every Man his Right and Due is included 338. It is not Gods will without the sign as is said nor the sign without his will but the sign as notifying and his will as notified that is a Law and Jus the Effect Gods will is the principal Cause and quasi Anima Legis and the sign is the instrumental Cause and quasi Corpus 339. The Sign reâ—pecteth these things 1. The matter due 2. The dueness or right 3. The will of God concerning or constituting it 4. The mind and will of man to whom this is signified Or 1. Gods will as the Efficient of Right 2. The matter and form of Right as Constituted 3. The mind and will of man as the terminus 340. These signs of Gods will are 1. Natural called the Law of Nature which is the Natura ordo rerum especially ipsius hominis as before described 2. By extraordinary Revelation The latter have the great advantage of plainness significandi rem praeceptam The former hath the fuller evidence of its Author and Original that it is indeed of God Both are his Laws to man 341. Laâ— Judgement and execution the three parts of Government differ in that 1. Law maketh the Debitum or Jus 2. Judgement determineth It is of great use for a Divine who handleth Gods Laws to understand the nature of Laws in genere as Suarez in praes de Legib. sheweth which Book is one of the best on that Subject that is extant among us of it by decâ—sive application 3. Execution distributeth according to it 342. The Jus vel Debitum instituted by the Law is twofold 1. A Subditis What shall be Due from the Subjects the Debitum Officii 2. Subditis what shall be Due to the Subjects viz. 1. Antecedently to their merits which is 1. The act of our Governing Benefactor 2. Or a Divider such was the Law for dividing the Israelites inheritances 2. Consequently which is by the Retributive part of the Law commonly called the Sanction which is 1. By the Premiant part what Reward shall be due 2. By the Penal what Punishment 343. Accordingly Laws have several parts 1. Precept and Prohibition making Duty 2. Retributive 1. Premiant 2. Penal called Gods Promises and Threats 3. And subservient or accidental 1. Narratives Historical Chronological c. 2. Pure Donations 3. Prophesies 4. Doctrinal 5. Exhortatory 6. Reprehensive c. 344. Though Debitum vel Jus facere be the formal operation of a Law which is to be Fundamentum Relationis yet the Act of the chief parts preceptive or penal is commonly called Obligation And so many say that obligare aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam is all the action of a Law But Obligare is a Metaphor and therefore in dispute to be laid by or to give place to the proper terms And the Premiant act is not properly called obligation nor the penal act save in a secondary notion as he is â—bligatus ad poenam ferendam if judged who is first Reus poenae or to whom it is made Due by the Law 345. The â—bligation aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam is not of equality in the disjunctive As if God were indifferent which we chose But it is primarily ad obedientiam and but subserviently ad poenam as a means against future disobedience and a securing the ends of Government in case of sin 346. But the Preceptive and the Premiant parts are each chief or final in several respects God Commandeth us a Course of Duty or Right action to this end that we may be Happy in his Love And he promiseth us first and giveth us after in foretaste this Happiness to draw us to Duty 347. But here is a wonderful inseparable twist and in the main an Identity God Ruleth us as a Father or Regent Benefactor All his Benefits are Free-gifts as to the Thing and Value But given 1. In an Order 2. And the rest as means to the ultimate In which respects they are a Reward or means to it His very Law is a Gift and a great Benefit Duty is the means to keep his first Gifts and to receive more The very doing of the duty is a receiving of the Reward the object of duty being felicitating As if feasting or accepting offered wealth or honour were our work Holiness is happiness in a great part And in our End or state of perfection all will be one To Love God Rejoice in Him and praise him will be both our duty and felicity means and end as it were in one 348. Whereas some say that if there were no Law sin would deserve punishment it is an errour For it is due only by Law But it 's true Of all the following distinctions note these words of Bonavent in 1. d. 4â— a. 1. q. 1. Voluntâ—â—em Dâ—i Antecedentem sâ—â— Conditionalem possiblâ—e â—â—â—â— non impleri at consequentem absolutam nequâ—â—uam Sâ—â—unâ—um Daâ—â—sc Voluntas benâ—pâ—aciti â—t â—apl Antecedens seu Conditionales consequous qua vult quantum in sâ— est omnium salutem alsoluta sive consequens quâ— determinate vult aliquid qâ—â—d noâ—it certitudin 〈…〉 Intelligendum â—â—â— nâ—llam Dei Voluntatem pâ—sse superari aut cassari Aliquam tamen posse non impâ—eri â—t antecedentem Aliqâ—â—m ut consequentem impossibile â—sse noâ— impleri â—â—â— impediâ—i Non â—tiam possibilâ— est Voluntatem Dei cassari Nam cassam diâ—itur aliquid dum priâ—â—tur eâ—â—ectu pâ—â—â—â—io ad quem est Voluntas autâ—â— nullo privatur esseciu ad quâ—m est pâ—â—pâ—ie Nam quod dicitur quod Deus vult omnes homiâ—â—s salvos fieri quantâ—m in sâ— est haec Voluntas non connotat salutem nec proprie est ad effectum salutâ—s sed connotat ordinatioâ—â—m naturae sive naturâ—m ordinabilâ—n ad salutâ—n â—â—â—â— niâ—il plus est diâ—â—re Deus vult istum salâ—â—â— fieri quantum in se est qâ—â—m Deâ— placuit dare isti â—â—â—â—ram per quam posset pâ—â—â—â—â—ire ad saâ—uâ—em quod Deus paraâ—â—â— esset juâ—â—re ita quod salus non deficit propâ—er deseâ—tum à pâ—nte Dei Therefore it connoteth also all the helps which God affordeth men that it 's due by the meer Law of Nature without any superadded Positive Laws 349. Gods will called Legislative or Governing is ever fulfilled in strict sence that is So much as is Gods part and the Laws part to do is ever done e. g. God saith Perfect obedience c. shall be Adams duty and it is done It is his Duty whether he will or not He saith To steal shall be sin and it is sin He saith He that believeth shall have right to Justification and Glory and he that believeth not shall be Filius mortis that is Death and Hell shall be his Due and so it is Thus strictly all Gods Will is done 350. But in the secondary remote sence every sin violateth the Will of God by breaking his Law For when he saith Obedience shall
soever that God is not the Cause of sin except some odd presumers who are condemned by the generality One or two spoke some hard words that way in Belgia whom the Synod of Dort rejected Mr. Archers Book was burnt for it by the Parliament or Westminster Synod Beza himself in Rom. 8. 28. passim abhorreth it as intolerable blasphemy But this Doctrine in question plainly maketh God the Willer and Cause of sin Yea more very much more than wicked men or Devils are which is not true 578. For they make Men and Devils to be but a second pre-moved predetermined Cause of the Act of Volition and Execution whence the formal obliquity necessarily resulteth But 1. God is certainly the Cause of the Nature which is the Agent 2. He is the Cause of the Law which maketh the act in specie to be sin His saying Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Murder maketh Adultery and Murder to be sin when they are committed which they would not be without the Law 3. God causeth and ordereth all the objects and occasions 4. And now they also say that God willeth ut peccatum fiat and is the first predetermining Cause even the total Cause of all that is in the act and all its circumstances without which predetermination it could not be So that man doth but will what God first willeth and act what God first moveth him unavoidably to act as the pen in my hand 5. And the Law and the Act being put in being the Relative obliquity is but the necessary result and hath no other cause 579. And note here what Estius before cited after Aquinas saith that to Will that peccatum sit vel fiat is all that the Sinner himself doth when he willeth sin And therefore it 's a vain thing here to distinguish between willing sin and willing the event futurity and existence of it ut peccatum fiat vel eveniat Though I confess I was long detained in suspense if not deceived by that distinction For he willeth sin who willeth the existence of it or that it be or come to pass 580. And note that it is both matter and form Act and obliquity which they say God willeth ut fiat For it is sin And forma dat nomen It is not sin but by the form of sin But if they had said otherwise it had been all one For he that willeth the fundamentum relate and correlate Saith Twisse Vindic. Graâ— li. 1. P. 1. Sect. 7. p. 137. Posito quod velit perâ—ectiones istas manifestare necesse est non impediat ingressum peccati sed permittat 1. As if he had proved that God was not able to manifest his Mercy and Justice by Laws and Illuminating men to know them without execution by the occasion of sin 2. Yet doth he make Christs death unnecessary and his satisfaction to Justice so far as that God could have accomplished our pardon and salvation another way if he would And is sin better or more necessary than Christs satisfaction 3. And methinks they that lay so little on Moral means and operations of Grace in comparison of Physical should not give so much to sin which were it a means as it is not but a Passive and opposite occasion is but a moral means And himself saith page 136. Permissio peccati proprie medium est assequendi â—inem à Deo praefixum At peccatum non est Medium proprie dictum sive manifestandae Dei misericordiae sive justitiae Media enim ejus sunt naturae ut ad ea facienda movâ—atur quis ex intentione finis Would the Reader have a better confuter of him than himself But he there addeth that it is Materia etsi non medium as stone and Timber to an House And yet sin they say hath no matter besides the subject and object but is a meer Privation of moral Rectitude But if it be to the Devils Kingdom loco materiae it is not so to Christs Rather if a beggar Want a house is that Want the Materia domus no nor the Materia of his mercy or bounty that buildeth it Thus the defectiveness of the subtilest wits abuseth God and his Church when the Christian simplicity of modest souls with a holy life would honour him So Sect. 9. pag. 137. Peccatum mihi videtur propriâ— dicendum esse materiam manifestandae Dei sive misericordiâ— sive iâ—stitiâ— potiâ—s quam medium Permissionem vero peccati medium esse ejus manifestandae proprie dictum But 1. how oft elsewhere doth he forget and contradict this 2. Permission it self is nothing being but non-impedire And is nothing or non-agere a proper means But especially I intreat the Reader to observe that in that very place Twisse and Arminius are herein professedly agreed that it is the Permission of sin and not the sin that is the Divine medium only one saith Praedestinationis and the other providentia And yet they will differ while they agree And I that differ from both would agree with both willeth the Relation 581. There is nothing left to be said then but that God willeth that sin be done but not as sin or because it is sin But this is nothing For 1. Either none or few of the Reprobate do will sin because it is Sin but because of the pleasure of sense or imagination or for seeming good 2. And if a man or Devil do maliciously Will sin as sin because it is against God so doing is but one of their sins which they say God willeth ut fiat before they willed it and predetermined them to it so that here is nothing in it but what is first and chiefly of God 582. If they say that God willeth it for the Glory of his Justice and so do not wicked men but for wicked ends or in enmity to God I answer That proveth that God hath a will which the wicked have not but not that the wicked have any will which God hath not For that Will and that Enmity to God still is but one of their sins which they say God first willeth ut fiat 583. Obj. But it is only ut fiat ipso permittente non faciente Answ The hypocrisie of that addition maketh it but the worse in the assertors For 1. They usually make Gods will effective of the thing willed 2. They maintain that there is nothing in the act as circumstantiated which God is not the total first efficient Cause of 3. They confess that the formal relation necessarily resulteth from the act and Law And why then do they put in the word permittente Would not that deceitfully insinuate to the Reader that the sinner doth something which God doth not do but only permit when they mean no such thing For that is my second reason against them 584. 2. By their doctrine God never permitteth sin which is false For that which he Willeth and Causeth as the first total Cause he cannot be said to Permit To do a thing and
Rom. 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death Rom. 5. 12. Death passed on alâ— for that all have sinned Rom. 2. 12. As many as have sinned withâ—â—â— Law shall perish without Law And we must pray for the pardon of aâ—â— Sin And unpardoned Sin will damn men These are the reasons â—â— this side They of the other Opinion say That the Gospel-Covenant sheweâ—â— Gods Nature as well as the first Law That God had not been unjust iâ—deed if he had permitted him to fall into great Sin and so to periâ—â— who committed the least for he so permitted Adam to commit the first that was before innocent But the Justice of God bound him not so it do nor would have damned a Lover of God for a small Sin no more than now That we must not feign a Law which we cannot prove That God changeth not his holy Nature and therefore not that Law which is the expression of it That Christ died for all Sin and all needs pardon but that proveth not that the least deserved death much less Hell but that by Christ's Death the deserved punishment must be remitted that all even Infants are guilty of mortal Sin in Adam The Death is the wages of that Sin which brought it but not of the least That Adam's Law was not severer than that by Moses which saith Dâ— this and live and yet condemned not men for smaller sins That God proclaimeth pardon of some Sin in the very Law of Nature as from his Nature Exod. 34. and the Second Commandment That Nature teacheth all the World to believe it That God said not to Adam â—â— the day that thou thinkest a vain thought but That thou eatest c. That mortal Sin is pardonable by Christ which else could not by the first Law but God could otherwise have pardoned a vain thought if he would That no Text of Scripture saith that every Sin deserveth Hell nor is threatned with Death And as the condition of the Penalty so the condition of the Promise to Adam is here also controverted by Divines 1. Some say that the condition of Life was personal perfect perpetual Obedience till â—â—â— change which God would make as he did by Henoch when it pleased him which seemeth to me the probablest Opinion 2. Others think that Adam was to have continued in Eden for ever under that same conditional Law which is less probable 3. Others think that had he over-come the first temptation but so far as to adhere and vanquish that is to continue the love of God and not to eat that Fruit or commit any other mortal Sin which of its nature killeth Love he had been confirmed as the promised Reward 4. I have lately met with an exceeding ingenious M. S. written partly against my self after others which asserteth 1. That the Glory of Justice is the end of Gods Government 2. That Do this perfectly and live or Sin at all and die are the constant terms of Justice under every Covenant 3. That if Adam had performed but one â—â— of Obedience by that Law he should have been rewarded with confirmation or the Holy Ghost as the Angels and with everlasting life 4. That now all our Reward is only the Act of Gods Justice giving â—â— life as merited by us in Christ on the terms of the Law that saith Do this and live Sin and die in whom we are perfectly innocent and rewardable and we have no rewardable Righteousness nor any to justifie us but perfect Innocency imputed because as not to be a Sinner is no merit of a Reward so pardon of Sin is no Title to a Reward c. It is not my present task to clear up all these Difficulties having done more towards it in my Methodus Theologiae but only so much as our present conciliatory work requireth But yet because I and the matter in hand are nearly concerned in the M. S. I shall briefly animadvert on all the substance of it having first said of the condition of the penalty but a few words I. I am loth to confound the certainties with the uncertainties in this matter 1. It is certain that Gods Law of Nature was mans first and principal Law to which the supernatural Revelations were added and comparatively few 2. It is certain that Gods Law was perfect and that both as the impress and expression of Gods perfect Wisdom and Holiness and as the Rule of Perfection to Adam And therefore that it obliged him to perfection 3. But this Perfection to which he was obliged was not at first all that his nature would be capable of at last It was not his duty the first hour of his life to Know or Do as much as after the longest time and experience and as much as in heavenly perfection But he was bound to Know and Love and Do at first as much as at that time his nature was capable of supposing necessary Concauses and Objects 4. This is summed up in Loving God with all the Heart Mind and Might But the All in maturity and after full experience and in Glory is more than the All in unexperienced juniority To know love and obey God to the utmost intention of his present natural Power supposing due Objects media and concauses was Adam's duty and all defectiveness herein was culpable or sin 5. All sin of its own nature deserveth punishment Therefore so would the least culpable thought or word in Adam or the least culpable defect in the extent or intention of any holy affection in him 6. It is certain that Adam's eating the forbidden Fruit or any one such sin as consisteth not with the predominancy of his Love to God as God in habit such as is now inconsistent with true Grace and is called mortal was to be punished with death temporal and eternal according to the Justice of that Law 7. They are different questions 1. What God might do 2. What he would do as decreed 3. What he must do as necessary because of Justice or Veracity to the breaker of that Law And it is clear that God might as an Act of Justice punish the least culpable thought or remissness of degree of Love with Annihilation or with any pain-everlasting which to the Sinner were no worse than Annihilation Because 1. Antecedently to his Law he might have done that much as an affliction without sin 2. And after he did no way that I know of oblige himself to the contrary to a Sinner before the Covenant of Grace 3. And having threatned punishment in general he might choose what punishment he saw fit 8. What God would do as decreed the prediction or the event only can tell us 9. That God must by necessity of Justice and Truth punish the least sinful thought or remissness with some degree of punishment according to that Law seemeth to me somewhat clear 1. And yet it is more clear that it is various degrees of punishment which are comprized in the word Death or Filius mortis
sinned by Omission 3. But that Law giving life eternal only to Obedience to the end of his time of trial he merited not that life by initial Obedience This was initial imperfect Righteousness wanting perseverance but not a medium between Just and Unjust except as Just signifieth the merit of Life by persevering Righteousness to the last And so I never denied but in a disobliged Subject there is a medium Adam was not bound to do a years work the first hour and so was neither just nor privatively unjust as to the future years work but as to what he was presently obliged to he was either Righteous or a Sinner Here you come short of necessary accurateness Perseverance is a part of our Condition of Glorification Yet he that is not dead is just if he be a Believer and obedient And if God now call him by death he shall be glorified But he hath not now done all that is to be done till his death if he live longer So that his Right to the present possession of Glory before death is not justifiable but his Right in case he now die is § 41. M. S. Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere cannot be put in exchange for fac hoc and therefore justified only as it relateth to him who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him An. 1. Exchange is an ambiguous word Here is no proper exchange Faith is not a fulfilling of the Law of Innocency nor so reputed by God Christ did both satisfie for our not-fulfilling it and also by that and by fulfilling it himself not in our persons but his own did merit the free Gift of Life to us to be ours upon new Covenant terms and Faith and Repentance are the Conditions of that New Covenant and so are that Duty which is laid on our selves to do instead of perfect Obedience supposing Christ's Satisfaction and Merits which are instead of it quoad precium or principally as our said acts are instead of it as to what is necessary in our selves And the Apostle who so oft saith Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness doth neither by Faith mean Christ nor mean that Faith is imputed as a fulfilling the Law of Works But that having no such merit of our own or Righteousness our believing in him that hath satisfied and merited for us is reckoned to us instead of a Righteousness or Merit as being all that now is necessary to our Justification in our selves our persevering Obedience being afterward necessary to our Glory 2. No doubt Faith relateth to Christ and here connoteth him as its Object It were not Christian Faith else But it is also related to the New Covenant as its Condition and in that form hath its place to our Justification which cannot be denied Therefore you untruly say Only as relating to Christ and your words confute your self You say Who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him You speak either of secret Decree and that giveth no Right or of Covenant Donation And to say He and his benefits are given in Covenant to all that will receive him is all one as to say The Covenant giveth them on condition that we receive him which is true § 42. M. S. 5. It is impossible that the terms of the Covenant of Grace can be any other than they are because nothing but receiving him can make him mine An. 1. That proveth not that Faith is not the Condition but that it needs must be so 2. It is impossible now the Covenant is so made viz. ex necessitate existentiae But that God could have made it no otherwise is not a thing for man to say 3. Confound not passive Reception with active moral Reception Justificari is passively to receive Justification and to be first related to Christ as mine or to be one that he is given to is passively to receive Christ Active moral receiving is the Wills consenting thus to have him on all his terms and is the means of the other It is this and not the other that is Faith And could not God possibly have made Christ ours by any alteration of the terms sure they that confine Faith to the receiving of Christs imputable Righteousness will grant that God could possibly have put one act more of Faith into the Condition or onâ— act of Gratitude Desire Love or Repentance And Dr. Twisse thinks he could have given a man a Right to Life without Christ's Satisfaction and to Christ without Faith and that so he doth to Infants § 43. M. S. There is no Righteousness in point of Justification but only in conformity to the Rule Do this that only brings a man under the approving Will of God An. 1. But what is the Do this that you mean Adam's Law said Do this and live Moses Law said Do this and live The Law given to Christ said Do and suffer this and I will give thee Power over all Flesh to give eternal life to as many as I give thee and believe The Law of Christ to Sinners saith Do this and live This is the work of God that ye believe c. But all these Doings are different for all that It 's an unknown Faith or Repentance which is no Act or Duty 2. There is no Righteousness but the conformity to the Rule of Righteousness if you speak only of that Righteousness which is of that species But there is another sort He that is justifiable is just so far If Satan say Thou art condeâ—nandus to be damned to Hell and shut out of Heaven for breaking the Law of Works I must deny it not by saying I did not break it but keep it by another or I did not deserve damnation but by alledging He that is pardoned is not to suffer any pain of sense or loss I am pardoned by the New covenant through the Merit of the Satisfaction and perfect Righteousness of Christ Adam's Law will not justifie you nor Moses's Law neither The Law requireth personal perfect Obedience It never said Thou or another for thee shalt obey It knoweth no Surety To give a Surety and to accept his suretiship is the act of the Law Giver as above his Law not fulfilling that Law but securing the ends of Government and of it by another way To pardon a Sin and Penalty is not to fulfil the Law that threatened it but to dispense with it which Justice can do upon a valuable consideration securing the ends of Government And Veracity is not impeached by it For 1. The sense of silius mortis is Death shall be thy due and so it was 2. And death was actually inflicted on man himself though not all that which he deserved If the Law of Innocency justifie you you need no Redeemer you need no Pardon you need no New Covenant to justifie you nor can it do it 3. We are justified by Doing though not by our fulfilling the Law of Works by our selves or another We are justified
after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him we live and move and have our being For we are also his off-spring Act. 17. 25 26 27 28 29. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him For whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved But have they not heard Yes verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Rom. 10. 12 13 18. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance Who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Eternal life Glory honour and peace and to every man that worketh Good to the Jew first and also to the Greek For there is no respect of persons with God For not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their Consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel If the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the Law shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision He is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God Rom. 2. SECT III. Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption 36. In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Rom. 4. 4. But not them only for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him He redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us For he is the Saviour of the world and the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world He is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2. 2. For he tasted Death for every man Heb. 2. being the Saviour of all men but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. For if one dyed for all then were all dead And he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. 37. As the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father in his Divine nature only was the interposing Redeemer by undertaking before his Incarnation and governed the faln world by the fore-described Law of Grace so upon his Incarnation initially and upon his performance plenarily all things are delivered into his hands even all the world so far as it was defiled and cursed by Man's sin Man as the Redeemed the Creatures as his utensils and goods and Devils as his and our Enemies All Power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 26. 19. Joh. 13. 1 3. and 17. 2 3. All judgment was committed to him and the Father judgeth no man but by him But hath given him to have life in himself and to raise the dead Joh. 5. 22 23 24 25. For he hath made him Head over all things to his Church Eph. 1. 22 23. And for this end he dyed rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living Rom. 14. 9 10. For God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name that in the name of Jesus every knee should â—ow Phil. 2. 7 8. And as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15. 22. 38. Christ upon his Incarnation performed but what God had Decreed before the foundations of the world and had obscurely and generally promised after the fall at the first making of the Covenant of Grace Which Decree of God is after the manner of men called by some a Covenant between the Father and the Son especially because the Prophets have sometimes as Isa 53. described it by way of prediction as a Covenant between the Father and Christ incarnate If we conceive of it properly under the notion of a Decree first and a Promise after unto the world so the Will and Mercy of God the Father and Son with the Holy Spirit are the cause of mans Redemption Pardon and Salvation even the fundamental Principal total Cause And the Promise was man's security and Christ as promised was the primary great meanâ— which was to procure us the rest by doing that upon the fore-sight and fore-decree whereof God did before-hand pardon and save Sinners But if you had rather mention it as in the form of a Covenant which before the Incarnation must be improperly taken being only of God to himself or a promise of and to Christ as to be incarnate then the undertaking of the Father and the Son herein must be carefully distinguished and described The Father giveth up to Christ as Redeemer the whole lapsed cursed reparable world the several parts to several uses and especially his chosen to be eventually and infallibly saved and promiseth to accept his Sacrifice and performance and to make him Head over all things to his Church and by him to establish the Law of Grace in its perfect Edition and to give him the Government respectively of the Church and world and to Glorifie him for this work with himself for ever And the second person undertaketh to assume man's Nature to do and suffer all that he did in perfect obedience to his Fathers Will and Law of Redemption to fulfill all Righteousness conquer Satan and the world to suffer in the flesh and be a Sacrifice for sin and to conquer Death and teach and rule and purifie and raise and justifie and glorifie all true believers 39. Before the Incarnation Christ's future death and obedience being * * * Eadem suit sides in antiquis patribus modernis qui alio modo credebant in specialia alia credibilia quam nos Immo aliquid eredebant quod nunc est salsum Alliaco in 3. q. 1. not existent were no real existent Causes in themselves of men's Justification But that Wisdom which foresaw them and that Will of God which Decreed them as such and not they without that fore-sight and Decree as existent were the cause 40. Nor were they either before
If in any of these points men of less accurateness use not the same words take not therefore the old way of proclaiming them Hereticks till you have tryed how far they erre indeed Most of our lower Divines of all parties would be made Hereticks for want of Skill in the denominations allowable or not allowable by the Communication of idioms if the Schoolmens accurateness must be the test e. g. If the question were whether the Humanity be part of Christ or Christ be compounded of a Divine Nature and Humane c. â—â—â—â— would affirm it that mean well But saith Alliac Camerar 3. q. Neque persona neque natura divina est composita nec â—â—â—â— est compositus ex duabus naâ—â—â—is divina scilicet humana sive ex tribus rebus Corpore scilicet anima divinitate sed â—â—â—â— ex duabus secundum humanitatem scilicet corpore anima essentialiter ex infinitis partibus quantitativis integraliter â—â— non est concedendum quod humanitas sit Pars Christâ— Nam ficut homo non est compositus ex albidine substantia 〈…〉 est Compositus ex humanitate persona divina How many have gone for Hereticks for want of the Language of â—â—â—â— and the Schoolmen his Soul the deep sense of Gods displeasure with Sinners and of his â—â—â—â— of sin though no sence of Gods hatred to himself For it is conceiveable how Christ being the Lover and surety or Sponsor for Sinners and undertaking to suffer as a Sacrifice for their sins and in their stead might have on his own Soul the sorrowful sense of Gods hatred of sin and wrath against Sinners though not properly terminated on himself and so he bore the sorrow of our transgressions and was so far forsaken of God for that time and not further 52. The true Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ's sufferings was that they were a most apt means for the demonstration of the Governing Justice Holiness Wisdom and Mercy of God by which God could attain the ends of the Law and Government better than by executing the Law on the world in its destruction as in general was before intimated 53. The measure of the satisfaction made by Christ was that it was a full salvo to Gods Justice and demonstration of it that he might give Pardon and Life to Sinners upon the new terms of the Covenant of Grace and give what he after gave 54. The matter of Christ's meritorious Righteousness was his perfect fulfilling the Law given him as Mediator or the performance of the Conditions of his mediatorial Covenant From which resulted the Merit so the Dueness of all the Benefits which God had promised in that Covenant as to Christ though mostly for men This was the Righteousness of Christ for man and hence arose his Merit for us 55. The matter of his Law of Redemption required of him was threefold 1. That he should by habitual and actual perfect Holiness fulfil the first Law of Nature or Innocency which Adam broke not just as it obliged Adam in every point but as it was common to man and belonged to Christ as Man 2. That he should fulfil all the Law of Moses given only to the Jews 3. That he should perform the great things peculiar to himself as Mediator which were to be a Sacrifice for Sin to do his Miracles to teach the Church as its Head to Rule it and to appoint Orders and Officers for it to rise again to conquer Satan Death and Sin c. 56. That Christ did not fulfil all the Law in our persons so as that we did it in and by himself and are thereby justified is further evident in that he did not all the Duties which the Law bound us to perform and for not doing of which we are truly Sinners He did not do any of the proper Offices of a Husband to a Wife or of a Wife to a Husband of a Father to Children of a Servant or a hired day-labourer to a Master of a Magistrate King Judge c. to Subjects of a Captain to Souldiers or Souldiers to their Captain of a Landlord to Tenants of such as have great riches towards the poor of the sick the imprisoned and abundance such like Besides the personal Laws given to Adam in the Garden to Noah to Abraham to David â—â—â—â—â—olomon the Prophets and such others Christ did not these same â—â—â—â— for us nor we fulfilled not these particular Laws in him 57. The Disputes whether it be Christ's Divine his habitual his active or his passive Righteousness that is made ours to our Justification seemeth to be but the Off-spring of the error of the undue sense of Christ's personating or representing us in his Righteousness And the parcelling out the uses and effects that one is imputed to us instead of habitual Righteousness another instead of actual and the third pardoneth our Sins is from the same false supposition It 's well that they suppose not that his Divine Righteousness is imputed to our deification But the case is plain 1. That Christ's whole Humane Righteousness habitual active and passive are meritorious for us not as being the very same things all which we should have done and suffered and had as if we had did and suffered them our selves by one that had did and suffered them in our persons in a Law-sense But as being the parts of that one Righteousness of Christ as Mediator which consisteth in the full performance of the Law of Redemption or of his own Covenant with his Father undertaken for our sakes Having been and done and suffered what he promised he is Righteous 2. And his Divine Righteousness by virtue of the hypostatical Union dignifieth his Humane to its meritorious value 58. By his Satisfaction or Sacrifice and this Merit Christ did procure all that Pardon Life and Benefits whatsoever that consequently are given us of God And so is the true meritorious cause of all 59. That Sacrifice and Obedience Righteousness and Merit which was directly given to God for man by performance of Christ's undertaking may yet be consequently said to be given unto man In that it was given to God for man and in that the Benefits merited are given to man and so relatively as to those Benefits the Sacrifice Obedience Righteousness and Merit may be said to be given us As the Ransom is given to the Captive which is given for him because the liberty purchased by it is given him Of which more after SECT IV. Of the New Covenant or the Law of Grace in the Second Edition 60. The New Covenant is Christs Law of Grace his Instrument by which he giveth Title or Right to the Benefits promised and conveyeth Right to the Fruits of his Sacrifice and Merits And his Law by which he governeth the Church as a Saviour in order to Recovery and Salvation It hath greatly scandalized the Papists against us to find some old Prâ—testants deny Christ to be a Law-Giver and
in his Gospel to have a Law The case is sad that any in opposition to others should run into such an Antinomian extream They are unlike to be good Preachers of Christ's Law who maintain that he hath no Law And there can be no sin against it nor expectation of being judged by it if he have none And he is no King and Ruler if he have no Law But yet let the Papists forbear iâ—â—â—ing and remember that the true meaning of most of them is no more than to assert what Suarez himself propugneth viz. that besides Revelations and the Duties thence naturally resulting by natural Law and the Sacraments Christ hath no other Laws And both Suarez and they are here to blame for the Papists that are by some accused for calling the Gospel a Law do also give too little honour to Christ's Laws It beseemeth none of them to use such ill Language what-ever they mean If they should say that the King is no Law-Giver and hath no Laws they would wrong him by that Language as denying his Royalty how well soever they should interpret it For the Legislative-Power is the principal essential part of Soveraignty But if any really deny Christ to be a Law-Giver and when he hath done reproacheth the Papists and Arminians for contradicting it it is but as the blind reproaching the purblind for seeing when they that give most to the Laws of Christ among these Contenders do give too little The Baptismal-Covenant is a Law as imposed and as imposing the Covenant-Duties and as determining the conditions of Life and Death according to which men must live and shall be judged yea it is the most famous Law which Conscience hath to do with Though it be a Covenant as consented to in the contract That Sinners have terms of Life and Death and offered Remedies against all their Guilt and greatest Punishments and Means prescribed and Duties commanded in order to their recovery when the Law of Innocency condemneth them especially the obeying of the Ministry and Word and Holy Spirit of Christ prescribing them his way of cure as their Physician all this is a Law of Grace even the Law of Liberty and the Law of the Spirit of Life which freeth us from the Law of Sin and Death Christ's Law consisteth of two parts as is said 1. The Law of Nature called by many moral as commanding the love of God and its attendent Duties not now to an innocent man but to a condemned-recovering Sinner as the health to which his Physician doth restore him 2. And the remedying Law which is more proper to the Redeemer called the Law of Faith which appointeth us the terms and means of our recovery which is 1. Supernatural as to the Revelation of the matter and reasons of it and the foundation of all in Christ's Work of Redemption and his Legislation 2. But as to the obligation or efficiency of mans duty it is both natural and supernatural at once that is when it is presupposed that Christ hath done suffered and offered to our acceptance all that is so asserted of him in the Gospel 1. Nature obligeth us to believe it upon evidence of credibility and to accept it and thankfully improve it 2. Christ as the Fathers Administrator and our King hath positively commanded us the same Were it not for wearying the Reader and my self I would here answer all that Suarez saith de Legib. li. 10. c. 2. to prove that no praeceptum positivum morale is added by Christ And I would easily prove that as some parts of Nature are unalterable and accordingly natural Duty so some things of Nature are mutable and so is that natural Duty which is founded on them And Christ hath by supernatural Performances and Revelations made such changes in the nature of things as inferreth new natural Obligations Were the Devils redeemed and Grace now offered them nature would make it their duty to accept it In sum it is a sufficient confutation of all Suarez's Reasons to say that they run upon this false supposition that Nature and supernatural Precept may not both oblige man to the same duty and that God cannot lay two Obligations on us to the same action For all that he laboureth is to prove that supposing the Revelation Nature bindeth us to believe all the Christian Articles to preach and hear and pray to God by Christ to love our Redeemer and be thankful c. and that the Gospel is thus fitted to lapsed Nature as the first Law was to innocent Nature All which I like very well and take it for a great honour to Christ and the Gospel that it is so suited to the natural necessity and state of fallen and miserable man and may be called the Law of sinful Nature But Suarez himself had before proved that Moses's Decalogue was both a Declaration of what Nature bound men to and yet also the matter of a new Precept of God And why could he not see the same of the Gospel it being so evident that it containeth Christ's Commands And the very sum of our Ministry is 1. To disciple and baptize all Nations c. 2. And then to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded And indeed Suarez confesseth p. 816. That Christ did by new commanding add new Obligations to the duties of Nature though he deny that Christ added any positive Precept as to the moral matter commanded by the Law of Nature And by this instance you may see how near some men agree that seem much to differ But as to them that insist on it that the Gospel and New Covenant are no Laws and that we have none from Christ but the Decalogue and Old Testament were I to write against them to purpose I would plentifully prove them Subverters of Christianity it self and give full evidence against them to any that believe the holy Scriptures And contrarily I would prove that there are no Divine Laws but what are truly the Laws of our Redeemer now in the world and that all Infidels are ruled and shall be judged by a Law of Grace though not of the last evangelical Edition and that he that feareth not breaking the Laws of Christ shall hear at last Those mine Enemies that would not that I should Reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me Luk. 19. 27. a a a That Christ is truly a King and so a Law-Giver and hath proper Laws and not only Doctrine and how great an injury some Protestants have doâ—e the Church by denying besides the Antinomians See Suarâ—z de Leg. l. 10. c. 1. whose proofs of the thing are unanswerable And I have long ago proved it in other Writings But Suarâ—z asserting that Christ's Law is only Moral and Ceremonial in the Sacraments and not judicial doth plainly confess that God never instituted the Papacy and their Discipline Yea he saith c. 2. p. 812. Christus in sua lâ—ge nihil de praecâ—ptis judicialibus statuit etiam
all his Benefits are ever free Gifts â—â— to the matter and value first and then the relation of a Reward is bâ— secondary as to the Order of collation and the reason comparative whâ— one man hath them rather than another as a thankful Child hath the Gift which the Contemner goeth without 2. And that here Not to have this Gift forfeited by our sin is to be punished And so hâ—â—â— non-donari is puniri materially though the relations differ 3. And that it is the same Righteousness of Christ which meriteth our Impunity quoad damnum sensum and which meriteth our Right to the Gift of Life both sub ratione doni as a Gift and sub ratione condonationis as a forgiveness of the forfeiture and of the poena damni So that here â—â— no room for the conceit that Christ's death was only to purchase Pardon and his Righteousness to merit Life That which confoundeth men here is their taking the divers Respects and Connotations and Coâ—ceptions of one and the same thing to be divers separable things Thâ— same Law hath the Preceptive part to do and not do and the Retributing part penal and rewarding The same Obedience of Adam was â—â— doing what was commanded and a deserving what was promised â—â—â—â— more was promised to persevering Perfection than to the first act of Obedience One Sin deserved death but one act of Obedience desernâ—â— not immutable Glory And as the same Act is formally Obedience related to the Command and formally meritorious or praemiandus â—â— related to the Promise And the same Act is sin and punishable as related to the Precept or Prohibition and Threatening so the same Glory is a free Gift in one respect as related ut bonum to God as Benefactor and a Reward in another as related quoad ordinem conferendi to God â—â— Rector And the same loss of Glory is poena related to the Threatening and it is the loss of a Reward as related to the Promise And so the sâ—â—â— Merits of Christ's active and passive and habitual Righteousness because our Glory both by giving us pardon of our forfeiture and by Covenant-Donation and as a Reward to Christ and to us when â—â— perform the conditions of his Gift 133. And it is certain that Christ's Sufferings are first satisfactory and then meritorious being a part of his Active that is voluntary Oâ—dience And Christ's Holiness and Obedience are meritorious of pardon â—â— Sin as well as of Salvation 134. If there be as there is any thing which is given us througâ—â— Christ more than our own Innocency or Obedience would have mâ—â—â—ted the Gift of that is more than remission of Sin And is to be ascribeâ— accordingly to the Purchase of Christ's Merits But yet both his Holiness and Sufferings though not as sufferings did merit it And that was not a fulfilling of the Law in our stead 135. This superadded Gift what-ever it is seemeth in Scripture to be included in Adoption and not in Justification But yet it may in this sense be called Justification in that when our Right to that Gift is questioned that Right must be justified by the Covenant-Donation and by Christ's meritorious Purchase of it But this is only de nomine We are agreed of the thing 136. It is greatly to be noted that as a Reward is in the formal notion more than not punishing where materially they are the same so Christ hath not at all merited that eternal Life should be ours by way of Reward for our fulfilling the Law in him but that it should ours by his free Gift as a Reward to Christ for his own Merits So that the Relation of a Reward for Perfection belongeth only formally to Christ who taketh it as his benefit that we are saved through his love to Souls but not at all to us And to say as too many hold that Heaven is our Reward for our perfection of Holiness and Obedience in and by Christ is a Humane Invention subverting Christ's Gospel or unfit speech if better meant 137. Yet a Reward it is to us to be glorified but that is not for our fulfilling the Law of Innocency by Christ but for our believing in Christ and performing the conditions of the Covenant of Grace which giveth us Life as a free Gift but yet in the order of the condition it hath the relation and name of a Reward to us in the Scripture 138. So that here are three rewarding Covenants before us 1. The Covenant or Law of Innocency rewarding man for perfection to the end And this rewarded none but Christ And it is false that we are rewarded by that Covenant or justified by it for Christ's fulfilling it But it All the stir of the Papists is to prove that we have inherent Righteousness as well as pardon which Protestants are as much for as they The rest is de nomine justificationis Malder 1. 2. q. 113. a. 2. p. 572. Apostolus 2 Cor. 5. non aliud vult quam Christum cui nullum debebatur supplicium factum fuisse hostiam pro nostro peccato ut nos qui apud Deum nihil merebamur praeter supplicium justitia Dei fieremus in ipso id est gratis sine nostris operibus consequeremur per ipsius merita justitiam coram Deo What doth this differ from the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches Idem ibid Quando Apostolus dicit multos constitui justos per unius obedientiâ—â— significatur causa meritoria non autem formalis And so say we But some call Christ's Righteousness the causa materialâ—s meaning no more but that it is the matter of that Merit for which we are justified As if Adam had perfectly fulfilled the Law his fulfilling it had been meritorious of his sentential Justification and yet the matter of his constitutive Justification that is of his Righteousness And some uâ—â—ptly call it the formal cause But an unapt logical notion is not an error in Faith or Theology Idem ib. p. 573. Quamvis â—x omnino rigida justitia solus Christus Dominus satisfactat de condigno tamen ita ut merces operi â—ono debeatur post Dei promissionem meretur justus coronam justisiâ— quam reddet in illa die justus judex Est nostra justitia tota totum meritum tota satisfactio dependens a meâ—ito satisfactione Christi Still here is a wordy Controversie justified Christ 2. The Law or Covenant made only to and with Christ the Mediator And this Covenant further rewarded Christ as Mediator giving him all that it promised to himself and us for his performing the mediatorial conditions And so our Life is Christ's Reward 3. The Covenant or Law of Grace for it is the same thing in several respects that 's called the Law and the Covenant which giving Life on the condition of Faith doth justifie and reward Believers And we are justified and rewarded by no other Law 139. When Rom. 4. oft saith and other Texts that we are
to be damned to Hell but to be glorified in Heaven or to be sentenced to endless life and acquit from this Accusation that we are damnandi or to be punished in Hell And in order to this to be sentenced such as have the true causes and conditions of Right to Impunity and Life which are 1. Immediately the gift of this Right by God himself in his Covenant with Christ the Fountain of it 2. A true Right and Relation to Christ as our Head and Saviour and the only Meriter of this Covenant-Gift and Justification and Adoption by his habitual active and passive Righteousness and Sacrifice advanced in dignity by Union with his Divine perfection 3. True Faith and Repentance with Love Obedience and Perseverance as the title-conditions required by the donative and condonative Covenant 358. As I have before said that a man must be justified at that Day from the charge of Infidelity by his Faith it self and not by Christ's Merits and from the charge of Impenitence by his Repentance it self So I add that he must be justified from the charge of Hypocrisie by his sincerity and from the charge of Rebellion by his subjection and from the charge of wickedness by final godliness and obedience and from the charge of Apostacy by perseverance But from the charge of his wickedness before Conversion and his pardoned sins and weakness since only by Christ's Sacrifice and meritorious Righteousness and the Pardon purchased thereby and given in the New Covenant And from the accusation that we are Sinners in general we have no Justification at all 359. Judgment is the Genus and Justification and Condemnation are the Species Therefore to be judged according to our Works is to be justified or condemned according to our Works 360. As I said that it is God's Justice and Mercy and Christ's Redemption of us which are chiefly to be glorified at that Day but it is our personal Gospel-Righteousness or performance of the Conditions of the New Covenant which is then to be tried and we and not Christ that are to be judged So I add that the New Testament referring to this fore-seen doth usually speak accordingly of justifying us by Faith by our words or by our works that he that doth righteousness is righteous c. And it speaketh of that same Righteousness as constituting us just first by which we must be judged just at last 361. It is very easie therefore where prejudice blindeth not men to see the concord of Christ's saying We are justified by our words and Paul's by Faith and not by Works and James by Works and not by Faith only Christ speaketh of a particular Justification from a common great Crime a wicked Tongue as the sign or product of a wicked Heart And this must be part of the personal material Righteousness by which we must be justified as true Christians * * * Tolet in Rom. 3. Annot 17. Estius in Rom. 3. 28. Vega de justiâ— qu 3. p. 899. say of Justification by Faith as the Protestants do Vid. Stapleton de Justifi li. 8. c. ult Bellarm. de Justif l. 2. c. 7 10 11. Suarez de Grat. l. 7. c. 7. n. 29. Topper art 8. de Justif p. 25 26 27. Vasqu in 1. 2. disput 202. c. 6. n. 45. Coster Enchir. p. 292. Paul speaketh of our being justified by being Christians and not by keeping Mose's Law or doing any Works which will be to us instead of a Christ or a free-given Pardon and Righteousness by him And James speaketh of the full condition of Justification as continued final and compleat as it consisteth of its essential parts 362. The Key of Understanding Paul's Discourses of Justification is to know 1. That the grand question which he first manageth is Whether the Gentiles may not be saved without keeping the Jewish Law as well as the Jews with it 2. To prove the Affirmative he proveth that the Jews themselves cannot be saved or justified meerly or primarily by the Law notwithstanding the divinity and great excellency of it but must be justified by a Saviour and free-given Pardon and Right to Life and to which the sincere keeping of Mose's Law was intended to be but subservient 3. That therefore it appeareth that the Jews did so fondly admire the Law and their national priviledges under it that they thought that the exact keeping of it was necessary and sufficient to Justification and Salvation And they thought the Messiah was not to be their Righteousness as a Sacrifice for Sin and Meriter of free Pardon and the Gift of Life but only a great King and Deliverer to redeem them by Power from all their Enemies and Bondage 4. That it was not Adam's Covenant of Innocency or Perfection which the Jews thus trusted to or Paul doth speak against as to Justification though a minore ad majus that also is excluded For the Jews knew that they were Sinners and that God pardoned Sin as a merciful God and that their Petavius de Leg Grat. li. 1. c. 7. Well openeth the various senses in which the Law doth or doth not promise life eternal And through his two Books is much worth the reading of the difference of the Law and Gospel See Mr. Allen's Treat of the Two Covenants with my Preface And Mr. Truman's Great Propitiat with the Append. Law had Sacrifices for Pardon and Expiation with Confessions c. But they thought that so far as God had made that Law sufficient to political ends and to temporal Rewards and Punishments it had been sufficient to eternal Rewards and Punishments and that of it self and not in meer subordination to the typified Messiah Therefore they thought that he that kept the Law so far as to comit no sin which the Law punished with death or abscission and that for all his other pardonable sins performed the required Penances and Sacrifices was by this which is called The Works of the Law that is the keeping of the Law a righteous justifiable person 5. That the thing therefore which Paul disproveth them by is 1. That the Law was never made for such an end 2. That even then it stood in subordination to Redemption and free-given life 3. That the free Gift or Covenant of Grace containing the Promise of the Messiah and Pardon and Life by him was before the Law and justified Abraham and others even without it 4. That their Law was so strict that no man could perfectly keep it all 5. That every Sin deserveth death indeed though their Law punished not every sin with death by the Magistrate 6. That their Law was never Obligatory to the Gentile world who had a Law written in their Hearts and therefore not the common way of Justification * * * Jansenius Aug. To. 2. c. 4. asserteth That the chief difference between the old Law and the new is that the old was written in Stone and Tables and the new only in memory and
he will not cause cannot be And this is the beautiful variety and harmony in the Universe In God himself is nothing but perfection but the Greature being the shadowy Image of God defectibility and imperfection is essential to it so that he reduceth Morality to the frame and necessity of physical motion and maketh Moral Good and evil to be indeed as much natural good and evil and of the same kind except as in another subject as Summer and Winter heat and cold day and night health and sickness life and death animate and inanimate the unavoâ—dable diversifications of the will and work of God And that every permission of his will is accompanied with a positive volition of the thing permitted And yet that Will is not properly in God but so called after the manner of man That sin is considered as related to the Principle of action which is God and so it is good or as in the terminus Man and so it is horrid devilish odious evil as blindness death darkness caused all by Gods desertion or not operating otherwise than he doth § 7. To the quieting of the mind that cannot digest this but thinketh God is thus dishonoured being made more than Satan the cause of sin and misery for sin which the Scripture contradicteth and that man is excusable at the barr of Justice that could no more in innocency forbear to sin than to make a world To them that think it hard that no one in all the world could ever possibly do more or less Good or Evil than they do but that is all done by physical motion as in an Engine c. he hath a great deal to say and more than ever I elsewhere met with and with great modesty proposed § 8. As to the Law whose transgression is sin he supposeth that Whatsoever imposeth on us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel Pag. 173. Yea that the proposal or pressing of any Truth or Goodness on us in a literal or moral way only or the word as written in Letters is the Law and the spirit operating the thing it self on the soul is the Gospel the first is the old Covenant and the second the New That the proper and next ends of the Law or letter are sin condemnation death and the Divine wrath To let in sin and heighten it that it might abound and to bring on us spiritual death These flow not from the Law of it self but by accident from the weakness of the flesh and creaâ—ure But both Law and sin are brought in ultimately for good viz. God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils sin death wrath The evil in this scene is carryed on to its utmost extent and height Thus the variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its greatest Glory God in his Infinite wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of the flesh and of the creature to spring up as an overflowing flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest birth This Law is to convince us of the frailty and mutability in mans primitive state c. viz. that he is a creature For Pag. 175 176. man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and Potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin The Law comes and distinguisheth the Light from the Darkness Pag. 177. so that to see sin is to see that we are Creatures God withholds his Pag. 178. Divine presence appearances and influences from man and so the darkness discovereth it self in man and predominateth and captivateth him entirely and becomes his choice and Lord. so that sin is but an Imperfect Creature and the Law to cause and shew it § 9. Pag. 113 114 c. He saith The Immediate cause of the first change made in the understanding at the fall was the Divine Glory withdrawing or withholding it self Darkness is the privation of Light Privations have no proper Causes but accidental only Thus the Divine Glory retiring from the understanding or ceasing to shine in it is by accident the cause of the darkness there as the Setting or departing of the Sun is the cause of Night which is not a blemish to the Sun but its glory that in its presence are all the beauties and joyes of light in its absence all the disagreeableness and melancholies of night and darkness Pag. 115. All evil is from the absence of God c. P. 117. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation Pag. 122. The fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal design in the Divine mind being comprehended in it as a part of it § 10. And yet he makes man Guilty and unexcuseâ—ble and God just iâ— this because Guilt is but our being really bad And he that cannot deny himself to be bad is unexcuseable And the opening of this causeth shame And Justice is to Judge and use all creatures as they are § 11. To be short he maintaineth that man can have no freedom from necessitating predetermination If he should it would cross the nature of God of the creature of the soul and the unity and harmony of all things But that God causeth all sin negatively as necessarily as he causeth darkness or any natural privation But then he doth with a torrent of Rhetorick so Praise Gods design in it and the beauty and harmony of all things made up of good and evil unities varieties diversities and contrarieties and sheweth so largely the glory that cometh to God by sin and the good to the Universe and that it 's but our narrowness and weakness of sight that maketh us take it to be any other than a part of the glory of the universe though bad in and to the person that sinneth that I confess I never found my self more tempted to Love sin or to cease my hatred of it than by his florid Oratory § 12. And withall as he resolveth all the rest of Morality into Physical conceptions so he seemeth to judge suitably of Hell and of Redemption supposing that all this darkness that God brings on sinners is but to prepare for their resurrection to a life of unity and glory and that it shall go well with them in the end § 13. And as
Christ's Incarnation and Death should in the fulness of time demonstrate his Justice and make it agreeable to the ends of his Government to dispence with the Law of Innocency and to pardon Sin And therefore not Christ's Death it self but God's Decree of the Death of Christ Incarnate was the cause of the Promise and of the New Covenant made with Adam and of the Salvation of Believers then Which Will or Decree is called by some the interpellation or undertaking of the eternal Word A. But at least Sin fore-seen is causa sine qua non B. Call it by what name you please as long as you confess it to be no Cause for causa sine qua non is called Causa fatua and is none But it is not Sin which is Causa sine qua non for it is no sin from eternity A. It is the futurity of sin that is Causa sine qua non B. Yet more notions what is futurity any thing or nothing nothing certainly For quoad ens it is terminus diminuens and nothing is no cause But it is Gods knowledge that Sin will be which is to be called the Cause of Gods Decree as sine qua non if any be But I must deal most about futurition with the Calvinists when I come to save you from Dr. Twisse his Ferula A. I pray you then open me the matter as it is your self B. I will make your Cause better than you have made it But not by making other mens worse but by opening the reconciling truth 1. I shall tell you in what sense Gods Will and Decrees may and must be said Predestinatio nihil ponit in praedestinato inquit Aquin. 1. q. 23. a. 2. to have an extrinsick cause without change in God 1. Know therefore that Gods Essence is his Will but not as Essence To say that God is God and that God willeth this or that are not terms of the same signification 2. Gods Will is his Essence denominated from some amiable good as the Object and so there is ever quid respectivum in the notion of Will 3. As God willeth himself the Act being perfectly immanent his Will is called himself much more properly than his Will of things extrinsick which is ever either effectively or at least objectively transient Because it is God that willeth and that is willed or loved which made many Ancients say That this was the third Person in the Trinity 4. But as God willeth things ad extra though it is his Essence that so willeth them yet it is unfit to say simply that this Will is God e. g. that to will Peter's Salvation is God because the name Will here includeth the thing willed 5. And therefore when we speak of Gods Will in the universal notion as abstracted from all particular Objects and Acts it is less inconvenient to say simply that this Will is God than when we speak of his Will in act ad extra By this time you may see that though Gods Will as his Essence hath no cause yet his Will as denominated extrinsecally from the Object may have some kind of Cause that is * Alvarez himself saith that by a Cause he meaneth also any objective condition or reason of the Act. Objective which is quasi materia actus and the terminus sine quo non that is Gods Will is not denominated a complacency in Christ existent or in Peter regenerate * This is all that Ruiz his Reasons prove De Vol. Dei disp 115. Sect. 4. p. 102 Who saith that there is more than extrinsick denomination Et relatio rationis â—um realis formalitas But he doth but shew by his quodammodo that he knoweth not what to say or his understanding a seeing that the World was good before any of these things did exist So that by extrinsick denomination without any change in God he may and should be said de novo to know things to be existent to be past to will things as existent with complacency or will them with displicency But not to will the futurity of mens damnation de novo but yet his Will of the futurity of mens damnation hath several degrees of the Objective Cause from whence it is denominated As in esse cognito the person who is the Object is in order of nature first a man a subject and then a Sinner and a Despiser of Mercy and then a damnable Sinner And so these are indeed conditions in the Object or Causae sine quibus non or Objective material-constituent causes not in themselves but the fore-sight of them not of Gods Will as his Essence nor of his Will as a Will but of his Will as extrinsecally denominated a Decree to damn Judas e. g. because no otherwise is Judas an Object capable of giving such an extrinsick denomination to Gods Will. II. Both you and I hold and must hold that God decreeth to damn all that shall be damned * Vasquez in 1. Tho. q. 23. a. 3. p. 709. Conclusio quod Deus aliquos reproâ—at est de fide constat â—nim ex scriptura multos a Deo reprobari Vid. Ruâ—z de prâ—de fin Tract 2. per totum But it is false that we hold that he doth it without any respect to fore-seen sin For 1. He fore-seeth this Sin as the only meritorious cause of their damnation what he doth in time that is it which he decreed to do from eternity But in time he damneth no man but for Sin therefore from eternity he decreed to damn no man but for Sin For sin I say as the cause of damnation which Dr. Twisse doth frequently profess 2. And though this Sin can be no proper efficient cause of Gods Volition or Decree yet it is a presupposed necessary qualification in the Object as fore-seen in the Mind of God and so as aforesaid is an Objective Cause as fore-seen III. The execution of Justice and glorification of it and Gods Holiness thereby is good and fit to be the Object of Gods Volition or Decree But in the word Reprobation is in most mens sense included much which we hold not which is to be opened further anon IV. And as to the absoluteness of Gods Decree to damn those that are dammed I think you will not deny it your self supposing them to be fore-seen finally impenitent Sinners God doth not only will that all the finally impenitent shall be damned nor only that e. g. Judas shall be damned if he be finally impenitent But also that Judas as fore-seen finally impenitent shall certainly be damned So that when the condition is fore-seen in the Recipient or Object it is no longer a meer conditional Decree but absolute supposing that condition In all this we are agreed The second Crimination A. II. But that 's not all But you hold That God eternally decreed mens sin yea all the sin of Men and Devils some say That he decreed to predetermine men insuparably to the forbidden Act and
Head and of Pardon and Salvation 8. It is Christ's stated Constitution that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned Mar. 16. 16. That if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth Christ's resurrection unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation Rom 10. That except you repent you shall all perish Luke 13. 3 5. That men must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2. 38. And repent and be converted that their sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. So Rev. 22. 14. Matt. 6. 14 15. Ezek. 33. 14 16. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come Call these Laws or Covenants or what you will we are agreed that all this is the word of God 9. These terms of life and death are the rule of our practices and our expectations by which we must live and by which we shall be judged and therefore we may truly say that they are Christ's Law And they are God's signified determination of the conditions of life and death and his donation of our right to Christ Pardon and Life is contained herein and therefore this may truly be called Christ's Testament and Covenant in several respects 10. Though all duties be prescribed by God's Law and so each Precept is a material part yet formally or specifically the Laws to which these material parts belong must be distinguished by the distinct conditions of life and death 11. God hath made more Promises Donations and Covenants than one or two which must not be confounded 1. His Law and Covenant made to and with man in innocency is one 2. And his Law and Covenant made to and with Christ as Mediator is another 3. And his absolute promise of a Saviour to the World with the conditional promise or Law of Grace conjunct was the first edition of another And the Gospel as after the incarnation promulgate was a more perfect edition of it to pass by Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Law as such 12. Though Christ be promised in one of these and be God's antecedent gift he may nevertheless be the Author of another and so far the foundation as well as the meritorious cause 13. That may be of free Grace which is merited by Christ yea and that which is annexed to the Evangelical worthiness of a believer 14. That may be a condition required of us to be done by the help of Grace which yet is the effect of that Grace and given us by God 15. It is a true Covenant between God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and man which is solemnly entred into in Baptism And this is a Covenant of Grace even that proceedeth purely from Grace and of Grace as given by God and by us accepted He that will confound these various Covenants Promises and Laws on pretence of their unity though there is doubtless a wonderful unity of all the parts both of God's moral signal means and his physical works shall confound much of Theology 16. The Law made to Adam never said either thou or another for thee shall obey but it bound man to perfect perpetual personal obedience 17. Therefore that Law as it obliged us is not fulfilled by the obedience of Christ but only as far as it obliged him nor can any man be justified by it as a fulfiller of it by himself or by another nor did Christ fulfil it in any other mans person though in his stead so far as is aforesaid 18. The Law doth not command any man since Adam perfect personal obedience as the means or condition of life nor promise any life on such a condition as is now naturally impossible but though it be not repealed by God is so far ceased by the cessation of the subjects capacity to be so obliged 19. The Laws obligation of us to punishment is dispenced with and dissolved by a pardon purchased by our Mediator 20. Christ's righteousness is nevertheless the meritorious cause of our righteousness or justification though he justify us by the instrumentality of his donative Covenant as giving us right to our Union and Justification and Life and though our Faith and Repentance be the condition of our Title 21. We accept two Concessions as containing that truth which sheweth that we do not much differ de re could we more happily order our organical conceptions 1. That Christ's righteousness is not the formal cause of our Justification 2. p. 596. Seeing the satisfaction was not made IN THE PERSON of the offender but his substitute it was necessary that THE BENEFIT of ANOTHERS satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only motive to his acceptation of a substitute It is the undoubted priviledge of the Giver to dispose of his own gifts in his own way And it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the sinner should be duly qualified to receive such transcendent favours purchased at so dear a rate and fitted to return the glory to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted and unsanctified sinner could not possibly be He that writeth this cannot sure much differ from me hereabouts But he is charitably uncharitable when he saith Never any man in his wits affirmed it so that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification It 's too charitable to hide that which cannot be hid of so great a number whom it seems he never read for all his Commission from all the Systematical Divines of Germany c. p. 696. And it 's too uncharitable to judge so many excellent men out of their wits The truth is so many speak so that I have been doubtful I should be smartly censured for saying otherwise Forma qua justificamur est misericordia Patris perfecta Justitia filii saith Ant. Fayus in his Accurate Theses Th. 60. p. 280. And by misericordia Patris being the form you may see how he understood Imputation The number that thus speak are too great here to be recited so that even the most judicious Davenant lest he should go out of the road was fain to make this the Theses to be proved by him Imputatam Christi obedientiam esse causam formalem justificationis nostrae probatur Cap. 28. p. 362. c. de Instit habit But let none turn this to our reproach nor take all these for mad for it is but an unapt name and by him and many others soundly meant for the greater part of these Divines say but that Imputatio Justitiae Christi Remissio peccatorum are the form not of Justification as in us but as it is Actus Justificantis as Altingius Maresius Sharpius Bucanus Spanhemius Nigrinus Sohnius
getteth a right to any benefit by his fault What then Why the Precept to that man is past into a Virtual Judiciary Sentence condemning him as disobedient even as it is with those in Hell 239. Therefore since the fall the Law of Innocency in it self is the same which once said Thou shalt continue perfectly Innocent but it doth not properly oblige us as a Law to that Innocency or perfection which we were born without because we are become uncapable subjects Much less is that Innocency now the Condition of any Promise or Covenant of God as if he still said Be personally and perpetually Innocent and thou shalt live and that thou maist live But the Law being still the same we that are uncapable of the duty are not uncapable of the guilt and condemnation Vid. Bellarmin de Grat. lib. aâ—b li. 5. per totum c. 30. de dist necessitates And therefore the Law and Covenant are now become a Virtual Sentence of Condemnation for not obeying personally perfectly and perpetually to the death For he that hath once made Innocency Naturally Impossible to him is Virtually in the case of one that hath persevered to the death in sin 240. But if the contracted Impossibility be not Physical but Moral the case is quite different For then the thing is a threefold sin in it self as aforesaid 1. The disabling sin 2. The vicious Disability or Malignity of the Will 3. And the after sin thereby committed and omission of duty More of Physical and Moral Impotency 241. 1. No righteous Law forbiddeth Physical Impotency as such nor commandeth men Physical Impossibilities as is said But Gods Laws primarily forbid the malignity of the Will which is its Moral Impotency Bradwaâ—dine plainly saith li. 3. c. 9. p. 675. that Nullus actus noster est simpliciter in nostra potestate we grant not absolutely and independently sed tantum secâ—ndum quid respectu Caâ—sarum secundarum Nihil est in nostra potestate nisi subactiva subexecâ—tiva subservienâ—e necessariâ— necessitate naturalitâ—r praecedente respectu â—oluntatis divinae Quod ideo in nostra dicitur potestate quia cum volumus iliud facimus voluntarie non inâ—iti So that by him no creature was ever able to do more or less than it doth except you call him able to do it that can do it when God makes him do it but that is not to be able before or when he is not caused to do it 242. 2. Rulers use not to make Punishments for Physical Impotency But for the Wills Malignity God doth 243. 3. Rulers use not to propound Rewards for Physical Impossibilities But for the fruits of Moral Sanctity or Habits and for themselves God doth 244. 4. No just Judge condemneth men for Physical Impotency But for Moral God and man do 245. 5. No Good man hateth another for Physical Impotency But for Moral malignity God and man do 246. 6. An inlightned Conscience accuseth and tormenteth no man for meer Physical Impotency and Impossibilities But for the Wills Malignity Conscience will torment men So that it is evident that one sort of Impotency maketh an act no sin in its degree and the other maketh it a greater sin For Nature and common notices teach men to judge that the More Willingness the more culpability But he that hath Actual and Habitual Wilfulness and is as some Adulterers drunkards revengeful persons proud covetous c. who are so bad that they say I cannot choose are the worst of all the sorts of sinners by such disability 247. It is most probable that God overcometh Moral Impotency and giveth Moral Power by Moral Means and Operations For though God can give it by a proper Creation without Moral Means and we cannot say that he never doth so nor how oft he doth or doth not yet it is most probable that his special Grace doth by his Trine Influx of Power Wisdom and Goodness Life Light and Love suscitate the natural faculties of the soul to the first special Act and by it cause a holy Habit which he radicateth by degrees And this is Metaphorically a Creation 248. This is certain that since the sall we have the same essential faculties that Original sin is not as Illyricus so long and obstinately maintained though an excellently good and Learned man a Substance though it be the Pravity of a substance And that sin changed not the humane species Nor doth Grace change our species It is certain that the Acts of these same natural faculties are commanded to all men even the unregenerate under the names of Faith and Repentance And so these are their duties And it is certain that a Course of Moral means preaching reading meditating conference threatnings promises mercies afflictions are appointed and used to the procuring the said faculties to perform these commanded acts It is certain that these Means have an Aptitude to their end And that God worketh by his own means And appointeth not man to use them in vain And that in working Grace God preserveth and reformeth Nature and worketh on Man as Man and according to the Nature of his means 249. And I think none dare deny but that God is Able by his Spirits powerful operation without any Antecedent new Habit or disposition to set home these same means so effectually on the Natural powers of the soul as shall excite them to the first Acts of Faith and Repentance And by them imprint a Habit as is said and shall be said again in Part 3. And if he Can do so and Can do otherwise which then is likest to be his ordinary way I leave to the observers of Scripture and Experience 450. This is the Common sense of Divines who place Vocation exciting the first act of Faith and Repentance before Union with Christ and before Sanctification which giveth the habit till Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. taught otherwise whom Bishop G. Downame confuted in the Appendix to his Treatise of Perseverance 251. As to the question How this Grace is called Infused and not Natural I answer It is called Infused and Supernatural because 1. It is not wrought by any Natural-moral means only but by Supernatural-moral means viz. Revelation in and by the Gospel of Christ 2. And this supernatural Revelation cannot work it without the special extraordinary operation and impression by the Holy Ghost above the common concurse of God with all his Creatures as he is fons naturae This the Schools have Metaphorically called Infusion 252. But it may be called Natural 1. In that mans Natural faculties receive Gods Influx 2. And perform the act 3. And are perfected by it as the Natural body is by Health 253. And what the difference is ex parte Dei agentis ex parte effectus between Gods Natural and Gracious operations I shall after open in the third Part. 254. The Schoolmen especially the Scotists and Ockam and many Franciscans Benedictines and other Fryers yea such Oratorians as Gibieuf
not Cause it as it is exercised on either of those objects compared with such as are not forbidden 592. And you will here plainly see that God hath many wayes to Cause the effect without willing or Causing the sin As for instance 1. He can do it by adding as I said before a good act to the sinners bad one As when Caiaphas is willing to kill Christ God can put into Caiaphas's De hoc vid. Ockam ubi supra thoughts the jealousie of the Romans over the Jews and the visible danger they are in if they should be thought to have another King which thoughts in themselves are true and good So he can put into Pharaoh's thoughts the loss of the Israelites service which was not sinful of it self The wise Reader that can impartially receive truth without respect of persons may find much in Episcopii Institut Theol. li. 4. sect 4. de provident in his answering all these Texts of Scripture as mis-expounded by some And his moderate opinion expressed in Conclus 2. in the end of that Section how far doctrines are or are not damning which subvert the foundation is laudable and his reason very good and clear viz. so far as they actually prevail with the will and practice Even as our faith is saving as effectual and practical and not as a dead opinion so is error damning I think as he doth 593. And 2. God can set that object before a sinner which he is most inclined to abuse Which is not to Will his sin But may proceed from Gods Willing the Effect As if Absalom be by Pride and Lust enclined to Adultery his Fathers Wives may be in his eye and way And God may will to punish David by their passive pollution without willing his act of sin at all interior or exterior 594. 3. And God can remove other objects out of the way so that this object shall be solitary or most obvious to the sinner As if a drunken man were resolved to kill the next he met God can keep Peter John c. out of his way and so Judas shall be the next 595. 4. Yea God can suspend his own intrinsick concurse as to some one sinful act by which it will follow that it will fall upon another object Many other such wayes God hath which are unknown to us 596. And if you suppose a man so inclined to Murder or Adultery as that he will exercise it on the next most provoking object if God now did Cause the Act as exercised on a forbidden object compared with another it were to Cause the sin But if he only be the moral Cause that he e. g. kill Judas rather than Peter this is not to Cause sin For to choose Judas rather than Peter for the object is no sin For as I said God câ—â— do it only by removing Peter and Willing that he shall be preserved 597. Suppose a King that hath made Laws against Murder foreknoâ— that a Robber is waiting in such a Road for a prey and that a Traytor broke out of Prison will go that way and so will be rob'd and kill'd He may will or desire the Death of the Traytor as a punishment He may restraâ—â— some that would travail that way before him and may restrain some that would lay hold on the Robber or drive him away that so this Traytor may be killed And yet only Permit and not Will at all the Robbers Will or Acâ— as it is Agentis but punish him for it and hate it and Will only the effect 598. The next Text cited is 1 Pet. 2. 8. Whereunto also they were appointed viz. to stumble on the rock of offence Resp 1. This hath respect to Luke 2. 34. he is set for the fall of many c. and of Christs own words that he that falleth on this stone shall be broken in pieces And no more can hence be gathered but that God hath decreed that as a Punishing Judge 1. He will leave the rejecters of Christ to go on iâ— their own sinful way 2. And that their opposition to him shall be theâ—â— ruine So that 1. He doth not speak this of any but the rejecters of Christ that deserved it 2. He speaketh not at all as willing their sin but only as one that penally denyeth them further grace 3. But the thing that he is said to Ordain them to is not sin but Ruine the consequent of their sin The word stumbling and falling signifying their destraction 599. The next Text is 2 Thes 2. God shall send them strong delusions or the acting of deceit that they should believe a lye Answ Here is nothing signified but 1. That God shall permit Magicians and false Teachers to vent deceits 2. And permit wicked men to believe them which is mentioned as a permitted consequent and not as an end intended by God And the word sending is used because the permission was Penal for their sin And his punishing-providence might morally cause the deceivers rather to go towards these men than towards others 600. The next is Rom. 1. 24 26 28. God gave them up to uncleâ—â—ness to vile affections to a reprobate mind c. Resp Here is nothing at all said but a Penal desertion and permission and no Will or Cause of sin in God 601. The next is Act. 4. 28. To do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done Answ Here is nothing said of sin at all but of the effect of it All that was done on Christ even all the effect in passo God fore-determined should be done But the Act ut volentis agentis he neither willed nor caused as on this forbidden object And though elsewhere the Doctor deride this answer that God decreed Christ should dye or be sacrificed and yet decreed not that the Jews or any one else should do it It is a great and necessary truth He that willed the effect and did much himself to cause it willed not the murderers sinful act And permitting and foreseeing it was enough 602. The next is Isa 10. 6. and so Amos 16. 17. Prov. 22. 14. 2 Sam. 12. 11. 1 King 11. 31. 12. 24. God sends the Assyrian as his rod. Thy Wife shall commit Adultery and thy Children fall by the sword They that are hated of God shall fall therein David was foretold his Wives should be vitiated The ten Tribes fell from Rehoboam It was of God that he took not good counsel Pharaohs heart was hardened by God Answ The first is only a Prophesie and a penal effect of sin and nothing of Gods Willing or Causing sin And so is the second Though God can send afflicters by the wayes before mentioned without willing their sin The third speaketh only of a penal permission of sin And the rest all speak only of Gods penal permission of the sin and his decreeing and foretelling the effects of it and his occasioning the sinner to take one sinful object not as such
a Liberty and not Gibieufs Amplitude It is not possible for a Creature to have any thing that 's good but of God nor any good from God but by meer free Gift as to the Good or Value though it be by rewarding Justice quoad ordinem conferendi and comparatively why this man hath it rather than that § 24. M. S. There is no stinting or determining unless you stop here at the first act An. I deny it There are three Opinions more that are all more probable The first which supposeth the Reward of life eternal due upon the over coming of the Devils first temptation which would have drawn from the Love of God And so Love and Conquer once was the Condition The second which supposeth that the Condition was the Conquest of this particular Temptation to eat of the forbidden Fruit and the after eating of the Tree of Life The third which supposeth the only Condition of life eternal to the personal perfect perpetual Obedience or perseverance till God of his own pleasure should translate Adam and end his life of trial I take this last to have far most probability for all the Reasons before given I am sure that the tenor of the Law of Nature made it Adam's Duty still to love God and obey him and resist all that was against it And I find no Promise that his Nature or the Law of Nature should be changed for this or that act or for conquering some one temptation I find that Christ's own Covenant-Condition was more than one act And the Condition of our Glory is overcoming and being faithful to the death and continuing in Christ And I will not add to the Covenant of God § 25. M. S. Arg. 4. From the nature of an obediental act which includeth the approving of the whole Law An. 1. Approving the things that are excellent is made consistent with wickedness Rom. 2. But I will suppose you to mean a full consent to the Covenant of Innocency But 2. How prove you that such consent was the whole condition of life and that it might not be fallen from and that Adam never did consent before his Fall and yet not sin 3. All the godly approve of Gods Law and consent to it and love it and yet merit not as keepers of it for they break it Rom. 7. 4. Yea Covenant-keeping to the last as well as Covenant-consent the first moment is now to us the condition of immutable Glory § 26. M. S. Adam would not obey at first but suspend while he looked about the World to see if there were any good sufficient for him below God Therefore he sinned not then An. This is before confuted He could not in that Integrity and after such divine Revelation be unresolved one hour whether he must first love and obey his Maker without sin § 27. God cannot freely give eternal life to a Creature without Reward for doing because the reasonable Creature was made for the Glory of Justice An. 1. You may say that God will not to man but not that he cannot nor that he doth not to any Angel For man was not made only for the Glory of Justice but of Power and Love or Goodness also 2. It 's certain that God as a free Benefactor giveth many good things freely and â—â— as a Reward for doing As 1. He so freely made all things good in the Creation and gave man all his antecedent good He so gave Adâ—â— his primitive Holiness and Helps and Paradise and all the Creatureâ— 2. He so gave Christ to the World without desert and so far pardoned the first sin as that cometh to 3. He so far gave man the Covenant of Grace 4. He so gave all Christ's Miracles Resurrection Doctrine the Scripture c. 5. He so gave Apostles and Ministry to the World 6. He so sendeth the Gospel to some Nations and Persons above others 7. He so giveth to many the first special Grace as he did to Paul 8. He so giveth to many Kingdoms and Persons Wealth and Health and Strength and such other mercies above others 9. He so giveth greater measures of Grace to some than to others 10. And it seemeth that he so in part giveth the same Glory to some that came in but at the last hour of the day It is certain that all in quantum tale is from God only as a free Benefactor or as the Amor primus And the order of distributing it is two-fold Some antecedent to mans merit or acts and independent on it And this is no Reward though sometime it is an antecedent act of Justice such as is the making of a good Law or Promise And some consequent juxta morman legis And these are Rewards And though God hath assured us now that no man shall have Heaven but by rewarding Justice yet that may be because he thought meet to place man first on Earth in a life of trial and undetermined Liberty But that he hath no Angel that was made Immutable or that Christ was not made immutably holy let them say that can prove it for I cannot § 28. M. S. It 's like that the Angels that stood and they that fell had unequal help for unequal Effects are of an unequal Cause But Adam and the Devils had sufficient Grace and God forsook them not till they forsook him An. 1. This last I accept as true and more than some will grant 2. The first is above our reach only we can say both that God giveth more Grace to some than to others freely 3. And yet he himself is simple and immutable in causing of various and mutable Effects § 29. M. S. By Christs passive Obedience imputed we are pardoned and â—ustified and by his active imputed we deserve the Reward and are under Gods approving Will. An. 1. By the merit of his habitual active and passive that is of his performing all his mediatorial Covenant with the Father we are pardoned and justified and adopted to eternal life principally as a Reward to Christ not to us as meriting by him and subordinately according to Gospel-Justice or Order as a Reward to Believers for their Faith and Obedience by him who will Reward every man according to his Works and will be glorified in his Saints and admired in Believers because they believed 2 Thess 1. 6 to 12. We are under Gods approving Will principally as united to Christ reconciled justified adopted and subordinately as sanctified and obedient For the Father loveth us because we have loved Christ and believed Joh. 16. 27. And it is life eternal to know the Father and the Son Joh. 17. 3. And because we do those things that are pleasing in his sight what-ever we ask we receive 1 Joh. 3. 22. § 30. M. S. By Christs imputed suffering we are but where we were For the Law to have nothing against us will not justifie us unless it have something for us An. This great question needeth distincter handling Adam's Law doth not
still have heard Obey and live or Sin and die And if Adam â—ad obeyed till his translation to Glory or confirmation in the Reward I find not in Scripture any Promise that this should have been imâ—uted to his Posterity as the full performance of the Condition of their Life or confirmed Happiness but that still their own sinning would have been a possible thing and death would have been the wages of their Sin You seem not to set Adam's Merits and imputed Righteousness any â—igher than Christ's And I am too sure that the justified Members of Christ do sin and must ask daily pardon And whether or not they be confirmed against total Apostasie I am sure few if any of them are confirmed against the possibility or existence or futurity of Sin And if you say that Adam's Posterity though confirmed should have sinned too but should have been pardoned as we are It would be another presumptuous addition and contradiction of Scripture to assert Pardon without a Saviour and a pardoning Covenant 3. Adam's Obedience would have justified his next issue from this false Accusation You are born of a sinful Parent or not of a righteous Parent But it would have justified no man against this Accusation You are personally a Sinner or have not personally loved God and obeyed him Therefore it would have justified any man against this Charge You are to be condemned for Adam's sin But it would have justified no man against these Charges You are to be condemned for your own personal Sin or you have no right to Glory by Gods Promise to the adult which maketh their personal Obedience the Condition 4. And though I cannot again here have time to deal with Confounders who think that Imputation or Justification are words which have but one sense I must say that even so Christ's Righteousness is not so imputed to any man as to be to him in stead of his personal Obedience to the Law or Covenant of Grace which he is under But it will justifie any Believer from these Accusations You must be cast into Hell for breaking the Law of Innocency or you must be shut out of Heaven because you deserved it not by perfect Obedience or you have no perfect or sufficient Saviour or you are such as God cannot pardon without wrong to his Truth Wisdom or Justice It will justifie no man from any of these Charges You are Sinners you deserve condemnation by the first Law you are Impenitent or Unbelievers or Hypâ—crites or have not performed the conditions of life in the Law of Grace The two first we must confess and not justifie our selves by a denial And against the last we must be justified by our own Repentance Faith and sincere Obedience He that will say to the Accuser that chargeth him with final Infidelity Impenitency or Unholiness I am justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness will but add to his sin 5. There are all these differences between our Justification according to the first Law had we been capable of it and that which we now have 1. One would have been by God as Creator and Legislator to the Innocent The other by Christ as Redeemer and Legislator to the sinful World 2. One would have been for personal perfect persevering Obedience The other for Christ's Merits as purchasing a free Pardon Grace to penitent Believers and upon our own Faith and Repentance as the Conditions of the new Covenant 3. One would have been without pardon and the other chiefly or much by pardon In one if our Publick Root had perfectly obeyed we must also have perfectly obeyed or die In the other because our Publick Root did perfectly obey Faith and sinceere Obedience to the end is all that is required of us to ouâ— Glory 4. In one the personal matter of worthiness or merit must have been all that perfection which God in justice could require of man In the other it is only The acceptance of a free Gift according to its nature and use and after the thankful use and improvement of it with other such differences § 34. M. S. What Christ did as surety is imputed to us but not his Suretiship or being a publick Person Ans This is true if you understand Imputation in Scripture sense or soundly and not in their sense who presumptuously say That God reputeth us to have done all by Christ which he did for us in his Obedience to the Law § 35. M. S. Christ did not all that he did as Surety but only that which answered the Law An. I suppose you mean that which the Law requireth of us But the word Surety is ambiguous and after here explained and whether you understood it sano sensu I know not He did all that he did as the Mediator and Sponsor for mans Redemption And we are pardoned and justified by the merit of all his own Covenant-keeping with the Father even of such acts as the Law required not of us And some which the Law required of many he did not because it required them not of him § 36. M. S. The Law said not That Christ must be a holy Husband or Father c. The Imputation of one Act of Christ's Obedience is sufficient to our Justification and Merit of life though it need not be curiously set in this or that part of his life § Still more presumption 1. Where saith the Scripture so 2. You must not assert absurdities or presumptions and then think to put off the detection of them by calling it curious If this be true doubtless it was Christs first act of Obedience which merited Glory for us And so it is that first only that must be imputed to us to that end And who ever thought so before you The Fryars have some of them said That minima guttula sanguinis Christi One drop of his blood was enough to redeem all the World And our Divines say Why then was the rest shed So I ask you 1. Why did Christ do all the rest of his Obedience after the first Act Hath none of it the same end and use 2. How shall we be sure that a Sinner must not plead or trust to any of Christ's Righteousness but the first act for his Justification and Reward or must he trust for it to that which was never by Christ intended for it 3. This is contrary to the Scripture which layeth our Justification on his whole Righteousness as meritorious and on his Obedience to the Death and on his rising again and on other parts first Rom. 4. 24. 5. throughout c. 4. Sure they that are so curious as to tell us which physical act of Faith justifieth in specie numero for some say only the first instantaneous act doth justifie will not think it curiosity to enquire which one Act of Christs Obedience justifieth us when according to your Doctrine it is evident that it must be the first And they that say It is Justification by Works to
by two sort◠of Doing Principally by the Merit of Christ's perfect Righteousness and subordinately by our fulfilling the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace which Baptism celebrateth 4. Gods Will approveth of all that is good so far as it is good It approveth of habitual Holiness in Adam and would have done in his Infants had he stood and doth so in all Christians now And I will believe that Christ before he actually obeyed was under Gods approving Will. But not as one that had merited by Obedience For God doth not suppose any to do that which they do not nor oblige them to do to-morrows work to-day § 44. M. S. The issue in a word is 1. Suffering for Sin is not doing nor equivalent in point of Justification 2. Nor can God having satisfaction for what was done cross to his Law lay aside that in order to the conveying of Life and substitute believing instead of it Therefore Faith justifieth ratione objecti only Now we Do in another Christ instead of doing in our own persons An. I doubt this is another Gospel than the Apostles delivered us though I hope that practically we meet in one 1. To the first I answer It 's true but you do ill to intimate that we think otherwise Suffering by the Sinner never satisfieth because it must be everlasting Suffering by Christ satisfieth not meerly as suffering but as the voluntary suffering of God-Man aptly glorifying Justice and Love and securing the ends of Government This Satisfaction is not equivalent to doing in Justification For Doing all required would have justified us against this Charge Thou art a Sinner by Omission and Commission and thou hast deserved Death and hast not deserved Life according to the Law of Works Against this Charge I look for no Justification but confess it is all true But Christ's Satisfaction justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee by paine of loss and sense or else he is not just because thou hast deserved it And Christ's perfect Righteousness also justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee and deny thee life because thou didst not merit it by perfect Obedience The Justifier says No because Christ's Merit in Doing and Suffering hath glorified the Law and Justice of God instead of my Merit and hath procured us Pardon and Life given by the New Covenant 2. To the second I answer 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant but man by sin did lay it aside by making the Condition impossible 2. You overturn the Gospel too much by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues To say that the sense of Adam's Law was Thou or another Christ for thee shalt obey And that we are justified by that Law is to confound Law and Gospel and make a Gospel of that Law and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us or both to condemn and justifie and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased God saith now to no man living Be innocent and so merit life that thou maist live And God doth not repute us innocent at all 3. To the third I answer It is notoriously untrue that Faith justifieth only ratione objecti unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all which is true For we are justified by it also ratione foederis because that which is materially Faith in Christ a justifying Saviour and so connoteth its Object as the meritorious Cause of the free Gift and Pardon is by reason of this aptitude made the Condition of that New Covenant or Gift which is its nearest interest or reason of our being justified by it And it is the Law of Grace by which we must be judged and justified And at that Bar the question which Life or Death dependeth on will be supposing Christ's Merits whether we are penitent Believers or impenitent Unbelievers and so have part in Christ or not And if Satan accuse us as being impenitent Unbelievers and the question be whether we have true Faith or not my Opinion is that we cannot be herein justified by pleading the Object when the Act is questioned and saying That Christ fulfilled that Law unless you could prove that he justifieth impenitent Infidels and as Saltmarsh said repented and believed for us But the grand Case remaineth Whether we are justified by the Law of Innocency by fulfilling it and meriting in another without any sort of doing of our own by our selves Mr. Wotton Mr. Gataker and abundance more have long ago said much to confute your Error besides Mr. Bradshaw whom you name But I add I. I have before proved that by the deeds or sentence of the Law of Adam or Moses no man can be justified 1. He that hath sinned against it cannot be justified as not having sinned For factum infectum fieri is impossible to God himself 2. The Law that condemneth us doth not justifie us 3. What Paul Rom. 3. 4. frequently saith against Justification by the Law of Moses will hold here a fortiori And Christ keeping Moses Law as far as he was capable of Obligation that also would else have been imputed and so we should have been justified by that Law also which the Scripture copiously denieth He that saith He hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar and the truth is not in him And the Law of Adam justifieth no man that hath sin II. We did not fulfil it and merit in Christ But Christ did in the Person of a Mediator voluntarily undertaking it on his Fathers terms and not as our Instrument or in our Persons I have else-where given abundance of Arguments against that which I must not here repeat This Author took notice of my Objection that he that is reputed perfectly Innocent and Obedient is uncapable of Pardon and needeth no satisfaction or remitting or rewarding Covenant besides that which he kept but answereth it not This subverteth the Gospel and Religion Quer. If there be no Reward nor Life but of Justice and no Reward but for Christ's Merits and all Believers equally merited in Christ as fulfilling all the Law 1. Whence cometh the inequality of Grace and Glory 2. How come any Believers to be left long under sins and weakness of Grace and temporal punishments III. The Merits of Christ have procured us the New Covenant sealed in Baptism by which we have a new Rule offiicii judicii for such is every Law Christ is not the only Subject of God He made us not lawless or Rebels God still ruleth the Church by a Law or Covenant This is the Law or Covenant of Grace Deny this Covenant and you deny the Gospel This Covenant or Law obligeth us to Duty And it promiseth and giveth Pardon and Life in and with Christ This Covenant hath Conditions various conditions of various Benefits Our first true consent which Baptism celebrateth that is
Will or Power as if he could do no more But it is his Delight thus to govern the creature according to the nature and rank which he hath made it in and his non-volitions and non-operations of a higher sort are agreeable to his Perfection Wisdom and Liberty Higher action being used on higher creatures 3. Yet hath God placed and kept these free Agents not only under his Moral Government but also under his Dominion and disposal so that he will do with them as his own what he lift and none shall frustrate his disposing Will. 4. It pleased him first to make man perfect under a Law of Perfection making innocency or perfection the only condition of Life and the contrary of Death 5. When Man had sufficient Grace to have kept this Law not sufficient to ascertain the event but sufficient Power to have stood that is as much Grace as was necessary to his standing sine qua non esse potuit cum qua esse potuit he broke it and sinned against that sufficient Grace before God either denyed him any thing necessary or withdrew any from him 6. From whence it is clear that the Nature of Man's Will is such as that it is made to use a Power which doth not necessitate or determine it self or is determined necessarily but freely And that it is no Deifying of the Will nor extolling it above its Nature to say that it can act or determine it self without Gods pre-determinating premotion or by that same measure of help which at another time doth not determine it Though its Nature and its Act as such be of God yet so is its Liberty too and therefore by the Power and Liberty given by God the Will can act or not act or turn it self to this object or to that without more help than the said natural support and Concurse And this Power and Liberty is its Nature and Gods Image 7. From hence also it is evident that there is such a thing or operation of God as Grace Necessary called sufficient which is not effectual For God took no Grace away from Adam before he sinned nor let out any temptation upon him which he was not able to resist nor did he sin for want of necessary Grace but by that same degree of help might have overcome 8. God passing Sentence on faln Man for sin would not forgive him the temporal death nor common calamities of this life but cursed the creatures which he was to use as part of his penalty 9. But the Great evil which sin brought on man was the loss of Gods approbation and complacency and of his Spirits saving Communion and help and of Gods Image on man's Soul and of Communion with God herein and also his right to life eternal All which man 's own sin cast away and man was both the Deserver and Executioner without any change in God 10. Yet was all this privation penal in that God made Man such a creature as that his own sin should become his punishment or ruine if he committed it so that all Punishment is not determinatively of God though Gods Antecedent Will did make that which by man is made a Cause As in argument God saith antecedently If thou sin thy own sin shall be thy torment and misery and man saith I will sin Therefore it is Man that is the determining Cause of the Conclusion My own sâ—â— shall be my torment and misery So it is in Causation God antecedently to man's sin doth resolve I will make Man such a Creature with such a Mind Conscience and Will as that his Holiness shall be his Health and Joy and his immediate Receptive capacity of my favour and of his Communion with me and of his title to my spirit and Glory And that if he forsake me and his Holiness in the very Nature of the thing he shall lose all this Life Light and Love Joy and Communion and title to my Grace and shall feel the torments of his own Conscience telling him of his sin and loss This is Gods Antecedent Law Nay this is Gods Antecedent Creation to make man such a Creature Now if man sin his owâ— sin doth ipso facto become his misery and yet is not caused at all by Gods But yet that his Nature was made such as sin should prove a misery to was Gods Work And from that Antecedent Creation or Constitution the Relative form of a Punishment resulteth to the Sinner Even as God saith If thou Murder it shall be thy sin or Thou shalt not Murder And man doth Murder Here the Act that is sin is of man but that the Relation of sin belongeth to that act resulteth partly from the Law which forbiddeth it and yet God is not the Cause of sin though he Antecedently decreed Murder shall be sin if thou commit it So is it also with this sort of Punishment which is either sin it self or the effect or result oâ— sin immediately By which we see that when sin and punishment are found in one thing God is the Cause Antecedently of the formal Relation of a Punishment without being a Cause of the sin yea antecedently is some cause of the formal relation of the sin by his Law without causing any of the sin it self as the author of it As if God make man of such a temper as that surfetting drunkenness lust will make him sick and hazard his life Here God did no otherwise punish him than by making him such a man which he turned to his own destruction by his sin If a man make a thorn Hedge about his Garden that men may not steal his fruit and those that will shall â—rick themselves it is they that prick and punish themselves If God say He that will leap into the fire shall be burnt or into the water shall be drown'd it is they that do it that cause the evil and yet some formal relation of penalty may result to it from Gods conditional antecedent Law I say not that God executeth no other kind of punishment But these are the most common 11. Man having thus cast away Gods Image and his Innocency could beget a Child no purer holier or better than himself For he could not communicate that which he had lost So that our Nature is vitiated with Original sin and unhappy in the miserable effects Bradwardine hath a shift which serveth them that say man could do no good in Innocency without supernatural Help viz. Making that Help to be Gods Will that it shall be done But is not Gods Will called our natural Help when it is the foundation of Nature working by natural means It 's true that free will without Gods Will could do nothing 12. The promisory part of the Covenant or Law of Innocency became null or ceased with man's first sin cessante subditorum capacitate and so the Condition which is its modus So that no man ever since was under the Obligation of that Law as a Covenant of life
optimum omnium qui uâ—quam extiterunt Estque hoc ipsâ—us peculiaâ—e eâ—coâ—â—â— quod ita prâ—dicetur citra exceptionem â—llam praedicatur Mer. Causabon Praef. in Vers Angl. ut citat per Gataker what is said But the question whether any or how many are actuaâ—â—y saved doth depend on the resolution of the question whether any of them are truly sanctified that is do truly love God and Holiness abâ—â—â— the Pleasures Profits and Honours of this world For nothing is moâ—â— certain in Gods Word than that all that do so shall be saved For a â—â—â— to live in Hell with the predominant love of God is as great a contradiction as for a man to be sick in health and both in the greater degree God cannot damn or forsake a Soul that loveth him and is holy in sensu composito 88. And whether any or how many without the Christian Church do truly love God is a question which dependeth as to probability upon the foresaid grounds but as to the certainty of the fact upon that heart-knowledge of other men which belongeth to God only 1. How can I that live in an obscure corner of England know whether any love God in Siam China Japon or Persia or at the Antipodes 2. If I were with them all and acquainted with every person in the world I could have but a probability of the affirmative of any one because I am not acquainted with the heart But when the Scripture assureth us that it is the Law of Grace and not only that of Innocency which all the world is governed by and shall be judged by and so that their Sanctification and Salvation is possible there is so great a probability that this Covenant and the mercies of it are not in vain to all of them that are under it alone and that the thing that is possible to so many millions doth come to pass with some that an impartial considerer of Gods Nature and Government may easily see what to think most probable 89. Those therefore that teach the Church that it is a certain truth that no one in the world Infant or Aged is saved from Hell fire but Christians only and that this is not only certain to such great understandings as their own but must be so to all true Christians do but discover that they over-value their own understandings and that siding hath contracted their thoughts and charity into a sinful narrowness and that the Opinions of men counted Orthodox prevaileth more with them than the evidence of truth and I think that they are to be numbred with those that by over-doing do dangerously undermine the Christian Faith 90. The Texts urged by them for this pretended certainty are all abused some of these ways 1. Either some one difficult Text is expounded contrary to the current of the whole Scripture 2. Or the words that are spoken only of privative Unbelievers who hear the Gospel are expounded of negative not-Believers who never heard it nor could do 3. Or that which is said against Unbelievers in general is exâ—pounded as against the non-Believers of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are superadded since Christ's Incarnation in special As if all the Apostles before they believed Christ's Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. were Infidels in a state of damnation 4. Or else they suppose without proof that the Spirit and Grace of Christ can extend it self to none that know him not as incarnate crucified risen glorified c. and so that the Apostles had no Grace till the Resurrection Some such fallacy is in all these particular textual arguments easily discernable 91. Were it not evident in Scripture that the world is under the Law of Grace as the norma officii judicii as it is yet could no man truly say that he is certain that no one of them should be saved For if they were all under the Law of Innocency yet there is this great difference between it and the Law of Grace that whereas the sentence of the latter is peremptory excluding all hope of Dispensation and Pardon to the final Rejecters of its Grace for ever yet the former was a Law whose penalty was remissible and it did not pass a peremptory sentence of dispair Though it gave no hope of Pardon yet it took not away the hopes of it that is It had a threatening-dispensable as Dr. Twisse and many other say Without a Saviour had God so pleased And as others say Through the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice even to them that know him not For the commination of that Law which threatened not the death of a Surety but of the Sinner was actually dispensed with in our Justification And what God can do they ought not to say that they are certain that he never will do it unless he had first said so himself 92. If in all Humane Judgments Nature dictateth that in doubtful cases the Judge should rather propend to the better interpretation and favourable Judgment why should it not be so in our judgment of God and man The Nature of God is infinitely good He hath proclaimed his Name as aforesaid even in the terrours of Mount Sinai to be a God gracious merciful long-suffering pardoning c. He hath protested or sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked â—â—â—â— rather that he repent and live and so that he first seeketh the Glory of his Mercy and exerciseth justice in mans destruction but as his second work He that saved no man but Christ himself glorified upon the terms of Innocency but all by Grace and never else took one Soul to Heaven who had not first deserved Hell doth surely first seek the Glory of his Grace And we know that 1. All Judea was a small Country like England An inconsiderable point or spot of the Earth as to its magnitude 2. That most of the worlds duration in likelihood was over as Bishop Usher reckons 4000 years before Christ's death and the second Edition of the Covenant So that if none but Jews were ☞ saved all that while the number was comparatively next to none 3. That no man that I know of hath presumed to say that before Moses time none but the Seed of Abraham were saved 4. That the Covenant made by Moses at Mount Sinai and the inclosure of the Jews was no casting off the rest of the world into a worse condition than they were before 5. That none yet have presumed to say they are certain that all the Seed of Keturah of Ishmael of Esau were damned much less that Sem and all his Subjects Japheth and all his Subjects and Posterity till then or that Job and his Friends and Melchizedec and all his Subjects were certainly damned 6. That the Jews themselves were for the most part so wicked that seeing few even of that little Country were saved if you are sure that no others were saved they were but a few in the world indeed 7. That the Apostles
committed And the obligation to duty goeth before the obligation to punishment for that same action because the action cometh between and the first is an act of Gods antecedent Will and the second of his consequent Will that is of the Retributive and not the Preceptive part of the Law And they note not that the question is not what obedience a man is bound to but what he performeth or must be reputed to have performed If they will speak so unaptly as to say that the Law commandeth Lapsed man not to have sin or imperfect man to have been perfect that is that the Command to day bindeth Adam ad praeteritum not to have sinned yesterday or bindeth to Impossibility in nature that existent sin should not be existent in all which I leave them to their â—iberty of words yet it is certain that no man hath perfectly obeyed for one year or day And therefore if Christ's perfect obedience and â—oliness be imputed to them from their first being then they are reâ—uted not-lapsed nor-sinners from the beginning and so not pardonaâ—le But if it be only for the time after sin that Christ's perfection is â—theirs after what sin must it be If after Adam's then we need no pardon of any but Adam's sin If after conversion then we need no pardon for sins after Conversion If after our last sin then Christ's perâ—ection is not imputed to us till after death 126. Others would come nearer the matter and say that we are â—eputed Righteous as fulfillers of the Law and yet reputed Sinners as Breakers of the Law and that though there be no medium in naturals between light and darkness life and death yet there is between a â—reaker of the Law and a fulfiller of it viz. a non-fulfiller and beâ—ween just and unjust that is not-just But this is a meer darkness There â—s a medium negative in a person as not obliged but none between Posiâ—ive and Privative in one obliged as such A stone is neither just nor â—rivatively unjust Nor a man about a thing never commanded or forâ—idden him But what 's this to the matter God's Law is pre-supposed we talk of nothing but Moral acts The Law forbiddeth Omissions and Commissions both are sin Do these men think that he is not reputed Positively just and not only not-unjust who is reputed never to have committed a sin nor left undone a duty in his life Can â—he Law be fulfilled more than so What is Righteousness if that be not Obj. Adam was neither just nor unjust in his first moment no nor till he sinned say some because till then he was not obliged to obey or at least to any meritorious act that is to love God Ans 1. Adam was in his first instant but Habitually just and not by Act because not obliged to impossibilities any more than an Infant or a stone But we speak only of obliged persons 2. It is not true that Adam was not obliged to obey and Love God before he sinned or that he never Loved God as God Obj. At least Adam merited not the Reward though he sinned not till then Ans 1. He merited what Reward he had viz. the continuance o his blessings first freely given but not an immutable state 2. It is yet unresolved what that was by which Adam must merit Immutability and Glory whether 1. Once obeying or consent to his full Covenant 2. Or once loving God 3. Or conquering once 4. Or eating of the tree of Life 5. Or presevering in perfect obedience to the end that is till God should translate him which is most likely His not Meriting Immutability before the time was no sin we confess 3. And we maintain as well as you that Christ hath not only satisfied for sin and merited pardon but also Merited Immâ—table Glory But consider 1. That Adam's not doing that which was to merit Glory was his sin of omission and to pardon that omission is to take him as a meriter of Glory 2. Therefore it must be somewhat more than he forfeited by that omission and his commission which cometh in by Christ's merit above forgiveness 3. That Christ merited all this both by his active passive and habitual Righteousness by which he merited pardon 4. That it was not we that merited it in him but he to give it us only on the terms of a Law of Grace 127. Yet some come nearer and say that To punish and not-Reward are not all one And so the respect that Sin hath to the deserved punishment needed pardon and satisfaction But our deserving the Reward needed Christ's perfect Obedience to be imputed In this there is somewhat of truth But you must avoid the errors that lie in the way and aâ—â— by most supposed truths 1. Remember that man can have nothing from God but what is a meer Gift as to the matter though it be a Reward as to the order and ends of collation And in this case punishment is damni as well as sensus And so the loss of the Reward is the principal part of Hell or Punishment So that if Christ's death hath pardonâ— our sins of Omission we are reputed to have done all our duty And if so we are reputed to have merited the Reward And if he pardon our â—â—â—â— as to all punishment of sense and loss he pardoneth them as to thâ—â— forfeiture of Heaven as a Gift if not as a Reward 128. But say they remission of sin is but part of Justification because a man may be forgiven and yet not reputed never to have broken the Law To put away guilt and to make one righteous are two thing Ans Still confusion Guilt is either of the fault as such or of the punishment and of the fault only as the cause of punishment If all gâ—â— both culpae poenae were done away that person were reputed poâ—â— righteous that is never to have omitted a Duty or committed a â—â— But indeed when only the Reatus poenae culpae quoad poenam is doâ— away the Reatus culpae in se remaineth And this Christ himself never taketh away no not in Heaven where for ever we shall be judged once to have sinned and not to be such as never sinned 129. And this seemeth the very core of their error that they thâ—â— Of this see wotton de Reconcil at large we must be justified in Christ by the Law of Innocency which justified Christ himself and that we are quit or washed simply from all guilt of fault as well as obligation to punishment which is a great untruth contrary to all the scope of the Gospel which assureth us that we are justified by the Law of Grace or Faith and not by the Law of Works That Christ freeth us from the curse and penalty of the Law which he could not do if we were reputed never to have deserved it as never being Sinners If we are reputed such as fulfilled the Law of Innocency by another in our civil
him total resignation and use as such 2. As our Ruler we owe him â—ubjection and Obedience as such 3. As our Friend Benefactor Amaâ—â—lissimus we owe him Gratitude and Love as such which yet is part â—f Obedience too Now Sin being the privation of all this God is to â—e satisfied for it as such in all these three Relations And is pars laesa â—â— all these three Relations that is he is injured though not hurt It is â—â—ue that Government and punishing Justice formally as such belong to God only as Rector And satisfaction is made him eminently in that Reâ—ation yet also to compensate the injury done by sin to him in the other â—wo Relations also SECT IX Of the nature and distinctions of Justification 152. Justification is a word of many significations the Scheme whereof And 1. Of constitutive Justification should I give them all would seem to most Readers a troublesome diâ—tinguishing Therefore I take up with these three most notable senses â— Justification constitutive 2. Sentential 3. Executive The first is to make a man righteous The second is to judge him righteâ—us The third is to use him as righteous 1. By Impunity 2. Reward * * * The Papists are confounded in the point of Justification by sticking to confounding words They talk of Justification and remission of sin but cannot tell men intelligibly what they mean They say that Remission is a putting away the sin it self and not only the Reatum poenae and yet say many that it may be done without any physical change of the Sinner 1. By sin they mean not the Habit for that cannot be removed without a physical change 2. Nor the act For that is past as soon as done 3. When they say it is macula moralis habitualiter remanens they talk gibberish and play with a metaphor and the word habitualiter A true habit is quid physicum and what macula is they can tell no man besides a habit disposition privation â—r relation If they mean that it is the Reatus culpae or culpability that is done away and not only the Reatus poenae they hold â—he same thing which they oppose in those Protestants that go too far from them And it is not sound For the pardoned Sinâ—er will be culpable though not punishable for ever that is will be really the man that sinned and it will be an everâ—asting truth This man sinned though he be pardoned See Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. pag. 509 510 511. The Papists say Homo est formaliter justus per formam gratiae ipst exâ—riâ—secam non tantum per justitiam Christi illi imputatam And yet Nullus actus quantumvis perfectus sive sit contritio sive Amor Dei super omnia est causâ— formalis justificationis Patres diâ—entes charitatem esse perfectam justitiam intelligendi sunt dispositive non autem formaliter Because it is in the Habit and not in the Act â—r rather as others of them say in some internal inclination antecedent to the habits of Faith Hope and Love that they place Justification or as we call it Sanctification Pet. a S. Joseph Thes Univers de grat Hab. pag. 88 89. 153 God never judgeth a man righteous either by secret esteem or open sentence till he have made him such 154. To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense which is To be justifiable or justificandus by sentence 155. A man is righteous 1. Particularly secundum quid as to some particular cause that he is accusable of 2. Or universally as to all causes 3. Or eminently as to all those causes that Heaven or Hell depend upon 156. 1. No man is universally righteous really or reputatively God judgeth no Saint in Heaven to be one that never sinned And he that hath once sinned is unavoidably under the Relation of â—â—â—â— that sinned to eternity ex necessitate existentiae which Relation is the very Reatus ipsius peccati though all the ill effects be remitted 157. 2. Every man hath some particular righteousness For the worst man may be falsly accused and be righteous as to that false accusation But this will not save him 158. 3. That eminent Righteousness necessary to our Salvation though it be not universal or perfect else we should never be afficted by chastiâ—â—ments or denials of Grace or permissions to sin yet is it at least perfect as to its proper use and to our glorious perfection And may be called our universal Righteousness because it is all that we have And â—â— consisteth not of any one or two Causes but of many Of which no oâ—â— must be excluded or set against the rest As there are several Allegatioâ—â— or Accusations against us so there must be several parts of the matter of our Justification 159. Not only an actual Accusation but a possible or a virtual oâ—â— which we are liable to sufficeth to denominate Justification as its contrary in the first Law-sense of Justification 160. It is our Right to Impunity and to the heavenly Glory which is to be justified finally in Judgment and our persons as the Subjects of that Right And our Actions but mediately in order to that end 161. It is only at the Bar of Christ as Redeemer that we are to be judged and justified and not by God only as a Creator Therefore it is by the Law of Grace that we must be judged to life or death finally and not by the sole Law of Innocency 162. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency either by the preceptive or retributive part But we are justified only by the Lâ—â— or Covenant of Grace against the Accusation which may be brought against us from the Law of Innocency Against it not by it 163. We are liable to all these following Accusations which will opeâ— to us the correlate Justifications and the matter of each part 1. It may be said by the Accuser of the Brethren Thou art a Siâ—â—â—â— against the Precepts of Nature and Grace He that denieth this is a Lyar Against this Charge there is no Justification for ever But we must â—â— Heaven confess that we have sinned but Glory be to him that washed â—s from our sins in his blood by Pardon and Sanctifiation 164. 2. Next it may be said that We did deserve Hell by our Sin This also is to be confessed for ever 165. 3. It may be said that by Gods Law of Innocency Hell is ouâ— due and therefore we are to be condemned to it To this we deny the consequence because we have right to Impunity and to Glory freely given us by God our Redeemer by a Covenant of Grace merited for us by the Obedience and Satisfaction given for us by Christ our Saviour Where note that here in this first part of our Justification there are all these conjunct necessary Causes 1. Gods Love and Mercy giving 2. Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction meriting 3. The Covenant
hatred and other punishment God then is reconciled because they are not objects of his hatred And to take away the Reatum poenae and the Reatum culpae non in se sed quoad poenam is all one and all that both sides mean if they understand what they say But to all eternity it will be true that we once sinned which none deny obedience 5. Or as if there were any obedience whose end is not Righteousness and Justification against the change of the contrary disobedience Do not these men obey that they may be so far righteous Or is not every man so far Righteous as he doth Righteousness Is not every man that loveth God justifiable as a Lover of him for so far as he loveth him 6. And is not Gratitude an end and a thing commanded by the Law If we obeyed perfectly in Christ we were perfectly thankful in Christ 7. But if they say that Christ fulfilled only the Law made to Adam for us and not his own Law of Grace and therefore that he obeyed for us only to the ends of that Law I answer 1. If the ends and matter of that Law be fulfilled by us in him our obedience to any other must be needless For he that is supposed never to have sinned need not use any means for pardon or remedy 2. By this rule Christ only fulfilled the Law for Adam and Eve and for us only as we were in them which is only Virtually and not Actually at all but not at all for us according to any obligation that ever fell upon our persons For 1. We were never personally bound to perfect personal perpetual obedience as the Condition of life For that Covenant as to the promise and condition ceased before any man was born 2. And all the duty in the world which â—â— are bound to is to be done for Evangelical ends for recovering Grace and unto Gratitude c. To say therefore that we are perfectly Righteous as having perfectly obeyed all Gods Law in Christ and yet that we are bound to obey all that Law that ever we were under to another end and that Christ obeyed for us only as to that which we were never under personally but virtually in Adam this is to say and unsay 8. Lastly they see not that their own answer implyeth the truth of what we assert and is the same that we give which their cause is uncapable of â—â— We say that Christ did indeed most perfectly obey the Law of Innocency so far for us and in our stead though not in our persons as that he hath vindicated the truth and glory of God and his Law by doing that which we should have done and did not And hath merited for us a better Covenant which obligeth us not at all to obey for the ends of the first Covenant viz. that our perfection might be our Righteousness or the condition of life but only to obey for the ends of the new Covenant for the obtaining and improving of Recovering Grace and Salvation by Christ freely given us which we our selves must do or perish 190. And whereas they tell us that We may as well say that man must not dye because Christ dyed for us as not obey because Christ obeyed for us They strangely use our reason against themselves and know it not For we say that we must dye because we did not perfectly either obey the Law or suffer all its penalty by Christ as our legal person But he suffered only to satisfie Justice in tantumâ— to this end that man himself suffering death and temporal afflictions and obeying the Law of Grace might be saved from all the rest of the punishment But if we had so fulfilled the Law as aforesaid by Doing or suffering we could not have dyed nor suffered the least affliction as a penalty For all punishment in the essence of the â—elation is for sin 191. And when they say that It is no more inconvenient to say that Christ was perfect in our person than that he satisfied in our person and we by him I answer 1. Both are false and subvert the Gospel as aforesaid 2. But yet we may fitly say that Christ suffered in the person of a Sinner but mark the sence 1. Suffering as penal belongeth to a Sinner as such But Satisfaction is an Effect of Christ's suffering which resulteth not from the meer suffering nor from the person of a Sinner but from the Will and Covenant of God made to that excellent person who was God and perfect Man So that it is not so aptly said He satisfyed as it is that he suffered in the person of a Sinner 2. Note that it is not any other man's person that we mean that Christ suffered in but his own And we mean that he took upon him the person of a Sinner himself in as much as he consented to suffer for Sin And so personating here is not meant becoming any other man's person in Law sense so as that other legally suffered what he did But it is only his own persons becoming a sufferer in the stead of Sinners for their Sins As the Apostle saith He was made sin for us so he might as truly have said He was made a sinner for us that is so far by Imputation as that he undertook to suffer as Sinners suffer and for their sins But because wordy controversies seeming real are the great troubleâ—s of the world lest any should think that we differ more than indeed we do I would fain bring the matter as far from under the ambiguity of words as possibly I can To which end I further add 1. That as we hold that Adam was the Natural Root or Parent of Mankind so also that Christ was the Foederal Root of all the saved and in several respects though not all a second Adam 2. Adam was but one single Natural person nor did God by error or arbitrary reputation esteem or account him to be any other than he was None of our persons were distinct persons in Adam nor those persons that now they are Therefore we were not so personally in him at his fall But all our persons are in time and mediately by our Progenitors derived lineally from him yet we deny not all Souls to be from God and all Bodies an accretion of the common Elements not as having been Persons existent in him but being Persons caused remotely by him Our present Persons were seminally or virtually in him which is as much as to say that not the Person but the Semen Personae vel virtus causalis was in him To be only Virtually or Causally or Seminally in Adam is in proper speech for that Person not really to have been in him For Causa non est effectus Virtus generativa non est Persona generata To be only Virtually in Adam is terminius diminuens as to personal inexistence and denyeth it And as Dr. Twisse hath oft well asserted It is our natural relation to Adam
Conditional Covenant of Grace for I talk of no other extendeth not universally to all men but that any men are yet lest under no other Law or conditional-promise or Covenant than that of Innocency For if that were true 1. Then God should be supposed to make men a promise of Life on a condition of present natural impossibility And to say to sinners If you be not sinners you shall live 2. And to oblige men to the same Impossibilities as the means of their salvation saying still to sinners I require you sinners that you be no sinners that you may be saved 3. Which is indeed to say that the case of all that are under the first Law of Innocency only is desperate and they have no more hope or remedy than the Devils 4. And then Christ had mistaken the matter himself when he commanded his Ministers to Preach this Gospel or Covenant to all the world and every humane Creature and tell them that If they believe they shall be saved and to offer them Baptism if they consent 5. And either Preachers must preach an untruth to many or else not know what man to preach to 6. But the actu-al force and obligation of the Covenant puts all out of doubt that the world is under a Law of Grace For what man that by siding hath not his understanding utterly distorted to look only on one side can say that none but the Elect are bound to Believe in Christ or to Repent of sin or to turn to God and this as a means of their salvation What man dare say that any Heathens in the World are under no obligation to use any means at all for the pardon of their sins or the recovery and saving of their souls What man dare say that it is no sin in them not to use any such means And what duty or sin can there be without a Law And what Law can bind men to accept of Grace and to seek it and use means for pardon renovation and salvation but the new Covenant or Law of Grace Sure the Law of Innocency hath no such obligation 7. Lastly And Gods usage of all the world puts the case past Controversie For he useth no man according to the meer Law of Innocency All the world have a great proportion of the Mercies of the New Covenant and therefore are not under the Covenant of Innocency alone Yet we maintain that the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency as to the future is still in force to all men Obey perfectly And that the penal part is so far in force as to make death in the first instant due for every sin But we add 1. That the Remedying pardoning Law being in force with it doth immediately dissolve that obligation and make it uneffectual to the punishment of believers 2. And that the Promising part of the Covenant of Innocency is utterly ceased by the cessation of mans capacity And therefore that the Preceptive part for perfection is now no Condition of Life to any man Two things I was wont in my Ignorance to say against the universal tenour of the new Covenant 1. That God distinguished and excluded some at the first making of it under the name of the Seed of the Serpent But 1. No Scripture giveth us the least ground to think that men equally guilty are some called the Seed of the Serpent and some of the Woman meerly as denominated from or distinguished by Gods own will or decree without any real difference in the persons 2. And if the Image of Satan in Original sin were it that denominated the Seed of the Serpent then all the world should be excluded because all are such before they are regenerate 3. Therefore it is plain that it is not meer Original sin that denominateth any one the Serpents Seed in the sence of that Text but a consequent rejection and opposition of the Mediator or Grace of the new Covenant 2. I was wont in my great Ignorance in my youth to think that All men were meerly under the first Covenant till Conversion and then they came under the second only But this was but Confusion To be under a Law or offered Covenant as the terms of life or death is one thing And so all are under a Law or Covenant of Grace and no man under the meer Law of Innocency obliged to perfection as the sole condition of life And to be obedient to this Law and a Consenter to this Covenant and so to be in the Covenant as Mutual is another thing And this is the case of Consenters only So that I may take it for granted that we are agreed that as to the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam and Noe it extendeth or is in force to all the world at least till by enmity against Grace they have made themselves desperate as the Serpents seed Yea then the Law of Grace is in force to them though they reject the Grace of it 2. And as to the last Edition of the Covenant of Grace by Christ 1. The tenour of it extendeth to all as is visible Matth. 28. 19. Mark 16. 16. Joh. 3. 16. 2. And Christ hath made it the office of his Ministers by his commission to promulgate and offer it to all 3. And whereas providence concurreth not to the universal execution we must all confess that Christ came not to put the world into a worse condition than he found them in If he did any no good by his Incarnation he would do them no harm Therefore they that never hear the Gospel are still under the first Edition of the Covenant made with Adam and Noah so far as it is unaltered I add that word because that so far as the Promise was to give salvation by the Messiah hereafter to be incarnate none is now bound to expect his future Incarnation because it is past But the same benefits that were due to believers before Christs incarnation are due since upon the true performance of so much of the condition as is still in force and not repealed 3. And we must needs agree that the Ignorance of the Apostles before Christs sufferings of his death sacrifice and resurrection doth shew that the faith of the Godly Jews then was far more general and less particular than the faith now required of Christians 4. And also that more was required then to be known particularly by the Jews that had the Scripture and Tradition to acquaint them with the Messiah to come than of the rest of the world that had not those distinct discoveries nor Abraham's promises made known unto them And how much Gen. 3. 15. might cause them to understand we may conjecture by the words At least this much was required of all that they believe that their sin deserveth punishment and misery and yet that God of his abundant mercy by his Wisdom securing his Truth and Justice will pardon sin and grant salvation to all that truly Believe and Trust in
the Threefold Divine Excellencies Communicated and the Threefold humane Receptive faculties viz. LIFE LIGHT and LOVE or spiritual Vivification Activity and Power spiritual Illumination of the Intellect and spiritual Conversion or Sanctification of the Will by holy Love § 21. It is certain that it is not only on believers that Christ operateth by the spirit For he draweth men by it to believe and many wicked men that are not his elect have common even miraculous gifts of the spirit * * * Mat. 7. 21 22 23. Gal. 3. 1 2 3. Heb. 6. 5 6. 1 Cor. 14. which are all communicated by Christ § 22. As Nature it self is in his Political power and is delivered to him so far as it is reparable and belongeth to the reparation of man so all gifts and operations Received by any in the world which are Mercies contrary to commerit are the effects of Christ Even as the Sun shineth in the night by the Moon and in the dawning of the day by it self unseen and after by it self appearing so Christ shineth to the Heathen world in abundance of natural and providential mercies and by the help of many Creatures and experiences and to some by nearer approaches as well as to the Church by the manifestation of himself All which is evident 1. Because the whole lapsed world in Adam and Noe were brought under his own Covenant of Grace according to which he operateth 2. In that so much mercy after sin will not stand with Gods regiment by the meer Law of Innocency violated 3. In that Christ is expresly called the Saviour of the World and the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe who dyed for all in that all were dead that they that live should live to him who tasted death for every man c. And Joh. 1. 9 10 11 12. That was the true light which lighteth every man coming into the world or coming into the world lighteth every man He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not And v. 4 5. In him was life and the Life was the Light of man and the Light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not c. § 23. This threefold Influx of Christs Spirit for LIFE LIGHT and LOVE is not equally effectual on all nor equally effectual on the same person at several times nor each part of the influx equally effectual on the same person at the same time The Reasons anon SECT III. Of the Operations and Principles as compared § 1. THough Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love all co-operate by the spirit of Christ yet in the work of Mans Recovery their Impressions are not equal But as POWER with Wisdom and Love more appeared in the CREATION as is aforesaid so WISDOM with Power conveying Love appeareth more in our Redemption and LOVE with Power and Wisdom is most conspicuous and illustrious in our Renewed state begun indeed by Sanctification but perfect in our GLORIFICATION * * * As to the Question between the Schoolmen define beatitudin undoubtedly the Thomists err in placing it chiefly in the Intellect And Medina and others give silly reasons for it and the Scotists of whom Rada well handleth it are far righter And Agid. Romanus briefly and clearly tells us the truth Quodlib 3. q. 18. p. 187. Btatitudo est in aliquo finaliter in aâ—â—quo formaliter Naâ— si ipsum objectum principaâ—â— Voluntatis prout habit rationem finis sit beatitudo oportet quod beatitudo principaliter sit in hoc objecto coâ—sequenter formaliter in actu Voluntatis Nam Voluntas in suum objectum tendit finaliter sed per suum actum teadit in objectum formaliter Ex quo apparet quod be â—titudo sit magis in ipso objecto Voluntatis quam in actu quia ratio finis est magis in objecto quam in actu This is clear truth if you put but finis alone for beatitudo For Beatitudo qua talis is not the principal end of man but God as God in his perfect Goodness and the fulfilling of his will next and then our own beatitude with that of the blesâ—ed And he maketh Vision and not Love to be the secondary final object of all The Omnipotent Father as is said Createth Nature with the Son and Holy Spirit The Son the Wisdom of the Father is the Physicion of souls and healeth them by SKILL with Power and Love The Holy Ghost called by the Schoolmen The LOVE of God dwelling and working peculiarly in us to and in perfection with power and Wisdom is the PERFECTION of the soul And so Natura Medela Sanitas are the various effects of the Divine operation § 2. Therefore the SONS operation in procuring and communicating the SPIRIT of Love and Holiness is eminently sapiâ—â—tial § 3. The Impressions of all the Divine Virtues are excellent in their several kinds And it 's hard for us to say that this is simply more excellent than that But we can say which is more suitable to the nature of man to be esteemed and Loved by him And so we esteem the Impressions of Wisdom and Love as most suitable to us § 4. A Horse or Oxe excelleth Man in strength and a Bird or Hare or Dog in swiftness and a Mountain and an Oak in Greatness And yet we account the Wisdom and Moral Goodness of man to be a greater excellency and to make him the more noble Creature § 5. And God seemeth to tell it us 1. By calling these his Image 2. And by making man the Lord of these stronger Creatures § 6. And among men we take him not for the most excellent who is the strongest but who is the Wisest and the Best And therefore the Wisest and Best are by Aristotle said to be born by Nature to Rule the rest and by all sober men are thought to be the Fittest to Guide and Rule others how seldom soever it cometh to pass while the Robuster sort are Labourers and Mechanicks § 7. Yet I deny not but the effect is answerable to the Cause And as Active-Power causeth Action and Wisdom and Government causeth the Order and Rectitude of action and Love and Goodness the Perfection of it and the agent so Gods Vital-Power Wisdom and Goodness are equal which are the Principles of all As the Father Son and Spirit are coequal And God is indeed glorious in the Motion of Sun and Stars c. as well as in the Wisdom and Holiness of man But besides the foresaid suitableness this difference must be considered that as Life Intellect and Will Power By special Grace some mean two distinct things viz. 1. Our Love to God and other holy Habits and acts or an Inclination to them 2. Gods favour to us and acceptation of us and that as relating to the Glory which he will give us so that the first they call the Habit of Grace quâ— ens qualitas
as necessary by predetermination as the motions in a Clock yet a certain Religion is consistent with it and the Atheist that hence would nullifie all Religion absolutely would raise false inferences from this principle Much more perswaded am I that many that hold it are very worthy holy persons much better than I am or can hope here to be as not discerning the inconsistency of their opinions as I said L. The Religionâ—consistent with it I conceive must be such as this 1. There is a God who moveth all things by physical necessitation even mans Volitions as well as any natural actions 2. This God doth all that he doth himself by necessity viz. of perfection not of co-action And there is no contingency in rerum natura 3. This God hath made his Creatures of various ranks and degrees of excellency And man a more knowing Creature than the Bruits 4. Among men he maketh some wise some foolish some good and Godly and some vitious and ungodly And as he maketh the difference of men and beasts of a Horse and a Toad of the Sick and the sound of Prince and people rich and poor so doth he of godly and ungodly chast and unchaste c. 5. Yet man being Intellectual God will move him by means and second causes and therefore hath made him Laws obliging him de jure and commanding his utmost diligence to keep them promising and threatning Life and death hereafter for the keeping or the breaking of them and appointing Ministers and Magistrates to perswade and drive him on 6. And it 's likely though not certain that God will do according to these Laws in some considerable degree 7. Man by his Nature and by Scripture which may be true is bound to Love and serve his God above all other as the Cause of all the being and good that is in the world whatever he do by us and of all our good 8. There is another life of Reward for the good and punishment for the bad which must be our hope and fear 9. Gods Laws are called moral means but Cause only as physical engines or tacklings to move mans will by the said necessitation 10. Gods hatred of sin is no true hatred or nolition where sin is but only his prohibiting it to us and his punishing men for it 11. If God did send Christ and the Apostles and Miracles c. it was only to be tacklings or parts in this engine of physical operations 12. God causeth and Loveth sin as much as obedience but he maketh it not so Good and Lovely to us it being our disease and misery 13. As God no otherwise hateth sin than sickness and sinners than the sick and looketh on good and bad but as modal physical differences caused by himself so must we do also and hate that most that hurteth us most 14. To mourn for sin and confess it and strive against it or talk of Christs suffering or satisfying for it any otherwise than as a Voluntary disease and misery of man or to avoid any sin any otherwise than as a misery to our selves or others is but the errour of superstitious men 15. Men should do all that ever they can to cure their sins and live holily so far as increaseth not their misery and no further and this only as a physical Voluntary perfection and as the avoiding of a natural misery to themselves and others 16. God will punish man not out of any hatred of sin which he willeth and causeth but out of a differencing will as he maketh Toads and Serpents and causeth Cattle and Fowl to be killed by us and Horses laboured in pain Therefore we have no reason to fear any other misery in Hell than Gods arbitrary disposal bringeth on the more wretched sort of his Creatures without any sinful commerit or provocation and perhaps little more than we voluntarily here choose and bring upon our selves or of the same kind our sin it self being our punishment though it pleaseth us As scratching is to him that hath the itch 17. Therefore the end of a mans life is the publick good and his natural felicity besides and above which to make God our End as he is holy and to be pleased by Holiness is an errour for all that cometh to pass whether sin or holiness do equally please and fulfil his will as they are equally caused by him according to their several natures I Have delineated this hypothesis with its consectaries as truly as I can If any expect that I should have given you their own words for all that I have said 1. Remember that I charge not all these words on them but mention their judgement with the consequents 2. That I charge not these consequents to be owned by the men but upon their doctrine And let any man discharge or justifie them that can 3. But I desire no more to prove that I wrong them not than that the Reader be acquainted with their own writings and not to impose too many on him particularly with Bradwardine Bannes Holkot and Alvarez and with Piscator Maccovius Dr. Twisse and Rutherford de provid And I desire him first but to read the words which I have before cited and confuted of theirs in this Treatise and the words of Alvarez and Twisse which I have cited and answered in my Disput contr Praedeterm in Methodo Theolog. And I must profess that the Religion here described in the end is all that I can prove consistent with their opinion truly understood in it self and its consectaries and that if I held their doctrine I think I could have no other faith Which I have annexed lest the Hobbists should think that their principle were it proved would justifie all Immorality and Irreligion For this much they might be obliged to notwithstanding it But he that can see so great eyidence for the Dominican predetermination above the other three wayes and what I have here farther added as for the sake of it to admit so great a change of his Religion or so great a degree of the forsaking of true Religion he seeth not with my eyes and I hope I shall never see with his though I am not a stranger to the pretences for their way that make it seem plausible to them that do respicere ad pauca And if any think that I deal too harshly in clogging their opinion with such odious consequents Let them prove them inconsequent and I will recant it But if they cannot civility shall not make me hide and favour so great Impiety and as little in Doctrine as in manners as Adultery perjury blasphemy c. because he that thinketh he doth well will not Repent and an erring mind will justifie sin and fight against God and his truth in his own name and it 's more to Teach men to break a com-mand than to do it and confess the sin They think it is for God that they erre And I think it is for God that I detect it
his overlooking and undervaluing Gods Design in Making and Governing free Intellectual agents by his Sapiential Moral Directive way He supposeth this way to be so much below that of Physical Motion and Determination as that it is not to be considered but as an instrument thereof As if it were unworthy of God to give any creature a Meer Power Liberty Law and Moral Means alone and not to Necessitate him Positively or Negatively to Obey or Disobey And this looking only at Physical Good Being and Motion and thereby thinking lightly of Sapiential Regency is the summ as of his so of Hobbes Spinosa's Alvarez Bradwardines Twisses Rutherfords and the rest of the Predeterminants errors herein And had not I other thoughts of this one thing I should come over to their Opinion For I confess the case to be of very great difficulty § 28. I think that as the Divine Life and Power glorifieth it self eminently in the Causation of the Being Motion and Life of the creatures so the Divine Wisdom eminently glorifieth it self in the Order of all things and in the Moral Directive Sapiential Regiment of Intellectual free agents And that Gods Laws and Doctrine are the Image of his Wisdom and an admirable harmonious and beautiful frame And that all would think so and be wonderfully delighted in them were they compleatly printed on our Minds and Hearts § 29. II. And accordingly I think that the glory of his governing Wisdom and Punishing and Rewarding Justice is a great and notable part of that glory which man must give him now and for ever And that this Justice is not his physical using all things according to their physical aptitude only But his Judging and Executing according to that moral aptitude commonly called Merit by Punishments and Rewards And that to deny God the glory of all this is no small error in a Philosopher or Divine § 30. III. Accordingly I think that God made man a free self-determining agent that he might be capable of such Sapiential Rule And that it is a great Honour to God to make so noble a Nature as hath a Power to determine its own elections And though such are not of the highest rank of Creatures they are far above the lowest And that God who we see delighteth to make up beauty and harmony of diversities doth delight in the Sapiential Moral Government of this free sort of Creatures And though man be not Independent yet to be so far like God himself as to be a kind of first-determiner of many of his own Volitions and Nolitions is part of Gods Natural Image on Man § 31. IV. Accordingly I take Duty to be Rewardable and Laudable and sin to be odious as it is the Act of a free agent And that the Nature of Moral Good and Evil consisteth not in its being the meer effect of physical premotion but in being a Voluntary Conformity or Disconformity to the Sapiential Rule of duty by a free agent that had Power to do otherwise § 32. V. Free-will then is not only the same with willing it self or a meer agency according to Nature by the premotion of the first determining necessitating Mover It is not only such a freedom as Fire Water Beasts and every moved thing hath to be moved according to the first Moyers action which is in the will of man But it is a Power to be a first determining Specifier of its own acts as Moral Not that it is never predetermined but that it can do this § 33. VI. Accordingly I judge of Guilt and Shame and the Accusation of Conscience which will not be a bare discerning what God made us do or be but what we voluntarily did or were when we could do otherwise § 34. VII And I am past all doubt that he grosly mistaketh the nature and distinction of Law and Gospel 1. To think that Gods Law when it is not accompained with physical predetermination is but to shew us that we are creatures that cannot but sin 2. Yea hereby he wrongeth the glory of the Creator that made no creature with a power to do any thing but evil unless predetermined physically thereto 3. It 's gross to say that all the Doctrine of Redemption and Faith and Justification by Christ as a meer signum Letter or Law is the Law or Covenant of Works and so that every Command is the Covenant of Works and Physical Efficiency of Good in us is the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For that which we call the Gospel is not true if this be true For this Gospel is a preached word spoken by mans mouth which some believe and some believe not but reject and disobey and therefore perish Matth. 4. 23. 11. 5. 24. 14. 26. 13. Mark 16. 15. Luke 4. 18. 1 Cor. 9. 14 16 18. Heh 4. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 25. 1 Pet. 4. 6. 2. Thess 1. 8 10 11. Matth. 13. 10. Acts. 13. 7. It is a Law by which men shall be judged to life or death Rom. 2. 16. Mar. 16. 15 16. 2 Thes 1. 8. Rom. 10. 16. John 3. 19 20 21. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. It is a word which some pervert Gal. 1. 7. and many sin against Gal. 2. 14. 1 Pet. 4. 17. The rejecters of it are to speed worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and they cannot escape that neglect so great salvation Whereas by his description 1. No man ever yet sinned against the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For it is not that Covenant or Gospel further than it is a physical effect on the soul 2. And every Heathen that hath any good effect on his soul by Common Grace hath so much Gospel 3. Yea why is not then all Gods Creation being a physical effect the Covenant of Grace if that he doth be it and all that he commandeth as such be the Law of Works 4. And how then can the Law of Works and Grace be two if every proper Law be the Law of Works For a Law is sub genere signi and a produced event is another thing 5. And what sense will be found throughout the Scripture if we must hold that It is the Covenant or Law of Works which telleth us that the Law of Works is abolished and calleth us to believe in Christ for free Justification and not to expect Justification by the Works of the Law and offereth us pardon and life in Christ c. But I will add no more seeing the plainness of the matter makes it needless § 35. The truth is he distinguisheth between the Law and the effect of the Law and Spirit of God and calleth one the Law of Works and the other the Gospel whereas the Scripture only maketh it the excellency of the Gospel that by it the Spirit effectually worketh on the soul more usually and more excellently and no meer Law of Works or Grace will renew us without the Spirit § 36. VIII And if Redemption be nothing but Physical efficiency by Christ who as a creating Mediator
when Custom comprizeth both in one name dull wits are easily here deceived As the words Murder Theft Adultery Drunkenness c. do signifie both the Volition and Act of the Agent and the Reception or Effect Now God can many ways make the sinful Volition and Act of every such Sinner to produce that effect which the word Murder Theft Adultery Drunkenness c. connoteth or includeth without causing the Volition or Act forbidden determiningly C. I pray you shew me how B. 1. He can by Providence order or set the Object in their way 2. He can fit the Receptive disposition of the Patient to the effect Most of the wonderful Varieties in the World are à diversa recipientium dispositione That Act will produce an Effect on a disposed matter which will not on another 3. He can rule the Sinners Instruments of Action 4. He can remove other Objects out of the way 5. He can remove Impediments 6. He can put in some good thought or desire into the Sinners mind which shall determine the Effect 7. He can suspend some concurse of his own which will tend to this effect rather than another C. Give me some Instances to make it plain B. You need no other than the instance of the Murder of Christ 1. When his time was come he that before oft retired into the Wilderness and lived in Galilee came up to Jerusalem in their way 2. He was willing himself to die for man and so did not avoid it And he went into the place where Judas could find him And he spake the words which he knew that they would call Blasphemy c. 3. God directed the Souldiers Spear to the Region of Christs heart which their intent or aim alone else had not done And he provided a Cross and a Simon to bear it c. 4. God did not open to them effectually those Reasons which should have moved them more to desire the death of Barrabbas 5. Abundance of Impediments God could have set in their way as the peoples tumult Pilate's resistance c. which yet he did not 6. God put into their minds by moral means at least the true apprehension of the probability that the Romans hearing of a King of the Jews would turn their jealousie and fury against them and take away their place and Nation 7 He suspended that preserving operation by which he could have kept Christ alive on the Cross and healed his Wounds and caused him to come down from the Cross when they promised him then to believe in him and he restrained the Souldiers from breaking his bones c. And in all this there is no Decree Volition or Causation of their sinful Wills or Deeds So in the case of Absalom's Incest or any sinful Generation 1. God order'd it so that his Fathers Concubins were just in his way 2. They had an inviting pulchritude and an impotency of resisting 3. The state of his affairs was such as that the action had an appearance of tendency to his ends by making him seem unreconcileable to his Father 4. And for Achitophel and Absalom to know the truth of this was no sin 5. Other diverting Objects and occasions are kept out of the way c. Yet in all this God neither willeth nor causeth that Will and Act of Absalom in specie but the effect C. But by all this you do describe God as plotting and doing the same thing that they do And but for different words this cometh all to one B. 1. If you think this enough why doth it not satifie you while it is granted by them that you oppugn 2. It is not the same thing Is it the same thing for Christ to be killed and for the Jews to will and perform his Murder Is mans Will and Act and Christs Death the same thing 3. God did fore-know their sinful Will and Action and permit it only but did not cause it but was a concause of the Effect So God may to a Drunkard 1. Cause strong Drink or Wine to be in his way 2. And remove some smaller Drink that would have satisfied him 3. And remove Disswaders and many impediments 4. And give him money and facility of obtaining it 5. And cause him truly to know that the Drink is pleasant to the tast exhilerating spiritful 6. And cause it when he hath drunk it to make him drunken And none of this is quid prohibitum or sin in man But his sinful Will and Act which are forbidden are presupposed or fore-seen C I cannot see but that it cometh all to one for God to permit that which he fore-seeth and could easily hinder if he would B. 1. Your conceits that it cometh all to one must not over-rule our certain knowledge of Gods Holiness and his true and holy Word and all the certainty of Religion in the World 2. We are sure that God is Holy a hater of all sin and a righteous Judge c. And are you as sure that it cometh all to one And must all men else say that they are sure of it too or else be back-bitten and called Arminians Jesuites c. 3. Do you consider what Gods permission is It is far from a full permission He doth all that belongeth to a Rector to hinder it He strictly forbiddeth it by Laws He openeth the malignity of it He threatneth misery here and everlasting damnation hereafter to them that will not forbear it or forsake it He promiseth all blessings in this life and endless Glory in Heaven hereafter to them that will He sendeth his Ministers first with Miracles after with sealed Doctrine and Gifts to proclaim all this to the World and to perswade them He gave his own Son to condemn sin in the Flesh on the Cross and by his holy Life and Doctrine and Suffering to declare the malignity and hatefulness and hurtfulness of it to the World He sets up all his Ordinances Magistracy Ministry Sacraments Worship and Discipline to this end He warneth the World by many Judgments and especially by the Messengers of each mans death and the constant Afflictions which are the fruits of Sin He obligeth them to Obedience by multitudes of Mercies He sets Heaven and Hell before them daily and is this permitting it He doth indeed in this sense permit it in that he doth not all that he can against it or doth no more than as aforesaid 4. If this permitting be all one as loving or causing it then when God made man a free Agent and resolved to rule him by moral means and leave Adam to his own Will it was a loving and a causing sin And is every King or Parent a lover of Vice who doth not all that he could do to restrain it C. We do not hold that God loveth sin though he will the event and cause the act circumstantiated B. I know you say that neither God nor man loveth sin as sin But whether Dr. Twisse Rutherford say not in equipollent terms that God
hundred and twenty ancient Writers and sixty three Protestant Synods Churches and Divines for Universal Grace read Dallaei Apolog. part 4. A. I am sure God saith That he would not the death of a Sinner but rather that he repent and live and that he would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth which they deny B. No man denieth it who denieth not the Scripture And I can hardly believe that really you differ about the meaning of the words Quest. 1. Do you believe that God is absolutely unwilling that any perish and absolutely willeth that all shall be saved A. No but conditionally he is B. Quest 2. Do you think that he absolutely willeth the performance of that condition A. I know you will say If absolutely it must come to pass or God must be overcome If conditionally how doth he will that condition and so in infinitum But I will say that he willeth it absolutely and yet is not overcome or srustrate by a greater Power For he willeth it only voluntate inefficaci or with a velleity which is not a willing to do it all himself but that it be done by man B. If he will that man repent eventually with an absolute Will the Impenitent then frustrate his Will or Desire And it is a note of infelicity to have absolute Desires not obtained If Gods Will be not done is it not for want of Power or Wisdom to accomplish it A. No it is because he willeth not to effect the thing but that man effect it B. If you had said that he conditionally willeth that man effect it the failure had been no frustration But that had been but to say that he willeth that man shall will if he will or at least if he excite his own Will and so the question would recur How he willeth that excitation But seeing you say that God absolutely willeth that man shall will or excite his own Will you must needs mean that God desireth that which he cannot obtain and so is imperfect A. No I only say that he desireth that which he cannot obtain by mans free agency without exerting more of his own efficient power to obtain it He could obtain it if he would do all that he can B. * Hoc vâ—lt Dtus ut omneâ—â—jus vitâ— participes sâ—â—t circumstaâ—tiâ— vero pâ—nâ—rum non ipsius vâ—lâ—â—tatâ— fiunt sed pro merito â—â—ruâ—â— qui pâ—ccaverunt inferâ—â—tâ—â— Vitam Deâ—â— cuique propria voluntatâ— tribuitâ—ram vero sibi quisque theâ—aurizat Basil in Psal 26. This is no more than to say that either properly he doth not will that man excite his own Will to the act in that he will not do that without which he knoweth it will not be done or that he willeth it but conditionally If so much help will procure it And for want of plain opening the case as it is you do but entangle your self in unintelligible words when you talk of uneffectual velleities of the event which yet are absolute A. How will you explain it better B. As is sufficiently done before 1. God absolutely willeth that it shall be mans duty to repent and believe Duty is the thing antecedently willed with an absolute Will 2. God willeth that Heaven shall be his due if he perform that condition 3. But if he will not perform it that Hell be his due This Will is conditional as to the thing willed 4. These Volitions of God belong to him as Rector supposing him a Benefactor giving out his benefits by a Law And this Will is expressed by Gods Law which actually constituteth the absolute Debitum obedientiae and the conditional debitum premii vel poenae 5. The condition being past Gods consequent Will is absolute de premiando vel puniendo He willeth the death of the Impenitent consequently And this is but Gods Will qua judex expressed by his Judgment actually 6. Though in strict sense the thing that God antecedently willeth is not the event but the debitum vel jus man's duty and his due thereupon yet because it belongeth not to a Legislator as such to do any more towards the event than command it supposing necessary power and helps therefore after the manner of men it is said that God willeth the event Repentance and Salvation because he willeth to do so much towards it even all that concerneth him to do as a meer Rector besides the donation of necessary power or help as a Benefactor And this is all that you mean in which both sides are really agreed A. I confess we use to explain it by his Antecedent Will and saying that quantum in se he would have all repent and live But by quantum in se we do not mean that God doth as much as he is able to it Therefore your explication seemeth true as well as conciliatory that he doth quantum in se as Rector per leges supposing also his necessary help B. So God delighteth not in the death of Sinners because it is not his Antecedent Will that they die but only his consequent on supposition of impenitency which he willeth not And also because it is the good of Justice and not our death and hurt as such or for it self that God loveth and delighteth in But when men return and live they fulfil his antecedent Will and do that which he loveth as good in it self And he would have all men come to the knowledge of the Truth and be saved that is He obligeth both Ministers to preach to them and others to pray for them and help them and themselves to obey and receive his Grace And he giveth them means and giveth Christ and Life by free donation to all on condition they will but accept the Gift And he that strictly willeth this much may be said after the manner of men to will the event And this is all that both sides mean if they understood themselves The second Crimination A. The great difference between us is that they hold Gods Grace to be unresistible * Okam Gabriel and Catherinus do hold that there are three ranks of men in Gods Decree 1. One of persons eminently predestinated to whom God will give such extraordinary Grace as shall ex se ascertain their Conversion and Salvation 2. Another of the the ordinary Elect who are fore-seen to use well sufficient Grace and so elected to Glory upon that fore-sight 3. The Reprobates who are decreed to Hell for their fore-seen sin Vide Okam in 1. d. 41. q. 1. Gabr. ibid. q. 1. a. 2. de hisce Vasqutz in 1. Tho. q. 23. disq 90. c. 1. who contradicteth them cap. 2. 23. Yet denieth that in man there is any cause condition or occasion of his predestination disp 91. Tilenus against Camero layeth all upon the resistibility of Grace but never sufficiently explaineth the word The Arminians Synod p. 15. assert Etiam supernaturalem potentiam voluntati conferri hac ratione Deum immediate
not causa consilio But not immutable else he were no Creature An. You set up Free-will and Power more grosly in terms than I dare do though I suppose our meaning is the same Had I said thus what had I heard I only say that man may be a causa prima secundum quid of the moral specification or modification of his own Actions But he is simpliciter no causa prima of the Action in genere actionis else he were God But a causa principalis he may be called though not prima 2. You never proved that God cannot make a Creature naturally immutable dependently on himself that is such as will never change unless God change them nor that Jesus Christ is not such in his Humanity § 16. M. S. This confirmation is not by being in Heaven but by the Holy Ghosts special working on the Soul revealing still Gods Perfections to it An. And doth this Operation of the Holy Ghost make the Soul never the better in nature or disposition but only in Act Though it 's true that no habits immutably fix without the Influct of the Holy Ghost § 17. M. S. Merit is the suitableness of the work to the wages An. Merit is manifold and needs better explication In the Commâ—tative Justice of meer Proprietors merit is indeed the Comparative value of things and in works their suitableness as you say to the wages that is their equal worth But in distributive governing Justice there is no wages but only Reward And merit is the moral aptitude for Reward which is as various as the Law is that one is governed by There are five sorts of Law that by five sorts or ways of Justice require five sorts of merit 1. Gods Law of Innocency to Adam where Justice called nothing but personal perfect Obedience Merit 2. Gods Law to the Mediator who was obliged perfectly to keep 1. The whole Law of Nature 2. The Law of Moses 3. A peculiar Law of Mediation to die rise do Miracles c. The keeping of all this was Christ's Merit 3. There is Christ's Law of Grace to fallen man in the first and in the perfect Editions where our keeping of it is by Gospel-Justice called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our worthiness or merit that is in tantum secundum quid in relation to that Law That is to repent and believe to love God and obey him sincerely 4. There is the Law of Moses peculiar to the Jews which hath its peculiar required merit 5. And there are the Laws of Men appointed and allowed of God which have their peculiar Justice and Merit All these are not to be confounded much less all denied as if there were no merit but between Proprietors in Commutative Justice In which sense no Creature can merit of God § 18. M. S. According to that Covenant any one Act of Obedience in Adam would have merited confirmation and eternal life that is one act of holy love An. I believe it not because it is not written nor naturally revealed that I know of My reasons against it are 1. It is dangerous to add to Gods Word 2. The words In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die seemeth to look further than to one first act or day and is as much as whensoever thou eatest though he should obey till that time 3. It is utterly improbable that Adam did not perform one Act of Love or Obedience before his Fall For 1. We are uncertain how long he stood However confident some Rabbins and Broughton and some others are that it was the same day in which he was created 2. You confess he was made with powers sanctified and fitted to obey 3. Gods Law of Love was written in his heart and as old as himself and could not but oblige a fit subject to the act And he must sin all that while that he loved not God as God 4. He had many thoughts and affections all that while which were sinful if not animated by holy Love and done in Obedience to God 5. He spent some time which was sinfully spent if not spent in Love and Obedience 6. God spake to him and so had sensible Communion with him which must needs oblige him to some love 7. He had a Law given him to dress and keep the Garden which if he accepted not by consent in Obedience to God he sinned 8. He gave names to all the Creatures upon Gods bringing them to him which must be done obediently or sinfully 9. He had the Law of Marriage given him with the Woman which if he received not in love and obedience he sinned 10. He had all the World before him to shew him Gods Perfections and if yet he had not one act of love to God as God he hainously sinned 11. He had the Law of Love and Obedience given him by way of Covenant that is binding him presently to consent And he could not delay a willing consent one minute or hour without sin And consent is Love and Obedience in the first act 12. He loved himself and his Wife and other Creatures before his Fall But if he loved not God before then he all that while loved himself his Wife and all the Creatures more than God yea without God And then they were his Idols 13. Else he never used one Creature holily before his Fall and therefore sinfully 14. You make Adam to have had less actual good before his Fall than the weakest Christian now If not than many wicked men who have some moral good secundum quid though not simpliciter 4. I do not think that the Reward which Christ was to have for his fulfilling the Law was immutability or confirmation For I think he had that in his very nature by the Unity of the Divine and Humane in one Person But I think that the perfect Glory of his Humanity was part of his Reward Phil. 2. 7 8 9. Heb. 12. 23 c. And therefore that Glory hath much more in it than confirmation in Grace But it 's plain in the Gospel that it was not only one Act of Obedience which was Christs condition in order to his receiving the Fruits or full Reward of his Merits But it was perfect Holiness of Nature and Life to the end of his course on Earth Else you must say that Christ's first Act of Obedience was his performance of his Covenant-Condition and all the rest for some other purpose only which is absurd 5. One act of our Obedience now is not the fulfilling of all the Condition of the Covenant of Grace nor entitleth us alone to Glory unless God cut off our life as soon as that act is done Perseverance to the end is part of our Condition of Glory And we know of no such difference between Adam's Covenant or Case and ours as will prove it otherwise with him 6. Else it would make the Condition of the Covenant of Grace to be much harder and severer than of the Law of Innocency
which is not likely To perform one act of Love and Obedience is not so hard as to do it to the death though we lose our lives in the expressions of it Object But our first Faith giveth us Right to the Spirit of Confirmation and Immutability though more must be done for Perfection Answ 1. It appeareth then that Perfection and Glory is more than Confirmation 2. It is certain that the Regenerate are mutable as to the degrees of Grace and are far from Perfection at the first 3. The generality of the Fathers and ancient Churches thought that true Justification and Right to Heaven and true Love to God was lost by many And Austin himself and his Followers so thought 4. And they that think otherwise yet know that Glory is still given us quoad jus in the Promise on condition of our perseverance And we should hardly find so many Threatnings against them that fall away if all might so easily know that the first act of Obedience doth so fix us and give us in justice a Right to Immutability § 19. M. S. The Arguments to prove that any one Act had the pròmise of Immutability and Glory are these Argument 1. If God were to declare his rewarding Justice then he must reward one act Thus Bradwardiâ—â— also chideth his Master Lombard as inclining to Pelagius for holding that Adam could have forborn Sin by his Free-will without Gods spâ—dâ—l Grace that is his Will that so it should be which he saith was necessâ—ry before the Fall as well as since and that else Adam by once not sâ—â—ning when tempted had merited Confirmation as he saith the Angels did being tempted by Leviathan lib. 2. c. 10. An. 1. God was not obliged to any Reward but according to the tenor of his Law Prove that his Law promised Glory or Immutability for one act 2. Bonum est ex causis integris one act is but a small paâ—â— of a mans life The Promise was to the whole course only 3. God did reward every act His acceptance and the continuance of all â—he blessings of that Paradise and the comfort of his Love was a greâ—â— Reward § 20. M. S. If one act of Obedience deserved unchangeable Happinesâ— then God must bestow it But c. An. I deny the minor One act deserved it not No act deserved in Commutative Justice And no act deserved it of governing Justice but such as the Law antecedently made it due to § 21. M. S. Merit it is a fuitableness of the work to the wages â—â—â— that please God are under his good pleasure the fruit of which must be â—â—â— enjoying of his Spirits infinite assistance This Adam might have claimed â—â— Justice and gloried for one act deserveth a Reward An. This is sufficiently answered 1. Wages strictly taken is Mâ—â—â—â— given by a Proprietary commutatively It 's blasphemy to say that God can owe any Creature such for he can receive nothing but his own The word when used to us is improperly taken But praemium a Reward we have but no work deserveth that but by the ordinate Justice of the Law Some few Papists talk of a dignity ex proportione operâ—â— but the Scotists and the wisest of them deny any but 1. Ex congruitate 2. Ex pacto Your suitableness may signifie either 1. A congruity ad fines regiminis or else ad praemium qua promissum And thus it 's true But it 's not proved that any one act was such 2. Or it may â—ignifie a suitableness in proportion ex simplici dignitate operis obliging the Governor antecedently to his Law 2. Or obliging God as Proprietor to compensation And so it is untrue that Merit is a suitableness of the work to the wages here 2. It 's unproved that Gods pleasedness must ever be shewed by the Spirits infinite assistance or that one act deserved this It 's unlike that the Angels that kept not their first state did never one act of Obedience nor were never under Gods approbation Prov. 16. 7. When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh his Enemies to be at peace with him God saith This â—is a Reward You say less than eternal life is none 1 King 3. 10. The speech of Solomon pleased the Lord And yet one would think by his filthiness and Idolatry and forsaking God that he was not glorified nor made immutable With the Sacrifice of Alms God is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. Phil. 4. 18. and with Relation-Duties Col. 3. 20. And yet all that did them even sincerely were not glorified then nor absolutely immutable § 22. M. S. Arg. 2. Unchangeable misery would have been the reward of one sin Ergo c. An. I deny the consequenâ—e Misery was threatned to one sin Glory was not promised to one act of Obedience Obedience during life is certainly due from Man to God He that denieth it him in one act denieth him his due But he that giveth it him in one act giveth him but little of his due Your Argument is like these The Souldier that is a Traytor in one act deserveth death Therefore he that watcheth or fighteth but once deserveth all his wages and honour The Son that curseth his Father once deserveth punishment Therefore he that obeyeth him once deserveth the Inheritance He that is bound to pay an hundred pound forfeiteth his Bond if he leave a penny unpaid Therefore he forfeits it not if he pay but a penny The Servant that is hired for a day or year doth forfeit his wages if he be idle or rebel an hour or a day Therefore he deserveth his wages if he do Service but an hour or a day The disease of one part may kill a man Therefore the health of one part only will keep a man alive He that is hired to build a House or a Ship well forfeits his wages for one hole or gross defect Therefore he deserveth his wages if he lay but one Brick or Board But bonum est ex causts integris § 23. M. S. His Sin is more his own than his Obedience Ans The assistance of the Spirit could not take place in the first act because not deserved And his Obedience would have been as much his own as his Sin An. This is quite beyond the Jesuites 1. It 's true that the rewarding gift or help of the Spirit for confirmation was not given Adam to his first act But it 's not true that he had no help of the Spirit If you will not call Gods necessary Grace which you said did sanctifie all his powers by the name of the Spirits help you must say It was the help of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit without which he could have done nothing 2. But can you think that God did as much to his Sin as to his Sanctification and caused it as much as he was ready to cause his first Obedience Should he have been no more beholden to God for his Holiness than for his Sin This is too indifferent
justifie us but condemn us nor Moses's neither nor any but the Law of Grace Your foundation is unsound 2. The imputing of Christ's Suffering is not Gods Language but your own and may be well or ill understood 3. If the Law have nothing against us it hath no Sin of Omission against us Therefore not our omission of Love and Obedience And then we are reputed such as had perfect Love and Obedience 4. But indeed it is not so By the deeds of the Law no Flesh can be justified The Law still hath this against us that we have sinned which he that denieth is called a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. The Reatus Culpae in se or the Reality of this that we have sinned is impossible to be done away But the Reatus poenae culpae ut ad poenam is done away But not by the Law but by the Redeemer and new Covenant The Law doth not say We are sinless or deservers of life But the Gospel saith We are pardoned and adopted and sanctified through Christ's perfect meritorious Righteousness § 31. M. S. Else Sin and Punishment should be the cause of life for Sin is the cause of Suffering and that of Pardon An. This is the grossest passage in this Book A palpable fallacy You may as well say that Lazarus's dying and being buried were the causes of his reviving because antecedent evils from which he was revived Or that the Jews killing Christ were the causes of his Resurrection Or that Peter's cutting off Malchus Ear was the cause that Christ cured him Or that Peter's denying Christ was the cause that Christ pardoned him Sin deserveth Punishment but Punishment as such deserveth not Pardon or Life They in Hell deserve not Heaven If God had threatened but a temporal Punishment As a years sickness c. this had not deserved the following impunity or peace but only interrupted peace the Sin deserving this and no more A Malefactor's scourging deserveth not his after peace And Christ's Suffering merited not our Pardon as reputed our suffering nor meerly as suffering For had we suffered we had not been pardoned But the voluntary Suffering of so glorious and innocent a Person to demonstrate Justice deserved our impunity and more because God would have it so and it was a means most apt for this excellent end to save lost man and to vindicate and glorifie the Wisdom Truth and Justice of the Universal King and to demonstrate the Goodness and Love of our great Benefactor But sufferings as such do merâ—â— nothing even Christs own Sufferings merit but as they are the fruits of Obedience and voluntary consent on the foresaid accounts much less do the sufferings of the Sinner merit For he is supposed involuntary in them and it is God the Judge that is the Author of them as such § 32. M. S. Else the Law should be laid by and life given without it An. The root of all your Error is That God giveth us life by the Law of Innocency or Works and that we are justified by that Lawâ— which is not true God laid none of it by but man by sin made the promissory part which gave life on condition of perfect Obedience and Innocency to be impossible or null It ceased cessante capacitate subditorum by mans mutation and not by Gods But the preceptive part remaineth still as far as it reacheth materially the state of Sinners But man having made it impossible to be justified by the deeds of the Law God made us a new Law or Covenant according to which he judgeth Sinners and by which he first giveth Righteousness and then according to it sentenceth men as Righteous § 33. M. S. Justification of the Posterity of Adam should have been the same for substance as of Believers by Christ Adam's one Act should have confirmed all his Posterity in him as a publick Person The Covenant of Works and of Grace agree in justifying by imputed Righteousness but out of a Head by Generation the other by a divine Person An. This is presumptuous adding to Gods Word in the very substance of the Covenants yea and a flat contradiction of it 1. What Scripture telleth us That all Adam's Posterity should have been confirmed in immutable Holiness if he had obeyed 2. What Scripture saith That one Act should have done this 3. What Scripture saith That his Righteousness should have been imputed to all his Posterity and they all accounted to have fulfilled the Law in him The Scripture tells us nothing of Gods purpose to make so suddain a change of his Law as if he made it but for one man yea for oâ—â— Act and then would make another to Rule the World by ever after The Law said in sense Obey perfectly and live Sin and die Now if the Condition had been performed by one Act or one man for all the World that ever should come of him to the last and they all be born in the fixed possession of the Reward then the Law which giveth that Reward still but conditionally hath no more place As in Hell God doth not say to the damned Obey and live so neither doth he say to them in immutable Glory I give you immutable Glory if you will obey The means cease so far as the end is either attained or desperately lost He that saith Run well and you shall have the prize Fight well and you shall be crowned Overcome and I will give you a Kingdom will not say the same to them when after running fighting overcoming they have received the Prize the Crown the Kingdom though possibly they may have the continuance on condition still if that continuance was not also promised on the first condition alone So that you feign Gods Law to be incredibly mutable if God said by it to Adam Obey in one Act oâ— obey thy self and thou and all thy Posterity for that shall have the Reward For then he can never be supposed to say the same again to Adam or to any man And yet you think you stand so much for the â—mmutability of that Law as that we must all be justified by it to the â—nd Nay it seemeth that after one Act of Obedience all the World should have been under no Covenant any more or no promissory conditional Law but only fixed by necessitating Light and Love as those in Glory â—re For when this Condition was fully performed this Law or Covenant as conditional must needs cease And you imagine not I suppose at least mention not any other conditional Covenant that should â—ucceed it And necessitation is not a Moral Law suited to such as you call cause consilio in this life You would make all the World after one â—ct to be if not lawless yet Comprehensors and not Viators Professors of life eternal and not seekers in a life of trial But I find not but that all Adam's Posterity should have been born and â—ived under the same Law that he was made under And all of them â—hould