I know not of one that 's not essential to Christianity And I think if we had Hereticks among us that denyed Christ to be conceived by the Holy Ghost we should scarce take them for Christians But that man that shall deny or not believe that Christ is God that he is Man that he was no sinner that he dyed and that for our sins and that he was a Sacrifice or Ransom for us and that he Rose again is Glorified and will judge us that he hath offered us a pardon of sin that there will be a Resurrection of the body and life Everlasting by this our Redeemer I cannot see how he can be a Christian And for the number of Articles â— left out much of the ancient Creed it self the Belief in God the Father Creator c. in the Holy Ghost the Article of the Catholick Church the Communion of Saints of Christs burial Descent into Hell and more And yet do you think this too big to be essential to Christian Faith If so tell not any Heretick that denyeth any one of these that he denyeth an Essential Article of our faith But for the ignorant weak Christian I say 1. He knoweth all these Articles that I have named but 2. perhaps not with so ripe a manner of apprehension as is formed into mental words or which he can express in words to others I find my self in my studies that I have somtimes an apprehension of a Truth before I have ripened that conception for an expression 3. And perhaps they are not Methodical and Distinct in their conceptions and cannot say that there are just so many Articles Every sick man can understand what it is to desire and accept of such a man to be his Physitian and herein he first verily desireth health and secondly desireth Physick as a means to Health and thirdly desireth the Physitian in order to the use of that means and fourthly therein doth take him to be a Physitian and fifthly to have competent skill and sixthly to be in some measure faithful to be trusted and seventhly doth place some confidence in him c. all this and more is truly in his mind and yet perhaps they are not ripened and measured into such distinct conceptions as that he can distinctly tell you all this in tolerable Language or doth observe then as distinct Conceptions in himself and whether uno intuitu the eye and the Intellect may not see many Objects though ab objectis the acts must be called many and divers is a Controversie among Philosophers and as I remember Pet. Hurtad de Mendoza affirmeth it But if you your selves will form all these into distinct conceptions and ask your Catechist his judgement of them its like he can mak you perceive at least by a Yea or Nay that he understands them all The new formed body of the Infant in the Womb hath all the Integral parts of a man and yet so small that you cannot so easily discern them as you may do the same parts when he is grown up to manhood So the knowledge of every particular Essential Article of faith is truly in the weakest Christian in the very moment of his conversion but perhaps it may be but by a more crude imperfect Conception that observeth not every Article distinctly nor any of them very clearly but his knowledge is both too dim and too confused And yet I must say that it is not only such as some Papists call a Virtual or Implicite Faith or knowledge As to believe only the General Revelation and the formal Object as that the Scripture is Gods Word and God is true or that whatever the Church propounds as an Article of faith is true while they know not what the Church or Scripture doth propound for this is not actual Christian faith but such a part as a man may have that is no Christian And yet some Papists would perswade us that where this much is there is saving faith though the person believe not yea or deny by the probable Doctrine of seducing Doctors some of the foresaid Essential Articles Argum. 11. If the terms Faith in Christ receiving Christ Resting on Christ c. are to be understood as Civil Political and Ethical terms in a moral sense then must we suppose that they signifie many Physical acts and not any one only But these terms are to be thus morally understood Ergo. The Antecedent is proved thus Terms are to be understood according to the nature of the Subject and Doctrine But the Subject and Doctrine of the Gospel which useth these terms is Moral Political therefore the terms are agreeably to be interpreted The same term in Physick Law Mathematicks Soldiery Navigation Husbandry c. hath various significations but still it must be interpreted according to the nature and use of the doctrine Art or Science that maketh use of it The consequence of the Major is proved because it is the use of Ethicks and Politicks thus to interpret such phrases as containing divers Physical Acts. Marriage is one Civil act but it is many Physical Acts it containeth divers acts of the understanding concerning the Essentials of the Relation and divers acts of the Will in consenting thereunto and the outward words or signs of Consent for making the Contract So taking a man to be my King my General my Tutor Teacher Pastor Physician Master c. all signifie the acts of the Understanding Will and expressing Powers which the several parts of the Objects do require Argument 12. If there be many Acts besides Faith in Christ attendant on it and subservient to it which are none of the works which Paul excludeth and opposeth faith to then the Essential Acts of faith it self are none of those works But the Antecedent is true as I prove in some instances For a man to repent of sin to confess it to believe and confess that we are unworthy of any Mercy and unable to justifie our selves or make satisfaction for our sias and that we are in absolute necessity of Christ having no Righteousness Sanctification or Sufficiency of our own to take God for our Father reconciled in Christ and to Love him accordingly to forgive our Brethren from the sense of Christs forgiving us to shew our Faith by fruitfull works and words When Paul saith Rom. 4.4 5. To him that worketh the Reward is not of Grace the meaning is not To him that repenteth to him that denieth himself and his own Righteousness to his Justification to him that confesseth his sin that loveth God as a reconciled Father in Christ c and when he saith To him that worketh not but believeth the meaning is not to him that loveth not God to him that repenteth not that forgiveth not others c. but believeth Object But yet it may be to him that thinketh not to be justified by or for these but by Faith Answer 1. Concomitants and Subordinates may not be set in opposition faith supposeth the Concomitancy and Subserviency of these in and to Justification 2. Believing in Christs Ransom may as well be excluded too if men think to be justified for so doing meritoriously 3. He that thinketh to be Justified by any work in that way which is opposed to Justification by Grace and Faith must think to be justified by the Merit of them or without a Saviour which all these Graces forementioned contradict 4. God saith expresly that we must Repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out and repent that we may be forgiven and if we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and if we forgive we shall be forgiven and that by works we are justified and not by faith only and that by our words we shall be justified So that Pauls works which he opposeth faith to are neither Jame's works nor any of these particulars mentioned for these are made necessary conditions or means of pardon and of some sort of Justification such as Pauls works could not contribute to which were falsly imagined by the doers to make the Reward to be not of Grace but Debt Object There is but one faith Eph. 4.3 Answer But that One faith hath many Physical Acts or Articles There is but one true Religion but it hath many parts There is but one Gospel but that one contanieth many particular Truths COnsect 1. To be justified by Faith is to be justified by Faith in Christ as Christ and not by any one part of that Faith excluding any of its Essential parts 2. To be justified by Faith in Christ as Christ and so as Rising Teaching Pardoning Ruling Judging as well as satisfying i.e. as the Saviour that hath undertaken all this is not in Pauls sense to be justified by works therefore it is the true Justification by Faith 3. It is therefore unsound to make any one Act or part of Faith the fides qua Justificans and the other Essential parts to be the fides qua justificat when no more can be said of any but that it is fides ex qua justificamur and that may be said of all 4. Though Faith be an Acceptance of Christ and Life as offered in the Gospel so that its very Nature or Essence is morally Receptive which may tolerably be called its Metaphorical Passive Instrumentality yet are we not justified by it qua talis that is qua fides and so not quatenus Instrumentum tale Metaphoricum vel Acceptatio vel Receptio moralis but qua conditio Testamenti vel faederis prastita 5. Therefore it is not only the Acceptance of Righteousness by which we are justified much less the Affiance in Christ as dying only but the Belief in Christ as the Purchaser of Salvation and as the Sanctifier Guide and Teacher of our souls in order thereunto hath as true an Interest in our Justification as the believing in him for Pardon And so far as any other holy act doth modifie and subserve faith and is part of the Condition of Justification with it so far by it also we are justified FINIS
not designed to their provocation or dishonour and as I heartily do the like by theirs and as I hope God will do both theirs and mine And I do adjure the Reader to believe that this Controversie for all our infirmities is managed with a very high esteem and honour of those Reverend Brethren whom I am necessitated to gainsay Nor would I have it be any dishonour to them though an excuse to me that they have been the Assailants and begun the conflict for the Truths of God must be precious to us all and I doubt not but they were confident that it was some dangerous errour which they set upon and I have here proved to be the Truth Nor is it any such wrong to either side to be openly contradicted that Reasons may be openly produced and men may have some further help to see into these Points Let the proud swell or smart because they are thus proclaimed fallible and mistaken but the Humble that are devoted servants to the Truth are of another spirit and have learnt another lesson And if any Papist or enemy to our unity and Peace shall from these Writings predicate our dissentions or divisions let them know to their faces that even these differences as momentous as they seem are not neer so great as are commonly published among themselves nor are they for Number one to twenty perhaps to a hundred that are agitated in their Schooles and the writings of their Doctors Had we such differences as those of the Jesuit Casuists opened by Montaltas the Jansenian in his Mysterie of Jesuitism out of their own writings something they might then say against us Yea I doubt not but we differ with more hearty Christian Love then they agree and have more real union in our controversies then they have in their Articles of Faith and are neerer one another in our smaller differences then the French and Italians are in their very Fundamentals The third Disputation was called forth by Mr. Warner's Treatise of the Object and Office of Faith and takes up the subject of the first Disputation with some others When that was in the Press Mr. Tombes's Book against Infant Baptism came forth in which I found the Papers that I sent to him upon his importunity printed without my consent which if God will I shall yet vindicate And therefore seeing that it is his way I thought he might do the like by other Papers which formerly I had wrote to him on this subject of Justification And therefore thinking it fitter that I should publish them of the two then he I have saved him the charge of printing them and annexed them to these The fourth Disputation was added because it is the very heart of our Controversie which most of our Disputes about the instrumentall Causality of Faith as to Justification and the other Concomitant are resolved into That the Reader may understand these Disputations the better I shall here at the entrance shew him the face of the way that I maintain and also of the way that I oppose The way that I plead for is contained in these Propositions 1. Man having broken the Law of Nature or works is lost and disabled to his own Recovery or to do any works by which that Law will ever justifie him 2. Jesus Christ hath Redeemed him from this lost condition by his Incarnation Life Death Resurrection c. fulfilling the Law by his obedience and suffering for our not fulfilling it and thereby satisfying the Lawgiver and attaining the ends of the Law and more making himself an example to us of holiness and becoming our Teacher High Priest and King to save us from all sin and enemies and recover us to God for our Salvation and his Glory and Pleasure 3. The Offices and Works of Christ are for other ends as well as for our justification even for our Sanctification Glorification c. 4. The Believer ought not to confound the offices works or ends and effects but to apprehend them as distinctly as he can 5. The same Offices of Christ are exercised in the effecting several works He doth justifie us both as Priest Prophet and King and he sanctifieth us as Priest Prophet and King His Death purchasing both our justification and sanctification and his Teaching shewing us the way to both and his Kingly Office conferring both though most notably our justification and the Prophetical effecting more of our sanctification then of our justification 6 We must have part in Christ himself as our Head in order of Nature before we can partake of justification Sanctification as following our first faith or Glorification from him 7. Though our Physical Communion with Christ is effected by a Physical change on the soul yet our Right to him and to Justification and other following benefits is the effect of a free Gift or Testament or Promise and that Promise or free Gift is our Title which is Fundamentum juris or the efficient Instrumental cause 8. Christ and pardon or justification and Right to Heaven c. are given us by one and the same Deed of Gift so that he that hath Right to Christ hath by the same Title on the same terms Right to these his benefits 9. This Promise or Gift is conditional though it be but the Condition of a free Gift that is required 10. No mans works Repentance or Faith is his proper Title to pardon or life nor any proper meritorious cause of it nor any efficient Principal or Instrumental causes of his Right No act of ours can be more then a meer condition of that Right and a Causa sine quâ non which as it is an act that 's pleasing to God and hath the Promise of a Reward the Fathers called improperly by the Name of Merit which yet less fitly agrees to the Condition of our first Justification then of our Glorification 11. Christs pardon and life are given by this Gospel-Promise on condition of our faith in Christ that is if we become Believers in Christ or Christians which is If we accept of Christ as offered in the Gospel and that is to bring us from our sins and selves to God by the acts of his Teaching Priestly and Kingly Office Or if we believe in Christ as Christ So that it is not any one single act of Faith that is the condition of Justification nor are the several Benefits of Christ given us on condition of several acts of Faith as if we had Right to pardon by one act and to Christ himself by another and to Adoption by another and to Heaven by another c. Nor have the several acts of our faith as divided an Interest in procurement of the Benefits as Christs actions had But it is one and the same entire faith in Christ as Christ that is the condition of all these consequent special Benefits without division in the procurement So that the Belief in Christ as our Teacher and King hath as much hand in our
If you consent not to this you then must maintain that this Covenant excludeth not Infidels from salvation the term only being not implyed in the promise of pardon to Believers But if you grant all this as sure you will then it is most evident that Believing is taken in the same sense in the promise and in the threatning For no man breathing can tell me either how a Promise to one kind of faith can imply a threatning against the want of another kind or act of faith or else what that other faith must be that is so implyed if not the same And if it be the same faith that is implyed which is a most evident truth then it will follow that if I prove the Threatned unbelief to be a Rejecting of Christ as King the faith then that is made the condition of the promise must be the accepting of him as King as well as Priest But I have proved that not believing in Christ as King is part of the unbelief that is specially threatned werth condemnation therefore believing in him as King is part of that faith which hath the promise or is the Condition of Justification But saith Mr. Blake I further answer Rejecting Christ as King is a sin against the moral Law which damns Yet somewhat more then subjection to the Moral Law is required than a sinner may be saved Repl. For my part I know no Law but moral Law It s a strange Law that is not Moral as it is a strange Animal that is not quid Physicum But yet I partly understand what some others mean by the phrase Moral Law but what you mean I cannot tell for all your two volumns And it s to small purpose to dispute upon terms whose sense we be not agreed in nor do not understand one another in And you must better agree with yourselves before you agree with me I cannot reconcile these speeches Mr. Blake of the Covenant pag. 111. I know no other Rule but the old Rule the Rule of the Moral Law that is with me a Rule a perfect Rule and the only Rule Mr. Blake here pag. 563. Yet somewhat more then subjection to the Moral Law is required that a sinner may be saved I am confident you will allow me to think you mean somewhat more ex parte nostri and not only ex parte Christi And can that somewhat more be required without any Rule requiring it And yet I find you sometimes seeming offended with me for telling you I understand you not But I further answer you The rejecting of Christ as King is no further a sin against the Moral Law then the accepting him as King is a duty of the Moral Law Will you not believe this without a Dispute when you are told by Paul that where there is no Law there is no transgression and elsewhere that sin is a transgression of the Law And need not stand to prove that the same Law which is the Rule prescribing duty is the Rule discovering sin even that sin which is the Privation of that duty I desire no Readers that will not receive these things without any more arguing Mr. Blake adds Vnbelief if we speak properly doth not at all condemn further then as it is a breath of a Moral Commandment The privation of which you speak only holds the sentence of the Law in force and power against us which me thinks should be yeur judgement as well as mine seeing you are wont to compare the new Law as you call it to an act of oblivion And an act of oblivion saves many but condemns none Repl. It is in more then one thing I perceive that we differ But this is a truth that you must not so easily take out of our hands Though having had occasion to speak largely of it elsewhere I shall say but little now First Again I know no Commandment that is not moral But if you mean by Moral the Commandment either meerly as delivered by Moses or as written in Nature I am not of your mind nor ever shall be To be void of the belief of these Articles of the faith that this Jesus is the Christ that he was actually conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried Rose again the third day ascended into Heaven sitteth in our nature at the right hand of God gave the Holy Ghost to his Apostles to confirm the Doctrine of the Gospel with many more doth condemn further then as it is a breach either of the Mosaical or Natural Law yea in some respects as it is no breach of those Laws And yet the same sin materially may be a breach of several Laws and condemned by several Secondly you very much mistake my judgement here if you think it the same with yours Nor will the mention of an act of oblivion justifie your mistake I suppose an Act of oblivion may possibly have a Penalty anexed as that all that stand our and accept not of this pardon by such a year or day shall be remediless and lyable to a greater Penalty And I think if no Penalty be named there is one implyed For my part I am satisfied that the Remedying Law or the Law of Grace hath its special Threatning when I so often read it He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and unless ye believe that I am he ye shall die in your sins And I take it to differ from the Threatning of the law of works thus First In the matter of the condition which is not sin in general any sin but a special sin viz. the final rejecting the Remedy that is Refusing to turn to God by faith in Christ Secondly In the Penalty First The Gospel Penalty is Non-liberation from the curse of the Law Not to be forgiven or saved This had been but a Negation and not Penal if there had been no Christ and Gospel But it is a privation and penal now because by a special sin we forfeit our hopes and possibilities Secondly As to the degree I find it will be a far sorer punishment Heb. 10.29 The Law of greatest Grace doth threaten the greatest punishment Thirdly And doubtless in Hell Conscience will have a special kind of Accusations and self-tormentings in reflecting on the refusals of the remedy and treading under foot the blood of the new Covenant which is a punishment that was never threatned by the Covenant of works Fourthly And there will be a Privation of a greater Glory then ever was promised under the Law of works Fifthly As also of a special sort of eternal felicity consisting in loving the Redeemer and singing the song of the Lamb and being his members c. Thirdly And as there are these five differences in the Penalty besides that of the Condition of it so is there a considerable modal difference in the consummation it self viz. that of the Law of works was
offices and look not to him as making the Covenant or Grant of pardon in his blood and as teaching and perswading and working us into Union with himself that we may have part in his blood and as conferring daily the fruits of his blood as King in Renewed pardon of daily sins and as justifying us at Judgement as King and Judge His blood is a Foundation without a building if you take it without all these Overlook these and you deny it as well as by over-looking his Resurrection Besides Session at Gods Right Hand which is one thing that the Apostle instanceth in Romans 8.35 is his Glorification it self And when you say He presents his blood as High Priest c. I answer But not as a renewed sacrifice presenting it is not shedding it or offering it in sacrifice And the presentation is not a minding God of what he knows not or hath forgot or an arguing with him to extort his Mercy but as the value and merit of Christs sacrifice hath its continual Being before God so Christ doth give out all his benefis to his Church as procured and received from the Father by the merit of his sacrifice and this is his Intercession But your arguing yiedeth that to Justification we must not only believe in Christ as shedding his blood for us on earth but also on Christ as presenting his blood for us in heaven which is enough to my ends Mr. Blake You tell me further that the thing I had to prove was not the exclusion of faith in his commands but of faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher I can no more distinguish Lord and Command than I can Blood and Sacrifice it being the office of a Lord to Rule as of blood to make atonement Repl. First If you cannot distinguish there 's no remedy but you must err by confusion It s obvious to an ordinary understanding that even Blood and Sacrifice may as well be distinguished as Earth and Man or Ink and Writing Blood signifying only the matter yea but part of the matter and a Sacrifice signifying that matter with its moral Form Secondly And it s as obvious that Lord and Command do otherwise differ then Blood and Sacrifice for Lord as it signefieth principally a Proprietary is toto caelo distinct from command as standing in another series And Lord as it signifieth a Rector doth differ from Command as the efficient from the effect which is otherwise then as part of the matter doth from the whole informed It is no Argument against the truth which I maintain that you cannot distinguish these Thirdly If it be the office of a Lord to Rule then you may well distinguish betwen the office and the work But indeed in the first sense Lord signifieth a Proprietary and but in the second a Rulers Power which is not alwayes properly called an Office neither no more then the Soveraign is properly an Officer Fourthly To make Atonement is not all one as to be a Sacrifice which was your former term for Atonement is the effect of a Sacrifice not of blood as blood but as a Sacrifice meritorious and accepted Fifthly And as to the point in difference between us the difference is palpable and weighty between believing in Christ as King and believing or obeying his Commands As his Kingly Power belongs to the Constitution of his mystical body or Republike and his commands that flow from it to the Administration so Subjection to his Power and Relation and consenting to this constitution do enter us into the Body and unite us to him when believing and obeying his Laws for Administration do follow as the fruits If you could have distinguished between the Root and Fruits between Faith and Obedience between making Disciples and teaching to observe c. Mat. 28 19.2â— or becoming Disciples and Learning you might have distinguished between becoming a Subject and obeying And what ever you do I am sure others of your way do grant that Receiving Christ as Lord and Teacher is the faith that justifieth though not qua talis but they will not say so by receiving or obeying his Governing Laws which are distinct from the constitution or fundamental Law Mr. Blake You yet tell me it was fittest for Paul to say by faith in his blood because he intends to connote both what we are justified by ex parte Christi and what we are justified by ex parte nostri but the former principally To this I say If this were fittest for Paul then it is unfit for any to come in with Animiadversions and tell us of any other thing ex parte Christi or ex parte nostri for Justification I pray you rest here and we are well agreed Here is Christs Priestly Office on his part alone and I am resolved to look no further Repl. Though I may not hope to change you if you are Resolved yet I may take leave to render a reason of my contrary as peremptory Resolution I am resolved to look further ex parte Christi then to his blood yea or his whole Merit yea or whole Priest-hood for my Justification even to whole Christ and in special to his Regal constitution and sentence Yet I rest where you desire me as to the Truth of what I said and if we are agreed it s better then I can perceive in your other words First Though Paul there mention the Priestly office alone yet that 's not all his Epistles nor all the Scriptures nor doth he here exclude the rest Secondly It may be fittest to Pauls design in that particular discourse to mention faith in his blood and yet it may be fit for another to come in with animadversions and tell you of more necessary both ex parte Christi nostri It s common to express our meaning of a whole in a summary notion taken from a chief part And indeed in Political discourses it is hard to meet with a fitter way of expression Thirdly Paul himself was not of your opinion nor Christ neither and yet it was not unfit for them to discover it The same Paul that here thought it fittest to mention faith in his blood did elsewhere think it fit to mention Jusstification by his Obedience and that he Rose again for our Justification and to promise Jmputation of Righteousness to us if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Rom. 4.24 25. with the like passages before mentioned But most frequently it is the comprehensive phrase of believing in Christ Jesus our Lord that he useth The same Christ that calleth himself so oft the Lord and Master of his followers excludeth not thereby his other Relations And when he saith in one place I am the Vine he may freely say else where I am the good Shepherd And he that speaketh of laying down his life for the sheep doth not thereby make it unfit to mention other Pastoral a is for them And he that tels us of eating his flesh
some to be the Conditions of life And if you believe not this I refer you to Mr. Blake who will undertake to prove more 2. But your assertion is groundless I said not that they are works of the Law What if the Law condemn the neglect of a Gospel duty Do I call the duty a work of the Law because I say the Law condemneth the neglecters of it 3. But are you indeed of the contrary opinion and against that which you dispute against Do you think that the Law doth not threaten unbelievers when the Gospel hath commanded faith Have I so much ado to perswade the men of your party that the Gospel hath any peculiar threatning or penalty and that it is truly a Law which the Lutherans have taught too many and now do you think that its only the Gospel that Curseth impenitent unelievers and that maketh punishment due for the remnant of these sins in penitent Believers Let the Reader judge who runneth into extreams and self-contradiction Treat ib. But above all this is not to be endured that Christ hath not suffered for the breaches of the New Covenant and that there is no such breach but final impenitency For are the defects of our Repentance faith and love in Christ other then the partial breaches of the Covenant of Grace our unthankfulness unfruitfulness yea sometimes with Peter our grievous revolts and apostacies What are those but the sad shakings of our Covenant-interest though they do not dissolve it But it is not my purpose to fall on this because of its impertinency to my matter in hand Answ I rather thought it your purpose to fall upon it though you confess it impertinent to your matter in hand For I thought you had purposed before you had Printed of Preached Reader I suppose thee one that hath no pleasure in darkness and therefore wouldst see this intolerable errour bare-faced To which end besides what is said before understand 1. That I use to distinguish between a threefold breach of the Covenant 1. A sin against a meer precept of the Gospel which precept may be Synecdochically called the Covenant 2. A sin against our own Promise to God when we Covenant with him 3. A violation of Gods constitution Believe and be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned making us the proper subjects of its Actual Curse or Obligation to its peculiar punishment 2. On these distinctions I use to say as followeth 1. That Christ suffered for our breaches of Gospel precepts 2. And for our breaches of many promises of our own to God 3. And for our temporary non-performance of the Gospel Conditions which left us under a non-liberation for that time and therefore we had no freedom from so much as was executed 4. But not for such violation of the New Covenant or Law of Grace as makes us the actual subjects of its Curse or Obligation to Remediless punishment These are my usual limitations and explications And do I need to say any more now in defence of this opinion which my Reverend Brother saith is not to be endured 1. Is it a clear and profitable way of teaching to confound all these under the general name of Covenant-breaking 2. Or is it a comfortable Doctrine and like to make Congregations blessed that our defects of repentance unfruitfulness and unthankfulness c. are such violations of the Law of Grace or the Conditions of the Gospel as bring us under its actual obligation to Remediless punishment That is in plain English to say We shall all be damned Treat ib. Argument 9. If works be a condition of our Justification then must the godly soul be filled with perpetual doubts and troubles whether it be a person justified or no. This doth not follow accidentally through mans perversness from the fore-named Doctrine but the very Genius of it tends thereunto For if a Condition be not performed then the mercy Covenanted cannot be claimed As in faith if a man do not believe he cannot say Christ with his benefits are his Thus if he have not works the Condition is not performed but still he continueth without this benefit But for works How shall I know when I have the full number of them Whether is the Condition of the species or individuums of works Is not one kind of work omitted when it s my duty enough to invalidate my Justification Will it not be as dangerous to omit that one as all seeing that one is required as a Condition Answ Your Argument is an unproved Assertion not having any thing to make it probable 1. Belief in Christ as Lord and Teacher is Works with the Opponents Why may not a man know when he believeth in Christ as King and Prophet and is his Disciple as well as when he believeth in him as Priest 2. Repentance is Works also with the Opponents Why may not a man know when he Repenteth as well as when he believeth 3. Do you not give up the Protestant cause here to the Papists in the point of certainty of salvation We tell them that we may be certain that our faith is sincere And how why by its fruits and concomitants and that we take Christ for Lord as well as Saviour or to save us from the power of sin as well as the guilt And is it now come to that pass that these cannot be known What not the signs by which faith it self should be known and therefore should be notiora This it is to eye man and to be set upon the making good of an opinion 4. Let all Protestants answer you and I have answered you How will they know when they Repent and Believe when they have performed the full of these believed all necessary Truths Repented of all sins that must be Repented of Whether it be the species or individual acts of these that are necessary Will not the omission of Repentance for one sin invalidate it Or the omission of many individual acts of faith are not those acts conditions c. Answer these and you are answered 5. But I shall answer you briefly for them and me It s no impossible thing to know when a man sincerely believeth repenteth and obeyeth though many Articles are Essential to the Assenting part of faith and many sins must be Repented of and many duties must be done God hath made known to us the Essentials of each It is not the Degree of any of them but the Truth that is the Condition A man that hath imperfect Repentance Faith and Obedience may know when they are sincere notwithstanding the imperfections Do you not believe this Will you not maintain it against a Papist when you are returned to your former temper what need any more then to be said of it 6. Your Argument makes as much against the making use of these by way of bare signs as by way of Conditions For an unknown sign is no sign to us 7. And how could you over-look it that your Argument
Word of Answ 1. We say not that Jams calls them a condition therefore we add not to him as his 2. Every Exposition and application is an addition of another sort but not as of the same 3. I use not the active phrase that Works justifie agreeing so far with you who note a difference between these sayings Faith justifieth and we are justified by faith for all that Mr. Blake despiseth the observation which perhaps he would scarce have done if he had known that you had being guilty of it also 4. Scripture supposeth Grammer Logick Physicks c. and no more is to be expected from it but its own part If James tell you that we are justified by works he doth not say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a verb and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a noun and so of the rest but he warranteth you to say so without any unjust addition supposing that Grammer so call them If the Scripture say that God created the Heavens and the earth it doth not say here in terms that God was the efficient cause but it warranteth you to say so If it say that Christ dyed for us and was a Sacrifice for our sins and hath obtained eternal redemption for us yet it saith not that he is the meritorious cause or the material cause of our Justification But it will warrant you to say so without the guilt of unjust additions If you may say as a Grammarian and a Logitian when you meet with such words in Scripture These are Paronyma and these Synonyma and these Homonyma and this is an universal that a singular that a particular and that an indefinite this is an efficient cause that a material formal or final this is a noun that a verb the other a participle or an adverb I pray you then why may not I say when I read in Rom. 10.9 that If thou confess with thy mouth and believe in thy heart c. that If is a conjunction conditional Is this adding to the Scripture unjustly If I did when ever I read that we are justified by faith collect thence that faith is an Instrumental cause as if by were only the note of an Instrument then you might have accused me of unwarrantable addition or collections indeed Lastly If you have a mind to it I am content that you say by the unscriptural names or additions as you speak of nouns pronouns verbs antecedents consequents efficient or material causes c. and I will lay by the name of a condition as you do of an Instrument and we will only use the Scripture phrase which is If you forgive men your Father will forgive you if we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive we are justified by faith without the works of the Law A man is justified by works and not by faith only By thy Words thou shalt be justified Every man shall be judged according to his works c. Let us keep to Scripture phrase if you desire it and you shall find me as backward as any to lay much stress upon terms of Art Having gone thus far I shall in brief give you a truer reconciliation of Paul and James then you here offer us 1. They debate different questions 2. And that with different sorts of persons 3. And speak directly of different sorts of works 4. And somewhat differ in the sense of the word Faith 5. And somwhat about the word Justification 6. And they speak of works in several Relations to Justification 1. The Question that Paul disputed was principally Whether Justification be by the works of the Mosaical Law and consequently by any mercenary works without Christ or in Co-ordination with Christ or any way at all conjunct with Christ The question that James disputed was Whether men are justified by meer believing without Gospel-Obedience 2. The persons that Paul disputed against were 1 The unbelieving Jews that thought the Mosaical Law was of such perfection to the making of men righteous that there needed no other much less should it be abrogate Where specially note that the righteousness which the Jews expected by that Law was not as is commonly imagined a righteousness of sinless obedience such as was required of Adam but a mixt Righteousness consisting of accurate Obedience to the Mosaical Law in the main course of their lives and exact sacrificing according to that Law for the pardon of their sins committed wherein they made express confession of sin so that these two they thought sufficient to justifie and lookt for the Messias but to free them from captivity and repair their Temple Law c. And 2. Paul disputed against false Teachers that would have joyned these two together the Righteousness of Moses Law and Faith in Christ as necessary to life But James disputed against false Christians that thought it enough to salvation barely to believe in Christ or lived as if they so thought its like misunderstanding Pauls Doctrine of Justification as many now do 3. The works that Paul speaks of directly are the services appointed by Moses Law supposed to be sufficient because of the supposed sufficiency of that Law So that its all one with him to be justified by the Law and to be justified by works and therefore he ofter speaks against Justification by the Law expresly and usually stileth the works he speaks of the works of the Law yet by consequence and a parity of Reason he may well be said to speak against any works imaginable that are set in opposition to Christ or competition with him and that are supposed meritorious and intended as Mercenary But James speaks of no works but Obedience to God in Christ and that as standing in due subordination to Christ 4. By Faith in the Doctrine of Justification Paul means our Assent to all the essential Articles of the Gospel together with our Acceptance of Jesus Christ the Lord as such and affiance in him that is To be a Believer and so to have faith is with Paul to be a Disciple of Christ or a Christian Though sometime he specially denominates that faith from one part of the object the promise sometime from another the blood of Christ sometime from a third his obedience And in other cases he distinguisheth Faith from Hope and Charity but not in the business of Justification considering them as respecting Christ and the ends of his blood But James by faith means a bare ineffectual Assent to the Truth of the Christian Religion such as the Devils themselves had 5. Paul speaks of Justification in its whole state as begun and continued But James doth principally if not only speak of Justification as continued Though if by works any understand a disposition to work in faith or conjunct with it as Dr. Iackson doth so his words are true of initial Justification also 6. The principal difference lyeth in the Relations of works mentioned Paul speaks of works as the immediate matter of a legal personal Righteousness
apprehensio 2 Horum Compositio 3. Compostorum aestimatio eoque verorum à falsis divisio 4. Ex his raticcinatio And you know that Tolet having formerly thought with Aegid Paul Venet. Cajet that sensatio ita intellectio est formaliter passio did change his judgement and at last conclude that Visio vel sensatio alia duos motus dicit unum materialiter hic est receptio speciei alterum formaliter hic est Actio Prior inest Organo ratione materiae posterior ratione potentiae aâ—imae tamen uterque eidem inest Organo Prior quidem non est substantialiter essentiâ— liter sensatio sed concomitans velut dispositio posterior est essentialiter sensatio But I have been too tedious on this vid. ultra in l. 2. de Anima p. 76 77. c. l. 3. q. 13. c. You see my reasons in part why I may think my self excusable though I build not an Article of my faith on your Philosophical assertion that videee audire and so to believe are Grammatical actions only for you must say only or you say nothing and but physical passions Quest 2. Whether to Believe be only verbum activâ—m but phycally passive and a man by believing doth not operari but recipere This Question comes a little closer By operari I know you mean agere for if you should mean such an operation as Operarius pro mercede ex debito performeth then you should say nothing but dispute against what I disavowed even in the letter you answer which I dare not impute to you Now the reasons that force me to differ vehemently from you as you said to me in this point are partly Philosophical partly Theological And 1. I would sain know what that is which you here call Faith and say its passive Is it the Habit No For 1. That cannot be passive 2. That is not it that justifieth 3. That is not a passion as you say this is 4. That is not a Grammatical Action as you say this is What then Is it the Act of Faith No For 1. That 's it that you are denying and say it s but verbum activum 2. You say it is passive But how an Action can be passive is so far beyond the reach of my weak understanding that I could not believe it though it were judged Heresie to deny it Pâ—ssâ—o intrinsecum ordinem dicit ad subjectum repugnat dari passionem extra subjectum saith Surrez Tom. 2. disp 49. p. 451. And that Action can be the subject of Passion is Philosophy that I never learned and I think never shall do Especially if Schibler and most Philosophers say true that Actio passio non differunt realiter sed secundum inadaequatoâ— conceptus For very many have taught me that to the Peripateticks it is absurd for the same to be both the Action Passion and Passum yea to common reason it is Most certainly therefore it is neither Habit nor Act of faith which you call faith What is it then Is it a Passion so you say your self and therefore I must take that to be your meaning And I cannot imagine what else you should call faith But here you leave me at as great a loss as before For 1. You say it is Passive But I never heard or read before of a Passive Passion any more then of a Passive Action And if I should set my understanding on the wrack it would not apprehend or acknowledge any such thing I cannot imagine that it is the soul it self which you say is passive 1. Because you say it is faith 2. Because else your Argument must conclude that the soul only is the instrument But we are not questioning the instrumentality of the soul now but of faith More I might urge to shew that this cannot be your meaning but that I will not suppose that it is the soul it self which you call faith It being therefore neither the Soul Habit Act nor Passion which you here say is Passive in its instrumentality I am forced to confess I know not what you mean Yet if you should mean any Potentia Passive 1. Whether there be any such in the rational soul distinct from the soul it self is a great doubt 2. If there were I know not how it can be called faith 3. Nor is it such a Potentia that is the instrument of justification Yet afterwards you say It is an act of dependance which here you call a Passion 2. But whether Act or Passion it must belong either to the Vnderstanding or Will or both And 1. If you should place it only in the understanding you would besides Dr. Downam have few but the Papists with you 2. If in the Will only then as Scripture is most plain against it so you would also go against the generality of our Divines Melancthon Jâ— Crocius Amesius Davenant c. make it the common Protestant Tenet that it is in both In actu siâ—ei Justificantis tota an ma se convertit ad causam justificantem Davenant Determ Q. 38. pag. 174. Fides illa quam Scriptura justificantem agnoscit habet in se complicatum actum voluntatis intellectus idem ibid. Q. 37. pag. 166. And to them that think it absurd to have it in both faculties I answer with the same Author 1. Quod philosâ—â—kantur voluntatem intellectum esse duas potentias re ipsa distinctas dogma philosophicum est ab omnibus haud receptum not of Scotus and his followers with many more Theologicis dogmatibus firmandis aut infirmandis fundamentuÌ„ minime idâ—neum 2. Neque nobis absurdum sed valde consentaneum videtur actum illum quo tota anima purificatur justificatur ad totam animam pertinere ita ut in nudo intellectu habeat initium in voluntate complementum Idem ibid. 3. If you say it is in both as I doubt not but you will it being the plain Truth then 1. It cannot possibly by any one single Act or Passion which you call the passive Instrument and do you think to find out many such 2. For that which belongeth to the understanding it must be either a simple apprehension a composition or division or a ratiocination or Judgement And 1. A simple Apprehension it cannot be 1. For so the Intellect receiveth all Objects alike It receiveth sin death unrighteousness Satan hell in the same kind as it receiveth Grace Life Righteousness Christ Heaven For it understandeth both in the same way receiving them per modum objecti 2. And thus it receiveth not the very thing it self Essentially though it understand the thing it self but only as is said the species or action of it c. except you will say as Sir Ken. Digby and the Lord Brook that the thing understood is really in the understanding and become one with it Now according to this sence you would not make faith to receive Christ or his Righteousness
peformed per nudam resultantiam without any other Act to produce it And this is most properly called Justificatio constitutiva activa 2. When the Gospel hath by Gift constituted us Righteous then next in order it doth declare or pronounce us Righteous and vertually acquit us from Condemnation This is by the like silent moral interpretative Action only as the other And perhaps may be most fitly called the imputing of Righteousness or esteeming us Righteous as Piscator And for the latter Justification at Judgement the Action is Christs publique pleading and sentencing us Acquitt which is an Action both Physical and Moral in several respects 4. Now if we enquire after the Patient or rather the Object of these several Acts we shall quckly find that the Man is that Object but that Faith is any Patient here is past my apprehension For the first Act of God by the Gospel giving Christ and his Merit to us it is only a moral Action Though the writting and speaking the Word at first was a Physical action yet the Word or Promise now doth moraliter tantùm agere And therefore it is impossible that Faith should be Physically passive from it For Passion being an effect of Action it must be a Physical proper Action which produceth a physical Passion I will not stand to make your Assertion odious here by enquiring what Physical effective Influx Contact c. here is which should manifest Faith to be physically Passive I know in the Work of effectual vocation the Soul is first passive but that is nothing to our Question whether Faith be passive in Justification Do but tell me plainly quid patitur fides and you do the Business But what if you had only said that Faith is morally passive and not physically I answer It had been less harsh to me though not fit nor to the point For 1. Gods Justification nor Donation of Christ is not properly of or to Faith for then Faith should be made righteous and justified hereby but to the person if he Believe 2. Besides if you should confess only a moral Passiveness which is somewhat an odd phrase and notion and is but to be the Object of a moral Action it would spoil all the common arguments drawn from the physical nature of Faith and its sole excellency herein in apprehending receiving c. and thereby justifying And you would bring in all other Graces to which the same Promise may as well be said to be made 3. The Truth I have and further shall manifest to be this that as it is not to faith or any other act that Righteousness is given but to the person on condition he Believe so this condition is no passion but an action or divers actions This will fully appear in the Theological Reasons following In the mean time I need not stand on this because you express your self that Faith is physically pasâ—ive Indeed you add or hyperphysically but though I meet with some Philosophers that use in such cases to give hyperphysice as a tertium to overthrow the sufficiency of the â—istinction of physice moraliter yet I suppose that is none of your meaning who know that even Intellectus dum efficit intellectionem voluntas volitionem sunt causae physicae ut Suarez 1. Tom. disp 17. § 2. p. 260. and so Schibler and many more yea and that our Divines conclude that Gods action on our souls in conversion is first Physical which yet may be as truly and fully called hyperphysical as our Faith Now for the second action of the Gospel declaring or pronouncing the Believer righteous and so de jure acquitting him It is much more beyond my reach to conceive how faith can in respect of it be passive For 1. Besides that it is a moral action as the former and so cannot of it self produce a physical passion 2. It doth not therein speak of or to faith pronouncing it just and acquitting it but of and to the Believer So that if Faith were physically passive in the former yet here it is impossible 3. If you say that it is physically or morally passive in regard of the latter full Justification by sentence at Judgement you would transcend my capacity most of all To say faith is the Patient of Christs judiciary publique sentence is a sentence that shall never be an article of my Faith and is so gross that I conjecture you would take it ill if I should take it to be your meaning therefore I will say no more against it Now you know that this is as you say in your Lect. the most compleat Justification and which I most stand upon and therefore if your arguments fail in respect of this they yield me almost all I expect Next I will tell you my Reasons Theological why I believe not that justifying faith as such is passive 1. All Divines and the Scripture it self hath perswaded me that Christ and the Promises are the Object of this Faith but a Passion hath no Object but a subject c. Therefore according to you Christ c. is not the object of it which is contrary to all that I have heard or read 2. I have read Divines long contending which is the Act of justifying faith qua talis And some say one and some another but all say one or other or many Now you cut the knot and contradict all in making it at least quatenus Justificans no Act at all but a Passion unless you will say it is a passive act which I dare not imagine And doubtless these Divines shew by their whole speech that by Actus Fidei they mean Actus secundus vel Actio and not Actus primus vel entetativus vel accidentalis sive ut informans sive ut operativus sed ipsa operatio 3. I am truly afraid lest by entertaining this opinion I should strike in not only with the Antinomians who cannot endure to hear of any conditions of life of our performing but even with the Libertines who tell me to my face that man is but Passive and as the soul Acts the body so Christ in them moveth the soul to Good and Satan to evil while they are meerly Passive and therefore the Devil shall be damned for sin who committeth it in them and not they for who will bite the stone or beat the staff or be angry at the sword c. 4. Else you must depress the excellent grace of faith below all other in making it meerly Passive while others are active For doubtless life and excellency is more in Action then Passion 5. If believing be only suffering then all Infidels are damned only for not suffering which is horrid 6. Scripture frequently condemneth wicked men for Action for Rebellion Refusing Rejecting Christ Luke 19.27 They hate him and say we will not have this man reign over us c. and this is their unbelief If they resisted the Holy Ghost only Passivè non Activè then it would be
was the Act of seeing which cured them without touching laying hold on apprehending resting on c. But you will not say so of justifying faith 3. The sight which was the condition of their cure was no actuall reception of the brazen Serpent but the species of that Serpent by the eye and so the eye did no otherwise receive the Serpent then it received every Object it behold even the Serpent that stung them But if you say that our receiving Christ is but per simplicem apprehensionem objecti and that it is a receiving of his species and so that we receive Christ no otherwise then we receive Satan or any Object of Knowledge I will not be of that opinion 4. Their cure was simul semel but our Justification is a continued Act as really in doing all our lives as at first 5 Therefore though one act finished their cure and there was no condition perscribed as requisite for the consummation or continuance yet when our Justification is begun and we truly justified there is further conditions prescribed for its continuance and consummation To conclude I am so far from saying that any other Act will as well heal the wounded Christian besides what God hath made the express condition of his cure that I flatly aver no other will do it But whether he hath made any one single act or Passion to be the whole of that condition I have elsewhere out of Scripture shewed you and you do not deny what I say My two last Answers to your exposition of Pauls words you are pleased to overpass the last of which the ninth being the main that I made use of viz. that Paul taketh the word Workâ— more strictly for such working as maketh the Reward to be not of Grace but of debt and in this sence I disclaim all works not only as you do from being receptive or instrumental or effective but from being concomitant why you said nothing to this my chief Answer I do not know You next tell me that I cannot take the Assemblies definition in that sence as they declare it or the Scripture words which are Metaphorical imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righteousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object c. Answer That the word Receiving and Resting are Metaphorical I easily grant you and wonder the more that you still insist on them and instead of reducing them to more proper expressions do here add Metaphor to Metaphor till all your definition be a meer Allegory when you know how much Metaphors do seduce But for the Assemblies Definition I embrace it unfeignedly in that sence as the words seem to me most evidently to import without using violence with them But I perceive by this that you will not think it enough in a man to subscribe to national Confessions and Catechisms in the obvious sence or that which he judgeth the plain proper sence except he also agree with you in the explication Some think it not enough that we subscribe to the Scripture because we may misunderstand it and therefore we must subscribe to national Confessions as more explicate which I like well so we add nothing to Gods word nor thrust our own Commentaries into the Text or obtrude out own Doctrines upon men as Articles of their faith or at least as the Bishops did the Ceremonies which they made indifferent in word but necessary indeed But now I perceive the matter comes all to one in the issue when you cannot make a definition of Faith in such Language as is any easier to be understood then the Scripture when you and I cannot both understand it and I find that many are of Bellarmines judgement Apol. c. 7. cited by Mr. Vines in his Sermon against Haeres pag. 50. That a man may be an Haeretick though he believe the Scriptures the three Creeds and the four great general Councils But for the sence of the Assemblies definition 1 I know not what you mean by the words as they declare it If any private declaration I am not to take notice of it nor do I know what it meaneth and could wish they would do or might have done as Mr. Vines desired in his Sermon Jâ—â— 28. 1645. that is To second their conclusions with the Reasons and Grounds of them which will do much to make them pass for currant seeing saith he the Gorgons head which struck all dumb in former times The Church The Church is not likely to have the same operation row in this seeing and searching age for though men be willing to be subject to Authority yet as they are men they will be slaves to Reason So that if there were any private exposition I would we had it But if you mean only what is declared in the words of the Definition I am most confident though I never was in the Assembly that I have hit on their sence far neerer then you seem to have done and I dare not think otherwise lest I be hainously censorious of so reverend an Assembly which I am resolved not to be 1. Their very words are a receiving of Christ and not immediately and primarily his Righteousness but himself and in the confession they say as I do that it is an accepting receiving and resting on Christ 2. And as Christ the anointed which Name signifieth the Offices which he is anointed to viz. King Priest c. 3. It maketh it to consist in no one act but several expressed in two phrases 1. Receiving Christ 2. Resting on him alone for salvation 4. It expresly saith that it is a receiving of him as he is offered in the Gospel and that is not as a justifier only but as a Lord and Prophet and that as immediately as the other and conjunct with it for he is no where offered as a justifier alone if he be shew where it is 5. And hence it is plain that they mean no Reception but moral by Willing Consenting Accepting as they expresly say in the confession of Faith For he is no otherwise offered to us in the Gospel He is not offered to our Physical Reception It is not his person in substance that is offered to the Contact of our Spirits much less of our flesh but his person as cloathed with his Relations of Mediator Redeemer Lord Saviour c. And can you receive a King as King who is personally distant or invisible by any other Reception then I have said If we do receive a King into England the only Acts of the soul are hearty consenting and what is therein and thereto implyed though bodily Actions may follow which as to Christ we cannot perform I think verily this is the plain sound sence of the Assembly and shall believe so till the same Authority that thus defined do otherwise interpret their own definition And for your phrase of Resting a burdened
so desire me not to take it ill to be called an erring shepherd As if I did not know my Proneness to err and were not conscious of the weakness of my understanding or as if the expressions of so sincere love did need excuse or as if I were so tender and brittle as not to endure so gentle a touch as if my confidence of your love were Plumea non Plumbea and would be blown away with such a friendly breath Certainly Sir your sharper smiting would be precious Balm so it light not on the Truth but me I am not so unctuous nitrous or sulfureous as to be kindled with such a gratefull warmth My Intellect were too much active and my affections too passive if by the reception of the beams of such favourable expressions my soul as by a Burning-Glass should be set on fire I am oft ashamed and amazed to think of the horrid intolerable Pride of many learned Pious Divines who though they have no worse Titles then Viri docti reverendi celeberrimi yet think themselves abused and unsufferably vilified if any word do but acrius pungere or any Argument do faucibus premere witness Rivet and Spanhemius late angry censure of Amyraldus Can we be fit Preachers and Patterns of meekness and humility to our people who are so notoriously proud that we can scarce be spoke to My knowledge of your eminent humility and gentelness hath made me also the freer in my speeches here to you which therefore do need more excuse then yours And I accordingly intreat you if any thing have passed that is unmannerly according to the natural eagerness and vehemency of my temper that you will be pleased to excuse what may be excused and the rest to remit and cover with love assuring your self it proceeds not from any diminution of his high esteem of you and love to you who acknowledgeth himself unfeignedly so very much below you as to be unworthy to be called Your fellow-servant RICHARD BAXTER June 28. 1650. Kederminster Postscript DEar Sir while I was waiting for a messenger to send this by Master Brooksby acquaints me that you wisht him to tell me that I must expect no more in writing from you My request is that whereas you intimated in your first a purpose of writing somewhat against me on this subject hereafter you would be pleased to do it in my life time that I may have the benefit of it if you do it satisfactorily and if not may have opportunity to acquaint you with the reasons of my dissent Scribunt Asinium Pollionem dixisse aliquando se parasse orationes contra Plancum quas non nisi post mortem esset editurus Plancum respondisse cum mortuis non nisi larvas luctari ut Lud. Vives ex Plinio Dr. Humfred ex illo Jesuit 2. p. 640. Also I request that if possible you would proceed on such terms as your Divinity may not wholly depend upon meer niceties of Philosophy For I cannot think such points to be neer the foundation Or at least that you will clearly and fully confirm your Philosophical grounds For as I find that your Doctrine of a Passive Instrumentality of the Act of faith and that in a Moral reception of righteousness which is but a relation yet calling it Physical is the very bottom of the great distance between us in the point of justification So I am of opinion that I may more freely dissent from a brother in such tricis philosophicis then in an Article of faith Especially having the greatest Philosophers on my side and also seeing how little accord there is among themselves that they are almost so many men so many minds and when I find them professing as Combacchius in praefâ—ad Phys that they write against their own sense to please others quod maximam opinionum in lib. contentarum partem non jam probaret Aristotelem non esse normam veritates and wishing ut tandem aliquando exurgat aliquis qui perfectiora nobis principia monstret and to conclude as he salsitatem opinionum sententiarum scientiarum imperfectionemâ—jam pridem video sed in veritate docenda deficio Et Nulli aut paucis certe minus me satisfacturum ac mihi ipsi sat scio And how many new Methods and Doctrines of Philosophy this one age hath produced And I am so far sceptical my self herein as to think with Scaliger ibid. cit Nos instar vulpis à Ciconia delusae vitreum vas lambere pultem haud attingere But I believe not that in any Master point in Divinity God hath left his Church at such an utter loss nor hanged the faith and salvation of every honest ordinary Christian upon meer uncertain Philosophical speculations I do not think that Paul knew what a Passive instrument was much less an act that was physically passive in its instrumentality in a moral causation You must give me leave to remain confident that Paul built not his Doctrine of justification on such a philosophical foundation till you have brought one Scripture to prove that faith is an instrument and such an instrument which can neither be done Especially when the same Paul professeth that he came not to declare the Testimony of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he determined not to know any thing among them save Iesus Christ and him crucified and that his speech and preaching was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so their faith might not stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he spoke the mysteries of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 2. I am past doubt therefore that to thrust such Philosophical dictates into our Creed or Confession and make them the very touchstone of Orthodoxness in others is a dangerous presumptuous adding to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a making of a new Doctrine of justification and salvation to the great wrong of the Prophet and Lawgiver of the Church I was even now reading learned Zanchius proof that believers before Christ did by their faith receive Christs flesh or humane nature as promised and future as well as the Divine and his heavy censure of the contrary Doctrine as vile and unsufferable which occasioneth me to add this Quere Whether that believing was a physical reception when the object had no real being or did not exist Or whether meer morral reception by Accepting Choosing Consenting as a people receiving the Kings Heires for their future Governours before they are born or as we receive a man for our King who dwels far out of our sight Or as Princes wives do use to take them both for their Husbands and Soveraign Lords even in their own Native Countrey before they come to sight of the man the match being both driven on and made and the marriage or contract performed and imperfectly solemnized at that distance by an Embassador or Delegate just so do we receive Christ whose humane nature is far off and his Divine out
For it fell out that I first saw your Book without the Epistle and Preface 2. Because I thought it fittest to follow the Method that my Subject and the Readers â—â—dification did require 3. Yet did I once purpose to have answered all that was of moment in your Book against the Truth but upon trial I found your Reasons so inconsiderable that weariness interrupted me and put an end to my Reply and withal I grew confident that my labour would be to little purpose For I dare venture any Judicious Divine upon your Book without the help of a Reply And for the rest it is not replying that will serve turn but either prejudice will hold them to the side that they have taken or else they will think him in the right that hath the last word when they have read mine they will think that I am in the right and when they have again read yours they will think that you carry the cause and when they read my Reply again they will say you were mistaken but usually they will go with the party that is in greatest credit or hath most interest in them or advantage on them But yet I think you will find that none of your strength against me is neglected For I can truly say that when I think not meet to Answer all that a man hath said I never pass by that which I take to be his strength but purposely call out that and leave that which I think is so grosly weak as to need no answer So much of your ten Demands or Laws as I apprehended necessary I have here answered supposing what I had said of the same points in my first Disputation which I saw no Reason too often to Repeat I am none of those that blame you for too much of the Metaphysicks but rather mervail that you feared not lest your Metaphysical Reader will wrong you by mis-applying your cited Schegkius contrary to your better opinion of your self and take both your Schegkius and your Scaliger for Prophets that could speak as if they had read your Book and been acquainted with your arguings But it seems you are not the first of that way By your Arguments in your Preface I perceive you think it a matter of very great moment to your cause to prove that there are divers acts of Faith whereas I am so far from denying it that I am ready to demonstrate that even the faith by which we are Justified is liker to have twenty acts then one only but many certainly it hath Your first Argument is from the different objects because the Objects specifie the Acts. A sufficient Argument which no man can confute But 1. This is no proof that one act only is it that we are justified by 2. Where you add that Justifying Faith hath not respect to Christ as Lord formaliter you beg the Question and assert no light mistake But where you add in its act of Justifying you do but obtrude upon us your fundamental Error which leadeth you to the rest by naked affirmations Faith hath properly no justifying act Justificare est efficere Faith doth not effect our Justification we are justified by faith indeed but not as by an efficient cause unless you will take Justification for Sanctification For real qualitative Mutations it doth effect but the Jus or Title to any mercy in the world it cannot Effect but Accept when offered If you â—â—nâ— see so plain a Truth in its Evidence yet observe by the words of the Reverend Brother that is my Opponent in the second Disputation and by your Prefacers Dr. Kendals course that its a passive instrumentality that the Defenders of your cause at last are driven to and therefore talk not of its act of Justifying unless you will mean Gods act of Justifying which faith is the Condition of And whereas you make unbelief to be formally a slighting and neglecting Christ as a Saviour and effectively you must mean only effective non formaliter a denying subjection to him as Lord. You err so great but so rare an error that I suppose it needless to confute it All Christians as far as I can learn have been till now agreed that Believing in Christ as Prophet and King is a real part of faith and that unbelief or rejecting him as Prophet and King is a real part of unbelief Your second Argument is from the different subjects where you give us two such palpable Fictions that its a wonder you can make your self believe them much more that you should lay so great a stress on such absurdities The first is that the Act of Faith is in several faculties and you elswhere give us to understand that it is one Physical Act that you mean And do you think in good sadness that one single Physical act can be the act of both the faculties The second is that the fear love and obedience to Christ as King is but in the Will But 1. That Readers do you expect that will take an Assertion of Fear-Love and Obedience in stead of an assertion concerning Faith Were you not comparing faith in Christ as King with faith in Christ as Priest only And why speak you not of faith in one part of your comparison as well as in the other Your conclusion now is nothing to the Question 2. Or if you mean that Faith in Christ as King is not in both faculties as well as Faith in Christ as Priest or sacrifice did you think that any man of ordinary understanding would ever believe you without any proof or that ever such a thing can be proved Your third Argument is Because they are in a different time exerted the one that is Faith as Justifying being precedaneous to the other and to other Graces Answ Wonderfull Is that man justified that believeth not in Christ as the King and Prophet of the Church Do you believe this your self why then an Infidel is justified by Faith The ' Belief in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest only is not the Christian faith it is not faith in Christ properly because it is not faith in Christ as Christ For Christ as Priest only is not Christ A Heart only is not Corpus humanum A Body only is not a Man where there are three essential parts one of them is not the Thing without the rest The name Jesus Christ signifieth the office as well as the person It is essential to that Office that he be Prophet and King And hereby you shew that you do not only distinguish but divide For where there is a distance of time between the Acts there is a division Do you think that we are Christs enemies or followers of them unless we will believe you that a man is Justified by Believing in Christ only as a Priest or Ransom or in his Righteousness before ever be believe in him as King and Lord and so as Teacher c. If I had said that you are Christs enemy for such Doctrine
cause as they think some other Act is Paul doth not exclude that which he makes necessary Argument 5. That which makes not the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace is none of the works that Paul sets faith against But other acts of faith in Christ do not make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace any more then the one act which you will choose E. g. Believing in Christ as King and Teacher any more then believing in him as a Ransom therefore they are not the works that Pauls sets faith against The Major is proved from the Description of the excluded works Rom. 4.4 The Minor is evident Argument 6. All acts of Faith in Christ as our Justifier are such as are opposed to works by Paul and are none of the works which faith is opposed to But they are more then one or two that are Acts of faith in Christ as Justifier Ergo. The Major I think will be granted the Minor is plain For 1. Christ justifieth us meritoriously as a Sacrifice 2. And as Obeying and fulfilling the Law 3. As the complement of his satisfaction and the entrance upon his following execution his Resurrection justifieth us 4. As the Heavenly Priest at Gods right hand he justifieth us by his Intercession 5 As King and Head he justifieth us by his Covenant or Law of Grace 6. As King and Judge he justifieth us by sentence 7. As Prophet he teacheth us the Doctrine of Justification and how to attain to Justification by sentence So that at least none of these are the excluded works Argum. 7. If the whole Essence of Christian faith be opposed to works and so be none of the opposed works in the matter of Salvation then it s so also in the matter of Justification But the Antecedent is true therefore so is the Consequent The Minor is confessed by my Opponents The consequence of the Major I prove 1. Because Salvation is as free as Justification and no more of works which Paul excludeth 2. Salvation comprehendeth Justification and Glorification hath the same conditions as final Justification at Judgement it being part of Justification to adjudge that Glory 3. The express Scripture excludes works as much from Salvation as from Justification Eph. 2.8 9. For by Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast Tit. 3.5 6 7. Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his Grace we should be made Heirs according to the hope of eternal Life Many such places are obvious to any diligent Reader For the Minor also read 1 Cor. 15.1 2 3 4 5 6 c. Argum. 8. If no man can name any one Act of faith that is opposed to all the rest as works or opposed to works when the rest are not then no such thing it to be asserted But no man can name the Act that is thus opposed alone to works 1. It is not yet done that I know of We cannot get them to tell us what Act it is 2. And if they do others will make as good a claim to the Prerogative Argum. 9. They that oppose us and affirm the Question do feign God to have a strange partiality to one Act of faith above all the rest without any reason or aptitude in that act to be so exalted But this is not to be feigned and proved it cannot be that God should annex our Justification to the Belief in Christ as a sacrifice only and to oppose this to belief in him as Rising Interceding Teaching Promising or Judging is a fiction contrary to Scripture Examine any Text you please and see whether it will run well with such an Exposition Rom. 4.4 5. Now to him that worketh i. e. Believeth in Christ as Teacher Judge Intercessor is the reward not reckoned of Grace but of Debt But to him that worketh not that is believeth not on Christ as King and Teacher c. but Believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly an act of his Kingly office c. Doth this run well I will not trouble you with so unsavoury a Paraphrase upon the like Scriptures you may try at pleasure on Rom. 3. 4. and Gal. 3. Eph. 2. Phil. 3. or any such Text. Argument 10. If the Doctrine of the Opponents holding the Affirmative were true then no man can tell whether he be a condemned Legalist or not yea more if it be not faith in Christ as such containing the whole Essence by which we are justified as opposed to works or which is none of the excluded works then no man can tell but he is a condemned Legalist But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The Reason of the Consequence is because no man is able to tell you which is the sole justifying Act or which are the only acts if it be not faith Essentially that is it for among all the acts before mentioned if a man mistake and think one other E. g. faith in Christs Resurrection in Christ as King Judge Teacher c. is it by which he must be justified then he falls upon Justification by Works and so falls short of Grace for if it be of Works then it is no more of Grace else Works were no Works And so no man can tell but he destroyeth Grace and expecteth Justification by works much less can weak Christians tell I never yet saw or heard from any Divine a just Nomination with proof of the one Justifying act or a just Enumeration of the many acts if all must not be taken in that are Essential Some say Affiance is the only act but as that 's confuted by the most that take in Assent also so there are many and many acts of Affiance in Christ that are necessary and they should tell us which of these it is Object And do you think that we can any better tell when we have all that are Essential Or doth every weak Christian believe all the twenty Articles that you mentioned at first Answ 1. We can better know what is Revealed then what 's unrevealed The Scripture tells us what faith in Christ is but not what one or two acts do Justifie excluding all other as Works Divines have often defined Faith but I know not that any hath defined any such one act as thus exalted above the rest of the Essence of Faith If we covld not tell what is essential to Faith we could not tell what faith is 2. The twenty Objects of Assent before mentioned are not all Articles or material Objects the second is the formal Object And of the rest unless the Fifth Believing that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of a Virgin may be excepted which I dare not affirm