unto life and a valid donation of it to the sinner The last is the ground of the former for man must be made just or God cannot reckon him so and acquit him in judgement The judgement of God is according to truth Now to this making a man just as there is this donation of God there must be mans receiving Christ is not ours though tendered or given until we receive him This receiving then which is our act that is faith it self God excites and make use of to this end He makes use of it I have accounted as his instrument of making Christ ours to this end he hath apppointed it for that he may accordingly reckon his righteousness to us unto the remission of sin and everlasting salvation Having told you this first I may make the bolder to tell you my more indifferent thoughts of farther years I do apprehend that the Apostles in their doctrine and the Primitive Christians had more simple and less intricate conceptions of things then we have and that their dispute then whether we are justifyed by faith or works in the most simple understanding of it contains no more than to shew us what is required of persons that they may be justified or what is that God hath made the condition on our parts of our justification St. Augustine I have said does teach us that faith does justifie us as the beginning and foundation unto grace and a good life and the Council of Trent with Bellarmine and the Papists after that Council stand upon this Faith justifies only as initium justificationis the beginning of justification But howsoever the Papists have made use of that Father the truth and light which he hath offered is not to be lost I do take this to be the most right and certain notion that faith does justify as initium and fundamentum I will not say justificationis seeing I understand not justification to be all one with sanctification as they do but as fundamentum conditionis The condition of our full final justification the Gospel offers is repentance and sincere obedience and faith is the initium and fundamentum of that condition Was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered his Son Isaack sayes St. James The faith of Abraham or his believing God was the beginning and foundation of this excellent work the ready offering his Son which shewed his sincerity of life the condition of justification And the Scripture was fulfilled which faith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness Here believing offering Isaac are all one with S. James The Offering Isaack proceeded from believing as the initium and fundament ū of it and so believing as the initium of sincerity of life or sincere obedience does justifie Such a faith as produces good works which are sincere though imperfect or such good works as proceed from faith are but one and the same thing with the two Apostles and made by both the condition of our justification And here I should be willing to come off but the uniform judgement of the reformed Churches on the Article of Justification requires some regard There is therefore in the Schools a Quatenus specificative reduplicative I suppose when I have said that faith does justifie us as the foundation of the condition and so productive of the whole of it I have said well with S. Augustine as to the quatenus specificative and if I said nothing else it might be enough Nevertheless seeing it is but fit upon this account to speak yet a little more curiously I must needs say farther that I apprehend there is indeed something really in that which lyes in the concurring thoughts of our Divines that faith hath and must have a hand in our justification someway as no other of our works of acts have It is this I believe that God will pardon me if I repent and therefore I repent as my faith now makes me repent and perform the condition it justifies me as to a quatenus specificative but when I have repented and performed the condition the duties I have performed are imperfect and sinful and have need of mercy in point of law and it is my faith yet must go to God for his acceptance of them through Christ when I have done It is my faith let my say that must make up to me out of the mercy or grace of God for Christs sake what is wanting in that I have done to make it such as he may impute it to me for righteousness which else he could not And as faith procures me this or procures it thus we have the quatenus also reduplicative in the great question how faith justifies It is faith makes me perform the condition and then finds acceptance for it being done and as it does both it does specificative and reduplicative justifie the sinner By this it appears how faith hath an eye still to pardon according to the Protestant while it is opposed to works in the point of justification which is not only as respecting the pardon of all our sins upon the performing the condition but as respecting that pardon more especially which goes into the very accepting the condition performed for when there is imperfection still in our duty and yet he accepts it he must pardon also what he accepts And thus it is that the just man is said to live by faith in the most subtle conception The works which the just man does are his righteousness most certainly and that which justifies him but they are short and he could not live in them but that faith supplies as I speak out of Gods pardon and grace and consequently out of the Covenant for Christs sake what is wanting otherwise for acceptation unto life I do not say faith supplies this out of Christs merits as if his and our obedience were mingled to make up that one righteousness that justifies us but that it is our works which we perform our selves is the condition and through Christs merits both the imperfection is pardoned and they accepted according to covenant upon faith It is of faith sayes St. Paul that it might be of grace To be of works is to need to grace but to be of faith is to have such works as need to be pardoned even when they are accepted of God for Christs sake unto everlasting salvation When Augustine does tell us so often that faith justifies gratiam impetrando let us take grace in his and also in our acception and both together will compleat the notion Faith goes to God for his grace or help whereby we perform the condition and so justifies us Faith goes to God also for his grace or favour to pardon and accept what is done for Christs sake and so justifies us As it does impetrate grace or obtain his spirit for our duty and then impetrates grace or finds favour also for acceptance of it taken them both together and we understand fully
peccati per animi sanitatem libertas arbitrii per liberum arbitrium justuia dilectio per justitiae dâ—lectionem legis impletio De spir lit c. 30. By the law we have the knowledg of sin by faith we impetrate Gods grace against sin by grace the soul is healed from corruption by that healing we have liberty of will by this liberty we come to love righteousness by the love of righteousness we perform or fulfil the law and so are justified Faith thâ—â— does justifie according to him as exordium hujus ad salutem connexionis so he expresses it c. 31. as the beginning work that brings on the rest which follow in this connexion or as the foundation link in this chain of our salvation That we may be sure of his judgment herein this must not go without some quotation from one of his latter books also Ex fide antem ideo dicit justificari hominem non ex operibus quia ipsa prima datur ex qua impetrentur caetera quae proprie opera nuncupantur in quibus juste vivitur The Apostle saith a man is justified by faith and not by works because it is faith that is first given from whence they follow or by which the grace of God to lead a holy life is obtained De praedestinatione sanctorum l. 1. c. 7. And unto this will I add the suffrage yet of a greater Authour the Son of Sirach Faith is the beginning of cleaving to God There may be here therefore two questions de fide Qua justificat and quâ justificat What faith it is that justifies us and how faith justifies us For the former it is agreed easily That faith which worketh by love as St. Paul speaks or that faith which is made perfect by works as St. James speaks and no other is that which justifies us There are some Divines make faith a complex thing to comprehend repentance and obedience under it Faith say they is the receiving Christ both as Saviour and Lord or the receiving him upon the terms of the Gospel and it is no wonder if they say faith alone justifies us when his faith alone is no less with them then the whole condition which the Gospel requires of us to our justification Others do distinguish faith repentance and obedience and say that it is not faith alone but repentance and new obedience also is required to justifie us And both these sorts of Divines say but the same thing in effect and agree in their meaning When the Scripture therefore sayes If thou believest thou shalt be saved or if thou repentest thou shalt be saved Bellarmine sayes such Texts must be understood with the supposition si caetera adhibeantur that is if that which is required also else where is supplied Thou shalt be saved if thou repentest provided thou also believest and if thou believest thou shalt be saved provided also thou repentest and walkest sincerely before God I mean provided thou resolves upon a changed upright life and if thou art not prevented bringest this resolution to practice there being no doubt but if a man dye before opportunity his consent to the Covenant is to be reckoned for obedience and baptisme alwayes washes away sins with the Fathers Non concluditur legitime saies a judicious Protestant Divine a positione unius disperati ad negationem alterius neque ab eo quod aliquot locis docetur ad negationem corum quae alibi asseruntur And this I take to be more after St. Austin and St. James who do both methinks make faith the initium fundamentum to use his words the foundation and entrance to obedience and good works and so to justifie us as it is productive of them We shall reconcile all I hope if we say only that faith indeed may be distinguished when not divided from our obedience in our justification That is in short faith is one thing and justifying faith is another and yet justifying faith retain the common nature still of faith Justifying faith I take it is such a believing of or trusting to Gods mercy that he will pardon our sins if we repent and walk sincerely before him which are the terms obtained for us through Christs redemption as produces that repentance and sincere walking It is such an assent to what God reveals as carryes the heart and life along with it I believe his promises to wit effectually when I so trust them as to do the things he requires of me to obtain them I believe his precepts when I keep them I believe his threats when I abstain from the evil he forbids to avoid them I believe the Gospel when I become Christs Disciple Credere is fidelis esse according to Salvian and to be faithful is to doe our duty Well done good and faithful servant For the latter I do not apprehend seriously if I may speak freely my thoughts to which very end do I write but that there is a great deal more stir and difference among Divines in this point of justification by faith then needs in late times If any man might meerly by his believing Christ dyed for him and hath carryed away all sin be justified and saved let him live as he list holding still but this perswasion there were something in our contending for justification by faith alone and a man would not be bereaved of the comfort of such a doctrine for the World But when we all agree that whether good works do justify or no good works in the resolution and practice if not prevented are necessary some way or other so that no man living ever was or can be justified that is destitute of them I doubt me verily our contention in this matter is rather curious then profitable in shewing how faith without works but not a faith which is without works at least in the will and intention does justify I know our Divines against in the Papists contend that faith justifies in sensu correlativo or in regard of the object so as to be justified by Christs blood and by faith is all one that is by faith in his blood The righteousness of Christ imputed is the formal say some or as others had rather say the material cause of our justification and faith justifies as an instrument For my own part I will tell you therefore what I have sometimes set down for truth in my contending belief and what I think in my cold practical conceit of the point As for my former thoughts I have some times pitched them thus Justifying faith is the receiving act of a working habit as hath the other act too to out forth upon trial or else it is but a dead faith Now this faith I have counted justifies as an instrument not mans who doeth not justify himself but Gods instrument though mans act This I have made out to my self thus Unto justification there goes two things the imputation of Christs righteousness for the discharge of sin and accepting us
how we are justified by Faith As our trusting to a good man does naturally draw out win or procure his assistance which yet is free and not of debt so does our trusting in God for acceptance when it hath first been effectual upon us to the performing our part to that end procure the same from him to our justification Let us take heed of making faith a single act as it does specificative and a complex act as it does reduplicative justifie the believer These are two extreams I think and to be thus composed And so you have my poor thoughts at full upon this vexed question I come then to the third thing wherein the Father is out and that is in his notion of justification it self which is the making us just by infusion This the Papists have so improved as in effect to exclude pardon from it For while they place the work of justification in the abolishing of all sin in the baptized and justified so that there remains no longer any thing that is peccatum but fomes peccati only they do I must say in effect put us to dispute with them whether there by any remission of sins at all seeing the wicked are not pardoned and the justified have their sins so done away by this infused grace as to have none and from hence does there spring their doctrine of merit and perfection which the controversie of justification by works does carry along with it Now I doubt not but the truth here as it doth every where is suffering between two theives That there is no merit or perfection I am convinced and that our works do not merit because they are not perfect but that we are justified by works as we are by faith St. James his words must goe as well as St. Pauls and both must stand good because faith justifies only as productive of works Justification indeed is by works but not meritorious works by works which make reward to be of debt so the Apostles are before reconciled There are two questions then may adjust this great matter between Us and the Papists or unto which the issue of our disputes on this point may be reduced In the one they have the advantage of us in the other we have the better of them The lover of truth must be humbly hardned to follow its footsteps wheresoever he finds them whither on the one side or the other The first question is whether the righteousness we perform our selves or that Christ performed for us be the matter of our justification and I say the faith repentance new obedience which the Christian through divine aid performes himself is accepted with God for Christs sake unto pardon of sin and eternal life It is true the obedience of Christ wrought for us does justifie us suo genere by meriting the pardoning justifying Covenant which is the donative instrument of pardon and life But if the question be askt whether we have performed that which this instrument requires as conditio tituli it must be our own faith and repentance here that is the matter of our righteousness A man may be just in respect to the law of innocency which no man but Christ ever was or in respect to the law of grace which all are and must be that are saved Again a man may be just in respect to the perceptive part of a law or the retributive part It is Christs righteousness and sacrifice alone that justifies Us in regard of the one but not so in regard of the other yet is it that alone which is the meritorious cause both of the acceptation of what we do and freedom from the Laws condemnation The second question is whether salvation then and justification is not according to our merits And I answer as the Scripture is cleer and full from one end to the other for the affirmative in the former question so is the Apostle Paul as full and cleer and positive as can be for the negative in the latter What is it indeed he beats upon but this altogether that there are no works in the earth Christs excepted that do merit and that justification and salvation therefore are of grace Not of works but of grace What is that in the sense and meaning but as much as if he should have said it in express terms not of merit but of grace or not of works that are meritorious and would make the reward to be of debt but of such works that though they be rewarded it is of grace and more then in justice according to the law God needed to have done For this is the meaning of the Apostle in excluding of merit There is a paternal government according to the law of grace wherein the denyal of a reward due to our works were to overthrow all religion A good child by his filial behaviour merits love and benefits We dispute not unless de nomine only against such a merit as this But as to a merit in Gods strict distributive justice according to the law of works or any other justice which should make our works to be meritorious ex condigno non solum ratione pacti acceptationis sed ratione operis as Bellarmine with the Papists does speak St. Paul is full in the deny l. It is nothing else certainly but the misapprehension of the word grace in St. Austin received by the Church of Rome from him that could have blinded them so in this point I have shown his mistake in this term and in those of works and grace and have and do here give you the right sense of each according to the Apostle The certain truth is this God gave a law to man according to his creation and if he had performed that or any of us could perform that then should he as Creator and Rector be engaged to reward the performance according to this law so that the reward should be of right but seeing man is fallen and no Person on earth does or can perform that law there are no works on earth that do properly merit or no man on earth that can be justified if he have only his desert by his works This is undoubtedly the very entendment of the Apostle That all boasting and merit may be excluded from the world while it is proved that no mortal is justified or saved but by grace And what need further conviction in this matter we have the Papists own words and general confessions that they are all sinners and that it is through Christs merits that they merit If they are sinners then have they not these works that are meritorious but it must be of mercy that they are not condemned and if it be through Christs merits that they merit then is the reward not for the work sake but for his And what is it that Christ hath merited that they should merit It must come to this that Christ by what he hath done for us hath merited or procured this grace or favour from