Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A86320
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An antidote against antinomianisme. The first dosis. The unjustifiablenesse of justification before faith. Prescribed and administred in a soft answer: I. To seven arguments. II. To the solutions of five objections. III. To the novell distinction of Gods reconciliation to man, without mans reconciliation to God. Penned plainly, for the undeceiving of the plain-hearted Christian; and mildely, for the regaining of our mistaken brother H.D. By D.H.
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D. H.
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Wing H18; Thomason E42_23; ESTC P1317; ESTC R11942
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effectuall calling that is that may be without conversion For that speech which in effect we had afore pag. 23. though we have answered it effectually we hope afore yet lest any should cast an eye upon it here as unanswered and so conceive it unanswerable though you doe but speak not prove wee answer in a word Before Calling and Conversion God doth onely purpose predestinate elect sinners to be loved in time Ephes 1. first 11. verses a place of your own quotation not actually love Rom. 9.23 I will call them my people that were not my people and her beloved that was not beloved And in Gods predestination God doth as well purpose mans fall and foresees him a childe of wrath Ephes 2.2 as his salvation And therefore when God doth actually give Christ to us and us to Christ there is his great and greatest love For in him we have all 1 Cor. 3.22.23 Yet you will hold the conclusion p. 30. That Gods love is as great before faith as after yet you know that God saith Without faith it is unpossible to please him Heb. 11.6 Next you come to answer Objections and we to reply to them Jn the Objection against the Page 32. which you have not answered to refute yet we have spoken to afore that distinction of hating the sinne not the creature which you you reject is a trueth God cannot hate the entities or beings he made Gen. 1.31 Physically considered no not the devill himselfe for being considered so abstractively from sinne God saw all exceeding good But morally considered as sinfully mannered so he hates them He hates the workers of iniquitie because of that iniquity Psal 36.2 He flattereth himselfe till his iniquity be found to be hatefull which done away in Christ he loves them dearely Ephes 2.1 2. Likewise that distinction Page 33. rejected by you Of Gods love of benevolence to the sinner before conversion and his love of Complacience to him after conversion It hath more light in it than all your assertions in this dispute which are a very darknesse provided that it be meetly understood Namely that God hath a benevolent purpose of saving a sinner before conversion or faith in Christ And after these he hath an actuall love of Complacency to him And before that not Mat. 3.17 17.5 So August In quo non cum quo Your own proof shall assert it This is my beloved son IN whom not VVITH whom I am well pleased Heare yee him So that men must heare and have and be in Christ and then God is well pleased with them Not afore This you grant unawares page 38. in your owne Answer to the Objection and so doe yeeld the Question namely in your large parallel or as least antithesis in that page 38. between Justice and Mercy Law and Gospell The summe whereof is to use your owne words That the one declareth wrath without forgivenesse the other mercy grace and peace in Jesus Christ * VVhere also you put a difference very wel of being under the Law and under grace The onely piece of Divinity that we have had from you all this while The Lord keep us all to that In your Answer likewise to the second Objection Page 40. which you propound as against you out of Math. 6.15 and 18.35 If you forgive not men c. your heavenly Father will not forgive you In summe you yeeld the question and overthrow your eternall Justifi-fication c. For you yeeld that there is a time when a man doth not apprehend or lay hold on for the words are the same in sense Gods forgivenesse And that till Gods pardon come to us we cannot pardon men And sure enough we cannot doe that till conversion that makes the Wolfe to dwell with the Lamb as the Prophet speaks Likewise in your last answer Page 46. to the third Objection Page 45. viz. If God love us before conversion as well as after then to what purpose serveth faith I say in your answer to this objection you overthrow your own position of justification before faith For these are your very words Faith is to good purpose that believing you who were under darknesse and in the shadow of death and saw no light yet I say yee might rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory receiving the end of your faith 1 Pet. 1.8 9. * You durst not goe on with the whole 9. ver of that 1 Pet. but break off in the middle excluding that clause Even the salvation of your soules Because that you thought did too apparently attribute salvation to faith Read the place wisely Rom. 15.13 The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing So you Now where is life where is peace before faith comes according to your owne answer and your proofes of Scripture The other three last Objections Page 51. c. against your Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation before faith As 1. That then what need we take care what we doe if we believe the Lord will not love us the better if we believe not he will not love us the worse 2. That then a man may dye without faith and yet be saved 3. Why then doth God suffer us to live in prophanenesse twenty fifty sixty yeares I say these Obiections following meerely on your unsound Doctrine are stronger to doe hurt than all your declamations against desperatenesse and loosenesse and disparaging the power of being under grace beneath some heathens morality are likely to prevent It is in vain for that man to forbid yong people the conclusion of committing fornication that allows them the premises of all wanton carriage Corrupt men are in their kind rationall and they will conclude according to the principles you teach them ☜ A maid led away with this Doctrine said boldly to me that she knew not how she could offend Jesus Christ by any thing she did But I leave men to read the Book of our brethren of New-England touching the tragicall effects of these Doctrines 2. Part. Or Sermon Reconciliation of man to God Page 1. There is say you in Scripture a twofold Reconciliation 1. Originall 2. Actuall Parallel to the distinction of originall and actuall sinne Originall Reconciliation is of our natures Actuall is of our persons Answ 1. There are no such termes of distinction in all the Scripture Those places you bring for it Rom. 5.10 Ephes 2.16 Colos 1.21 2 Cor. 5.18 19. let all men read and iudge whether there be the least hint of any such thing For is this any argument that because the Apostle saith to the Romans Ephesians and Colossians that they were already reconciled and tells the Corinthians that he was now but a perswading them to be reconciled that therefore the Corinthians had one reconciliation and were to have another For nakedly this is the sense of your inference For these are your very words you having quoted the former places Now say you compare we these
seven Arguments which if need had required might have been seventie Now I will answer the Objections An Answer to Argument VII IF we are not justified in his sight before we believe a then we are unjust sinners workers of iniquity Answer So we are As we have shewed out of Ephes 2.2 Where we are said to walke after the course of the world to be guided by the Spirit that ruleth in the children of disobedience and to be children of wrath as well as others till we be in Christ by faith v. 4 5 6 7 8. So 1 Cor. 6.9.10.11 But then saith the obiection If we be workers of iniquity God hates us Psalm 5. 1. Answ We know no middle between Gods love and hate And the text saith plainly that till they be called they are in regard of actuall love a people not beloved Rom. 9.24.25 ☞ Some reply that this is meant of the Gentiles To which 1. We reply that that is all one In the Gentiles we see those that were not beloved afore the call are beloved after 2. That the text names Jewes and Gentiles and brings that of Hos to prove it with which if we go on to end of 3. chap. of Hos it is fully proved Chapters are of late invention Besides that 9. of Rom. we alledge that Ezekiell 16.8 It was a time of love This text is urged against us but you may see it is for us For it should seeme it was not the time of love till God passed by her and spread his skirt over her the righteousnesse and excellency of Christ In order of nature she lay in her blood before justified and loved But in order of time at the same time yea minute of time she was in her blood was justified and loved At the same time the soule is created in man But in order of nature the understanding acts before the will And whereas it is said Esau have I hated not Jacob But Iacob have I loved This the Apostle applies peremptorily to Election and reprobation Now Election is every where in Scripture called a purpose If any where it be called a love we must be forced to ioyn both together unlesse we will set the Scriptures together by the eares and say It is a purpose of love Now a purpose is not an act nor an act a purpose Gods decree is not the execution nor the execution the decreeing 2. Answ Isay 1.13 Your incense is abomination to me the calling of Assemblies I cannot away with it it is iniquity even the solemne meeting your new moones and your appointed feasts my soule hateth c. And all because their hands were full of blood But ver 18. Come now let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow See here is as much said of hating those that should be pardoned ver 25. as of Sodom and Gomorrah ver 10. God cannot hate the essence of the Devill being his creature but onely his manners So of the iustified before iustified as we have shewed Answ b What absurdity can be conceived by one principled with Divinity For though man could fall in the first Adam yet he cannot fall from the second Adam being once in him For the gifts and calling of God Rom. 11. are without repentance We can perfectly sinne being out of Christ and so deserve to be hated But we being in Christ have a perfect righteousnesse in him that saves them to the utmost that is for ever that come to God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them Heb. 7.25 So that as he breaks the power of corrupt nature that it cannot sinne perfectly with a full will Rom. 7. so he perfectly pardons all sinne that there is no condemnation Rom. 8.1 Objection 1. We are justified by Faith therefore not before Faith Answer First it should have concluded not before the act of beleeving a Secondly I denie the consequence and say we may be justified both by it and yet before in a different sense This Proposition We are justified by Faith is very ambiguous He was not a Foole who an hundred years since said that this Proposition was one of those things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do other Scriptures to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3.16 I would our Age had not proved it true that the misunderstanding of this Proposition hath turned upside down the Doctrine of Justification amongst pudling preachers There is in this Proposition two words ambiguous and doubtfull The first Justified which sometimes in Scriptures signifieth to be reputed reckonned or accounted Just as It is God that iustifieth Sometimes it is taken for to be declared or manifested to be Just as By workes a man is iustified James 2.24 If you take Justified in the first sense we say we are not reputed or reckoned Just by the act of believing If you take Iustified in the second sense I say we are justified that is declared to be Iust by believing Faith manifesting to our consciences that we are Iust before God By Faith we understand that God hath freely iustified us in his Son Another word ambiguous in this Proposition is Faith which is diversly taken sometimes for the act of Faith or believing and sometimes for the obiect of Faith the thing believed as Faith was reckoned unto him for righteousnesse Rom 4. that is the obiect of faith So that it is all one as if he had said God or Christ was reckoned to him for righteousnesse If we understand the act of Faith then I say as before we are not reckoned Iust by the act of our faith if by faith we understand the obiect of our faith then I say we are reckoned or reputed Iust by God in by or through Christ Jesus our Faith An answer to your reply to the 1. Obiection We are iustified by faith therefore not before faith Your Answer is 1. That the conclusion should be not before the act of believing We reply the conclusion should not have more termes in it then the premises 2. That if a man hath the habit of faith he cannot but be actually in Christ For it is part of Christ 2. You answer That you deny the consequence We reply That which is said to be done by an instrument inferres it is not done without the instrument 3. You reply that a man may be iustified by faith and yet be iustified before faith in a different sense distinguishing of the reputation of one iust and the manifestation of one iust And of Fides quâ fides quam of faith and its obiect What is all this to the purpose when your own former replies do intimaredly confesse that you took the Argument to mean iustification it selfe not the manifestation and faith the quality not the obiect For the Apostle doth not mean Rom. 5.1 that Christ is the instrumentall cause but the meritorious cause And faith the