Religion in so short a time so mightily grew and prevailed that so great a part of the world from so small and even despicable a beginning became so fully and so quickly seasoned with it It were a full answer I acknowledg to say It was the Lords time and he would so have it But because the Lords operations are all done in wisdom truth and righteousness an inferiour subordinate cause visible to our eies may be also alledged when the Lord had purposed to do this great work he ordained and fitted instruments for it The Ministers which he employed the first threescore years and upward about the work of Reformation were such as clave only and wholly to the word both in preaching and defending the sacred truth of the Gospel minding only Christ Jesus not seeking their own things their own greatness glory and praise but the things of Christ Denyed all other authority save Christs knew no other admitted no other Master to define and determine any thing in matters of Religion but Christ alone Therefore whether they provoked the Adversaries or were provoked by them to disputation their challenge or receiving the challenge was stil upon this condition that the Word alone must be umpire in all things Thus they had Disputes before the Emperour Charls the 5. so they offered themselves to be disputers in the Councel of Trent But still refused the authority of Aristotle and his genuine sons Thom Aquinas John Duns Scotus and the whole rabble of their followers and all the testimonies and learning of such as incompetent Judges of heavenly things Thus these holy men ploughed the Lords field with his own Heyfers and sowed it with his own seed therefore he gave so large an encrease They preached as they had commandment and commission from him only his Gospel and all and only whatsoever he had commanded them therefore according to his promise he was with them giving a blessing But if it be further demanded how it came to pass at last that there was a stop to the glorious proceedings of the success of the Ministry of the Gospel these last sixty years that we see not any further propagation of the truth but Antichrist rather regaining strength than losing and the kingdom of Christ rather declining than increasing I answer that as about that time the new sect of Loyalla the Jesuits came to some maturity who being spes ultima Romae ruentis the last subsidiary help of the Romish nodding and falling power perceived that they might seek but not find any fulture from the Scriptures to their fainting cause therefore applied themselves to the study of Aristotle the Pagan and the Schoolmen the Semi-pagans drinking into themselves their sophistry and refining it into som-what a purer Language though most of them retain a scholastical style still And being thus furnished they provoke our Divines to a dispute objecting against them that through their ignorance and illiterate sottishness they dared not to dispute scholastically therefore still cryed Scripture Scripture to hide their want of Schollarship from the eyes of men As about that time I say there were in such an operation a new kind of Antagonists against the power of the Gospel So on our part in many Churches there succeeded the former Worthies about the same time Pastors in their own eyes possibly of a more noble but in spiritual eyes of a baser mettall who to evade that scandal laid upon us by the Adversaries that we destroyed good works by our Doctrine of free Grace through Christ preached some mens inventions superstitions and traditions others meer moralities legalities or duties after the tenor of the Law scarce touching upon the strings of the Gospel to tune up the Justification Life Liberty Peace Joy and other priviledges which are by Christ And to gain to themselves an applause and opinion among men of their universal Learning assented to the forenamed Challengers to discend to them in their own Field and to traverse their Disputes about heavenly things after the rules of worldly wisedom thus basely prostituting the cause and doctrine of the Lord Christ to the censure and arbitration of Heathen Philosophers and of John Duns and other enemies to the purity of the Gospel For in trying all by their learning by the light of Reason which they have dazled and sophisticated with their rules and precepts is to make them judges of Christ and his Gospel how farr they shall stand or fall Who can deny but in stead of the former Eagles which the Church had that stil beheld the Sun of righteousnes to fetch their light from his beams we had now Owls that looked downward and pitched upon the elements and rudiments of the world and worldly learning as the Apostle terms them Col. 2. 8. to fetch light authority thence in pretence to maintain the truth but in deed and successe to betray it No marvell if in this case Christ hath with-drawn himself and his blessing from such Apologists for his Cause which plead for him with such a kind of argumentation as is worse then totall silence For what of Christ is there in such disputes when the first syllogism or its prossyllogism or a distinction diverts the question from all the lists of Divinity into Philosophy or Metaphysicks c. and not the least parcell or particle of Scripture is any more heard of through the whole disputation It is but as it falls ouâ— sometimes between two Apes that having a heap of shels cast before them which they take for nuts inconsiderately break out into a skirmish rending in pieces either the others jackets and then with tooth and nail wound either the others hides untill the weaker yeeld the victory to the stronger and the Conquerour by his victory gets nothing but shels to break his teeth not a kernell to stay his hunger So when a question in Divinity once translated and removed into Logick in this element to be tryed there is notable jangling untill one of the Antagonists that hath the stronger front and more subtle brain and clamorous voyce hath put the other to silence and then one is as wise and as great a gainer as the other For the question is adhuc sub judice where it was it was above all logicall and metaphysical notions to decâ—de it I acknowledg that in such disputes it hath much delighted me sometimes to find the sophistical fallacies of an adversary detected and shamed in a logicall way by some of our Divines Yet this in no wise either doth or should satisfie me as touching the question untill I find the true assertion confirmed â—y Scripture it self One testimony from above in this case is of more worth and weight than a thousand volumes of Arguments drawn out of worldly wisedom which is from beneath And lest I should be taken as singular in this peece of prattle as Mr. Baxter will term it I shall mention in stead of many two famous modern Writers the one speaking with
understand not the points which they teach much less can produce any Scriptures surely and soundly to confirm them I answer that the Scriptures are very full and punctuall against taking upon trust of meer men any doctrine to be believed to salvation Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Mat. 23. 10. q. d. Dare not any of you to suffer any to take up matters in Religion upon your trust or authority For there is but one unerring Mr. whose authority is authentick Christ Jesus If Paul or an Angell from heaven preach any other Gospel to you c. let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. therefore not trusted Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5. 21. Believe not every Spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God For many false Prophets are gone forth into the world 1 Joh. 4. 1. When the Holy Ghost saith Prove all Try all he implyedly forbids to take up any thing on trust from men My sheep hear my voyce the voyce of a stranger they will not hear for they know not i. e. own not the voyce of strangers Joh. 10. 4 5 27. They know and own the voyce of Christ alone If any preach with another voyce another doctrine than that which is originally from Christ they fly from him explode him Here is nothing taken upon trust but from Christ himself They are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. A more noble foundation than the trust and authority of men I might annex many like testimonies of divine Scripture to the same purpose but to what purpose They are Deceivers such as the Apostle numbreth among grievous wolves speakers of perverse things i. e. perverters of the Gospel of Christ that seeke to draw Disciples after them i. e. to settle men in a Faith upon the authority of their learning wisedom and holiness Acts 20. 29 30. But Mr Baxter and his peers are necessitated thus to do if in teaching such doctrines they will draw after them Disciples For being destitute of the authority of God and his word if they should not urge men to a credulity upon the authority of men their doctrine would be hissed at as having no authority To conclude then the doctrine which Mr. Baxter here more than obscurely holds forth is 1 Against Christ and all the Reformed Churches which condemn it borrowed of and owned by the apostatized Synagoue of Rome only 2 Against the Scripture as hath been manifested 3 It is a doctrine that brings with it an unsetledness and instability in Faith and Religion Whosoever takes it up from Mr. Baxters credit must be always learning and never know be whirled hither and thither with doubts and uncertainties without any firm station never attaining rest For he that taketh upon trust from his Teachers what to believe and do to be saved will one day be of Paul another of Apollo and a third of Cephas as his fancy tels him this or that Teacher is most worthy to be trusted In great probability Mr. Baxters predecessor taught not the same Justification with Mr. Baxter and he that shall succeed him will hold out the same grounds and way of justification with Christ and his Apostles which Mr. Baxter declineth And I know not but either of them may be as worthy of Trust as himself In what a maze must that people then be led by what turnings and returnings must they be dragged forward and backward who are taught to take up doctrines on the trust of their Teachers what joy in believing can they ever have whose rule in believing is to be never setled in their faith but to be still wavering His Disciples must needs be meer weather-cocks tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning crafâ—inesse whereby they lay in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. 4 It is a doctrine that makes way for all Heresie Blasphemy and Impiety into the hearts of the people For when Religion is taken upon trust from the Teachers Satan will transform himself into an Angel of light and his Ministers themselves into Ministers of Righteousness to gain credit and opinion of wisdom and holiness above others among the people that upon their trust at last the people may swallow all falshoods under the name of Truth whatsoever they shall commend to them 2 Cor. 11. 13-15 See whither the Galathians were carryed by taking upon trust from their seemingly Angelical Teachers doctrines of faith Christ is become of no effect to you ye are faln from grace saith the Apostle to them Gal. 5. 4. Surely the doctrine of Mr. Baxter is the same in generall and substance with theirs that corrupted and seduced Galatia The Lord avert the like success from Kederminster 5 It is a Doctrine pernicious in it self and brings a curse upon them that receive it in the very receiving of it For cursed is man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm whose heart departeth from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. If so in earthly much more in spirituall things So much of this point in which having found what Mr. Baxter is before his entrance upon the bulk of his work we may easily conjecture what a one we shall find him being entred CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters Sophisticall way and Method of dispute to obscure and not to cleer the truths of the Gospel discovered And that therein he imitates the Papists IN the former Chapter we have found Mr. Baxter before his entrance upon his Treatise somewhat discovering with whom he joyns in opinion so far that we may discern and guess ex ungue leonem by one little piece of the man what he is in his whole bulk and frame It contents him not to be one and the same with the Papists in his judgment but that he will next also discover himself to be the same with them in their slights and artifice to bring all others into the same judgment and opinion with them That generation of the Popish Schoolmen are fitly likened by Sir Francis Bacon in his Advancement of learning to Spiders which spin out their webbs out of their own bowels So these spinn all their doctrines in religion out of their own brains their own reason naming Christ sometimes therein but rather hiding and darkning the authority of his word than following it as their leading threed in all their doctrines All their writings about Evangelicall and saving points of knowledg are but as so many webs of their fancy to catch and carry away from the purity of Christs Gospel not so many well-ordered threeds of sacred Scriptures to guide and bring us to him Who is there of all that have but cursorily read their works that finds them not consisting of large heaps of needless and superfluous questions to obscure the light of the word and to bring all to the tryall of reason yea sophisticall and sophisticated
further to take his pastime in his Logicall and Metaphysicall learning which may possibly please him but never justifie or save him and partly by shewing the weaknesse of the objection to gull his unwary reader with an opinion of the weaknesse of their cause who are forced with such Egyptian reeds for lack of better pillars to sustain it It is one of the Jesuits principles to fetch armes indifferently either from heaven or hell to storm the Church and truth of Christ and to promote the holy mother harlot of Rome But I am weary following him while he brings nothing but the Socinians right reason to be judge of the Mysterious doctrines of Christ and fear whether it be answerable before God to spend time in answering his babble with babble again for the truth of Christ doth neither stand nor fall by what can be said for it or against it out of the principles or learning of abused Aristotle Let Mr. Baxter call to minde what he hath read as elsewhere so in his adored Schibler in the second book of his Metaph. Cap. 3. in his interserted oration a little before the end of that book pa. 211. of the book printed at Oxford concerning the sophister convinced by an unlearned Confessour after his almost victorious disputes against all the Doctors of the Nicene councell many dayes together If he take it for a truth it may help to convince him that God is more effectually present in disputations about Evangelicall matters when they are totally confined to the Word then when they are handled after the rule and in the Predicament of carnall reason It argues that he undertakes a businesse not for God but against him else would he not cast away spirituall and take up fleshly arms to maintain it But fith Mr. Baxter is Mr. Baxter we shall crave leave to speak the lesse to him henceforth where we find him to have little of the word and reserve our selves to speak more largely where the man for his recreation vouchsafeth to abase himself so low as to meddle with Scriptures B. Quest But though faith be not the instrument of justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ who justifyeth us Ans I do not so much stick at this speech as at the former yet is it no proper or fit exprâ—ssion neither For 1. The act of faith which is it that justifyeth is our actuall receiving of Christ and therefore cannot be the instrument of receiving To say our receiving is the instrument of our receiving is a hard saying 2. And the seed or habit of faith cannot fitly be called an instrument For 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument it being the soul it self and not any thing really distinct from the soul nor really distinct from each other as Scotus Dr. Orbellus Scaliger c. Dr. Jackson Mr. Pemble think and Mr. Ball questions 2. The holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument For 1. It is nothing but themselves rectifyed and not a being so distinct as may be called their instrument 2. Who ever calleth habits or dispositions the souls instruments The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument of it You may as well call a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ I have before expressed in what sense we make or at least hold faith to be mans instrument in applying Justification to himself And 2. have manifested the testimonies and authority of the Scripture herein so that Mr. Baxter if he list as it listeth him to cavill cavils not so much against all godly Protestant writers whom he opposeth as against the holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Christ himself and his Apostles whom thorow the loins of those he smites at It is not the first time that he hath accused Christ and the holy Ghost in this manner of impropriety and unfitnesse of expressions in Scriptures And why because they speak not enough logically and in all probability never read thorow Aristotles Metaphysicks But let us hear what he can say here to prove the unpropernesse of that language which calleth faith an instrument of receiving Christ and justification in and by him His reasons are above in his own words rendered To the first I answer Mr. Baxter makes and layes his own principles of Religion and from them as from an impregnable mount he battereth Christ and his doctrine Should we grant him that faith is the receiving of Christ yet 1. How shall it appear otherwise then by Mr. Baxters own Magisteriall dictates that justifying faith is nothing else but the receiving of Christ 2. Why else doth he make it simply and only a quality or act of the soul without the adjection of its originall from above but to ingenerate into the minds of men an opinion that it hath its emanancy and rise from nature from freewill that every man may have and act it if and when he will and that it is not infused of God to be instrumentall by his appointment for the producing of any spirituall effect 3. How doth he prove that onely the act of faith justifyeth Yet 4. If all these dubious things were granted to him his own words therein tend to the confirmation rather then the infirming of the main conclusion which he opposeth that faith is the instrument of justification For if the act of faith be the receiving then must faith it self so acting be the receptrix or that by which we receive Christ but that by which man receiveth Christ is instrumentall to his receiving of justification for Christ is made of God to us righteousnesse he that hath Christ hath life specially this will follow upon Mr. Baxters principle of Christ and justification given to all universally to none in particular he must be made ours therefore by receiving him and if faith doth receive how doth it receive but as an instrument or whereas the well is deep and we have nothing of our own to draw with what shall be the instrument of drawing and receiving if faith be not it 5. And in this lyeth Mr. Baxters Sophism that he puts the act of faith for faith actuated Though the act of faith were the receiving of Christ yet faith actuated and acting is that by which we receive Christ and to say that by which we receive is the instrument of our receiving is not a hard but a proper saying The act of Mr. Baxters hand was the writing of these lines To say that his writing was the instrument of his writing is a hard saying but to say his hand acted in writing was his instrument of writing it is not a hard saying To the second It is wholly Sophisticall For when he saith 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument because it is the soul it self what is this to the purpose
to receive None can come to the Son except the Father draw him Jo. 6. 44. But if he mean a facility and easines of receiving by means of the concurrence of Gods grace making it easy then is it alike easy to all men that are holpen alike by Gods grace and alike difficult yea unpossible to all that are left destitute of it So that the easines or difficulty of perswading the multitude to entertain this or that doctrine of Justification can be no sure rule of concluding either doctrine to couzen or to save the soul Besides I deny the assumption in the whole and in both its parts For how can that which is a supernaturall doctrine be easily received by naturall men the whole stream of whose wisedom and will is against it such as is Justification by Faith in the redeemed or that which is a naturall doctrine dictated by naturall reason and conscience I mean a doctrine of naturall right be so excedent in difficulty to receive such as is Justification by works Mr. Br flies here to Experience to apologize for him Try saith he the ungodly people whether all would not whether there be a man to be found that will not easily be perswaded to beleeve that Christ will pardon and save them But whether it be not the hardest thing in the world to perswade them to take Christ for their Lord and to yeeld obedience accordingly c. Not to except here against his words in which he putteth a believing that Christ will pardon and save for a justifying Faith though when he doth but dream he hath taken that advantage against another as wee have seen he insults over him as over a mock-man or puppet and can hardly abstâ—in from tossing him in a blanket Nor against the ill disposing of the parts of the Antithesis glancing lightly over that which he would blow off into a vapour but giving its full weight and power to that which he will have to stand I shall take his words in that sense in which he would be understood by as many as he hath a hope to beguile And thus to his direction try whether all do not profess their Faith in Christ the Saviour that they trust and will trust in his merits alone for salvation and pardon I answer Try the ungodly multitude whether they do not every Mothers Child profess that they embrace Christ for their Lord and that they do and will yeeld obedience to him to their dying day as well as God shall give them grace Object But they say and do not professe but yield not actually this obedience Answ So the former also say and do not profess a full reliance upon and receiving of Christ for righteousness but perform it not For if they so received Christ they should have Rivers of living water flowing out of them Jo. 7. 38. of carnall should become spirituall and of unclean holy Nay if experience must be the judge Mr. Brs Cause falleth I have tryed it and by tryall found it the hardest task to perswade the multitude to receive Christ Crucified alone to their justification and salvation Prove the more ungodly party specially in the time of their distress upon their death-bed or otherwise when their Conscience is awaked and the terrors of God are upon them Seek now to perswade them to repose their affrighted souls upon Christ their Altar to trust in the Mediation of his blood how averse are they they look upon Christ as a hard and strict man a Judge a Law-giver distributing strict justice to every man according to his works And they alas have no vertue or goodness or holines to ingratiat themselves into his favour but sin enough to incense the very jealousie of his fury against them therefore dare not come to him because they have no worth of their own righteousnes and works that they can plead for themselves Look to the more whited Pharisees the Saints of Mr. Brs forming how hard is it to perswade them to cast off their own righteousnes that they may be found in Christ alone They put on their own raggs first and not Christ at all but upon them They thank God they have served God from their youth up have not defiled themselves with the filth and iniquity which they have seen in others have had such vertues and been full of such and such good works therefore they doubt not but Christ will recompence them with life and salvation But he that seeks to spoil or to perswade them to spoil themselves of the glory and power of such their vertues and good works to justification shall find it as hard a task as to wrest the Club out of the hand of Hercules as it is in the Proverb Men after mine own heart saith Mr. Br. Be it so yet that is nothing to the question except they be after Gods heart And Mr. Brs Argument is hereby dissolved For it appears that it is not easy to perswade the multitude to receive Christ alone to salvation But whether his chief scope in this his reasoning be not to condemn all the Protestant Churches of levity and impiety for departing from Rome so easily in thousands and ten thousands together in so many Nations and within so few years by the lure of this Libertine and soul-cozening doctrine as he terms it I leave it to his own Conscience to judge This himself makes evident that in the Articles of grace and justification he holds it a damnable schism in us so to have divorced our selves from Rome and applyeth himself with all his strength to make up the breach and bring us back again The rest which Mr. B. hath interserted and which followeth in this Quere is light and ridiculous prepared for the gulling of light and ridiculous men altogether beneath the weight and depth which is in Mr. Bax. and which he useth when he deals with men like himself solid and serious at least in naturall and morall knowledg such is that which he hath p. 327. B. They all trust Christ for the saving of their souls c. Are all these justified why not there wants a Morall and Theologicall sincerity why is that but because they take but halfe of Christ Not to speak here either of the prime piece of knowledg here taught wherein Morall and Theologicall sincerity i. e. Phylosophicall and Metaphysicall sincerity consists viz. in taking the whole and not the halfe of things Nor secondly of the mans fastidious scorn of Scripture-terms and his hunting after exotick words to dimm and stifle the purity and simplicity of the Gospel I shall come to the matter it selfe and here I demand of himself 1 Whether they which receive Christ crucified do not receive whole Christ Christ which by the eternall spirit offered himself without spot to God saith the Apostle Heb. 9. 14. What was there here wanting of whole Christ There was his divine nature the Eternall Spirit offering the humane nature himself offered and the same in
and actions the godly are called Righteous in Scripture and their faith and duties are said to pleas God viz. at they are related to the Covenant of grace i. e. as they are coÌ„ditions procuring our Justification by Christ as well as in regard of the imputed Righteousnes which he addeth but as a cypher bringing no proof for it but all seemingly for the former Aphor. Thes 18 19 20 22 and its explication p. 119. c. We are justified by works commanded This is the generall vote of all Popish writers none excepted in the Law yet as they make up not our Legall but our Evangelicall Righteousness not as they are done upon legall terms but as they are conditions of the New Covenant This is the chief substaÌ„ce of Mr Brs whole book and it is a poorer shift to elude the doctrine of Paul than is that of the Papists Love is an essentiall part of Justifying Faith not properly a fruit of of it Aph. p 266. When Faith therefore The common Tenet of Papists not love is said to justifie it is said so to work in its essentiall work of accepting by Love pa. 268. That both are necessary to salvation are concurrent in apprehending Christ is doubtless p. 271. Love doth truly receive Christ c. p. 224. The people are to understand that for them to take upon trust from their Teachers what they cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary that many This also is a known Tenet among the Papists do imagin Epistle to the reader in the last page save two These may suffice for a Taste by which the reader may judge whether Mr. Brs and the Papists Barrells are filled with the same Herring or not Should I proceed to Compare also his and their equivocations ambiguities mentall reservations together with their purposed and not unwary Contradictions when to say and deny the same thing in severall places as may severally make for their advantage But specially if I should go on to Compare them how they bring the same arguments to prove their severall assertions and the same distinctions and other shifts of Sophistry to elude the Scriptures and reasons which make against them I should procedere ad infinitum almost begin but finde no end In alleaging the words of the severall Authors something here and there hath perhaps been abbreviated some words standing as cyphers without waight in reference to the questions Controverted interserted to make up some orderly Connexion of the following with the foregoing particular cited But no where have I wittingly Committed any such alteration of the words as to alter in one Title the sense of the Writer as will be evident to all that will but take the pains to examine the citations with their authentique or books from which they are cited Neither is there any one thing alleaged in which the two parties Cohere but what hath been still Controverted between the Papists and Protestants Else would it be easie to produce a thousand particulars wherein the Pope and Luther themselves speak one and the same thing without opposition or difference If any where when Mr. Br and the Papists speak the same words yet Mr. Br means not punctually the same thing with the Papists in every such allegation I undertake to manifest that he is worse and delivers more self-exalting Grace-depressing doctrine than they Yet all this is too little to set forth the frame of Mr. Brs spirit he may take himself injured and left too obscure if he be but matched with the Papists and have no pre-eminence granted him before and above them in exalting mans righteousnes and nullifying the Grace of God in Christ That we may not rob him of the praise to which his ambition seems to aspire we will grant to him that the Papists are but the Pigmies and he the Giant that in the battell between Michael and the Dragon he hath superexcelled more deserved the Scarlet Hat Miter Crosier yea Triple Crown it sâ—lf than they that have and wear them if not by his Art yet at least by his daring boldnes in his undertakings This service therefore I shall do him to manifest not onely his equality with but also his exâ—perancy above many of the famous Champions of Rome That many of the brave Cardinals Bishops Jesuits and Fryars of the Church of Rome are Protestants in the poynt of Justification as compared with Mr. Br and that he sheweth himself in many particularâ— about this doctrine a Papist of a deeper dye than the more modest Papists yea than some of the most Jesuitized and Trentified Rabbi's among them This shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVII A comparing of Mr. Baxters Doctrine with the Doctrine of some of the more Modest and other more Trentified and Jesuitized Papists in which he is found more Antichristian than they Papists 1 IT is to be noted that the Scripture attributeth this imputation of Righteousness to no other thing but Faith 2 Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to forgive and reconcile but all its vertue proceeds from its object namely Christ whose vertue and merit God hath disposed to apply to the sinner unto Justification by Faith on him 3 If it be enquired how the Law of Faith is distinguished by Paul against the Law of works even of morall works when Faith also is comprehended under the genus or kind of works for to beleeve is our work The solution is that to beleeve in him that justifieth the ungodly leaneth upon the Righteousnes of another to wit of God through Christ but other works do lean upon their own Righteousness every work is in or after it self good and makes him good that hath it 4 If Faith as it is a certain Act and of it self should procure Righteousness then were not Righteousness given freely God hath not used works to justifie as he hath used Faith that men should not boast attributing Righteousness to the vertue or merit of works 5 Faith is not counted to us for Righteousness as if it self were made our Righteousness but because it brings a Righteousness on man before God not as it is an act of man then Grace should be of works for to beleeve is a kind of work but of Gods will as he hath willed that Righteousness should be given to man by Faith and the vertue of Christ upon whom man beleeveth should be communicated to the beleever This is to count or impute Faith to Righteousness before God 6 Whereas we attain a twofold Righteousness by Faith an inherent Righteousness c. by which we become pertakers of Gods nature and the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us c. It remains to be enquired upon which of these we ought to lean or trust and to account our selves justified before God My judgment is that we are to rest to rest I say as upon a stable
saith our Saviour When the case is like it at present and the Angelici Doctores are silent it is the fit season for Christ to animate the very Terrae filios to speak in the defence of his grace I held my selfe the unfittest of many if not of all to come upon this stage yet not so unfit but if none else would I tooke my self obliged to ascend it Yea such is the power of Truth this Truth of Truths this great and cardinall truth here controverted that I feare not by the word and in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to enter the Lists with all men and Devills that shall oppugn it so vain a shadow is all the wisdome and sophistry of men and depths of Satan when opposed to the Gospel of Christ which is the power and wisdome of God It will next be objected that this Tractate of mine comes forth into publique view more raw rugged incompendious and unpolished than befits the Majestie of the Doctrine whereof it treateth I doe not I cannot deny it I saw what should have been done more but was not in a capacity to do it That which I can say for my self is 1. That it was written for private use without any purpose to make it common untill I came to the latter part and almost the end of it 2. My acquaintance knoweth how many and how long interruptions of sicknesse I had in the writing thereof that I was but Canis ad Nilum did all by snatches which much hindered the right composure of the whole and connexion of its parts 3. I could not find one man about us that vel prece vel pretio was fit and willing to transcribe one Copie thereof neither was in strength of body to do it my selfe So that what was first done in the same Crasso filo in which it was first done without any abreviations alterations or polishings is now presented to the Printer to be made use of My judgment telling me that rather a course piece then nothing at all should appear against Mr. Baxter at least to invite others that excell in abilities of minde and body to come after with a more exact Treatise If all this excuse not and that the Velle be no fit Apology to take off the crime of Non Posse I am contented to lie under Censure yet with this comfort that the lesse of man the more of God is to be found in these fruits of my Labours All that is therein being grounded upon the sure word of God whose plainness hath more excellency in it then all mans accuratenesse It remains that before I discend to give my particular exceptions against the Doctrine of this Tractate of Mr. Baxter something be premised 1. Of the Author 2. Of the worke in generall 3. Of my intention in excepting against it The mistake of the two former more deluding some unwary persons as I have observed then all his arguments of themselves could do 1. Then of the Author I can speak nothing of him from my owne acquaintance with him For Albus an ater homo sit nescio I was never so happy or unhappy to see his face therefore must speak of him partly as he hath been represented and described by others partly as he makes out himself 1. Touching his learning as he hath been magnified by others such he manifesteth himselfe He that shall peruse this one Tractate of his must be forced to cry out Quantus quantus nil nisi sapientia est a deep and meer Philosopher I say not Philosophaster yea Grammaticus Rhetor Geometres c. In all partt of humane learning a Cathedrall Doctor But his Master-piece is Sophistry in this way of the worlds sublimated Divinity he is not behind the Angelicall and Seraphicall Doctors Thomas and Scotus and their followers As for that lower and meaner region of Learning viz. Scripture and more specially Gospel-knowledg himselfe tells us that his standing and understanding is mounted above that mentioned Job 8. 9. That for lack of other work and through the defect or absence of better Books he once read the Scripture six dayes together in Append. pag. 110 111. which time he suckt much more out of the Word then ever God breathed into it which he confesseth he could not have done of himselfe without the help of other Books which he had formerly read i. e. without the glosses of the Schoolmen and Jesuites which know so much of Christ as their Master Aristotle could teach them And that this man understands the Scriptures no lesse compleatly than the worst of them in a Catholique sense we shall finde I doubt not when we come to examine the Texts which he brings to prove his Catholique Justification 2. As for his piety strictnesse mortification holinesse zeal c. in respect whereof some have even canoniz'd him for a matchlesse and super-eminent Saint as I have understood by many in the Western parts before I ever saw any of his works I should say enough in saying over what Dr. Twiss hath written in his Answer to the Preface and Prefacer unto Arminius his Anti-perkinsinianism where the Prefacer in the same manner exalteth the parts and vertues of Arminius thereby to make way into the hearts of men to receive his Doctrine The Dr. acquitting himselfe first of any dislike that he hath of the piety of children in advancing their Fathers praise and affirming his desire herein to proceed no further then to lay downe a caution that the truth may receive no damage by the superlative praise of any man answers That although there might be opposed against Arminius that dissent from him in iudgment even the whole cloud of Protestant Divines the very lights of the Church that in parts and vertues were no way behind Arminius if not his superiours yet he will not do it because neither hath God commanded nor is it safe for us to make the splendor of mens persons but the infallible word of the most High our rule to judge of Doctrines and try the opinions of men But I adde secondly That it hath been usuall to Satan in all ages to employ whited Sepulchers beautifull without to broach and defend Heresies in the Church He wants not his depths is not ignorant that men of vitious lives are unfit to deceive and pervert consciences Therefore when himselfe will deceive he puts off his Devils face and transforms himselfe into an Angell of Light No marvaile then if he teach his Ministers when they are about to seduce to transforme themselves into Apostles of Christ and Ministers of Righteousnesse 2 Cor. 11. 13. 15. Where hath there ever been more appearance of holinesse and men cannot search the heart then in the Scribes and Pharisees Then in the Monks and Fryers then among the Socinians yea among the very Turkes Shall then the outward varnish of their seeming vertues befool us to drink downe their damning doctrines 3 Though Paul or an Angel from Heaven preach unto you another
Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. saith the Holy Ghost but whether Mr Baxter doth in this Treatise bring us another Gospel his Doctrine in the Examination thereof will manifest 4 I would that this his Treatise did speak him out to be so strictly and tenderly conscientious as his friends proclaim him I should then either in person have made recourse to him to communicate my thoughts to him or written in another tone in the spirit of meeknesse to him to have received fuller satisfaction from him if my impotency could not have ministred some information to him But we shall find in what he writes many things that may work in us a jealousie of the sincerity of a sanctified Conscience in him I shall here mention some generals leaving the rest untill we come to except against the particulars One thing that occasioneth this jealousie is the want of ingenuity truth and simplicity in his Assertions For one instance hereof we need not step further then to the title of the work where he affirms it to be published especially for the use of the Church of Kederminster in Worcestershire Can any man that hath but glanced an eye on the surface of humane literature think him to mean as he speaketh Either we must conclude that he hath the very spirit of all Philosophicall and Metaphysicall learning which he breaths forth as effectually upon his Disciples as Knipperdoling did the Holy Ghost upon his Anabaptists or else his Church for the greatest number of its members is not in a capacity of understanding him That his Church by his presidency in it is on a sudden become a Najoth in Ramah every Saul that comes neer it doth philosophari if not prophetare so that ex ejus Ludo tanquam ex equo Trojano innumeri principes exiêre Pauls Princes I mean Princes in secular wisedome and learning 1 Cor. 2. 6. 8. else if his people have no such inspiration above other Churches surely the most of them stagger at the first word in the title of the Book understand not the tenth part of his sacred subtle distinctions but in most things that he saith he is to them a Barbarian and they to him Nay Mr Baxter is not a novice he knowes where and for what mouths to chew his morsels and to whom to give them to be chewed It was especially for the nimble wits and logicall Teachers of the Churches that this broth was boyled as I shall shew more fully afterward that having misled the leaders he might by them mislead their flocks also 2 And as little ingenuity and truth is there in him where he quoteth some whom he against his stomach cals Orthodox Divines and from some locutions and fragments of their sentences concludes them to be of his Judgement when he knowes their Doctrine about Justification to be so diametrically opposite to his as hell to heaven and Antichrist to Christ so that if they be Orthodox himselfe must needs be Hetorodox This he well knowes but his ingenuity and single-heartednes hides it and pretends the contrary 3 Is not his face Ferry-man-like one way and his motion another when the whole tenor of what he writes is not to set up any new opinion but to erect again and put life into that cursed Heresie of the Papists Justification by Works yet to hide his purpose from them that see not or will not see he sometimes solemnly professeth before God that it is no affectation of singularity that drew him to this Judgement at other times falls foul with the Papists telling us that no advantage is to be given to the Papists in this Doctrine of Justification when himselfe all the while is ploughing their field and strengthening their hands to the offence of all the truly wise and godly what hypocrisie sembling and dissembling is this Why doth he acquit himselfe of that which no man chargeth upon him What understanding Reader of him can harbour one thought of his bending to singularity It is plain to every eye that is open that he walks not solitary but hath thronged himselfe into the communion of the Holy Mother Church and fellowship of all her Saint Popish Schoolmen Monks Fryers and Jesuites That his study is to lay an odium implicitely and in the dark upon us I mean not onely all the Orthodox Divines but also all the Reformed Churches that have been or now are that they are all guilty of singularity seperation and Apostacy in departing from the Romish Synagogue in the Doctrine of Justification therefore hath he spread his nets to catch as many as he can to carry them back into Babylon againe Let Mr Baxter have as he hath a confident and swelling opinion of his owne abilities but let him not so abuse all others as if star-like their light must be totally dazled at the approach of his supposed sun-beams Wretched England if all her Seers are become blind and none can discern Christ from Antichrist even in his mystery Nay let him know that there are many which see and detest what he hath written no lesse then if it had been sent by the Popes own Legate to beguile Ingenuity truth and sincerity would have acted another way Mr Baxter if he had been seasoned therewith would have plainly acknowledged that he had examined the Controversie between us and the Papists about Justification that as far as his comprehension can reach he finds them in the truth and us erroneous and then should have alledged the Scriptures and other Arguments which they produce for the establishing of their Tenents and the Exceptions which in the Reformed Churches have been made against such Arguments and shewed the invalidity of those Exceptions in no wise answering or weakning the Popish Reasons by means whereof his judgement and conscience force him to side with them and not with us Thus candour and conscience would have wrought upon him for he cannot deny but that both he closeth with them in the same conclusions and that all the Scriptures Arguments and distinctions scarce any excepted which he brings for the promoting of such Conclusions are taken from the Papists and have been answered over and over a hundred times by our Divines Therefore to set forth his Assertions as new and to annex his Reasons for the confirmation thereof as now first heard of argues intolerable impudency in his daubing and dissembling To have dealt thus candidly and conscientiously would have excited many learned and holy men to a lovely conference with him which now contemn him as a seducer and seduced but if this had been done where should the crooked Serpent and working of Satan and Deceivablenasse of unrighteousnesse which still accompany that Man of sin and those that beare his marke have appeared 2 Thess 2. 9 10. 4 And his doublenesse and liegerdemain is no lesse exercised in that thorow-out his Treatise he is ever and anon sparkling his fire-brands against the Antinomians thereby secretly instilling into his unwary Readers that it
of his labors that he had beleeved nothing nor witnessed or taught any thing save what is written in the law of Moses and the Prophets Acts 24. 14. 26. 22. That whatsoever Churches he had planted were built by him upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. Nothing here of Aristotle and Plato but of the Prophets and Apostles i. e. the Doctrine which Christ had revealed to them and by them laid to support the Churches in the Faith of Christ That he had utterly exploded all humane wisdom Arts and inventions as incompetent with the Gospel of Christ That whether he laid in the hearts of men the principles and beginnings of Christ having to deale with such as were but yet in converting or else but babes in Christ he totally abstained from the words of mans wisdome from intermingling any of the artificiall disputes of the Philosophers that their faith might not stand in the wisdome of men but in the power of God or whether he treated with them that were perfect i. e. grown to a high stature in the knowledg and faith of Christ even when he spake wisedom delivered doctrines of the greatest depth and misteriousness to them yet was it not the wisedome of this world i. e. neither was the matter thereof the doctrine of the profound Philosophers and Disputers that were held the Princes of the world for wisdome but the mysterie of Christ Neither for the confirmation thereof did he use the words which mans wisedom teacheth i. e. that way of philosophicall and dialectical disputation whereof the Philosophers give their precepts but in the words which the holy Ghost teacheth c. 1 Cor. 2. 1. 13. Now if neither Christ nor his truly inspired Ministers ever used or would use this kind of learning in Gospel-matters the conclusion will necessarily follow that it was never of Gods ordination For Christ was faithfull in his house the Church Heb. 3. 2 6. and finished the worke which his Father had given him to do Joh. 17. 4. And the like may be truly affirmed and confirmed of the faithfulnesse of all those truly inspired Ministers of Christ according to their measure that with Paul they were stewards of God and studied so earnestly to be found faithfull that they knew nothing by themselves to accuse themselves of falshood or neglect 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 4. That they kept back Act. 20. 20. 26 27. nothing which was profitable to the people but declared to them the whole Counsell of God therefore were pure from the blood of all men so that it must follow that either the use of the aforesaid humane learning in Gospel-matters is no ordinance of God and at the best unprofitable or else that Christ and his Apostles not using it yea rejecting the use of it were not faithfull But all will deny the latter therefore must grant the former A second Reason to prove it not to be an ordinance of God c. I may draw from the slighting abasing and invective terms which the Holy Ghost in Scripture useth against it The wisedom of the Holy Ghost doth in no wise slight any ordinance of God qualified and blessed by him to Gospel-ends But the use of those humane pieces of learning whereof I am speaking is much slighted and abaâ—ed by the H G as impotent and unusefull to Gospel-work and ends Ergo c. That the H G doth thus slight it in Scripture to omit what the Lord Christ speaks against the traditionary learning of the Jewish Rabbies Mat. 15. 1. 9. 23. 13 c. 11. 25 26. Joh. 9. 29-41 I shall mention only how contemptuously the H G by the Apostles pointing directly to this Gentilizing learning speaks of it They became vain in their imaginations saith he and their Rom. 1. 21-23 foolish heart was darkened Professing themselves wise they became fools and changed the glory of God into a corruptible image c. What more to the abasing of their learning he calls it at the best the very froth of light fancies and imaginations the darknesse of foolish hearts a profession of such wisedom as made them grosse fools that as it acted about religion and the way to happinesse it made both it and them a very abhomination to the Lord. Again The preaching of the Crosse is to them that perish foolishnesse As it is written I will destroy the wisedom of the wise bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world hath not God made foolish the wisedom of this world For after that in the wisedom of God the world by wisedom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that believe c. 1 Cor. 1. 18-21 c. How differing is the spirit of our Sophisters from the Spirit which wrought in the Apostle He pronounceth this Sophisticall learning to be so far from being a furtherance to the only true which is the Gospel-way of salvation as that it is an enemie to it rejects it as foolishnesse 2. Them that follow it as their rule and authority what to believe and do that they may be saved to be in a perishing condition in the ready way to damnation They that perish account the simplicity of the Gospel without the fulture or rather tainture of their Arts foolishnesse 3. He affirms God to be an enemy to it to detest any patronage from it to his mysterious Doctrine of the Gospel He hath left it upon record to curb wanton wits that he will destroy the wisedome c. 4. That according to his threat he hath executed and will still fulfill therefore challengeth the Sophisters to give answer from their own experience at last whether God hath not doth not alway so curse this wisedom of theirs that it turns to ruine and foolishnesse Where is the Scribe where the Disputer c. Hath not God c. 5. That it is a knowledg by which men know not God which while they pursue they lose utterly the saving knowledg of God 6. That in contempt of this secular learning God will by the simplicity and foolishnesse of Gospel-preaching save them that believe leaving the Disputers to reason themselves into Hell It pleased God c. Unto this I shal add but two Testimonies more the one when the Apostle hath to do with a company of Christians dwelling among the Philosophers in great jealousie fear of them he cryes out Beware ye be not spoiled with Philosophy Col 2. 7. vain decit He speaks of no possibility of any good that there should accrew unto them by the help of Philosophy but of great danger to be spoyled and corrupted by it and when is there such hazard of being corrupted by it he answers when men intermingle this learning which is but of humane invention and tradition after the Rudiments of the world
after and not above carnall and worldly Reason with the Scripture in measuring out to themselves the saving Gospel and take not it up after Christ simply and unmixedly as Christ hath taught it and put the impresse of his authority upon it Coloss 2. 8. The other that for prevention of corruption by this secular learning the Converts of Ephesus while the Apostle was yet resident among them and consequently consenting with them burnt their bookes of curious Arts which though some will have to be understood of conjuring books yet I cannot assent to them because this cursed rather then curious Art was proper and almost peculiar to the more Eastern people Jewes Samaritans Aegyptians and Babylonians the Greeks very little or not at all studying it but placing all their wisdom in the Arts whereof I have been hitherto discoursing and these were Greeks that burnt the bookes of those curious Arts which they studied Act. 19. 19. If then any conclude that the H Ghost at any time doth so much abase and deface an Ordinance of God Let him also conclude this kind of learning and disputation to be ordained of God for the confirming and promoting of the Gospel A third Reason to prove that God hath not ordained this Sophisticall or Philosophicall learning to be instrumentall for the promoting of the Gospel may be drawn from experience it self That which we never find to be blessed but still blasted of God to the hurt both of the Churches that have been admirers and followers of Sophisticall teachers of the Gospel and of such teachers also cannot be the Ordinance of God for he alway accompanieth and breaths his blessing in greater or lesser degrees upon the due execution of his own Ordinances But God hath never blessed but still so blasted and brought to nought naught c. the use of this philosophicall and philosophastrous learning Ergo It is not of Gods ordination I mean to be intermingled with spirituall and Evangelicall Doctrines For hence alone we banish it not denying it to be usefull in naturall and morall things as I have before granted That it hath been so blasted as intermingled with Gospel-doctrines experience it self evidenceth Trace we down from the very primitive age of the Gospel Church untill our times Gods operations in the Gospels and Churches wâ—xings and wainings and we shall find his blessing to have been upon the pure preaching of the Gospel his curse upon the mixings and medleys of mâ—ns wisedom with it Begin we with the Apostles times when theâ—e went forth acting only by the authority of Christs mission and according to the rule of his Commission the very Devills became subject to them and Satan fell as lightning before them at the sound of the Gospel which they had charge to preach alone and ground upon the authority of the Scripture alone while this charge was faithfully put in execution whole Nations either after the other yea the whole world almost came to be discipled to Christ God working mightily with them by many signes and wonders to make their Ministry succesfull But when anon there entred into the Churches rightly grounded and stablished false Apostles of the Jewes that preached a legall and naturall righteousnesse that reason and naturall con-conscience could suggest if the Law of Moses had been silent as necessary to be joyned with the Gospel-righteousnesse of Faith to Justification And on the other side there arose out of the Churches of the Gentiles some of themselves that spake perverse things seeking to introduce the like naturall righteousnesse out of the Ethicks of the Philosophers and to maintain their Doctrines mainly if not wholly by Aristotles dialectick subtleties And both these began to be favoured by wanton wits within the Churches Now the Lord turned his hinder parts to them on whom erewhile the light of his countenance shined the glory of the Gospel became more and more clouded the Churches rended and torn in pieces abounding more with Apostates than with Christians indeed as may be largely manifested from the New Testament if there were need From the Apostles time discend we to the next ages or age after the Apostles and I find not among the Writers of note any one much studious of Philosophy much lesse spoyled with it Clemens Alexandrinus only excepted and he enough moderate in the use of it But shortly after him sprung up Origen a great and copious Writer in his youth beyond his age hopefull but in his maturity carryed with full sails to the study of secular Arts and with such successe that Hierom in his Catalogue of Ecclesiasticall Writers renders him in such learning unmatchable by any going before or following him as one thorowly seen in all the differing opinions of all the severall sects of Philosophers a notable Logician and Disputer and fully read in all the Liberall Arts and as remarkable for the practical part as the Theory of all Now from a man so accomplisht in so many perfections as some term them would possibly be expected a greater successe of his preaching and writing than ever Paul attained because so much more learned then Paul But the case proved contrary Out of his brain thus filled issued errors and heresies as thick as hail-stones from the Clouds Nothing of Scripture Law or Gospel could escape his depravation and a Religion he set forth like Mahomets Alcaron a meer galleymaufry of Heterogeneous fancies some Jewish some Heathenish and some in shew at least Christian compounded and confounded one with the other so that there could not be a fouler abhomination then such a Religion Why because he had attained so much secular learning not so but because he wrought with untempered morter mixing Philosophy and Christianity together which close as sweetly as light and darknesse Hence was it that all the Churches at length exploded him for an Heretick and his writings as Pseudo-Christian and Hierom so wounded his reputation among the learned and godly for writing somewhat in the praise of him that with all his palliating and recanting hee could not fully repayr it to his dying day Yea the stinch of him hath offended all the godly Divines of our Reformed Churches notwithstanding his antiquity that they reject him From the pen of one Beza we may know the mind of the rest who calls him hominem impuram sometimes and sometimes hominum impurissimum an impure or a prophane man yea the prophanest of men for prophaning Scriptures Gospel Religion and all other sacred things that he medled with At no long distance after Origen lived Tertullian who finding the Church by the evill Artifice of Origen and other Philosophicall Christians like him over spread with heresies applies himselfe to seek the cure thereof And a principall means he prescribeth hereunto is a fast adhering to the doctrine of Christ all other authority in divine things being rejected It is not lawfull for us saith he to bring in any thing of faith or worship out of our own will or
reference to the times past the other to the time present and to come Palam est saith Amesius Patres ex Philosophia introduxisse in Ecclesiam Ames Bellar Enero Tom. 4. Lib. 6. Cap. 1. p. 136. varios modos loquendi precipuè de meritis humanis de Justitia Evangelij qui in scripturis non comparent inde occasionem datam arreptam Scholasticis fuisse perniciosos errores fabricandi i. e. It is apparent that the Fathers have out of Philosophy brought into the Church various ways of speaking especially of mans merits and of Gospel-righteousness which do not appear in Scriptures And that occasion hath been thereby given to and caught or raught by the School-Doctors to frame many Errors And Bullinger seeing this way of disputation beginning to peep and shew it self in its time within the reformed Churches having before described them that give their minds over-much to the study of Philosophy and Logick that they became such as are unuseful for the edification of the Church and in stead thereof Disputatores rixosi fiunt censores superbissimi nihil aliud quà m disputationes rixas spirantes omnia aliorum c. arrogantissimè consentes arrodentes maligne cavillantes Scholarum Ecclesiarum pestes ex quibus venenum altercationum simultatum c. effunditur in Ecclesiam i. e. become brawling disputers proud censurers breathing nothing but disputes and janglings most arrogantly censuring snarling and malignly cavilling at other mens labours nisi quod eorum capitibus gravidis admodulatum sit prescriptisque regulis congruant if they be not tuned to their heads great with Child and congruent with their rules and precepts of Art The very plagues of Schools and Churches out of which the poyson of brawlings divisions and distractions is powred out into the Church Having thus described them hee thus concludes in reference to the times past Equidem feliciter nunquam cessit Ecclesiae quando homines docti studiosi deserta simplicitate puritati verbi dei aliò converterunt oculos neque hos unicè in solum verbum Dei collimârunt i. e. Verily it hath never thrived well in the Church when learned Bulling Ser. Decad. 5. Serm. 10. and studious men forsaking the simplicity and purity of Gods word have glanced their eyes on some other thing and not fixed them only upon Gods word And thus in reference to the times to come and present Si hodiè quoque pergamus scripturis sanctis maâ—è copulare philosophiam illas superstitiosè ad disputationes revocare ac sub regulas cogere humanas vel Artium corrumpemus ipsi in scholis grandi cum Ecclesiae detrimento sinceritatem doctrinem Apostolicae i. e. If in our times also we proceed evilly to couple together the Scriptures and Philosophy and to call the Scriptures but outsidely or in a shew to our disputations reducing them to the rules of men and of the Arts we also shall to the great disadvantage of the Church corrupt the sincerity of Apostolical doctrine in the Schools So much said Bullinger a Classical Divine of his time neither without eminent learning nor an enemie to it for more than a 100 years sithence in the last of those decads of Sermons which he set forth in print Anno 1549. how long before the Edition thereof it was preached is uncertain Yeâ— gives after all this to humane literature its due praise Interim certum est saith he bonas Artes vel literas plurimum facere ad per spicuitatem evidentiam sed moderate cum judicio religiose adhibitas ut imperium relinquatur sacris literis serviant autem omnes Artes exoticae i. e. Mean while it must be granted that good Arts and Learning contribute much to the cleering and evidencing of things so that they be moderately judiciously and religiously made use of and the Scripture be still left as Empress and all extraneous Arts as handmaids not to justle it aside or sit in Chair with it but to do service to it In some things in many things I grant the rules of these Arts when agreeing with Scripture to be usefull to make out the absurdity or rationality of a mans reasoning about divine things But except they could be proved universally and in all parts perfect and indeficient it is neither safe nor warrantable to yeeld up our faith and judgment in Gospel-matters to their determination This ingenuity therefore is to be attributed to M. Baxter that he doth though not professedly yet actually to this end come armed a Cap ad Pe with this kind of learning to destroy not to maintain that sacred and fundamentall point of the Gospel Justification of meer grace Yet to shew how much more confidence he hath in his Sophistry than in his Divinity and to tell out aloud that he hath deserved to have the title of Subtilissimus Doctor which Scotus hitherto hath worn hee hath affixed to the end of his Aporisms a Table of Distinctions to speâ—k out himself to all that will not otherwise see it that he is whatsoever he is Sophistry it self that distinctions flow from him as thick as Bees from the Hive Only this one thing seems wanting in him that he sets not so much as an Asterisk upon any of these distinctions to tell us that either it is grounded upon the Scripture or that it distinguisheth him from a sworn enemy to the Doctrine of Grace I do not expect to be free from censure for so much length in my discourse upon this last subject to shew the impotency and impropriety of secular learning to bear any authority in spiritual things But I have to answer against such censures 1. That I have written therein nothing but words of soberness and truth and I had rather with tediousness make cleer a truth than to drop errors with concisenesâ— 2. That it was not against my purpose to be so large nor yet beside the mark aimed at For should I here put a period Mr. Baxters falsities are more than half answered because that more than half of his Book consisteth of meerly sophistical questions definitions arguments evasions equivocations distinctions and fallacies In all which if there be no force to prove or refute in Gospel-matters and that God is so farr from commanding or allowing such slights in handling Gospel-truths as that he explodes hates curseth the same as hath been manifested then the greater part of his work is hereby manifested to be vain As for the residue of the Book wherein he seems to confine himself to plain Scripture he seldom and little meddles this way but in confidence of his Sophistry that he hath at hand in ambush to succenturiate and help him at a dead lift else all the fat will quickly be in the fire his Scripturall reasons for the most part cutting the throat of his own causâ— and stoutly defending the truth which he oppugneth as we shall find when I come to examine them One
thing yet remaineth which I promised to premise viz. what my intention is in excepting against Mr. Baxters book This is not either to oppose him in all things which he hath written therein For sometimes he looks out thorow truths casement that we might take him so a sonn of truth and the less suspect him when he vends his false wares In this case I will not jangle with him whether he speaks truth of envy and subtlety or of good will and sincerity Or 2. in all that shal seem to my judgment Heterodox in his Treatise but only or mainly in those things wherein he joyneth with the Romish Synagogue to maintain their damning doctrine against the truth which is and hath been professed in all the Reformed Churches about Faith and Justification Or 3. in every particular passage wherein he discovers himself in this point to be for Antichrist against Christ for sometimes he delivers himself with such ambiguities and aequivocations like Apollo of old in his Oracles that in pretence of another sense of his words than the more Grammaticall and usuall he may leave a way of issue to himself in case he cannot maintain his words in that sense wherein he would be understood that he may deceive Let it not therefore be thought all granted that shall not be here excepted against and that I approve all whatsoever I do not oppugn For method I desire no other may be expected from me than to follow Master Baxter in order as he hath written and to take up his Paradoxes and most profound and learned mistakes as they fall from him examining them not by the rules of Sophistry but by the touch-stone of the sacred Word These things thus premised we are now to begin to examine the unsavory particulars occurring in the Book it self Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. Arg. In which Mr. Baxters Popish Doctrine of Implicit Faith is examined and whether the people may admit Doctrine upon trust from their Teachers THE first passage wherein he sheweth himself to smel of Popery in the point of Faith and Justification is before the work it self in the farewell of his Epistle to the Reader pag. antepenult of the Epistle where he doth not obscurely manifest himself to like well enough the Papists doctrine of Implicit Faith and to wish it more favoured and taken up at home among us His words are these speaking to his Congregation Bax. Who I hope do understand that to take upon trust from your teachers what you cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary than many do imagine A very proper insinuation to a people whom he would have to swallow such Doctrines as in the following Treatise he offers to them to be swallowed As far as he prevails or prevails not with this insinuation so far he hath or hath not men his Disciples This is the very foundation of Antichrists kingdom the authority of men as the foundation of Christs kingdom is the authority of the Scriptures If Mr. Baxter can perswade men to admit and suck in this Doctrine his whole business is finished and all his ends attained If they take upon trust even fundamentall doctrines from their teachers Let Mr. Baxter bring what doctrines he will with him of men and Devils nothing shall be refused all shall be taken upon his Credit By this slight he knew the Pope had gathered and many hundred years held under his vassallage in blind obedience many nations of the earth therefore will not Mr. Baxter baulk it when hee goes about to propagate the Popes doctrine among us But let us see what the Popish implicit faith is and then compare Mr. Baxter with the Papists to see whether there be not in both one mind and spirit The Papists distinguish betwixt Faith and Faith telling us there is an Explicit and there is an Implicit Faith By the Explicit Faith they mean a cleer and distinct knowledg apprehension and believeng of all the Articles and Doctrines of faith which the holy Mother Church of Rome hath prescribed to be received to salvation and that not in a bunch only but in particulars also This Faith they hold needful and expedient in the Clergy as they term their Prelats and Priests who are to rule over more than to teach the people By the Implicite Faith they mean a generall and confused apprehension and believing of all that the Church hath commanded to be taught and believed that it is all good and true though they that so believe know not in particular what the Church hath commanded otherwise than they take it upon trust of their Priests which tell them such and such things are commanded by the Church to be believed This Faith they hold sufficient for the Laity to salvation to believe what the Church believeth and enjoyneth to be true though they neither know what it is nor are acquainted with one least parcell of the word by which they may know it to be true which they have so taken upon trust to believe By the Church they mean the Pope and his Clergy by the Laity the people So that by their Doctrine if the Popes decree things in religion successively never so contrary and contradictory either to other and the titular Clergy follow them and go to Hell for it yet the people have this one supereminent priviledg that their Implicit and Colliers faith saves them as being still the same and unchanged that they believe as the Church believeth though they know not either with the Church or what believing is or what the things are which the Church believeth Compare we now Mr. Baxters words with this popish doctrine and see we if there be any difference I hope saith he you understand When Mr. Baxter saith I hope we are not to doubt but a man of such rare parts hath good grounds for his hope He knew there was means used to make them understand else would he not say I hope you understand and what means but teaching and who should teach them but Mr. Baxter their Teacher But what is it he hopes they understand it followeth That to take upon the trust of your Teachers what you cannot yet see in its own evidence is not c. Here is the Implicit Faith not to ground their opinions and belief in matters of salvation upon the known word of God but upon trust from the Teachers to believe because their Teachers say they belive it And what are the Teachers but what in Popish phrase is termed the Church the Clergy which is in their account at least the Church representative And Mr. Baxter to decline envy useth the plurall number Teachers not as I conceive that the people of Kederminster have more Teachers in ordinary besides himself for he names
himself in the Title of the book their unworthy Teacher not one of their Teachers so that his purpose is to deliver a general rule for all Churches His congragation to take upon trust from him and other Congregations from their Teachers what they themselves cannot reach to see in its own evidence i. e. such doctrines as they themselves by their own light and knowledg cannot tell whether they be white or black true or false from Heaven or from Hell And to do this is lesse absurd and more necessary then many imagin Mr. Baxter is scarce yet beginning to discover himself therefore we have yet Bona Verba from him we hear him speaking modestly afterward vires acquirit eundo we shall when once he is hot in his discourse hear him speak in the full of the mouth here only he saith less absurd and more necessary than some imagin But who knows not his meaning to be that for the people thus to pin their Faith to the sleeves of their Teachers specially to such profound Teachers as Mr. Baxter is so far from being absurd as that it is necessary I suppose he meaneth to salvation though some imbegin otherwise Here I would demand not of Mr. Baxter for I desire not familiarity with him while such an Aphorist but of any knowing man indulgent to him when he saith less absurd and more necessary than some imagine whom can he mean by those some but the Protestant Churches and Divines who at all times with one consent have cryed out against the absurdity of this doctrine in their disputations against the Papists And if so what doth he less therein than pronounce the Popish Doctrine herein necessary and the doctrine of all the Protestants in opposition to it a meer imagination But it may be objected that the Papists lay down this doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing upon the authority of the Church or their Teachers for a continual rule to the people But Mr. Baxter proposeth it but as a temporary rule useful only for a season Therefore the difference between him and them is considerable For so much may be gathered from Mr. Baxters words to take upon trust from your Teachers what you cannot Yet reach to see in its own Evidence It is but while they are yet weak while they cannot yet reach c. But when once they are strengthened and have attained to see truths in their own evidence thenceforth they are to take up such doctrines upon their own evidence not upon trust from their Teachers any longer I answer This difference is but supposed not reall For if we compare his words here with that which he hath written in the next Section of this Epistle before and with the whole frame and current of of his disputes throughout his whole book we shal find that he doth equally with the Papists labour to settle the people in an implicit faith to believe as the Church believeth still For in the former Sect he that knoweth best his own congregation acknowledgeth it to be in the number of those the greatest part whereof is uncapable af understanding such controverted points as are treated of in his book He saith not only that they understand them not but also denyeth them to be in a capacity to be brought to the understanding of them viz. in their own evidence therefore they must still hold them upon trust from their Teachers Besides if we look to the frame of his Disputes in this Treatise we shall find him concurring with the Papists in his indeavours to keep the people in a perpetuall incapacity to understand such Doctrines in their own evidence For what else can he mean by seeing a point of divine doctrine in its own evidence but one of these two things to see it in the evidence and cleer testimony of the word by which God hath set it forth or to see it in the evidence of Sophistical learning and disputes by which Mr. Baxter and the Sophisters whom he followeth pretend themselves to set it forth But by neither of these will Mr. Baxter or the Popish Sophisters if they can hinder it suffer the vulgar people to know any Evangelicall truth in its own evidence Not by the evidence of the Scriptures by which God hath cleered up and so plainly revealed the fundamental truths of salvation that even babes and sucklings may in good measure comprehend them Mat. 11. 25. 1 Cor. 1. 26. For here with his Masters the Romish Sophisters hee raiseth vain and distracting questions making difficulties where the wisedom of God hath left none and so puzling weak and tender consciences that even what before they had attained by the pure and simple light of the word seeing now such a thick fogg of doubts interposed they think themselves to have lost what light once they had and so sink into sadness and despair concluding it utterly unattainable What zeal Mr. Baxter hath thus not only to match but also to exceed all the locusts of Rome in darkning such truths as Christ hath in Scripture left cleer and open to all shining in the very Sun-beams of the Gospel we shall find in examining the following parts of his Treatise So that in this respect he hinders as much as in him lyeth his Kederminsterians from seeing the truth of Christ in its own evidence Nor by the latter Mr. Baxters sophistical way of quenching under a pretence of confirming Gospel-truth can the vulgar ever attain to know them in their own evidences not only because this humane Learning hath no power to search into them but also because it is not to be expected that illiterate men should ever attain any depth in this learning For if it be true what is generally held by Mr. Baxter and his side that without great acquaintance with school-learning the marrow of Divinity can never be effectually pierced into and what a great Scholler once told Erasmus that one of these School-Doctors John Scotus can in no wise be understood under nine years study at the least and what a 3d affirmeth that a man must have Aristotles Metaphysicks ad unguem before he can be capable of understanding one sentence of Scotus Farewell then all hope of saving knowledg ever to be attained by unscotified miserable idiots in its own evidence or by the Ministeriall help of such Teachers as have crept here below upon the Doctrine of Christ his Prophets and Apostles and not had so much time and patience as Mr. Baxter hath bestowed in the sublimated study of Aristotle Scotus and their fellows But what if Mr. Baxter herein speak the same things may some say with the Church of Rome and the same in opposition to the judgment of all the Reformed Churches yet this doth not certainly prove that it is savouring of error which he here delivereth except it be manifested that he speaketh against the Scriptures Doth the word any where forbid us to take up points of Faith on the credit of our Teachers though we
cannot deny but this opinion was first broached by Socinus and afterward promoted by Arminius But because Mr. Baxter hath taken it up from them end speaks it out in this his Tractate more in the full of the mouth than Mr. Goodwin had done as wee may see afterward Therefore to prevent the like imputation of Socinian and Arminian heresie to himself by his chafe against Mr Walker he affrights all from charging him therewith And yet howsoever he seemeth to decline such an imputation who seeth not that he will yea doth more readily take up a cursed Heresie from any of these learned Sophisters then a blessed truth from such ignorant and unstudied Ministers that glory in nothing but the foolishnes of Christs Cross and dare not to be wise unto salvation beyond the rule of the Gospel Hence he passeth to his third opinion which is wholly one with Page 54. the first in substance and a little dâ—fference onely made in the sound of words for the Question was thus propounded Whether we are justified by Christs passive Righteousnesse onely or also by his active The Assertors both of the first and of the third opinion answer both with one consent we are justified by both Onely Mr Baxter that he may shew his wit and force of his Sophistry that he can at his pleasure exauctorate any Tenet in Divinity laying it all defiled and dead in the dust to be trampled under foot and then give it a resurrection with a new body to shew it self as an eminent and orient Pearl to adorne Christian Religion doth annihilate and vilifie it in one sound of words and after Cannonize it in another And what is the difference betwixt the opinion which he spewes out as filth and garbage and that which he sucks and swallowes as the bread of life and food from heaven Forsooth this only that the one opinion makes the active righteousnes of Christ together with his passive to be imputed to us for righteousnes the other makes the active together with the passive righteousnes of Christ satisfactory to Gods justice to put us into the participation of Righteousnes or Justification A vast difference in sense no less then that was between Doctor Martin and Doctor Luther or that which one put betwixt the operation and working of Pepper that it was hot in the one but cold in the other Mr Baxter knowes that the most judicious Assertors of the first opinion urge no further then to have it granted that the active as well as the passive obedience of Christ is meritorious to our redemption and justification That they are but the more inconsiderate sort that will have it so imputed that we should be accounted before God as those that have fulfilled all the righteousnes and duties of the Law in and by Christ fulfilliing the same Therefore his taking up this opinion as a third opinion under the name of truth is but a taking up again as holy and savory that which before he had rejected as the embryon of ignorant and unstudied brains full of the greatest absurdities But he tels us pag. 55. that for ten years together he held the passive righteousnes onely effectual to justification but since that he hath been converted Should I demand how it came to passe that so Eagle-eyed a man so long doted upon a cloud in stead of Juno and by what means his eyes were at last opened that he saw the delusion and shunned it Himself gives us a hint what to answer and I hope he will not be too angry if we guess so far that our conjecture hath his own conscience if awaked giving consent 1 Then to speak nothing of Mr. Bradshaw whom either by face or writings I never had acquaintance with that great wit Grotius with his deep and sublimated speculationâ— over-poised him in his late reading of him And how hard a thing is it for Mr. Baxter so great an admirer and adorer of humane wit and learning to meet with a brave Sophister indeed and not to close in judgement with him though a Papist an Apostate and more then a Semi-Atheist so far do acute and fine-spun distinctions prevail with him more then the honourable Authority of the plain word of God 2 It is most probable that during these ten years Mr. Baxter held Justification by Faith onely according to the Scriptures and judgement of the Orthodox Churches therefore stuck so long to the Doctrine of Justification by Christs sole passive obedience as cohering very harmoniously therewith But since he hath cast himself into the Channels of Popish Writers and thence derived Justification by works it concern'd him to cast off his former Opinion for the sole passive righteousnes as being much repugnant to Justification by works and to take up this as authentick and somewhat conducing and helpfull to his Cause For if Christs active obedience should not be held meritorious and satisfactory to God with what face could Mr. Baxter attribute a prevalency and power herein to our best works and actions I purpose not to trifle away time and labour to refel this Doctrine or to shew the weaknesse of his fine and plausible Exceptions which he maketh against the Objections that he thinks will be made against it himself knoweth that some of his fore-mentioned Questions being granted and cited Opinions which he neither denyeth nor opposeth would turn his Grotian distinction of idem and tantundem into winde and smoake As for the rest which he speaketh we may grant there is some plausibility but if it were searched to the bottome there would be little of solidity found therein But my purpose is as I have said onely or chiefly to except against his apparently Popish Doctrines and with these he so much aboundeth that I shall not want matter to take up more time and labour then my other Employments can well afford CHAP. IV. What the immediate effects of Christs sufferings are which redound to the Redeemed Whether Believers are under the Curse And whether their Afflictions in this life be a part of the Curs and have the wrath of God in them With Mr. Baxter's Arguments to prove them such IN this ninth Thesis and its Explication Mr. Baxter hewes out crooked timber enough for many of the discreetest Divines to employ their time and labour therein until they are tired and yet they shall not be able at last to straighten it It is like Pandera's box which being opened let out all miseries and mischiefs into the world as the Poets feign Whatsoever the Papists teach of the deficiency and maimednes of Christs and of the necessary supplies of mans satisfaction to be made unto God of Purgatory of the uncertainty of Salvation and many other errors depending upon these are all couched and compassed here within a very narrow circuit some expressed and some implyed But so that while he hasteth to bind together suddenly that he may not be seen so much dreggish Popery in one fardle in his greatest
of avoyding tediousnes to leave the most precious truths hidden in corners and onely to leave a paint of plausibility and probability upon the Embryons and errors of his own brain in stead of bringing them openly to the tryall And this occasioned me to be the more in length to bring forth cleerly into the light the truth that he hath hidden and to take off the outside paint from his fancies that they might appear in their own nature and colors Partly also to discover the pernicious danger which lurketh in the doctrine which he hath here delivered against which too much cannot be spoken to prevent the taking of inconsiderate and over credulous Christians in his snares I shall shew my reasons why I call it pernicious doctrine and so leave the question 1 It is anti-scripturall and diametrically opposite to the word as is enough manifested by that which hath been already said in the examination thereof 2. It is Antichristian hath sundry Popish errors some more apertly others more hiddenly included in it So that when immediately before his arguments he professeth that it is not affectation of singularity that divides him in judgement from the reformed Churches we doubt not but he speaks truth herein For it is to follow the stream and Clowd of Popish Doctors whose sophistry hath more force upon his judgment than ever I could perceive the Word to have Those Popish errors then that are more openly conteined in his doctrine here are principally about Christs and mans satisfactions made to God for mans sinns in which as the Papists so Mr. Baxter will have man to bear a share with Christ that the glory may not be wholly the Lords And here in sundry points Mr. Baxter speaketh the very same things though not altogether in the same words with the Papists I shall in these severall points lay down briefly the doctrine of the Papists first and then compare Mr. Baxters with it that the Coherence betwixt them may be cleerly seen The Papists opinions I shall truly set forth to you though briefly as they themselves express themselves in the Councell of Trent Sess 6. Cap. 14. 16. Sess 14. Cap. 8 9. and Bellar in his two books de Purgatorio lib. 4. de Poenitentia and by sundry other of their own Writers 1 They hold that although Christ hath by his death and merits satisfied the Law and Justice of God for the fault of our sinns in offending Gods Justice and violating his holy Law so that God is no more at enmity with but reconciled to them which truly repent and beleeve hath fully pardoned their sinn and forgiven their offences for Christs sake yet hath neither Christ given nor God taken full satisfaction for the punishment but that after the fault is pardoned God may and will inflâ—ct punishment upon the offender In this and the rest points of satisfaction they give this generall rule that Christ hath undertaken for us onely that which we could not do for our selves and satisfied for us so far onely as it was unpossible for us to make satisfaction for our selves As for that which by doing or suffering was in our power to accomplish for our selves that he hath left to be without his preventing us accomplished by us But in this Case say they It was unpossible for man to undertake any work any suffering so noble worthy as might stand in equipoise with the offending of so infinite a Majestie and so to satisfie Gods Justice for the fault This therfore Christ hath done and God hath accepted from Christ in our behalf But it was possible for man to satisfie at least in part for the punishment which the justice and law of God exact for the offence committed This therefore is in part left to us to satisfie and after he hath forgiven the fault doth notwithstanding inflict upon us the punishment for the satisfying of his law and justice This they go about to prove by the example of Gods dealing with Moses and Aaron when they had sinned against him he forgave freely their fault and offence nevertheless called them exactly to a reckoning about the punishment was in perfect friendship with them again yet would not abate them an ace of the punishment which he had threatened to them they must dye in the Wildernes and never enter into the land that flowed with milk and hony The like they instance in David about his sin in reference to Bathsheba and Vriah The Lord forgave the offence The Lord hath put away thy sin saith the Prophet thou shalt not surely dye 2 Sam. 12 13. Nevertheles in reference to the punishment David shall smoke for it The child shall dye the sword shall never depart from his house c. so that David shall rue it to his very dying day Other Scriptures and reasons they bring which would be over tedious to insert Compare we now Mr. Baxters doctrine with theirs Thes 7. he tells us That Christ Jesus being fully furnished for this work of Mediation by his Fathers and his own will first undertook and afterward discharged mans debt by suffering what the Law did threaten and the offender was unable to bear And Thes 8. That the Father so fully accepted the satisfaction that by way of reward to Christ that gave it he hath delivered all things into his hands and given him all power in heaven and in earth and made him Lord both of the dead and living Yet Thes 9th addeth that It was not the intent of either the Father or the Son that by this satisfaction the offenders should be immediately delivered from the whole Curse of the Law and freed from the evill which they had brought upon themselves but some part must be executed upon soul and body c. And this he goes about by his ten Arguments which we have examined to prove of the beleevers themselves that they are liable to the punishment and Curse of the Law to bear it in part even to death it self and that though there be no unpardoned sin for which the curse as the curse Pag. 71. Arg. 8 is inflicted upon them Let any discreet man here judge if there be the least haires breadth betwixt Mr Baxter and a Papist according to the Councell of Trent i. e. the worst Papist The rule of both about satisfaction is the same Christ hath done and suffered for us what we could not do and suffer for our selves say the Papists Christ hath suffered for us what the Law did threaten and we were unable to bear saith Mr. Baxter implying that whatsoever we can bear must yet be inflicted upon us For this satisfaction the fault is forgiven saith Bellarmine By means of this satisfaction there remains no unpardoned Sin saith Mr. Baxter viz. upon beleevers Yet say both when the sin is forgiven the punishment curse and penalty of the Law must be suffered Here is noble mercy and forgivenes to pardon a man his fault and to pronounce with
vouchsafeth not to answer one no nor to cite one why but that he thinks when the Scriptures and his own assertions do contradict either the other the authority of his own judgment not only to parallel but also to over-weigh the authority of the Scriptures What Papist what Enthusiast hath or can have the Scriptures in less esteem then this Aphorist shews himself here and elswhere to have What Scriptures are brought against him he disdaineth them an answer yea a glance of his eye to see them or tongue to read them to us But if he finds any Scripture whose point with much bowing and wresting he thinks he may turn about against us that have no more wit but to think their authority venerable and requiring our submission thereunto of these he makes use to befool yet more such fools as regard them If I fail in my censure the Lord forgive to me the mistake of my judgment and to Mr. Baxter his giving occasion yea cause of such a mistaking And as the authority of Scriptures is pufft from him with less then a piff or pish so do we find humane authority in all probability falsified by him I know saith he that learned and godly men are of this judgment that the Law as a Covenant of works is quite null and repealed in regard of the sins of beleevers I do not doubt but by these learned and godly he means some Protestant Divines whom somtimes he will flatter smooth and almost spit in their mouths to allure them to run after him Now if he do not falsify their assertions let him name but one of them that ever affirmed the Law to be so repealed I may possibly acknowledg him to be in the main learned and godly but I believe I shall never account him to have been considerate in laying down such an assertion For it directly contradicts the doctrine of our Saviour Think not saith he that I am come to destroy the Law c. I am not come to destroy but fulfill Verily verily Heaven and Earth shall pass but not one jot or tittle shall not pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Mat. 5. 17 18. Or to whom should it be repealed not to unbeleevers for it is consented in both sides that they are under the Law under the Curse Nor to beleevers for the Law hath pursued their sins unto death in the body of Christ and by Mr. Baxters acknowledgment hath inflicted upon him for them upon them in him the tantundem if not the idem which it ever threatned against sinners And how is the Law repealed in any of its power that doth or hath executed all its power upon all that have been transgressors Mr. B. very well knoweth what doctrine is taught in the Reformed Churches but will needs falsify it as he doth also the Holy Scriptures We affirm that the Law is still in force and shall be til the worlds end We preach not a repeal of any of its power or righteousness which it had from God at any time Neither on the other side do we attribute to it a power or unrighteousnes which God never gave it We grant it a power to take full vengeance upon every sinner for every sin committed during life But we deny that if any be raised to a second life after death as was Christ having born the whole wrath due to the sins of the former life that such a one comes under the power of the Law again the Law hath never more dominion over him But so stands the case with believers They have suffered in Christ done their Law in Christ are dead in Christ and in him they have satisfied the Justice of the Law for the sins of their whole life If now they are also risen with Christ and are dignified with a new life the life of grace so that though they live it is not so much they that live as that Christ liveth in them and the life which they live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God Gal. 2. 20. In this new life which they have by their union unto Christ now triumphant the Law can no more reach them then Christ himself triumphant So the Law is nulled to them but never repealed nulled because it hath inflicted upon them its whole penaâ—ty and after it hath so done it hath no more power over the very reprobates much lesse over the Saints So that the Law being null or of no force to believers hath received no diminution to its power holding it still firm and entire as ever no more then the Law of the Land is weakened for that when it hath inflicted death upon the Felon or Traytor it hath no further power to question him As before they had existence in Adam their not existing yet in him and under the Law by being in Adam argued no weaknes in the Law So when they have don their Law for the sins committed while under the Law and that by their new union unto and existence in Christ they cease to be under the Law that the Law hath no power over them argues no wound or weaknesse or detriment that the Law hath sustained any more then it doth because it is null in power to the Angels in Heaven over whom it had never power or null unto Christ now in Heaven over whom it had once power Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the penalty of the LAW is due to none but the transgressors of the Law to the unrighteous and withall affirms Thes 16. p. 96. and Explication page 98 99. That Satisfaction for disobedience is our Righteousnes makes a man so perfectly righteous as to the Law and further penalty thereof as if he had never disobeyed Yet we find him here fighting not onely against Heaven and Earth but against himself also to deny the nullity of the Law to them that have satisfied by CHRIST for their disobedience to the Law making it one and the same thing with the repealing of the Law This word repealing being here foisted in by himself partly to make way for his sophisticall and bombasticall distinctions which are no less deer to him then his life therefore in the Explication of the next Thesis comes in great ostentation no less trappled with them then a Cart-horse with his painted Collar bells and fethers partly to give occasion of his riding in state upon Grotius his shoulders to shew what new subtle and fine-spun learning he hath drawn from so noble and Apostaticall a Doctor no less fit to the Argument he hath in hand than the shoo iâ— for the hand or the glove for the foot But lastly and principally that having according to his wonted and inbred subtlety put on a false vizzard upon the doctrine of the reformed Churches he might in the 13 Thes and its explication dispute victoriously against the vizzard having nothing to say against the doctrine in its own nature and verity As for the other pretended opinion that the Covenant
the Son must perfectly know because he was in the bosom of the Father and was thorowly acquainted with all his bosom secrets 4 Whether any one can misse of the benefit of this satisfaction when it is once so given and accepted for him by name 5 Why Mr. Br speaking of the payment of this satisfaction doth plainly mention the time when it was made namely the fullnes of time in the very same breath speaking of the undertaking acceptance and efficacy thereof doth not also name the time when that was Covenanted and Concluded upon Did he not see that it was needfull to the Compleating of this member of the sentence in a full equipage with the former to name the time of this as well as of that Was it a beare or an evill Conscience in the way that put him to such an Aposiopesis that shook him into a dumbnes when truth honesty and plain dealing bad him speak out Whether he had said before all time or shortly upon the beginning of time he saw he should have given a deathly wound either to his Cause or to his Credit or to both therefore like a cunning sophister stops his breath and speaks nothing 6 And if the Covenant of grace in all and every of its Articles were thus agreed upon between the Father aad the Son either before the actuall existence of any man in the world or as Mr. Br here Confesseth before Adam and Eve the sole persons then existent upon earth were treated with about it how then doth he add that he accounts him not worth the Confuting which tell us that Christ was the onely party conditioned with and that the New Covenant as to us hath no Conditions so Saltmarsh c. thus Casting an Odium upon this opinion as if Mr. Saltmarsh and his Disciples alone held it and that never any before him thought of it For my own part where the Scriptures are silent I am in great dread to be loquent and where the word speaketh sparingly and darkly I dare not to conclude too peremptorily Neither in points that are controvertible in religioÌ„ but which way soever dâ—cided do not Confer much to or detract from the Basis and foundation of our salvation would I prosecute either vehement or endles disputes Every least truth in Divinity is precious indeed therefore not to be betrayed but to be preserved more carefully than our life bloud Yet our life and bloud ought not to be so deer to us as the Peace of the Churches of Christ And the disturbing of the Churches peace may sometimes more obscure the honour of the Gospel than the suspending of the defence of some not very important truths for a while could have done I should not therefore quarrell against them that ascribe to the New Covenant its Condition and make faith alone as it instrumentally receiveth Christ the onely Condition of our being justified to and in our selves I see not so great ecclipse upon the glory of Gods Grace or Christs merits caused by such an assertion that we should disturb the peace of the Churches about it were it not that the Papists and Arminians by this unscripturall phrase do seek totally to corrupt the doctrine of justification Nevertheles Mr. Baxters contumelious words shall not affright me from delivering my judgement what I think most probable and most agreeing with holy Scripture touching the point in hand Yet laying it down not as absolute and certain but as that which is yet most probable to me untill I shall by further enquiry into the Scriptures or by the help of others that have more enquired see Cause to judge otherwise As for Mr. Baxter though in humane literature and in things subject to the tryall of reason I hold his judgement not Contemptible but equall with the most yea the best yet in Gospel and spirituall things I finde him so stupified perverted and wholly spoyled with Philosophy seeing so little of the mystery of Christ yea so prejudiced against the sacred things which he knowes not that I account him one of those whom the Apostle describeth 1 Tim. 1. 17. Desiring to be teachers of the Law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm And therefore am so little affrighted from any doctrine of this kinde by his abasing thereof that I am the more induced to search into it if it be not a pearl indeed because he hath trampled it I shall then express what I think in these following positions First as God hath made two great and generall Covenants with mankind each of them comprizing other lesser Covenants under it So because there were not existent personally at the time of making these covenants the singular individuals of mankind to whom these Covenants belonged therefore did he appoint 2 publike persons each of which then existing when either Covenant was made to be as it were represeÌ„tatives of all the singular persons that then did or after should exist to be under either Covenant with whom when the Covenants were concluded they should be in perfect force for or against all that were represented in their severall ages as though they had been but then made particularly with them in their own persons The one of these Covenants is usually termed the Covenant of works the other the Covenant of grace The publike or common person Covenanted with in the one was the first Adam in the other the second Adam Christ Jesus The case is cleer in respect of the first Adam and the Covenant of works Mr. Br himself grants every inch of it That whatsoever law or positive Commands were given to Adam whatsoever promises in cases of performance or threats in case of breach were added all pertained as full to all the future progeny of Adam as represented in him and enclosed in his loins as to Adam himself And accordingly while Adam stood we stood in him when he fell we fell in him and with him as deep under the wrath of God as himself I forbear to prove any of this because it is granted on all sides But the question is wholly about Christ the second Adam whether the Covenant of grace was so made with him as the Covenant of works with Adam and what that Covenant of grace was I conceive that both there was such a Covenant between the Father and the Son in reference to us and that this was the tenor thereof viz. that the Son in time appointed should assume to himself our nature and in it represent the persons of the elect that were equally sinners and condemned with others in Adam that he should offer himself in our flesh a sacrifice for sinn that upon his undertaking thereof the sinns of all the elect should be pardoned and they of sinners should be made righteous and delivered up into his hands no more to be accounted to Adam but to Christ and to be preserved in the bosom of his grace love to eternall glory And as Mr. Br acknowledgeth upon
which is in our selves could be more excellent than that which Christ is made to us untill this new Doctor took the Chair to teach Mysteries and by inverting and misnaming Scripture-phrase hath so taught Nevertheles it behoved Mr. Br having resolved to keep on the triple Crown upon the Popes head by stablishing justification upon works though it were to the uncrowning of Christ to reject uprightnes and to seek after inventions Eccles 7. 29. First he must hold beleevers to be under both Covenants els while he builds up one peece of Babylon he should pluck down another and give his judgment against his holines in one point while he acts the Champion for him in another and adventure with all the loss of his Cause if he keep not as strong hold-fast in the Covenant of works with the one hand as in the Covenant of grace with the other 2 He must call the Condition or means of applying Christ to us or obteining interest in his satisfaction our Righteousnes els he will not be able to evade those Scriptures which assert our Justification by faith But by this feat he thinks himself in a fit posture both to answer this and to bring in all qualifications and works that he pleaseth in a partnership with faith to justifie True will he say we are justified by Faith as a part of our righteousnes and by all other good qualifications and works as other parts of our righteousnes 3 He must call faith and works our Evangelicall righteousnes having seen in what a stinking trance some of his dirty deer brethren in their disputes have been left when they would prove that good works as works of the Law do justifie and how little better they have fared who would have them to justifie onely as works of grace having not had enough subtlety to prove them Gospel or Grace works Need had he therefore to put himself upon strong and strange inventions that himself may not stick in the same mire after them But enough in generall let us hear him deliver his own minde in particulars B. Thes 17. p. 102. As there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions So is there a twofold Righteousnes and both of them absolutely necessary to salvation The latter member of this proposition is grounded upon the former the Thesis upon the Hypothesis As true is the latter as the former But how true is the former that there are two Covenants and that they have their distinct Conditions First when he saith there are two Covenants he meaneth two Covenants in force to the very Saints in Christ that while they are under grace to salvation they are also under the Law to the Curse and Condemnation This hath been his busines to Confirm in the former part of this Treatise and he owns it in the explication of this Thesis But this is false as in disapproving of his arguments before hath been proved They are no more under the Law who are once under grace Rom. 6. 14. 2ly Neither have the two Covenants their distinct Conditions according to Mr. Br. For Thes 4. he makes the Condition of the first Covenant Perfect Obedience or Righteousnes The same he makes here the Condition of the New Covenant viz. Faith and Obedience but both as integrant parts of our own inherent righteousnes as we have partly seen and shall be forced to see more fully in that which is to come after So that we grant him that as true as there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions in force to the same persons so true is it that there is a twofold Righteousness and both absolutely necessary to salvation if by salvation he means Justification At falsum prius ergo posterius When he brings proofs to Confirm his assertions he may meet with a larger answer In mean while a simple Negation stands fittest in opposition to his bare affirmation That which he brings in the explication to Confirm it hath been answered over and over before Onely he tells us in the upshot that He will take it as granted To which I answer that there hath been such a generation of men still upon earth so fingerative that will needs take that which was never granted and delivered to them such is the main bulk of Mr. Brs doctrine in this book taken but never delivered to him from God or his Christ Bax. The usuall confounding of these Righteousnesses saith he doth much darken the Controversies about Justification And Mr. Br doth no less cleer the Controversie than an Ecclipse the Sun-beams He proceeds to explain what this twofold Righteousnes is so absolutely necessary to salvation Bax. The legall Righteousness saith he is not in us or consisteth not in any qualifications of our own persons or actions performed by us But it is wholly without us in Christ Thes 18. p. 103. The righteousnes of the New Covenant is the onely Condition of our interest in and enjoyment of the Righteousnes of the old c. Thes 19. p. 107. Our Evangelicall Righteousnes is not without us in Christ as our Legall Righteousnes is but consisteth in our own actions of Faith and Gospel Obedience c. Thes 20. p. 108. What there is more in any of these three positions is transcribed at large before To the 18 Thesis he annexeth in the explication a dispute against the Papists not to Confute them as adversaries to the truth for joyning mans righteousnes with Christs righteousness unto justification for herein he professeth entire Communion with them but to admonish them as his loving brethren to defend this their Conclusion of Justification by their own righteousness not under the terms of their legall but of their Evangelicall righteousness Because the legall righteousnes is unpossible but the Evangelicall righteousnes according to his carving and forming of it is easie to be fullfilled and almost unpossible to be violated Not that the Papists were wholly ignorant of this mystery untill Mr. Br here teacheth them Nay many of them had and pleaded it very artificially before he was born And himself hath learned it of them But he as the most proficient of all their disciples hath more fully improved it so that now he becomes a teacher to his very Masters and exhorts them to learn of him the pious feat and fraud of making use of this distinction yet further than ever they had the wit or grace to devise even to all matters and purposes that tend to the eluding of the word of Christ and the advantaging of the holy mother Church in her doctrine of Justification that is altogether Contradictory to the doctrine of the Scriptures upon the same Argument To the 19th 20th positions he annexeth an explication of both of these and of all that was said in the two former positions also In it we shall finde whatsoever deserveth a fuller Answer than hath been yet given to all and every of these four positions or any thing in all or any of them conteined not
against but according to his own expressed and explicated meaning Bax. p. 108. Explication The Contents of these Positions being of so neer nature I shall explain them here together though they seem so plain and clear to me that they need not much explication and less confirmation Yet because some Antinomians do down-right oppose them and some that are no Antinomians have startled at the expressions as if they had conteined some self exalting horrid doctrine I shall say something hereto Though for my part I do so much wonder that any able Divines should deny them yet me thinks they should be Articles of our Creed and a part of Childrens Catechisms and understood and beleeved by every man that is a Christian I mean the matter of them if not the phrase though I think it to be agreeable to the matter also Egregious Confidence and a sparkish spirit If the Triumphant Chariot were in use again at Rome and that Mr. Br could either not get it or not hold it he would at least give occasion to the world to Epitaph upon him Magnis tamen excidit Ausis he hath bidden fair and stretched wide for it Yet there would be some men that would otherwise Comment upon his bravery of words That they are usually bad wares that will not go off without such bravery of words That Bragg is seldom the best Souldier That thundering words are mostly used when there is wanting strength of reason to support a Cause We shall in some measure be able to judge when we have examined what sound Arguments Mr. Br brings to Confirm his assertions By the way we are to note his subtlety his ingenuity and his gallantry 1 His subtlety in pretending that his Assertions are mainly opposed by Antinomians and that all that he delivers here is out of his pure zeal good man to dash those earth-born monsters that they may do no more harm Doth Mr. Br think that none but strangers in our Israel none but novices in divinity that never saluted the Gospel but at twelve furlongs distance none that ever had acquaintance with this Controversie bâ—tween the Papists and us should read his book that he thinks to blinde the eyes of all with such a mummery Nay let him name one man in any of the reformed Churches that hath been numbred among the Orthodox which dissenteth not in the Chaffy doctrine here delivered from him Or any save the worst or a man worse than the worst Papists that consenteth with him to make our inherent righteousnes the Condition to give us right to Christs imputed righteousness Must Christ and Paul and all Evangelicall disciples be rejected as Antinomians because they became not Mr. Baxters disciples and that before he became their Teacher Or how could they downright oppose this doctrine before he vented it in print Was he so familiar with them as to Communicate to them his Manuscripts Or hath any other since the world began delivered the same assertions in the same words that in opposing them Mr. Br should take himself opposed But he suspends his subtlety a little to shew some though but little ingenuity which is the second thing here Considerable in him Confessing that there are some that are no Antinomians who have startled at the expressions as if they had conteined some self-exalting horrid doctrine And did not this also startle Mr. Br to reexamine what he had written before he Committed it to the Presse Nothing less but he looks over them with a fastidious admiration that they should be so shallow himself being so profound rejecting their authority with the like Contempt that Caesar did Syllaes Tush he was a duus Non potuit dictare so he of these Nequeunt Philosophari And thus in the third place passeth on to his gallantry or rather his arrogance That his doctrines here are so plain and clear that they need little explication less Confirmation That he wonders any able Divines should deny them shall such be termed Divines nay his very Catechumeni the Children under his Catechising much more every man that is a Christian should understand and beleeve them That they should be taken up for our Creed why because profound Mr. Br hath delivered them if not upon this ground let him name that man upon earth that hath delivered or beleeved them before himself became the author of them But at length he somewhat stoopeth from his bravery and tells us that he would have the matter of them at least thus taken into the Canon of our faith and Creed if not the phrase though he think it to be agreeable to the matter also and therefore goeth about thus to defend his phrase and make it good Bax. p. 109. That there may be no contention about words you must take my phrase of legall and Evangelicall Righteousnes in the sense before explained viz. as they take their name from that Covenant which is their rule And I know not how any Righteousnes should be called Legall or Evangelicall in a sense more strict and proper nor whence the denomination can be better taken than from the formall Reason of the thing yet I know that the observance of the Law of Ceremonies and the seeking life by the works of the Law are both commonly called legall Righteousness but in a very improper sense in comparison of this I know also that Christs legall Righteousnes imputed to us is commonly called Evangelicall Righteousness But that is from a more alien extrinsecall Respect viz. because the Gospel declareth and offereth this Righteousness and because it is a way to justification which onely the Gospel revealeth I do not quarrell with any of these forms of speech onely explain my own which I know not how to express more properly that I may not be misunderstood The righteousnes of the New Covenant then being the performance of its Conditions and its Conditions being our obeying of the Gospel or beleeving it must be plain that on no other terms we do partake of the legall Righteousnes of Christ To hold therefore that our Evangelicall or New Covenant Righteousness is in Christ and not in our selves or performed by Christ and not by our selves is such a monstrous peece of Antinomian Doctrine that no man who knowes the Nature and difference of the Covenants can possibly entertain and that which every Christian should abhorr as unsufferable Here we finde Mr. Br at the very top of his gallantry and animosity most probably his fancy had suggested to him a totall rout of all terrene animals at the sound of his precedent glorying and polemicall argumentation as if therefore all this visible world were Conquered and he were marching out of it in triumph as Israel out of Egypt not a dogg being left to move his tongue against him he now challengeth the Heavens and Calls the Holy Ghost ad partes to Come to a reckoning for the impropriety of language which he useth by his penmen in the Scriptures For when he saith
and the same conformed not onely to the Law but the Gospel also as before hath been mentioned In respect of this sanctification though yet but unperfect wee indeed affirme the godly to bee sometimes called Righteous yet not righteous to Justification but in regard of the life of Righteousnesse new begotten and inherent in them But it is observable how subtlely he slanders the Orthodox Teachers with a fault which is his not theirs how hee would condemn them for men attributing too much to the Law and Workes because they call those virtues and good works which the Law commandeth a righteousnesse with which the godly do serve the Lord in and through Christ Jesus When himsel◠affirmes the same to be the very Righteousnesse by which they are justified For if he be demanded whether the personall Righteousnesse which he contendeth to bee necessary and effectual to Justification ought not to have at least some unperfect agreement to the Law of God he answers affirmatively and fights strongly for it in the sequele of this Treatise Let him be demanded whether any other supposed Righteousnesse that the Law command not can be our personal righteousnesse to justifie us This he◠denyeth What then is the difference betwixt him and them This onely that they will not say with him that his righteousnesse so unperfect as hee here termes it and which in the las◠words of the former Section he pronounced unrighteous hatefull and accursed is the personall righteousnesse by whic◠men are justified before God If you ask how such workes should justifie being so unrighteous and accursed yes saith he as God hath appointed them to be the conditions of the New Covenant the performance whereof justifieth and maketh us personally righteous before God Here now is a heavenly Gospel Such conditions and such a justification if the one bee accursed much more the other And where is Gods Righteousness if hee will not justifie but upon accursed conditions Those that will not have not consented to this doctrine of his he calls intolerably ignorant Let him now name any one either Divine or understanding Christian in any of the Churches that have shook off Popery and not suckt it back again consenting with him in this doctrine else it is not his humility that is discovered in calling all the godly and learned that are or have been in any of the Churches of Christ intolerably ignorant Satis pro imperio enough Magisterially out of doubt What he talks of the streight crooked line hath its dependence onely upon the fallacious definition which hee before gave of Righteousness making it a mear empty notion not a vertue or gif of Gods grace which definition falling this comparison fals with it For if we grant unto Righteousness a real being Master Baxter himself will not deny but as one sparke of fire under a vast heap of ashes is as true and real fire as if no ashes were there so one spark of righteousness I mean living Righteousness under a whole body of infirmities is as true and truly Righteousness as if no infirmities were there And if God vouchsafe to call a man righteous in reference to that poor pittance of Righteousness rather than unrighteous for the whole mass of his corruptions what art thou O man that repliest against God is thine eye evil because he is good B. Most they say to maintain it is in this simple objection If we are called holy because of an unperfect holinesse then why not Righteous because of an imperfect righteousnesse Answ Holinesse signifieth no more but a dedication to God either by separation onely or by qualifying the subject first with an aptitude to its Divine employment and then separating or devoting it as in our sanctification Now a person imperfectly so qualified is yet truly and really so qualified And therefore may truly be called Holy so farre But Righteousnesse signifying a conformity to the rule and a conformity with a quatenus an imperfect rectitude being not a true conformity or rectitude at all because the denomination is of the whole action or person and not of a certain part or respect therefore imperfect Righteousnesse is not Righteousnesse but unrighteousnesse It is a contradiction in adjecto Object But is our personal Righteousnesse perfect as it is measured by the New rule Answ Yes as I shall open to you by and by I could here heap up a multitude of orthodox writers that do call our personal Righteousnesse by the title of evangelicall as signifying from what rule it doth receive its name The words of the Poet are here verified by Master Baxter mali bonos malos esse volunt ut sint sui similes Hee is angry with the simplicity of the godly and orthodox that they are single and sincere in their disputes and would have them double and crafty like himselfe In this sense I acknowledge the Argument which he saith they bring and is most they say to maintain their assertion is a simple objection They have more to say for the maintenance thereof then all his sophistry can subvert And this argument though simple yet is not silly or weak but strong and sound against all his batteries It is drawn à pari If there be a parity between righteousnesse and holinesse to give a denomination of holy and righteous persons then the argument is firme and men may be as properly termed Righteous in reference to a righteousnesse not yet perfected as holy in reference to a holinesse not perfected at verum prius ergo Postorius The former is true therefore the latter also Master Baxter denyeth the assumption and goes about to shew a disparity in this case between righteousnesse and holinesse making holinesse to be either onely a separation of a thing or person to holy use without an infusion of a new qualification to fit him for holy employment or at least the qualification of such a person first alway and then a separating of him afterward as if usually the consecration or separation by the blood did not go before the new qualifying of him by the Spirit of Christ this indeed is not so squaring with the Popish Canon as his way But to let passe this touch onely upon that wherein he opposeth righteousnesse to holinesse Holinesse he grants to be a qualification and consequently to have a real Being This here he denyeth as before of righteousnesse A meerly fallacious evasion for righteousnesse hath no lesse a real being than holinesse as hath been before shewed And the Scripture gives its Testimony making Righteousnesse and true Holinesse as it were the two essentials of the New Man which is created after God i. e. in answer and conformity to that essentiall Righteousnesse and Holiness that are in God himselfe Eph. 4. 24. And what els doth Saint Peter mean in affirming the Saints to be Partakers of the Divine Nature but by the infusion or creating of Righteousnesse as well as Holinesse in them by which they are reformed to
entitle them Meritorious Neither is there any proportion between them and the Reward Do not Bellarmine and his brethren speak altogether so fully more fully seemingly to vindicate the grace of God from all ecclipsing by their doctrine of Merit Merit as strictly and properly taken say they must be 1 Ex proprijs 2 ex indebitis 3 Ad aequalitatem 1 It must be of something of our own which we have not received 2 of that which we were not indebted or bound to perform 3 It must come up to a full proportion of equality in value with the reward which it meriteth And thus say they no man can merit with God For neither hath he any thing of his own to offer unto God which he hath not received from God nor any strength to act meritoriously but what he hath received from above is inspired by grace into him So that Antoninus that Postill Schoolman Concludes that in this Case that Fathers conclusion is authentick which said it before him though not punctually in the same words Quùm enim Deus coronat Merita nostra remunerat Aâ—on par 4. Tit. 9. ca. 7 ante sec Munera sua quia scilicet ipse dedit virtutem operandi gratis When God Crowns our Merits he rewards his own gifts because himself hath freely given us the strength so to work Nor 2 Can he do any thing but is his due obedience he owes it as homage to his Creator And 3 as to proportion equality even Bellarmine that affirms quandam infinitatem a certain infinitenes in mans works not as they proceed from man but as the Holy Ghost which is infinite is the author of them yet concludes Nemopotest paria reddere Deo Our works can never mount up to an equality with Gods bounty In this proper sense therefore all the worst hornets of the Romish hive do explode Merits with as much detestation as Mr. Br. In like manner what he tels us in the beginning of the explication of Merits in strict Justice which he doth in part abandon is but a distinction which he hath learned from the Jesuits which distinguish betwixt Merits in strict Justice Merits in gracious acceptance rejecting the former and attributing unto man a power onely to perform that which God will graciously accept for Merit Yea when Calvine will express what use the whole rabble of Popish Schoolmen make of this evasion not troubling himself to alleage their particular words he contracts the summe of all that they all say into these words of his own Aiunt Non tanti esse intrinseca dignitate bona opera ut Cal. Inst li 3. ca. 14. sect 14. ad justitiaÌ„ comparandaÌ„ sufficiant sed hoc acceptantis esse Graciae quod tantùm valeÌ„t They acknowledge that mans good works are not worth a rush in their own intrinsecall worth to Merit or obtein Righteousness before God but that it is of Gods Grace accepting that they are of such value And what he saith at the end of the explication that this kinde of Meriting is no diminutioÌ„ to the greatnes or freenes of the gift or reward Because it was a free and gracious Act of God that made our works capable of this title and to engage himself by promise to us c. as it is in substance one the same thing which he had said before to make his doctrine appear sufferable so is it that which he hath suckt from the breasts of the Holy Mother Church of Rome also It is the plea of all the Popish Sophisters saith Calvin Qui bellè se absurda omnia evasisse putârunt Inst li. 3. ca. 17. sect 3. non intrinseca sua bonitate valere opera ad salutem promerenda sed ex pacti ratione quia Dominus liberalitate sua tanti aestimavit i. e. who thought that they had bravely discharged themselves of all the absurdities which follow this doctrine by saying that our works do not avail to merit salvatioÌ„ by their own intrinsick goodnes but by reason of Gods Covenant or promise because he of his free bounty hath put such a value upon them And still affirming that the Merit of works doth not at all Clowd Gods grace Quia a Gratia accâ—ptante habent suum Ibid. ca. 17. sect 15. valorem i. e. because it is the gracious acceptance of God that entitles them to this honour I shall instance no further in particulars onely in generall I affirm there is not to be found any of the most Trentified deepest branded Papists that hath in this point spoken more derogatorily to the grace of God or more superlatively to the exalting of mans menstruous righteousnes but contrariwise divers especially of the more ancient Schoolmen that have spoken more modestly moderately of both than Mr Br. So high in the conceit of his own worth perfection have the praises of his righteousnes vertues decanted by some throughout the Country coming as it is probable to his ears enthroned him Or if it be not either the proud opinion of his own vertues and righteousness or an ambition to be esteemed matchles and unanswerable in any Paradox that he undertakes to maintain or a vow that he hath made to return bring what Proselytes he can with him to Babylon which hath let him shew what it is that hath induced him thus to pervert disturb the Churches of Christ with these Antichristian doctrines by raising them to life again after they have so long layd almost dead and buryed therein But whether there be not as concinnous an agreement uniformity in Mr Brs doctrines of the perfection Merit of mans righteousnes yet while his righteousnes is thus perfect Meritorious with God he remains notwithstanding under the Curse of the Law and wrath of God untill the day of Judgement as before he hath asserted whether these things do not so trimly agree together as a Crown on the head and a halter about the neck I leave to every rationall man to Judge That which he hath in the middle part of his explication about Merits of man which the Wisdom not the Justice of God is bound to reward as also sundry passages that he hath about Merits in the strict Justice of God I leave as meer fopperies unworthy of reading much more of answering Onely this I affirm that he doth here equallize the merits of mans with the merits of Christs righteousnes for neither hath Christ merited from Gods naturall but his ordinate Justice not in the strict but in the large sense His 25 Thesis lying betwixt these 2 that I have coupled together I passe by without any particular examination of the particulars in it or in the Explication of it because it hath not any thing in it controverted between us Papists though what he saith there be said with an intention to â—app up himself in an Antipopish dress that he may be the less suspected when he comes to sowr
are or shall be justified and saved To the sixth I shall reserve my answer untill I come to examine the forequoted places of Master Baxter together with his impetuous and fiery dispute against it Append. pa. 76. and thence forward unto pa. 98. where wee shall find him combating against this opinion with as much gallantry and possibly with no lesse successe than the Dragon fought against Michael In the interim I doubt not thence after the question rightly stated to maintain the position as our Divines most eminent in the reformed Churches have taught it to be the sacred and sound Doctrine of the Gospell as free from Antinomism as the contrary assertion of Master Baxter is full of Popery The examination of the things conteined in the eighth and ninth I shall leave to their proper place particularly to be examined because they have a multitude of particulars congested in them requiring particular answers From all that hath been said upon this point wee may take up two observations in reference to Master Baxters dealing therein 1. That there is no truth and sincerity in his pretence of fighting against the Antinomians truly so called throughout this his Tractate For he medleth not at all with their erroneous Tenents But contrariwise that he useth meer fraud to inure the odious Term of Antinomism upon the choice and most pretious Doctrines of the Gospel delivered by Christ and his Apostles and taught and defended by the most able and most faithfull Ministers of Christ in all ages to make both the pure Gospel and the defenders thereof to stink in the nostrills of unread and unwary men subtlely concealing the names of those worthies which have taught and maintained these truths lest their light and glory should bring his Doctrines contrary to theirs into suspition first then to examination and lastly to an abhomination among men How much more candour do we find in his fellowes the Arminians or Remonstrants These in all their Tenents wherein they dissent from the Protestant Churches do not load the contrary opinion with the imputation of Antinomism but throughout their Apology ever and anon ingeniously confesse of that which they hold Contra quod fere hactenus creditum est in these and in words equipollent acknowledging still their opinions to be wholly against the judgement of the best Churches and Divines before them Master Baxter it seems hath more of the serpent in him than they had therefore followes the steps of our English Arminians rather than those in Holland before them For as these blasted the sacred truths which they opposed with the name of Puritanism so doth this man with the name of Antinomianism to make them odious A trick which the old Pharisees had learned of their Father Jo. 8. 44. and propagated to their sonns the Papists to besmear the Doctrines of Christ with the infamous titles of Schism Nazarism Heresie Who then will lay it as a fault to their Children in our times if they doe also Patrizare Secondly that he hath the like fraudulent design in mingling with the truths of the Gospel which he brandeth with Antinomism the dreams of Colyer Spriggs Hobson and other Ranters if indeed these be such for I have not read them giving the same brand to these as to the former by this feat endeavouring to instill into the mindes of them that will be deceived 1. That all the hereticall and blasphemous Doctrines which these men teach are Antinomian 2. That the truthes which the one side teach against Antichrist and the Blasphemies which the other side vent against Christ are of one Nature and the former to be no lesse abhorred than the latter Now if the Pamphlets of these men be so abhominable as Master Baxter affirmeth and others also that are both able to judge and faithfull to give their judgement have told me for I acknowledge my self never to have been so ill at leisure to spend two hours in reading what any or all of them have written he dealeth unjustly to yoake them together with those tenents which he falsely accuseth of Antinomism yea with those that are rightly fathered upon Antinomians indeed For granting that they hold some Tenents of the Antinomians yet this neither argueth that all their heresies and blasphemies are so many peeces of Antinomism Nor yet that the Antinomians speaking the same things with these in the points proper to their sect do also close with them in their abhominable Doctrines that are totally alien from the Antinomists Tenents Else because Master Baxter joineth with the Jesuits in the Doctrine of Justification by works we might conclude that in all points he is a Jesuit holdeth not onely lies equivocations and mentall reservations but also murthers Massacres Seditions Powder treasons and all other practices devised in hell it self to be Meritorious works if done to the advancing of Romes interest And because he holdeth the very Act of believing to justifie with the Socinians therefore he is in all other the most blasphemous of their assertions against Christ and his blood a Socinian also or on the other side that the Jesuits and Socinians are in all things because in some things of the same judgement with Master Baxter Were it the truth of Christ which Master Baxter goeth about to propagate he would doubtlesse seek the propagation of it in Christs Spirit and Christs way When we see such serpentine windings and crookednesse in his disputes who can but judge that it is the work of the Old Serpent about which he is imployed Neither the truth of Christ nor Christ which is the truth have any such impotency in them as to need any deceits and shifts for their support When Mr. Baxter yea when all the Jesuits have raised all their mists of Sophistry Sycophancy contumely c. as thick as the smoke from the bottomlesse pit to dim the beams of Gods grace shining forth in the Sunne of Righteousnesse not one Raie thereof shall be thereby diminished it shall hide the pure light of the Gospell onely from them that perish whose eies the God of this World hath blinded 2. Cor. 4. 3 4. No one Soul shall be thereby beguiled save those onely that were made to be taken and destroyed 2 Pet. 2. 12. A large Catalogue more of the Antinomian Tenents are set forth by Master Anthony Burgess affixed to his Lectures against them Which he saith he hath gathered from Luthers works against them I will not question his faithfullnesse in collecting them whether Islebius and his Disciples directly maintained such Doctrines or whether Luther in prosecuting them enumerates these as absurdities that would follow upon their Doctrine whether they are imaginary or reall opinions of any sect of men the most of them are detestable But I find not that either Master Burgess or Mr. Bax can name any one creature under the Sun that hath declared by words or writing that he held them If they can we shall joyn with them as dissenters from and excepters against
by him elswhere That no advantage is to be given to the Papists in the point of Justification To say that the last sentence of judgement shall declare to Men and Angels that the Elect were justified in this life by faith in him is according to the voice of the Word But to say that they shall be then fully Justified as if their Justification had not been before compleated is to out-throw the Bar two foot beyond the Papists for the maintenance of their self-justifying and to speak more for them then they had wit or gracelesnesse to speak for themselves Hence it is that in the beginning of his Explication pag. 183. he forbears to mention other distinctions which are common in others and may be found in Mr. Bradshaw Mr. John Goodwin and Alstedius because saith he they are not so necessary and pertinent to my purposed scope which is to destroy Justification by Grace and erect in place thereof Justification by Works It is a superlative praise that he giveth these men how wel deserved by some of them I know not that they are travelling another way from him their faces are toward Jerusalem and he cannot obtain a word of direction from them but must trust to his own Compass to guide him to Rome What he hath more in the Explication is but the interpretation of his own dream And I have not superstition enough to keep me awaked and attentive to dreams and their interpretation Neither is there any thing else in his 38 Thesis and its Explication but a further forming of the same Chimaera and notional Nothing created out of his brain in the former Position and its Explication Or if there be any thing besides it hath been examined in the precedent Chapter With no lesse silence might I also passe by the 39 Thesis and its Explication as being of the same nature with the former saving that there are two things that wee may glance our consideration upon before we passe further lest that we should seem to look aside from any thing that hath an appearance of weight and strength in it to confirme his doctrine of a Justification or pardon of sin in sentence of Judgement contradistinct from that which he maketh to consist in Title of Law To make evident that besides the Justification here there shall bee another Justification in the day of Judgement hee addeth these two things unto what he had before said 1. An explication of the form of future Justification and Pardon 2. Another Text of Scripture besides the former to evince it The former he hath in these words of that his Thesis That it shall be an acquitting of the sinner at Gods publique Bar. B. From the accusation and condemnation of the Law pleaded against him by Satan For pag. 189. in the Explic. the accusation of his guilt will be managed against him by Satan hereafter from which accusation he shall be then acquitted Who is there now that can doubt of a Justification after this life when he hath heard so graphicall a description of it But how came Satan and Mr. Baxter to be of so great acquaintance that either shall know the others purpose about the Judgement to come I had thought the Devill had made known onely to his friends not to his adversaries what he means to do to morrow much lesse what hee meanes to doe in the day of Judgement I should have conjectured that he is more taken up with the horror of torments that he shall suffer then with the thought of further actings in that terrible day Neither did I until now finde that Satan should be an accuser of others having not what to say for the defence of himself being accused by others as the author of their sinne and misery in the day of Judgement Neither can I find yet that the Scripture teacheth any such thing that Mr. Baxter should be able to say he hath received from the Lord what he doth here discover to us It must be from some Apocrypha's or out of the left side of the Romish Legend that hee hath borrowed this doctrine where I shall leave him to dig out more traditions to maintain his bold assertions that have no pillarage from Scripture to sustain them The latter vizt the Text of Scripture which he alleageth to the same end wee have in the beginning of the Explication thus B. There is also a twofold pardon as well as a twofold Justification one in Law the other in sentence of Judgement So Act. 3. 19. Repent that your sins may be blotted out when the time of Refreshing comes c. Lo here a Justification or pardon of sin in or after our glorification begun But Mr. Baxter knows that Erasmus and the old translation otherwise render this Text making the latter clause thereof Ecliptick or unperfect which is thus to be supplyed Repent c. that your sins being blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come forth from the presence of God What then wee must supply Ye may have your part in the eternall refreshing and joy This rendring of the Text even the most solid Expositors that follow the other reprove not but speak honourably of it much more those that take it up And if we so understand the Text it hath no shew of affirming a forgiveness of sin but glorification onely after the judgement day Yea I have found none untill Beza's new Translation of the Testament that otherwise understood the text or since this translation that hath reprehended the former as faulty but all both before and since making that the sense of it Yea the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translation renders when both Beza and all the Orthodox Expositors render fo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after thus reading the Text not when but after the times of refreshing shall come And this Mr. Baxter will not deny to be the proper meaning of the phrase And will he notwithstanding say that the times of refreshing that is of everlasting joy come first and then the forgiveness of sinne follows Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the original may be as properly rendred have or are come as shall come And so many learned Translators and Expositors of this Text have understood it viz. of Christs first coming in the flâ—sh And then without any supplement the Text is full in it selfe and runneth thus Repent c. that your sins may be blotted out seeing that the times of refreshing are come forth from the presence ef God Let Mr. Baxter cite any one either Scripture or Greek Writer in which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth when otherwise I cannot see the least ground upon which hee can blame this or uphold that Translation which he taketh up 3. The translation which a learned and godly friend gives rendring the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to this end that bears great force with me as best agreeing
on which wrought the cure such are the operations of Christ and faith in the cure of the soul as here in the cure of the body 3. From 1 Gâ—r 30. 31. Christ is of God made unto us Righteousnesse viz. to Justification That he which glorieth may glory in the Lord. God hath made him righteousnesse but how to us or our righteousnesse that it may be of his donation to us Mr. Baxter must answer by faith else farewell his condition but if by the act of faith as our righteousnesse in fulfilling â—he condition or otherwise then an instrument to apprehend the righteousnesse of Christ to justification then have we somewhat of our own righteousnesse wherein to glory all would not be the Lords that we might glory in him alone 4. To this I might add also the phrase which the Apostle useth that we are justifyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by faith through faith as an instrument and never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our faith or upon our faith as for a cause or upon a condition fulfilled as some of our Divines have well observed I proceed to the next position B. Thesis 59. Justification is not a Momentaneous act begun and ended immediately upon our beleeving but a continued act which though it be in its kind compleat from the first ' yet it is still in doing till the finall justification in the judgment day All this together with most of the Explication may be granted as being capable of an Orthodox sense 1. That justification as an act immanent in God is such as is here described is confessed But Mr. Baxter is deaf in this ear 2. That our justification in Christ is such in some sense we also grant but neither will he listen to this 3. Therefore if he would take off all ambiguity of his words and declare his sense to be the same with the sound we would grant to him also that such is our personall justification in our selves which he owneth only for justification For as it is an act of God it is never interrupted or dissolved till the day of judgement though as it is taken Passively there may be many interruptions of our sense and apprehension of it But his Thesis is faced like Janus lookes two wayes at once is set forth in such words as will more properly admit of an evill then a good sense And that he speaks them after the Remonstrant not the Protestant dialect is too probable though not infallibly evident from these reasons to be meant in an evill sense 1. Because he delivers it in the Arminian phrase For so his St. Episcopius Justificatio est actus continuus qui est Episcop Disp 22. Thes 12. de Justif durat quamdiu durat ipsius conditionis requisitae praesentia interrumpitur vero semper toties quoties actus praestantur ejusmâ—di qui cum vera fide conscientia bona consistere nequeunt i. e. Justification is a continued act which is and dureth as long as the presence of its requisite condition continueth but is interrupted so often as such acts are done which cannot consist with true faith and a good conscience To the continuance of justification Mr. Baxter here speaketh the same thing with him and though as to the interruption of it he speaks here as out of a cloud yet compare with this his 45. Thesis and you will have the whole of Episcopius from the pen of Mr. Baxter 2. Because his words do seem here to suppose a Magis minus in its active acceptation or sense It is not begun and ended immediately saith he but is still in doing in a way of perfecting untill the judgment day 3. His restriction added to the compleatnesse or perfection thereof at the first It is compleat at first saith he but in its kind which restriction makes the compleatnesse of justification incompleat and its perfection imperfect till the day of judgment as himselfe hath expressed himselfe before Thesis 41. These things from the position it self From the explication will follow 4. The heartlesse and comfortlesse proof that he brings to prove the continuance of this justifying act making it to reach only to the Genera singulorum not to the singula generum to such a kinde of men not to any singular man or individuall person upon earth to Beleevers but not to this or that beleever So that the holiest Saint if at any time his faith in some temptation faint and cannot be brought to sensible acting is left destitute of all comfort from the Gospell or new Covenant after Mr. Baxters principles It justifieth onely so long as faith actually receiveth Christ if faith through infirmity cease to act he gives the distressed soul no comfort that God continueth to justifie 5. From the first use of instruction which he draweth from this position This sheweth us saith he in the first place with what limitation to receive the assertion of our Divines that remission and justification are simul and semel performed his meaning is that we must understand them in this assertion to deal as Mr. Baxter is wont viz. to say one thing and mean another Not to think as they speak but to equivocate and retaine a mentall reservation within themselves That our justification is begun and perfected both at once and together but all this is but suo genere in its kinde that is conditionally even as the Usurer frankly and freely forgave to his debtor all that he owed him but with this limitation that if he were not paid the whole debt to day he would cast him in prison to morrow there to lie untill he should pay the whole forfeiture But because Mr. Baxter is disposed here to lisp and not to speak alowd and plain his minde we shall leave him to his humour and proceed to hearken to him where he speaketh plainly and without parables Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITULED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hantshire LONDON Printed by E. C. 1654. Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART CHAP. I. The following Doctrine of Mr. Baxters Book reduced to some few heads and the question between him and the Protestants about Justification by works stated HItherto we have been busied about the view of Mr. Baxters swelling which the more and the farther we gazed on the more it increased and after a long expectation of an issue at length the imposthumated matter breaks out in the sight of all men to the offence of all spiritualized men Justification by workes This is the declared and professed Subject of all the following part of this
unlesse it be consented unto in calculum fidei non venire opera sed prorsus Idem ibid. §. 18. separanda esse i. e. that works have nothing to do in the borders of faith to justifie but must be wholly separated from it and proceeds that the Law and faith are here opposed Therefore because works are required to the righteousnesse of the one ergo sequitur ad hujus justitiam non requiri it follows therefore that they are not required to the righteousnesse of the other and further in the same place Herein the Gospell differs from the Law quod operibus non alligat justitiam sed in sola dei misericordia collocat that it binds not righteousnesse to works but placeth it in the sole mercy of God And Fides sine operum adminiculo c. Faith without any proppage of works resteth wholly upon mercy And that wherewith he concludes this Section That the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed is not ushered into our possession by works nec operando nos eam consequi sed vacuos accedere ut eam recipiamus i. e. not that we attain it by working but come with our hands empty of all works to be filled with it With those agreeth Ph. Melanchthon Evangelium offert remissionem per imputationem justitiae vitam aeternam sine conditione legis aut operum nostrorum i. e. the Gospell offers remission by the imputation of righteousnesse and eternall life without condition of the Law or our works Again Vulgo imaginantur homines Evangelium esse promissionem conditionalem at ab hac imaginatione abducendi sunt i. e. Men must be drawn off from that vulgar imagination that the Gospell is a conditionall promise And upon Rom. 4. Credens est salvus sola fide sine operibus Neque nostra obedientia aut causa est aut conditio propter quam accepti sumus coram Deo i. e. He that beleeveth is saved by faith only without works Neither is our obedience either a cause or a condition for which we are accepted before God So Zanchius in Hos 2. 21. Notandum est hanc esse simplicem Evangelicam sine omni conditione promissionem Hic nihil exigit Deus sed simpliciter promittit quod velit ipse c. This is a simple and Evangelicall promise which is without all condition where God requireth nothing but simply promiseth what he pleaseth As for Luther it is superfluous to cite him being every where so full both in the positing and confirming of this doctrine let but his Sermon upon Tit. 3. 5. be read he shall be there found calling it devillish doctrine and the teachers thereof Hypocrites who teach salvation to be far off and not already attained and to be sought for by works concluding Quicunque salutem non ex mera gratia per fidem ante omnia opera c. whosoever receives not salvation out of meer grace by faith before all works he shall never be saved I had a purpose to have annexed the Testimonies of some more of the Chieftains against Antichrist but there is no need Mr. Baxter for his part is not a Zizca warreth not by other mens eyes seeth and knoweth against whom he levelleth is not ignorant that all especially the more antient and unsophisticated worthies of all the Churches speak the same things and in the same tone with these against the Papists Neither was it my purpose to deal at all in this passage with Mr. Baxter but to shew the vanity of some Pharisaicall Cabalisticall Sophisticall but little Scripturall and Theologicall Rabbies who with Anti-evangelicall spirits partly to set up again a Babell or Babylon of works as a mount against Antinomianism as they term the liberty and purity of the Gospell and partly in a prostrate devotion wherewith they sacrifice to every Barbarism and Aphorism of exotick arts to which they must submit though it be to the denying of the whole word of God for fear they should not be reckoned Scholars are ready to gallop after Mr. Baxters Sophisticall Lectures into the very Lateran of Rome not knowing whence they run nor whither whose company they leave and whose they follow such levity and giddinesse hath taken their head-pieces that as having gotten a professed Protestant Divine to lead them into the worst sink of Popery they run with head and shoulders thronging who shall be foremost so no doubt if under the profession or misprision of a Jesuite Paul himself should descend to preach again and maintain the Doctrine of the Gospell in all its verity power and purity and not in a dialecticall phrase they would throw it back in his face as Jesuiticall and devillish For without such lightnesse and emptinesse it were impossible for them to be so suddenly and easily whirled into an applause of an assertion so grosly and palpably Popish and Damning by a peevish veneration of the learning and holinesse of the Penman thereof As if among the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees and Popish Monkes and Jesuits there were not to be found in depth of Learning and strictnesse of Legall righteousnesse many to whom this man may possibly serve and but serve as a shaddow But it sufficeth here to have manifested that the Doctrine of Mr. Baxter is totally the same in this particular with the doctrine of the Jesuits Or if in any respect we shall find it in what remains to be examined not wholly the same I doubt not but in every such difference which we shall meet with to demonstrate that it is far worse then theirs Or if it be not so let him produce any one knowing man within any of the Protestant Churches except he will make the Concision of Socinians and Arminians the true Protestants that hath ever taught or held this doctrine CHAP. III. The first Argument for Justification by Works drawn from Scriptures examined The Scriptures cited prepared to Mr. Baxters hand by the Papists and the Protestants answer to all the Arguments drawn from those Scriptures by the Papists by him concealed and the abhorrency of those Scriptures from the conclusion which they are brought to prove demonstrated HAving in part supplyed what Mr. Baxter would have buryed here in silence some of the Scriptures and Arguments from Scriptures which are brought by the Protestants to remove works from having concurrence with faith in the businesse of justifying let us now examine the Scriptures which he quoteth to prove their cooperation with faith to justifie Here as I said we meet not with words but figures partly therefore because he maintains the same assertion with the Papists partly because the Scriptures which he quoteth are all such as the Papists have urged before him against us so that he hath taken them up at the second hand as they were collected to his hand by the Fryers and Jesuits himself not expressing how he would argue from those Scriptures I conceive it is his desire that we should understand he means so to argue
as his Masters have done before him My labour therefore here will be the lesse because the labour of so many before me hath been so full to manifest how alien and improper these Scriptures are to desend what these men would have defended by them For why should I say again what so many worthies have said untill Mr. Baxter shall make it his taske to prove some infirmity and insufficiency in that which they have spoken All that Mr. Baxter here saith he doth almost wholely transcribe out of Bellarmine giving us a compendium of what Bellarmine hath at large and so Mr. Baxter here is but Bellarmine abridged Let us lay them together and 1 They jumpe in one common conclusion That the bare act of beleeving saith Mr. Baxter faith alone saith Bellarmine Thes 60. is not the only condition of Justification but many other duties c. One of these duties according to Bellarmine first and after Explicat p. 234. him according to Mr. Baxter here is Repentance In this alone they differ that Mr. Baxter puts Repentance as the first and Bellarmine puts it as the fourth in order after Faith and concurring with it in the pardon of sin and salvation The Scriptures which Mr. Baxter alleageth for repentance are some from Bellarmine some from Bellarmines fellowes To this place I referred those Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quoted Thes 14. pa. 90. beginning with Mark 1. 15. to prove repentance a collaterall with faith All which are here quoted over again saving these three Act. 20. 21. Revel 2. 5. ver 16. all which three Scriptures speak no lesse home to his purpose then if he should thus argue Kederminster is in Worcestershire ergo it supports Pauls Church at London Act. 20. 21. The Apostle having affirmed himself to have dealt faithfully in preaching all that was profitable to them to evince it gathers into two heads the sum of all his doctrine which he had testifyed among them viz. Repentance toward God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ what is there in this to prove repentance a concomitant with faith to justifie is every profitable doctrine effectuall to justifie A mans food and garments are both profitable to him shall I therefore concude either that his garments do nourish him or his meat clothe him Revel 2. 5 Christ admonisheth the Angell of the Church of Ephesus To repent and do his first works else will he come and remove his candlestick out of its place except he repent what is this to justification will he say that the removing of the candlestick out of its place was either the justifying of the unjustifyed or unjustifying of him that was before justifyed And Revel 2. 16. Christ cals upon the Angell of the Church at Pergamos Repent or else I will come to thee quickly and will fight against them viz. the Balaamites and Nicholaitans mentioned in the two former verses with the sword of my mouth Surely Mr. Baxter must flie from the latter and rationall meaning and follow the precepts of Origen in fishing after the Spirit or an Allegoricall sense of these words to make them speak any thing for his justification by repentance All the rest Scriptures quoted in the 14. Thesis we have again in a bunch here pa. 235. in the explication of his 60. Thesis to prove the same thing And here why doth he deal worse then Bellarmine in attributing justification which he makes to consist in pardon and salvation to repentance without manifesting as Bellarmine doth what he means by repentance This is but to strive about words and leave the matter in darknesse As for the other particular Scriptures here quoted if I should particularly examine them we should find not a few of them as the three former coming no neerer to the question in hand then Tybris doth to Thames As for all such of them as have the least shew or sound of speaking for him he hath them in part from Bellarmine whom he here followeth and in part from other Jesuits and Fryers that controversally handle the Popish justification against us I refer therefore the reader to informe himself from the many answers of the many Protestant Theologists which they have extant against Bellarmine and the rest of that generation from whom if truth and sobernesse be dear to him it is almost unpossible but that he must receive satisfaction Yet something shall I speak in generall of these quoted Scriptures As many of them as do hold forth the promise of life upon condition of repentance to sinners or to sinners if they repent all the rest quotations being altogether besides the purpose These all speak of a legall or of an Evangelicall repentance Of a legall repentance consisting meerly in a feeling of humiliation and contrition for hatred against departing from sinne and applying of the endeavours to all morall vertue and obedience This is a meerly morall repentance derivable from the strength of naturall conscience illuminated by the Law and common knowledge of Gods will and nature In this sense is the word taken in most of the Scriptures quoted from the old Testament and some also possibly of those that are quoted out of the new But then the life by these Scriptures promised is not the life of justification or of spirituall and supernaturall blessednesse but that which the administration under the Law is wont to call life viz. 1 The fruition of the land of Canaan which prefigured the life and rest both of grace and glory And 2 Of the blessings of health honour peace plenty safety and other temporall benefits promised to the obedient in the Land of Canaan This is clear to him that will see from the 18 of Ezek. where so often mention is made of life and death Turn and live if ye turn not ye shall die what is here meant by this life and death may be understood from that proverb cursedly used by the Jews whereof mention is made in the beginning of the Chapter The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge the fathers have sinned and death is inflicted upon the children for their fathers fault This gave occasion for the delivery of all the doctrine comprehended within this Chapter in which God throughly vindicateth his justice from inflicting death upon the children righteous children for their wicked parents offences shewing how justly they dyed which dyed and lived which lived in reference to their own not their fathers sinne and righteousnesse what then was this death here denounced or the setting of the teeth on edge but the plague famine sword which had been upon them in the Land and their captivity and exile now upon them in Babylon out of the Land of their inheritance these temporall evills are the death here affirmed to be inflicted and denounced to be continued upon them The life promised upon condition of their repentance and turning from their evill wayes was their restauration to the land and blessings of the
Such as these have exhibited or do still exhibit Christ to us for redemption or justification such is our faith still to receive him But these all have exhibited and do exhibit Christ not as a Law-giver but as an offering or sacrifice for our sins therefore under this notion our faith is to receive him to justification So all the sacrifices circumcision paschal Lamb c. under the old Testament directed the faith of men to Christs sacrifice to the bloud and wounds of Christ for purging c. Or if any will say as he may truly say that circumcision typified also the renovation of the heart by the Spirit of Christ himself may answer himself that this was to sanctification and not to justification 2 The whole stream of the Gospell leads our faith to Christ crucifyed or dying for justification As the serpent was lifted up in the wildernesse so shall the Son of man be lifted up viz. upon the crosse that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 14 15. I determined to know i. e. to preach among you for your knowledg nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed 1 Cor. 2. 2. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me signifying what death he should die Joh. 12. 32 33. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud c. Joh. 6. 47 58. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud Rom. 4. 25. Being justified by his bloud Rom. 5. 9. The bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. The Lambe of God sacrificed that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. Having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse Col. 1. 20. And reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death Ver. 21 22. Having redemption through his bloud even the sorgivenesse of sin Col 1. 14. He hath purchased his Church with his bloud Act. 20. 28. Having boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the bloud of Jesus by the new and living way which he hath consecrated through the veil of his flesh Heb. 10. 19 20. He was wounded for our sins and bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed Isa 53. 5. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. I might even weary the Reader with allegations of Scriptures every way as pertinently and properly making Christ dying for us the object of faith as justifying And I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his admirers to produce one Scripture proving Christ as a Law-giver to be the object of our faith to justification If they cannot do it let it be acknowledged as an audacious and daring presumption in Mr. Baxter from his own authority without and against the Word to lay it down here as a position and principle of Religion 3 If the death and sufferings alone of Christ and not his giving of Lawes and commanding duties of righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction which he hath given to the justice of God for us then Christ in his death and not at all in his Laws and Commands of such duties is to be made the object of our faith for justification But the former is true therefore the latter also Both the consequent and consequence of the Proposition must needs be granted by all Protestants though not by Remonstrants and Socinians which hold the imputation of the obedience of Christ to us by which he hath satisfyed Gods justice that he for us and we in and by him have done our law that his satisfying obedience is by imputation so fully made ours to justification as if we had done it our selves which is the doctrine of all Protestant Churches But Mr. Baxter hateth this phrase of imputation of Christs obedience will not cannot admit it for then he destroyes and pronounceth all at the best to be erroneous whatsoever he hath spowted out for sacred doctrine he grants the imputation of nothing else but our own faith and works to justification so that after his principles the consequence is not so clear Let us see therefore whether also after and upon his own grounds it may stand firm and undenyable 1 Then Mr. Baxter Thes 18. affirmes our Legall righteousnesse as he cals it i. e. that righteousnesse by which the Law is satisfyed for our breaches of it to be in Christ and in calling this Legall righteousnesse ours and the satisfaction therein made ours he doth imply that the satisfaction of Christ is the thing that being made ours is that which justifyeth us This he speaks out yet more plainly pa. 218. telling us that Christs satisfaction must be made ours else we cannot be justifyed that so far as by imputation no more is understood then the bestowing of Christs satisfaction on us so that we shall have the justice and benefits thereof as truely as if we had satisfyed our selves in this sense he granteth the imputation of Christs satisfactory righteousnesse and thus according to his principles that act or those acts of Christ by which he made satisfaction for us or rather Christ in these acts is to be made the object of our faith as justifying According to this rule pa. 54. he makes the Active righteousnesse of Christ considered as such part of the satisfaction together with the Passive and to lay a ground for that which he here inferreth pa. 57 he affirms that among other parts of Christs righteousnesse or Active obedience his assuming of the humane nature his establishing and sealing the Covenant his working miracles his sending his Disciples to convert and save the world his overcoming death and rising again c. which were all works most proper to his kingly office to have been meritorious and satisfactory And all this to lay a foundation for what here and Thes 72. he buildeth viz. Christ as a Law-giver as well as a Redeemer is the object of justifying faith as such and that obedience to his Laws as well as faith in his sufferings hath to do in our justification We finde then Mr. Baxter making Christ in his Legislative righteousnesse upon this ground alone to be the object of justifying faith as therein he in part satisfyed for our disobedience Therefore hoc nomine and in this respect must the consequence of the proposition stand firm with him viz. If only the death and sufferings of Christ and not at all his Legislative righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction c. then Christ in his death onely and not c. is to be made the object of faith as justifying For in that righteousnesse alone by which Christ satisfyed is faith to apprehend him to justification by his own rules The Assumption then remaines alone needfull to be proved viz. that Christs death and suffering alone is the entire satisfaction This is clear to them which will not wilfully retain beams in their eyes from these Scriptures which affirm the
in his other forementioned operations upon us by his Word and Spirit not only to teach and command but also by his infinite power to enliven us to bring forth fruits of so great a salvation and to walke worthy of it in all holinesse and righteousnesse and exactnesse to fulfill all duties and works of Christian obedience In this he is to be made indeed the object of justifying faith or which is the same of sanctifying faith yet not at it justifyeth but as it sanctifyeth We should not a little maim both the office of faith and the benefits which we have by Christ if we should restrain them all to justification Nay Christ is made unto us as well sanctification as righteousnesse and faith adhereth as fast to Christ for the one as the other else is it not a legitimate but bastard faith Neverthelesse Christ is not in the same respect the object of faith as sanctifying and of the same as justifying Because this is Mr. Baxters supereminent Argument in which himself seems most to trust and by which so many learned Ministers do even professe themselves staggered and astonished I shall omit nothing unexamined that he speaketh in the affirming or confirming of it lest any should take occasion to say that the strongest part thereof is not because it could not be answered Therefore have I left out nothing of what he hath said to the other Proposition though many things were unworthy of Animadversion To the consequent of this Proposition he speaketh more in his next two Theses viz. 73. 74. what is inserted in these two Aphorisms more fit to be examined under another notion I shall here forbear to transcribe leaving it for its proper place What is to the present purpose he thus expresseth B. Thes 73. pa. 289. Faith only doth not justifie in opposition to the works of the Gospell but those works do also justifie Thes 74. Both faith and works justifie in the same kind of causality viz. as Causae sine quibus non or mediate and improper causes or as Dr. Twisse causae dispositivae c. The like may be said of Love and of others in the same station These are but meer affirmations and contain no reasons to confirme only in the latter Thesis seemingly at least is produced the authority of that Antinomian Dr. Twisse but with so fine a conveyance as that he may be kept in or left out at pleasure if Mr. Baxter be dealt with to make good his allegation of him He knowes the name and authority of Dr. Twisse to be great and amiable as an eminent servant of Christ and patron of his truth He concludes therefore that his assertions will be swallowed with the more facility having such an authority to sweeten and fortifie them Therefore so interserteth his Testimony that his Reader may suppose Dr. Twisse to affirm works to be causas dispositivas of justification I neither have read all that Dr. Twisse hath written neither do I so far trust my memory as to deny it flatly and peremptorily Yet by knowing Dr. Twisse aright I am as confident that Bellarmine hath taught the righteousnesse of justification to be meerly by imputation and our justification only by faith as that Dr. Twisse hath any way affirmed works in this or any other respect to prevent or operate to our justification If he did why doth not Mr. Baxter quote the place as elsewhere he doth very diligently when the Testimony of the Author makes for him or why in the end of his Appendix where he sucks out of Dr. Twisse and others all that he thinks may make for his advantage doth he not cite this so pregnant a Testimony But he hath left to himself an evasion that when he hath beguiled whom he can with such an authority being found at last he can answer his meaning is the term or phrase viz. causa dispositiva upon some other not to this Argument is that which Dr. Twisse useth I finde him indeed calling works causas sine quibus non or dispositivas salutis of our salvation or glorification never of our justification And so far is he from attributing under this term what Mr. Baxter attributeth that he seriously abandoneth it So he expresseth himself Vind. Lib. 1. Par. 2. Sect. 2. Proxime finem Vix majus pâ—ceatum est quam justificationem quaerere ex operibus and almost in the next words Nullum opus Deo gratiuâ— acceptius est quam sibi justitiae suae in negotiosalutis renunt iare et in Christo unice confidere But come we now to that which he speaks for confirmation the first part consists in prefacing His own conscience telling him that it is a Pharisaicall Popish principle which he hear positeth he forelayes his Proeme to the proofe thereof thus B. I know this is the doctrine that will have the loudest out-cries raised against it and will make some cry out Heresie Popery Socinianism and what not For mine own part the searcher of hearts knoweth that not singularity affection of novelty nor any goodwill to Popery provoketh me to entertain it but that I have earnestly sought the Lords direction upon my knees before I durst adventure on it and that I resisted the light of this conclusion as long as I was able but a man cannot force his own understanding if the evidence of truth force it not though he may force his pen or tongue to silence or dissembling That which I shall do further is to give you some proofs c. First here a word to such Ministers as being more the disciples of men then of Christ and better versed in Sophistry then Divinity do only not deify Mr. Baxter maintaining all his doctrine in this book to be the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches Why do they anger the man in charging him with so low a spirit that he hath nothing but what is common with him and the most eminent lights in the Church will not he be offended at it doth he not here in some kind pronounce himself a dissenter and that what he here asserteth is that which the Protestant Churches detest as heresie doth not himself even before experience what acceptance his book would have as it were proclaime himself in this point departed from us into the Tents of Papists and Socinians As to Mr. Baxter 1. We have before granted to him that he gives no cause of suspicion that affection of singularity and novelty hath drawn him into this opinion For he is not herein singular nor is his doctrine new but such as the Phariâ—ees in Christs time and the false Apostles in the Apostles times and the worst of Hereticks from thence unto our dayes have unanimously pestered the Church with Yet in this I appeal to Mr. Baxter whether some affection of repute by being a deviser of a new way and new Arguments for the confirmation of this old Popish Socinian doctrine hath not possessed him 2. Whether the searcher of
all hearts witnesse for him that no good will to Popery in generall provoked him to trouble the Church with his doctrine I will not judge But if good will to this part of Popery that consists in justification by works unto which if all the rest garbage of Popery be compared it is insufficient to counterpoise it in mischief did not provoke let him shew what hath provoked him to it Is it in hatred to the Papists that he hath laboured so stoutly to maintain their Kingdome Is not this the pillar of all Popery and if this be demolished what is there of all their heresies but will fall after 3. As to his sincerity in this businesse in following conscientiously his judgment I know I finde in my self the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately evill who can finde it out I search only my own not anothers heart that is out of my orb and beyond my fathom But I should give the more credence to Mr. Baxter speaking of his own sincerity in this businesse did I not see him forsaking the fountain and digging to himself cisterns deriving from every puddle of Papists Arminians Socinians and Atheists both his tenents and all fallacious Sophistry to maintain them leaving the pure word of God and tossing it either from him or for himself at his pleasure 4. As for his prayer if presented to God after his own principles as an Act helping to justifie him and no further through the mediation of Christ then as the same mediation take efficacy as to him from his own works and worth no marvell if the justice of God flung it back as dirt in his face and left him to that de luding spirit which worketh by those false Apostles whom he had studied so many years having spent but a few days upon the Scriptures as himself confesseth So the Pharisee after his praying departed from the presence of God unjustifyed unregarded Such devout Protestations may possibly take impression upon the weak and ignorant But Satan in the vizzard of an Angell of light and Satan in his own ghastly visage is to them that are strong in the faith the same Satan and alike shunned Besides when men rest not satisfyed with the sacred truth of the Word but will as it were rake the very dung of Gods enemies for quaintifies of knowledge which the Word hath not if they are blacked no marvell for their delight is to dwell with Colliers And God hath threatned to send them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie c. 2 Thes 2. 10 11 12. Yeelding them up to waxe worse deceiving others being themselves deceived or self-deceivers 2 Tim. 3. 13. He promiseth some proofs of what he saith and one argument he puts in this explication thus B. If faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant and obedience be also part of the condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved An Herculean Argument as soon may a man wrest the Club out of Hercules his hand as make void the conclusion which is inserred by this Argument If my eye discerneth colours upon condition it look diligently upon them and my hand doth inrich me upon condition that it stretcheth forth it self to receive a Princes beneficence and my heel be put into the same condition with my eye and my hand then my heel doth discerne colours in the same way with my eye and enrich me in the same way with my hand But both parts of the Antecedent are as firmly proved before as the both parts of Mr. Baxters antecedent Ergo the conclusion is as very a blank as Mr. Baxters If Mr. Baxters oft saying of the same thing doth prove the thing to be true then this cannot be denyed to be a truth For who can number the times that he hath kissed and spit in the mouth of this Ashteroth Condition setting it up cheek-mate with Christ himself in justifying us For Thes 56. he yoaks together Christ and faith in the same way of causality to justification and here and every where faith and obedience or works so that Christ faith and works are collaterals in justifying how as they meet together in this one Great Colossus condition or causa sine qua non Christ is the condition even in his satisfaction and faith is the condition and works is the condition so that Condition it seems by him justifyeth more then works or faith or Christ for neither works alone nor faith alone nor Christ alone doth justifie But this mouth-almighty Condition when like Bel and the Dragon she hath eaten up and swallowed into her bowels Christ faith and works doth of and by her self alone justifie such a Justifyer and such a Justification I should speak more seriously if Mr. Baxter had ministred to me more serious matter whereof to treat Chaffe is wont to be exposed to the winde when the Wheat as more substantiall is allotted to a more substantiall handling The rest of his Arguments which he brings in other Theses I shall examine by themselves CHAP. VI. The fift Argument answered and the dispute of St. James Cap. 2. opened and the Reasons drawn thence to prove justification by works refuted THe former was Mr. Baxters great Argument the fift in number is like to it yet not so much hugged and honoured by him as the former because that was his own born of his own brain This he takes up as fully formed by the Papists to his hand and use so that he is not to have the entire honour of it but every petty Monk and Sacrificer will challenge his part therein This is indeed their great and sole Argument against the Protestants The rest they bring is unworthy the hearing This therefore Mr. Baxter here that the Popish cause may stand and ours fall Atlas-like puts his shoulder and whole strength under to support B. Thes 75. pa. 292. The plain expression of St. James should terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21 24 25. c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justifyed by works and not by faith only Eusebius Hierom. I mean not here to seek an evasion by pleading that this Epistle in the primitive times of the Church before the controversie about justification by faith or by works and faith was in agitation was questioned by some and denyed by others to be of divine authority Or that * Erasmus Luther Musculus Cajetan a Cardinall of the Romish some great Divines of these latter times have not received it into the Canon or that among those that embrace it as Canonicall it is much disputed what James is the Authour of it For besides the Syriac interpreter that weakly attributes it to James the brother of John who in the cradle of the Church was slain with the sword by Herod Act. 12.
reason or ground of their glorification because the Grace of Christ mentioneth them is to lay the honour of Christs Grace in the dust They that shall be glorified even when Christ of his infinite Grace extolleth their service done to him shall depresse themselves that the entire prayse may bee his Lord when did wee thus and thus minister to thee what ever did we of any worth that thou shouldest owne it as a service to thee what thou imputest is no otherwise our observance but in thy acceptance It is therefore denyed that the justifying sentence as Mr Baxter termes it shall passe in the last day either for or according to works otherwise than hath beene before granted And if wee shall not at last be glorified according to and for our workes but that Mr. Brs. proofes in this particular faile Then is his labour lost in going about to prove the second particular that the reason hereof is because they are parts of the condition It must first appear that it is before wee trouble our selves to know in what respect it is so So that we will not contend about the second particular with him to deny what he concludeth that workes concurre in the same concausality with Faith to our glorification 1. Not to evidence the truth of our Faith nor secondly as the righteousnesss which the Law requireth not thirdly as a meer signe by which God doth discern our Faith nor fourthly as a mere sign to satisfie the justified person himselfe nor fiftly to satisfie the condemned world of the sincerity of our Faith All this we grant and further adde in the sixt place nor as a condition in Mr Baxters sense of our glorification And because none of these or other wayes therefore not at all The Scriptures which he brings pa. 322. n. 5. that seeme to hold forth the promise of glorification for our workes are of the same nature with those examined in the former Chapter alleaged by him and all as those gathered by the Papists to his hand and either do conclude no more than what a little before we have in this Chapter granted or pertaine to some of those ends of such promises of life which God maketh to our obedience specified in the former chap. I shall therefore here pretermit to speak to them because Mr Baxter alleageth them to another end here viz to prove that the mention of these works to judgement is more than to signifie their sincerity to the condemned world as in the end of that Section he expresseth himselfe And this we deny not So that it were impertinent to examine the premises where the conclusion is granted CHAP. IX Whether according to Mr. Baxter Doe and live be the voice of the Gospel as well as of the Law The question stated and resolved whether and in what respects Believers must act or work from life not for life IN the eighth place as naturall motions are strongest when they come neerest to their period and center so at the conclusion of his Aphorismes pag. 3. 4. and so onward to the end he multiplies Argument upon Argument or rather twisteth many arguments together in one under the notion of Queries The substance of all may bee gathered together into this one Syllogisme That Doctrine which by necessary consequence draweth after it many intolerable absurdities mischiefs and soul-damning evills must needs be a falsâ— doctrine But so doth the Doctrine of justification by Faith or by Christ instrumentally received by Faith without the addition of works in a concausality with Fâ—â—â—h or Christ Ergo It is a false doctrine The Proposition is granted him The Assumption hee goeth about to cleer and make good by enumerating the particular absurdities and mischiefs that are consequentiall to this Doctrine And this he doeth by way of interrogations bearing the force of strong Affirmations I shal examine them in order The first query he puts in these words B. Doth it not needlesly constraine men to wrest most plaine and frequent expressions of Scripture A simple negation would here best suit with so untoward and audatious a question Neither shall I say any more to it but admonish the Reader to take notice that hee doth in these words frame an enditement against Christ his Apostles and all that beare the name of Protestants for sacriledge in wresting the holy Scriptures And that 1. Though he doth not and why but because he cannot bring any one Scripture which they have so wrested 2. And thereby affirmeth plaine enough to the capacity of every understanding reader that the Papists and Arminians alone have purely and truely interpreted the Scriptures as to the point of justification whom himselfe therefore followeth as their obedient disciple And 3. shewes us no reason therof but leaves us to conjecture what his meaning is viz that the Scripture is no farther Canonicall than after the interpretation and sense which the holy Mother Church alloweth it Nay we retort the argument upon him Iustification by works constraines the assertors thereof not onely to wrest many Scriptures but also to destroy and nullifie the whole Gospell and Salvation of Christ Therefore it is false doctrine This first query was but a warning peece but who can stand to beare the force of the second The man as if hee had newly come forth of Vulcans shop is all fiery spits out nothing but lightening and thunderbolts blowing into the bottome of Hell all that stand in his way How formidably he layes about him they that dare to come so neer may finde partly in this second querie it selfe but principally in his Appendix pag. 76. c. and in the highest strength of his wrath pag. 83. and onward to the end of pag. 98. First his querie here runs in these words B. pa. 324 and 325. 2 Qu Doth it not uphold that dangerous pillar of the Antinomian doctrine that we must not work or perform our duties for life and salvation but only from life and Salvation That we must not make the attaining of Justification or salvation an end of our endeavours but obey in thankefulnesse onely because we are saved and Justified A aâ—ctrine which I have else where confuted And if it were reduced to practise by all that hold it as I hope it is not would undoubtedly damn them for he that seeks not and strives not to enter shall never enter Now if good workes or sincere obedience to Christ our Lord be no part of the condition of our full justification and salvation who will use them to that end For how it can procure justification as a meanes and not by way of condition I cannot conceive In what part of the world Mr. Baxters elsewhere lyeth in which his confutation of this doctrine is to be found I know not I am not inquisitive to know I have enough in this and desire not to fish in any more of his foule waters But in pronouncing this doctrine of working and performing duties not for life buâ— from
nothing c. When the Auâ—hor in the quoted place speaketh nothing of the New Covenant but of the Law of Christ by which hee there declareth himselfe to meane the Ten Commandements as they are now in the hand and disposing of Christ And this Law he understands also in relation not to the whole world but to them that are implanted into Christ his words being directed to Neophytus To such Christ having already borne the penalty of the Law in their stead temporall and fatherly chastisements onely for their purging and perfecting are threatned in case through infirmity they transgresse the Law In this I conceive hee alludeth to the priviledges of the Covenant made with David as the Type of Christ and his seed as the Type of Christs seed and so pertayning as a Gospel liberty no lesse fully to us than to them If his children forsake my Law breake my statutes c. Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving kindness will I not take utterly from him nor suffer my faithfulnes to fail my Covenant will I not break c. Ps 89. 31-34 And this is M. Brs. own doctrine when he teacheth that there is no deathly violation of the new Covenant besides final unbelief rebellion against Christ in and under Thes 32. 33. 34. and 37. But the Author whom Mr. Br. calls heer ad partes speaks not of finall unbeleefe or rebellion incident to the world but of some particular transgression of any of the Ten Commandements as hee expresseth himselfe through the infirmity incident to the Saints What fire and fury is there in this mans wrath that having made an Adversary will have him wounded vel per me though through his owne heart aniâ—amque in vulnere ponit If it be an intolerable errour in this man much more in Mr. Baxter who much more vehemently and upon sligâ—â—er and slenderer grounds asserts it The Scriptures which Mr. Baxter alleâ—dgeth as contraried by this doctrine speak eytherof such rebells as when the Grace of Christ is offered them persist in a finall refusall of it or of such hypocrites as having once seemingly tasted it Apostatize utterly from it And with these this Author hath nothing heere to doe Onely Mr. Baxter being heavily burthened with another Monster which hee had a purpose to have disburthened himselfe of in a Tractate of Universall Redemption being prevented by another must needs now and then case himselfe of it and speake out how hatefull to him the doctrine of the certaine perseverance of the Saints in grace is The other things which hee hints and but hints at as errours in this Author might bee taken into examination if Mr. Baxter would alleadge his words and shew what hee excepts against in them I see not but the passages are pure and cleare enough in the Booke if hee would forbeare the casting in of his salt-petre to corrupt them As he sayth it was not his businesse to have objected so neither was it my businesse to have defended had hâ—e not sought under a pretence of opposing this Booke to defame many truths of Christ CHAP. XI Whether according to Mr. Baxter the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without works tend to carnall Liberty and to the driving of Obedience out of the World IN prosecuting his second Quere Mr. Baxter hath lead us a long race In the rest he is more straight and short A third Quere which bears the force of another Argument to subvert Justification by Faith without works hee so proposeth as contayning another absurdity and evill likely to follow upon this doctrine His words are as followeth B. Aphor. pa. 325. Whether this Doctrine doth not tend to drive obedience out of the world For if mâ—n doe once beleeve that it is not so much as a part of the Condition of their Justification will iâ— not much tend to relax their diligence I know that Love and thankfulnesse should bee enough and so it will when all our ends are attained in our ultimate end Then wee shall Act for these ends no more wee shall have nothing to doâ— but love and joy and prayse and beâ— thankâ—full But that is not yet Sure as God hath given us the affections of Feare Desire Hope and Care so he would have us use them for the attainment of our great ends Therefore he that taketh downâ— but one of all our motives to obedience he helps to destroy obedience it selfe seeing we have need of every Motive that God hath left us I shall examine heere first the Quere it selfe then the amplification of it The Quere or Interrogation bears the force of a strong Affirmation That the doctrine of Justification by Grace without Workâ— doth tend to drive obedience out of the world and to relax mens diligence to good works It must bee therefore a prodigious doctrine that produceth so cursed an effect First then I demand whom he censureth as the Authors of so direfull an evill God or men If the Holy Ghost hath not taught men this doctrine let the guilt of this evill bee upon such men as have entertayned it But the Holy Ghost hath taught it To him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is imputed to him for righteousnesse But hee that worketh or brings works to be justified by them is excluded Ro. 4. 4. â— His is the blessedness to whom God imputeth Righteousness without works ver 6. Not of works but of him that calleth Ro. 9 11. If at works then not by Grace if by Grace then not of works Ro. 11. 7. By Grace through Faith not of works Eph. 2. 8. 9. Not our owne righteousnesse but the righteousnesse which is by the Faith of Christ Phil. 3. 9. Not by works of righteousnesse which wee have done but according to his mercy And many more testimonies before in a fitter place alleadged all in one harmony evincing the Holy Ghost to bee the Author of this Doctrine So that Mr. Baxter loadeth not man but God with this reproach of seeking to drive obedience out of the world 2. Whether hee hath not taken up this slander from the Monks and Jesuits Whether there bee any of them that having written against Justification by Faith which hath not aspersed it and our Churches that hold it with this scandall Or any one of the Protestant Divines which hath defended this Article of our Faith but hath spoken fully to the vindicating of this Doctrine from this so injurious a slander When Mr. Baxter is so much Popish that hee takes up every most frothy Objection of every shaveling of that side to adore it and so much an Anti-Protestant that hee scorns to mention what on our part hath beene regested in way of answer to it why takes he up his habitation among Protestants but to corrupt and seduce them 3. If hee meane by the World the unbeleevers of the World that are strangers to Christ and the Covenant
works and in opposition to works That this is Pauls doctrine and Pauls justifying Faith I suppose hath beene enough evinced before and shall God assisting bee more fully eleared in its due place when I come to examine the reasons which Mr. Baxter bringeth to proove his doctrine not to bee opposite to Pauls but the same with it Therefore in calling this Faith a soule couzening Faith hee proclaimes Paul yea Christ himselfe which revealed to Paul his Gospel a cheater and couzener learning this calumniation from that Jewish and Pharisaicall generation from which he hath derived his Doctrine Joh. 7. 12. But the testimony of the Holy Ghost runnes contrary to Mr. Baxters pronouncing them that joyne Works with Faith as necessary concâ—uses with it to Justification to bee the couzeners troublers and subverters of mens soules Col. 2. 4. Gal. 5. 12. Act. 15. 1. 24. But to vindicate the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches and therein also the doctrine of the Gospel both being one and one 〈◊〉 from having any thing in it that may give footing to this 〈◊〉 that we teach a soule-couzening Faith and to manifest that Mr. Baxter doth knowingly asperse the Doctrine of Faith and them that held it with this slander I shall collect into a few heads the doctrine which our Churches teach yea which Mr. Baxter knoweth they teach as to this Question First then they affirme That God hath layd up in one Christ alone all supplies for poore sinners to relieve them against all their spiritual wants of which supplies these 2 are principal ones righteousnesse to justification and the Spirit to Sanctification The one delivereth from guilt and condemnation the other from the domination of sin and impotency to acceptable obedience The former stateth the sinner Rectum in Curia righteous before God again having his sin pardoned and no more imputed the latter spirituallizeth quickneth and new formeth him again to the will and image of God in holinesse and righteousnesse 2 That whosoever receiveth one receiveth both these supplies from Christ none puts him on to justification but puts him on to sanctification also and so becomes a new creature as well in reality as in relation becomes inherently as well as imputatively righteous by him 3 That it is one and the same Faith which is instrumentall both to justification and sanctification though not by one and the same but by severall and different Acts. As my hand even the same hand is instrumentall both to feed and cloth me though not by the same but by different Acts. It is the will of my benefactor to hold my selfe to Mr. Baxters simily having ransommed me from Turkish thraldome and appointed me to honourable service in his house to leave open to me both his wardrop and his store house or promptuary of provisions with a command that I should pertake freely and richly of both that by the one I might be fitly habited and adorned by the other nourished and strengthened for honorable service to be done to him In both these my hand is instrumentall to serve and furnish me yet by severall Acts. It neither fetcheth meat from his wardrop nor clothing from his Pantry and Cellar but by several Acts from both and either what in both and either is laid up for me yet so as all is my Lords goods and by my pertaking thereof I am put into a capacity of dooing him faithfull and acceptable service I need not make the application every one can do it for himselfe The eternall King having layd downe the life of his owne son for the ransom of my soule hath opened to me all his treasuries in one the same Christ the treasury of his blood merits to purge me from the guilt of sin and obligation to judgement and vengeance so that having put on Christ crucified my Law is done my sin forgiven my nakednesse and filthinesse covered and I stand in Christ as perfectly righteous as if I had never offended the treasury of his spirit and spirituall gifts sufficient to turn my water into wine to renew my hart and to sannctifie me throughout that henceforth I shall hate sinn no lesse than hell and delight in the Law of God after the inner man taking no lesse pleasure in the holinesse than in the happinesse which are by Christ The eternall Father offers both together and neither without the other And the same spirit which drawes to one drawes to both The same Faith which apprehends one apprehends both is not a justifying except it be also a sanctifying Faith Yet by severall Acts and from severall treasuries in the same Christ the same Faith fetcheth justification from his satisfaction and new inherent righteousnesse from the spirit of sanctification 4 That as justification ought and doth declare it selfe to the person justified by its proper and immediate fruits peace of conscience joy in the Holy Ghost prizing Christ above all things soul contentation in him living and dwelling upon him selling all to enjoy him alone to righteousnesse and salvation counting all things dung and losse in comparison of him emptying our selves more and more of our owne righteousnesse of our owne-selfe confidence that hee may be made out all at Gods Tribunall repairing no more to Abanaâ— Pharfar no nor to Jordan it selfe but to the one fountaine of Christs blood there to Wash dayly and be cleane neither in this mountain nor yet at Hierusalem but in Christ alone to worship that we may be accepted So also sanctification doth and ought to shew it selfe to us and others by its fruits to our selves by the seeds and habits of love righteousnesse holinesse c. affecting the heart within To others by the fruits and workes of the spirit manifested in the practise without viz. all the Acts of love mercy goodnesse sanctity piety charity equity patience meeknesse c. as also in subduing the flesh by the spirit mortifying every evill affection fighting against every sinn that we may shew our selves a peculiar people of the Lord zealous of every good worke 5 That justification and sanctification by Faith in Christ do evidence either the other He that can finde himselfe truely justified may know himselfe to be no lesse truly sanctified by Christ because he that is in union with Christ so as to be pertaker of his justifying and saving righteousnesse by being so joyned to Christ is become one spirit with him saith the Apostle The spirit of sanctification discendeth and giveth influence from the head to the whole body and every member thereof So on the other side he that by being one spirit is sanctified by the same spirit of Christ may by this evidence know himselfe that Christ by the same spirit is made righteousnesse to him and is in the same relation to God with Christ being justified adopted c. a son and heir with him to all the inheritance Sanctification I say truly understood is such an evidence for none are sanctified but the justified and
all the justified by Faith are sanctified if it be sanctification indeede it may be made an evidence of justification 6 Yet neither all seeming peace and quietnesse of conscience or joy in expectation of salvation or hope that is made the ground of this joy and such other like seeming effects of Justification are alway sure evidences to a man that he is justified because not alway fruits or parts of sanctification they may proceed from another and baser principle viz. from the deceitfulnesse of their heart or self-love and self-advancing or from the spirit of slumber upon the conscience or from ignorance of Gods way and method of bringing many Children to glory Nor are all seeming holiness honesty meeknesse temperance patience and other like vertues either in their habite as they really affect the heart or in their act as they are with an ardent zeale for God brought forth into practice sure evidences of sanctification by Christ because these also may proceed from other and baser principles and not from the Spirit of Christ as from the abiding prints of the Law of Nature written in the heart or from the power and suggestions of a convinced and awaked conscience or from strong impressions made into the soule by a morall and vertuous education or other like sub-celestiall and unspirituall principles So that our certaine and known union to Christ and our justification and sanctification sensibly thence flowing may be properly and unfailingly made our sound evidence of the spirituall life and acceptablenesse of our vertues and works But these in themselves in no wise certaine evidences and demonstrations to us of our justification and sanctification by Christ Sanctification is one thing and a zealous endeavour to be in all things conformed to the will of God is or may be another The former is only from the Spirit of Christ and wrought only in them which are in Christ The later may proceed from morall principles and is incident even to them also that are aliens from Christ 7 Neverthelesse even these vertues and good works do so farr evidence that from the Negation of these a man is certainely denyed to be in Christ or to be justified or sanctified by the faith of Christ I mean that whosoever can allow himself in the habituall practice of any known sin or rejection of any known duty that man may know himself and be known of others to be an Alien from Christ Because whosoever is in Christ is a new Creature all things are become new not only in respect of his relation but of his manners and conversation also and in whomsoever the Spirit of Sanctification dwelleth it dwels in a state of reign not of bondage Withall these vertues and good works when they are found to flow from our union to Christ and the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through Christ and upon examination a man can truly say that he hath ceased to hew from any other Qâ—arrie or to dip from any other Fountain than from Christ that from his Spirit alone hee daily sucketh life as the branch from the root to bring forth fruit and from the sacrifice of Christs death a sweet odour to make himself and his fruit acceptable then they serve as good seconds to prove to his soul that he is justified and sanctified But so that his being in Christ must first prove his fruit to be good before his fruit can have any power to evidence him to be in Christ and the evidence of both his justification and sanctification consisteth not so much in the qualifications which he hath attained or works which he doth and hath done as in his continuall waiting upon Chrih from him alone to receive what hee ought to be and to do in all wel-pleasing before God and the love of God in Christ enabling to obedience 8 That although Sanctification and the fruits thereof do each in its own degree as aforesaid more or lesse evidence our Justification yet have they no concausality with Faith to the producing of it All that are in Christ are Saints in Christ yet their sanctity goes not before their being in Christ but is an immediate fruit thereof The forgiveness of sin and Adoption doth in order go before their doing of acceptable service to God and unacceptable service cannot justifie 9 The grace of God which bringeth salvation and justification teacheth men to deny ungodlinesse c. and to live soberly c. Cals upon all to stretch forth their Faith to apprehend to themselves in Christ both the imputed and the inherent righteousness so far is it from breathing a soul-cozening or a soul-corrupting faith Therefore is the justifying Faith called by the Holy Ghost a most holy Faith Jude 20. A soule purifying Faith Act. 15. 9. A sanctifying Faith Act. 26. 18. Implying its efficacy as well to sanctifie as to justifie and that there is no true sanctification but that which is instrumentally obtained or at least received by Faith Lastly that one chief end of our Justification is that we bring forth acceptable fruit to God here inchoate hereafter in perfect obedience to God and conformity with him And the Justifier doth and will attain his end in justifying therefore brings none to glory but such as have all vertues and good works at least in their root and seed while they are here and if after their effectuall calling they live to have time and opportunity do not unfeigâ—edly endeavour universally to declare the same in their practice So that to dream of any glorified man in heaven that was not actually a Saint upon earth is a dream from hell not from heaven All these things might have been largely proved both from the Scriptures and our Protestant Writers but that I esteem them all to be so known to be the consenting asserteons of all our Churches and by them so fully confirmed by the word that I should but abuse time to take it up in particularizing what is in this Case so generally written and read I have been the more large in expressing the doctrine of the Protestant Churches upon this Argument to wipe off the stain which Mr. Br. hath learned of the Papists to lay upon it in this and the former quere which are wholly framed to beguile the weaker sort having nothing in them to stagger the Judicious And now I leave it both to the strong and weak to judge whether the Accuser of the Brethren himself can possibly expresse more impudence and falshood in slandering the Churches of Christ than this man hath done or if he had not bound himself to speak after the Jesuits and Monks whatsoever they traducingly say whether there be any colour of reason for him to have layd upon us these two accusations To hold my self to that which I am now examining what is there in this Faith and Doctrine thereof which I have described deserving to be called a soul-cozening Faith And when he addeth That Faith which is by many
learned men turn'd to Popery This shall suffice to have said to the matter of Mr. Brs. Quere But memorable and worthy to be written upon the purest chrystal waters where he that can may read them are the reasons which Mr. Br. annexeth for which this Doctrine hath had a great hand in turning many learned men to Popery viz. B. pa. 329. When they see the language of the Scripture in the fore-cited places so plain that no mortall eye can discern it to the contrary When Illyricus Gallus Amsdorfius c. shall account it a heresie in George Major to say that good works are necessary to salvation And when if Melchior Adamus say true eò dementiae impietatis ventum erat ut non dubitarent quidam haec axiom ata propugnare Bona opera non sunt necessaria ad salutem Bona opera officiunt saluti Nova obedientia non est necessaria When even Melanctons credit is blasted for being too great a friend to good works though he ascribe not to them the least part of the work or office of Christ And when to this day many Antinomian teachers who are magnified as the only Preachers of free grace do assert and proclaim That there is no more required to the perfect irrevocable Justification of the vilest Murtherer or Whoremaster but to believe that hee is justified or to be perswaded that God loveth him And again p. 331. This Doctrine was offensive to Melancton Bucer and other moderate Divines of our own What of all this and what is the issue at last Therefore these learned men with great learning and wisedom took the advantage Cum ratione in sanire like a pampred horse with a fly in his tayl to catch the snaffle in the teeth and in great indignation to runn mad to Rome Who els but Mr. Brs. learned men could have expressed so much grace and wit And it seems they were all fellow-students in the same School els could not their good wits have jumpt together upon so pretty a slight And it seems Mr. Br. by his exagitation of the damnable doctrines of the Antinomians in our days doth tacitely invite the learned to joyn with him in prosecuting the same learned device As to the matter of these severall particulars somwhat yet not much is needfull to be said 1 To that of George Major c. Mr. Br. here discovereth fully what elswhere in this his Tractate he doth not totally hide his enmity and swelling against the first reformation of the Churches by Luther and others that hee accounts it a schismaticall defection not a due reformation Hee spares the names of Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. lest his spitting in their faces shâ—uld make his own odious to all knowing Christians But the Doctrine which he reprehendeth under the names of Illyricus Gallus Amsdorfius c. he knows to be the frme which those former Divines which all the Protestant Churches have taught and propugned Concerning Gallus either what he was or what he did I can give no account Illyricus is reported by some to have been somwhat hot and heady in prosecuting all that he undertook but that at any time he entred the lists with George Major I find not This I find that they both lived and conversed together at Jenes in the same University and were both adversaries to Strigelius a famous Divine unto whom between them they procured great persecution But Amsdorfius was one of those eminent instruments of Christ in the reformation who bare the burden and heat of the day was a Colleague with Luther in the University of Wittenberg at the first dawning forth of the Gospel his yoke-fellow in the laborâ— and in the sufferings of the Gospel both in prosperous and difficult times one and the same Holding fast the same principles which were laid in his heart while a young man even to his old age and death which God prolonged untill the 88. year of his age I know not any one professed Protestant that hath aspersed him for any thing that in all that time of so long a life he either committed or omitted as unworthy of a learned and faithful Minister of Christ until the candor of M. Br. hath now done it Truth it is that George Major in his time about a hundred years sithence when Luther was dead not daring so to do while he was living set forth some propositions and disputations of the necessity of good works to salvation and finding himself quickly encountred he after more fully explained himself or rather endeavoured to make his Doctrine the more smooth to be swallowed by allaying it thus That we are justified by faith only but not saved without works So that good works are necessary though not to justification yet to salvation At this his Doctrine as all the Churches and their Ministers were much offended so were there many that confuted it among others Strigelius Wigandus this Amsdorfius who wrote against him his Bona opera officiunt saluti Good works are hinderances of salvation A proposition I acknowledg not well sounding in words but the substance of Treatises is not to be judged alway from their Titles This work of Mr. B. hath a golden Title Aphorisms of Justification untill a man hath read the Book he would have supposed from the Title they had bin Aphorisms to maintain not to destroy Justification by free grace So on the other side the Paradoxical sound of Amsdorfius his titular position doth in no wise deny his Treatise thereon to be orthodox except Mr. Br. can produce any thing thence to prove that he affirms good works in themselves to be so and not only in the sense wherein George Major affirms them necessary to salvation Or why this Assereion stifly maintained by George Major should not be counted a heresie in him as well as in the Papists or the Pharisees before them I see no other reason but this that then Mr. Br. having more worthily deserv'd than he will be thought fit to be honoured with the Title of Doctor in the same profession 2 To that of Melchior Adamus I say no more but that the Testimony of an Adversary without proofes is unworthy or at least incompetent to bow our belief to it What wresting and curtilating there is of their sentences whom in this case such men would defame is obvious to every mans notice He should in stead of his Individuum vagum his quidam have named some singular persons at least have quoted some of their writings in which they have propugned such assertions that we might have searched and found whether it were so if he would have been believed Otherwise if these things were only for disputations-sake handled in the Schools this argues not the propugners to be of that judgment 3 What he saith of Melancton and Bucer whether it be true or false is of the like moment Be it that some crazie brains or corroding sonns of Momus with whom the world too much at all
times aboundeth envied because they could not match and sought to defame because they envied the excellent parts of these two Worthies was either of them so wise and learned as to run headlong from Christ to Rome upon it Nay this is a piece of learning which Mr. B. his Grotius have of very late yeers learned and taught The true servants of Christ in former times were so little scholasticall that they were ignorant in this Art Yet whether Melancton after the death of Luther gave not some occasion to the Protestant Churches to mourn till this day for the yet remaining fruits of his timorousness or as Mr. Br. will have us call it moderation I leave to the wise who are acquainted with the passage of those times to judg But I never understood any such thing imputed to Bucer or that he hath left any other but a sweet savour behind him Nor any thing that can so dim the worth of Melancton that his name should not be in continuall veneration among the Saints For who can say he is without his infirmities But in the point of Justification by Faith only he was sound till death 4 But what hee saith of the Antimonian Teachers what they preach at present and yet are magnified for the only preachers of Free Grace is that which startles Mr. Br. and makes him run many furlongs beyond Grotius If his hast had not put him out of breath he might have told us what places of England are haunted with these Spirits that we might have shunned them Why should a man of such animosity that scorns to look upon Colier Hobson Spriggs and such like fellows be so troubled about these unconsiderate animals which he here mentioneth what the former three are I do not know yet by what I have heard of them I should think them not so inconsiderate as these to affirm justifying faith to consist in a mans believing that he is justified or in a perswasion that God loveth him But that there are either more than one fountaine opened for the purging away of sinne or any other propitiation for our sins set forth by God Besides Christ alone or any other means to effectuallize it to the chief sinners besidâ—s faith in his blood or that the justification which is by Faith iâ— according to the tenor of the Gospel revocable I am so far an Antinomian of Mr. B. defining to deny and cannot find him so learned a Papist or Pharisee to prove it There is nothing else which I see in this Quere which he hath not in substance said and so hath been examined before or else will more properly offer it self to examination in that which remaineth to be examined And this shall suffice to have said to that one and yet five-fold Argument comprehended in his five Quere's CHAP. XIV Mr. Baxters last Argument drawn from the Testimony of many approved Authors Examined and Answered HIs last Argument is drawn from the testimony and authority of many eminent Divines in the Protestant Churches which he saith have taught and published this doctrine before him This Argument is principally urged not in the Aphorisms but the Appendix And although Mr. Br. tell us App. p. 111. that he alleageth them not to confirm his doctrine but to shew that he is not singular but hath the concurrent judgments of others therein And App. p. 167. 188. that he doth it to satisfie them which charge him with singularity not as an appeal to man Yet it is too evident that his purpose herein is to abuse the less knowing and considering part of his Readers with this more then with the most of his other Arguments Great names he knowes doe make deep impressions upon the fancies of men that have much of affection but little of judgment And that these look not so much to the matter as to the men Could they think Mr. Br. hath here said no more then these and these confessedly pious and learned Worthies have said before him they will take him for a blasphemer that shall say against him Therefore he musters together so many choyce vessels and pretious servants of Christ trusting to the either imbecility or credulity of his vulgar Readers that either they cannot or will not examin and compare these and Mr. B. together and then Mr. Br shall be taken to be of the same spirit with Dr. Preston Dr. Twisse Calvin Pareus Perkins and the other renowned Divines whom he alleageth and then also it must be all truth that he hath said after such men and whosoever shall oppose him must be brought forth to be stoned But where is the mans sincerity that will be justified by the morall sincerity of his obedience and works Was it not wholly banished from him when he cited these men as concurring in judgment with him when he knowes them all to detest his assertions against which we except more then death it self and that many of them have jeoparded and some of them laid down their lives and blood to give testimony to the contrary Assertions Or will Mr. B. name any one of these at whose judgment his doctrine shall stand or fall as true or erroneous Why doth he thus abuse the simple thereby discovering his impudent fallaciousness to the intelligent with whom elswhere he seeks chiefly to ingratiat himself But come we to the Testimonies which he alleageth Bax. 1 Mr. Wallis Faith is an accepting of Christ offered rather then a beleeving of a Proposition affirmed App. p. 111. Who hath denied this Or what is this to Justification by works It may possibly be something to the Question not considerately there proposed but nothing at all listing with that conclusion to which all the rest which he delivers are but preparatives Next to Mr. Wallis he alledgeth Dr. Preston at the end of the same page The six first Positions wherein he affirms him to speak the same thing with himself I see no sound reason why any should except against But if Mr. B. or Dr. Preston or Paul or an Angel from heaven shall deduce erratick and erroneous Conclusions from those Premisses they are not to be heard but resisted at the face None of the worst Hereticks but agree in some principles with the most Orthodox yet this nothing hinders but that the assertions in which they dissent may be altogether pernicious How far and how unanimously all the Protestant Churches maintain the seventh point wherein Mr. B. affirms this pious and learned Doctor to agree with him hath been before fully expressed in the examination of the fourth Argument So that it is useless here to run over so many passages of the Author from p. 112. to p. 117. of the Appendix to declare that this one man saith what all the rest say and hold with him viz. That justifying Faith is an accepting of Christ as Lord and Saviour But what is this to the substance of the question to which Mr. B. answereth Where it is objected to Mr. Br
pious and not unlearned men that have taken some infection of the Epidemicall disease of our times too easily to drink down errors differing herein only from the vulgar that error is more appetible to them from a learned and sophisticall than truth from a plainer though faithfull hand Let a man once have the name of a learnnd Scholar and strict-walking Pharisee all his Doctrines by such men are concluded to be of rare use and excellency before they be seen whether they be white or black from Heaven or from Hell Not a few of these men having in my hearing stood firm and up moved in the defence of the doctrines of this book of Mr. Brs. not being able to speak any thing to refell the objections made against it but this that the Author thereof is an eminently learned and pious man As if Satan had not the wit to make choyse of his instruments that have the most compleat aptitude and power to deceive or that the Jews had not so much to say for their Pharisees the Papists for their Bellarmine and the Remoâ—strants for their Arminius or the Devill had forgotten his ancient subtlety when he will seduce from the verity of Christs Gospel to change himself into an Angell of Light or that no damning errour could proceed from a self-saving or rather self-deceiving Pharisee To cleer up the truth to such at lest to give their occasion to search the Scriptures by which they may cleer it to themselves I shall lay and compare together Paul and Mr. Br. in that which Mr. Br. saith was the question about which Paul disputed that it may be made evident whether they agree or contradict either the other To this purpose by the way there is to be taken out of the way a fallacy that lurketh in Mr. Brs. words where he saith The dispute of St. Paul is upon this Question It is not enough to say this was A Question excâ—pt he say also it was the Question yea the Onely Question upon which the Apostle disputed in those places where he excludeth works and inferreth Faith alone to be ordeined as effectuall to justification He disputed in some of his Epistles upon many questions To reduce what hee disputed severally to the severall questions all to one were to make non-sense of the whole The same may be said of all mens yea of the most Scholastick disputes of Mr. Br. himself who is a greater Philosopher and more studied in Logick and Metaphysicks than ever the Apostle was But I deny it to be the onely or the chief question about which St. Paâ—l so disputeth what is the Righteousnesse which wee must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which wee are justified as the proper Righteousness of the Law I grant it to be one but a less principall question upon which he disputes But the more principall question is in generall by what means we may be interessed into Christ or obtain the righteousness of Christ to become ours and so still retâ—in it to justification More particularly whether the Native Faederall holiness of the Jewes and the priviledges of the Covenant in part mentioned Rom. 9. 4 5. Phil. 3. 5. Gal. 2. 15. Or their actuall and personall righteousnesse and sincere obedience to the Law mentioned Phil. 3. 6. Mat. 20. 12. and the 19 20. together with all the Typicall purgings mentioned in the 9. 10. Chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews On the other side whether all the Naturall and Morall righteousness of the Gentiles which they performed by the instinct of the Law of Nature written in their Consciences without the help or knowledg of Gods written law or their exemption from the Covenant of God made with the Jews For some of the believing Gentiles reading the promises made of calling unto the grace of Christ them that were not Gods people or beloved before weakly concluded that their former uncircumcision and uncovenant-ship was a speciall furtherance to their admission unto Christ as may be probably gathered from Rom. 11. 19. Gal. 5. 6. whether any of these kinds of holinesse and works of righteousness either with Faith or without Faith or whether Faith alone without all or any of these be required as instrumentall subservient and effectuall to inright us to the Justification which is by Christ This was the more principall question upon which Paul disputeth in the places before mentioned Somewhat he saith to the former but lesse principally and seldom but in subserviency to this So the question upon which Paul disputes in his Epistles and Mr. Br. in his Aphorisms is one and the same but their Conclusions absolutely contradictory either to other The one concludeth that Faith alone without mans works and righteousness The other that not faith alone but Faith as a work together with all other works of righteousnesse do justifie and all morall duties collaterally with Faith are required to make the Righteousness of Christ ours to justification No greater or more palpable Contradiction can be devised Whosoever shall preach another Gospell of Justification otherwise than by Faith in Christ without works let him be accursed saith Paul Whosoever shall be practically a solifidian trust to a bare Faith and not work for Justification shall be Damned saith Mr. Br. If one of these be granted to be an Apostle of Christ the other must needs be proclaimed to be the Apostle of Antichrist But whether this which I have expressed be indeed the principal question on which the Apostle so disputeth adhuc sub judice lis est We are left uncertain on both hands may some say True and if I onely say and not shew it I shall be guilty of the fault which I blame in Mr. Br. And so we may deserve both to be laught at as Triflers This therefore is the next thing to be added First then if we do but consider to whom and against whom the Apostle handleth these disputes for Mr. Br. reduceth them all to his Epistles it will be more than probable to every rationall man that his most principall question is By what means we possesse and continue in the possession of the righteousnesse which is by Christ to Justification And but secondarily less principally and in subserviency to this question What the righteousnesse is by which we are to be justified The persons to whom he writeth were all Christians the purest and most eminent Churches of Christ that had received the pure doctrine of Christ by the preaching of the Apostles viz. that whereas sinn and death and the Curse by sinn reigned over all men in all the world so that all wete Children of wrath and every soul guilty before God Christ was given of the Father to be the Author of Righteousness and life by the Mediation of his death that in him and in no other name under heaven was salvation attainable that whosoever would beleeve in him should have everlasting life should be Justified freely by Grace
through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ and by their very receiving of him should obtein power to become the sonns of God notwithstanding all their former pollutions without all prejacent qualifications in them to purchase so great a Redemption Such was the doctrine preached to them and in the embracing and professing of this Doctrine and their Faith in Christ the alone redeemer they were first admitted into Christ gathered into Churches and so continued a while stablished in this truth with the joy of the Holy Ghost abounding in them The persons against whom he disputeth were chiefly if not onely the False Apostles of the Circumcision who also professed the Faith of Christ and preached it not the unbeleeving Jewes for these should not have had any such audience from the Churches But such as went out from the Apostles and the Church that was at Hierusalem to preach Christ Act. 15. 24. Such as came from James Gal. 2. 12. Such as boasted themselves to be of Câ—phas to hold forth the doctrine of Peter 1 Cor. 1. 12. Such as preached Christ of envie strife and contenâ—iâ—n not sincerely but under the luâ—e of so holy a name to take the advantage to deceive Phil. 1. 15 16. Who not labouring to gather Disciples to Christ out of infidelity as the Apostles had done entred into the severâ—ll Churches before stablished by the Apostles troubling them with words subverting their souls teaching them that they must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses els they could not be saved Act. 15. 1. 24. And these were of the Sect of the Pharisees which beleeved Act. 15. 5. Emissaries out of those Many thousands or rather Myriads of the Jewes at Hierusalem which beleeved yet were all zealous of the Law Act. 21. 20. Had the Apostles dispute been against such as had apostatizâ—d from the profession of Christ and against such unbeleevers as had seduced them from trusling on Christs imputed to rest upon their own inherent righteousness for justification iâ— had not been besides the purpose to have it his question as Mr. Br saith whether it be Christs righteousness or our own righteousness that we must plead against the accusations of the Law But seeing both the seduced and seducers with whom he dealeth were such as professed faith in Christ as their justifier and Saviour and questioned onely whether Faith alone or els their righteousness works also together with Faith were required to inright them to Christs righteousnes and salvation it had been impertinent if not ridiculous to have made it his question what the proper righteousnes is by which we are justified For this had been to decline and not to prosecute the question between him and them They would have granted him all that he concluded without the least dammage to their Cause Therefore his question was principally By what means we come to partake of the righteousness of Christ to Justification 2 Let the Apostle himself give his Testimony what his principall question was For he better knew his own minde than Mr. Br or my self And first in his Epistle to the Romans having for an introduction to the question in the three first Chapters proved both the Jewes with all their legall and the Gentiles with all their naturall righteousness and unrighteousness to be under sin guilt and condemnation he no sooner in the third Chapter begins to speak of the mean of their recovery Christ Jesus but he annexeth also by what means we come to have right in him In both which he no less Contradicteth Mr. Br than if he had seen before what Mr. Br hath written so many ages after Or the former he affirmeth that we are justified as by Christ so by the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ as he was set forth to be a propitiation or expiatory sacrifice for our sinns Rom. 3. 24 25. Not as Mr. Br before so stoutly Contended as he is our Lord i. e. in his sense our Lawgiver Of the latter that it is faith alone that makes this redemption and Propitiation ours to Justification namely Faith in his bloud Faith without the deeds of the Law Faith which excludeth without works which include boasting ver 25 27 28. And this faith in the death of Christ without works without deeds cannot include in it Morall works and righteousness unto Justification as Mr. Br would extort from it elsewhere by making Christ as our Lord and Lawgiver the object of Justifying Faith At length he Concludeth ver 30. that both in them which have some seeming and plausible qualification of righteousness and works and in them that have it not it is not that righteousness of their own but Faith which Justifieth And that this Faith is no less effectuall to the justifying of them that unto that very day have been ungodly than of them which from their very birth have seemed to be holy to the Lord. So much is Comprehended in those words of the Apostle It is one God which Justifieth the Circumcision by faith and the un-circumcision through Faith In these words is included the whole State of Pauls question The Apostle writing to the Church that was at Rome Consisting of beleeving Jewes and Gentiles endeavours to heal the divisions Close the breaches and settle a sweet union and Communion between them This he applyeth himself unto first in that great and fundamentall point of Christianitie viz. Justification by Christ in which they dissented Both Jewes and Gentiles acknowledged Justification and salvation to be by Christ alone but in this they differed The Jewes Confined this salvation by Christ to themselves alone that to them onely he was promised that they alone were qualified and in a capacity to receive him and the benefits that are by him That he came to be the Saviour of his own hallowed people that had waited for him not of the common and unclean Pagans that were aliens from the Common wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise To this purpose they boasted of their Naturall Faederal and personall righteousness and holines qualifying them for the Justification which is by Christ of all which the Gentiles were destitute Their naturall Righteousness and holiness that they were Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles the seed of Abraham the holy stock to whom and whose seed the promise was made Their Faederall holines That they alone of all nations were in Covenant with God and did bear the badge and seal of the Covenant Circumcision in their Flesh by which they were distinguishd from all other people as holy to God when all other Nations under the Sunne were an abhomination in his sight Their Legall holiness that they had the Law Word and Oracles of God Committed to them all other Nations being left without Law without God and without hope in the world Their personall and Actuall righteousness that in reference to this holy Law of God they had walked exactly kept it from their youth
that gave and as he gave his life for the world and giveth life to the world All works are excluded that this beleeving might be reserved sole entire sacred and soveraign to receive Christ to Justification and salvation Here at length I shall put a period to my Examination of this Tractate of Mr. Br. in which I have not wittingly let passe any one particle of all that he hath brought to the re-erecting of Justification by works without examining the strength and force of it which if he had done in relation to all the Arguments which the Protestant Churches and Divines have brought against it before he adventured peremptorily to pronounce their doctrine Hâ—torodox and Antinomistick and the doctrine of the Papists in this point sound and holy I am of opinion that either this work of his had never come forth to the subverting of souls and troubling of the Church or if it had so come forth it would have been a very abomination to all that are not made to be taken and trampled under foot as an accursed thing But now having begun in that manner as we see to set up this worst piece of damning Popery under a false pretence of love to the Protestant and hatred of the Popish Religion It is not to be expected but that seeing his reputation jeoparded he will per fas nefas proceed to seek the support of it though it be to the further ecclipsing of the Grace of God and honour of Christ CHAP. XXV The Conclusion of the whole Treatise demonstrating that although we with the Scriptures exclude works from Justification yet we include them as necessary to a Christian life and that no less seriously and upon more spirituall grounds than the Evill Workers that will be justified by them HAving ended at present with Mr. Baxter I have for the Conclusion of all somewhat to say that may have relation to the weak reader It is a difficult thing to remove works from justification and not to expose our selves therein to the Censure of babish ungospellized and unstablished men that we therein banish them also from the life and practice of a Christian When we teach that the righteousness of the Gospel is revealed from Faith to Faith as it is written the just shall live by Faith not by works Rom. 1. 17. And that no man is justified by the Law i. e. by the strictest observation of the righteousness of the Law Because it is written that the just shall live by Faith Gal. 3. 11. That the inheritance is by Faith not by works lest any man should boast Rom. 4. 1 2. Eph. 2. 8 9. That it is of Faith that it may be of Grace and if it be of grace then is it no more of works else grace were no more Grace But if it be of works then is it no more of grace otherwise works were no more works Rom. 4. 16. 11. 6. That whosoever seeketh justification and blessedness by works worketh himself out of it and shall never attaine it because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the works af the Law Rom. 9. 31 32. At the sound of this doctrine the unspiritual man excepteth and flesh and bloud swelleth murmuringly Crying out What profit is it then to serve the Lord Why should I fast pray give alms shew mercy study holines and purity deny my self the pleasures of sinn any more when all these have no â—fficacy in them to justifie and save It was the Clamor of men against Paul when he preached the riches of grace abounding the more by the abounding of Mans sinns We will therefore sinn said they that Grace may abound Rom. 6. 1. And do evill that good may come Rom. 3. 8. This doctrine of Faith makes voyd the Law loosing us from all obligation to perform the holines and righteousness which the Law requireth Rom. 3. 31. And as Mr. Br. teacheth them further to reply against God tendeth to drive obedience out of the world For if it be denyed that man can merit happiness by his own righteousness he will cease to be righteous and take the bitt in his teeth to run rebell So deep an impression hath the Covenant of works yet still in mans heart that though he be insufficient to do or to think as he ought 2 Cor. 3. 5. yet he will have Do and Live to be the issue of Life and Death still And Mr. Br. teacheth them to stopp the hole of mans insufficiency with this nayl not of the Sanctuary but of Alexander the Copper-Smith because we cannot perform legall therefore Gospel-obedience shall do the work as if work were not work when the Title of Gospel is written on it and because we cannot fullfill perfect therefore sincere obedience shall serve the Turn Hence is it that the Popish and Arminian doctrines wherewith this Book of Mr. Br. is fully fraughted takes every where so plausibly with and hath such Compleat acceptance among the multitude both of the learned and unlearned It is a doctrine not above but agreeing with the principles of Nature and the naturall man even the naturall Conscience suggesteth it to the unlearned to seek for happiness by their own righteousness And both that and the precepts of Moral Philosophy also together with the Law of Moses instruct the learned to seek for the Summum Bonum the best felicity all felicity in the way of vertue and vertuous performances Here now when any comes to them in the name of Christ holding forth to them the same doctrine it kindles in them so swiftly as fire in towe no need of the teaching of God or renewing of the Spirit Flesh and bloud of it self gives its suffrage to it An easie task have these teachers to perswade men and draw disciples after them and set them in an activeness and dexterity of practicing what they teach It is easily learned to swimm swiftly with the stream and to drop the Bowle down the hill But to teach men to live by Faith and yet to be fruitfull in good works too Not to seek justification and life by their righteousness yet to be zealous of all righteousnes and good works continually hic labor hoc opus est It is above the principles of Nature to apprehend it He must swimm against the stream and roll the Bowl against the Hill walk after the Spirit and not after the Flesh that puts it effectually into practice Yet that our Doctrine doth not let loose the reins to the flesh nor howsoever carnall sensuallists may abuse it to their Condemnation in the least degree blunt the spirits of the spirituall man to well-doing nor deny the both expediency and necessity of all good works in the life of a Christian is evident 1 Because although we exclude morall qualifications and works from officiating to Justification yet we retein and include them in and unto sanctification Our doctrine with Christs and his Apostles holds forth the Lord Jesus to every soul