uncapable of the benefits 15. God useth none of fallen mankind according to the severity of the first Law but givâ—th to all men undeserved forfeited Mercy and bindeth them to use some means for their recovery to repent in hope and to receive and thankfully use the measures of mercy which he vouchâ—â—â—eth them And all men shall be judged according to that edition of the Law of Grace which they were under and the receiving and using the Grace or Mercy which was given or offered them 16. When the peculiar Seed was formed into a Nation God gave them by Moses a peculiar Law which exempliâ—ied the Holiness of the first Law but had the Promises and Grace of the second with the peculiar additions and plainlier pointed out the Messiah to come but by a way of operous Ceremonies and severe Discipline suitable to their rude minority 17. In the fulness of time Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost in a Virgin and being God and Man aâ— made by the Will of the Deity was made a Subject under a Law peculiar to himself according to his peculiar works and this Law given to our Mediator had three parts 1. That he should perfeâ—tly obey the Law of Innocency so far as it was fitted to his case and overcome the Tempter 2. That he should perfectly keep the Law of Moseâ— so far as it agreed to him 3. That he should perfectly do all that was proper to the Redeemer in being a Sacrifice for sin clearing and publiâ—hing the New Covenant sealing it by Miracles rising again instituting his Word Sacraments and Ministry ascending giving the Spirit interceding in Heaven c. his promised reward being the success of his undertaking the saving of his Church and his Glory in the glorifying of God the Father This is the peculiar Law to the Mediator 18. That which is called The Covenant between the Father and the Son is this Covenant made to and with Christ Inâ—arnate and the fore-decâ—â—eing thereof with the Prophecies of it If there be more it is past our reach 19. Christ perfectly fulfilled all that he undertook and this as the second Adam not a Natural Root but a Voluntary Sponsor Not our Substitute or Servant sent by us but chosen by tâ—e Father and sent by him to do all his Will for Mans Redemption 20. As he took the common Nature of Man so the sins of all and not only of the Elect were the causes of his sufferings and said upon him and the fruits of his sufferings and merits were some common and some peculiar to the Elect. 21. He being not as Adam our natural Parent was not meerly by natural generation to convey his benefits to the Redeemed but by such means as he should chuse and Man consent to even by a holy Covenant or Contract being also his Doctrine and his Law in several respects which Covenant having great and precious Promises is Gods Instrument of Donation and Condonation and our title to all the blessings promised by which God doth give us right to Pardon and Salvation This Law of Grace is the Rule of our duty and the Rule by which we shall be judged 22. This Law or Covenant giveth a Conditional Pardon to all in the tenour of it with Adoption and Right to Life Eternal But actual Pardon and Right accrueth to none till the Condition be performed which is to be Believers or their Infant seed dedicated to God by Covenant Consent 23. This Condition is not that we our selves make God amends or satisfaction or give him any thing that hath any merit in Commutative Justice or do any kind of work which shall make the reward to be of debt and not of grace But it is the Belief of and Consent to the Covenant of Grace and the Believing Acceptance of the gifts and grace of the Covenant according to their nature and 〈◊〉 their proper use and is the same thing which is to be professed in Baptism which is the solemnizing of this mutual Covenant and in which God the Father Son and Holy Ghost do give themselves to us for grace and glory and we give up our selves by consent to him believingly accepting his grace and penitently renouncing the lusts of the flesh the world and the Devil and so are sacramentally invested in a state of Justification Adoption and Spiritual Life 24. The profession of this Faith and Consent in Baptism maketh men visible Christians and Church members and true heart consent in Faith maketh men Living and Justified Members 25. This belief and consent or performance of the Condition is not the Efficient Cause of our Pardon or Justification but is the necessary 〈◊〉 position or qualification of the Receiver in the very nature of the Act suitable and needful and by Divine Institution and Promise made the Condition and acceptable 26. Though we are not capable Receivers of Justification till we thus penitently and believingly consent yet when we do so it is the merit of Christs Righteousness by which we are justified For the Covenant of God is but his Instrument by which he giveth us Christ to be our Head and Life in and with him and so giveth us Justification as procuâ—â—d by his Merits 27. Justification is a word of many senses sometimes it signifieth making us righteous sometimes the Law or Covenants virtuâ—l judging us righteoâ—s it being the Rule of Judgment sometimes Gods esteeming us righteous in his own mind sometimes for a Justifying by â—vidence or Witness sometimes by â—poloâ—y of an Advocate sometimes by the Sentence of the Judge and sometime for the Execution of that Sentence But the notable special sorts are three Making just â—udging just and Vsing as just And they that will dispute of Justification and not tell in what sense they take the word do but abuse their time and talk 28. No man is judged righteous by God that is not first made righteous 29. He that is made righteous is justifiable in Judgment and virtually justified in Law 30. No sinner is made righteous as to the Preceptive part of the Law of Innocency it being a contradiction to have been a sinner and no sinner 31. Pardon of sin doth not make the fact done to be undone or not done nor the sin to be no sin nor not to have deserved punishment But it remitteth the punishment and the fault so far as it inferreth punishment because of the merit and satisfaction of the Mediator and delivereth the sinner from that which he was bound to suffer by the violated Law 32. To make a man righteous before God that hath sinned all these things must concur 1. He must have a Mediator that must answer the Ends of the Law that condemneth him and so meriteth his Justification 2. This Saviour must make him a Pardoning and Justifying Covenant to convey the right of the purchased benefits to him 3. He himself by grace must perâ—orm the Conditions of that Covenant accepting the free gift believingly according to its
And lately came out a Book of one Mr. Troughtons of the same temper with the rest He allarmeth the Nation as if the Enemy were at the Gates He is a man that hath been blind from his Infancy or early Childhood and I suppose never read a Book but hath had some one to read to him and he undertaketh to tell the sense of Protestant Writers and Fathers and the words and sense of Mr. Hotchkis and me and such others whom be fiercely assaulteth as his and the Churches Adversaries And the good man heapeth up untrâ—â—â—s in matter of fact in false reciting his Adversaries words and sense Besides his Libertine false Doctrine as that the Covenant or Promise of Justification hath no Conditions no not Faith and such like and abuseth the Authors whom he citeth I thought once to have bestowed two or three days work in answering him but I desisted partly because he was one of those that had written at the rate of some former Adversaries who had so formed their Assaults that they had left me little to answer but a Mentiris which is so unpleasing a task that they that most deserve it cannot bear it And it hath been my lot since 1662. in which the powerful Ringleader Morley began to have so many such Books written against me and such reports divulged of me as if the Devil had been studying to prove Rom. 3.4 that every man is a Lyar to be true in a sense beyond the meaning and to bring all History at least of Disputers into discredit and to make it become a valid consequence It is said and written by a domineering or an ambitious or an erroneous or angry Adversary Ergo it is false And also I was loth to say that against the man that his Book required For I hear he is a very honest man and not only blind but a sufferer for Nonconformity with the rest and when he was a Child his Grand-father Grand-mother and other kindred in Coventry were my hearers and loving friends and godly people His Father and Mother my very near Neighbours and weekly and almost daily company have asked my Counsel what they should do with a blind Boy that was much inclined to Learning and I encouraged them to further him not foreseeing his snares 3. And I perceive that judicious Readers have no need of an Antidote against so weak a Poison He that gave me the Animadversions answered in the end told me He had scarce patience to read him And as to those that are so weak as to need an answer to such a Book it 's like they are too weak to understand one or will think him in the right that hath the last word and that may be he that liveth longest The great fault of the good man is that which is too predominant in all Cases in corrupted Nature even an unhumbled understanding which doth not sufficiently suspect it self much less is acquainted with its own Ignorance but when it most mistaketh doth most confidently rage Who would think that such a man could be ignorant how unfit he was who never saw their Books to undertake such account as he giveth of Fathers Protestant Writers or us his chosen Adversaries When his Reader hath read to him some parcels of our Writings how knoweth he what he omitteth or what explications he never read And how uncapable must his memory needs be of retaining and laying all together out of so many Volumes and making a charge and passing a Judgment thereupon unless his memory be greater far than Bishop Hall saith Dr. John Reynolds reading and memory was next to a Miracle which his gross falsifications shew that it is not And 4. I found so many ready to write on the same Subject for my sense that I the more thought it needless to my self Sir Charles Wolsley hath lately done it very judiciously I have lately perused divers Manuscripts that are such prepared for the Press One of Mr. William Mannings another of Mr. Clerke Son to Mr. Samuel Clerke and Dr. Twisse hath a Latine Disputation to the same sense and some more all Nonconformists But yet I still hear some London Brethren use to cast out their suspicions aspersions and censures behind my back and some in their Conferences when they meet Whereupon I drew up this Paper of Explicatory Propositions and Controversies only to let them truly know my sense and long after gave it that honest Dr. Annesley at whose house sometimes some meet of different Judgments in such things desiring him but to get it read to them and to procure me their Animadversions on what they did any of them disâ—ike instead of their unprofitable Obloquy when I cannot hear them for this I should take for a great brotherly kindness But it is now near a twelve month that I have waited in hope of it but cannot procure a word to this day which maketh me think it needful to publish that which I intended but for their private view Yet one that to me profâ—ssed dissent seemed to take it well that I intreated his Reasons and promised to give them me but never did Nor hath any one yet answered 1. My Confession 2. My Disputations of Justification 3. My Apology to many 4. My small Tract of Saving Faith to Bishop Barlow 5. My Treatise of Justifying Righteousness to Dr. Tully This week an honest judicious moderate Friend that is more a Consenter than a Dissenter as far as I can judge sent me the Notes which I answer in the latter end as partly his own and partly others which not as opposing them but as tending to elucidate the whole Cause I here adjoyn though all or most here said is said elsewhere before which I mention lest you think that I took all for his own Opinion which he cited out of Dr. Owen who himself reformed much of his former Judgment about Doctrine and Government before he died The Lord heal his Church by Light Love and Humility which is torn by Ignorance Uncharitableness and Pride Amen The Prologue § 1. THE Doctrine of the Justification of sinful man by Christ as our Redeemer Saviour and Judge is of so great moment that it should be Skilfully taught to all that are Catechised And yet by the Unskilfulness of Teachers is become a foot-ball of Strife and Contention and of Wrathful Censures and Reproach among those who are most zealous for the safe and honourable preservation of it and really differ more in the Terms and Methods which they think must preserve it than in the inward practical sense of the matter itself § 2. Two things constitute this itch or leprosy rather of strife which experience maketh us fear is uncurable And these two are one Ignorance Ignorance of the case And Ignorance of our Ignorance But what Ignorance is it I am grieved to know and speak it It is Ignorance of words or the art of speaking of Grammar and Logick O what a plague did Nimrod bring on the World
the nâ—â—â—ssary qualification of the Patient or Reâ—â—iver i. e. naturally and legally necessary such as dispositio materiae is said to be in Physicks 3. And as for the notion of an Instrumental Cause of Justification it is past doubt that properly taken neither Faith nor any act of ours is any such nor doth justifie us efficiently at all But if any be so fond of the invented notion of an Instrument as that they will use it though unaptly they must say 1. That it is not an Efficient but a Recipient Instrument Dr. Kendall calls it like Boys catching the Ball in their Hats or as a Spoon is in eating But it is not an Instrument of Physical Reception but Moral To Trust is no more a Reception than to Love The active Acceptance of a Saviour given with his benefits is a Moral Receiving of him which disposeth us as the Condition of the Covenant to receive Justification that is to be justified And in this lax sense you may call it all these if you please viz. a Condition a Dispositive Cause and a Receiving Instrument 4. A Meritorious Cause it is not in a Commutative or strict sense But if you will call that meritorious which is pleasing to God as congruous to his free gift and design of grace whence some are called Worthy in the Gospel so the thing is not to be denied and so all are reconciled Contr. 17. Is justifying Faith an act of the understanding or will Ans Both and therefore it is no one Physical act only nor Instrumental in a strict Physical sense Contr. 18. What act of Faith is it that justifieth as to the Object whether only the belief of the truth of the Promise or of the whole Gospel also or the affiance on Christs Righteousness or on his Truth or on his Intercession or taking him wholly for our Saviour Prophet Priest and King And whether Faith in God the Father and the Holy Ghost do justifie or all these And if but one which is it and wheâ—her all the rest are the works which Paul excludeth from Justification Ans To say that only one Physical act of Faith is it that we are justified by and all the rest are those works is a perverse corrupting of Christianity and not to be heard without detestation For it will utterly confound all persons to find out which that one act is which they indeed can never do And it will contradict the substance of all the Gospel There is no such thing as Faith in Christ which containeth not or includeth not Faith in God as God both as he is our Creator and as reconciled by Christ and as the Giver of Christ to us John 3.16 and as the end of all the work of Redemption Nor is there any such thing as Faith in Christ which is true and saving that includeth not or connoteth not the Knowledge of Christ and Love and Desire and Thankfulness and Consent Nor did ever God tell us of a Faith in Christs Imputed Righteousness only that must justifie us which is not also a Faith in his Person Doctrine Law Promise and Example and his Intercession in the Heavens And to say that only the Act of Recumbency on Christs Righteousness as imputed to our Justification is that act of Faith by which we are justified and that Believing in God his Majesty Truth Wisdom Goodness and the believing in Christ as he is the Prophet Teacher King of the Church and the Resurrection Life and Judge of all and believing in the Holy Ghost as the Sanctifier Comforter and Witness and Advocate of Christ and believing and trusting the Promise of God for Life Eternal or for any grace except Christs Righteousness imputed that all this Faith in God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and all our Love to Christ and desire after him and prayer for his grace and thankfulness for it c. are all none of the Faith which Justification is promised to but are the Works by which no man is justified and that he is faln from grace that seeketh to be justified by such works that is by true Faith in God as God and in Christ as Christ This is a new Gospel subverting Christs Gospel and making Christianity another thing and this without any countenance from the Scripture and contrary to its very scope The Faith by which we are justified is one Moral act containing many Physical acts even our fiducial Consent to the Baptismal Covenant and dedication of our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be our Reconciled God our Saviour and our Sanctifier to give us Pardon Adoption Holiness and Glory which is our Christianity it self as such Contr. 18. But though this be the Faith quae justificat which justifieth us is it not only Recumbency on Christs Imputed Righteousness quâ— talis which hath the Office of Instrumentality and is â—ides quâ— justificans Ans Such quibbling and jingling of a meer sound of words is usual in ludicrous Disputations of Lads But it 's pity it should pass as the last remedy against plain truth in so great a matter First it must be remembred that no Faith justifieth efficiently and therefore neither quae nor quâ justificans is to signifie any such thing but a meer Moral qualification of the recipient subject so that to be justified by Faith is but to be justified by it as that which God hath promised Justification on as the qualifying Condition But if it be not the same thing that is here called Fides quae and quâ but in the first part they speak of the Habit and in the second of the Act had it not been plainer to say The same Habit of Faith hath several Acts as believing in God in Christs Intercession Kingdom c. but none of these Acts do justifie us but one only viz. trusting to the Imputation of his Righteousness And so both the quae and quâ is â—denied to all Acts save that one This is their plain meaning which is denied to be truth and is a human dangerous invention Yet it 's granted them that it is not every Act of Faith that is made the Condition of Justification or Salvation It is necessary that the formal Object Gods Veracitâ— be believed to make it true Faith and that the Gospel or Covenant of Grace be believed with Consent as aforesaid to make it to be the true Christian Faith in essence and it 's of necessity that every thing be believed which we know that God revealeth But it is the Christian Faith that hath the Promise of Justification and that not any one single Act of it but all that is essential to it and that which belongeth but to its Integrity ad bene esse when it existeth is also so far conducible to our Justification as Abrahams believing that Isaac should live and have seed when he went to sacrifice him yet Justification may be without some Acts as Salvation may without many due Acts of Obedience
Grace made with Adam and Noah the Covenant of Preculianity with Aâ—rahâ—m the Political Law of Mosâ—s to the Jews and the Law or Covenant of Christ of Grace of Faith by which Christ doth Govern and will Judge his visible Church Get unstudied dull heads but to understand these four distinctions and you cure them without a new regeneration And doth not this prove that they are Godly To instance no more but in the first an Antecedent Surety is either 1. A party in the Bond 2. Or an Instrument of the party Bound 1. If two persons be bound disjunâ—tively this or that to a Duty or a Penalty the bond is answered if either of them perform it If the Law to Adam had either said thou or Christ for thee shalt perfectly Obey shalt dress the Garden shalt take Eve for thy Wife or that thou or Christ shall suffer for not doing it then Christ's performance had antecedently freed us from Guilt and Punishment 2. Or if the Law had said or meant thou shalt Obey or Suffer by thy self or by thy substitute or pâ—r alium as a man may pay his debt by his Servant or appear by his Attourney then Christ's Righteousness or Suffering would have proved us guiltless But a subsequent Surety who after the guilt doth voluntarily as a Mediator undertake the discharge of the guilty is no strict or absolute Representative but as a Mediator purchaseth the Captive to receive his Grace on the terms and to the ends which by a Law or Covenant of Grace the Mediator shall appoint CHAP. IV. My Reasons against a tedious needlâ—ss Câ—nfutâ—tiâ—n Sect. 1. THE chief thing that I intended next to be done that is To Confute the Hundred Errors before named I am on further thoughts discouraged from performing 1. Because upon perusal I find that I have already done it so oft and largly in many Books unanswered that repetition is like to be disgracefully nauseous 2. And they that will neither answer nor read what I have written 34 years ago or 20 are not like to read what I shall write now In my Confession of Fâ—ith Printed 1655. I have so largely opened this Controversy about Justification Faith and Works in necessary distinctions and many score self-evident Propositions and many score Arguments and abundance of express Texts of Scripture and above an hundred Testimonies of Protestant Churches Confessions and eminent Divines that I find very little needful to be added And why should I think they will read more that will not read that In my Apologies I have Answered them that have opposed and have had no reply In my Treatise of Justification I have done it over again In my Catholick Theology I have thrice over-done the same by Explication and Confutation distinctly In my Treatise of Justifying Righteousness in a Disputation and an Answer to Dr. Tully and to Mr. Cartwright I have done the same perhaps too largly In my Methodus Theologiae I have opened the Case methodically and briefly In my Life of Faith I have clearly explained it And must I expect no Answer and yet do all again 2. But my great disswasive is that it will swell the Book to so great a magnitude that few will read it should I cite all or moâ—â— of the plain Texts of Scripture that confute them how great a part of the Bible must I Transcribe Yet do they lay Salvation on points that no one Text of Scripture mentioneth Sect. 2. 1. If I should cite all the Texts that prove that we are truly Sinners though Christ hath been a Sacrifice for our sin and that the guilt of Fact and Fault on us is not taken off by Christ's taking the penalty but we are verily sinners still How great a part of the Bible may I recite to prove it Sect. 3. 2. If I must prove that Christ is and was no sinner by true imputation of our sin as to the guilt of Fact or Fault but only as a Sacrifice bear the Penalty it would be a reproach to the Adversaries to need a Confutation of their Blasphemy and all the Gospel would confute them Sect. 4. 3. Should I cite all the Texts that prove us to need and have an Inherent and Acted Righteousness by Grace besides Christs Personal Righteousness Meriting for us above six hundred Texts of Scripture expresly prove it and how tedious and needless a work is this Sect. 5. 4. Should I prove that All Righteousness so far maketh Righteous and that making Righteous is a Justifying which goeth before Judging us Righteous and that it is a putid contradiction to say that any Righteousness doth not make Righteous in tantum School-boys would turn it into a derision of the opposers Sect. 6. 5. Should I prove by Argument that no Accident can by ye same numerically in divers Subjects nor traâ—siâ—â— a Subjecto in Suâ—jectum and so the Habit Act and Relation of Righteousness in Christ's Person cannot â—n it self be our Habit Act or Relation unless our Persons and Christ's be really the same every novice in Logick would be too much occasioned to insult over the ignorant gain-sayer Sect. 7. 6. Should I prove that to Justify Efficiently by making Righteous and to Justify Constitutively being our Righteousness and to Justify by Plea or by Witness or by Evidence and to Justify in Estimation or Account and to Justify by decisive Sentence of a Judge and to Justify Executively and to Justify privately in Conscience and to Justify publickly before Rulers or the World or more publickly at the Bar of God are several sences of the Word Justification and several sorts what man of sense would not pity the Confounder that denyeth it and talk as if the Word had but one sence Sect. 8. 7. Should I prove that by Imputing Paul meaneth truly accounting a man Just that is so reckoning that to him which he hath and not feigning him to have what he hath not even Dr. Crispe hath spared me that labour venturing to say that the contrary sence of Imputing maketh God a Lyar or deceived God never judged a man Righteous that was not first made so Sect. 9. 8. Should I prove that by Works Paul meaneth those that make not the Reward of Grace but of Debt and James meaneth those that are â—he effects of Free Grace and purely subordinate to Christ as commanded by him the express Texts do make it needless Sect. 10. 9. Should I prove that Christ is our King and Ruleth and Judgeth by his own Law and hath not made us Lawless and all Judgment on Rule is now committed to him and that the very Law of Nature is now his Law and also the Law of Sâ—pernatural Revelation called by Paul the Law oâ— Christ the Law of Faith and of Grâ—â—â— and by James the Law of Liberty the whole scope of the Gospel sâ—veth me that labour Sect. 11. 10. Should I prove that Christ in â—sse objectivo as the Object of Faith is the very specifying form of that Faith