid then to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Condition of Justification he may have more Cause to be afraid to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Instrument of Justification But we suspect his meaning is that we will and must be afraid to stand to it at Death that Repentance is a Condition necessary to Justification and that perseverance in Faith and in the Practice of Repentance and Holiness is necessary to the obtaining Possession of Eternal Salvation and if this be it indeed which he thinks we and all sensible men must be afraid to stand to at Death and therefore must renounce we cannot but judge the Man to be under a strong Delusion for First The Scripture is as full and clear for the Truth of these things as it is for the Truth of any other Article of the Christian Faith Secondly We have the Concurrent Judgment of Divines both Ancient and Modern agreeing with us in the same Truth as we have proved at large Thirdly We have heard of many and have known some who upon their Death-bed have bitterly lamented and bewailed that they had not repented of their Sins in time that for and through the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ they might have obtained Pardon and Justification but we never heard of or knew any who upon their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had repented too soon in order to their obtaining Pardon and Justification through Christs Meritorious Righteousness The like we may say of the Necessity of a Holy Life in Order to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation through Christ many have most lamentably bewailed on their Death-bed their own Folly and Wickedness in not preparing themselves for Happiness by the Practice of Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. But we could never hear of any who on their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had held the Erroneous Opinion that the sincere Practice of Holiness is necessary to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ On the contrary the Generality of People that are serious and sensible they then acknowledge the Necessity of sincere Repentance in Order to the obtaining Pardon of Sin and the Necessity of Holiness in Order to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through Jesus Christ our Lord. So abominably false is it that no sensible man dare stand to our Doctrine at his Death that the quite contrary is true and no knowing sensible Man but will gladly stand to it and own it with all his Heart except such Nominal Christians as are Conscious to themselves that they are Hypocrites and unconverted Sinners and fear that if the Gospel be true they shall certainly be damned And therefore they may possibly some of them at least flatter themselves with the Hopes that God for Christs sake will Pardon and Justifie them before and without Repentance and save them without Holiness But we dare not humour such People nor flatter them however they may flatter themselves and therefore we must in faithfulness to Peoples Souls tell them from God that except they repent they shall perish and that without Holiness they shall never see the Lord so as to be Happy in the sight of him And for the Hypocrites Hope of being pardoned without Repentance and of being Happy without being Holy it shall certainly perish with himself His Hope shall be cut off and
his trust shall be as a Spiders Web. He shall lean upon it but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure Job 8.13 14 15. Our Author instanceth in that Bloody Persecutor Stephen Gardiner and in another Papist whom he commends as an Ingenious Balaamite who confessed that it is best for men at their Doath to renounce their own Merits and to trust then to be saved only by the Merits of Christ But what is that to the purpose Doth that make any thing against us or our Doctrine for doth not our Author know well enough that our Doctrine is that always both in Life and at Death men should abhor all Thoughts of Meriting any good at the Hands of God by their own Works and that they should trust throughout their whole Life to be saved by the alone Merits of Christ as much as at their Death was it not then wisâ—ly done of our Author to Object against us and our Doctrine the Example of Gardiner and such Papists who after they have publickly professed as a main Point of their Religion to trust to their own Merits and after they have led a wicked Life all their Days at last when they come to die think it best to renounce all Confidence in their own Merits and flatter themselves with the Hopes of being pardoned without a particular practical Repentance and of being saved without Reformation by trusting only to the Merits of Christ can 〈◊〉 Author shew from the Terms of the New Covenant that such self-condemned hypocrites have any sure ground of obtaining the Pardon of their Sins and Salvation of their Souls meerly because they do presumptuo 〈…〉 that God will pardon and save them for the Merits of Christ Is there any place in Scripture that gives us the least Intimation that ever God ordained that Christs Merits should be a Sanctuary for Rogues and Hypocrites whilest they remain such and that if they flee into it by a Presumptuous Confidence they shall be pardoned before they repent and be saved from Gods Sin-revenging Justice before there be any real Holy Change wrought in them It seems by some Passages in our Authors Letter that this is the thing which he drives at and that this is his way of Preaching the Gospel But alas most People need not Ministers to teach them this Doctrine for the Devil and their own deceitful wicked Hearts will teach them this lesson and they are but too apt of themselves to learn it For as Mr. Book of Martyrs Vol. 2. p. 192. Col. 1. Fox saith Commonly it is seen that worldly Epicures and secure Mammonists to whom the Doctrine of the Law doth properly appertain do receive and apply to themselves most principally the sweet Promises of the Gospel whereby it comes to pass that many do rejoice where they should mourn Let our Author look to it that he be not found guilty of hardning such People in their presumptuous way of living and dying by telling the World that Men are justified by the Merits of Christ without any previous Condition required of them and that they are pardoned before they sincerely repent and are accepted as Righteous through the Righteousness of Christ imputed to them before any real change or Holy Qualification be wrought in them And if he be wise let him no more say that we teach People to expect to be justified from their Sins by and for their own Righteousness which is a thing that as we will not stand to at Death so we do not stand for it but against it in our Life and now declare to the World that it is a notorious falshood and an abominable Calumny Fifth Calumny HIS Fifth Calumny is that there are many Ministers who in compliance with natural Men patch up and frame a Gospel that is more suited to and taking with and more easily understood by them than the true Gospel of Christ is And again that Divines plead that same Cause that we daily find the Devil pleading in the Hearts of all natural Men. This is to be seen in the 20th and 32. Pages of the Letter Whom our Author means by those many Ministers and Divines who do this abominable thing we do not certainly know but this we know that if he means us as he seems to do almost throughout the whole Letter what he saith is most false and injurious and deserves no other Answer than such as Michael the Archangel gave the Devil when Contending and Disputing with him about the Body of Moses he said The Lord rebuke thee Yet we do not desire that the Lord should rebuke this false Accuser as he rebukes the Devil in purely vindictive Wrath but as he rebukes his disobedient Children in Corrective Justice tempered with Fatherly Love Sixth Calumny HIS Sixth Calumny is to be seen in Page the 23d of the Letter where it is implied that we say 1. That the Sanction of the Holy Law of God is repealed so that no Man is now under it either to be condemned for breaking it or to be saved by keeping it 2. Thâ—t it doth not now require perfect Holiness 3. That we have much kindness for true Antinomians in Practice Some late Writers of our Authors way have expresly charged us with some of these things but our Author is here somewhat more modest and wary and only implies and insinuates that we say and do these things But however wary he be in the manner of expressing his Thoughts yet that will not excuse him from the Sin of Calumny if he means us as he plainly seems to do and if the things he charges upon us be manifestly false as they certainly are And our Author might have known it for a leading Man amongst those who are said to be for the Middle-way did many Years ago expresly refute the two foresaid Opinions which are now falsely charged upon us as is to be seen in Mr. Trumans Endeavour to rectifie some prevailing Opinions contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England Pag. 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13. Be it known then unto all men That 1. we do not say nor ever did say that the Sanction of the Moral Law is repealed so that no man is now under it either to be condemned for breaking it or to be saved by keeping it 2. We do not say nor ever did say that the Moral Law doth not now require perfect holiness On the contrary we confess with our mouths and declare to the World what we have ever believed and do still believe with our hearts 1. That the Moral Law doth now require of all men most perfect holiness and sinless obedience 2. That all Unconverted Impenitent Unbelievers whilst they continue such are under the penal Sanction of the Moral Law they are under its Curse and Condemnation John 3.18 He that believeth not is condemned already He is already condemned in Law though the Laws condemnatory Sentence is not yet executed upon him But as many
not so with us at this day But when we look abroad into the World and into the present state of the Reformed Churches at home and abroad and see or hear what lives Men generally lead how they fight against God and against one another against God by transgressing all his holy just and good Laws and by turning his Grace into Lasciviousness And against one another by injustice and uncharitableness by malice and envy by lying and slandering c. We cannot but fear that God is against us and will fight against us as we are against him Levit. 26.23 24. and fight against him And it greatly encreases our fear to see that those who pretend to greatest seriousness in Religion have lately fallen out and have been quarrelling together about such a practical point of Religion as that is Whether true Repentance is necessary before we can obtain from God the pardon of our sins through the alone satisfaction and Merits of Christ When God is loudly calling us to Repentance for obtaining the pardon of our sins and we should all be found in the practice of Repentance in order to that end we are like Mad-men fallen to disputing Whether our Repentance be necessary before we are pardoned when we are pardoned or after we are pardoned And there are those amongst us who have raised a great clamour against such honest and faithful Ministers of Christ as dare tell and dare not but tell the People that they must truly repent of their sins before they can obtain the pardon of them although at the same time they assure the people from the Lord that God for Christs sake will most certainly pardon them immediately after they have repented This is cried out against as dangerous Doctrine by a sort of Religious People amongst us who will have it that Repentance is only necessary after God hath pardoned us but not before And though to please these People some Ministers have openly granted That Repentance and pardon of Sin are simultaneous in time that is they are not one before another for any space of time but are both together only Repentance is first in order of Nature by the grace thereof to dispose and prepare us for receiving our Pardon by Faith in Christs Blood Yet this will not give them content but they will have their Pardon before Repentance and the Ministers who preach or write otherwise shall be proclaimed to be Antichristian Arminian or any thing that Passion suggests This we say greatly encreaseth our fears for to us it seems evident that the hand of Joab is in this matter that is plainly that Satan has a wicked design by this means to keep the People from Repentance and so from obtaining the pardon of their sins that the desolating Judgments of God may come upon the Nation and that we may be all destroyed together And that Satan may not be discovered he hath artificially disguised himself and appears on the Stage transformed into an Angel of Light pleading for the exaltation of the glorious riches of free grace in the Justification of Sinners by the Blood of Christ without all works of any Law whatsoever and with great appearance of Zeal asserting That the freeness of Gods Grace in the Justification of Sinners by Faith in the Blood Merits and satisfaction of Christ cannot possibly be maintained unless it be denyed that true Repentance is antecedently necessary to our obtaining the pardon of our Sins It seems to us that this is Satans Plot against us and that he hath thus disguised himself the better to carry it on and the more effectually to compass his design upon us And this is the more probable because we find that at the beginning of the Reformation Satan plaid the same game when he perceived that by our first Reformers preaching up Justification by Faith only and not by Works many People were induced to separate from the Church of Rome and embrace the Reformation he endeavoured to make them believe that since Sinners are Justified and Pardoned by Faith only and not by Works then there was no necessity that they should repent of their Sins in order to their obtaining the Pardon of them And thus he thought that though they had got their feet loosed out of one of his Snares yet he should still keep them fast in another and lead them Captive at his will That this is so indeed and no Fiction of ours is manifest from the Testimony of Bishop Hooper that blessed faithful and valiant Martyr of Christ who in the Reign of Queen Mary was burnt alive for the Protestant Religion in a slow Fire about the space of three quarters of an hour and sealed the Truth of the Gospel with his blood This Man of God in a Book of his Intituled A Declaration of Christ and his Office Printed at Zurich in the Year 1547. Chap. VII th handling the point of Justification saith This is certain and too true Let the whole Gospel be preached unto the World as it ought to be Repentance and a vertuous Life with Faith as God preached the Gospel unto Adam in Paradise Noah Abraham Moses Isaiah saying Vae Genti Peccatrici c. Isa 1.4 c John the Baptist repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand As Christ did Repent and believe the Gospel Mark 1. and then of an hundred that come to the Gospel there would not come one When they hear sole or only faith and the mercy of God to justify and that they may eat all ments at all times with thanksgiving they embrace that Gospel with all joy and willing heart And what is he that would not receive this Gospel the flesh it self were there no immortal soul in it would receive this Gospel because it promiseth aid help and consolation without Works But now speak of the other part of the Gospel as Paul teacheth Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye And as he prescribeth the life of a Justified man in the same Epistle Chap. 12 13 14 15 16. And Christ Mat. 10. And Peter in the 2 Epistle and 1 Chap. This part of the Gospel is not so pleasant therefore Men take the first liberty c. Thus that blessed Saint who feared neither Man nor Devil but in the true faith and fear of God set himself with a Divine courage and holy boldness to oppose the Devil and all his Instruments to destroy his Kingdome in the World and on the contrary to exalt the Name and Glory of God and to set up Christs Spiritual Kingdom in the hearts and lives of Men. Would to God! that we had many Hoopers amongst us at this day who saith again in the same Chapter not far from the beginning Nothing maketh the cause wherefore this mercy to wit of Justification should be given saving only the death of Christ which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only sufficient Price and Gage for sin And although it be necessary and
requisite that in the Justification of a Sinner contrition be present and that necessarily charity and vertuous life must follow yet doth the Scripture attribute onely remission of sin unto the mercy of God which is given onely for the Merits of Christ and received solely by Faith Paul doth not exclude those vertues to be present but he excludeth the merits of those vertues and deriveth the cause of our acceptation into the grace of God onely for Christ. If we could all be so wise and humble as to learn of that holy Man and to follow him as he learned of and followed Christ and his Apostles we might yet defeat Satan as to the foresaid Plot that he is carrying on to ruine us But alas it grieves us to the heart that some Ministers by not watching against that most subtile malicious enemy of God and Man have suffered themselves to be imposed upon so far as to turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accusers of the Brethren who stand up for God and Man in opposition to Satan and faithfully tell the People that they must through Grace truly repent of their sins in order to obtain the pardon of them And particularly we are truly sorry that the Authour of the Letter from a Minister in the City c. should have medled in this matter and that he should become Accuser of the Brethren especially of those pious Young Men who gave themselves up to the work of the Ministry in difficult and dangerous times without any visible encouragement thereunto from any thing in this World and also against groat visible discouragements both from the World and the Devil What have those Younger Brethren done to provoke this Brother who is himself also one of the younger sort to become their Accuser Some of us who are Older than they have known several of them these many years and yet never knew any evil by them nor heard any evil of them Since we first knew them it hath to us looked like a Token for good to his People in this Nation that the Lord hath raised up so many young men and hath spirited and to such a degree gifted them for the Ministry under such discouraging circumstances But now after all that God hath done for and by those Brethren notwithstanding the presence of God with them and the blessing of God upon their Labours up starts one who calls himself a Minister in the City and accuses them of being Corrupters of the pure Gospel of Christ of new vamping an Arminian Gospel and obtruding it on the People Let. pag. 10. to the certain peril of their Souls that believe it Yea he raiseth the Charge higher in pag. 13. and saith That Judicious Observers cannot but already perceive a coincidency between their cause and that of those two Pests of the Church Pelagius and Arminius and do fear more when c Here is an high Charge indeed but where is there any evidence for all this One would think that no Man who pretends such relation unto Christ and such seriousness in Christian Religion as this Man doth should dare thus to accuse his Brethren and fellow-Ministers of such horrid Crimes without clear and certain evidence whereby he can prove them guilty For if Men be suffered to accuse one another of atrocious Crimes without being obliged to prove their accusation no Man will be able to preserve his Good Name nor will it be possible for Men to live peaceably together in any Society Civil or Religious This Brother therefore ought to have been made to prove his accusation that the Churches might have been delivered from those young Hereticks if he had proved them to be such Or if he had failed in his proof that the Churches might know what spirit he is of who hath kindled a Fire in the Church by traducing the Ministers of Christ and falsely accusing them of Heresie But some may possibly say Hath he not by his printed Letter proved them guilty of Arminian and Pelagian Heresie To which we answer that no Man of Judgment who reads it can see any such proof in it nor indeed see just cause to harbour any such Thought of them if he but know the Men accused have heard their Doctrine and seen their manner of life and if withal he understand what Pelagianism and Arminianism are It is true he boldly accuses them of Arminianism and Pelagianism and of preaching a new Gospel and to make the simple People believe that his accusation is well grounded he saies that Judicious Observers perceive their cause to be coincident with that of Pelagius c. That they are reserved and do not yet speak out upon such and such points and that they hold such things as are utterly inconsistent with the Freeness of Gods Grace in Justifying Sinners by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christs Blood These things are often affirmed or insinuated throughout the Letter but none of them proved A Monster or a Man of Straw of his own making is set up to represent the Brethren and then he calls upon the People to come and see with what a Spirit of Zeal he hews it all in pieces This is a way of writing that is taking with weak well-meaning People Let. p. 14 15 30. and his holding Repentance not to be necessary in order to the obtaining pardon of sin may be pleasing to Satan and very taking with Hypocrites but no body of Judgment and Understanding can ever think that this is the way to prove the foresaid Accusation in matter of fact For our parts we have diligently considered every Paragraph of his Letter and in it all cannot find one proof of the said Accusation And after all we believe in our consciences that the Brethren accused are innocent of the Crime he lays to their charge Indeed we know assuredly that several of them are innocent thereof and till the contrary be proved and appear we must think so of them all We would have all Men to do so by us in case we were falsely accused and it is but just and reasonable that we do as we would be done by If we should happen to be mistaken as to any of the Brethren whose cause we plead we err on the safer side 1 Cor. 13.5 for charity thinketh no evil True Love will not suffer a Christian heart to entertain a deliberate Thought of his Brother that he is an ill Man or an Heretick without sufficient evidence that he is so We have met with no such evidence either in the aforesaid Letter or any where else and therefore we must still think that the accused Brethren are innocent of the Crime they are charged with and that the Accuser of them if he be a good man yet hath done a very ill thing in standering the Lords Ministers and we heartily pray God to give him repentance and forgiveness for Christs sake And that the World may see and that this Brother himself may see how rash and