wrath his life and righteousnesse were hid with Christ in God He could claim nothing from God by any evidential title but wrath and condemnation though he had right in Christ yet had he no right unto Christ though in Christ all was his because Christ had united purchased and received all into his hands for him yet had he no right to Christ by which to claim a partnership and interest in the kingdome and priviledge of grace was without all true peace of conscience all joy and consolation in the promises of grace under fears and terrors in expectation of wrath and damnation could be sensible of nothing but anger hatred and displeasure against him for sinne knew not himselfe to be one of the children of promise Gal. 4. 28. to be entitled to Christ in whom alone the promises of God are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. Therefore as if there had been no Christ no Mediator and reconciler no Covenant of Grace yea no Grace or acts of Grace eternal or temporary in God thorow Christ so he remained under a Spirit either of delusion or of bondage still But now when the father hath drawn him to Christ and Christ hath received him when Christ hath apprehended him to himselfe by his Spirit and he by faith hath apprehended Christ to himselfe for redemption reconciliation remission righteousnesse and whatsoever else is laid up in Christ for him and so hath union and communion with Christ hath Christ in him and is himselfe in Christ Now his justification which was sure before in God and in Christ is also made sure to his conscience He is now justified in his own conscience after the tenor and by the vertue of the Gospel and Covenant and promises of Grace findes and knowes himselfe through Christ absolved at Gods tribunal hath all the evidences for it that possibly he can desire the Word and the Oath of God that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to ly he may have a strong consolation Heb. 6. 18. The Word evidenceth and his faith evidenceth the Covenant is now sealed mutually and reciprocally between God and him by beleeving he hath put to his seal that God is true and God sealeth to his conscience by certifying it by his Spirit that his wrath is pacified that all accusations are silenced there is no condemnation to him being now in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. Himselfe may now rest satisfied banishing henceforth all fears and doubts and glorying in the Lord that the fear of death is past it is enough my soul is now alive Christ is made sinne for me that I might become the Righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen thy Salvation and in the interim while he is here enjoying a heaven upon earth a kingdome of Righteousnesse joy and peace in the Holy Ghost untill he was incorporated by faith into Christ Christ might indeed plead for him but he had no evidence no shew of title not an article under Gods hand or from his lips to plead at Gods barre for life or pardon 6. That neverthelesse when a man truly beleeveth then may he apprehend justification and remission of sinnes not onely as now first declared and evidenced to his own soul But also as past and compleat before the foundation of the world was laid Because from eternity Christ satisfied in that he undertook to satisfie for the sinnes of the Elect and God from eternity rested in this satisfaction undertaken by Christ and so laid aside all displeasure which without this Covenant between him and his onely Son he might have taken up as wel against them that should afterward beleeve as against them which dye in unbeleef For their justification in time doth à posteriore argue their justification before all times and where faith findes the least rivulet of the great stream sent forth it can it ought by it to ascend up to the very fountain to be filled and satisfied with the deliciousnesse thereof Thus shall we finde the Apostle almost in all his Epistles from the sense of their present enjoyments in Christ to carry upward the Saints to whom he writeth unto the very bosom of Gods eternal grace counsell and good pleasure where all was laid up and treasured for them from all eternity that thence it might in due time be shed forth upon them Faith runs not away rashly and hastily with the gift but delights to enter and pierce through the vail to contemplate and embrace the as well eternal as infinite love of the giver 7. That although no man receiveth the sensible comfort of his justification before he actually beleeveth yet every elect vessell hath besides and without his knowledge the true benefit thereof as to freedome from vengeance throughout the whole time of his infidelity was in Christ beloved accepted and owned of God as righteous in that his sinne was not imputed as fully before as after he beleeved the price of his redemption was paid all his sinnes borne and punished upon the shoulders yea the soul and body of Christ so that himselfe was no lesse exempted from the revenging wrath of God from all obligation to make any part of satisfaction in his own person for his sinnes as hee that was already in Christ by faith So that whatsoever afflictions befell him in the time of his unbelief were not the infliction of the curse as the curse for sinne but sanctified chastisements of a loving father flowing from his grace and favour not from his indignation and hatred against his person though against his sins tending all to his good not to his ruine Else if he should have born the least stroke of Gods revenging justice and in the least pittance have made but one least peece of satisfaction by his sufferings for his offences then either Christ hath made satisfaction for him but in part and is not his whole Saviour and redeemer for that himselfe hath satisfied divine justice in part or otherwise the father hath taken satisfaction twice for the same sins once from the Lord Christ and after that from the offender also But this were to slander either the perfection of Christs mediation or the incorruptnesse of Gods justice both which are unsufferable 8. That the justification which is by faith consisteth not onely in a bare apprehension of our justification and pardon from God for this is onely mans act and no express act of God but first in Gods actual declaration evidencing and certisfying the conscience of man drawn to the barre of judgement set up as it were in the conscience that God hath taken satisfaction to his offended justice from the Lord Christ for all the offenders sinnes and hath for ever quit-claimed and discharged him from all sin and wrath and admitted him into favour and family to be under the dispensations of his grace for ever And then indeed God having by this
have done their Law their iniquities past present and to come are blotted out their peace made and they reconciled to God This is observably set forth in Aaron and the other High Priests his successors as they were Types of Christ Aaron the High Priest must bear the Names of the Children of Israel engraven upon 2 precious stones on the two shoulders of his Ephod before the Lord for a memoriall Exod. 28. 10 12. yea he must bear their names in the breast-plate of judgment upon his Heart when he goeth in unto the Holy place viz. with the blood of the sacrifice for the expiating of siâs for a memoriall before God continually What memoriall that they were the men for whom the sacrifice was offered and that their sins were purged thereby that God should therefore have them in remembrance to preserve them from the Curse and judgment of the Law for so it followeth And Aaron shall bear the judgment of the Children of Israel upon his heart continually ver 29 30. These things were but figuratively done in Aaron but really and fully accomplished in Christ his Antitype who being constituted our High Priest and having received Command from the Father not onely what but for whom to offer even for Israel i. e. the elect of God which for a great part were not yet in being hâth by his own blood entred into the Holy place with their names engraven upon his heart having purchased for them an everlasting Redemption Not into the Holy place made with hands but into Heaven there to appear for them by way of Mediation and Intercession Heb. 9. 12 24. Rom. 8. 34. Wherefore also God hath given him not onely an acquittance for them from all their sins Heb. 10. 17. but hath also given and delivered up them into his hands as hath been before proved and Mr. B himself confesseth yet not as he insinuateth to plague and Curse them and hold them during life under the intolerable bondage of the Law but to deale with them in a gentle dispensation according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace in tender mercy to draw them unto and keep them in the Faith without all Apostacy to the end All which he performeth to all his elect as is evident from most of those Scriptures which were brought for the confirmation of the former point and elswhere Gods giving them to Christ and into his dispensation being their perfect translâtion from the Covenant of the Law into the Covenant of Grace And this was done before their beleeving All that the Father giveth me shall come to me first they are given and then they shall come Be not afraid but speak and hold not thy peace for I have much people in this City said the Lord Jesus to Paul of the Corinthians yet Heathen Acts 18. 9 10. They were his people before therefore must they be gathered to him by Faith I have other sheep which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall hear my voyce c. Jo 10. 16. he means the Gentiles that were infidels yet nevertheless his sheep that must afterward hear his voice because they were his sheep how were these termed Christs people Christs sheep while yet in Paganism idolatry and unbeleef but because they were his redeemed and justified ones Ye beleeve not because ye are not of my sheep Jo 10. 26. What is that but because they were not of the number of them for whose sins he had effectually satisfied Gods justice 3 Justification and Remission of sins may be considered also as it is brought into their own apprehension and Conscience that were justified by Christ and in Christ before And in this sense it is oftenest taken in Scriptures yea alway when we are said to be justified by Faith This is done when Christ by the manifestation and ministry of the Gospel maketh known in all ages to them for whose sins he hath satisfied the Mystery of Grace by him and frameth their hearts with all gladnes by Faith to embrace him and it thorow him unto Justification Then are they justified in themselves and remission of sins sealed up by the spirit to their own Consciences and so have the Kingdom of God within them consisting of Peace Righteousnes and Joy in the Holy Ghost Before this Christ had life for them now they are said to have it themselves Jo 20. 31. 1 Jo 5. 12. Untill now was their winter season so that all their life was in Christ as the Vine or Root now is their spring so that the life sheweth it self in them as the branches blossoming with peace and joy unto all obedience Before life was purchased and seizure thereof taken for them by Christ Now they are passed from death to life 1 Jo 3. 14. i. e. are put into the actuall possession of it Before though they were Lords of all as the Apostle in a case little different from this speaketh Gal. 4. 1 2. yet differed nothing from Servants being in their own apprehension under the threats and condemnation of the Law and so still in slavish fears and terrors But now they see their freedom and take possession of it with boldness to cry Abba Father and to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus and through the veil of his flesh with full assurance of hope c. Hebrewes 10. 19 20. These things so premissed we shall the better see whether the Scriptures which Mr. Baxter here produceth do by their own force or else by his mis-interpretation of them seem to prove that the Elect while unbeleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works First that of Joh. 3. 18. is a threat of the Gospel Covenant against the Contemners of it and of Christ the preacher thereof and not of the Law Covenant And it is brandished against reprobats and not against elect unbeleevers Christ had now preached his Gospel a while in Galilee the elect beleeved and of them saith Christ they are not condemned The reprobates would not beleeve of them he saith they are condemned already and the reason is rendred not because they have broken the morall Law but because they have not beleeved in the Name of the onely begotten Son of God This is the condemnation that Christ the light is come into the world and men preferred their own darknes before him c. The same also is the meaning of the 36 ver which he citeth Neither of these pointing in their threat to the elect but the reprobates among unbeleevers Neither threatening for Contumacy against the Law but the Gospel Therefore nothing here proveth the elect before they beleeve to be under the Law as a Covenant of works Again those Scriptures which he saith bid us to beleeve for the remission of sinnes Act. 2. 38 c. do only prove that faith in Christ doth justifie the elect in the third consideration of Justification or remission of sinns before mentioned viz. as it evidenceth and brings
the Apostles termes by which he freely and without necessity in relation to his justice willeth the salvation of one and willeth not the salvation of another loveth or hateth imputeth not or doth impute sinne according to his own free will But justification in the latter sense is an act of Gods righteousnes or faithfulnesse by which hee faithfully and righteously accomplisheth his promises of grace in just âying and absolving them which believe by the sentence of pardon pronounced to their conscience according to the Gospel promise made to beleevers No word of promise went before justification in the former sense to make it an act of justice to fulfill that promise neither could it be an act of his natural justice that by the necessity of his nature he should so justifie and love any for then should none be either loved or saved freely of God when contrariwise it was in his own free choice to love or to hate to save or condemn all or mutatis vicibus to have loved Esau hated Jacob to have willed the condemnation of the saved and the salvation of the reprobated But the word of promise preceded justification in the latter sense which it is righteousnesse in God to fulfill therefore is it an act as well of his justice or righteousnesse as of his free grace 3. That Justification in the former sense is antecedaneous or foregoing to all covenants whatsoever 1. In order of nature though not in time it goeth before that covenant between the father and the son mentioned before in the examination of the explication of Mr. Baxters fourteenth Thesis and consequently before Christs undertaking to make or the fathers Covenant to accept what he should offer in satisfaction for the sinnes of the elect For in order of nature the willing of the end alway goeth before the willing of the means conducing to the end so that Gods willing mans righteousnesse and immunity from sinne and loving him to salvation must needs goe before his willing of Christs satisfying of his justice which was but a mean appointed of God to the constituting of man righteous before him that he might be pure from sinne discharged from condemnation and partaker of salvation which was the end Not that there was any precedency or following after of these acts of God in time for they are both coeternal and before all times Whom God hath loved and forgiven their sinnes them hath he so loved and forgiven in and through Christ from all eternity and through and for the merit of his satisfaction Much more doth this immanent act of justification go before not onely in nature but in time also the other temporary Covenants both the Covenant of workes made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace made after by Gospel promise by Christ or God in Christ to us and with us For these had all their being in time But justification in its other acceptation is subsequent unto and followes after and is an effect of not onely the Covenant of Grace but of faith it selfe which the Covenant of Grace calls for as a mean to attain it None else but a beleiver nor he until he actually beleeveth is thus actually justified or hath pardon of sinnes and absolution from wrath declared and pronounced of God in his conscience And thus to be justified in Christ or in God is one thing and to bee justified in our selves by God through Christ is another The former is an antecedent the latter an effect or consequent of the Covenant of Grace 4. That neither the mediation satisfaction of Christ nor much lesse our faith in Christ nor any of the most noble gifts of grace received from Christ either in their habit or operation do move God to justifie us so as to put into him a will to pardon our sins and accept us as righteous or to change his affection from nilling to will our forgivenesse and happinesse and from hating to love and accept us because he is God and therefore immutable and there cannot be any cause of Gods will rendred any more than of God himselfe For the Will of God is God himselfe and these immanent acts of God are God himselfe acting So that the substration of all that Christ hath suffered and by his sufferings satisfied for us and of all that we doe or can doe to put our selves into union with Christ and a conformity with the Will of God are in no wise the causes or conditions or antecedents of Gods first loving owning and pronouncing uâ righteous and pure from sinne imputed but the effects thereof For he so loveth and justifieth all that in a Covenant way have been or shall be justified in their own conscience before ever they beleeve or live But that the intervening of Christs satisfaction for our sinnes and our recumbency upon and embracing of Christ so satisfying by faith that we may be justified do ad nothing to God which was not nor alter any thing which was in his will before but do onely lay and make a way by Gods ordination how he from all eternity loving and justifying us in himselfe freely may in a course most convenient to magnify both his truth and righteousnesse and withal his grace and mercy at length actually declare us just in and to our own consciences and for ever acquit us from sinne and wrath to the admiration of Men and Angels And so the former justification is a pure simple free and irrespective act of God having no causality out of himselfe moving him to it but the latter is a foederal Gospel or Covenant justification respecting his own Covenant before made Christs satisfaction already given and pleaded in heaven by Christ and mans faith in the mediator and promiser pleading the promise and the blood of the mediator sealing it upon all which he doth he cannot but actually pronounce and declare to the conscience of the beleiver his perfect absolution from sin and vengeance This latter is indeed the justifying wherof the Scriptures primarily speak as oft as they speak of justification by faith but so as the former is also in such Scriptures implyed Neither is the Scripture silent in reference to the former as considered without the latter or apart from it 5. That although all that are or shall be justified by faith in time i. e. each onâ in the time when he so beleeveth were justified also in Christ secretly in God before they beleived or yet lived even from eternity Yet is there no man justified by vertue of the New Covenant and promise of the Gospel proclaiming right to the Lord Christ to forgivenesse of sinnes freedome from condemnation heirship to Gods Kingdom and all other benefits of Christs Passion until he doth actually beleeve and embrace Christ thorow him to have all those pretious promises made good and effectual to himselfe Though in Christ he were Lord of all before yet differed he nothing in himselfe from a servant from a child of
also concurreth with it to blesse it even it alone to this end Here to determine peremptorily whether of these acts of God his qualifying of faith for or his commanding it to this use is more and lesse direct or proper to the end or whether they are coordinates thereunto I fear may proceed more from a headie rashnesse then from the modesty of Christian wisdome especially because I take justifying faith to be more then a naturall or morall virtue which Mr. Baxter possibly will deny viz. an infused habit qualifyed by God himself that infuseth it with this peculiar property to cleave unto Christ and receive him But by the way it shall not be impertinent to shew in some particulars what mentall Reservations Mr. Baxter hath in his words not easily appearing to a cursory reader 1. When he saith B. Faith justifyeth as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant His meaning is that it only so far justifyeth as it fulfilleth the condition But throughout our whole life according to his principles we are but fulfilling have not fulfilled the condition of the new Covenant therefore throughout our whole life we are but in justifying not justifyed And then consequently if it be true what most of our Divines conclude that in the next life there shall be no use of faith because vinon and fruition are proper to that state beleevers shall not be justifyed at all because the condition was never fulfilled 2. When he saith B. Because God hath commanded no other means nor promised justification to any other therefore it is that faith is the only condition and so only thus justifyeth The reader that doth but catch here a little and there a little of his doctrine would think him by what he here findeth no lesse Orthodox in the point of Justification then Luther or Paul himself that he explodes all works all inherent righteousnesse from bearing the least part with faith unto justification whereas contrariwise he speaks not here of the faith of Gods stamping but of his own coining of a faith that brings in all good works that is it self all good works to justification attributes no more to faith then he doth to any other part of our inherent righteousnesse nor any thing to faith it self as usefull to justifie but as it is our whole inherent righteousnesse or at least a part of it as partly by that which hath been but principally by that part of his treatise which remains to be examined appeareth The rest of this Section I let passe without examination I come now to the fift and last Section of his Explication pag. 230. B. 5. That faiths receiving Christ and his righteousnesse is the remote and secondary and not the formall reason why it justifyeth appeareth thus We finde verifyed in Mr. Baxter that of the Poet Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat having professed open warre against the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches yea of the Gospell of Christ he manageth it more by stratagems then by valour We finde him here perverting in stead of rightly stating the question thereby to get advantage to answer what he will and to what he pleaseth The question controverted between us and the Papists first and in these latter times the Arminians also is not whether Gods instituting of faith in Christ or else the acting of faith so instituted be the one the formall and the other the remote reason why it justifyeth But whether faith so instituted of God to be the mean or instrument of our Justification doth justifie by vertue received from Christ its object or else by its own vertue as it is a good work or as it is an act of righteousnesse performed in obedience to Gods commandement That which they maintain is that faith justifyeth by vertue of its object Christ denying the Papists work and the Arminians act If Mr. Baxter did labour more for truth then for victory we should not finde in him so much fraud and so little of sincerity It is not Christs but Antichrists kingdome that is maintained by the pillarage of shifts and sophisms Let him not astonish the poor Saints of Christ with words that they cannot understand obscuring the truth with needlesse terms of art his poor flock of Kederminster for whom he affirmes himself to have compiled this work are in all probability as well acquainted with the formall and remote reason why faith justifyeth as they are with Hocus Pocus his Liegerdemain In this point let him either confute the assertion of our Divines or maintain the adversaries assertion here he doth neither directly but beats the aire and makes a great noise to little purpose Yet let us see how well he proveth his own assertion B. Suppose Christ had done all that he did for sinners and they had beleeved in him thereupon without any Covenant promising Justification by this Faith would this Faith have justified them By what Law or whence will they plead their Justification at the Bar of God This supposition is not full there must be another supposition antecedaneous to this supposition A true supposition that will shew the invalidity of this feigned one Suppose that upon a foregoing Covenant between the Father and him Christ hath done all this for his elect whom he knoweth by name and so Christ in their names hath given and God hath taken full satisfaction for all their offences and hereupon Christ hath received in their behalf a full acquittance and discharge Who now shall lay any thing to their charge It is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. under this supposition they are for ever freed from pleading at Gods Bar They have there an Advocate to plead for them Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. Sits at the right hand of God with the effectuall Oratory of his pretious bloud making intercession for us Rom. 8. 34. so the supposition of Mr. Baxter extends no further then this if without any Covenant promise of Justification by Faith in Christ could they by beleeving in him have had the beeing and comfort of Justification within their own souls Unlesse God had by some other way ratified and sealed this benefit to them I acknowledge they could not yet had their justification been still nothing the lesse firm before God in Christ But now by the promise of the New Covenant through Faith they have the sweetnesse and joy thereof in themselves also B. But suppose Christ having done all that he did for us that he should in framing the New Covenant have put in any other condition and said whosoever loveth God shall by vertue of my satisfaction be justified would not this love have justified No doubt of it I conclude then thus The receiving of Christ is as the silver of this coin the Gospel promise is as the Kings stamp which maketh it curraut for justifying If God had seen it meet to have stamped any thing else it
and touching the righteousness thereof were blameless When contrarwise the Gentiles had walked inordinately lawlesly after the instinct of their own nature and lusts of their own hearts servants to idols and devills not to God For this Cause they Contended that they by this their righteousness had that the Gentiles by means of their unrighteousness had not right to the redemption and Justification which are by Christ That the Gentiles in stead of the naturall holiness before mentioned must become Proselytes and so the ascititious or adopted Children of Abraham becoming Jewes must receive the seale of the Covenant Circumcision in their flesh receive and be brought under the Law and become personally righteous in keeping it Else they could not be saved by Christ Act. 15. 1 24. Their bare Faith in Christ without their own righteousness and works could not make them partakers of the tighteousnesse and salvation which are by Christ And who seeth not here that Mr. Brs doctrine is one and the same in generall with theirs that were the first heretical troublers and subverters of the Church of Christ But against this plea of the beleeving Jewes the Apostle layeth his Contradictory Conclusion That both the Circumcision and the uncircumcision they that had and they that had not all or any of these kinds of righteousness were made partakers of Justification through Christ onely by Faith in him That our own prejacent works and righteousness are nothing to further nor our former unrighteousness and sinn any thing to hinder our Justification but Faith in Christ is all He that beleeveth is not condemned he that beleeveth not is already condemned whether he be Jew or Gentile clean or unclean outwardly because as he had said before ver 22 23. There is no difference For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God This Conclusion that Faith alone without our prejacent or concomitant works and righteousness do make the righteousness which is by Christ ours to Justification he proveth soundly in the 4th Chapter 1 From the example of Abraham the Father of the Faithfull By what means Abraham found and obteined the Justification which is by Christ by the same means all now obteine it that are Justified But Abraham found or obteiaed it not by his own righteousness or works but by Faith Therefore so do now all that are justified The proposition he leaves as standing so firm on its own pillars that none will dare to seek the demolishing thereof The assumption he proves in both its members that it was not by his own righteousnes either Natural i. e. derived from parents and ancestors for they were Idolaters and served other Gods Josh 24. 2. Or faederall in the Jewes sense for he was justified before he was circumcised and after received Circumcision as a seal of the Righteousness of Faith ver 10 11 of this 4th Chapter to the Romans or Legal For he was so Justified 400 years before the Law was given Or personall by the works of righteousness which he had done For then first he should have had matter of boasting that he had done something towards his own Justification ver 2. And secondly then his justification should have been reckoned not of Grace but of debt and so the glory thereof should have redounded to Abraham and not to God ver 4. And if by no one of these kinds of his own then not at all by his own righteousness That it was by Faith he proves by clear Testimony of Scripture ver 3. Therefore the conclusion stands that we are justified also by faith without works That Faith and not any righteousness of our own makes Christs righteousness ours Another Argument he draws from clear and evident Scripture witnessing that the righteousness and justification which consisteth in the forgivenes not imputing and covering of sinn is made ours without works therefore by Faith alone ver 6 7 8. When in these two Arguments none can deny but that the righteousness and Justification which Abraham obteined and which Consisted not in the doing but in the imputing of righteousness and in the pardoning and not imputing of sinn is the Justification which is by Christ and when the Apostle laboureth not at all to prove this to be The proper Righteousness to Justification but takes it as granted and unquestioned all must acknowledge that his question was not What righteousness it is that Justifieth whether Christs or ours But when all his dispute is confined to this one point to prove that this righteousness by Christ is made ouâs not at all by works but altogether by Faith what rational man can be so swayed by a Spirit of Contradiction as to say with Mr. Br. that St Pauls question was not to make out by what means this Justification by Christ may be made ours Whosoever will see these two Arguments further and fully illustrated and amplified together with more arguments to these annexed let him peruse the residue of this 4 Chap. And if he return with his Reason sound and brings not this verdit that it is impudence not judgement in Mr. Br. to state Pauls question as he doth Then am I a stranger both to Paul and Reason Again when the Apostle still insisting upon the same subject setts forth the priviledges of them that are justified by Faith doth withall affirm that while they were yet sinners Châist dyed for them and so they became Justified by his bloud and being yet enemies are reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5. 1 8 9 10. thereby implying that there is nothing of our own works and righteousness except sin and enmity against God be such that doth or can Concurr to our justification so leaving justification to Faith onely it is evident that his principall question was not whether we are Justified by Christ but whether Faith alone or works with Faith are appointed of God in order to Justification I shall forbear to cite short testimonies from other Epistles of the Apostle evincing this Truth and pass to his Epistle to the Galathians in which he wholly levelleth to this mark It cannot be denyed by Mr. Br. himselfe that the Apostle there disputeth not of a legal but Gospel Justification and that this is a Justification onely by Christ that when he saith If any man if we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel c. his meaning is not a Justification out of Christ for this should be a legal not a Gospel Justification but any other way to the Justification which is by Christ save that which we have preached let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8 9. Herein it was agreed between the Apostle and the false Apostles that Christ is the alone Justifier and that salvation is onely by him and to this all the seduced ones among the Galathians assented Else had they been Apostate from Christ to the Law and not to another Gospel as the Apostle terms it Gal. 1. 6. And from their beginning in the Spirit to seek
Gospel Condition and necessary Antecedents to be really but a Cloke to hide his diminution of Christ and exaltation of sinfull man A Syrens song to draw poor souls to dash against the Rocks and be drowned in the gulph Why had he not made our works conjunctly vvith Christs satisfaction in his Thes 56. the procatarctick and meritorious cause of our Justification as well as he doth the satisfaction of Christ conjunctly with our Faith or obedience in the same Thesis the Causa ssne qua non thereof Had he so done could he have ascribed more to vvorks under the name of a Meritorious cause then he doth under the title of a poor improper Causa sine qua non But by so doing he should have shewed himself in the light when contrariwise he that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved Let now any of his Disciples produce I will not say one Arminian but one Socinian Papist yea or Jew that ascribes more to works then this man in derogation from Christ and Grace else let him cease to be a follower of him or openly and ingenuously profess that he followeth him as a Jew Papist or Socinian and consequently that he hath made not Mr. Br. but Mr Brs Masters his Master also in the doctrine of Justification And that in advancing self so high as to affirm he meriteth no less fully and properly then Christ himself hath or could have done For his merits are in order to Gods ordinate not naturall justice But to shew the vanity of his distinction here how carelesly he eludeth the holy Scriptures as meer shaddows and play-games the Apostle denyeth man in this or that or in any sense to be justified by works He saith not Not by works as the efficient or meritorious cause or as the Medium or Antecedent or Condition or Causa sine quâ non lest any man should boast but positively and peremptorily not by Works as by Faith yea not by works in any acceptation upon any score and accompt Mr. Brs chippings therfore have no more force then a chip to make the Holy Ghost to unsay what he hath said And it is as good sense as if I should say Mans bread doth not apparrell him as it is the maker or matter or instrument or merit of his clothing but as it is the antecedent or medium or condition or Causa sine qua non of his apparrelling when contrariwise it doth not at all in any sense apparrell him CHAP. XXIV Mr. Baxters Sophism to prove that his Doctrine of Justification by Works doth not at all derogate from the Doctrine of Faith examined and found to be meer vanity BEcause the Scripture attributeth Justification to Faith without works and to Faith in opposition to works excluding works and requiring Faith alone to apprehend the Righteousnesse which is by Christ and denominating it the Righteousnesse of Faith Rom. 4. 11. The Righteousnesse which is of Faith Rom. 9. 30. 10. 6. in opposition to the Righteousnesse of works He easily seeth that he shall be excepted against for his antiscripturall doctrine in making Faith and works Concomitants in the same kind of causality and procurement of Justification Therefore he makes it his sixth task to vindicate this his doctrine from all derogation from Faith and from all unscripturall confounding of Faith and works together To prove himself as innocent in this as in all the rest he brings these Reasons B. Thes 62. 1 Because though he makes Works and Faith to be the Conditions of our Justification yet according to Scripture phrase Faith may be called the onely Condition of the New Covenant 1 Because it is the principall Condition and works but the lesse principall And so as a whole Countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the Conditions of this Covenant from Faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it Either being presupposed as necessary Antecedents or means or conteined in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necessary subservient means or consequents All without Book one of Mr Brs Mysticks that hath no one sound of Gods word patronizing or favouring it Witnesse Mr. Br. who neither in his Thesis nor in its Explication hath alledged one Scripture to make it good Is Pythagoras come among us in a new body speaking nothing but Parables and Paradoxes which vulgar capacities can no more comprehend then they can Plato's Idea's or Democritus his Atomes If so it shall be needfull for him to injoin upon his Schollars as he did of old five years dumbnesse or silence Els if the mouth of a very Asse should be open it would rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet for delivering things so contradictive to the word to himself and to reason 1 To the word and the Holy Ghost speaking by it who every where opposeth Faith and works as to Justification making them to exclude not to infer or imply either the other By faith therefore not at all by works not by works therefore by faith alone But this man puts them in a conjunction makes Faith and works together the Condition of our justification from thence to conclude that Faith is the onely Condition and justifieth alone So much a greater Artist is Mr. Br. then the Holy Ghost and so ambitious of the praise of wisedome that he thinks himself to be but a vulgar idiot if his wisdom be not stretched Nine whole words by measure beyond and above the wisedom of the Holy Ghost 2 Contradictive to himself For Aph. p. 300. He denyeth that which he calleth an idle Concomitacny of works with Faith that they onely stand by while Faith doth all and concludes that they act together with faith in the same kind of causality to procure Justification and so denyeth that we are justified by Faith onely Here contrariwise he denyeth all such co-working of works with Faith but that faith may be said to be the onely Condition and to justifie onely 3 Contradictive to reason also and yet this next to Condition he seems to honour as the greatest God it must be to the Goats and sheep of the mountains not to Christs sheep to men that have reason that Mr. Br. must deliver this doctrine That we are justified not by faith alone but by works also yet it stands nevertheles as a firm Maxim faith is the onely condition or justifieth alone If the lips were shut and sealed up yet reason would use a ventriloquy or force a way thorow the ears to reclaim against such an absurdity If I should so reason of Condemnation the contrary to Justification that when the blind lead the blind and both fall into the ditch when seducers pervert those that are made to be taken and destroyed and so all utterly perish and are damned That tho all are damned yet it is but the leader and seducer alone that is damned he for all that he hath
the Article of Justification they wholly dissent from him It hath filled my spirit with sadness to hear not onely in the Pulpits of the Country but of the City of London pronounced by the Mouths of some in great esteem both for piety and Learning That to say God doth not punish his Saints for their sinns is flat Antinomism and affirmed that the afflictions of beleevers are punishments for their sin I beseech these men to Consider whom they here explode as Antinomians whether besides the Apostles and Fathers of the Primitive Church they do not brand all the reformed Churches and their Champions against the Papists with this ignominy Whether there be any one Article of Christian Religion that hath been more stoutly defended by these against the Papists than this which heat of zeal without knowledg or Consideration at least hath of late Called Antinomian Let them produce any besides the Socinian and Arminian Sophisters that have stumbled at this doctrine as offensive I beseech these men to read one Chamier at least Panstr Tom. 3. lib. 23. the six first Chapters where this question is not onely handled at large but also the Arguments of the Protestants who are also named Cap. 1. particularized and all the objections of the Papists against those Arguments Confuted and the Papists Arguments to prove the Contrary assertion answered The question being thus stated Vtrùm puniantur fidelium scelera utrùm dura quae ijs immittit Deus sint peccatorum paenae So much by way of answer to Mr. Baxters resolving of his third question There remain yet three questions more viz. Bax. 4. Whether it be not a wrong to the Redeemer that the people whom he hath ransomed be not immediately delivered from the Curse 5. Whether it be any wrong to the redeemed themselves 6. How long will it be till all the Curse be taken off beleevers and Redemption have attained its full effect The two former of these questions are sawcy arrogant and proud In their proposall Mr. Baxter acts the part of Satan in questioning and accusing Gods Justice In his answer to them he takes upon himself to act the part of an Angel to be an Apologist to plead for the defence of Gods justice 2 Gods justice is not cannot be injurious to any so that God needs not an Apologist to plead his cause if he needed his wisdome would not make choice of his accuser to be his Advocate 3 Mr. Baxter if he would have dealt ingenuously should have put the questions whether himself be not injurious 1 To God and his Christ 2 To the redeemed by denying their deliverance from and affirming their prostrate bondage under the Curse and not to have questioned whether his slandering of Gods justice hath made God faulty And then he should have received an answer to his resolving of the questions But as he puts the questions I reject his resolving of them as unworthy of an answer Onely by the way I say that what he speaks in answer to his own questions is all meerly sophisticall and fallacious The three first reasons that he brings to prove that Christ is not wronged by the not delivering of his ransomed ones being things in question not proved by Mr. Baxter therefore in arguing from them he doth as it is usuall with him beg the principle The fourth reason is not ad idem but so farr from the question as London from Barwick that there is no hope they will ever meet together The question speaking of beleevers The reason of Christs dealing with the world to make them beleevers And the same is evident in what he saith to the fifth question also The sixth question he thus resolveth Bax. The last enemy to be overcome is death 1 Cor. 15. 26. This enemy will be perfectly overcome at the Resurrection Then also shall we be perfectly acquitt from the charge of the Law and accusation of Satan Therefore not till the day of Resurrection and judgment will all the effects of sin and law and wrath be perfectly removed If in the conclusion he mean the effects of sin and law and wrath shall not be removed from the world untill the resurrection he speaketh truth but nihil ad rem far from the question which speaketh onely of beleevers If he mean of them that the Curse shall not be removed I have answered it before and the Scriptures here brought to prove it and will not here Actum agere CHAP. VIII Whether Beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works The Negative proved Mr. Baxters ambiguities and mentall reservations in stating the question and asserting the affirmative The Law not repealed to any but exauthorated to beleevers having inflicted its whole curse upon them in Christ Mr. Baxter had ended but he had not finished his dispute about the Curse upon beleevers He did but Parthian or ram-like go backward and decline a little to return with the greater force Or as an Actor upon the stage withdraw and make his exit to put on a new dress in which to appear again forthwith to act a second part So doth Mr. Baxter decline the dispute in one Aphorism and its explication which I also shall pass by without excepting against it and then he returns to prosecute the same dispute afresh yet in another dress of words that it might seem to be a resolving or determining of another question That was whether beleevers remain under the Curse of the Law This whether they remain under the Law as it threateneth and curseth And between these two questions who seeth not so vast a difference as is between an arrow in the quiver and an arrow out of the quiver within and without the quiver it is the same arrow still Yet let us attend to him stating the question which anon we shall examine The result of it is thus Bax. That the Morall Law not in its directive use but as it is a Covenant of works is still in force to threaten and bring the Curse upon beleevers in case they do in any thing transgress the Law This he undertakes to make good pronouncing it inconsideratenes to assert the contrary Thes 11. p. 78. explic p. 79. explic of Thes 12. p. 82. Here before we meddle any further with Mr. Baxter let us examine what the Holy Ghost in Scripture speaketh to this point Ye are not under the Law but under Grace saith th'Apostle to believers Rom. 6. 14. I conceive there is no one Christian upon earth that hath his head unbiassed with sophisticall fallacies and falshoods but takes the words in the same simple and clear sense wherein the Holy Ghost delivers them viz. That we are no more under the Law as a Covenant of Works when we have once attained by faith to be under the Covenant of Grace But a very thunder-bolt against Mr. Baxter and his Assertion is that Gal. 5. 3 4. I testifie to every one that is circumcised that he is debtor to do
home into their apprehension and Conscience that their sinns are remitted For so run the words in that 10 of Act. v. 47. that Whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sins not denying that Christ had received it for them before but affirming only that now they should receive it from Christ Besides this promise is held forth there promiscuously to all both elect and reprobate and it is but an offer not the gift of pardon to distinguish betwixt them for whom Christ had and those for whom he had not effectually satisfied and received absolution from the Father by the ones beleeving and receiving by faith from the hand of Christ the pardon and the others refusall and manifesting thereby their abode under death and the Law still The surety had paid the penalty of the obligation taken up the bonds and acquittance or discharge of the debt Thenceforth the Creditor had no more plea against either principall or surety Nevertheles the principall knew it not therefore playeth least in sight is in continual fear of arrests thinks every bush hath a Sergeant or Bayliff under it but at length the surety gives and delivers into his hand both the acquittance the obligation Cancelled Now is his first receiving of a discharge now he first finds himself free from his Creditors obligation now hath he the first comfort of the benefit but he was discharged before though he knew it not so is it with the elect c. Therefore Mr. Baxters inference hence is unsound He addeth the Testimony of Paul Eph. 2. 3. That the redeemed were by nature the Children of wrath who denyeth it But this is nothing to the question It is not here enquired whether the redeemed drew not the seeds of sin and death by naturall propagation from their parents as much as others But whether by the satisfaction which Christ made for them according to the Covenant of grace they were not redeemed from that wrath before they yet beleeved It is true what Mephibosheth said of himself and his brethren to David We were all as dead men before my Lord the King c. 2 Sam. 19. 28. because they were the progeny of Saul that fought against David Nevertheles by means of the Covenant that intervened between David and Jonathan Mephibosheth had right to all the favour that King David could express As for those testimonies cited by way of Thesis and Antithesis out of Gal. 5. ver 3 4. ver 18 23. they make wholly against him nothing for him The 3 4 verses speak nothing to the question in hand but utterly destroy that to which in this whole dispute he driveth nothing to the question in hand The circumcised are bound or debtors to the whole Law and Christ is become of none effect to them He was to have proved that beleevers were before they beleeved under the Law This Text speaketh not of the elect before they beleeved but of professed beleevers returning to Circumcision and the Law to fetch thence help unto their justification after that they seemingly at least beleeved in Christ so here is nothing that makes for him because nothing to the present question But much against him in reference to the grand thing which he laboureth for to bring beleevers under the Law as a Covenant of works Whosoever doth so saith the Apostle in the least mite that contents not himself with Christ alone takes in but so poor a peice of the Law as Circumcision to help with Christ to Justification the same person hereby forfeiteth all his claim to Grace and Christ and must gain heaven by his perfect fullfilling of the Law or must be damned in hell for ever Into this state Mr. Baxter striveth to bring himself and his disciples I shall not wish them joy in it because I use not to wish impossibilities Touching the verses which he puts in opposition to these ver 18 23. But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law against such there is no law If he mean simply and sincerely what the Apostle here meaneth by being led by the Spirit viz. the seeking of righteousnes by Christ alone as the same Apostle more fully expresseth himself Gal. 3. 3. Phil. 3. 3. Then by granting that such are not under the Law there is no law against them he destroyeth and recanteth all that he hath before spoken to prove beleevers under the Law But if by being led by the Spirit his aim be to bring in works to justification under the name of the fruits of the Spirit we shall here forbear to answer him because it is besides the present question leaving it to its fit place where he openly explaineth himself And no less abhorrent from the question is his next proof Gal. 3. 22. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ may be given to them that beleeve What is this to the purpose in hand we deny not the promise of or the promised Justification and remission of sinns by faith in Jesus Christ to be given to them that beleeve into their hands and possession when they beleeve by affirming that Christ hath taken possession thereof for them before they beleeve that he may let it down into their hearts when they beleeve He ascended up on high and led captivity captive and gave gifts to men Eph. 4. 8. The Apostle fetcheth his authority from the word in Psal 68. 18. where it is said He received gifts for men viz. to give them in his time But the Apostle contents himself with the scope of the word not binding himself to the bare letter and sound thereof So Christ at his ascension received for us the gifts of Justification and remission and all other benefits of his passion They were then laid up for us in his Custody so that we had them in him before our actuall existence upon earth But he gives them to us into our sensible possession when we come to be to live and to beleeve That which he citeth from Gal. 4 5. is altogether besides the question also Himself acknowledgeth that it proveth us onely to be under the Law when Christ redeemed us or undertook to pay our ransom Not that we were under the Law after he had redeemed us by paying our ransom before we yet beleeved The words are these in the 4 5 verses God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law The scope of the Apostle here is one and the same with that to which he drives Gal. 2. 15 16. We who are Jewes by nature a holy seed within the Covenant and have all the privileges of the Law and not sinners of the Gentiles that are without the Covenant and the Law knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have beleeved that we might be justified by the faith of
the Son must perfectly know because he was in the bosom of the Father and was thorowly acquainted with all his bosom secrets 4 Whether any one can misse of the benefit of this satisfaction when it is once so given and accepted for him by name 5 Why Mr. Br speaking of the payment of this satisfaction doth plainly mention the time when it was made namely the fullnes of time in the very same breath speaking of the undertaking acceptance and efficacy thereof doth not also name the time when that was Covenanted and Concluded upon Did he not see that it was needfull to the Compleating of this member of the sentence in a full equipage with the former to name the time of this as well as of that Was it a beare or an evill Conscience in the way that put him to such an Aposiopesis that shook him into a dumbnes when truth honesty and plain dealing bad him speak out Whether he had said before all time or shortly upon the beginning of time he saw he should have given a deathly wound either to his Cause or to his Credit or to both therefore like a cunning sophister stops his breath and speaks nothing 6 And if the Covenant of grace in all and every of its Articles were thus agreed upon between the Father aad the Son either before the actuall existence of any man in the world or as Mr. Br here Confesseth before Adam and Eve the sole persons then existent upon earth were treated with about it how then doth he add that he accounts him not worth the Confuting which tell us that Christ was the onely party conditioned with and that the New Covenant as to us hath no Conditions so Saltmarsh c. thus Casting an Odium upon this opinion as if Mr. Saltmarsh and his Disciples alone held it and that never any before him thought of it For my own part where the Scriptures are silent I am in great dread to be loquent and where the word speaketh sparingly and darkly I dare not to conclude too peremptorily Neither in points that are controvertible in religioÌ but which way soever dâcided do not Confer much to or detract from the Basis and foundation of our salvation would I prosecute either vehement or endles disputes Every least truth in Divinity is precious indeed therefore not to be betrayed but to be preserved more carefully than our life bloud Yet our life and bloud ought not to be so deer to us as the Peace of the Churches of Christ And the disturbing of the Churches peace may sometimes more obscure the honour of the Gospel than the suspending of the defence of some not very important truths for a while could have done I should not therefore quarrell against them that ascribe to the New Covenant its Condition and make faith alone as it instrumentally receiveth Christ the onely Condition of our being justified to and in our selves I see not so great ecclipse upon the glory of Gods Grace or Christs merits caused by such an assertion that we should disturb the peace of the Churches about it were it not that the Papists and Arminians by this unscripturall phrase do seek totally to corrupt the doctrine of justification Nevertheles Mr. Baxters contumelious words shall not affright me from delivering my judgement what I think most probable and most agreeing with holy Scripture touching the point in hand Yet laying it down not as absolute and certain but as that which is yet most probable to me untill I shall by further enquiry into the Scriptures or by the help of others that have more enquired see Cause to judge otherwise As for Mr. Baxter though in humane literature and in things subject to the tryall of reason I hold his judgement not Contemptible but equall with the most yea the best yet in Gospel and spirituall things I finde him so stupified perverted and wholly spoyled with Philosophy seeing so little of the mystery of Christ yea so prejudiced against the sacred things which he knowes not that I account him one of those whom the Apostle describeth 1 Tim. 1. 17. Desiring to be teachers of the Law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm And therefore am so little affrighted from any doctrine of this kinde by his abasing thereof that I am the more induced to search into it if it be not a pearl indeed because he hath trampled it I shall then express what I think in these following positions First as God hath made two great and generall Covenants with mankind each of them comprizing other lesser Covenants under it So because there were not existent personally at the time of making these covenants the singular individuals of mankind to whom these Covenants belonged therefore did he appoint 2 publike persons each of which then existing when either Covenant was made to be as it were represeÌtatives of all the singular persons that then did or after should exist to be under either Covenant with whom when the Covenants were concluded they should be in perfect force for or against all that were represented in their severall ages as though they had been but then made particularly with them in their own persons The one of these Covenants is usually termed the Covenant of works the other the Covenant of grace The publike or common person Covenanted with in the one was the first Adam in the other the second Adam Christ Jesus The case is cleer in respect of the first Adam and the Covenant of works Mr. Br himself grants every inch of it That whatsoever law or positive Commands were given to Adam whatsoever promises in cases of performance or threats in case of breach were added all pertained as full to all the future progeny of Adam as represented in him and enclosed in his loins as to Adam himself And accordingly while Adam stood we stood in him when he fell we fell in him and with him as deep under the wrath of God as himself I forbear to prove any of this because it is granted on all sides But the question is wholly about Christ the second Adam whether the Covenant of grace was so made with him as the Covenant of works with Adam and what that Covenant of grace was I conceive that both there was such a Covenant between the Father and the Son in reference to us and that this was the tenor thereof viz. that the Son in time appointed should assume to himself our nature and in it represent the persons of the elect that were equally sinners and condemned with others in Adam that he should offer himself in our flesh a sacrifice for sinn that upon his undertaking thereof the sinns of all the elect should be pardoned and they of sinners should be made righteous and delivered up into his hands no more to be accounted to Adam but to Christ and to be preserved in the bosom of his grace love to eternall glory And as Mr. Br acknowledgeth upon
Christs undertaking c. The satisfaction was so virtually and effectually made by Christ and accepted by the Father as when it was actually accomplished First it seems there was such a Covenant For the Apostle tells us Rom. 5. 14. that Adam was a figure of him that was to come which is Christ And how a figure Doubtles not onely in this that as by him the one and first man sin and death by sin immediately came upon all men so by Christ righteousnes and by it life came upon all the elect But also in the manner of the agreement of the Type and Antitype together That as Adam representing all mankinde by his unfaithfullnes in breaking the Covenant brought sin and death upon all that he represented so Christ representing all the elect by his faithfullnes in performing the Covenant c. brought righteousnes and justification of life upon all the elect represented in him Yea the Holy Ghost in expresse words testifieth to such a Covenant In the volume of thy book it is written of me that I should do thy will O God saith he when he comes into the world i. e. it is testified in the word what Covenant hath passed betwixt thee and me c. Heb. 10. 5-10 yea and testifieth to the tenor of the Covenant his coming with a body to be offered in sacrifice this will of God he came to do And moreover he giveth witnes also to the faithfullnes of Christ in offering it Lo I come and to the efficacy of it upon all immediately for whom it was offered By the which will we are sanctified i. e. no more taken for sinners but Consecrated as holy to the Lord through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all ibid. The same is implyed in that phrase which here termeth the offering of Christs body the doing of the Fathers will And elswhere obedience unto death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2. 8. Obedience and will presuppose Command and Covenant And the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the one righteousnes or one act of righteousnes of Christ opposed to the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that one offence of Adam for so the phrase seems to me to hold out more grammatically than the offence of one and the righteousnes of one doth not obscurely argue that one righteousnes of Christ in fullfilling opposite to that one offence of Adam in once breaking the Covenant Rom. 5. 18. And that all this was covenanted to be done and accepted for and in the behalf of the elect and to them and none but them to be effectuallized is also evident from the Scriptures For he did the will of his Father in offering himself as was before shewed i. e. did according as it was agreed and covenanted between him and the Father dyed for them onely for whom he made prayers and intercessions But when his time was come to suffer he prayed intercedâd not for the world but for them onely whom the Father had given him out of the world Joh. 17. 6 9. Therefore for them onely he undertook to satisfie Therefore is it that he is said to lay down his life onely for his sheep not for the goats Joh. 10. 11. 15. For them whose names were written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Rev. 13. 8. The rest things conteined in this position are granted by Mr. Br himselfe therefore need no proof here I have couched together many things in this to avoyd multiplicity of positions 2 That by force of this satisfaction so given and accepted for the sinns of the Elect according to the Tenor of this Covenant between the Father and the Son all the Elect of God were Justified in Christ from the very time of Christs undertaking to be their Justifier Therefore in the last alleaged Scripture their names are said to be written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Here though the book of life which is elswhere mentioned to be Gods book will be taken by Mr. Br to be the book of Election yet this book of life of the lamb is to be understood for the book of Justification implying indeed the election of all that are written therein but primarily and in its direct sense comprehending the names of them that are justified by the bloud of the sacrificed Lamb of God And these are said to be written in Christs book that is registred in Christ and upon Christs account from the foundation of the world immediately upon Christs undertaking to satisfie for them Of him ye are in Christ saith the Apostle who of God is made unto us Wisdome Righteousnes Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. When was he so made unto us Mr. Br answereth not onely upon the payment but upon his undertaking to pay our debt Therefore is he said to be Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and for ever Heb. 13. 8. And that not onely in reference to them that lived in all ages of the world but in respect of us also that in all ages of the world he hath been and will be what now he is our Jesus our Christ But this position hath been before proved in the former Chapter in answer to Mr. Baxters 13 Thesis and its explication where I spake to his sixth Argument 3 The Ministeriall way of offering and convaying the benefits of Christs satisfaction into the souls and apprehensions of men now used under the Gospel according to the command of Christ is or at least sounds like an inferior Covenant subordinate and sub-servient to this between the Father and the Son whereof we have spoken Christ having now made full satisfaction to the Father invites all and brings in his elect to taste and enjoy by faith all the perfections which he hath merited and received into his hands for them It is confessed by Mr. B. Thes 8. That God is so fully pleased with the Sons undertaking of this busines of Mediation that he hath delivered all things into his hands and given him all power in heaven and in earth and made him Lord both of the dead and living And the Lord Jesus himself affirmeth that the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son i. e. the dispensation and ordering of all things in heaven and in earth And it is the opinion of great Divines that the Lord Christ in the old world before the Law and in all ages under the Law being that person of the Trinity which had undertaken to assume our nature unto him and in it to dye for the reconciling of us to God and entring from the beginning upon his power to set in order all things to this glorious end was he that conversed with the Patriarks and Prophets sometimes in an assumed body like a man sometimes invisibly making known the mystery of Redemption by himself to them and prescribing under what administrations he would have his Church
governed untill his coming That it was he who first preached to Adam salvation by the seed of the Woman and afterward more cleerly to Abraham That it was he also which delivered the Law upon Mount Sinai and added there a second Covenant in shew and sound a meer Covenant of works Do and be Blessed Sin and be Cursed which Covenant alone is expresly called the Old Covenant and is indeed now repealed and abolished from being any more a Covenant saving to them that put themselves under it This was but a temporary Covenant an Appendix to the Covenant before made with Abraham and both this and that with Abraham were but subordinate Covenants to that before mentioned between God and Christ Here now all that were justified before Christs coming in the flesh were justified in Christ by force of the first Covenant made between the Father and the Son The promise to Adam and the Covenants made with Abraham and with the Israelites together with all the Sacraments and signes annexed to all these tended onely to bring them that were justified before in Christ to a reall and sensible participation of it and the comforts thereof by Faith within their own consciences So is it now under the Gospel administration That first Covenant is that by which our justification is compleatly finished in Christ the preaching of Faith in a Covenant way tends onely to this that as many as were before justified in Christ may by Faith have their Justification declared and evidenced to their consciences to fill them with joy unspeakable and full of glory and with that peace which passeth all understanding Not but that Christ could without any such Sub-Covenanting have filled up his elect with all the marrow and mystery of Justification by immediate Revelation from himself as he dealt with Paul the Apostle but that this way made most for his and his Fathers glory both in them that are saved and in them that perish 4 Faith it self much less any other qualification gift or act is not a condition of Justification in foro Dei there Christ hath pleaded our discharge by his blood still maketh intercession for us but a means or instrument by which we receive Christ Jesus and the righteousnes or justification that is in him to our selves for consolation and salvation in foro conscientiae so stood the case in respect of the fore-mentioned under Covenant that of the Law When the Lord Christ had published his Law upon Mount Sinai and given to Israel by Moses all his Judgments and Statutes there now passeth a solemn Covenant betwixt Christ and them the people also every one in person assenting gladly to fulfill all that they might be blessed or if in the least point they should fail to yeeld themselves cursed This Covenant was made more visibly and in every part more strictly after the nature and rule of Covenants then this under the Gospel Yet will any say that this perfect obedience so Covenanted was a condition of their justification and salvation without which none could be justified or saved Then were all damned for no one either did or could perfectly obey Nay it was added because of transgressions saith the Apostle Gal. 3. 19. i. e. as a means so to operate about sin in the discovery of it and the damnation that is by it so also to convince men that they might be driven from all supposition of their own righteousnes and seek righteousnes by Christ alone in whom alone the elect were justified before this Covenant was made In the same manner the holding forth of justification now under the Gospel in the form and likenes of a Covenant Beleeve and be saved beleeve not and perish for ever proveth not Faith to be the condition of the New Covenant as hath been said even the whole preaching of salvation by Christ and injoyning of Faith upon all to receive it is an effect of that First great Covenant of Grace between the Father and the Son and a part of Christs Propheticall Office which he undertook in that Covenant to accomplish in undertaking the Mediatorship between God and Men. An effect of that first Covenant I say For so it was agreed that All which the Father had given to Christ by him to be justified and saved should come to him i. e. beleeve in him Jo 6. 37. To this purpose it was Covenanted on the Sons part to seek and to save that which was lost Luke 19. 10. to call unto him all to participate by Faith of the life light righteousness and salvation that he had received for them Isa 55. 1. Io 7. 37. Ma. 11. 28. This was a part of his Propheticall Office to discover the treasures of Grace in his heart and to envite all to the participation thereof And then on the Fathers part it was Covenanted that he would draw to Christ all the Elect all that he had given to Christ that while the Gospel sounded in their ears he would divinely by his Spirit teach and move their hearts that they shall not but come to Christ Jo 6. 43 44. And lastly it is agreed on the Sons part again that of all that the Father thus bringeth to him he must cast out none lose none but raise them all at the last day to glorification and the reason of all is annexed It is the Fathers will i. e. that which was Covenanted between the Father and him in Heaven and he came down from Heaven not to do his own will i. e. any thing of his private will without the consent of his Father but the will of him that sent him i. e. what was Covenanted between the Father and him and concurrent with the will of both Jo 6. 37 38 39. Thus all that which Mr B. calleth the Covenant of Grace is but an effect or an Article and branch of the Covenant made of old between God and Christ And Faith not so properly termed a condition of justification as an instrument to apprehend the present comfort of it being before ours in Christ 5 That this Covenant of Grace is absolute shall be the work of the next Chapter to evince CHAP. XII That Text of Jer 31. 31 32 33 c. opened and Mr. Baxters elusions by which he would evince that it proveth not a free and unconditionall Covenant answered with some other Argumentations with Mr. Baxter about the same Question I Now come to that Testimony of Jer. 31. 31 32 33. cited in Heb. 8. 8-10 against which Mr. B. so much excepteth That New Covenant there mentioned is called the New Covenant not in opposition to the Old Covenant made in the beginning with Adam but in opposition to that Covenant made two thousand and six hundred years after at least with Israel upon Mount Sinai And that Covenant upon Mount Sinai is called the Old Covenant not in opposition to the Cov of Grace made if not from eternity according to Mr. B. yet by Mr B. acknowledgment almost 3000 years
which is in our selves could be more excellent than that which Christ is made to us untill this new Doctor took the Chair to teach Mysteries and by inverting and misnaming Scripture-phrase hath so taught Nevertheles it behoved Mr. Br having resolved to keep on the triple Crown upon the Popes head by stablishing justification upon works though it were to the uncrowning of Christ to reject uprightnes and to seek after inventions Eccles 7. 29. First he must hold beleevers to be under both Covenants els while he builds up one peece of Babylon he should pluck down another and give his judgment against his holines in one point while he acts the Champion for him in another and adventure with all the loss of his Cause if he keep not as strong hold-fast in the Covenant of works with the one hand as in the Covenant of grace with the other 2 He must call the Condition or means of applying Christ to us or obteining interest in his satisfaction our Righteousnes els he will not be able to evade those Scriptures which assert our Justification by faith But by this feat he thinks himself in a fit posture both to answer this and to bring in all qualifications and works that he pleaseth in a partnership with faith to justifie True will he say we are justified by Faith as a part of our righteousnes and by all other good qualifications and works as other parts of our righteousnes 3 He must call faith and works our Evangelicall righteousnes having seen in what a stinking trance some of his dirty deer brethren in their disputes have been left when they would prove that good works as works of the Law do justifie and how little better they have fared who would have them to justifie onely as works of grace having not had enough subtlety to prove them Gospel or Grace works Need had he therefore to put himself upon strong and strange inventions that himself may not stick in the same mire after them But enough in generall let us hear him deliver his own minde in particulars B. Thes 17. p. 102. As there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions So is there a twofold Righteousnes and both of them absolutely necessary to salvation The latter member of this proposition is grounded upon the former the Thesis upon the Hypothesis As true is the latter as the former But how true is the former that there are two Covenants and that they have their distinct Conditions First when he saith there are two Covenants he meaneth two Covenants in force to the very Saints in Christ that while they are under grace to salvation they are also under the Law to the Curse and Condemnation This hath been his busines to Confirm in the former part of this Treatise and he owns it in the explication of this Thesis But this is false as in disapproving of his arguments before hath been proved They are no more under the Law who are once under grace Rom. 6. 14. 2ly Neither have the two Covenants their distinct Conditions according to Mr. Br. For Thes 4. he makes the Condition of the first Covenant Perfect Obedience or Righteousnes The same he makes here the Condition of the New Covenant viz. Faith and Obedience but both as integrant parts of our own inherent righteousnes as we have partly seen and shall be forced to see more fully in that which is to come after So that we grant him that as true as there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions in force to the same persons so true is it that there is a twofold Righteousness and both absolutely necessary to salvation if by salvation he means Justification At falsum prius ergo posterius When he brings proofs to Confirm his assertions he may meet with a larger answer In mean while a simple Negation stands fittest in opposition to his bare affirmation That which he brings in the explication to Confirm it hath been answered over and over before Onely he tells us in the upshot that He will take it as granted To which I answer that there hath been such a generation of men still upon earth so fingerative that will needs take that which was never granted and delivered to them such is the main bulk of Mr. Brs doctrine in this book taken but never delivered to him from God or his Christ Bax. The usuall confounding of these Righteousnesses saith he doth much darken the Controversies about Justification And Mr. Br doth no less cleer the Controversie than an Ecclipse the Sun-beams He proceeds to explain what this twofold Righteousnes is so absolutely necessary to salvation Bax. The legall Righteousness saith he is not in us or consisteth not in any qualifications of our own persons or actions performed by us But it is wholly without us in Christ Thes 18. p. 103. The righteousnes of the New Covenant is the onely Condition of our interest in and enjoyment of the Righteousnes of the old c. Thes 19. p. 107. Our Evangelicall Righteousnes is not without us in Christ as our Legall Righteousnes is but consisteth in our own actions of Faith and Gospel Obedience c. Thes 20. p. 108. What there is more in any of these three positions is transcribed at large before To the 18 Thesis he annexeth in the explication a dispute against the Papists not to Confute them as adversaries to the truth for joyning mans righteousnes with Christs righteousness unto justification for herein he professeth entire Communion with them but to admonish them as his loving brethren to defend this their Conclusion of Justification by their own righteousness not under the terms of their legall but of their Evangelicall righteousness Because the legall righteousnes is unpossible but the Evangelicall righteousnes according to his carving and forming of it is easie to be fullfilled and almost unpossible to be violated Not that the Papists were wholly ignorant of this mystery untill Mr. Br here teacheth them Nay many of them had and pleaded it very artificially before he was born And himself hath learned it of them But he as the most proficient of all their disciples hath more fully improved it so that now he becomes a teacher to his very Masters and exhorts them to learn of him the pious feat and fraud of making use of this distinction yet further than ever they had the wit or grace to devise even to all matters and purposes that tend to the eluding of the word of Christ and the advantaging of the holy mother Church in her doctrine of Justification that is altogether Contradictory to the doctrine of the Scriptures upon the same Argument To the 19th 20th positions he annexeth an explication of both of these and of all that was said in the two former positions also In it we shall finde whatsoever deserveth a fuller Answer than hath been yet given to all and every of these four positions or any thing in all or any of them conteined not
was a voluntary agent Called and Consecrated by the Father to be our Priest Heb. 5. 5. No man taking his life from him but himself laying it down of himself for us and in our stead Joh. 10. 18. Thus he became the purchaser of righteousnes for us and is made of God Righteousnes to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. But all this he did not by the rule of the Law or Covenant of works but of the secret and sacred Covenant made between the Father and him Therefore having mentioned the voluntarines of his suffering in the fore quoted Joh 10. 18. He addeth This Commandment have I received of my Father implying that this his satisfactory obedience in dying for us had its regulating not by the old Covenant of works or any precept of the Law given to man but by the Covenant which had passed between the Father and the Son in reference to man and a speciall positive Commandment from the Father agreeing with the tenor of that Covenant As for our apprehending and pleading the righteousnes of Christ to Justification impudency it self will neither affirm it to be done by the rule of the Covenant of law and works nor deny it to be done in Conformity to the Covenant of grace and rule of the Gospel Or because Christ hath born the penalty of the Lawes breach shall he therefore be Called our legall righteousnes as from the formall reason of the thing Nay both that Christ suffered and the Father received and accepted his sufferings in full satisfaction for our transgressions That the Father sent him to satisfie the justice of his law for us and for his satisfactions sake he doth no more impute to us the breach of his Law All this is the fruit of his grace and in conformity to the Gospel and Covenant of grace not to the Law and Covenant of works Therefore if we give the denomination from the formall reason of the thing we must call it our Evangelicall not Legall righteousnes which is in Christ Touching the other opposite term that any thing inherent in man whether the gifts of grace Faith Repentance Charity c. or their fruits and works should be called our Gospel righteousnes I see no reason for it neither can devise in what other sense they may be so called but by a Catachresticall Ironia which names a thing and means the contrary As the Mounteins are called Montes quia minime movent Mounts or Movers because they do in no wise Move or as the Fames Auri is sometimes called sacra the inordinate desire of money is termed holy quia minime sacra sed prorsus execrabilis because it is in no case sacred but wholly accursed So in no other sense may this righteousnes in self be called Gospâl righteousnes in reference to Justification but because it is totally opposite to the doctrine and nature of the Gospel and because the Gospel doth wholly reject and abandon it Mr. Br. peradventure may and will bring other reasons and where he doth it we shall take pains to examine them 4 Why he calls beleeving or Faith to be our Gospel righteousnes and whether it be to any other end but with the Papists upon the same grounds to bring in good works to Justification also If he deny this the whole sequele of his Book will be an enditement of falshood against him CHAP. XIV That which Mr. Baxter brings to confirm the matter of this his Doctrine examined and found both fallacious and empty And what he addeth to mitigate the asperity viz. That we perform these conditions not by our own strength but by the grace of Christ evidenced to be a meer shift borrowed from the Papists Mr. Baxter after he hath thus made a flourish and nothing but a flourish to explain and defend his phrase and make odious the phrase of Scripture now proceedeth to confirm the matter of his doctrine Let us see whether there be any thing Logicall or Theologicall and not meerly sophisticall He hath confessed before p. 109. that some who are not Antinomians but Orthodox Divines have startled at the expressions of his 19 and 20 Positions as conteining in them some self-exalting horrid doctrine therefore will he say something thereto by way of explication and confirmation Now having said something as bad as nothing to take off contention about words what doth he add for the confirmation of the matter of his doctrine He was to have proved 1 That Gospel righteousnes or the righteousnes of the New Covenant consisteth not in the imputation of the righteousnes which is by Christ to us but in our own actuall and personall faith and obedience 2 That we must be righteous in our selves first and then after be made righteous by Christ 3 That the righteousnes of the New Covenant is not sufficient to justifie and save but onely to give us right to the righteousnes of the old Covenant which doth actually and immediately save and justifie 4 That those gifts of grace vertues and endowments that are required to our sanctification are not the fruits but the causes of our justification and conditions of our interest in Christ and consequently that our sanctification hath a priority and goes before justification These were the points in which he acknowledgeth himself to be down-right opposed by some and startled at by others What doth he now say for the silencing of these down-right opposers and startlers Just so much as he that would confute all that Bellarmine had written in three words viz. Bellarmine thou liest Or what brings he for the confirmation of those his assertions wherein he is so opposed Nothing but a fardle of sophisticall fallacies consisting of begged principles and homonymies of words First he clustereth together many Conclusions without either premisses or proofs The righteousnesse of the New Covenant then being the performance of its conditions this is his first Conclusion which by the word then bearing the force of therefore he would insinuate to lean upon some foregoing premisses when contrariwise there is not so much as a peble of four grains to sustein it not a word laid as the foundation thereof It is the thing in question we deny it he brings nothing to confirm it besides his bare affirmation which to us is no more then a pillar of straw to bear up a Castle And its conditions being our obeying the Gospel or believing This is his second Conclusion taken as granted when contrariwise his opposers utterly deny it And here he plaies also with an homonymy of words as if faith and obeying the Gospel which in the Apostles sense are so in his sense also were the same thing covering his poyson untill the feat be done by it It must needs be plain that on no other terms do we partake of the legall righteousnes of Christ I will not say that self-confidence hath made the man mad but rather that he thinks all the world mad and in such a sottish slumber that none can
put a difference betwixt mid-day and mid-night It is plain by what light by what argument It is the thing in question and none untill Mr. Br. ever held forth this assertion in these his expressions Yet it must be plain viz. because he hath said it so plain as a New world created in Mr. Br. fist he that can see what is not may see it We deny both the righteousnes which is by Christ to be a legall righteousnes and our own qualifications to be the terms and grounds upon which he is made to us Righteousnes And let the world judg whether he shew himself a Christian Teacher or an Antichristian Imposter who having promised a confirmation of his strange and before unheard of doctrine brings nothing but flourishes of words to charm fools not one argument or Scripture to satisfie the wise and conscientious Himself seeth the grosnes and palpablenes of his delusions and left his Reader should stay in his meditations upon it to see it also he hasteth to annex a fourth Conclusion very plausible to them whom he hopes to beguile wherupon as on a Cross he naileth the picture of an Antinomian to crucifie him that with this pleasant spectacle he may divert his Readers eyes from the nakednes and nothingnes of what went before to the beholding of a new object set before him To affirm therefore that our Evangelicall or New Covenant Righteousnes is in Christ and not in our selves or performed by Christ and not by our selves is such a monstrous piece of Antinomian Doctrine that no man c. ut supra Which is as much as if he had said to his Reader if upon the bare authority of my words when I have no one good Argument to prove them thou wilt not become a rank Papist I will register thee for an Antinomian and make thee out to the world such a Monster that all shall abhor thee as unsufferable With this Thunder-bolt he knows he shall shake into an Ague all those that Nicodemus-like are Disciples of Christ but secretly for fear of the Jewes Should they be suspected of the least tang of Antinomianism they should never more have a good look from the Scribes and Pharisees But he is not forth with an Antinomian whom Mr. B. so termeth If Pythagoras his transmigration of souls into new bodies were Canonicall I should conclude that the ghost of one of those ghostly Fathers of the Councell of Constance had crept into Mr. B. body They to make John Huss odious painted an ugly Devill in paper and crowned John Huss therewith when they carried him to the stake to be burned at the view whereof the people exulted in his death as if they had seen some Witch or rather young Devill burned So deals Mr. B. here with them which are truly Evangelical inures upon them the black brand of Antinomianism so to make truth in their mouth hatefull as well as the persons But is it decreed that they are all Antinomians that hold and that it is a monstrous piece of Antinomianism to hold that our Evangelicall or New Covenant righteousnes is in Christ not in our selves performed by Christ and not by our selves If so I much question whether there will be found any one save Mr. B. alone in all the Reformed Churches that are or have been but must bear the imputation of a monstrous Antinomian I will not be over confident of Socinus Arminius Grotius and their followers because I take them not for members but troublers of the Reformed Churches For my part I know no difference about this point between the Orthodâx and Antinomians Both consent 1 That our Gospel-righteousnes which worketh effectually to our Justification is in Christ not in our selves save by imputation 2 That our Gospel or New Covenanâ righteousnes in reference to our sanctification is in Christ radically but in us by derivation and influence actually to sanctifie us 3 That our faith repentance obedience holines good works though flowing from Christ himself into us are the Gospel or New Covenant Righteousnes not by which we are justified but by which we are sanctified And let Mr. B. or any of his Disciples produce that Orthodox man that ever called this doctrine Antinomianism or that hath not shunned the contrary doctrine as Popish and Antichristian Yet Mr. B. finding himself bound by promise to prove many things as was said before that his fallacious dealing might not be too notorious and shamefull he chooseth one of the many leaving the rest untouched to speak something to it as he had said though not to prove it And in that which he saith there is nothing to confirm his own assertion but a meer reviling abusing abasing of them that assert the contrary under the false imputation of Antinomianism And here he comes upon the stage like Hercules Furens who in a Phrensie taking his Wife and Children to be a Lioness and her Whelps falls upon them fiercly with his Clubb and envenomed Arrows untill he had utterly destroyed them So Mr. B. in somewhat a like fit not finding reall Antinomians but making in his fancy imaginary Bug-bears and phantasms of them curseth them with Bell Book and Candle for saying that Christ hath fulfilled the conditions of the New as well as of the Old Covenant and that our Evangelical righteousnes is not in our selves but in Christ At the supposition of such assertions which none ever laid down in these terms the man is in a rage beats the wind and flings dust in the Aire cryeth Blasphemy heresie impiety and enumerates Absurdities upon absurdities arising from such doctrine all which I am not at leizure to transcribe it being all superfluous and not to the purpose but may be read at large pag. 111 112 113 of his Tractate More proper shall it be for me here to make out Mr. B. either willing or unwilling mistake herein and then all his absurdities will âither vanish into winde or return upon himself First then as we deny not Faith in the Lord Christ to be instrumentall to apprehend to our selves Christ for our justification and a declarative evidence to our own souls that we are actually justified by him as before hath been granted so we affirm it to be hereticall and popish doctrine which Mr. B. doth here pag. 111 deliver in asserting repentance obedience submission c. and afterward all other vertues and good works to be conditions of the New Covenant viz. by which as by our Gospel righteousnes we are and without which preceding we cannot be justified For all these in Mr. B. sense as Austin from the tenor of the Gospel saith Non precedunt justificandum sed sequuntur justificatum are not the precedents but fruits of justification 2 We affirm Repentance Obedience Charity c. and all good works which the Gospel requireth to be originally and materially the works and duties of the Law Nature and naturall conscience it self suggesting to every of us both the rest and withall in
case of offence committed against God or man to repent of it to sorrow for it and at our utmost to make satisfaction for the offence Yea even Faith in Christ is in generall required by the Old Law and Covenant We in no wise ascribe to the Gospel a creating of new points of righteousnes or injoining of new duties which the Law did not at least in generall bind us unto this opinion we leave as proper and peculiar to the Socinians But a modification spiritualizing and appropriating the righteousness and duties which the Law in generall commanded to the now present lapsed condition of man to Gods present offers of grace and our present necessities Yea herein we have Mr. B. consenting to us who Thes 30. and its Explication delivers his judgment herein to be fully one with the stream of Orthodox Divines So that if we should affirm that Christ hath beleeved repented sorrowed c. for us and in our steed it would not thence follow that we pronounce Christ to have performed the conditions of the New but onely of the Old Covenant for us 3 Yet are we far from affirming that Christ in the most strict and proper sense hath so beleeved repented c. for us that we should be taken to have beleeved repented c. not in our selves but in him and by him But the reason why we neither affirm nor hold it is not because that these are our Gospel righteousnes or New Covenant conditions of righteousness and life in the sense before oft mentioned for we have denyed and do still deny them to be such But 1 because it is in question whether the active righteousnes of Christ be imputable to us for justification And 2 if it were yet were it an unchristing of Christ to affirm him to have been ever in such a state and condition that he had need of repentance or faith to the remission of sins He took indeed our nature not the sinfulnes of our nature had our sin imputed to him or as the Scripture phrase expresly speaketh laid on him Isa 53. 6. to suffer and satisfie for it but had no sin of his own to repent of and mortifie then had there not been vertue in his Priesthood sacrifice to have expiated ours And to say that he actually repented sorrowed beleeved c. for the pardon of our sins we confes is a harsh unproper and Catachresticall locution Yet we still hold that the flawes and infirmities of our faith and repentance as well as our other iniquities were laid upon Christ that he hath satisfied divine justice for them by his sufferings and that therefore God imputeth them not to us being once in Christ Otherwise though they are parts of Gospel righteousnes to sanctification the sin and infirmity that is in them in not squaring fully with the Law their rule would bring upon us condemnation These things premissed all the absurdities which to make the assertion odious Mr. B. layeth upon us for affirming our New Covenant righteousnes to be in Christ in the sense mentioned and explained and denying our faith repentance obedience c. to be our New Covenant righteousnesse to Justification vanish into smoke For 1 It implyeth not as he saith it doth blasphemy against Christ as if he had sin to repent of for we utterly deny that Christ hath beleeved or repented for us otherwise then by satisfying justice for our not repenting beleeving c. home to the rule of the Law 2 Nor doth it imply that Jewes Pagans and every one shall be saved because Christ hath fulfilled the conditions of both Covenants for them so that they are culpable in neither For Christ hath not satisfied for the breach of much less fulfilled that which Mr B. called the conditions of the New Covenant as such conditions c. but as precepts of the old Covenant or Law of works Or should I say Christ hath satisfied onely for the Elect will M. B. contradict 3 If it should follow hence that the Elect then are righteous and justified viz. in Christ before they beleeve this would not sound as an absurdity to any other besides them to whom truth is an absurdity as hath been before shewed 4 Neither if it would follow hence that beleeving is needless to justification would it also follow that it is needless to any other use This cannot fall from any other but a prophane mouth and self-seeking man that will have nothing done out of love and obedience to God to glorifie him but all out of self-love for his own benefit onely But I have before proved faith to be needfull to justifie us to bring home into our own Consciences the benefit and evidence of our Justification even Faith acting in us therefore Faith so acting in us is also needful to this as well as to other uses though Christ hath satisfied for the infirmity of it in reference to the Law 5 It were no absurdity to confess the saved and the damned to be alike in themselves and by nature before Justification but that the difference is onely in election and Christs intention Untill then the Holy Ghost pronounceth both to be Children of wrath by nature Eph. 2. 3. both to be ungodly Rom. 4. 5. what then is the difference in themselves But their beleeving and Justification puts a difference in their relation first and then in their qualifications also the one becoming sanctified the other remaining unholy still The rest that is contained in this fifth place hath been objected before and before answered 6 What he saith in the sixth place proceeds from the heat of passion and height of self-confidence not from strength of reason or evidence of Scriptures Which of all the Lawes and precepts of Christ had Justification for its end save that of Faith Or who hath confounded Law and Gospel and overthrown all the Lawes and Precepts of Christ by removing Faith from operating in its office to this end Who hath contradicted the whole scope of Scriptures by denying Christ to be made under the Law to have fulfilled the Law to have born the curse of the Law or its imposing upon all the necessity of duty to perform our selves whatsoever the New Covenant requireth of us to Justification or Salvation But that all which Mr. B. would make conditions of Justification must be such because he will so have it notwithstanding all his bombasticall noise of woâds his great Cry and little wooll will not be grânted him When he brings us his large transcript of New Testament Scriptures I doubt upon due examination they will be found to make not for but against him What he instanceth p. 113 114 115. of Mr. Saltmarsh I cannot deny it neither will I defend it I remember that I did once read this passage in him and it was the same in substance as Mr. B. here transcribes him It is not a grain or two of salt that can make his Argumentation there enough savory unless he mean
good from him upon that subject because that although there are many who extoll the power of mans Free-will to his conversion even to the clouding of the glory of Grace that do notwithstanding hold fast the doctrine of Justification by Christ alone without any intermixture of our own righteousnesse Yet I know no one sort or sect of men that part our Justification between Gods righteousness imputed and our own inherent but that the same also about the doctrine of Free-will are wholly Popish if not Pelagian also In the bulk and body of his Explication wherein he inveigheth against those whom hee in termes of abasement calleth sublime Platonick and Plotinian Divines when as they account themselves essentially God himselfe he hath not us dissenting from him CHAP. XV. Whether men in Scriptures are said to be personally Righteous because they perform works and duties as conditions of the new Covenant ye a only for this Master Baxters reasons by which he labours to make it good examined Thesis 22. BAx page 118. In this fore-explained sense it is that men in Scripture are said to be personally Righteous and in this sense it is that the faith and duties of beleivers are said to please God viz. as they are related to the Covenant of Grace and not as they are measured by the Covenant of Works Explication Those that will not acknowledge that the Godly are called Righteous in the Scripture by reason of a personal Righteousnesse consisting in the Rectitude of their own dispositions and actions as well as in regard of their imputed Righteousnesse may be convinced from these Scriptures if they will beleive them Gen. 7. 1. and 18. 23 24. Job 17. 9. Psal 1. 5 6. and 37. 17 21. Eccles 9. 1 2. Ezek. 18. 20. 24. and 33. 12. 13. 18. Mat. 9. 13. To these he addeth as may be there read a multitude of Scriptures more which unlesse it were to better purpose it is not worthy the labour to transcribe To this he further addeth That men are sometimes called Righteous in reference to the Lawes and judgements of men I acknowledge Also in regard of some of their particular actions which are for the substance good and perhaps sometimes in a comparative sense as they are compared with the ungodly as a line lesse crooked should be called streight in comparison of one more crooked But how improper an expression that is you may easily perceive The ordinary phrase of Scripture hath more truth and aptitude then so Therefore it must needs be that men are called righteous in reference to the New Covenant onely Which is plain thus Righteousnesse is but the denomination of our actions or persons as they relate to some rule This Rule when it is the law of Man and our actions suit thereto we are then righteous before men When this rule is Gods Law it is either that of Workes or that of Grace In relation to the former there is none Righteous no not one for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Onely in Christ who hath obeyed and satisfied wee are Righteous But if you consider our actions and persons in relation to the Rule of the New Covenant so all the regenerate are personally righteous because they all performe the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced righteous thereby Neither can it be conceived how the works of beleivers should either please God or be called righteousnesse as they relate to that old Rule which doth pronounce them unrighteous hatefull and accursed All this in its substance at least might be granted to a conscientious man that meaneth as he speaketh hating all equivocations and mentall reservations For it being first granted to us what is here granted That men are called in Scripture Righteous sometimes in Regard of their imputed Righteousnesse sometimes in reference to the lawes and judgements of Men sometimes also in regard of some of their particular actions which are for their substance good and sometimes in a comparative sense as they are compared with the ungodly The 3 last of these consisting in the Conformity of persons and actions with the Lawes of God or of men though not a perfect Conformity upon this first yeelded to us we could without any prejudice to truth grant back again to such qualified men as are before mentioned that sometimes men are called personally Righteous in reference to the New Covenant i. e. in regard of their inchoat sanctification and an inherent righteousnesse flown out of Christ into them by means of their union unto Christ for which though not yet Complete and perfect in them they are à parte praestantiore termed Righteous But to Master Baxter whom we have as the wolfe by the ears prepared if we hold him to bite at our hands if we let him go to fall upon our throats or invade our face and head if we deny him what he would have to bite at us if we grant it him to improve it against Christ our head we grant nothing wee can grant nothing because in all that he speaketh he means not as he speaketh but covers under fine words fallacies and falsities First then we except against his Thesis that it is a meer fardle of Amphibologies and Equivocations That he so delivers all that he will be held to nothing For first when he saith In this fore-explained sense it is his meaning was no doubt to leave us doubtfull or at least to leave himselfe this advantage that wee should remain uncertain where to find him If we should fetch the explanation from the next Theses he might except that his meaning was of some of the more remote Theses if from the remote he would fly to the next or if wee should draw the sense from both the next and remote Theses he might evade thus that he meant not any thing that was said in any of his Theses but something in the explication of some of them And thus wee might pursue the wild-goose long enough before wee should finde her pitching Secondly When he saith Men in Scriptures are said to be personally righteous his purpose was to leave us in the like doubt whether he means the Righteousnesse of justification or the Righteousnesse of Sanctification and himselfe the like advantage to fly from the one to the other as may most further his ends Thirdly when he saith again And in this sense it is he leaves us as knowing as before what sense he meaneth himselfe hath not yet concluded what the sense shall be saving in general such a sense as upon all occasions may serve to his purposes Fourthly When he saith That the faith and duties of believers are said to please God viz. As they are related to the Covenant of Grace and not as they are measured by the Covenant of works he had a project to leave us uncertain whether by the word They and They twice used he means those beleevers or those duties and works And upon this hinge
explained as Christ is our legall Righteousness Explication This assertion so odious to those that understand not its grounds is yet so clear from what is sayd before that I need no more to prove it For first I have cleared before that there must be a personall righteousnesse besides that imputed in all that are justified And that secondly the fulfilling of the conditions of each Covenant is our Righteoesnesse in reference to that Covenant But Faith is the fulfilling of the conditions of the New Covenant therefore it is righteousnesse in relation to that Covenant I do not here take Faith for any our single act but as I shall afterward explain it Mr. Baxter verifieth the Proverb Noscitur ex comite qui non cognoscitur ex se The affections of the man may bee discerned by his company with whom he is as it were in a confederacy The Holy Ghost pronounceth of the Jews once degenerated into the manners and false-worships of the Canaanits that they were no more children of Abraham but that their birth was of the land of Canaan their father was an Amorite their mother a Hittite when once they had taken the pattern of their Religion from the Amorites and Hittites and diverted from the Word of God and steps of their own Progenitors Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the following Patriarcks and Prophets Ezek. 16. 3. What should we account lesse of Mr. Baxter whom wee finde deriving his Religion from the Papists and their associates the Arminians in contempt of Scriptures and the godly Divines of the Reformed Churches His former assertions That beleevers are still under the curse of the Law after they are in Christ That their Justification is but conditionall both before and after their believing That none is in any sense justified before he believeth That Justification is a continued act during onely so long as we continue fulfilling broken off when we break and repaired when we return to the fulfilling again of the supposed conditions thereof That it is not compleated before the end of our life or as Mr. Baxter out-stripping most of his Masters will have it not before the day of Judgement These all hee cannot deny to be Doctrines held in common by the Jesuits and Arminians and I could were there need alleage the very words of Bellarmine and other Jesuits and of Arminius Corvinus Episcopius Grevinchovius the Apology of the Remonstrants and in most of these even Socinus himselfe whose not onely matter but also their very words Mr. Baxter hath transcribed into our language in the delivery of those Tenents Here againe hee doth in this Thesis lay downe a conclusion before more then hinted at wherein Bellarmine Socinus and Arminius fully agree that Faith is our righteousnesse even Faith it self our Evangelicall righteousnesse viz. to Justification that it is so far from being an error to affirm it that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know He acknowledgeth it in the Explication to be an assertion odious to some Rational men would therefore expect great strength of Arguments to prove it And what brings hee Nothing but his own Authority which to us is of equal and but of equal authority with theirs from whom hee hath taken it up It is clear saith he from what is said before No lesse clear I acknowledge then the face of a man in a mud-wall for a Looking-glasse 1. I have cleared before saith he besides that imputed that there must be also a personall Righteousness in all that are justified This is not denyed that there must bee such a personall Righteousnesse but that where it is it is there proper and effectuall to Justification is no better cleared then hath been said How the second thing was before cleared by him I referre to that which hath been said of both sides about it If the casting of dust and dirt into the eyes may be properly called clearing of them in this and in no other sense doe I acknowledge the thing to bee cleared by what Mr. Baxter hath before said Where he laies down this caution I doe not here take Faith for any one single act but as I shall afterward explain it he might have spared the labour to tell us so For wee see what himself seeth that so to take it would bee a ruinating blow to the most of the foregoing and following doctrines about Justification conteined in this his book But he goeth forward thus B. Quaest In what sense is then Faith said to be imputed to us for Righteousnesse if it be our Righteousnesse it self Answ Plainly thus Man is become unrighteous by breaking the Law of Righteousnesse that was given him Christ fully satisfieth for this transgression and buyeth the prisoners into his own hands and maketh with them a New Covenant That whosoever will accept of him and beleeve in him who hath thus satisfied it shall be as effectuall for their Justification as if they had fulfilled the Law of Works themselves A Tenant forfeiteth his Lease to his Landlord by not paying his Rent he runnes deep in debt to him and is disabled to pay him any more Rent for the future Whereupon he is put out of his house and cast into prison till he pay the debt His Landlords sonne payeth it for him taketh him out of prison and putteth him in his house again as his Tenant having purchâsed house and all to himself He maketh him a new Lease in this Tenor that paying but a Pepper-corn yearly to him he shall be acquit both from his debt and from all other Rent for the future which by his old Lease was to be payed Yet doth he not cancell the old Lease but keepeth it in his hands to put it in suit against the Tenant if he should be so foolish as to deny the payment of the pepper-corn In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed to the tenant as if he had payed the rent of the old Lease Yet this imputation doth not extoll the pepper corn nor vilifie the benefit of his benefactor whoredeemed him Nor can it be sayd that the purchase did onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that graine of pepper But thus a personall Rent must be payd for the testification of his homage He was never redemeed to be independent and his own Land-lord and Master The old Rent he cannot pay His new Land-lords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn Doe I need to apply this to the present case or cannot every man apply it Even so is our Evangelicall Righteousness or Faith imputed to us for as real Righteousnes as perfect obedience Two things are considerable in the debt of Righteousness The value and the personall performance and interest The value of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us in stead of the value of a perfect obedience of our own performing and the value of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personal
he do so no more that he speaks here more orthodoxly than he purposed viz. the prisoners debt to be satisfied the prisoner to be delivered restored to his house to the inheritance again by the meer grace and purchase of the Son before God which implyes no less than a full justification with by God before ever the prisoner beleeved or had a new Lease a new Covenant of grace and faith made with him a doctrine which before Mr. Br anathematizeth to hell it self and will do so again though he thereby Curse himself for that which inconsiderately here fell from him These things granted and winked at we utterly explode all the rest in the Similitude not onely as uncoherent with but as contrary to the doctrine of Grace yea utterly destructive to the nature and working of grace in our Justification and that in these particulars as I promised above to specifie 1 That it maketh our Justification mercenary and held by yeerly rent for though it be but a pepper-corn that is payd yet that is rent and payment as shall be manifested before we passe from this similitude which is contrary to the Covenant of grace and doctrine of the Gospel which affirmeth that We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ Rom. 3. 24. And wholly agreeing with the doctrine of the Gospel is that of Austin Non enim gratia Dei Gratia erit ullo modo nisi gratuita sit omni modo The Grace of God shall not be grace in any respect except it be free in every respect But how is it free which is a debt acquired and held by rent and payment 2 That it maketh our Justification Conditionall if Articles of Covenant be performed then the Tenant abides in the inheritance the man is justified if through foolishnes or forgetfulnes unperformed then is the Tenant outted the man unjustified And to be thus conditionally Justified is no Justification When contrariwise the Gospel holds forth a reall and absolute Justification Son Daughter Be of good cheare thy sinns he forgiven Mat. 9. 2. Luk. 7. 48. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit Joh. 13. 10. Being justified by faith we have peace with God and glory in tribulation Rom. 5. 1. 3. Is it not a reall and absolute but a conditionall forgivenes washing Justifying here spoken of then must the effects in these places added and attributed to such forgivenes washing Justifying be not reall but conditionall also A conditionall not reall chear comfort a conditionall not reall cleanness a conditionall not reall peace with God and glorying in tribulation But these effects are out of question reall Therefore Justification the Cause of these effects reall also 3 It delineats an unperfect Justification The Old Lease is not cancelled but kept firm to be put in suit against the Tenant after the New Lease is made The Old Covenant of works is kept in force against the beleever after he is entred into the New Covenant of grace to be put in suit against him upon occasion to his totall damnation When the Gospel pronounceth the justification of a beleever perfect the Old Covenant in respect of any power over him to be dead Rom. 7. 6. The hand writing against him and contrary to him blotted out taken out of the way and nailed to the Cross of Christ Col. 2. 14. So that he is no longer under the Law of workes to be pleaded or putt in suit against him Rom 6. 14. Nor is there now any more Condemnation to be inflicted on him Rom. 8. 1. 4 It points out a mutable justification While the Tenant payeth the rent he shall be acquit both from his debt and all other rent for the future but if he miss of payment then both the old dâbt and rent falls on him as a mountain again crushing him untill the pepper-corn intercede remove the mountain and then acquitt again untill the pepper-corn be lost in carriage or being round and full of volubility run besides the Landlords hand then on comes the mountain of debt upon the Tenant again c. Thus mans justification is made fast or loose according to the stedfastnes or mutableness of mans will and the grace of God in justifying of so little fixedness that a pepper-corn can weigh it and sway it up and down at pleasure When contrariwise the Scripture every where pronounceth the grace of God and Covenant of grace everlasting unchangeable and makes the Justification of man to rest not upon his own mutable and mad will but upon the stable and stablishing grace of God I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sinns and iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 8. 12. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will putt my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. with a large heap of testimonies more to the same purpose which would be here impertinent to transcribe Thus is the similitude as here framed in all these respects proper indeed to illustrate the bugbear figment of Justification in Mr. Brs brain but altogether incoherent with the Justification which the Gospel holds forth to us Yet he addeth In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed to the Tenant as if he had payd the Rent of the old Lease When contrariwise the reformed Churches affirm from most full and pregnant Testimonies of Scripture that to rest any thing at all upon the imputation of such pepper payments for righteousness doth utterly frustrate the offers of grace and benefits of Christs death unto us as hath been oft before manifested That which followeth doth not take off the Odium and falshood of this his doctrine but rather augments it declaring that he hath learned of the Papists not onely their falsifications of the Gospel nullifying of the grace and righteousness of God and extolling the crest of mans pride but also their fallacious shirts to dâfend his dealing herein Yet this imputation saith he doth not extoll the pepper-corn nor vilifie the benefit of his benefactor who redeemed him Nor can it be said that the purchase did onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper The very language of the Papists and the Arminians for âo they when they have mounted the righteousnes of mans faith and works to be a part or the whole of the righteousness effectuall to Justification they come after with a plausible varnish of words professing that they do not herein abase Gods grace nor heave above its own proportion mans righteteousness For say they we do not attribute any thing to mans righteousness either as it is mans righteousnes or to the price and value of it as if by its own worth merit it doth Justifie but partly saith Antoninus ex ordinatione Divina as God hath ordeined
cur righteousnes to Justification that it is not varied secundum Magis Minùs Indeed Schibler there concludes out of Aristotle that Relations which have their foundation in substance or quantity non recipiunt Magis Minùs have no remission or intension but an equality fullnes or perfection in their relation if I may speak a little unproperly to please Mr. Br. But that Righteousnes hath its foundation in substance he seems to deny or that it hath its foundation in quantity he saith but doth not prove We say it hath its foundation in quality such relations Schibler there acknowledgeth to admit Magis Minùs Again Schibler addeth in the second place that Relata ex parte sui hoc est secundum esse relationis ipsius non recipiunt magis minùs But this hinders not why in some yea sundry other respects they should not admit it And thus Schibler doth him no good Yet if Schibler were for him I should except that the Holy Ghost is not specially in Gospel matters a Peripatetick was never a disciple of Aristotle his wisdome is a Metaphysicks more transcendent above Aristotles Metaphysicks than Aristotles Metaphysicks are above his Physicks Therefore the Holy Ghost takes the liberty in Scriptures to affirm a Magis Minùs in Righteousnes to pronounce one more and another less righteous in reference to the Rule as hath been before shewed Br. Therefore our Divines usually say that our Justification is perfect though our sanctification be not and then I am sure our Righteousnes must be perfect A meer flam vanity of words Our Divines saith he doth he own them are they not such as he would rather tollere than extollere Our Divines and yet not Popish Divines our Divines usually say that our Justification is perfect But will Mr. Br say so Nay he saith point-blank in opposition to it Yet even hence would he force in his Conclusion then I am sure our Righteousnes must be perfect A meer sophism and fallacy we grant that the righteousnes by which we are perfectly justified must needs be a perfect righteousnes But we deny that righteousnes to be any otherwise ours than by imputation viz. Christs satisfaction As for the Righteousnes of our sanctification which Mr. Br makes the condition of our justifying we utterly deny either to be perfect in this life or to have any finger in the busines of Justification When he finds all his other shifts too weak to hide the nakednes of his Conclusion at length he flyeth to his sophisticall distinctions according to his usuall manner to obscure darken what he cannot confirm clear up in the light to be of God B A twofold perfection is here implyed saith he 1 a Metaphysicall perfection of Being 2 A perfection of sufficiency in order to its end These two he jumbles tumbles together somtimes into a Confusion then out of the Chaos that he hath made goes about to separate them again into some distinct order so far that if there be any that can see things which are not as if they were may discern either from other so perfectly at a distance that he shal never attain the one or the other as a perfection of Righteousnes to his justification The former he makes to be the Materiall entity of a non ens as he had before defined Righteousnes the Materiall Being of that which is not a being And this saith he is the sincerity of our faith i. e. of our Sanctification for so he meaneth this is the first perfection of our own righteousnes to justification Let us suppose now that there is such a Metaphysicall perfection in the sincerity of our righteousnes and the matter thereof what doth this make to his purpose that there is a perfection in our personall righteousnes to justifie us I shall demand these questions of him 1 Whether a Metaphysicall perfection of Being in the matter of our Righteousnes be the perfection of righteousnes which is required to justification Is there not a Metaphysicall being yea perfection of being in the matter of all the Acts of righteousnes which the very heathen and reprobates perform 2 Whether Sincerity be perfection of righteousnes any further than it is more or less sincere perfect sincerity being a perfect perfection unperfect sincerity an unperfect perfection perfect it may be in its Metaphysicall being that is unperfect in its degrees But must there not be also a morall perfection in a righteousness personall that shall be perfect to justifie 3 Whether there be not sin imperfection in the best sincerity of the Saints during this life a mixture of unbeleef with their faith of flesh with Spirit of doublenes with their simplicity 4 Whether this mixture be not evill and a sin in reference to the New as well as to the Old Covenant Why els doth the Lord Christ so oft reprove and upbraid his disciples with the feeblenes of their Faith O ye of little Faith c. because of your unbeleef Where is your Faith and such like 5 Grant unto a man the greatest sincerity of Faith holines attainable by the most spirituallized Christians in this life hath God ordeined it to be a perfect righteousnes or is it a perfect righteousnes either in it self or to Justification if so why doth the Apostle when he could profess not onely his personall obedience as a Christian but also his righteousnes and integrity as a Minister to be so far in sincerity and as in the fight of God in Christ that he knew nothing by himself wherin he could accuse himself as failing in sincerity nevertheles add Yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord 2 Cor. 1. 12. 2. 17. 1 Cor. 4. 4 This Mr. Br seeth and that his reader may not see the weaknes of his Metaphysicall materiall Righteousness he therefore Confounds it with the Formality of it Els should he give every reader to retort upon him his own words pag. 121. that he pronounceth that a perfect Righteousnes which is unrighteous hatefull and accursed being a righteousnes which in its matter is injoyned by the old Covenant hath for its rule in the matter thereof the Law of the old Covenant still No less vain also is that which he discourseth of the Formality of this personal righteousnes that it is a perfect righteousnes in respect of its perfect sufficiency in order to its end which is to be a condition of our Justification c. This end saith he it shall attain The tenor of the New Covenant is not Beleeve in the highest degree and you shall be justified but beleeve sincerely and you shall be justified So that our righteousness 1. formally considered in relation to the conditions of the New Covenant is either perfect or none To this I answer that God hath ordeined no righteousnes of ours as our Righteousnes to be a Condition of the New Covenant 2. If he had so done
us with the leaven of the Papists He saw these 2 Theses which I have examined together viz. Perfection Merits of works if they should come together one in the neck of another without any Calm betwixt them would make so terrible a sound as would be enough to waken and startle all that were but sleeping and not dead for fear the Pope or the Devill had been come to assault them Therfore to keep all quiet he interposeth this Thesis and its explication in which he pulls the ears of our Divines for saying that God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties and actions pag. 134. deinceps in the explication telling us it is a doctrine of dangerous consequence many wayes and except we will take it in his that is in the Popish sense it smells rankly of Popery setts up Justification by works from the very thought whereof he starts startles away as affrighted Notable dissimulation not of a learner but of one learned in the Trade Clodius accusat Maechos Catilina Cethegum He that affirms our Righteousness equall with the righteousnes of Christ to justification that entitles it a perfect righteousnes a meritorious righteousnes is the first man in all the world that fears of the advancing of Justification by works by them whom he hateth for oppugning it If there were that which he calls danger in this phrase or doctrine of setting up such a justification would not himself be the first man to kisse it to eat it up to promote it What is it that makes him to disrelish the phrase so extremely is it not that it inverts his order in Justification that he would have the works to justifie the man when contrariwise this doctrine makes the justification of the person to be the ground of the acceptance of his obedience Is it not the very depth of Satan from which he is moved to guise disguise himself to act Satans part with all guile and subtlety to betray the Saints of Christ and the truth of Christ to damning Popery and yet here and there to transform himself into an Angel of Light a Minister of Righteousnes to blinde the eyes of the simple that they may not espy him untill they be taken in his snare and lost for ever As for the doctrine or phrase it self he knowes our Divines mean this onely when they say God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties actioÌs viz. That God having first justified their persons from all the guilt that was upon them doth thenceforth also justifie them in refârence to all the duties which thorow Christ the Mediator they shall perform unto God not imputing to them the imperfections thereof so that they may rest Confident of Gods accepting both the performers and the performance in and through Christ the beloved In this respect and not as Conditions of the New Covenant as Mr. Br dreameth doth the Gospel teach our works to be accepted of God There is yet one link of the Popish Chain wanting without which it will be unperfect and unusefull If it were granted that there is 1 a personall righteousnes of Gods own appointment necessary to justification 2 That this righteousness consisteth in ouâ own Faith and sanctification or good works 3 That it is a perfect and 4 a Meritorious Righteousness yet all this cannot be effectâall either to save or deceive us unless it be a righteousnes also possible for us to perform Thaâ he may not be wanting therefore to the Popish Cause in any one branch of Popish doctrine he addeth this also Thesis 27 in these words pag. 141. Bax As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of Works by that power which he received by Nature so is it possible for us to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ To which he adds in the Explication pag 142 c. Bax This possibility is to be understood not in Relation to the strength of the Agent But in the Relative sense the Conditions of the New Covenant are possible to them that have the assistance of Grace So that strength which was in Adam to fullfill was a power which he received by Nature But the strength by which we perform is the power which we receive from the grace of Christ If any should have asked him what that grace of Christ is the man was very Coy he could but he would not tell whether it were a Pauline or a Pâlagian Grace a grace equally extended both to the Elect and the Reprobats or a grace peculiar to the Elect a grace that comes no further than the ear or a grace operating upon the heart also c. He had other fish to fry and had not the leizure to stay câack these nutts now He bids us to turn over many volumes and specially Parkers Theses to search if possibly we can finde what Mr. Brs judgment would be many years after in this poynt But it is easie to perceive the mans meaning by his gaping in many passages of this book We should have had all this in rank and file in his much promised Tractate of Vniversall Redemption by which as by a second famous atchievement he meant to endear himself to his holy Father but that unluckily there is one of his own spirit step into his Holinesses Parlour to present him with this gift and so anticipated this favour which Mr. Br would have had entire to himself so that now the expected advantage being lost he not using to open his Commodities to sale a day before the Fayr we might possibly for a couple of Capons obtein to know his meaning herein In the mean while it must needs be his intent in reserving to himself what he meant by grace to puâ upon us a kind of impossibility to say readily yea or nay to his asserted pâssibility of performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by a power which he leaves us uncertain of knowing what it is As for the two fold opposition which he puts in his Thesis 1. between the conditions of the Old Covenant New 2. Between the power which Adam had by nature and the power which we have by the Grace of Christ there is nothing but a windy sound of words therein to deceive his reader into an opinion that he hath some honest and sound meaning in what is here posited or said For neither doth he make any real difference between the conditions of these two Covenants but makes our own Righteousnesse consisting in faith and works to be the substance of the conditions of both Covenants onely he puts a supposed difference in the measure of them One an imaginary perfection of sincerity in doeing them answering to what the New Covenant requireth the other an absolute and gradual perfection in doing them without the least particle omitted or committed besides or against the rigorous exaction of the Old Covenant And this
other sin but final unbelief and rebellion But this finall unbelief and finall rebellion hath its belly so full of other small sins threatned in the womb of their Mother Rebellion as ever a man found of the berries in the belly of a breeding Lobster And in his Appendix pag. 23. he makes finall unbelief the genus to which he attributes but three species of which the first viz. Ordinary finall unbelief is not to bee considered as species specialissima but subalterna which being looked upon as a genus hath so many species or as a species hath so many individuals under it according to Mr. Baxters doctrine as the best Arithmetician in the world saving himselfe will not dare to yeeld up upon his casting the true summe of them to satisfie Mr. Baxters censure therein as it will appear when Mr. Baxter comes to unlace and rip abroad his Justifying Faith in its largest sense Thes 70. To these I might adde many more quaintisies of the same nature breathing out themselves from the veins of this his dispute But all the rest as those already mentioned are but tarrying irons to take up the time of men that are Malè feriati rather love to play with the buttons then to close with the body and drink in the spirit of true Christianity And what other end can Mr. Baxter have in these his chippings and mincings but to shew the delicacy of his wit Whom hath he in the substance of what he speaketh his adversary We grant and teach with him 1. That there is no sin prohibited by the Gospel or New Covenant which is not a sin against the Law and Old Covenant also 2. That finall unbelief and rebellion are sins if not unpardonable as if they exceeded the bounds of Gods grace and Christs merits to pardon them yet which have no futurition of pardon shall never be pardoned in this life or in that which is to come For so hath the Lord declared his purpose in reference to these sins 3. That both the Law and the Gospel concurre in damning such persons the Law as a Covenant of Workes properly for their refusall to submit even till death it self to the will and authority of God requiring Faith in Christ for their redemption from vengeance The Gospel improperly by withholding its shelter from the Laws sentence against them because they would never be perswaded to come under the shelter of it yea more in strengthning the hand of the Law to give them the sorer punishment for the contempt of Gods grace as well as of his Authority and Justice And thus not onely the mountains of their sinnes against the Law but also Christ the Rock shall fall upon them to their greater shivering for that they dared to dash themselves against him and would not be induced to be built against all the stroakes of vengeance upon him This is the summe of all that which Mr. Baxter here in substance saies To what purpose then are his elaborate distinctions of the differing respects and aspects senses and non-senses in which Christ hath either satisfied or not satisfied for mans sins unlesse it be Balaam-like to lay a stumbling block in the way of the simpler people of Gods Israel to occasion their fall to puzzle their judgements and consciences and to make the way of grace which is in it self as discovered by the Lord Christ easie and plaine to be unto them by his evill working therein intricate perplexed and full of snares To all sober men it sufficeth to know 1. That there is no one of their sins in whatsoever consideration it be taken but hath death and hell in the tayl of it 2. That there cannot be any other way of exemption from the death hel which every such sin of theirs meriteth by any other meanes but by the redemption which is by and in the Lord Jesus 3. That the blood of Christ hath in it a perfect efficacy to cleanse from all sin whatsoever no one excepted if it be applyed to cleanse Not the very sin against the Holy Ghost which it hath not power totally to purge out from the conscience if it were truly applyed But therefore is that sin never pardoned and purged from the soul because the Spirit of God never doth nor will apply the blood of Christ to the soul that is guilty of it nor generates Faith in such a soul to run unto and wash in the Fountain of Christs blood that it may be clean Let there be any one sin named of all the sins whereof our corrupt nature is pregnant that is so much a sin against the Gospel but that the purging or not purging away of it the absolving of the conscience from it or retaining of it upon the conscience doth not wholly depend upon the application or not application of the blood of Christ to the soul and I shall acknowledge that I have seen but the Letter and was never yet acquainted with the Spirit and drift of the Scriptures Or suppose we should take a delight to contend about that which is a meer lana caprina whether it be hair or wooll that grows upon the Goats shoulders how feeble might we manifest the reasons to be which Mr. Baxter beingeth to prove that the sins against the New Covenant are not satisfied for by the sacrifice of Christs death As 1. When the Apostle affirmeth Christ to have suffered death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament Heb. 9. 15. Doth it follow thence that he hath not redeemed from the transgressions against the New Covenant also If I say that Christ forgave to Peter or Paul or Mary Magdalen all their sins committed before conversion do I thereby as much as imply that he retains still and revengeth upon them all the sinnes they committed after they were converted Or should one of Mr. Baxters acquaintance say that whatsoever Mr. Baxter preached and wrote untill four or five years since was good and Orthodox doth it follow that all that he hath since preached and written is heretical and erroneous Nay the purpose of the Apostle here is to convince the Hebrews that sought in part for righteousnesse by the Law or Old Testament that it could not make its observers perfect For Christ dyed to redeem the transgressions of them that were under the first Covenant which he needed not to have done if all the Sacrifices under the Law could have purged them And thus the Morall Law is not here at all opposed to the Gospel that the Gospel or New Covenant doe purge the sinnes onely that were committed under and against the Morall Law because all the righteousnesse of the Morall Law could not purge them but the sacrifice of Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant is here opposed to the Leviticall sacrifices under the Legall Covenant What these could not the sacrifice of Christ hath expiated 2. Where he tels us that Christ could not satisfie for sinnes committed against the New Covenant
said we may easily perceive without any further and new summing up the particulars what the assertions are which may be truly and properly charged with Antinomism and gave first the Term of Antinomism to the Assertors Now let us see also what the Tenents of Master Baxters Antinomists are and what opinions he curseth to Hell unde the name of Antinomianism Their Heresies according to Master Baxter are these which follow 1. That Justification is or there is a Justification from Eternity pag. 93. 2. That it is an immanent act in God pa. 173. 3. That our Evangelicall righteousnesse by which we are justified is without us in Christ pa. 109. or performed by Christ and not by our selves pa. 111. 4. That Justification is a free act of God without any condition on our part pa. 169 170. 5. That God seeth not sin in his justified ones pa. 207. 6. That we must not work or perform duties for life and salvation but from life and salvation or that we must not make the attaining of justification or salvation an end of our endeavours but obey in thankfullnesse onely because we are saved and justified pa. 324 325. 330. 7. That they acknowledge no condition of life but bare beliefe in the narrowest sense that is either belief of pardon and justification and Reconciliation or affiance in Christ for it so also they acknowledg no proper damning sin but unbelief in that strict sense as is opposite to this faith i. e. the not believing in Christ as our Saviour Append pa. 20 21. 8. To these he addeth many more or rather mostly the same in other Termes out of the Marrow of Modern Divinity I mean the book so entitled which in due place we may as far as shall be thought needfull examine Appen pa. 100. to pa. 106. Lastly he seems to accuse them of all the prodigious Doctrines which Colyer Spriggs Hobson and the rest of that Anabaptistical Enthusiasticall and phanatick strain of men have if indeed they be of them that have at any time said and unsaid whether such as they have derived from Nicolas Stock David George Thomas Muncer John of Leyden Cniperdolins c. and others of the same stamp in these latter times or such as either of them hath by a kind of Necromancy raised up from the ashes of Manes Samosatenus Arrius and other cursed Hereticks of antient times All these he would willingly inure upon the Antinomians i. e. upon them that will not say the same things with him who speaks the same things with the Jesuits in the point of Justification This he doth subtlely and underhand to beguile his unwary reader Append. pa. 99. Of all these onely the fift hath been as far as ever I could finde by any considerate and judicious person nicknamed with Antinonism untill Master Baxter and some other of his fellowes in these late years have taken upon them a Soveraignty as Lords and judges from Peters Chair which they have Canonized again to baptise with new names all the Doctrines of the Gospell that crosse the pride of their selfe-righteousnesse And even the sift it self in Scripture sense as I have before shewed is a Soul-comforting truth which we must no more suffer to be wrested from us than our Christ and all our happinesse by him vizt that God seeth not sin in his justified ones to impute iâ to hate and condemn them for it Hee seeth not the guilt of any sin upon them having laid it and the condemnation to which it obliged upon Christ Jesus But that God doth not simply see sin in them either Originall or Actuall to act about it in a way of grace and truth according to his promises in Christ This I take to be a foppery the fruit of mens willfullnesse and pertinacity to have their own words and phrases stand as impregnable as Christs truth lapt up in them Let it be called Antinomism or Antigospellism or what else Master Baxter will stile it I shall not herein withstand him To me the truth and spirit of the Doctrines conteined in the word sufficeth the letter I shall no further propugn or oppugn than as through it the spirit and truth is levelled at To the first and second I have before spoken and let any man upon earth be produced that ever charged them with Antinomianism saving Master Baxter himselfe or one of his Disciples And if they be Antinomian Tenents then is Master Baxter one of those Antinomians being forced after his long and impotent cavill against as last to grant both as wee have before seen To the third I have also before answered Neither hath Master Baxter named nor can he I am confident name one man but either a Papist or at best an Arminian that before him hath either called Faith and Gospel obedience the Evangelicall Righteousnesse by which we are justified Or that hath denyed our gospell righteousnesse by which we are justified to be without us in Christ So that he pronounceth here all the orthodox of all Churches yea all professed Christians saving Papists Arminians and perhaps Socinians to be Antinomians So much of Antichristian pride and impudence possesseth him To the fourth and seventh I answer 1. That they are contradictory either to other For how can both be true that they affirm Justification to be a free Act of God without any condition on our part and yet teach also Faith or affiance in Christ to be a necessary condition of our Justification who shall take upon him to defend him that arraigneth and proveth himself to be a slanderer 2. Yet may it without contradiction be both affirmed that Justification as an act immanent and Eternall in God is absolute and without condition but as it is transient and Terminate upon the conscience of a believer not to be without condition 3. Because the Scripture never nameth Faith much lesse works the condition of Justification in time to question whether Faith itself may not more properly be termed by some other denominâtion in reference to justification than a Condition is no peece of Antinomism but a point of Christian prudence to consider and examine specially at such a time when Master Baxter and other of the Popes Factors under the word condition bestirre themselves to re-erect Justification by works 4. That Justification by that which Master Baxter abasingly calleth bare belief or affiance in Christ the Saviour i. e. by Faith without works is no Antinomian Doctrine but the Doctrine which Christ and Paul and the rest of the Apostles have preached and sealed with their blood that which all the reformed Churches have unanimâusly maintained and do maintain unto this day and that which Antichrist with his vassalls and others apostatized from the reformed Churches to them do pursue with fire and fury unto ruine With whom though Mr. Bax. come up in the rear driving Jehu like furiously in his Charriot to destroy it yet shall it stand impregnable as the prime Article of their Creed who either
every such person That these Antinomians of the former age were filthy dreamers loose livers such as turned the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ into lasciviousness is very probable if not certain from that which Calvin and others have written against Antinomians and Libertines And from such we have no less abhorrence then Mr. Baxter But while Mr. Baxter declaimeth against the innocent hee proclaimes himselfe a rank Antinomian in teaching and maintaining that the perfect obedience and righteousnesse of the Law are not required and consequentially not due under the Gospel Islebius himself never spake so derogatorily to the righteousness of the Law CHAP. XXIII Arg. Mr. Baxters distinction of Justification in Title of Law and in Sentence of Judgement examined together with other distinctions equipollent to this Whether besides the present there be also a future Justification and whether it be begun and perfected together at once I should wholly have passed over the 37 38 39 and 40 Theses with their Explications as meerly shady imaginations voyd of all reality and substance without stopping to give them one word of answer For why should wee talke of Pictures that have no life in them were it not that it is Master Baxters drift to carry us through these wayes of his own chalking wholly from Christ under a pretext of leading us to Christ the Justifier To frustrate therefore his deceit I shall speak somewhat to these passages of his Tractate also Thes 37. pag. 183. B. Iustification is either in title and the sense of Law or in sentence of judgement The first may be called Constitutive the second Declarative the first Virtual the second Actual Lawyers have layd it down for a Maxim Non est distinguendum ubi Lex non distinguit i. e. We are not to distinguish of any point in the Law where the Law it self hath not made a distinction If the Laws of men are not much lesse are the Laws and Word of God to be violated with mens bold distinctions For this is no lesse then to bring Gods sacred Oracles into a subjection to mans vain fancies Let Mr. Baxter shew any Scripture that gives footing for the distinguishing of Justification into that which is in title of Law and that which is in sentence of judgement into constitutive and declarative or virtuall and actuall Justification These are the inventions of wanton wits in these latter times whose endeavour it hath been to tear in peeces and thereby wholly nullifie Gods Justification and to put many Justifications of their own in stead thereof We deny not a constitutive and declarative Justification in some sense but in Mr. Baxters sense we deny it It is granted that the Satisfaction which the Son by promise gave and the Father accepted for the sins of the Elect according to the Covenant between the Father and the Son before more then once mentioned did constitute the Elect justified in Christ before they were born who notwithstanding were not declared just to their own consciences before they actually beleeved nor to others until they manifested their Faith by their Works But Mr. Baxter explodes this constitutive and declarative Justification as an unsufferable abhomination and will not have his virtuality and actuality to these applyed And let him alleage any one Scripture that calls the sentence of life unto those that shall bee saved by grace that is to be pronounced in the last day Justification Or if he cannot but that the justification of the New Covenant wherever it be mentioned in the Word be that which is in this present life who sees not that his distinguishing here tends to the subverting of Scriptures and of the both virtual and actual Justification which the Scriptures speak of B. The Scripture speaks of it many times as a future thing and not yet done Rom. 3. 30. Mat. 12. 37. Rom. 2. 13. Explic pag. 185. This is all that he bringeth or can bring for Justification in the day of Judgement and this all is nothing It followeth not because these Scriptures speak of Justification as of a thing to come saying they shall be not they are justified that this Future tense doth point out the day of Judgement If I should say Mr. Baxter shall dye I should not be accused for speaking an untruth but if any will needs confine that shall to the day of Judgement that Mr. Baxter shall then dye who would not laugh at the absurdity of the consequence That of Mat. 12. 37. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned and that of Rom. 2. 13. Not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified speak of Justification after the tenor and covenant of the Law not of Grace therefore pertain nothing to the present purpose Hee shall but Dare verba damnably deceive with words that teacheth men to seek for Justification by the righteousness of the Law consisting in deeds and words Whosoever indeed shall neither in word or deed be found a transgressor of the Law actually or originally shall be justified by his words and deeds But this man must be sought for out of a happier generation then those of the race of Adam else if we except Christ alone we must return our Non est inventus That of Rom. 3. 30. speaks indeed in the Future tense but may be as properly rendred by the word will as shall though the difference be not very considerable thus It is one God which will or shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through Faith The Apostle here meaneth no otherwise speaking here in the Future then what he had said before in the Present Tense of Justification And it is as if he had said God hath decreed and declared his method of justifying both Jews Gentiles to be one and the same As long as there remain or succeed any upon earth of either part to be justified the purpose of God abides firm to justifie as wel the one as the other by faith and no one of either sort by Works neither circumcision nor uncircumcision shall avail or hinder any thing but Christ faith in Christ shall bee all unto all in this businesse as long as the world endureth And what is there then in this Text to pâove Mr. Baxters declarative Justification in the day of Judgement Not that wee deny the adjudging of life in the day of Judgement to all that in this life were justified but the Scriptures terming this last sentence by the name of Justification whatsoever is said of Justification by Faith or Grace is still to be understood in this life And the whole reason that Mr. Baxter hath here to coyn a Justification in the day of judgement is to lay a foundation of Popish Justification by Works as by the sequele of this his Treatise will more fully appear Else would we not contend with him about meer words did they not tend to a destructive end and that we are taught
after many hundreds perhaps thousands of years is at length fully justified or if he be a peece of knotty timber perhaps comes not at last to bee fully justified I shall leave the Reader to view the Aphorism in Mr. Baxters book I hold it not worthy the transcribing so iâ seems doth Mr. Baxter too for reviewing his company of the whole number which are no less then tenne he retaines onely two viz. Justification in title of Law and that in sentence of judgement about which his former Thesis was occupant disbanding all the rest and so leaving the cause as raw and unconfirmed as he found it CHAP. XXIV Whether Justification be and remains to be conditional and that to beleevers during life and the justified and pardoned may be unjustified and unpardoned again Aâso whether and in what sense and respects there may be remission of sinnes before they be committed Thes 43. pag. 196. B. The Justification which we have in Christs own justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders and none can lay claim to it untill he have performed the conditions nor shall any be personally justified till then Even the Elect remain personally unjustified for all their conditional justification in Christ till they do bâleeve Thes 44. Men that are but thus conditionally pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified againe for their non-performance of the conditions and all the debt so forgiven be required at their hands And all this without any change in God or in his Laws See Ball of the Covenant page 240. Thes 45. pag. 198. Yea in case the justified by Faith should cease beleeving the Scripture would pronounce them unjust again and yet without any change in God or Scripture but onely in themselves Because their Justification doth continue conditionall as long as they live here The Scripture doth justifie no man by name but all beleevers as such Therefore if they should cease to be beleevers they would cease to be justified I joyn together these three Aphorismes partly because Mr. Baxter doth very little sever them by the interposition of very short Explications which might have been as well spared as used for any light they give to his Aphorisms But principally because they all treat upon one and the same Argument conditional Justification And here I could have desired that he had treated more Argumentatively and less Magisterially That hee had stated the questions which he here determines into Conclusions and by the best Arguments he could have assayed to prove his assertions which he doth here nakedly and peremptorily lay down only upon his own bare authority to be taken up as if it were holy and unerring He could not have wanted help to have handled these points more controversally having the Papists on the one hand and Arminians on the others suggesting matter and arguments to him it being their not Christs cause and doctrine which he bids and teacheth here to stand alone so that in case he had met with a learned adversary that had driven him out of this field he might have been sure to have been succoured with a whole brigade of these Sophisters that would either have laid in the place or recovered the field for him again But we must give leave to a man that is all wisdome sometimes for his recreation to be servant to his will And because we find him not here what we expected we must take him as he offers himself Stet pro ratione voluntas Only I think it fit to save the labour to answer Arguments when he refuseth to make it his task to bring them Bare negations of Conclusions being the best way of answering where they are peremptorily and fastuously posited without any premissed reasons from whence to draw them or following arguments to back them In matters of Faith asserted not proved Jack Straws negation being of equal validity to John Scotus his affirmation onely we shall view his words to see what shew of reason there may be found in them In the Explication of the first of these three Positions vizt the 43. He tels us This needs not explication He saw it and had acquaintance with it while it was yet but a notion in his brain therefore needs not any spectacles to clear up unto him his own formed of spring but for my part such is my dulness that whether I seek for his meaning in some part of the Position or for truth in the rest I professe my self unable to understand without an interpreter Let his words be not onely glanced over but well considered I might think there may be the like though not so great an incapacity in anothers braine as in mine The Justification saith he which we have in Christs own Justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders Let the acute wit here inform my stupidness what he meanes by the Justification which wee have in Christs own Justification What is Christs own justification or what the justification which we have in Christs own justification If we understand not what the subject of a proposition is we cannot judge at all of the truth of the proposition and do in vain enquire into the predicate We can go no further understandingly in this Thesis untill wee understand this of which all the rest speaketh Christs own justification may be understood actively or passively For the justification by which hee justifieth others or that by which God hath justified him If Mr. Baxter had meant the former I conceive he would have said plainly as he doth every where else Justification without adding to it Christs or Christs own which seems to be used to distinguish here between the justification here spoken of and the common Justification whereof he treateth throughout this Tractate If in the latter sense it may not suddenly appear how possibly we can bee justified in Christs own justification Neither can Christs own justification properly taken be possibly made our justification For all will apprehend without help by Christs own justification the justification proper to his person which none had or have in common with him Yet I conceive Mr. Baxter means here Christs passive justification Gods justifying of Christ and that these words here do relate to the words which he hath within the 4 number of the foregoing or 42 Thesis where he saith 4. His own Justification as the publick person at his resurrection which is not enough properly called Christs own because it is not the justification of Christ as personally alone but as mystically considered Taking this to be his meaning I shall first speak something of the meaning of the phrase and then examine the truth of the Position 1. For the meaning of the phrase As the first Adam sustained the office of a publick person in relation to that Commandement of not eating of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil so that if he had obeyed we had all lived and been justified in him but
opposeth it to Conditional Justification in Christ how many senses it may bear and scarce ever a good one yet in the ambiguity of the phrase a way left him to evade The 44 Thesis is ridiculous to all that desire to speak after the wisdome of God and not after the fallacies of men that are meere foolishnesse with God Men that are but thus conditionally pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified again c. ut suprà In this at last Master Baxter is not to be deprived of his due praise that he makes his foundation and building to consist of homogeneous Materialls an imaginary foundation and a phantasticall building It is as much as if he had said A fancied something made up of nothing may without the spilling of much blood or sweat be resolved into nothing again The Cat in the Fable which Venus turned into a fair Virgin because she would not leave to hunt mice was quickly reformed into a Cat again If one dream make Master Baxter a Holy Pope the next dream may unpope and unhallow him again And men that were but conditionally justified may be unjustified again and be altogether as well justified while unjustified as when conditionally justified and as fully pardoned while unpardoned as when conditionally pardoned and all the debt as fully required at their hands when it is conditionally forgiven as when it is unforgiven again And all this without any change in God or in his lawes For all these are not Gods but Master Baxters and his Arminians and Jesuits justifications and Non-Justifications pardonings and unpardonings forgiving debts and requiring them again God is unchangable His gifts and calling without Repentance Rom. 11. 29. But these are Protei and Chamelions specially when the change is from evill to worse and would feign to themselves and us a God like to themselves that should be a changeable God no God It behoved Master Baxter to have proved from Scriptures this Popish Arminian Doctrine of conditionall justifying and unjustifying c. from the word that it might appear to us that the Oracles of God and not the Sophistry of men had drawn him into this Topsie turnie tattle rather than Doctrine of justification Not doing this his breath smells of a Pope in his belly That his aim is to make the word of God to strike saile to the Sophisms of the Papists and Arminians and not these to the word For so he proceeds in the next which is the 45 Thesis in their language B. Yea in Case the justified by faith should cease believing the Scripture would pronounce them unjust again c. because their Justification doth continue conditional as long as they live here c. if they should cease to be believers they would cease to be justified If the Heavens fall we shall need no hobbies to catch larkes If Master Baxter cease to be a man he will cease to be an Impostour They are suppositions of things possible or impossible which in both these his Theses he maketh if of possibles why doth he not prove them if of impossibles what can he aim at but the deceiving of them that are made to be taken and the destroying of the peace of tender and infirme consciences Hee turnes us over in the former position to Ball of the Covenant I have it not But if there he be the same Ball with Ball of Faith there is no more agreement betweene Ball and Bax than betwixt Christ and Belial I heard indeed long since that this Master Ball seeing fashionablenesse and formality tending somewhat to the Popish Outsidenesse in Religion was the way to preferment had before his death somewhat declined But unlesse I saw grounds for such a thought I cannot entertain it so great an estimation both of his ablenesse and holinesse hath his Treatise of Faith left in me But if otherwise it is not unnaturall to a Ball to roll especially down the hill And we halt not between two opinions we have the Lord and not Baal for our God But Master Baxter cannot put upon us this bull that he should with a trick of the hand beguile us into an opinion that in this Doctrine he is a follower of Baal Nay first his popish Schoolmen and Jesuits have taught him and then Arminius and his followers have polished him so that in these two Theses he doth but speak parat-like even word for word after these his Masters as I could if there were need alleadge cut of the Authors whom he followeth Yea further the more antient Schoolmen and the most learned and Metaphysicall among the Jesuits blow off as basely derogatory from the perfection of Gods Nature the frothy positions which he here layeth down as Articles of Faith which he doth not at all apply himselfe to prove as if they were unquestionable because his quill hath dropt them He sees his Doctrine in these 2 Theses such as either hath nothing but words in it or if any thing reall such as tendeth to the advancing of the Popish and Arminian Doctrines of Universall Redemption Freewill falling from Grace c. Therefore intreats his reader in the Explication to suspend his judgement till another Tractate of his about universall Redemption come forth which in the Postscript to these Aphorisms he tels us he is not certain whether it will be ever and in his Append. pag. 164. seems to conclude that it will be never And that if I mistake not is upon Saint Justifications day according to the Baxterian account And in case it bring no better savour of Christ with it then this his Tractate better then then sooner To which time also if he had suspended the publication of this book I doubt not he might have obtained more then a conditional Justification from the guilt of such a suspension And For that which intimates the falling away of the justified saith he he speaks onely upon supposition c. but doth beleeve that the justified by Faith never do nor shall fall away ibid. Explic. A larger profession in respect to this Article of his Creed then I expected from him if it be single and hath no flaw of rottennesse and deceit in it But when we have found him calling the sentence of judgement in the last day justification by Faith as well as that which is in this life in title of Law as he terms it pag. 185. and makes the justification in this life to be meerly conditional and consequently either nul or reversible in these 44 45 Thes what can we think can be his meaning when he saith I beleeve that the justified by faith never do or shall fall away but this that they that are sentenced once to life in the day of judgement and already glorified neither doe nor shall fall away And yet for him that holds our justification to be stil but conditional untill the day of judgement it would I think be a harder task to prove that it remains not conditional after
Christ hath purchased onely and we receive onely an universal conditional Justification 3. Upon as good grounds as Mr. Baxter doth in the ensuing part of this Treatise argue from salvation or glorification to justification might I also argue from justification to salvation that if justification be universally conditionall so is salvation or glorification also that if one then both run upon these terms dum bene se gesserit if he beleeve and obey he shall be justifyed and glorifyed if not neither shall be his protion And when any is justifyed and glorifyed his perseverance in that state depends upon his freewill runs upon the same condition still so long justifyed and glorifyed as he is willing and obedient if he cease to obey he shall be unjustifyed and unglorifyed again And thus all the fruits of Christs death shall be rolled to nothing and Christ righteosunesse and glory shall be a conditionall and mutable righteousnesse and glory to day in splendor to morrow in darknesse and himself become a conditionall Saviour a conditionall King at one time compleat and sitting among his golden Candlesticks in the midst of his glorious Temple at another unchristed unkinged a head without a body and members a Saviour of nobodies a King without subjects some not at all submitting to his golden scepter the rest that have submitted revolting from him some from the kingdome of grace some from the kingdome of glory as Adam from Paradise the Angels from heaven so that he shall be left alone and his sufferings and merits lose all their fruit by means of this conditionall justification There is I confesse no weight in this Argument as to the truly Orthodox But it holds as firme to Mr. Baxter as his Arguments can hold to us about conditionall justification in Christs justification If he object that the Saints in the kingdome of glory shall be so confirmed that they shall not fall away I shall answer so are the Saints also in the kingdome of grace and are as absolutely fixed therein upon the truth love and power of God in Christ as the triumphant Saints in the kingdome of glory I doubt not to prove the one as soundly as he can prove the other I cease further to enlarge my self in Arguments to this purpose That which I have said being as I before mentioned spoken not so much to prove an absolute and to shew the vanity of a conditionall justification by Christ as to make way to that which comes after to be handled From the 45 then I passe to the 55 Thesis of Mr. Baxter because whatsoever there is in the interposed positions worthy of examination either hath been or will come to be considered in a place more convenient Only by the way we shall take a short view of what he hath in and under the 54 Thesis it runnes thus pag. 209. B. Remissian Justification and Reconciliation do but restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favour that he fell from but adoption and marriage union with Christ do advance him far higher Here Mr. Baxter gives me occasion to put up some Quaeries to him 1. Whether remission justification and reconciliation are equipollent termes signifying one and the same thing in substance or so many distinct things differing each from other as well in sense as in sound If differing things wherein doth the difference consist he answers in the explication B. The freedome from obligation to punishment is called Remission the freedome from accusation and condemnation is called Justification and the freedome from enmity and displeasure is called Reconciliation These are all at once but he saith not all one Excellently distinguished as he that divided the word malt into four parts But doth not every of these words imply all those freedomes doth not remission free as well from accusation condemnation and enmity as from obligation to punishment And doth not reconciliation free from obligation to punishment and from condemnation as well as from enmity and displeasure And doth not justification likewise do all as well as one I know no absurdity to assert that the same freedome is in divers respects but in the same sense as Amesius well expresseth called by all Ames Med. lib. 1. cap. 27. §. 22. these names As the state of sin from which we are freed is considered as a state of subjection to punishment or vengeance so this freedome is called Remission As the same state is considered as enmity against God so is it called Reconciliation As the same state is considered as a state of sin and condemnation so the same freedome from it is called Justification and this also so that justification is all these remission all and reconciliation all and neither any thing effectually if it be not all All together make up one act of God by his Gospell and may as I conceive more properly be called Gods act or acts in their active sense then concomitant consequents of one and the same act of God Besides if he take them for three differing things I would aske him whether there be any mysterie in the order wherein he placeth them Whether first we have remission of sins then justificaon from condemnation and then at last reconciliation I speak of priority and posteriority in order notin time for so he saith they are concomitants and at once If some such mystery I would be enformed whether by reconciliation he mean the reconciling of our love to God or of Gods love to us if the former how can our love as he teacheth be a condition of justification if in order it be not before but after justification if the latter then it seems Gods love is not the cause of our justification seeing it doth in order follow it but that our love to God is the cause and ground of it Or if he put these three as Synonyma's for one and the same thing why doth he then so curiously distinguish and as it were give to them their severall differencing forms as we find him to do 2 Whether he take them for the same or divers things I enquire whether they be antecedents or consequents of our union with Christ If antecedents whether it be possible for a man to be justifyed in the way of the new Covenant for of this justification Mr. Baxter speaketh being yet out of Christ or how is he then justifyed by faith charity and good works except it be by a legall faith charity and works and if legall how are these then our Gospell righteousnesse or have they Gospell righteousnesse which are not in Christ Or if consequents of our union with Christ whether then they do not presuppose our union with Christ and if so whether the justifyed in Christ are not advanced to a far higher state of freedome and honour by their being found righteous in Christ then they lost by being found sinners in Adam and whether their union with Christ be not the common foundation both of justification and
instrumentall cause also But this Mr. Baxter will answer anon and I shall wait on him to hear how satisfactory his answer is 2. Whether in his answer to the Question as he puts it when he makes a mans lease or deed of gift and a Kings pardon to have their force from the hand and seal annexed to it is it not much more implyed that the grant of the Gospell without hand and seal put to it is not a sufficient instrument to the justifying of any man For the grant of the Gospell is made to the world indefinitely but when faith as the impression of Gods hand upon the soul and the Spirit witnessing and sealing to the conscience thou art the person to whom the justification generally proposed in the Gospell doth particularly belong and so are applyed by God as true accessary evidences to the grant of the Gospell to terminate justification upon the soul of man can Mr. Baxter deny these being acts of God distinct from the word of promise to be instrumentall to justification as properly and fully as the said promise and grant 3. To his Procatarctick causes which in the Thesis he giveth viz. so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men saith he I aske 1 Whether God may be moved in his will by any thing out of himself If so whether then something out of God do not give magis minus increase and diminution to God For every change of Gods will is a change of God himself and what shall it avail any to be justifyed by a mutable God that to day will justifie to morrow unjustifie againe being apt to take impression of change from things without him yea if a God mutable then in truth no God but one of the Pagans Idols or Puppets Or how little doth his additionall cause help him to speake after the manner of mân he ought not to speak a lie for God to please men much lesse to lie against God to fashion himself to the manners of men foolish or wicked men If he say God cannot be moved by any thing out of himself how can he excuse himself from being a slanderer of the most high God by devising and asserting here 4. causes out of God moving him to justifie us having before wilfully suppressed in darknesse the riches of Gods grace within himself alsufficient without any auxiliary strength from the creature to move him How preposterous is he herein to the order of nature making the fruit to bear the tree and not the tree the fruit What lesse doth he in making Christs satisfaction and intercession the sinners supplication and desire of supply and the opportunity or advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie the causes of Gods will and gracious willings when contrariwise Gods gracious will is the cause of all these 2 Whether he jears at the invaluable means of our salvation or else that he thinks himself matching cocks for the game that he counterpoiseth the highest perfections of Christs mediatorship with mans vanity how unsufferable is it to see him putting into the one scale a precious pearl into the other a peppercorn or cherry stone To match Christs intercession with the sinners supplication To make the feeblenesse of man a collaterall and concause in the same order and degree of efficacy to justification with the vertue of Christ glorifyed It is to be acknowledged that the nothingnesse of the one is of as full validity as the omnipotency if I may so terme it of the other to beget new love new purposes new acts in Gods will This is that which God himself cannot do not because it is a work above his power but beneath his nature and perfection to work or to be capable of the working of any new impressions or changes in his will Neverthelesse this excuseth not Mr. Baxters vilifying of Christ in mating his intercession with the sinners supplication as if the former were a star of the same magnitude with the latter like that profane fellow that twisted together Religion and Cheese 3 Not to trifle away time upon every trifling word of Mr. Baxter I demand of him why seeing in the Explication pa. 215. he acknowledgeth that Procatarcticall or outwardly impulsive causes have properly no place with God he doth yet in his Thesis here fetch about again his four impulsive causes to marke them with severall names in their foreheads in Aristotles print is it not a testimony under his own hand that he will rather play and dance about God as if he were a meer may-pole then lose the ostentation of one least peece of his wit and art 4 Though I mean not to contend about the meritorious causality of Christs satisfaction because in this he hath as well many orthodox writers as Papists speaking in the same tone with him neverthelesse I should deny his assertion unlesse he he will grant me these 4. or 5. suppositions 1. That so far as justification is an act eternall and immamanent in God Christs satisfaction is not the meritorious cause of it 2. If in some other respect it be the meritorious cause that God doth therein merit from himself For the satisfaction made to him is of his own proper money himselfe paid the price in delivering his Sonne for our sinnes the body which Christ offered for us was given him by the Father to offer in our behalf 3. That this merit must in no wise hinder but that the entire benefit of justification must come to us freely without money and without price 4. That it is but unproperly termed merit even then when it respecteth the discharge which God giveth into a mans conscience it being so called metaphorically as our state in sin is considered as a state of debt which when Christ our surety hath paid for us he hath so far merited only as the payment of our debt may be said to deserve that we should receive a full acquittance from the debt In which Mr. Baxter goeth yet further that it was so paid that the Creditour might have chosen to accept it for satisfaction much more to have given us a full acquittance and discharge So that in relation to him and his principles it is lesse properly merit then to another 5. That Christs satisfaction is more properly to be called Gods foundation of this our new relation of justifyed persons upon which he hath inabled himself to justifie us in mercie without any seeming diminution of his justice and truth These things granted me I dismisse Mr. Baxter with his meriâorlous cause 5 When he cals Christs intercâssion and the sinners supplication the morall perswading cause c. I demand whether there were such a totall deficiency or so great a scarcity of morall reason in God that it needed a begetting or quickning by perswasions from without him or whether he were so flinty aâ that without strong perswasive reasons he could not be induced
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mârit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power âo our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
Covenant and that pretious Gospell promise He that beleeveth in the Son shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life so I affirm faith to be both Gods and Mans instrument Gods effective and mans receptive instrument in relation to justification as shall be beneath more fully explained First it is Gods instrument This justification is but Gods pronouncing and declaring a man to his own conscience to be just and discharged from sin and condemnation through Christ so that he perceives and apprehends himself absolved and doth acquiesce in this absolution One chief instrument by which God doth thus justifie or declare and manifest man to himself just and pardoned is faith This is Gods instrument in the same sense in which Mr. Baxter maketh the promise and grant of the new Covenant to be Gods instrument and that more fully as I in part shewed before For that grant doth but declare a possibility to a man as it is considered by it self to be justifyed promising forgivenesse and life to all that shall beleeve By this act alone no singular person is actually justifyed But now this grant premised when God is pleased to infuse faith into the soul of any singular person by it as by his instrument he declareth that person to himself just and acquitted from condemnation so that he can thenceforth plead out his own justification God hath pronounced them all just and pardoned which beleeve in his Son I so beleeve therefore I am pronounced and declared of God just and pardoned So this faith is the instrument of God for so Lawyers term Deeds and Grants in writing instruments yea instruments of him that makes the Deed or Grant And the promise of the new Covenant or the new Testament is called novum Instrumentum as it is his evidence written not without the man as that Gospell grant but by the finger of Gods Spirit in the hearts of the Elect so that they may read this instrument of Gods writing within their hearts evidencing and manifesting to themselves their justification from God And this is one principall instrument and evidence of God promised under the new Covenant Jer. 31. 31-35 recited as now fulfilled by the Apostle Heb. 8. 8-12 10. 16 17. I will write my Lawes in their hearts c. what Law but the rule doctrine and evidence of life and salvaâion But what benefit by having it written within them more then if it were in writing without them Yes this They shall not need externall teaching to know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest What knowledg of God was this whereupon they should not need teachers They shall know him to be their God their Justifyer their Saviour for so much intimate the next words For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more This was one chief part of the Law or will of God written in their hearts justification or everlasting remission of sins This they should not need to be taught from without the instrument of writing or evidence thereof should be within their own hearts apparent not to others but their own reading And what more principall evidence or instrument of writing within our hearts thus to assure us then our faith engraven by Gods own hand in us I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself whether I wrest this Scripture from its proper sense or if any shall except against me I doubt not but I shall make it good to be the minde of the holy Ghost which I have here given To the same purpose is it that Faith is called the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Whose evidence Gods evidence given us by which he declareth to us and manifesteth to our consciences the invisible things of our justification and salvation and when given then our evidence also by which we not only apprehend but also plead against all the accusations of the Law yea of sin and Satan our actuall justification And that it is called the witnesse of God in us or within us because God by this witnesse as his instrument declares and evidenceth us to our own consciences justifyed 1 Joh. 5. 10. Secondly It is mans instrument by which he applyeth to himself and without which he cannot applie to himself this justification and remission of the new Covenant to know and be sensible of it that he may rest and rejoyce in it being justifyed in himself i. e. in his own knowledge and conscience God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5. 19. Reconciliation and Justification as hath been shâwed are one and the same thing That we may receive it therefore from him in Christ he gives us as many as are his Elect this living faith as an instrument by which he may apply it and bring it home into our bosomes Therefore is the operation of the soul by faith set forth in the Scripture by a comparison of a mans working by the severall members of the body as by his instruments Calling Faith sometimes the eâe of man by which he looketh to Christ crucifyed as the Israelites to the brazen Serpent thence to obtain cure to the wounded and poysoned soul Joh. 3. 14 15. Sometimes the fooâ of the soul by which it runs and comes to Christ for life and justification Joh. 5. 40. Sometimes the hand of the soul by which it apprehendeth Christ and the justification that is in and by him To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to as many as beleeve in his Name Joh. 1. 12. Sometimes the mouth of the soul by which it eateth and drinketh in Christ with the life that is in him both to justifie and sanctifie He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2. 3. Sometimes the armes of the soul by which it embraceth and holdeth in possession Christ with his life and righteousnesse He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Sân hath not life 1 Joh. 5. 12. What doth all this imply lesse then that faith is instrumentall to our justification Yea given to us to be the sole instrument on our part by which to apply to our selves the justification offered by God in Christ Or what else is meant by the generall voice of the Gospell pronouncing us to be justifyed by faith but by faith Gods instrument and evidence to declare and manifest it to our souls and our instrument to apprehend and hold it fast and firm to our selves It remaineth now to examin Mr. Baxters reasons by which he assayeth to prove that it is neither mans nor Gods instrument First that it is not mans instrument he thus argueth B. Not mans instrument for he is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself Both this and all that which followeth in this his dispute
himself Sol. We make not man a stone nor degrade him into a dead block we grant of him that actus agit He hath not lost his free-will but all possibility of being saved by it all the spiritualnesse of it that without a new reparation of it it can will nothing in matters of salvation concurrent and conforming with the will of God But all mans actings of his faith when he is so renewed and moved by the prime cause is but to the receiving and application of his justification evidencâd to him As it is Gods instrument and acted by God so it is Gods evidence to manifest to him his justification It is Mr. Baxtâr and his fellowes that by their doctrine make mân self-justifyers Teaching that Gods justification is conditionall and the alone instrument of God therein viz. the Gospell holds forth the same universally to all no lesse effâctually to them that reject it then to them that embrace it But that it is a mans faith and obedience begun and continued in untill the day of judgment that makes this justification to be the justification of each singular person that is to be justifyed and so Gods instrument of justification justifyeth but conditionally i. e. no one singular man actually and absolutely It 's man that by his faith and works makes Gods universall justification to be his proper justification and Gods conditionall justification to be his actually and absolutely It is God that justifyeth all with a common and conditionall justification but it is every mans task to make and his own act when he hath made this justification to be really and undoubtedly his Therefore he doth but gaze here to finde a moate in his brothers eies fastening the beam in his own B. 3. For as Aquinas the action of the Principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dare say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification I couple these two together because they are as twins that shew no malignity in their faces but are by Mr. Baxter made to carry fire in their tails Who dares to say and who dare say What if we should say it must we expect a broken head from the Challenger Is it but a word and a blow with him Or doth he affright us with Gods judgments from saying it is it his meaning who hath so little fear or conscience towards God as to offend him and derogate from his glory in saying it O that there had been but a moytie of the reverence and conscience toward God to annihilate man and advance the glory of Gods grace in Mr. Baxter which aboundeth in many of those whom he here opposeth he then surely would have cast this pernicious pamphlet of his into hell-fire if it had been possible rather then published it to the nulling of Gods and deifying of mans righteousnesse But to the matter we dare and that in the fear and presence of God to aver 1. That the declaration of a man to his own conscience and evidencing to his soul that he is justifyed in Christ to be the one and same action of God the principall cause and of faith the instrument The declaration and manifestation of justification to the soul is here the action God as the principall cause doth it by faith his evidence and instrument faith as the instrument and evidence doth it from God as the principall cause in manner before expressed God healed Naaman of his Leprosie by the water of Jordan as his instrument did many wonders in Egypt and in the Sea and in the wildernesse by Moses his Rod as his instrument subverted the wals and Towers of Jericho by the instrumentall subserviency of mens voices and the sound or winde of Rams horns and Trumpets Christ gave sight to the blind man by a plaister of clay applyed to his eyes Will he not acknowledg all these wonders to be the actions both of God the principall cause and of these so feeble instruments also The despicablenesse of the instruments and means do not spoyl God of but visibly attribute unto God the whole glory of his grace and power which in the use of more noble instruments would not appear so sensibly unto some apprehensions much more is the same action the action both of God and faith his instrument and this without all seeming ground of contradiction when we attribute not to faith any instrumentality under God to the working or effecting but only to the declaring and evidencing to man his justification before effected and compleated in God and in Christ And 2. That faith as Gods instrument hath influx in its kinde to produce this effect the evidencing of mans justification to himself by a proper causality I mean not Mr. Baxter I thinke means not by a causality that is naturally its own and proper to it but by a proper causality which God hath given it in appointing and using it as his instrument to produce the effect Will deny any this to be true of the forementioned instruments He that made them his instruments begat in them a causality and power instrumentally by and under him to produce those effects Indeed to Mr. Baxter in respect of his principles that denies Justification as an immanent act in God constituting and accepting us righteous and will have this to be done only by a temporaneous and transient act of God by the grace of the new Covenant these assertions must seem to have some monstrosity upon their faces that faith should be so the instrument of God in justifying or making us just Yet such as he can easily swallow because on the other side his justification is but an universall conditionall justification i. e. a justification in a possibility or impossibility but not at all in being and that faith should be termed the conditionall instrument of God in producing a conditionall justification I see not why it should set the man in a chafe he puts the dare to it therefore I suppose to make it too hot for the swallowing of weak and fearfull Christians To them that know whosoever are justifyed in themselves that is declared to be such within their own consciences the same were justifyed in God in Christ from all eternity so that faiât is Gods instrument only to evidence them to themselves and in themselves justifyed not to justifie them in Gods mind and will for there they are justifyed without instruments there is nothing formidable nor rough in these assertions The objection which he addes by which he pretends we seek to evade we own not neither have we need in the defence of truth to seek evasions Let him name some one of his some that have so objected a passive instrument of justification or else leave us to conclude that the objection is of his own head partly to take advantage thereby yet
or conditionall offer thereof to us Nor any thing to the justified and actually declared just in themselves Justification is no longer in a conditionall offer to them but in its absolute being within them Whatsoever therefore he addeth there pag. 43 44. is wide from the question being not limited to the Justification of the New Covenant which is the subject of his Treatise which here he shunneth and talketh extravagantly about sanctification because he cannot confute the absolute justification but that it doth and will stand and standing will not admit a conditional justification to stand with it and by it in its beeing though the offer thereof before it is in beeing be conditionall And this is all which at length he concludeth pag. 45. of the conditionall Covenant of Grace which without all this circuition would have been granted him viz. that it is propounded and offered to mankinde conditionally if they will beleeve and without this faith none hath or shall have the benefit and comfort thereof to themselves and in themselves because all these that do not or shall not being in a capacity to beleeve are reprobates and as many as are elect shall come to Christ and beleeve in him as hath been before shewed What he addeth for the application may have some pertinency to the matter there objected but it hath none to the thing here in question Therefore I passe it by as not concerning us 2. To his Causa sine qua non briefly thus 1 In so tearming Faith he denyes faith to be any cause at all of our Justification for that is but Causa âquivoca or nomine tenus or titulo tenus hath but the name not the nature of a cause hath no causality upon gives no influx into the effect 2 Neither whatsoever it be is Faith the Causa sine qua non of Justification in that sense as Mr. Baxter taketh and defineth it either in his stricter or larger definition except he will say that no Infants are justified who do not cannot accept Christ much lesse so beleeve as in his larger definition he sets forth faith 3 Faith is not the Causa sine qua non of our justification in God no nor yet in Christs Justification as he tearms it for these are antecedaneous to our faith and our faith not an antecedent to it 4 At the utmost it can be but the Causa sine qua non of Gods declaring and evidencing of our selves to our selves justified and this justification Mr. Baxter so disdaineth and snuffs at that he will not own it much lesse mention it Yet can he not with all his Sophistry name any other act of justification in this life whereof faith can be proved to be the Antecedent Medium or Causa sine qua non 5 Why doth he call faith and all the conqualifications wherewith he loadeth the shoulders thereof and all the works which he makes its Concomitants the Causa sine qua non as if all these with their Colaterall in the other scale of his ballance Christs satisfaction did make up the one and sole Causa sine qua non of our justification can none else be named Besides other the weaknesse and infirmity of the Law to justifie as it removes the impediment of justifiablenesse in Gods Court of strict Justice For had there been a Law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law Gal. 3. 21. and sin which removes the same impediment might more properly and socially then Christs satisfaction have been placed on horseback in the same saddle of Causa sine qua non had not Mr. Baxter thought Christ would blesse but these would have defiled this golden saddle of his own either making or appropriating to this use and so bespattered and undressed the righteousnesse of his Qualifications and good works that they would never more become fit to ride on horsback in procession with the Holy Wafer Thus his condition and Causa sine qua non must be new modelled ere they will be Canonicall But see we here the mans wit which never fails him at a dead lift What he cannot act by power he seeks to compasse by a stratagem Because he cannot cover the nakednesse of his assertion he labors to make bare ours and cast filth in it that having diverted the eyes of his Reader thither he may forget the vanity of his Condition or Causa sine qua non And thus he doth it B. Here by the way take notice that the samemen thus blame the advancing of Faith so high as to be our true Gospel Righteousnesse Posit 17 20. and to be imputed in a proper sense Posit 23. do yet when it comes to tryall ascribe far more the faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying In examining all these quoted Theses I have shewed both who they are which blame him or at least his doctrine which was born before ever he commenced such a Doctor viz. All the Orthodox Protestant Divines and Christians and withall for what they blame it viz. as it is Papism Socinianism and at the best Arminianism 3. To which I have also made out their just grounds of blaming it as may be there seen yet to cheat his Reader he cals these those very men as if there were some few contemptible Antinomians lately sprung up when himself knows them to be all the Churches of Christ which since the Reformation have been called Protestants But of what blasphemy or evill fact doth he accuse them That they ascribe more to Faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying Yea but we have seen or thought we had seen at least just grounds for their so doing how doth Mr. Baxter aggravate it to make it odious B. 1. And so to have part of the honour of Gods own Act. Fie upon the Hugonets and Lutherans if this be true who then will not run from them at Mr. Baxters heels to Rome But the Scriptures make Balaams Aâse Gods instrument to rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet Namb. 22. 28 30. 2 Pet. 2. 15 16. The Raven his Instrument to feed Elijah 1 King 17. 6. The brazen Serpent his instrument of healing the Israelites bitten with firie Serpents Joh. 3. 14. Numb 21. 9. The Assyrians his instruments of chastising and reforming his people Isa 10. 5. c. and the very Devil his instrument of trying Job Job 1. 12. and of executing his pleasure upon Ahab 2 King 22. 21 22. Shall we now fall foul with the Scriptures and accuse them that they ascribe part of the honour of Gods own acts to the Asse the Raven the Serpent the Assyrians the Devil by affirming these to be the instruments by which God acted Doth not the seeblenesse of the means and instruments speak out the whole honour of the action to pertain to the Lord Was it to honour his slaves and abase his freemen and subjects the Lords Israel that Solomon made the former
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâpists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
expresse phrase of Scripture 3. From the nature of the thing For the effect is ascribed to the severall causes though not alike and in some sort to the conditions especially me thinks they that would have faith to be the instrument of justification should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as by an instrument For it is as proper a speech to say our hands or our teeth feed us as to say our meat feedeth us I shall not have need to speak much to this passage because Mr. Baxter hath before said and I have answered to the greatest part of it in examining his 23. Thes with the explication thereof Here as there I shall defend against him that it is not faith as it is righteousnesse but Christs righteousnesse by which we are said to be justifyed The first reason which he brings to evince the contradictory and contrary conclusion hath been there examined and I will not here actum agere To the second 1. He should have quoted that Apocryphal Scripture which saith He that beleeveth shall be justifyed as if he were not already justifyed I finde it not in the Canonicall 2. Those Scriptures which say we are justifyed by faith say not that we are justifyed by it as it is our righteousnesse or any part of our justifying righteousnesse and those that say it is imputed to us as Mr. Baxter will have it for righteousnesse have been sufficiently spoken to under Thesis 23. And by the way Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the originall text may be more properly rendred unto or to righteousnesse then for righteousnesse and that the old translation and most of our Protestant Divines so render it neither have I met with any one that declares his dislike of that version And from the text so read what Mr. Baxter can suck out to stablish the righteousnesse of faith not as the same but as a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction to justification I understand not 3. To his Only only and only I answer 1 That it is not the first time that Mr. Baxter hath taken the boldnesse to teach the holy Ghost to speak properly and fully 2 When the holy Ghost saith That the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. that whosoever is washed therein needs no other washing Joh. 13. 10. that he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Joh. 1. 29. that by his one offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctifyed by taking away their sins and iniquities Heb. 10. 14 17. That he is made of God righteousnesse to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. that he was made sin for us that we might become the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. That he is all in all Col. 3. 11. Will Mr. Baxter elude all these and a whole century more of the like Scriptures with this evasion yea Christ hath done and is all this in part to us leaving the other part of righteousnesse not perfected by him to be supplyed by faith his collaterall to our justification Or when it is said There is salvation in no other nor any name else given us under heaven by which we may be saved besides Christ Act. 4. 12. and the Apostle professeth it his whole labour to be found in Christ not having his own righteousnesse which is of the Law but the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith so making Christ put on for righteousnesse the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith not severall kinds of righteousnesse but one and the same righteousnesse which he opposeth there to his own inherent righteousnesse which he excludeth are not these speeches equipollent to that which Mr. Baxter requireth the Christ only or the righteousnesse of Christ only It is but a flourish wherewith he concludes this argument about the constant expresse phrase of Scripture For let him either produce one Scripture that affirmeth faith by any inherent righteousnesse in it self or of her own conveyed into us to contribute somewhat to our Justification or else confesse his errour to be derived from the scriblings of Bellarmine Socixus Grotius and Arminius where this Doctrine is to be found and not from the Scriptures of Gods inspiration that are wholly against it To his third reason I can say nothing because I understand nothing of his meaning therein or if I doe understand it nothing needs to be said because it hath nothing for himself or against us But to that which he addes of his thinking 1. Let him say whether by them that he saith would have faith to be the instrument c. he doth not mean all the Protestant Churches both Lutherans and Zuinglians or Calvinists as they are by some distinguished whether the best that have opposed them herein have not been the Arminians and from what Rome or Hell these first drank in their opinion he is not ignorant having fished in the same pools after them 2. When he thinks these should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as an instrument I answer 1 If they will not deny it will Mr. Baxter with them confesse it 2 The word properly is vox aequivoca a phrase may be said to be proper as it is enough fit and proportioned to declare the meaning of the speaker and in this sense we deny not that faith as an instrument subservient to the principall efficient doth so properly as an instrument can justifie us in our selves or to our own consciences Again it may be said to be proper in opposition to a tropicall way of speaking and in this sense we cannot say that faith doth so properly justifie specially in that extent wherein Mr. Baxter and his Masters will have it to justifie without a trope in the phrase of speaking which I would shew if it were pertinent to the question I shall spare to transcribe at large his next section which he puts under n. 4. of his Explication Because if he meant singly and precisely as he speaks all might be granted in a positive sense without prejudice to our cause or advantage to his viz. that faith doth directly and properly justifie in and to themselves those that were before justifyed in Christ as it is in a good sense the condition of the new Covenant and a means or instrument of Gods stamping by his commandement and promise to the attainment of this justification For this denyeth not that truth which before he kicked at that faith doth so justifie also in regard of that usefull and essentiall property which it hath above all other gifts of grace to be instrumentall to apprehend Christ for righteousnesse Nay even for this cause hath God either ordained and commanded faith to this end because it hath this property or because he hath ordained and given to it this property therefore he not only requireth but
his sophistry hath bin occupant In these two Positions viz and 57 58. Mr. Baxters aym is at two assertions of the Protestants to smite them through viz. the instrumentality of Faith and the vertue which it deriveth from Christs it object to justifie and to set up his ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Credere or act of beleeving under the name of a condition of the New Covenant without any respect of instrumentality that it hath to apprehend Christ or any vertue that it receives from Christ apprehended to justifie This he doth in the last words of the 57. Thesis telling us that faith can be said only in a remote and improper sense as it receiveth Christ to justifie where by receiving he shaketh and shifts off the instrumentality of faith and by Christ the vertue of faiths object into a remote and darke corner as not working at all or very obscurely in our justification But his act of beleeving he exalteth as the proper and formall reason of faiths justifying This he illustrateth in the Explication pa. 230. Suppose Christ had put some other condition of the new Covenant as Love Patience Temperance Mercy c. that could not be instruments of receiving Christ nor have Christ their object to draw vertue from him should not either of these notwithstanding though neither instruments nor in a capacity to have Christ their object from which to have drawn vertue by their own act have justifyed So faith being the condition of the new Covenant doth by its act justifie So argued he under Thes 57. But doubting of the validity of his reasons there either to weaken ours or to stablish his own assertion he addes this Thesis more fully to confirm what he had there endevoured The ground of this is saith he because and because as is before expressed I answer there is no sufficient ground laid for the confuting of ours or the strengthning of his tenent For be it that Christs righteousnesse be ours by divine donation or imputation how doth he build his opinion upon this ground that the act of faith as being the condition c. doth properly justifie He must shew his meaning in words at length and not in figures before he shall win us to build with him straw and stubble upon the ground that is good and fitted to bear a good structure But very remarkably doth he here dispute in opposing Gods donation or giving or our beleeving or receiving of Christs righteousnesse as if they could not both consist together in justifying us at least properly Then it seems we are properly justifyed by the donation of Christ without his ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã credere or act of faith Yea then are we properly and formally justifyed in Christ before we yet beleeved For he will not denie that Gods donation of Christ at least in his sense is before our receiving him And thus with one breath he will throw down all that before with so much labour he hath built But let us see how from this ground he batters our assertions and what force there is in his battery If we look to the Prothesis of his Thesis alone the argument in substance runs to this Tenour Faith doth not justifie us either as an instrument or by vertue of Christ or Christs righteousnesse its object because it doth not justifie us as an instrument or by vertue of its object Who can shake his buildings that founds them on such firme ground That this is the force of his reasoning is evident to them that observe him that by the word receiving he excludes the instrumentality and by Christ excludes the object of faith from any proper acting to justifie us as I said before But we will annex the Antithesis to his Prothesis and so fill up his Thesis and then see what strength there is in the whole to his advantage or our disadvantage What he must prove in his and refute on our part hath been already declared Only in the forecited Prothesis he begs the conclusion that he should have proved Therefore we must lay his whole argument from the donation or imputation alone yet will we put his Argument fully thus If Christs righteousnesse doth not properly justifie us because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by Gods imputation or donation then faith doth not justifie as an instrument or by vertue of Christ its object but as it is an act containing the condition of the Covenant But the former is true therefore the latter also I deny the assumption as to the former member thereof the beleeving and receiving c. And Mr. Baxter brings not so much as a gry to prove it And as to the latter member Gods donation c. I deny the consequent of the Major Though Christs righteousnesse justifie us properly because it is ours in Law by Gods donation or imputation yet it followes not that either faith as an act or condition doth so of it self justifie or that it doth not justifie as an instrument and by vertue of its object or as some say its correlate or as others by the communion that it puts us into with Christ this I prove thus not from terms of art but from the authority and testimonies of the most high God 1. From the relation between the brazen Serpent the Type and Christ Jesus the Antitype Joh. 3. 14. The brazen Serpent was of Gods donation to Israel so also was the Soveraigne power that was infused into it to heal but the eyes of the wounded Israelites must be directed unto and fixed upon the Serpent for cure and then vertue issued from it to heal So was the son of man lifted up with vertue in him to heal Christ with this vertue is of Gods donation yet this donation hinders not but that our faith as an instrument must be directed to and fixed upon him alone for justification and so that justifying vertue or righteousnesse in him comes from him upon us to justification It is no more the act of faith that of it self because a condition if indeed a condition doth it then the act of the eye cured the wounded without vertue drawn by it from its object 2. From the cure of the woman which had the bloudy issue Marke 5. 25. it will not be denyed that the vertue by which she was healed was of divine donation yet it was brought home to her not by the instrumentall service of her hand touching Christs garment for the multitude touched his garments and thronged him yet had no benefit by it verse 31. But her faith apprehending Christ himself so said the Lord Thy faith hath made thee whole verse 34. yet not the act of faith as a condition but faith as an instrument by which the poor woman drew vertue from Christ its object Jesus perceived that vertue had gone out of him verse 34. So it was not the vertue of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or act of beleeving but of Christ beleeved
on which wrought the cure such are the operations of Christ and faith in the cure of the soul as here in the cure of the body 3. From 1 Gâr 30. 31. Christ is of God made unto us Righteousnesse viz. to Justification That he which glorieth may glory in the Lord. God hath made him righteousnesse but how to us or our righteousnesse that it may be of his donation to us Mr. Baxter must answer by faith else farewell his condition but if by the act of faith as our righteousnesse in fulfilling âhe condition or otherwise then an instrument to apprehend the righteousnesse of Christ to justification then have we somewhat of our own righteousnesse wherein to glory all would not be the Lords that we might glory in him alone 4. To this I might add also the phrase which the Apostle useth that we are justifyed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by faith through faith as an instrument and never ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for our faith or upon our faith as for a cause or upon a condition fulfilled as some of our Divines have well observed I proceed to the next position B. Thesis 59. Justification is not a Momentaneous act begun and ended immediately upon our beleeving but a continued act which though it be in its kind compleat from the first ' yet it is still in doing till the finall justification in the judgment day All this together with most of the Explication may be granted as being capable of an Orthodox sense 1. That justification as an act immanent in God is such as is here described is confessed But Mr. Baxter is deaf in this ear 2. That our justification in Christ is such in some sense we also grant but neither will he listen to this 3. Therefore if he would take off all ambiguity of his words and declare his sense to be the same with the sound we would grant to him also that such is our personall justification in our selves which he owneth only for justification For as it is an act of God it is never interrupted or dissolved till the day of judgement though as it is taken Passively there may be many interruptions of our sense and apprehension of it But his Thesis is faced like Janus lookes two wayes at once is set forth in such words as will more properly admit of an evill then a good sense And that he speaks them after the Remonstrant not the Protestant dialect is too probable though not infallibly evident from these reasons to be meant in an evill sense 1. Because he delivers it in the Arminian phrase For so his St. Episcopius Justificatio est actus continuus qui est Episcop Disp 22. Thes 12. de Justif durat quamdiu durat ipsius conditionis requisitae praesentia interrumpitur vero semper toties quoties actus praestantur ejusmâdi qui cum vera fide conscientia bona consistere nequeunt i. e. Justification is a continued act which is and dureth as long as the presence of its requisite condition continueth but is interrupted so often as such acts are done which cannot consist with true faith and a good conscience To the continuance of justification Mr. Baxter here speaketh the same thing with him and though as to the interruption of it he speaks here as out of a cloud yet compare with this his 45. Thesis and you will have the whole of Episcopius from the pen of Mr. Baxter 2. Because his words do seem here to suppose a Magis minus in its active acceptation or sense It is not begun and ended immediately saith he but is still in doing in a way of perfecting untill the judgment day 3. His restriction added to the compleatnesse or perfection thereof at the first It is compleat at first saith he but in its kind which restriction makes the compleatnesse of justification incompleat and its perfection imperfect till the day of judgment as himselfe hath expressed himselfe before Thesis 41. These things from the position it self From the explication will follow 4. The heartlesse and comfortlesse proof that he brings to prove the continuance of this justifying act making it to reach only to the Genera singulorum not to the singula generum to such a kinde of men not to any singular man or individuall person upon earth to Beleevers but not to this or that beleever So that the holiest Saint if at any time his faith in some temptation faint and cannot be brought to sensible acting is left destitute of all comfort from the Gospell or new Covenant after Mr. Baxters principles It justifieth onely so long as faith actually receiveth Christ if faith through infirmity cease to act he gives the distressed soul no comfort that God continueth to justifie 5. From the first use of instruction which he draweth from this position This sheweth us saith he in the first place with what limitation to receive the assertion of our Divines that remission and justification are simul and semel performed his meaning is that we must understand them in this assertion to deal as Mr. Baxter is wont viz. to say one thing and mean another Not to think as they speak but to equivocate and retaine a mentall reservation within themselves That our justification is begun and perfected both at once and together but all this is but suo genere in its kinde that is conditionally even as the Usurer frankly and freely forgave to his debtor all that he owed him but with this limitation that if he were not paid the whole debt to day he would cast him in prison to morrow there to lie untill he should pay the whole forfeiture But because Mr. Baxter is disposed here to lisp and not to speak alowd and plain his minde we shall leave him to his humour and proceed to hearken to him where he speaketh plainly and without parables Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITULED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hantshire LONDON Printed by E. C. 1654. Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART CHAP. I. The following Doctrine of Mr. Baxters Book reduced to some few heads and the question between him and the Protestants about Justification by works stated HItherto we have been busied about the view of Mr. Baxters swelling which the more and the farther we gazed on the more it increased and after a long expectation of an issue at length the imposthumated matter breaks out in the sight of all men to the offence of all spiritualized men Justification by workes This is the declared and professed Subject of all the following part of this
what Scriptures our Divines bring to prove justification to be only by faith and to deny all cooperation of works therein And herein I shall put limits to my self not letting out all that they produce for so should I offend with immoderate length but some particulars that the weakest reader may see what Mr. Baxter would not give him to see that our Churches are not destitute of strong grounds for the bearing up of their faith and assertions And when this is done I shall descend to examine the force of those Scriptures quoted by Mr. Baxter to see whether they make for him and against us I shall begin from the reasoning of the Apostle Rom. 3. 20. c. having before proved both the Jews by and under the Law and the Gentiles without the Law to be guilty before God he concludes Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justifyed c. and ver 21. The righteousnesse of God viz. to justification is manifested without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets to wit a righteousnesse which the Law is ignorant of the righteousnesse or life which is by faith From this righteousnesse the tenour of the Law or legall Covenant turns aside telling us he that doeth them shall live in them Gal. 3. 11 12. ver 22. Even the righteousnesse of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve Lo here it is denyed to be by the most righteous works which the most perfect Law of God himself prescribeth and attained by faith only ver 24. Being justifyed freely by his grace through the redemption which is by Jesus Christ what can be said more fully It shall not be impertinent to annote briefly out of Zanchy what he hath upon Hier. zanch De natura Dei Lib. 4. Cap. 2. Th. 2. this verse more largly when the Apostle saith we are justifyed by his grace Per Gratiam intelligit gratuitum Dei favorem omnibus nostris exclusis sive naturalibus sive supernaturalibus dignitatibus saith he i. e. by Grace the Apostle meaneth the free love or favour of God excluding all parts and pieces of our worth both naturall and supernaturall and addeth that the Apostle still opposeth grace to all our works and to all our inward vertues wrought in us by the holy Ghost himself as well as to our legall and morall righteousnesse yea to faith it selfe as it is a work as is manifest to every one that hath with any consideration read this Epistle Therefore saith he he excludeth all works that he may conclude our Justification to be by grace alone Yea more the Apostle saith he not contented to say we are justifyed by grace addeth thereto ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his grace that is by the grace which is in God not by any gift of grace infused by him into ourselves that it might be wholly of God and not of our selves at all in the least part Yea not contented with all this he addeth freely to notifie that there is not required any work or qualification on our part to put us into the possession thereof for so it should not be wholly by the free and naked favour of God as he tearms it And lastly he addeth by the redemption which is by Jesus Christ by this work of Christ excluding all ours hitherto that profound Zanchius Neither cannot it be freely by the redemption of Christ if our qualifications and conditions be brought to interesse us to it for so should we be in some kinde purchasers and not receive it freely The Apostle proceeds ver 25. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins c. The whole thing of Gods ordination to make the redemption propitiation and remission of sinnes which is by Christ actually ours to our comfort is here assigned to be saith in his blood and not any foregoing concomitant or subsequent vertue or duty of ours annexed to it and all to declare his righteousnesse Ver. 26. His righteousnesse he saith again that he may be just and the justifyer of him that beleeveth in Jesus If Mr. Baxters fancy stand of the Legall righteousnesse in Christ and the Evangelicall righteousnesse in us the Apostles assignation of the end of Gods justifying us by Christ should be maimed For he should have said To declare to declare I say his righteousnesse and our righteousnesse that he might be just and a justifyer and we might be just and justifyers of our selves And then we are to expunge the next verse Where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith For boasting should not be at all excluded if our works should bear a part with faith in justifying so should we have matter of glorying in our selves still How full is the Apostle here in the confirmation of Justification by faith without works had he seen what the Papists and Mr. Baxter over their shoulders would have objected against it he could not have spoken more punctually Yet as I know what the Papists say for themselves so I am not ignorant what Mr. Baxter will except for himself But I reserve the Examination thereof for another place where he goeth about to purge his doctrine from all contrariety that it hath to the doctrine of the Apostle and from any derogation from the Grace of God A second Testimonie or authority from Scripture we may draw from Rom. 4. 1 c. I shall be short in it The Apostle here denies 1 Our father Abraham the father of the faithfull himself to have been justifyed by works for then he should have whereof to glory ver 2 3. But as Abraham was so all the faithfull are justifyed by faith without works or to render the words of the Text By faith and not by works Here Mr. Baxter hath no evasion as in the former Chapter viz. that the works of the Law only are denyed for Abraham was under the promise not under the Law nether was the Law then given and the promise under which he was was without all condition of works so that the Apostle here excludeth works indefinitely I mean not good and evill works for no man ever brought evill works as evill to be thereby justifyed But good works whether Legall or Evangelicall all acts and deeds both of naturall and infused righteousnesse and holinesse 2 In affirming of him that worketh i. e. that seeketh justification by works that the reward is reckoned of debt to him that he requires it as due and shall not receive it if it be not found due in Justice but to him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is imputed to righteousnesse i. e. as hath been already evinced Christ by faith apprehended is of the free grace of God made righteousnesse to him When Mr. Baxter therefore claps his bundle of works upon
the shoulders of faith to officiate with it to justification he teacheth us to reject the grace of God and to exact at Gods hands both the righteousnesse of Christ and the end of it our salvation as a debt and due in justice The Apostle puts no medium here either between faith and works or between grace and debt where workes peep up with faith to justifie in any degree faith is destroyed grace rejected works alone stand pleading for justification and salvation at the barre of Gods justice from thence alone God heareth the plea of works in vain is it to plead them at the throne of grace there nothing else but the plea of faith in Christ is heard and excepted ver 4 5. 3 In describing the righteousnesse of justification to be a righteousnesse without works a blessednesse consisting in the covering forgiving and not imputing of sin ver 6 7 8. so that to obtrude works with faith into the office of justifying is to subvert Gods justification and erect our own i. e. our own condemnation 4. Ver. 16. From all his precedent reasoning the Apostle concludeth Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace and left this should be taken for a justification peculiar to Abraham and not common to all beleevers he addeth that the promise might be sure to all the seed c. which is of the faith of Abraham as before he had said that he might be the father of all them that beleeve that righteousnesse might be imputed to them also even to them which walke in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham ver 11 12. And again afterwards ver 23. It was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we beleeve in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead ver 24. In all which places though faith and beleeving alone are named yet are they named in opposition to and with an exclusion of works as the attentive reader of that chapter will easily perceive Not to fill up the paper with any other series or body of disputation which the Scriptures plentifully afford for the confirmation of our doctrine I shall only annex some scattered testimonies thereof compleatly proving the same The whole stream of the Gospell runs this way We that are Jewes by nature in covenant with God and not sinners of the Gentiles Knowing that a man is not justifyed by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have beleeved in Jesus Christ that we might be justifyed by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law c. Gal. 2. 15 16. By the position of faith works are here deposed By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Ephes 2. 8 9. Not of works but of him that calleth Rom. 9. 11. Not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Rom. 9. 16. Not by works of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy Tit. 3. 5. This is the work of God that which is in stead of all works and effectual to justification without all works to beleeve in him whom he hath sent Joh. 6. 29. They which are of faith are the children of Abraham and blessed with our father Abraham for as many as are of the works of the Law are cursed Gal. 3. 7 9 10. Beleeve in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved Act. 16. 31. Not by the Law of works for it is written The just shall live by faith Gal. 3. 11. If by grace then it is no more of works else grace should be no more grace if of works then it is no more grace else should work be no more work Rom. 11. 6. Hence is the opposition which the holy Ghost every where maketh between Gods righteousnesse and our righteousnesse Rom. 10. 3. The righteousnesse of faith and the righteousnesse of works Rom. 9. 30 31 32. Phil. 3. 9 10. and the consenting harmony of Scriptures that so oppose Law and Gospell faith and works Gods grace and mans righteousnesse Moses and Christ the righteousnesse which is by promise and that which consists in doing Gods imputation and our qualifications so that if the one be admitted the other must be excluded from justification Unto which if I should add all of the the rest Testimonies and examples of Scripture together with the Arguments which our Divines bring thence I should to use Mr. Baxters phrase be necessitated to transcribe almost all the Scripture that relateth to the New Covenant The conclusion therefore of our Divines is not only that works have not but also that they connot have any place in or to our Justification because righteousnesse and life are meerly and wholly by promise even by the free and absolute promise made to Abraham which was without all conditions annexed Gal. 3. 8 16 17. 18. therefore without works freely conferred on the children of the promise That they are by inheritance therefore descend freely upon them that are sons by saith Gal. 3. 18. Heb. 9. 15. Rom. 4. 13 114 16. and not attained by works That in respect of the righteousnesse of works Paul knew nothing by himselfe wherein he was not perfectly sincere and sincerely perfect yet deems not himself to be thereby justifyed for the Lord is his judge and justifyer whose justifications are free 1 Cor. 4. 4. That if justification were in any part by works then had man somewhat at least whereof to glory before God but he hath nothing whereof to glory therefore c. Rom. 4. 2. That it is by imputation wholly therefore cannot be from any inherent good in our selves Rom. 4. 3 4. That if flowes wholly from faiths object or correlate not at all from any vertue of faith as a qualification inherent in us much lesse therefore from any other qualification or work of ours whatsoever To which I might add their many other reasons proving that works cannot justifie That it is by promise as I said which is still opposed to works Gal. 3. 17 18 22. even by that promise that was made to Abraham which was free absolute and without all condition of works that Gospel promise In thee all Nations of the earth shall be blessed A promise admitting only them that are of faith to blessednesse but rejecting them that are of works to the curse Gal. 3. 7 8 9 10. Yea by the same absolute and unconditionall promise or covenant oft renewed Jer. 31. 31 -34. 32. 40. That this promise is made Yea and Amen ratifyed and effectuallized in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 1 20. Not in works no nor in faith as the Papists work or Arminians act and deed or otherwise then as it is as Luther describes it Allegorically Luth. in Gal. Ca. 2. v. 16. the matter whereof Christ is the form
imforming and giving life and vertue to it an act apprehending Christ as its object in whom all its vertue lyeth the cloud or darknesse in which Christ dwelleth as God was formerly in a cloud or darknesse upon mount Sinai and in the Temple or as all our Divines say the hand by which we receive Christ made of God righteousnesse to us and in us Gal. 3. 27. 1 Cor. 1. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 21. That the life of justification consisteth not in works at all nor in faith considered in a sense divided from Christ but in Christ our life living in us so that the life which we live is by the faith of the Son of God by the recumbency of our souls by faith upon the Son of God which is our life and that this is to live by faith Gal. 2. 20. Col. 3. 4. Gal. 3. 11. That Christ with all his righteousnesse to remission and salvation is given us freely of God not sold as by Judas to his enemies and so made ours without money without price without fine or rent In the Covenant of grace there is nothing smelling of a Simoniacall contract it is wholly of Gods giving not in the least particle of our purchasing Isa 9. 6. Joh. 3. 16. Isa 55. 1. That the life and justification which are by the second Adam descend to us in the same manner with the sin and condemnation from the first Adam But these descended by our naturall union and communion with the first Adam not by our imitation of him For death reigned from Adam over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam Therefore also righteousnesse and justification descend to us by the union and communion which we have with the second Adam Christ Jesus and not from our imitation of him and configuration to him for when we were yet enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Not but that every one to whom the sin and condemnation of Adam once descended are thenceforth imitators of and configured to Adam or that they to whomsoever the righteousnesse and justification of Christ have descended do not thenceforth become imitators of and are configured to the image of Christ but that these imitations and configurations do follow and not goe before such union and communion declaring not producing the sin and condemnation which are from Adam or the righteousnesse and justification which are from the Lord Christ Rom. 5. 11. 19. And this is a sound Argument which the Apostle bringeth to prove that works can in no respect justifie or save For we are Gods workmanship saith he created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained before that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 9 10. where we may take notice that good works are Gods end in saving or justifying us from sin But the means do alway in order of nature go before and not follow the end in execution I mean though not in intention That we are first in Christ the justifyer and in possession of the justification that is by him and then being new created in Christ to the image of God are inabled to do good works That God hath ordained before that we should walk in them being saved or justifyed not that we should be saved or justifyed by them That the righteousnesse of God by which we are justifyed is from faith to faith not begun by faith and ended in works which according to the Apostle is a beginning in the spirit and a seeking to be perfected by the flesh Rom. 1. 17. Gal. 3. 3. Should I proceed so far as the Scriptures as a leading thread would guide me for the confirmation of justification without works I should be taken as exorbitant For the rest I shall refer the reader to such writers as have handled the point of justification against the Papists or to the disputations of the Apostle himself against the false Apostles who taught the same doctrine with Mr. Baxter though not expresly in the same words They taught that we cannot be saved by Christ by faith in Christ alone except we be circumcised and keep the Law or do the works which the Law commandeth Act. 15. 1 24. Mr. Baxter teacheth in this his 60. Thesis that B. The bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that condition If we take together with his words that which in the precedent Chapter we have manifested to be his meaning in these words and that by the bare act of beleeving he understands faith without and in opposition to works for himself knoweth that it is his Pontificall-Arminian-Socinian not our Protestant Evangelicall doctrine which holds out justification by beleeving as either a bare or a cloathed act or work then he teacheth the same doctrine for which the Apostle anathematized the false Apostles and arch-church-troublers in his time Gal. 1. 7 8 9. 5. 12. And what the Apostle hath against them is against Mr. Baxter their own son I will not say in the faith but in perverting the faith and Gospell For neither did they deny faith but Mr. Baxters bare faith faith without works to be effectuall to justification Against this assertion common to him and them if there were no other Scriptures contradicting but what I have alleaged no arguments brought by our Divines to subvert it and to establish the contrary doctrine but what have been here expressed and implied al which are scarce a drop of their ful bucket yet doth Mr. Baxter declare any finglenesse of heart or sincere aime to advance the glory and truth of God in suppressing all this and all the rest in silence so to beguile his more Logicall then Theologicall readers whom he knowes to be more acquainted with Sophistry then Divinity with exotick scriblings then Canonicall Scriptures with an opinion that the stream of Scriptures runne all to his Mill and that we have nothing from the Word favouring our cause Neither let any object that our Churches do only deny the merit of works not the necessity of them as a condition to justification Herein I shall have a fit place to speak afterward as to Mr. Baxter and as it is his plea to lenifie his self-arrogating assertion In the interim to manifest the simplicity of our gudgeons that are apt to swallow the most portentous errours if offered to them involved in fine terms of logicall notions among whom some that erewhile did prosecute with bel book and candle some to death some to banishment some to sequestrations whom they thought but to smell a little of the perfumes of the purple whore These very same men now having inriched themselves with the spoyles of them whom by their outcries they erewhile pursued are mad to drench themselves with the very dregs of the cup of fornication which is in the hand of the whore and kisse the lips of Mr. Baxter which hath blessed with plausible words the doctrine
1 If we look strictly to the words Mr. Baxter must hence argue only that our confession is a condition of Gods faithfulnesse as if God either cannot or will not be faithfull except we confesse But let us give Mr. Baxter the largest advantage that he can claim in the meaning of the words that God is positively and not hypothetically or conditionally faithfull and that of his faithfulnesse he will forgive and cleanse if we confesse In this sense then whereas the Apostle speaketh affirmatively not negatively if we confesse he will forgive not if we confesse not he will not forgive I do 2 Demand whether confession be so a condition of forgivenesse that whosoever confesseth shall be forgiven This Mr. Baxter will not affirme without his caeteris paribus whereof the Text speaks not a word expresly or implicitely for him and if he conclude negatively he concludes not from the Text but his own fancie Obj. But if you deny forgivenesse upon confession made you deny what the Text affirmeth and so fight against the word it self denying what it clearly affirmeth Answ True if we deny it to them to whom the Text grants and promiseth it But the Apostle speaks here not to the unjustifyed and unforgiven but to the Sants forgiven and justifyed already and the Emphasis of the proposition or promise is in the word we if we that are in Christ confesse God will hold faithfull in keeping Covenant with us and forgive So that this is a consolation to the Saints against all their dayly infirmities They have a priviledge above all the world besides If they sin they have an advocate with the Father c. through whom when they confesse and bewail their sins the grace of God will by his Spirit testifie and seal to their consciences the forgivenesse of them 3 To descend without the Text to Mr. Baxters conditio sine qua non there must be more then a grain of salt to make his assertion savory that without confession there is no forgivenesse For if by it he mean that of the Apostle Confession with the mouth he shall exclude many thousands from justification whom the Scripture excludeth not 4 I grant to Mr. Baxter that some of our Divines have affirmed though I fear somewhat rawly and inconsiderately that confession is a condition sine qua non of forgivenesse yet far from Mr. Baxters sense viz. with these three limitations whereof Mr. Baxter will not endure the test 1 Of the forgivenesse which is by the new Covenant or as it is declared and sealed up to our consciences Not of the forgivenesse which was laid up in the hands as laid up in the hands of Christ and ours in him before we beleeved or confessed 2 Such a condition as is not in the same relation with faith as Mr. Baxter makes it the very naming whereof they detest as absolutely contradicting the nature and authority of the Gospell 3 Such a condition as explodes the caeteris paribus sensu composito of Mr. Baxter so that though they speak somewhat of Mr. Baxters words yet they are at a defiance against his sense and meaning How and in what sense they will have it a condition is no place here to treat It hath been a digression to say any thing of it because it is utterly besides the Text to which alone here I was to speak B. Act. 8. 22. Repent of this thy wickednesse and pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee This Scripture I passed by in the former heap of his quotations as possibly a mistake in the quotation but finding it here again and afterward in a third place I see the man means as he quoteth and cannot enough marvell what he can fish from this Scripture to prove any thing of mans works a condition of justification If the word If here make or argue a condition it must be on Gods not on mans part that man must repent and pray upon condition that God will forgive else not if forgivenesse be not the causa sine qua non of repentance and prayer But this is nonsense to have God upon terms if he will have any duty from us He must therefore mean on the other side God will forgive upon condition of prayer and repentance But how he will perswade this Scripture to say it is past my capacity to comprehend Here is no promise himself grants there is but an half-promise of forgiving on Gods part Append. pag. 79. and nothing mentioned as a condition on mans part But contrariwise duties of naturall righteousnesse commanded or counselled to a naturall man upon such cold encouragement as the Scripture affords to the carnall devotions of carnall men carnally performed If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven If Mr. Baxters Assertions be but so sound as his Arguments neither will serve for good Bell-mettall B. Act. 3. 19 Repent and be converted that your sinns may be blotted out c. How far repentance is a condition hath been discoursed of and discussed already B. Act. 22. 16. Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord. Is then Baptism a condition so necessary that without it there is no washing away of sin And must the Popish Tenent be found writren in Mr. Baxters Calender with red letters Sacramenta opere operato conferunt gratiam or doth Baptism prove ineffectuall to all that do not cannot call upon the name of the Lord Then whether Mr. Baxter be more against himself or against the Protestant Churches who can decide More modestly speaks even Bellarmine which makes the desire of receiving the Sacraments a condition of justification expelling from forgivenesse them that desire them not this man rigorously and cruelly shakes into condemnation those that do not because they have not opportunity to receive them though their desire be unfeigned or if he doth not so this Scripture proves not Baptism to be the condition sine qua non As for calling upon the name of the Lord I have before spoken to B. 1 Pet. 4. 18. If the righteous be scarce saved where shall the wicked and ungodly appear I should be in a Labyrinth of doubts how he would argue hence for himself were it not that elsewhere he explaineth himself in his book thus If the righteous be scarce saved by all their strivings how shall they be saved that strive not at all We deny not the duty of striving in holy things yea of striving for salvation though in Mr. Baxters sense we deny it Yet the meaning of this Text as appears by its dependence upon the verse precedent is If the corruptions and unbelief of heart be so great in the very Saints and beleevers that they must passe through the purifying fire of Gods judgments more and more to perfect them before they be made vessels of honour in the Kingdome of glory or that they need the scourge of Gods correction to whip them back
to Christ that they perish not by following their own thoughts What then shall become of the wicked which are wholly full of corruption and unbeleef without any spark of faith and whom the Lord hath given up to a spirit of slumber like Bastards without all Chastisements hindering to roll themselves into ruine B. Rom. 6. 16. His servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousnesse The Apostle here speaketh of the righteousnesse not of Justification but of Sanctification except we will say he here digresseth from that which he makes the subject of this whole Chapter But whether he means the righteousnesse of justification or of sanctification yet the obedience he here speaketh of is that which cap. 1. ver 5. he declares himself to have received commission and Apostleship to preach viz. obedience to the faith the suâme whereof is faith in Christ Jesus What he would infer from his two last quotations 1 Pet. 1. 2. 22. Let him that can understand declare and make answer to it I yeeld that his profoundnesse condemns my shallownesse I dare not contradict him in what he would because I have not the wit to imagin what he would say It seems he had determined such a number of quotations and took at adventure those that came next to his view to make up that precise number Any other Scriptures besides these being as to my apprehension no lesse pat and proper to his purpose then these CHAP. IV. The vanity and ridiculousnesse of Mr. Baxters second and third Arguments discovered The former that Because faith is the more principall and works the lesse prinpall condition of our Justification and that all other duties are in some respect or other reducible to faith therfore we may be said to be justifyed by other works and duties yet to be justifyed by faith alone The second drawn from a wide and irregular definition of faith that it containeth all works in its belly therefore whosoever is justifyed by those works is justifyed by faith only A second Argument he drawes from an anticipation of an objection which he prevents by turning the edge of it against the objectors and applying it to the strengthening of his own assertion The objection that he sees in readinesse against him is that this doctrine of justification by duties and works wholly overthroweth that highest and most fundamentall Gospel doctrine of justification by faith alone This he denies and affirmes Thes 62. p. 238. that although we be justifyed by a thousand duties besides B. Yet faith may be called the only condition of the New Covenant i. e. of justification True if Mr. Baxter give the denomination but the question is not what things may be called but what they are A woe is pronounced to them that call or put light for darknesse and darknesse for light good for evill and evill for good c. I shall no further presse the unaptnesse of the phrase Mr. Bavter declaring in that which followeth his meaning to be that faith may be the only condition notwithstanding which he proves thus B. 1 Because it is the principall condition and the other but the lesse principall And as the whole countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the conditions of this Covenant from faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it either being presupposed as necessary antecedents as means or contained in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necescessary subservient means or consequents I speak first to the latter of these two arguments because he speaks first in the explication to the confirmation of it It is almost as wise an argumentation as I knew once used by some home-bred course-spun sons of a Country farmer who having heard that their father upon a day was sworn Constable at the Court made merry at home concluding from their fathers Constableship that they were all Constables and must rule the Parish because they were his sons and dwelt in house with him or as that of the Athenian boy that boasted himself to be the ruler of Athens thus proving it that he ruled his mother and his mother swayed his father and his father being Lord Maior that year swayed Athens Yea more of reason at least lesse of reasonlesnesse is there in both these arguings then in that of Mr. Baxter theirs concluded only the sons to to partake necessarily of their fathers office this man makes all that are in any respect of kindred yea of any relation to faith for such their relation to partake of the office of faith to justifie For so he reasoneth all the rest are reducible to faith as Antecedents going before it means to obtain it or parts or properties or necessary adjuncts and modifications or products effects or consequents What then Ergo these all in regard of their alliance or affinity to faith justifie and bear a part with faith in its office of justifying And yet when these justifie as much as faith we must understand that faith justifyeth alone Because what all these allies of faith do that faith it self may be said to do This is indeed Logick to prevail with his Kederminsterians or rather such of them as know no difference between Logick and Garlick It is as if I should dispute thus God made choyce of David before all and any other of the sons of Abraham to be King and to rule over Israel therefore all the progenitours of David as well Tamar and Ruth and Râhab as Judah Pharez and Booz yea more specially Jesse the father of David and all the brethren of David yea all the sons and generation of David to Joseph the Carpenter let me dilate my self more boldly all the tribe of Judah which were flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone nay all Israel which were allies to him and met with him in one common father Jacob these all partaked of Davids kingship and were partners with him in the office of ruling because they all were one way or other reducible to David as going hefore him or following him c. and yet when all these were Kings with David neverthelesse David was King alone Or thus The eye only of all the members of the body is appointed to the office of seeing neverthelesse the head that holds and gives influence to it the eye-lids that cover it the veins that convey nutriment to it the cheeks nose lips and teeth that are contiguous to it the hands and feet that are guided by it c. all these and many more do partake of the office of seeing together with the eye and when all these doe see as well as the eye yet the eye doth see alone because all the rest are reducible in some way of alliance to the eye If Mr. Baxters dispute be not one and the same with this in its grounds then is all my reason gone out of my head into my cap.
And at such arguing Agelastus that laught only once when he saw his horse eat Thistles would be tickled into a second laughter And no more weight is there in his former reason Because faith is the principall condition and the other lesse principall And as a whole County c. Here 1 I would demand in what respect according to Mr. Baxter Mr. Baxter can make faith the more principall and the rest qualifications and duties the lesse principall conditions Not in respect of their nature for if one be all are spirituall and Divine Nor in respect of priority in time for if not all yet many of the rest are of the same age and birth with faith Nor in respect of durance for many of them survive faith as justifying Nor in its instrumentality to justification for he denyeth any such thing to be in faith Nor in office for in it he confounds all together Nor in the amplitude of its object for herein love as in other things requires the preeminency Nor in order of operation for he makes many of them Antecedents to faith Nor in the perfection of its effect for he affirmes the rest to perfect what faith hath but begun In what respect then is faith the more principall Mr. Baxter shewes not because according to his principles it is beyond my principles to conceive that he can shew Yet he saith it because it serves his turn here to say it degrading faith at one place and enthroning it in another at his pleasure for his own ends 2 But if it be the principall condition c. what will follow hence for Mr. Baxters advantage This he makes to follow That as the whole Country hath oft its name from the chief city so may the rest duties from faith why doth he not speak plain it may be saith he but is it so where doth the Scripture give this name to faith it self much lesse to other duties in faith implyed Neither is the question about the name but the offices of all these It is rare that the Country takes its name from the chief City yet this is not in question but whether the whole Country partake of the priviledges and charter of the chief City This may indeed be where potentates that have the absolute Lordship of both grant to both the same priviledges Yet then the priviledges and dignities of the chief City are not its alone being common to the whole Country with it 3 But to the very thing in hand without painting and dawbing When the Lord hath rejected Mizpah Shiloh Dan Bethel and all other the Cities and Country of Israel saving Jerusalem alone there to vouchsafe his presence and to be sought unto it is then a rejection of God to set up Gods name and worship elsewhere saving at and equalize any other place with Jerusalem the Metropolis Hence is that complaint of God Israel hath forsaken Hos 8. 14. his maker and buildeth temples So when God hath consecrated faith alone and qualifyed it for the receiving of Christ to justification having rejected all our own righteousnesse and works from being priviledged together with it to this office and worke it is no lesse then a forsaking of God and of Christ to performe the most holy duties or to produce the most Celestiall qualifications in the least part to justifie us 4 All that Mr. Baxter dares to conclude hence is that works and duties may be not that they are conditions of justification But how from these reasons he will bring about that these all are the conditions or condition and yet faith the alone condition if he had so many eyes as Argus to guide him and so many hands as Briareus to work with by that guidance he shall be never able to effect Yet in the explication pa. 239. Mr. Baxter to charme his overly reader into a delusion pretends a proof of this Thesis by two similitudes which I forbear to transcribe because they are not worthy of so much labour For First Similies do illustrate not prove He should first have proved and then illustrated Secondly They are not adequate or fitted to the question speak only to a part of and not to the whole Thesis conclude at the best only that faith may in some case imply many other duties but in no wise that when faith is said to justifie other duties are implyed under the word faith as justifying together with it much lesse that all other duties justifie yet faith alone justifyeth If he would reason by them home to his position he must reason to this Tenour In the former suppose a King or State give to me by commission the government of such an eminent City or Castle but with this proviso and upon these articles that I disband the Army by which before I laid siege to it remove from me all my Regiments quit my self of all my Souldiers and so enter into the possession and government and all the honour and profits thereof by my self alone and one Counsellour to serve and assist me in the managing of the said government If now by vertue of this Commission I enter not having disbanded the said Army but carry it in with me some under a pretense of guarding my person others as my individuall adherents from whom I cannot be separated others to retain the Citizens within the bounds of due loyalty to me and the rest under a pretext of propagating the dominion of that power that hath so invested me with the government No man will doubt but I enter as a Traytor not as a loyall Trustee to the power which hath deputed me Who will not laugh at it as a sophisticall or rather ridiculous plea when he hears me maintaining that I entred with that one Counseller alone for all the rest are implyed in him some as his right some as his left hand some his parents some his children some his friends some his servants c. and so I have but him alone in having so many thousands with him So the new Covenant gives me Christ with justification and blessednesse in him with this Commission and proviso that I disband my own strength and righteousnesse the whole Army of my works by which before I laid siege to it to make all mine by my own winning and to enter into possession with faith alone apprehending all from the hand of free grace Shall I not be a Traytor if I carry the whole Army of works to take and hold possession for me though I make never so golden a pretext of faith only to which all these are reducible The same is the tenour of the redemption of the galley slave if you will not run from the Scripture in stead of following it in making comparisons But unto it I shall have a more proper place to speak afterward when we come to Mr. Baxters great adored Argument of receiving Christ as our Lord as well as Saviour or if there be not occasion offered there in the interim the
slaves future service is not a condition but a consequent of his present redemption But let us see now whether Mr. Baxter with this paint of that which he cals right Reason do fight against God or Man doth resist the placits of men or else the holy Ghost himself He required before that all might be tryed by Scriptures Let us now bring his doctrine to the touch-stone I shall not repeat all or any of the Scriptures before alleadged or that might be further alleadged against him One arrow out of that holy quiver one Scripture out of the whole body of Gospell doctrine shall suffice to smite to the heart to death it self all that he goeth about here with fine flourishes of wit to establish Eph. 2. 8 9 10. thus speaks the holy Ghost By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For ye are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them That the word Saved is an equipollent here with Justifyed if there should be any that will deny yet Mr. Baxter will and must affirme unlesse he will beat in pieces one of the chief pillars of the fabrick erected in this book and overthrow what he hath built In this truth he must joyn with us though in other he estrange himself from us The same Act of God being called justifying as it dischargeth us from the state of our misery as considered to be a state of sin and saving as it delivereth us from it under the consideration of it as a state of condemnation and vengeance Mr. Baxter will grant cannot but grant this And then there will naturally drop from this Scrtpture these following positions 1 That the justification or salvation of the Covenant of grace is by faith 2 That it is not of works but by faith in opposition to works 3 That the very works which flow from our union to Christ and to which we are new created in Christ Jesus even those which Mr. Baxter calleth the righteousnesse of the Gospell are excluded from bearing any part with faith in our justification 4 That the not justification by works doth in no wise hinder the beleevers performing of them for they are created in Christ Jesus their hearts are new wrought by the Spirit to a holy delight in them 5 That God hath not ordained them to justifie but for the new created and justifyed in Christ to walk in them 6 That to teach otherwise of works the very works of Sanctification is to depresse Gods grace and to extoll mans boasting and vain-glory 7 Even these gospell works and righteousnesse are excluded from having any part in justifying not only as collaterals with the satisfaction of Christ but also as collaterals with faith i. e. from bearing a part either in causality or conditionality with faith to justifie I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his Legall and Anti-evangelicall disciples here to deny any one of these positions to spring naturally from this Text. And if the the holy Ghost here speak all this then by it all that Mr. Baxter speaketh throughout this whole Tractate for justification by works is by the breath of Gods mouth blown to the curse as in many things I shall by Gods help shew afterward At the present what he speaketh of works comprehended in faith to justification is here shaken off as a Sophisticall phantasticall Antiscripturall dream the holy Ghost here by the positing of faith in expresse words rejecting works Gospell works all that Mr. Baxter makes a part with faith in that which he cals Evangelicall righteousnesse from all and any copartnership with faith in saving or justifying so excludes all as that he denyeth that justification by grace can any more stand if the best Gospell works of the best Saints are put in any cooperation with faith in the promoting of it All the rest that he hath in the explication pa. 240. and thence to pa. 243. is wholly besides the question which is not whether works and duties be reducible to faith or in what respect every particular qualification and duty standeth to it But whether reduced or not reduced it doth by Gods appointment help with saith to justify us before God This we have found to be an usuall feat of Mr. Baxter where his assertions are confident and peremptory but his proofs of them light and shadie to devise in such case some witty passage wherewith to divert the considerations of his reader from the shame and nakednesse of his foregoing Arguments And this most probably was his drift and craft here having given us but words in stead of Arguments to prove that works are comprehended and implied in faith in all such Scriptures as attribute justification to faith only that the emptinesse and nothingnesse of his argumentation to make this good may not appear to the reader he tols him a way to attend to a subtle and plausible dispute of the relation that every good endowment and work hath particularly to faith In which discourse of his we will not examine how many things are true and how many false for if they were all true they are nothing to the thing in question viz. whether in the severall relations that Mr. Baxter makes them to stand to faith or in any other they help with faith to justification and that so as that when all these with faith cojustifie we may be yet said to be justifyed by faith alone When he hath spoken all by meer affirming without confirming he thus indeed at last concludeth pa. 243. B. So then when you invite a man to your house it is not necessary to bid him come in at the door or bring his head or arms or legs or cloaths with him though these are necessary because all these are necessarily implyed Even so when we are said to be justifyed by faith only or when it is promised that he which beleeveth shall be saved all these forementioned duties are implyed and included How ecliptick is falshood but sincerity open and full No man invites another to his house but to some end either to taste of some dainties or hear some good tidings or see some excellent work or for some other end He should have named the end and we would grant him all thus that as much as the door head legs armes clothes of the invited do partake with the mouth in the act of tasting or with the eye in seeing or the ear in hearing so much when we are invited to Christ do other duties and workes partake with faith in receiving him to justification A third argument if indeed it be not one and the same in substance and differ only in words from the former he draweth from a wide wilde vast confused and incircumscriptive definition of faith begotten of his own brain and now first as an overgrown monster born into the world and baptized
by the father of it with the name of justifying faith This definition he giveth Thes 70. pa. 279. I put this in the third place not because Mr. Baxter doth so for he hath many things between the former and this but because of its cognation if not identity with the former No doubt he saw the former argument more to shame then help his cause therefore in likelihood he brings it here again in another mode and forme if so paradventure it may relieve him Thus then runs his definition B. Faith in the largâst sense as it comprehendeth all the condition of the new Covenant may be thus defined It is when a sinner by the word and spirit of Christ being throughly convinced of the righteousnesse of the Law the truth of its threatning the evill of his own sin and the greatnesse of his misery hereupon and withall of the nature and offices sufficiency and excellency of Jesus Christ the satisfaction he hath made his willingnesse to save and his free offer to all that will accept him for their Lord and Saviour doth hereupon beleeve the truth of his Gospell and accept of Christ as his onely Lord and Saviour to bring them to God their chief good and to present them pardoned and just before him and to bestow upon them a more glorious inheritance and doe accordingly rest on him as their Saviour and sincerely though imperfectly obey him as their Lord forgiving others loving his people bearing what sufferings are imposed diligently using his means and ordinances and confessing and bewailing their sins against him and praying for pardon and all this sincerely and to the end Sponte Cretizantem quis neget esse Cretem Never more dubiousnesse in the most dubious Oracles of Apollo Delphicus then in this definition if indeed it be a definition because Mr. Baxter so calleth it He so speaks all that by all he might astonish some and deceive others yet if he be questioned his words bind him to nothing but that he may goe off and on at his pleasure The subtilissimus Doctor could not more warily have provided himself with evasions so sure that if all the world together should indeavour it none can catch him 1 If we demand of him whether he speak of faith quae Justificat qua Justificat which Justifyeth and as it Justifyeth he leaves us here at a losse and will noâ tell us 2 In saying Faith as it comprehendeth all the condition c. and by all the condition understanding all the duties which the Law requireth if he be demaunded whether there be a faith which comprehendeth all these or if so whether as parts of it self or things reducible to it or if the latter why are all these or how more comprehended in faith then faith and all other of the rest in his sensu composito comprehended in any one of the rest or if in the former sense whether it be a faith of Gods making or of Mr. Baxters making made in the defining and defined in the making To no one of these our doubts that he leaves upon us by his ambiguity of speaking hath he one word to resolve us so that where to finde an answer to him he leaves us uncertain 3 If we should aske him where he saith in the beginning of of the definition It is when a sinner c. whether he means that the quando is the genus of faith or whether it be a regular definition of an act or habit to posit when it is and not what it is and if so why doth he not define it by a certain rather then by an indefinite time by Anno Mundi or Anno Domini or Imperii or Regni c. that from the Chronicle we may seek and finde it Or if by his quando we can find out the time how shall we find and know the thing Be it that we can hit the time when all that followeth is done and so upon Mr. Baxters authority conclude that then faith is yet do we not remain so uncertain as at first what it is that we may make use of it to justification he speaks nothing to certifie us that from what he saith we might take the occasion to consent with him or dissent from him 4 If we would know from him of all those things at whose being positure and acting he tels us faith is whether they include faith constitutively or else but declaratively whether faith consists of these as the whole of its parts or the genus of its species or the compound of its simples or else whether all these do but declare and evidence the truth of faith in a man If declaratively alone how then do those things which only declare faith any more then declare and evidence Justification by faith and how then holds his conclusion hence that we are justifyed before God by these because so justifyed by faith Or if constitutively as many severall parts and ingredients they make up as it were the body of faith how then doth the holy Ghost oppose faith and works even to the excluding either of other about the point of justifying as in other Scriptures so in that before mentioned Text Eph. 2. 8 9 10. Is there a conflict of flesh and spirit Jacob and Esau Christ and Eaxter in one and the same body and bowels of faith either to destroy the other as to Justification or if faith be made up of works and the holy Ghost doth so frequently in Scripture reject yea accurse works from the justification of the new Covenant how is not faith it self which is nothing else but a body and bundle of works accursed from justification also In none of these ambiguities that he hath left in his Thesis doth he speak one word to saâisfie us Lastly where he saith that faith is when all these duties are done sincerely to the end if we demand him whether he mean thaâ when there is an end of doing them or of the man that doth them that then faith hath its being and not till then and so all other duties act in justifying while we live and faith after all when we are dead or whether he means that as long as these duties are done faith is but when they arâ not done or when they cease to act faith is not but loseth its being Fuit Ilium ingens gloria Teuerorum I had once a faith and a ravishing joy in beleeving either while I was under sufferings for Christs sake but now my sufferings are ended and I am no more persecuted my faith is expired or while I waited on all the ordinances of Christ but now my sick bed or prison or banishment intercepts me from many of Christs ordinances My faith is lost which of these wayes or in what third sense he will be understood let him that can conjecture but in respect of any thing that we have under his hand in the Thesis he is yet free to choose his meaning so that in all that he
saith here he hath armed himself against all exceptions by saying it so that we shall not know his meaning Only thus far we may speak with Augustine Si non vis intelligidebes negligi What is not an understandable Argument we shall contemn as no Argument But his illustration and proof may possibly follow in his Explication Thither also we will follow him to examine which one of all these things delivered here so ambiguously he doth there plainly illustrate or prove it runneâ thus pa. 281. B. This is the condition of the New Covenant at large That all this is sometime called faith as taking its name from the primary principall vitall part is plain hence Of the condition enough hath been said before we look for proof That all this is sometime called I mean in Gods not Mr. Baxters Scriptures faith we also will say it is plain if he make it plain by his Hence viz. B. 1. In that faith is oft called obeying of the Gospell but the Gospell commands all this Rom. 10. 16. 1 Pet 1. 22. 4. 17. 2 Thess 1. 8. Gal. 3. 1. 5. 7. Heb. 5. 9. 1 In all these Scriptures obeying of the Gospell is one and the same thing which in other Scriptures is called the obedience of faith i. e. obedience to that Gospell doctrine which requireth to rest upon Christ alone by faith for righteousnesse and life without any intermixture to attain the same called obedience to the Gospell to distinguish between the Gospell and Legall way of justification This Mr. Baxter knoweth well therefore he gives us the quotation without the words of these Texts most of them being such as if there were nothing else said in the whole Word even these are enough to subvert as pernicious his assertion 2 The thing in question is not whether the Gospell command these duties but whether it commands us to do them that we may be justifyed by such deeds and whether because the Gospell commands them it doth therefore call them faith or that all which is to be done in obedience to the Gospell is straightway to take up either the Nature or Name of faith 3 How doth he contradict himself here in what he had said before Thesis 31. pa. 154. where he affirmed the Commandements of the Gospell in relation to these duties to be the establishment of the Morall Law and the perfect obedience in the Law commanded and that this is but an adjunct of the new Covenant or Gospell and not a proper part thereof Will he say then that all the works which the Morall Law commandeth are faith or by the Gospell Metamorphosed from works into faith B. The fufilling of the conditions of the new Covenant is oft called faith c. But these forementioned are parts of the condition of the new Covevenant Ergo they are implyed and included in faith Gal. 3. 12 23 25. A wretched Argument lame in every foot in which one principle is begged to maintain another Neither of the premises nor yet the conclusion having any soundnesse either as they are considered a part or all together Or if he could have proved either proposition from Scripture would he have suffered them to passe under his bare affirmation alone The Scripture annexed prove only an opposition between faith and works the Gospell and the Law but are as far as heaven from earth from proving either of the premises Neither doth the conclusion infer what it should from the premises i. e. what is contained in them I should in particulars shew the deformed nakednesse of the Syllogism if it did not enough shew it self without my help How rotten must the cause needs be which puts so profound a man to such miserable shifts and absurd arguings to defend it where there is no opposer What followes in the same Sâction is all one as if he had said not so but so c. because I have over and over told you so and what I have told you must needs be true The other things in the explication are not to this question Lest any should except that I wrong Mr. Baxter in calling these two latter his second and third Arguments to prove justification by works when he doth not so call them though he doth so use them I have prosecuted the matter of them wholly as considered in it self without any further reference to the conclusion then as himself in expresse words applies them to it CHAP. V. The fourth and great Argument of Mr. Baxter examined and the inference that because Christ as Lord as well as Saviour is the object of justifying faith as justifying therefore we are justifyed by works as well as by faith is confuted And withall proved that Christ as our Lord dying for us and not as Lord and a Lawgiver is the object of faith as justifying Mr. Baxters Reasons to prove the contrary answered HIS fourth Argument is drawn from the Object of Faith and the due qualification of the same Object It runnes thus as by his disputes compacted and compared together appeareth B. If Christ be the object of justifying faith as such not only in his Priestly office as our Redeemer and Saviour but also in his Kingly office our Lord and Ruler then other works and duties of obedience are as much required as faith in justifying us before God But Christ is the object of justifying faith as such not only in his Priestly but also in his Kingly office as our Lord as well as our Redeemer and Saviour Ergo other works and duties of obedience have so much to do injustifying as faith He saith affiance which whether iâ at all differs from faith and whether he means not the same with faith we shall see afterward if it be necessary The Assumption he layes down and goes about to prove Thes 66. and in its explication beginning pa. 255. The consequent of the proposition he hath and endeavours to confirme in and under Thes 72 73. This one of all his Arguments hath the Dominicall letter on it it is the wood the rest are but the hay and stabble of his building his sacra anchora if this hold not the man with his vessell and all the trash-treasure therein must perish upon the Rocks All the rest of his Arguments are but bubbles in comparison of this bottle-glasse Therefore he attributes much to this gloryeth in it and only doth not fall down and worship it It was hinted before here and there in all his discourse but here he manageth it with all his strength and art I shall speak first to the Assumption because he first puts and endeavours to prove it And here now appears what his end was in laying a third opinion of the righteousnesse of Christ to justification besides the active and passive righteousness viz. a righteousnesse meritorious for us and not imputed to us after he had been 10. years for the passive righteousnesse only as he notifies to us pa. 54 55. The ground it seems of
altering his judgment is because that opinion would not subserve to his justification by works which he hath so pertinaciously determined to set up that whatsoever of sacred or humane Authority he meets with opposit to it he shoulders it out of the way and whatsoever occurres out of any sink and puddle making for it he takes up as a treasure But the Meritoriousnesse of Christs Legislative and Kingly office to satisfie for our sins being laid as a groundwork he thought it seems would tend much to the exalting of the works done by the Commandement of King Jesus to justification therefore he took it up from Grotius and made use of it as a paved way to Justification by works which here almost from the same grounds he urgeth And so we see that from the very beginning to the end of this Tractate all that he hath conspireth and aspireth to this end justification by works and to elude all that the Gospell hath against it But let us come to examine his Assumption to this Argument and what he brings for it B. Thes 66. Christ is not in any one part or work of his office alone the object of justifying faith as such but Christ in his entire office considered is this object viz. as he is Redeemer Lord and Saviour In a good sense we might grant him both all this and all the substance of all the Arguments which he brings to prove it For none of the Protestant Churches have denyed but maintain 1 That all the offices of Christ are needfull and cooperating to and in the worke of Mediatourship that Christ not only as our high Priest but also as our King and Prophet made satisfaction for us and makes his satisfaction effectuall to us 2 That the object of justifying faith is Christ in all his offices King Priest and Prophet 3. That these offices of Christ are not to be severed by us because counited and coworking in him He layes not down nor puts from him any one of his offices when he either justifyeth sanctifieth or illuminateth c. but doth all and every of them as Lord Saviour and Teacher Yet when all this is granted to him his cause is never the stronger nor ours at all the weaker Nay he declares himself guilty of the fault wherewith he chargeth the innocent viz. of separating Christs offices holding him forth to us as redeeming us only as our high Priest governing and giving Lawes to his Church only by his Kingly office enlightening us in the truth only as our Prophet when contrariwise we teach that Jesus Christ i. e. the Anointed of God in all his offices and anointings is made unto us of God wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption not wisdome in one only of his offices righteousnesse in another c. but all in all as the Scripture witnesseth 1 Cor. 1. 30. Neverthelesse we deny not but some acts and benefits of Christ are to be attributed more properly and peculiarly to one then another office of Christ yet so that the cooperation of the other offices therein is nor wholly to be denyed But this we deny that there is any other fountain opened for the washing away of our sins but the bloud of Christ only or any other satisfaction made to the justice of God but by the sacrifice of Christ alone yet so as this bloud and sacrifice as they are primarily our high Priests so are they our Kings and Prophets also howbeit the bloud and sacrifice of one Christ alone And herein we follow the Scriptures leading threed which affirm not only the Priest to have dyed for us but our Prophet or Shepheard also I am the good Shepheard and give and lay down my life for the sheep Joh. 10 11 15. He came not to be ministred unto but to minister and to give his life a ransome for many Mat. 20. 28. viz. to seal the doctrine with his bloud which he had taught with his lips and to make the way through the veil of his flesh thorough his bloud which he had taught to be the only way into the Holiest to the Father And as the Shepheard so the Lord and King also It was the LORD that was betrayeâ 1 Cor. 11. 23. crucifyed 1 Cor. 2. 8 killed Act. 3. 15. and raisââ again 1 Cor. 6. 14. Even the Lord of glory and Prince of life Therâfore it is that the holy Ghost cals it the Lords death 1 Cor. 11. 2â The Lords body and the Lords bloud 1 Cor. 11. 27 29. And needfull was it that Christ as Lord and King with all his power should thus grapple with sin death and hell on our behalfe how else should he have vanquished them and having spoyled these Principalities and powers made a shew of them openly and triumphed over them Col. 2. 15. And without this victory his death had been to us vain our enemies had remained unconquered and our selves unransomed The strong man had not been driven out by a stronger then he Luk. 11. 21 22. Thus we neither divide nor separate the offices of Christ one from another but conjoyn them all in the death and passion of Christ by which alone we beleeve and teach that the Lord Priest and Prophet Christ Jesus hath made satisfaction for our sins But we utterly deny that which Mr. Baxter drives at that Christ as our Lord that is as a Lawgiver and to speak in Mr. Baxters words Thes 31. as he doth establish the morall Law commanding perfect obedience and forbidding every sin as exactly as under the Covenant of works is the object of justifying faith as justifying This was that great and principall article which Luther with so much vehemency defended against the Papists viz. that Christ is Luth. in Gal. Cap. 2. 20 alibi no Moses no Exactor no giver of Lawes in reference to justification but a giver of grace a Saviour c. pronouncing it an accursed âand hellish doctrine which the Papists taught that he justifyeth as a Law-giver that they which so paint him out make him not a Christ but a Fiend or Devill The state of the question then is betwixt him and us not whether Christ as Lord as well as Saviour but whether by the sacrifice of himself for us or else by giving Laws and Commanding all duties of obedience to us also be the object of justifying faith as justifying i. e. whether our faith by obeying Christ in the works of righteousnesse as well as by cleaving to Christ crucifyed do justifie We maintain that the death of Christ or Christ dying for us is alone offered to our faith for justification he contrariwise that Christ as commanding the duties of obedience is the object of faith as justifying Our Assertion that Christ suffering for us is the alone object of justifying faith as such may be confirmed by many Arguments One Argument may be drawn from the offerings and sacrifices of the old Testament and the sacraments both of the old and new Testament
is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a minde to God hath put all his Sons offices into the condition to be received and submitted to Either all or none must be accepted And if all be in the condition then the receiving of all must needs justifie upon the grounds that I have laid down before It is not a new thing to see heresie usurping the chaire to condemne truth of errour The reasoning here is wholly carnall and naturall besides the rule of the Gospell When he calls faith a naturall way of receiving the mercy offered by Christ and our own worth and works implyedly the spirituall way how doth he put light for darknesse and darknesse for light giving to the truely spirituall cause of renewing that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 14. The naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God c. Can Heaven and Hell be more opposite either to other then the Apostles doctrine to Mr. Baxters The Apostle cals the way of faith alone the Spirit and the way of works superadded to faith for justification the flesh Gal. 3. 3. Is it Flesh or Spirit in Mr. Baxter that makes him a contradictor of the holy Ghost speaking by the Apostle The way of faith is the way of grace supernaturall Flesh and bloud cannot reveal it unto us but our Father which is in heaven But the way of works is beneath grace dictated by nature it self therefore naturall but so that all the force of nature cannot effectuallize it to justification It is a slander that he puts upon the Orthodox whom he hateth therefore represents them as Noddies and Simpletons pretending that they teach faith to be nothing but an accepting of pardon and accepting of holinesse c. Nay we make neither pardon nor holinesse nor the c. but Christ Jesus the object of our faith adhere and cleave to him for all yet not confounding his benefits or the means by which he applyeth them but wait by faith at the severall sluces by which he conferreth his severall benefits to receive the washing away of our guilt by the effusion of his bloud and holinesse or sanctification by the effusion of his Spirit and not contrariwise holinesse by his bloud and pardon by the effusion of his Spirit So we repair by faith to Christ for all because in him as in the spring is all yet so as that in coming to him alone that hath all we come to the Sun of righteousnesse for light to the fountain for life and to the Spirit of sanctification which flowes from him for holynesse He cryes against separation and makes it as I have shewed for union and makes confusions Where doth he mention any office or operation of faith to sanctification or use of sanctification but to justification or what is faith with him but a compound of all endowments works and duties And thus he confounds faith and works Christs righteousnesse and mans righteousnesse morall honesty and Gospell sanctification of all together making up one linsy-woolsy justification or righteousness to justification which the Spirit of God never revealed but the spirit of Mr. Baxter hath hatched What he speaketh of Christ stablishing his office either is above my understanding or else is not at all to his purpose And what of accepting as under the notion of accepting or as under the notion of a condition hath been enough spoken to in what was before said about the instrumentality of faith All that followeth is wholly averse from and adverse to the doctrine of the Gospell Jewish and Popish For what meanes he by our title in Law and the wedding garment but the whole furniture of works and duties done in obedience to a supposed legislative authority of Christ Without these and before these to take possession i. e. to dare to adhere to Christ for justification is usurpation and an incurring of Gods vengeance for usurping Thus beating off from Christ sinners chief sinners for whom Christ hath dyed How doth the spirit of the rejected Jewes work upon this man when they heard of righteousnesse and Act. 22. 21 22 23. salvation offered to the Gentiles a common and profane people that were not holy how did they stretch their throats and rend their clothes in a zeal against this indignity So this man hearing of the justificition of Publicans and sinners hath his eye evill because God is good tears himself with anger crying usurpation vengeance hell-fire why because they had not put on the filthy rags of mans righteousnesse which he cals the wedding garment and thereby gotten title to Christ before they were so bold as to beleeve in him and girded on their own gaol-clothes first and then have put on Christ upon them that their own righteousnesse might have been neerest the heart and Christs righteousnesse at a further distance as having no efficacy but from our own righteousnesse effectuallizing it Unto all this I shall use only that oracle of the Lord Christ The Publicans and harlots enter into the Kingdome of God before these Pharisaicall justiciaries and whited sepulchers Let Christ alone be my wedding garment I leave all that unrighteous righteousnesse which Mr. Baxter would wrest out from the Kingly office entire to Mr. Baxter to compleat his righteousnesse to justification I know no other title to the justification of the new Covenant which the chief sinners must look after before they possesse it but the grant of grace in the new Covenant and their closure by faith with Christ in whom God presents himself to justifie and reconcile them to himself One voice of my Bride-groom crying Whosoever thirsteth i. e. is dry and empty of all good in himself let him come to me and whosoever will let him drink of the well of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. is of more force with me then ten thousand contradicting voices such as this of Mr. Baxter There is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a mind to If this man had the imaginary place of Peter to be Porter of heaven how quickly would he forfeit his place by repelling those whom alone Christ will have admitted and admitting those that Christ will have repelled Christ admits beleevers not doers this man rejects all beleevers that are not doers before they are beleevers The rest that he saith here is sacrificed to his Goddesse the Lady Condition A deity that the Scriptures never knew nor yet all the whole University of Athens They erected an Altar indeed to the unknown God Act. 17. 23. see the depth of Mr. Baxter he hath found the Antipodas which the old Mathematicians wrote of but could never find the deity which the learned Athenians worshiped but worshiped they knew not what This Goddesse Condition by some help of the Socinians and Arminians hath M. Baxter brought to light and invested her with more glittering ornaments then they had wit to do only he hath not yet
all hearts witnesse for him that no good will to Popery in generall provoked him to trouble the Church with his doctrine I will not judge But if good will to this part of Popery that consists in justification by works unto which if all the rest garbage of Popery be compared it is insufficient to counterpoise it in mischief did not provoke let him shew what hath provoked him to it Is it in hatred to the Papists that he hath laboured so stoutly to maintain their Kingdome Is not this the pillar of all Popery and if this be demolished what is there of all their heresies but will fall after 3. As to his sincerity in this businesse in following conscientiously his judgment I know I finde in my self the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately evill who can finde it out I search only my own not anothers heart that is out of my orb and beyond my fathom But I should give the more credence to Mr. Baxter speaking of his own sincerity in this businesse did I not see him forsaking the fountain and digging to himself cisterns deriving from every puddle of Papists Arminians Socinians and Atheists both his tenents and all fallacious Sophistry to maintain them leaving the pure word of God and tossing it either from him or for himself at his pleasure 4. As for his prayer if presented to God after his own principles as an Act helping to justifie him and no further through the mediation of Christ then as the same mediation take efficacy as to him from his own works and worth no marvell if the justice of God flung it back as dirt in his face and left him to that de luding spirit which worketh by those false Apostles whom he had studied so many years having spent but a few days upon the Scriptures as himself confesseth So the Pharisee after his praying departed from the presence of God unjustifyed unregarded Such devout Protestations may possibly take impression upon the weak and ignorant But Satan in the vizzard of an Angell of light and Satan in his own ghastly visage is to them that are strong in the faith the same Satan and alike shunned Besides when men rest not satisfyed with the sacred truth of the Word but will as it were rake the very dung of Gods enemies for quaintifies of knowledge which the Word hath not if they are blacked no marvell for their delight is to dwell with Colliers And God hath threatned to send them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie c. 2 Thes 2. 10 11 12. Yeelding them up to waxe worse deceiving others being themselves deceived or self-deceivers 2 Tim. 3. 13. He promiseth some proofs of what he saith and one argument he puts in this explication thus B. If faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant and obedience be also part of the condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved An Herculean Argument as soon may a man wrest the Club out of Hercules his hand as make void the conclusion which is inserred by this Argument If my eye discerneth colours upon condition it look diligently upon them and my hand doth inrich me upon condition that it stretcheth forth it self to receive a Princes beneficence and my heel be put into the same condition with my eye and my hand then my heel doth discerne colours in the same way with my eye and enrich me in the same way with my hand But both parts of the Antecedent are as firmly proved before as the both parts of Mr. Baxters antecedent Ergo the conclusion is as very a blank as Mr. Baxters If Mr. Baxters oft saying of the same thing doth prove the thing to be true then this cannot be denyed to be a truth For who can number the times that he hath kissed and spit in the mouth of this Ashteroth Condition setting it up cheek-mate with Christ himself in justifying us For Thes 56. he yoaks together Christ and faith in the same way of causality to justification and here and every where faith and obedience or works so that Christ faith and works are collaterals in justifying how as they meet together in this one Great Colossus condition or causa sine qua non Christ is the condition even in his satisfaction and faith is the condition and works is the condition so that Condition it seems by him justifyeth more then works or faith or Christ for neither works alone nor faith alone nor Christ alone doth justifie But this mouth-almighty Condition when like Bel and the Dragon she hath eaten up and swallowed into her bowels Christ faith and works doth of and by her self alone justifie such a Justifyer and such a Justification I should speak more seriously if Mr. Baxter had ministred to me more serious matter whereof to treat Chaffe is wont to be exposed to the winde when the Wheat as more substantiall is allotted to a more substantiall handling The rest of his Arguments which he brings in other Theses I shall examine by themselves CHAP. VI. The fift Argument answered and the dispute of St. James Cap. 2. opened and the Reasons drawn thence to prove justification by works refuted THe former was Mr. Baxters great Argument the fift in number is like to it yet not so much hugged and honoured by him as the former because that was his own born of his own brain This he takes up as fully formed by the Papists to his hand and use so that he is not to have the entire honour of it but every petty Monk and Sacrificer will challenge his part therein This is indeed their great and sole Argument against the Protestants The rest they bring is unworthy the hearing This therefore Mr. Baxter here that the Popish cause may stand and ours fall Atlas-like puts his shoulder and whole strength under to support B. Thes 75. pa. 292. The plain expression of St. James should terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21 24 25. c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justifyed by works and not by faith only Eusebius Hierom. I mean not here to seek an evasion by pleading that this Epistle in the primitive times of the Church before the controversie about justification by faith or by works and faith was in agitation was questioned by some and denyed by others to be of divine authority Or that * Erasmus Luther Musculus Cajetan a Cardinall of the Romish some great Divines of these latter times have not received it into the Canon or that among those that embrace it as Canonicall it is much disputed what James is the Authour of it For besides the Syriac interpreter that weakly attributes it to James the brother of John who in the cradle of the Church was slain with the sword by Herod Act. 12.
had said it is such a justification as justification dependeth on or such a salvation as salvation dependeth on The Apostle there speaks of a dead and barren Faith of a profession not a being of Faith and by an interrogation bearing the force of a strong Negation by saying Can Faith or the saying that he hath Faith save him he means and saith it cannot save him and that is the same with him as if he had said it cannot justifie him Here wee have indeed an idle dreame of Faith that cannot save But a Iustification that cannot justifie or cannot save or can justifie and not save is as far from James as neare to Mr. Baxter B. 2. It is such as followeth only a saving faith But the world may as well justifie us when we have no Faith at all That the justification of the New Covenant in which God evidenceth by faith to us that we are justified in Christ or the justification which consisteth in the evidencing by works to men the truth both of our Faith and Gospel Justification so far that in charity they are to regard us as truly beleeving and truly justified do both follow either saving faith or that which in charity to them that profess it men are to account a saving faith none denieth But it will not hence follow that works justifie us at Gods Judgement seat because they follow faith that declareth and evidenceth us to our selves to be so justified He comes with a new supply pa. 296. B. Once more 1. Was Abrahaem justified before men for a secret Action 2. Or such an Action as the killing of his only Son would have been 1. Had the Action been kept secret from men it could not have justified him before God or men Not before God for no actions as actions are the ground of his justifying us as hath bin already abundantly proved Nor before men for this action could not have declared the truth of his faith to them that never heard of the man or his Action But God having ordeyned him to bee a Father of the Faithfull and pattern of all beleevers to the worlds end and to confer Blessedness with Abraham upon all that walk in the steps of the Faith of our Father Abraham Ro. 4. 9. 12. hath recorded this Action of his to justifie and magnifie the truth of his Faith to all that in all ages shall beleeve and to incite them by his patterne by the like eminent obedience to justifie their Faith also to others 2. We are not to enquire what the evil world will judge of such an Action but whether Abraham or rather the spirit of God working in and by Abraham did not give in this Action a sufficient demonstration to convince the evill world much more the saints chosen out of the world of the truth of his Faith Which conviction if the evill world will carnally neglect or cursedly oppose it shall leave them the more inexcusable in the day of Judgement B. Was not he the Justifier beer which was the imputer of Righteousness but God was the imputer of Righteousness ver 23. Therefore God was the Justifier So I leave that Interpretation to sleep This is one of his extravagancies He hath all this while disputed of Justification by works what he cannot prove of works now he proves of Faith James saith Abraham beleeved God and it was imputed to him for righteousness Was it imputed to him of God for a partiall or for a perfect righteousness If but unto righteousness in part let him prove it or stand guilty before God for perverting his word If in the whole then is there no place left for works to challenge a part Or let him produce from James the like sentence of works imputed to Abraham to Righteousness else he puts the handle of his Argument into our hands to retort it upon him Abrahams Faith was imputed to him by the testimony of Iames to righteousness Ergo by the testimony of Iames works were not so imputed to him So his Epiphonem I leave that interpretation to sleep is the only sound thing that he hath spoken to this question For he hath said nothing that hath any power to awaken much less to rowze it So that it may sleep and that securely and in safety because they are but false Alarms that he soundeth against it The second interpretation as Mr. Br. terms it or as it is indeed the second homonymy or different sense of words wherin our Divines affirm Iames and Paul to speak in sound one but in meaning disagreeing eyther from other is in the word Faith as hath been sayd Paul when he attributes justification to Faith without works means a living faith fruitfull in good works Iames where he denies Faith without works to justifie means a dead faith a meer profession of faith that hath neither life nor being much less fruitfulness in good works That Iames takes the word Faith in this sense appears by these Reasons from the Text it selfe 1. From the scope of his dispute which we shall find to be as I sayd to beat down the presumption of carnall professors who reposed the hope of salvation wholly upon a bare profession of faith though the faith wherof they boasted had no vertue to sanctification obedience and to prove that alone to be a justifying Faith which is alive to good works This even Cajetan himself one of the pillars Cajetan in Jacob. of the Romish Church giveth as the scope of the Text as I have shewed he further expresseth himself thus Adverte hic prudens Lector quod Iacobus non sentit Fidem sine operibus mortuum esse c. Quoniam constat nos per fidem justificari etiam sine operibus sed sentit fidem sine operibus i. e. renuentem operâri vel non paratam operari esse mortuum esse vanam non justificare That is Let the prudent Reader heer note that Iames means not that faith is dead without works to accompany and help it in justifying us for it is evident that faith justifieth even without works but his meaning is that faith without works that is that refuseth or is not in a readiness to good works is dead vain and justifieth not Thus he makes the scope of James heer to prove that an idle and fruitless faith is not a saving or justifying faith So that we find it easier in this argument to find the truth from the very Papists than from Mr. Br. 2. From the 14. ver where James putting the question of faith without works saith not indefinitely can faith but annexeth the article to it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã can this faith save Is there power in such a faith to save which hath no power to sanctifie In like maner as heere ver 20. What in our Translation is rendred faith absolutely is there also in the Originall put with the restriction of the same article that faith which is without works is dead 3.
being most drawne from naturall Philosophers and Theologers mounts not above Morality tels us nothing of spirituall things that the Gospel wholly treats of shuns the very word Spiriall as a rock on which all the pride of man might suffer shipwrack and the grace of God in Christ be alone exalted Besides how far thâse conditions are to be stretched whether only so far as that only their absence doth hinder but their presence doth not put or inferr justification and salvation as the effects in which sence wee are wont to take the Causa sine qua non or else so far that both their absence doth hinder and their performance produce these effects In these and many other things whereof I shal be forced to speake in its proper place Mr. Baxter will not impart his meaning to us that he may take his liberty to traverse his ground and under the name of Condition ascend and descend run sometimes in a wheele and sometimes in a race play all in sight and least in sight at his pleasure reserving still to himselfe this advantage to help himself with his Conditions widening and straitening them making them the same with or more than his Causa sine qua non having kept the power in his own hand as it shal be most inservient to his ends In the meane while wee are permitted onely to heare the humming and bombing but not to see the buz whether it be a Hornet or a Beetle What hee will not himselfe directly tell us wee must therefore take leave to gather from his writing as well as we can In his Explication of this Thesis even in that part thereof which I have before transcribed being to prove that justification and salvation have the same Condition hee tells us oft that we are both justified and saved by works Here to follow his owne exposition he teacheth pa. 300 that the word By implieth more than an idle presence and concomitancy if they only stand by while the work is in doing it could not bee said we are justified by works That it speaks out works to have their agency and operation in procurement or in that kind of causality which they have And this is the same which under the 17. 18. and 19. Theses he had before delivered of a twofold Righteousness Christs Righteousnes and our Righteousness ours as absolutely necessary as his to salvation both in their kind effectually procuring it So in that which followeth in the explication where to be the condition of our salvation and to have a hand in or give right to justification are put by him as the same thing or as equipollent phrases So that under the word condition he involves all the Papists efficiency and as much as after their and his defining and modifying of Merits is comprehended in their doctrine of Merits In this sense therfore we deny Works or Obedience to be a condition of salvation 1. Because thousands are saved without works viz. all that have been or shal be saved being never in a capacity to work 2. Because the New Covenant in promising salvation makes it to follow grace and faith not works yea grace and faith in opposition to works as hath been before shewed cap. 15. of justification and salvation together And that not by the vertue of that dung and rags and filth of mans righteousness wherwith Mr. Br. filleth the belly of his faith in the largest sense Thes 70. but by the vertue of Christ its object which it receiveth Jo. 1. 12. and of the aâundance of the grace and righteousness which it receiveth from Christ in receiving him Ro. 5. 19. 3. Because it is by inheritance as by our union unto Christ wee are made and adopted to bee with him children and joint heirs Act. 26. 18. Ro. 8. 16. 17. Gal. 3. 18. Eph. 1. 11. 14. Gal. 3. 29. and 4. 30. 31. Tit. 3. 7. and else-where and that of Grace freely therfore without works For then should it be of debt and no more of Grace Ro. 4. 4. and 11. 6. 4. Because if it be at all by works then wholly by works Christ is excluded will not profit will be all or nothing do all without works and give no place or partnership to works with him in the business of salvation if we bring any thing of works to save us hee leaves us wholly to our works to save or damn us If ye be circumcised Christ shall not profit you ye are debtors to the whole Law i. e. If ye bring works in part to save you yee must trust wholly to works to save you Christ is become of none effect to you Gal. 5. 2. 3. 4. 5. Neither can they bee a condition in that way of causality to which Mr. Br. professes himselfe to tie it viz as the Causa sine qua non For 1. the property of that kind of causality or conditionality not extended beyond it self can only by its absence deny the effect as in this case the want of obedience and good works can onely deny them which refuse or neglect them to be saved or have right to salvation but by iâs presence cannot Ponere as the say i. e. conclude or evince the effect that he which doth them shall live in them or be saved by them no nor yet that they shall be saved For if they can it is by some other and not by this kinde of causality which Mr. Baxter attributes to them 2 Neither doth it as himselfe describes its opperation in its causality to salvation remove the impediments of salvation which are in generall sinne in particular chiefly unbeleefe If good workes can remove these it may save But it can neither remove the guilt of that which is past by way of purging it or satisfying for it neither is it made instrumentall to put us into the possession of Christs satisfaction and purging for it precedes not but follows it whatsoever Mr. Br. hath sayd to the contrary Nor can it stop the flux of sin and unbeleefe but that it breaks out upon every of our good works to make them in themselves evil and damnable and doth no further or otherwise remove than by denying unbeliefe so far as we doe beleeve and the neglect of duties as far as we have diligence and zeal to perform them But this cannot bee called rightly the removing of the hindrances of our salvation therfore it cannot be the Causa sine qua non of our salvation 6. Because salvation is the gift of Gods free grace Ro. 6. 23. Jo. 10. 28. 2. Ti. 4. 8. But it is a payment of justice and not a gift of Grace which is made the wages of works Didst thou not agree with me for a peny Take what thine is by contract and condition of the bargain and go thy way Mat. 20. 13. 14. Wheras contrariwise the free gift hath no other foundation or condition but Gods free love and good pleasure He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy Ro.
this purpose in his Answer to the tenth eleventh Questions in his Appendix and to shew how hee there fights with his own phantasm feigns an Adversary and then quells him falls out with his own shadow never comming neer that which hee hath made to be the Question between him and the Protestant Churches but when the Adversary is Eastward hee rides out in indignation Westward beating every bush and wounding every bough that he meets with proclayming it an Adversary and so returns at last with as much gallantry as ever did William the Conquerour it shall be expedient for the disabusing of such as are apt in this kind to bee abused to premise something for the right stating of the Question heer controverted First then the doings duties and works about which the Question is conversant are of two kinds Legall or Evangelicall such as have their foundation in that law which is of Natural and Moral or such as are founded on precepts and doctrines of Gospell Positive right By the former I mean such works and duties as the naturall conscience specially if holpen by the written Law can apprehend to be and urge upon man as duty though there had never been a Christ or Gospell to adde further light By the later I meane such duties as are only in generall comprehended in the Law whatsoever the Lord shall at any time declare to bee his will and impose upon thee as thy duty thou shalt observe and do but cannot possibly be known in speciall to bee duties without a new revelation from heaven such as the Gospell is The former duties are naturall founded in Nature it selfe the later supernaturall because without a supernaturall manifestation they cannot be known and without a supernaturall power infused they cannot bee effectually performed All this Mr. Br. himselfe granteth in this his Treatise saving the very last clause which also because I finde him not any where flatly denying I shall forbear to prove taking it as granted with the rest 2. That this naturall righteousness and obedience was the Condition of the Old Covenant as to life and so remayneth still to them that remayn under the Old Coveant but so as that no man living can be saved by it since Adams fall but that whosoever is saved the same is saved after the tenour of the New Covenant i. e. the Covenant of Grace or the Gospel This also Mr. Baxter hath frequently taught and granted 3. That the duties of the New Covenant are of two sorts eyther more or lesse principall the more principall is fayth or receiving and embracing the Lord Christ together with the justification and salvation that are by him The lesse principall duties which are also pure Gospel duties are such as are subservient to faith or to the receiving of Christ alone to justification quickening illumination sanctification c. or to the reteyning of him and fuller closing with him to all these all other Evangelical ends for which he is given to us by the Father These 3. Positions are so frequently granted by Mr. Baxter in this his Book that I forbear to quote the places 4. That justification and salvation as the Scripture terms them a reward if indeed it doth ever so term justification as properly and strictly taken may bee considered first as benefits already conferred and in our possession in part or in the whole or else as rewards heerafter to be conferred the ground and foundation wherof was layd in our first conversion and union to Christ by faith together with the earnest and pledge of the spirit given to us by God to assure us of our full possession of all the fruits therof in the future And 2. if future the Gospel proposeth these as rewards of his free grace and benignity or else as rewards of dâbt due to our service and for the service done to him Neither in this can Mr. Baxter oppose or dissent 5. Then to come home and close to the Question it remains to be expressed how far all these duties are to be done for life I mean how far all or any kind of these are to bee performed for the attayning of justification and salvation as a reward and how far onely in love and thankfulness for the reward alrâady made ours in possession or in hope 1. We grant that theâ which are wholly under the Old Covenant having never the Gospel revealed unto them are bound to seek justification and salvation by the works of the Law or naturall righteousness still but they shall never attaine what they so seek because they are impotent to fulfill the condition Yet their unableness is no prejudice to Gods authority and obligation upon them It is otherwisâ with them that live under the Gospel and have the Covenant of Grace in Christ revealed to them but have not yet so âffectually received Christ by fâith as to beâ justified and declared righteous within their own souls These are indeed to seek for justification and sâlvation yet not by the workes of the Law or legall naturall and meerly morall righteousnesse for this were to reject the new Covenant or Gospel with the justification which is by Christ and to hold themselves fast under the old Covenant in an incapacity to be justified and saved The best works of naturall righteousness which they can performe being but dead works of dead men like the stinch of Carrion offensive to the pure nosthrills of God who will therefore condemn not justifie for them 2. They that are in Christ and have obtayned justification and inchoat salvation by him i. e. have their conscience absolved and saved from sin and obligation to vengeance by faith in his bloud are to perform those works of naturall righteousnes not for life but from life not to procure thereby the life of justification for they have it already in Christ and to seek it more compleatly to be perfected by such works is as hath been before shewed to be so foolish as having begun in the spirit to seeke to bee perfected by the flâsh but in duty and thankfulness for so full and free a pardon and Gal. 3. 3. absolution which all our doings all our sufferings are insufficienr to answer Nevertheless the intuition of so great a redemption already attayned and in our possession together with the promise of so glorious an inheritance for the future life already confirmed to us by the seal of the spirit in the bloud of Christ are of such infinite value that we are to walk still in the splendor and glory of it so that our spirits should bee sublimated above earth and selfe to dwell and to spend our selves and be spent in the bosome of that Grace from which wee have received so much and expect yet so much more of ravishing and never ending felicity What neither eye hath seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man in a naturall way conceived of the riches of the incomprehensible bounty and free grace of God being
and his glorying that they prove wee may act for salvation p. 81. which as generally posited by him no man ever denied there is no need of answering that which they are brought to prove being granted At length in the same pa. 81. of his App. he frameth an objection made against his doctrine thus B. Object But is it not the most excellent and Gospel-like frame of spirit to doe all out of meere Love to God and from thankefulnesse for life obtained by Christ and given us To this Objection he gives a three fold Answer Bax. Answ 1. If it come not from love to God it is not sincâre But is it sincere if it come from love to God Is there not aswell a naturall love as a naturall fear of God in the hearts of all both good and bad Or was there ever any that hated God as God and good Or that served him from hatred to him If such a Naturall or Morall Love for I finde not Mr. Baxter ascending any where higher suffice to make the obedience of men sincere and because sincere a perfect and sufficient righteousnes to justification and salvation Then all will more fitly cohere than the golden crowne with the golden pantofle a universall conditioning righteousness with a universall conditionall salvation All shall be saved except the Antinomian Paulites or Protestants if Mr. Baxters Gospel stand if he misse none else but they B. 2. Yet doth not the Gospel any where set our love to God and to our own souls in opposition nor teach us to love God and not our selves but contrarily joyneth them both together and commandeth them both The love of our selves and desire of our own preservation would never have been planted so deeply in our nature by the God of Nature if it had been unlawfull I conclude therefore that to love God and not our selves and so to do all without respect to our own good is no Gospel frame of spirit As home to the matter as his doctrine of Justification to the truth Where was conscience when will and wit alone shew themselves to beguile his Readers with meere opinions and imaginary suspitions Who ever opposed the ordinate love of God to the ordinate and subordinate love of our selves When he hath degraded us from being men yea into a state beneath Beasts and bruits telling the world that we doe not appetere bonum desire and move unto any thing that is good yea our chiefe good thenceforth hee thinks the world in stead of hearing will trample us as other stocks and stones that have no sensitive appetite Our doctrine is of another frame Wee oppose the love of God which is from the spirit of Adoption not from Nature to the servile feare which is from the spirit of Bondage following heerin the light and testimony of the Holy Ghost Ro. 8. 15. 1. Jo. 4. 18. And this I doubt not to be also the meaning of the Apostle Gal. 5. 6. where hee makes the all on our part to justification consist in Faith which worketh by love i. e. in faith which carrieth out the beleever to work no more in slavish fear and by a mercenary spirit but in the freedome and spirit of Love And whosoever will but vnwinde the Clew of Pauls disputation in the whole 4. Chapter especially from verse 21. and so forward to this 6. verse of Chap. 5. shall I think have the suffrage of his own Reason for this interpretation For the Apostle having disputed of the bondage discending from Hagar to Ismael and his Children from Mount Sinai to those that held themselves under the Covenant of Works Doe and live there given and withall of the Freedom discending from Sarah to Isaac and his seed viz. the seed of Christ then included in and typified by Isaac i. e. from the New and spirituall Jerusalem to all true Christians concludes of all such We are not the Children of the bond woman but of the free and in 5. Chap. verse 1. exhorting them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free And forbidding and in the next 3 verses shewing the danger of returning againe under the servile yoke of the Covenant of works Do and live whereas by Faith and not by works the hope of Righteousness is to be expected he concludes in the sixth verse that neither circumsition nor uncircumsition i. e. neither workes nor any externall priviledges of the workers avail any thing to life and righteousnesse but Faith which worketh by love what is that but Faith which worketh by a new principle of filiall love and not from that olde principle of servile feare the proper adjunct of the Covenant of workes This is to be the Children of the free not the bond woman by the Faith of Christ alone to seek for righteousnesse yet to be still working from a principle of love not of feare to bring forth fruits of sanctification to him that hath freely justified us This man saith the Apostle hath entred into his rest as God hath entred into his rest Heb. 4. 10. As God having consummated the worke of Creation rested and ceased from his worke because all was perfect and needed no addition and Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat downe at the right hand of God ceasing from further sufferings because our redemption is fully perfected and nothing more needed to bee added Heb 10. 12. 14. So every beeleever in respect of the rest of Grace having received by Faith the righteousnesse which is by this one sacrifice of Christ for the purging of all his sins sitteth downe for ever at rest in the fruition and firme tenure thereof ceasing from his owne workes to perfect his justification because it is already compleated and nothing needeth to be added to it All his workings henceforth is to manage so great a salvation to the glory of the Author as God worketh hitherto and Christ worketh for the governing and disposing to their proper ends the Creatures made and elect men redeemed Mr. Baxter contrariwise teacheth men so to love themselves as with love to destroy themselves and so to seek for life as to be sure to lose it forbidding them to enter into their Rest of Grace and calling them back to the yoke of bondage againe not suffring them to cease from their owne workes nor to doe that worke of God Jo 6. 29. nor to act in the Sp. of love but of feare and bondage Is not he one of those hard Taskmasters from whose cruelty Christ calleth his Disciples Come unto mee all yee that are weary and heavy laden with the yoakes and burthens which your legall Teachers impose on you and I will give you rest c. These will never permit you to have rest to your soules Mat. 11. 28 29. I conclude therefore that Mr. Baxters Conclusion of this his second Answer to the Objection is as patt to the purpose as an Oyster-shell to a hungry appetite and the love to
live the other sayth Live and doe this the one sayth Doe this for life the other sayth Doe this from life But I have provedfully that the Gospel saith also Doe this for life 1. Now hee manifesteth wherin the haynousnes of the doctrine of this Book and the intolerable damnable wickedness of the Author consisteth viz. in his blindness that hee did not foresee what Antichristian doctrine Mr. Baxter would afterward divulge to the world and say hee had fully proved it but for lacke of this foreknowledge doth heer deliver the contrary truth of Christ prepossessing the minds of men therewith against Mr. Baxters future impostures But 2. Let him not say he hath fully proved but let him fully prove that doing and works as the Scriptures doe oppose the same to faith and receiving of Christ in which sense this Author speaketh are injoyned by the Gospel to justification of life or the life of justification and then let him expect that his Gospel shall stand and the Gospel of Christ lie prostrate at his feet 3. Because Mr. Baxter will never bee able to prove this the true Disciples of Christ will still hold this as one principle difference between the two Covenants that the one requires us to seeke life after the tenour of Justice the other after the tenour of Grace The one bids us to seeke it by Works the other by Fayth The one presupposeth the originall righteousness given us in Adam bidding us by it to follow after happiness the other offereth Christ unto us as the fountain of life both of Justification and Sanctification calling upon us to receive or beleeve in him for both that both may be ours when Christ is ours He is our life and when Christ our life not works our life shall appear we also shall appear with him in glory This is all that this Author meaneth in this passage as himselfe makes evident If in this he be an Hereticke let mee live and die with him in his Heresie To prevent mistake I meane heere the Covenant of works in Mr. Baxters sense throughout this his Treatise viz. the first Covenant made with Adam B. So in his second part page 190. his great note to know the voyce of the Law by is this That when in Scripture there is any Morall worke commanded to bee done eyther for the eschewing of punishment or upon promise of any reward temporall or eternall or else when any promise is made with the condition of any worke to bee done which is commanded in the Law there is to bee understood the voyce of the Law A notorious and dangerous mistake which would make almost all the New Testament and the very Sermons of Christ himselfe to bee nothing but the Law of works I have fully proved before that Morall duties as part of our sincere obedience to Christ are part of the condition of our salvation and for it to be performed And even Faith is a Morall duty It is pity that any Christian should no better know the Law from the Gospel especially one that pretendeth to discover it to others About the matter heer delivered by this Author enough hath been spoken before in examining what Mr. Baxter hath sayd in many parts of his Aphorisms contrary to it Touching the proofe of the contrary Assertion Mr. Baxter hath sayd no more than nor so much as Bellarmine had sayd before him and left prepared to his hand Hee should therefore more properly have sayd Not I but Bellarmine hath fully proved and therefore fully because Mr. Baxter so affirmeth As to the Assertor of it why doth hee pitch upon this Author alone when Calvin Fulk Mr. Fox as I have before Chap. 15. alleadged and quoted them Dr. Amesius Medul Theol. lib. 1. cap. 22. Se. 19. In a word all Protestant Divines from Luther till this present time have in substance and most of them that have occasion to pitch upon the same Subject have even totidem verbis delivered the same doctrine as to mercenary or rewards of debt having learned the same from the Apostle why doth he single out this one as a singular man Let him with Bellarmine Stapleton Maldonat and the rest of that hair roar out against all the Reformed Churches A notorious and dangerous mistake c. A herd of Hereticks and ignorant Animalls It is pity that any Christian should no better know the Law from the Gospel especially such as pretend to discover it to others As to his Morall duties and even Faith as a Morall duty to bee performed for salvation hee speaks like such morall men as nature now blinded and corrupted formeth whose principle it is Naturam ut optimam ducem sequi to follow Nature and naturall instinct or Reason as their best guide knowing not spirituall things because the Naturall man cannot receive them If he savoured so much the Gospel as Philosophy why doth not the phrase which Christ his Apostles use of the spirit and spirituall things so much delight him as that of the Philosophers Morall and Moralities As much was Christs offering himselfe a sacrifice and giving satisfaction to the Justice of God a Morall duty and so not meritoricus for us because due to God from him by the Law for himselfe as Faith in Christ and other purely Gospel duties subservient unto Faith For both these duties on Christs and on our part are comprehended under this one generall of the Law of nature Whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt doe I shall leave the justification and salvation by Morall Faith and Morall duties to Mr. Baxter and with the Apostle through the Spirit wait for the hope of Righteousnesse by Faith Gal. 5. 5 B. So in the next page 191. he intelerably abuseth the Sripture in affirming that of 2. Thes 2. 12. to be the voice of the Law and so making Paul a Legall preacher Is then every teacher after Mr. Baxters Canon which declares what the voice force curse and condemnation of the Law is a Legall and Anti-Evangelicall preacher So he affirmes Paull to bee if he speake out what the curse and condemnation of the Law is Then not onely Paul but Christ also and all his Apostles are Legall not Gospel preachers For he will not deny them to have so made out the Law in its force c. Or when the Apostle in that quoted Stripture speakes of their Damnation which would not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousnesse doth he not leave them under the damnation of the Law for not embracing the Gospell doth not the Law hereby take occasion to damne them the more deeply for neglecting and rejecting the truth The proper office of the Gospell is not to condemn but to save Onely when its salvation is contemned it yeelds backe the contemners under the greater guilt to the Law to power out on them the larger if not largest measure of its curse and wrath Do not thinke saith our Saviour to the Iewes that rejected his Gospell
Qu. 14. that he so layeth this position that he may thereby lay a ground-work for Justification by works Doth Dr. Preston to this end make Christ as Lord the object of Justifying Faith or any where affirm him to be offered as a Law-giver or Commander of morall works and duties to our justifying Much less doth he affirm that such works have any thing to do with Faith in justifying A notable skill hath Mr. Br in confounding when he should divide and distinguish and in distinguishing when there is no need as either may serve to his purpose He knowes that Dr. Preston when he treats of the New Covenant comprehends under it the whole doctrine and all the Promises of Grace made Yea and Amen in Christ as the same Christ is given to us not onely to Justification but also to regeneration illumination sanctification and whatsoever the Grace of the Eternall Father hath made him to us And when he treats of Faith he handles it as the instrument by which not onely Justification but also all the other benefits of Christ may be made ours in receiving Christ the treasury spring of all appropriated to us Therefore in describing the New Covenant he describes it in generall as the womb of all the blessings which are attainable by Christ and not of Justification and Salvation alone And in describing Faith he describes it as the instrument by which we apprehend and appropriate to our selves not onely Christ as righteousness and salvation but also as wisedome and sanctification yea all that tends to the perfecting of a poor sinner to our selves Therefore is it that he speaks more largely of the Covenant and treats more fully of it then needed if he had been to speak of it onely to Justification and Blessedness and that he speaks of Faith more largely and mentioneth other acts of it then are required to this one end And necessarily must he so do else should he have maimed both the Covenant of Grace and the Faith of Christ Here whatsoever Dr. Preston speaketh of the Covenant and Faith in generall of which some part belongeth to the interessing of us to sanctification and other blessings which are by Christ Mr. Br to beguile his Reader confoundeth and confineth to Justification as being spoken of it alone When contrariwise the Doctor doth enough cleerly express the distinct benefits of the Covenant and the distinct acts of Faith receiving the distinct benefits in the very words which he alledgeth out of him App. p. 117. Thou shalt receive the gift of Righteousness wrought by him for an absolution for thy sins and for a reconciliation with me This is our Justification And thereupon thou shalt grow up in love and obedience towards me This is our sanctification But suppose he should have affirmed that Faith as it cleaveth to Christ not onely for the sprinkling of his blood for Justification but withall for the effusion of his spirit to sanctification and the shedding forth of his beams for illumination and the stretching forth of his Almighty arm for supportation c. doth in all these acts justifie as some Divines do seem to speak though without prejudice to their reputation not enough advisedly yet both he and they are so far from making either the most spiritual knowledge and wisedom which are the immediate fruits of illumination or love righteousnes and holines and their acts or works which are the immediate fruits of sanctification to be in any respect usefull to justification that they utterly deny peace joy and hope the immediate fruits of Justification to be any way effectuall and usefull in this business But I find not Dr. Preston any where laying that ground-work much less erecting such a building on it To the five last points if Mr. Br hold them in that which I have expressed to be Dr. Prestons sense yea which himself expresseth to be his own sense I have nothing to say against him The tenth onely excepted to which I must be also mute because neither doth Mr. Br alledg what the Doctor saith and I have not that Treatise of his to inform me But all this is but a playing with holy things he might as well have said Dr. Preston consents with him in confessing there is a God a Christ a Justification a man a sinner to be justified as have said most of what he hath here said We expected he should have produced testimonies of other Divines speaking in common with him what he speaks in common with the Papists in opposition to the doctrine of the Protestants In his Appendix p. 167. and thenceforth to the end of the Book he brings a new supply of Testimonies which he intituleth Bax. Sayings of excellent Divines added to satisfie you who charge me with singularity I shall examine so many of them as have any shew of agreement with Mr. Br in those things wherein he fights against the doctrine of the Protestant Churches Bax. 1 He alleadgeth Dr. Twisse his discovery of Dr. Jacksons vanity p. 528. What one of our Church will maintaine that any one obteins actuall Redemption by Christ without Faith esspecially considering that redemption by the blood of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one Eph. 1. 17. Col. 1. 14. How prettily would he here instill into the thought of his Reader that Dr. Twisse is a man of levity here a subverter of Antinomianism whereof in his Aphorisms p. 173. he complained him to be a Pillarer that here he subverteth Justification from eternity whereof elswhere he is an assertor Nay here he speaketh of the Justification which is by vertue of the New Covenant of the obteining of it actually to our selves This neither Papist nor Protestant neither Dr. Twisse noâ Mr. Br ever affirmed to be without Faith Bax. 2. Bishop Hooper cited by Dr. Jackson Christ onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law Expounded by Dr. Twisse against Dr. Jackson p. 584. His meaning in my judgment is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfection of our faith and holiness although we continue therein untill death But he hath not made satisfaction for the contempts and hatred of his word c. in case men do continue therein unto death Here is nothing of that which Mr. B. hunts after that Christ hath satisfied for no offence no infirmity committed against the New Covenant but this alone is the sum of it that they shall have no benefit by Christ no one sin committed against the Law or Gospel pardoned to them who live and dye impenitent and unbelievers According to that of our Saviour Jo. 8. 24. Therefore I said unto you ye shall dye in your sins for if ye beleeve not that I am he ye shall dye in your sins B. 3 Alstedius Distinct Theol. cap. 17. p. 73. The Condition of the Covenant of Grace is partly Faith partly Evangelicall obedience or holiness of life proceeding from Faith in Christ 1 In
is as smooth as Esau's hands as free from Popery Socinianism from all injurie against the grace of God all-sufficiency of Christs merits consolation of the Saints yea from all error whatsoever as Lazarus was from sores or the poor Gadaren from Devills that had but a legion of them within him That it agrees so harmoniously with the doctrine of Paul as light with darkness Christ with Belial and the Temple of God with Idols That in these things the Covenant of Grace consisteth indeed therefore invites all at the consideration of the innocency and profundity of this his Gospel to follow him in seeking a sure salvation by their own righteousness in the Curse of the Law To insist no longer upon generals I shall examine the particular Apologies which he makes for this his Doctrine of Justification by works to cleer it from the false imputations which the ignorant Antinomians that is in his Construction Luther Calvin Twisse Pemble and their followers might charge it withall His first Task which he appoints to himself is to vindicate it from having any smack of Popery how so doth not both he and they maintain in the same words that we are justified by works this he cannot deny But forsooth there is a great difference in this whose pen it is that drops the assertion The Papists do it with a quill of a Capitoline Mr. Br. with a quill of a Kederminster goose This alters the case saith Ploydon makes the same Proposition to be Popery and no Popery But let us hear himself speaking and multiplying his reasons why it must not be taken for Popery Br. Aphor. p. 304 305. How this differeth from the Popish Doctrine I need not tell any Scholar that hath read their writings 1 They take justifying for sanctifying so do not I. 2 They quite overthrow and deny the most reall difference between the Old Covenant and the New and make them in a manner all one But I build this Exposition and Doctrine chiefly upon the clear differencing and opening of the Covenants 3 When they say we are justified by the works of the Gospell they mean only that we are sanctified by works that follow faith and are bestowed by grace they meriting our inherent justice at Gods hands In a word there is scarce any one Doctrine wherein even their most learned Schoolmen are most sottishly ignorant then in this of Justification So that when you have read them with profit and delight on some other subjects when they come to this you would pitty them and admire their ignorance 4 They take our works to be part of our legal Righteousnes I take them not to be the smallest portion of it but only a part of our Evangelicall righteousness or of the condition upon which Christs righteousnes shall be ours Suppose all these things were true and the difference between him and the Papists were so great and manifold as in these particulars he pretendeth yet all this nothing evinceth his Doctrine not to be Popish especially among Scholars to whom he appealeth For 1 All this would but excuse him a tanto non a toto that in these particulars he is not though in many other and greater he be Popish 2 Though he differed from them in the premisses yet he is one with them in the conelusion Bellarmine brings his arguments and Stapleton his to prove that works justifie Are they not both Papists because their arguments differ when their Conclusion is one Mr. Br thinks that in some particulars his curious wit hath prompted him with a finer and surer way of demonstration to stablish Justification by works than ever entered into the Cardinals Cap or Cranion Doth this deny him to be a Papist because he speaks more for them than they could for themselves 3 Though Bellarmins and Brs. way of arguing do in some particulars differ yet is the later as great an opposite to the truth of the Gospell in his way as the former in his Both oppugn with their utmost strength the doctrine of grace though they divide the battell between them the one scaling from the North the other from the South 2 But it cannot be truly sayd that there are truly those reall differences between Mr. Brs. and the Papists Doctrine which hee here particularizeth For 1 Though in some of these particulars he speaks not the idem yet he speaks the Tantundem with them 2 Where he speaks not the very idem hee speaks more grosly Pharisaically and adversatively to the truth then they For the manifesting hereof let us particularly examine those particulars in which he saith he differs from them 1 Saith he They take justifying for sanctifying so do not I. 1 This speaks out their Doctrine to be more tolerable then his For the Scripture denies not the increase of sanctification to be in part by works which is all that the Papists hold But accurseth them that shall attribute Justification either in its beginning or growth if there were any such thing to works 2 It is not true that the Papists make whole or all Justification to consist in Sanctification For in their many divisions and distinctions of Justification among the rest they have this There is a first and a second justification The former of Infants and new Converts conferred in baptism This consists in remission of sins meerly by the blood of Christ sprinkled by the Spirit in Baptism upon Infants that are not of age actually to believe and received also by Faith by believing Converts in their Baptism The later end indeed they make to consist in the infusion of the habit of grace and sanctification when the justified man ex justo justior fit is more and more justified This will afterward be manifested So that all Scholars must acknowledg Mr. Br. to have the Tantundem and almost in every apex the Idem of this Doctrine Yea worse is his doctrine in this particular than theirs For he makes Sanctification and good works a Collateral with the righteousness of Christ in justifying They abandon this doctrine teaching that they are but fruits of Gods grace and Christs merits Thus he sets up vain man as Cheek-mate with Christ they set him at his foot-stool or appoint him to follow and apprehend the hemm of his garment to draw vertue from him though indeed to other and prouder ends then he hath ordained Br. They quite overthrow and deny the most reall difference between the Old Covenant and the New and making them in a manner one I build upon the clear differencing and opening of the Covenants 1 All this is said not shewed and proved 2 If the Papists did wholly as he saith Mr. Br. to every particle of what he charges them with might tune up the Poets Epigram Jam sumus ergo pares Jam sumus ergo pares In all this we shake hands What fouler confounding of the Covenants can there be then what Mr. Br hath committed when he makes DO and LIVE to be the voyce of
both Covenants denying any usefulness to Faith it self in justifying but as it is a deed and morall work Let Babel it self be raked from end to end there will not be found more confusion The Papists say doing and works as works and doing cannot be our righteousness to justifie us But as they receive purification from the blood and grace of Christ so they obtain acceptance with God and becom our righteousnes to justifie us Christ say they hath merited that our fulfilling of the Law should justifie us Mr. Br. saith nay but our fulfilling the works which the Law requireth meriteth that we should receive Christ to Justification as we shall see by and by Let now any rationall man judg which party doth most confound the Covenants he that makes the works of the Law in and for themselves as they are simply done meritorious to Justification or they that ascribe nothing to works but what they have from Christ Both I acknowledg are to be abandoned but the deeper grain of self-extolling the more sensuall lusting after the flesh-pots of Aegypt is in Mr. Brs. Doctrine Let none object that Mr. Br. attributes it not to works as works of the Law but of the Gospel himself knoweth and hath learned that poor shift of the Papists and that they come off handsomer with it upon their then it is possible for him to do upon his principles Bax. 3. They are sottishly ignorant in the Doctrine of Justification so am not I. This I conceive he puts as a third difference between his and their doctrine For what he saith under this third particular that when they say justified they mean sanctified that he had made before the first difference If this be the difference then is he much more guilty than they I obtained mercie because I did it of ignorance saith the Apostle implying that they which did it maliciously against the light of their own understandings were excluded from mercy He that knoweth his fathers will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Yet I conceive Mr. Br. means here the Schoolmen of ancient times of Barbarism not the Jesuits Arminians Socinians and other Scholastick Phylosophick Theologasters of these later times For these are so knowing in Mr. Brs. account in the doctrine of Justification that hee hath borrowed all his knowledg and doctrine from them And why the former should be esteemed more sottishly ignorant in this than in other no lesse mysteriall doctrines of the Gospel I know not In thingt naturall and morall indeed they wrote as learned Philosophers so farr as refined reason could conduct them But in things purely Evangelicall saving about the persons and natures of Christ which they also handled more Metaphysically than Theologically besides some fragments gathered out of Augustine I could hardly ever meet with a sound piece in such of them as have come to my reading There may be a time when Mr. Br. may recant his profit and delight in dipping holy waters from the muddy streams contemning the pure fountain of the Gospel Or if he puts the difference in the former words Bax. 3 When they say we are justified by the works of the Gospel they mean onely that wee are sanctified by works that follow Faith and are bestowed by Grace they meriting our inherent Justice before God And in that which standeth as it were in a fourth place Bax. They take our works to be part our legall I take it only a part of our Evangelicall righteousnes or of the condition upon which Christs righteousness shall be ours Not to except here against his maimed alleadging of their opinions thereby feigning a distance from them that hee might allure his readers without suspition to joyn as neer with them as himself Let us take it for truth what he saith of them and then let the indifferent Reader judg 1 Whether is the most arrogant Doctrine the Papists that say works that follow and are the fruits of Faith and are done in the strength of grace supernaturally infused into the soul do merit or Mr. Br. that saith works as concauses with not fruits of Faith that flow from no other grace but Pelagius his morall Suasion without any Physicall renovation and change upon the will as for distinctions sake some of our Divines are wont to express themselves do so merit If Mr. Br. mean any thing els by grace he conceals it as a mysterie from us and will not throughout his whole book give one hint at it but makes man in his own naturall and morall qualifications the meriter of his own Justification by Christ 2 Or which ascribes most to works they that attribute to them inherent justice which is the lesser or hee that ascribes to them the meriting of Christs imputed righteousnes which is the greater Concerning legall and Evangelicall Righteousness I have spoken enough before And the phrase of the Papists and Mr. Br. is one and the same herein This might suffice to take off this delusion from his Readers that his Doctrine is not Popish But to manifest more fully in the sight of the Sun that every one may run reading it and read it running how grosly and in how many particulars his Doctrine is Papisticall I shall draw out in a parallel his Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Papists setting them side by side that whosoever will by comparing them may determine whether there be any worse Popery from Rome it self than from Kedderminster This I shall make the subject of the next Chapter CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of Mr. Baxter and of the most Trentified and Jesuitized Papists compared together in many particulars and found one and the same The Doctrine of the Papists and of Mr. Baxter compared together in many particulars in their Relation to Justification PAPISTS 1. THere is a two-fold Justification a first and a 2d. Justification the one inchoate unperfect more properly to be termed the beginning or root of and a disposition to justification or being justified than Justification it self or our being fully justified before God 2 The first justification is by the first grace given before all good works for the remission of sins for the meer merits of Christ to Infants by baptism to them that are of Age by Faith The second justification is by new obedience and good works by which the faithfull deserve increase of Righteousness to their fuller Justification 3 Good works are the condition of Justification without which Christs satisfaction is not applyed to us Of this opinion Bellarmine affirmeth some of his fellows to be and finds no fault with it or them onely himself takes up what seem'd to him more probable Himself also speaks to the same purpose The Gospel promising life upon condition of actuall working Righteousness which consists in keeping the Commandents 4 It is false therefore that we are justified by Faith onely the Scriptures no where affirm it let him be accursed that shall say it Many other graces vertues and
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâst speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌs Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
and actions the godly are called Righteous in Scripture and their faith and duties are said to pleas God viz. at they are related to the Covenant of grace i. e. as they are coÌditions procuring our Justification by Christ as well as in regard of the imputed Righteousnes which he addeth but as a cypher bringing no proof for it but all seemingly for the former Aphor. Thes 18 19 20 22 and its explication p. 119. c. We are justified by works commanded This is the generall vote of all Popish writers none excepted in the Law yet as they make up not our Legall but our Evangelicall Righteousness not as they are done upon legall terms but as they are conditions of the New Covenant This is the chief substaÌce of Mr Brs whole book and it is a poorer shift to elude the doctrine of Paul than is that of the Papists Love is an essentiall part of Justifying Faith not properly a fruit of of it Aph. p 266. When Faith therefore The common Tenet of Papists not love is said to justifie it is said so to work in its essentiall work of accepting by Love pa. 268. That both are necessary to salvation are concurrent in apprehending Christ is doubtless p. 271. Love doth truly receive Christ c. p. 224. The people are to understand that for them to take upon trust from their Teachers what they cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary that many This also is a known Tenet among the Papists do imagin Epistle to the reader in the last page save two These may suffice for a Taste by which the reader may judge whether Mr. Brs and the Papists Barrells are filled with the same Herring or not Should I proceed to Compare also his and their equivocations ambiguities mentall reservations together with their purposed and not unwary Contradictions when to say and deny the same thing in severall places as may severally make for their advantage But specially if I should go on to Compare them how they bring the same arguments to prove their severall assertions and the same distinctions and other shifts of Sophistry to elude the Scriptures and reasons which make against them I should procedere ad infinitum almost begin but finde no end In alleaging the words of the severall Authors something here and there hath perhaps been abbreviated some words standing as cyphers without waight in reference to the questions Controverted interserted to make up some orderly Connexion of the following with the foregoing particular cited But no where have I wittingly Committed any such alteration of the words as to alter in one Title the sense of the Writer as will be evident to all that will but take the pains to examine the citations with their authentique or books from which they are cited Neither is there any one thing alleaged in which the two parties Cohere but what hath been still Controverted between the Papists and Protestants Else would it be easie to produce a thousand particulars wherein the Pope and Luther themselves speak one and the same thing without opposition or difference If any where when Mr. Br and the Papists speak the same words yet Mr. Br means not punctually the same thing with the Papists in every such allegation I undertake to manifest that he is worse and delivers more self-exalting Grace-depressing doctrine than they Yet all this is too little to set forth the frame of Mr. Brs spirit he may take himself injured and left too obscure if he be but matched with the Papists and have no pre-eminence granted him before and above them in exalting mans righteousnes and nullifying the Grace of God in Christ That we may not rob him of the praise to which his ambition seems to aspire we will grant to him that the Papists are but the Pigmies and he the Giant that in the battell between Michael and the Dragon he hath superexcelled more deserved the Scarlet Hat Miter Crosier yea Triple Crown it sâlf than they that have and wear them if not by his Art yet at least by his daring boldnes in his undertakings This service therefore I shall do him to manifest not onely his equality with but also his exâperancy above many of the famous Champions of Rome That many of the brave Cardinals Bishops Jesuits and Fryars of the Church of Rome are Protestants in the poynt of Justification as compared with Mr. Br and that he sheweth himself in many particularâ about this doctrine a Papist of a deeper dye than the more modest Papists yea than some of the most Jesuitized and Trentified Rabbi's among them This shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVII A comparing of Mr. Baxters Doctrine with the Doctrine of some of the more Modest and other more Trentified and Jesuitized Papists in which he is found more Antichristian than they Papists 1 IT is to be noted that the Scripture attributeth this imputation of Righteousness to no other thing but Faith 2 Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to forgive and reconcile but all its vertue proceeds from its object namely Christ whose vertue and merit God hath disposed to apply to the sinner unto Justification by Faith on him 3 If it be enquired how the Law of Faith is distinguished by Paul against the Law of works even of morall works when Faith also is comprehended under the genus or kind of works for to beleeve is our work The solution is that to beleeve in him that justifieth the ungodly leaneth upon the Righteousnes of another to wit of God through Christ but other works do lean upon their own Righteousness every work is in or after it self good and makes him good that hath it 4 If Faith as it is a certain Act and of it self should procure Righteousness then were not Righteousness given freely God hath not used works to justifie as he hath used Faith that men should not boast attributing Righteousness to the vertue or merit of works 5 Faith is not counted to us for Righteousness as if it self were made our Righteousness but because it brings a Righteousness on man before God not as it is an act of man then Grace should be of works for to beleeve is a kind of work but of Gods will as he hath willed that Righteousness should be given to man by Faith and the vertue of Christ upon whom man beleeveth should be communicated to the beleever This is to count or impute Faith to Righteousness before God 6 Whereas we attain a twofold Righteousness by Faith an inherent Righteousness c. by which we become pertakers of Gods nature and the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us c. It remains to be enquired upon which of these we ought to lean or trust and to account our selves justified before God My judgment is that we are to rest to rest I say as upon a stable
thing that firmly susteineth namely the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not on the holiness and grace inherent in our selves For this is unperfect c. therefore we cannot for it be counted Righteous before God But the imputed righteousness of Christ is a perfect righteousnes in which there is nothing that can offend the eyes of God but all things that can abundantly please him Vpon this alone therefore are we to rest as upon a thing sure and stable and to beleeve that by it alone we are justified 7 This may undoubtedly be affirmed and it is the opinion of all Divines that God can justifie men and make them pleasing and amiable to him without any inherent quality or habits infused 8 To the same purpose and somewhat more fully speaketh Bellarmine The guilt or obligation to punishment saith he may be taken away without the infusion of Righteousnes For nothing hinders by how much the less God can will the not ordeining to punishment and the pardoning of the offence and the not accounting him for an enemy to whom he hath not granted the gift of habituall Righteousness 9 The Scope of James in the second Chapter of his Epistle is to shew that we are justified not by a barren but by a fruitfull Faith 10 The meaning of James is not that Faith without works is dead c. For it is evident that we are justified by Faith even without works But his meaning is that Faith without works that is which refuseth to work or is noâ disposed to work is a dead Faith vain and justifieth not What therefore James alleageth out of Gen. 15. Abraham beleeved God to this purpose he alleageth it that he beleeved being in readiness to work Therefore he saith that in the work of offering his Son the Scripture was fulfilled speaking of his Faith prepared to work It was fulfilled I say as to the execution of that great work to which his Faith was prepared 11 If any where in Scripture thou hearest reward or wages promised know that it is no otherwise due then by Gods promise freely he hath promised freely he gives If thou wilt abide in his Grace and Favour make no mention of thy Merits 12 All Papists consentingly make the Merits of Christ the foundation of mans merits as far as he can merit Neither Faith nor works nor doing nor sufferings say they have any other vertue to merit then what they receive from the merits of Christs death then as they are dipt in his blood this makes them acceptable to the Father 13 When Christ saith of the woman Luk. 7. 47. Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much it is to be understood not that she loved much and so her much love was the cause of her great forgiveness but contrarywise that because many sins were forgiven her therefore she loved much 14 To be given freely and to be a retribution to works are as much opposit as that which is free and that which is from Justice or as not due and debt And this way of inference the Apostle useth in the beginning of this 4th Chapter viz. speaking of Justification by Grace 15 The work of Justice is wages or Reward and this way of Justice Grace excludeth whose work is meer gift or Donation 16 In this verse the Apostle concludeth that Christ hath saved us from all the evill both of fault and punishment That there is nothing of condemnation remaining to them that are in Christ because all judgment is taken away both to the fault and the punishment 17 It is certain that when originall sin is remited that the evils which it brought are not remitted and taken away as all finde by experience Notwithstanding they remain not under the consideration of punishment because the fault being taken away there can be no desert as to punishment remaining 18 I will remember their iniquities no more saith the Lord i. e. I will neither in this world injoin any Penance for them nor in that which is to come inflict any punishment for them So hath the Holy Ghost promised that our sins shall be forgiven by the New Covenant of Grace 19 In regard of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain glory it is most safe to repose our whole confidence in the sole mercy and benignity of God Baxter THe bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Cardinall Contarenus in Rom. 4. Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition The Common opinion that justifying faith as justifying doth consist in any one single act is a Wretched Mistake by the one act of faith he means Faith in opposition to works Aph. p. 235 248. Faith it self is our righteousnesse viz. our Evangelicall as Christ is our Legall Righteousnesse It self Toletus a Iesuite upon Rom. 3. is imputed to us for righteousnesse Aph. p. 125 126. It justifieth as it is an act of ours and as it is a morall duty App. p. 80. 102. Both Faith and workes make up one condition one righteousness one perfect righteousness of our own by Cardinall Cajetan upon Rom. 3. which we merit to be justified by God by the legall righteousness which is in Christ And consequently Faith doth not lean upon anothers and works upon their own righteousness but both make up one compounded righteousness and goodness which make us righteous and good also and by this righteousness and goodness deservers of justification salvation Aph. Thes 17 18 19 20 23 24 26. and scatteringly throughout the whole Book Faith as an act of ours and of it self with other workes procureth Righteousness And God hath used Toletus the Iesuit up on Rom. 1. works to justifie as he hath used faith even in the same kinde of causality So we have found Mr. Br. oft affirming as may be seen in our former quotations Let him deny that he holds the consequents of these two Antecedents if he will It is so far from being an error to affirm that Faith it self is our righteousness that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know yea it both is our Righteousnesse and is imputed to us for righteousnesse The very personall performance of faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment of righteousnes Idem in Rom. 4. as if we had paid the full duty and righteousnesse which the Law requireth This is the substance of his words though not his very words which being continued in terms of a Metaphor cannot without the citing of the whole similitude be expressed to the understanding otherwise Aphor. p. 125 126 129. There is a two-fold righteousnesse attainable by Christ at least in words the one an inherent righteousnesse in our selves consisting in the seed and acts of Faith Love Holinesse c. the other in Christ but made over to beleevers by Gods Donation if not imputation Both of these are absolutely necessary to salvation neither is
perfecting by the flesh The question therefore was whether Faith alone in Christ or eââe together with it a naturall faederall and practicall righteousness after the rule of the Law were required to the acquiring of the Justification which is by Christ Hence is that his zealous expostulating with Peter and Barnabas for giving some occasion to the Gentiles to question whether besides Faith in Christ some Conformity to the Law were not also needfull to Justification We saith he who are Iewes by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the Faith of Iesus Christ even we have beleeved in Iesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law for by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified Gal. 2. 15 16. The sum of his debate is as if he had said If we that besides the supereminent prerogative vouchsafed to us to be the Apostles of the Lord Jesus have a derivative holines by nature and the Covenant of God from Abraham and withall a righteousness oâ works by living up to our utmost in the highest pitch of obedience to the Law having found by revelation from the Lord Iesus Christ that all these are nothing available but Faith alone proper and effectuall to obtein the salvation and righteousness which is by Christ have wholly rejected all confidence in and use of these in order and reference to justification and made our addresses by Faith alone to partake of his righteousness why do we by our judaizing beguile the poor Gentiles that have none of these prerogatives into a pernicious opinion of perfitting their justification by Christ with their practicall righteousness in obedience to the Law Where it is to be noted that in one and the same verse the Apostle doth thrice expresly banish works from having any thing to doe in the business of justification by Christ and no less often attribute it to Faith and belâleeving in Christ without all help of works And can it be doubted what the question is about which he disputeth To the same scope is directed all that he delivereth in the third Chapter That he pronounceth the Galathians foolish and even bewitched that having obteined justification already by Faith alone in Christ they would be seduced to seek the perfecting thereof by works Gal. 3. 1 2 3. That while they were ambitious to become the Children of Abraham they fell utterly from Abraham and from the justification which Abraham found by seeking it another way then Abraham found it viz. by works and not by Faith onely ver 6 7 8 9. That so to seek it was the way to meet with the Curse in steed of the blessing of Christs righteousnesse ver 10-12 of which more may be said a little after That the justification which is by Christ discendeth by promise to us and promises are the object of Faith not of works ver 17 18 22. But all this together with what the Apostle disputeth of liberty and bondage in the fourth Chapter I leave to them that will but considerately read it to judge whether it evinceth not that to be Pauls question which I have mentioned Lastly when the Apostle Gal. 5. 4. brandisheth so heavy a denuntiation against such as had suffered themselves in this point to be sedueed by the false Apostles whom Mr Br. followeth as his guides and gods Christ is become of no effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace What force had there been in this wrathfull threat if the question between him and them had been about the proper Righteousness by which we are justified if they had held iâ to be their own righteousness in opposition to Paul that held it to be the righteousness of Christ they would have laughed at such a Commination as a meerly frighting squibb or scar-crow answering we grant all that we are fallen from Grace that Christ is become of no effect to us But what damage can by all this befall us we make not Christ our Justifier but labour to Justifie our selves we seek Salvation not from Grace but as a debt in justice due to the Righteousness of our own works The Apostle surely was not such an ignorant Antinomian as to dispute so impotently that his Arguments might by subtle Baxterians be thus flung back as absurdities in his face It is therefore evident that the Galathians when most sednced ceased not to make Christ their Righteousness but had yeelded to this imposture as the next Vârse declareth that not Faith alone but their own works and righteousnes with it were pre-required to make them capable of the righteousness which is by Christ and that upon this ground the Apostle denounceth them to be Apostates from Christ and Grace because they sought by their own righteousness to entitle themselves to the righteousnesse which is by Christ and sought it not by Faith alone If any demand the reason of this Consequence that whosoever seeketh right to the Justification of Christ by his own works makes himself an alien from Christ from Grace the Apostle in part implyeth it in that which he speaketh in these 4 and 5 verses of Chapter 5. But had more fully explained himself Chap. 3. 9 10 11 12. So that by comparing together what he hath said in both places the reason of his Conclusion resulteth into all mens view viz. that such a one seeketh the righteousness and salvation which are by Christ in a legall not an evangelicall way by works and not by Faith therefore is bound to bring the perfect righteousness and works which the Law requireth to make him capable of justificasion by Christ or els falls from Christ from Grace to his everlasting ruine I shall add no more upon this subject not because the Scripture hath no more but because I hold this sufficient and know the morosity and humorousness of most readers in our times preferring an erroneous conciseness before a sound and full manifestation of the truth But my endeavour is to please not men but Christ I leave Mr. Br to trample his own rule not to be bold with Scripture by being first bold with Conscience I dare not usurp to my self his peremptory audaciousness with one breath of the mouth to destroy the whole Gospel in saying onely not shewing and proving that it must be thus understood He that can so do with holy things bewrayeth much pride and prophanness in his heart though he be never so much pharisaically enamelled and philacterized in the outside Let him see how he can answer God for his audacious curtness I shall not fear the censures of men for my length in bringing to light what he hath stifled in darkness Let my style please or displease fancies it shall suffice me to have taken off his first Paradoxicall imposture that he brings to prove his doctrine to be the same with
again with the strokes of his Curse so sorely that we shall be healed no more while the world lasteth I have sworn that I would no more be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee Isa 54 9. i. e. I have sworn but never meant to stand to it I might instance hundreds more of such Scriptures wherewith Mr. Brs. glosses and distinctions do as well agree as fire towe together If Mr. Br. did so much honour the very intrals of Gods word as hee doth the backside of Aristotles Topicks he would not dare so to elude and elide them But Gods authority with him must it seems stand or fall as it hath or hath not approbation from Aristotles or Socinus his Reason being submitted to the censure thereof And then what living plant of God can stand where this man brings the Axe of his distinctions to fell and prepare billets in heaps for his Cole-fires B. 2. As to the Covenant of works though he make them Concomitants with Faith in justifying and that the voyce of the New C is after his Assertion the same with the voyce of the Old Do and Live yet he denies his doctrine to be herein Legall Because there is a manifold difference implyed though not expressed between the Lawes and the Gospels justifying by works 1 The Law requireth an obedience or righteousness of works in every number and degree perfect to justification But hee makes the New Covenant or Gospell to require only sincere obedience or obedience perfect in sincerity for the attainment of this end Aph. pa. 133. 316. and Thes 77. pa. 310. and App. pa. 76 77. And the sincere covenanting of this obedience or this sincere obedience covenanted must be thus conditioned else it is not sincere 1 It must follow upon the knowledg of the Nature ends conditions of the Covenant 2 It must be done deliberately and not in a fit of passion or rashly 3 It must be done seriously and not dissemblingly or slightly 4 Freely and heartily and not through meer constraint and fear 5 Intirely and with a resolution to perform the whole Covenant and not with reservations giving themselves to Christ by the halves or reserving a purpose to maintain their fleshly interests 6 It must be the taking and obeying of Christ alone not joyning others in office with him but renouncing all other happiness save what is by him and all government and salvation from any which is not in direct subordination to him Append. pa. 33. These make up a sincere and perfect obedience a sincere and perfect Gospel-righteousness perfect in respect of Evangelicall though not of legall perfection For sincerity is our Gospel perfection being a conformity to the rule of perfection viz. the New Covenant as it is a Covenant a perfection of sufficiency in order to its end which is to be the condition of Justification Aph. p. 132 133. Who now is there of all men that hath eyes in his elbows but seeth distinctly a vast difference between the Laws and the Gospels justifying by works For it is justice which requires perfect but Grace that requireth but sincere obedience to justification All this is without book the dictates not of the Holy Ghost but of Mr. Br. and that spirit which wrought in his Masters from whom he learned it For 1. The Scriptures which he alledgeth in any part of this Treatise to make any part thereof probable have been examined and none of them found to speak for him most against him Neither do these assertions of Scripture that affirm Christ to give or promise that he will give life salvation c. to such or such qualified or working persons as to them that love him or fear him or obey him or to the meek the righteous c. any more infer that these qualifications or works have any proper or improper causality to produce their justification than when the Scriptures affirm him to give grace and life to Centurions Publicans Harlots Sinners Enemies Uâgodly Chief sinners Samaritans Heathen do infer that their being such had any causality unto their justification 2. Nay the Scriptures utterly deny the Gospel to have to do with the Law in this voyce Do and Live as I have before oft alleged them Not by works of righteousness which we have done but of his Mercy he hath saved us by Faith not of works Not of workes but of Grace And how poor a shift Mr. Br. useth to elude the force of these and the like Scriptures hath been shewed in the examination of his vindicating himself from being contradictive to St. Paul 3. Yea if works in any notion or consideration be brought as coupled with Faith to promote Justification the Scriptures affirm them to destroy the hope of Justification and to repell the grace of Christ by which the Beleevers are justified If ye be circumcised which in Pauls sense there is if yee bring but this one work to forward your Justification by Christ ye are bound to keep the whole law Christ is become of no effect ye are faln from grace and faln under the Curse Gal. 5. 3 4. 3. 10. 4. And if works or obedience in Mr. Brs. sense which is the doing of the moral Righteousness that the Law commandeth be not as much as adjuvant to Justification then surely sincere obedience cannot be helpful where obedience yea perfect obedience is excluded This is and appears to be either an instinct or a distinction of Mr. Brs. own brain not a doctrine of the Scripture for which way shall we turn the leaves thereof to find it 5. Yea how rational or how ridiculous this distinction or gloss of Mr. Br. applyed to those Scriptures which deny justification by the obedience of works I leave both to the seeing and the blind to judg By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified saith the Apostle i. e. saith Mr. Br. by the perfect obedience of works but by unperfect obedience if sincere we may be justified Not of works but of grace i. e. not of works perfectly done but of works unperfectly yet sincerely done so grace and works may be made friends that is Gods grace and mans vain glory may kiss each other as co-equal workers of mans justification Not by works of Righteousnes which we have done but of his mercy c. i. e. which wee have done perfectly but which we have done maimedly yet sincerely If some Festus should hear such a Commentary of Mr. Br. upon Paul he would conclude sure that one of them is beside himself much learning hath made him madd Either Paul that he had not wit or words to express his own meaning that in the whole bulk of his disputes denying unto our works and righteousness indefinitely all operation to Justification doth not as much as with a Parenthesis in any place inform his Reader that he speaks not of Gospel but of legall works not of sincere but of perfect obedience that these are rejected from those necessarily
or else be free and absolute and in what sense it may be granted to be Conditional pa. 1. p. 108. to 118. The numerousnesse and withall unprofitablenesse of the Conditions which Mr. Br. assigneth part 2. p. 31 32. His vain ascribing to Conditions part 2. p. 26 83 108 109 c. 272 273. His Reasons to prove it examined part 1. p. 353 to 356. The hurtfullness of the contrary doctrine which Mr. Br mainteineth part 1. p. 351-353 His dispute to prove it still after we are in Christ to remain Conditional par 1. p. 292. to 308. VVhat the judgment of the Protestant Divines in this point is part 2. p. 17 to 22. 204 205. The promulgation offer of it may be granted Conditionall but once in being and possession it is absolute part 1. p. 355 356. The rashnesse of some Ministers in closing with Mr. Br. in this his Popish Arminian doctrine pa. 2. p. 22 23 25 237. Whether the Covenant of Grace were originally made between the Father and the Son and what the Covenant was and upon what terms so made p 1. p. 99. to 107. What relation all the other Covenants made in time between God and man had to this ibid. Mr Br. after the Papists distinguisheth between the Commands and Counsels of the word part 1. p. 213 214. The doctrine of Justification by Faith alone not a soul Cozening doctrine p 2. p. 173 c. Beleevers not under the Curse as the Curse or revenging punishment for sin part 1. largely discussed from p. 24. to p. 61. The Question stated ib. p. 32. c. The Reasons brought by the Protestant Writers to prove the Negative against the Papists ib. p. 33. to 37. Mr. Brs Arguments for the Affirmative ib. p. 29-31 His Arguments answered ib. p. 38. to 49. How many wayes popish and pernicious this his doctrine is ib. p. 49. to 62. D Darkening in stead of cleering Truths common to Mr. Br. with the Papists part 1. p. 5 9 10. The Death and blood of Christ onely expiatory and satisfactory to Justification part 2. p. 64 65 67. to 70. VVhether Justification admit of Degrees or magis minus part 1. p. 286. to 291. VVhether the Devil shall manage the accusation of men in the day of Judgement part 1. p. 281. Distinctions in Divine matters not grounded upon the word viz. Arts Sophistry Doctrines not to be judged of after the personall splendour of their Authors pref p. 4 5. Doe viz. Life and Live E VVhether it be Easie to perswade men to embrace Justification by Faith but difficult by works part 2. p. 181. to 184. Sanctification a sure Evidence of Justification so convertibly pa. 2. 176. to 178. In what respects good works do so Evidence ib. F Faith without works not competent to justifie according to Mr. Br. part 2. p. 4. How farre he followeth the Papists in the doctrine of implicit Faith part 1. p 1 2 3 c. His doctrine herein directly pointed against the Protestants ib. p. 4. We must not admit doctrine of Faith upon the authority of our Teachers ib. p. 6. The evils attending the doing thereof ib. p. 7 8. Mr. Brs wild and irregular definition of Faith to prove justification by works discovered to be ridiculous pa. 2. p. 56. c. The doctrine of the Protestants about Faith and works part 2. p. 174. c. What Mr. Br. meaneth by Faith or his To credere part 2. p. 71. c. How different Mr. Brs sense is from some of the Protestant writers that with him call Faith the Condition of justification part 1. p. 349 350. Forgiving of others not a Condition of Gods justifying and forgiving us part 2. p. 31 33 c. to the 37. Mr. Brs Fraud in hiding all that the protestants have written against his popish doctrines part 2. p. 17 18. 128 129. G The Genius of men when conspiring is apt to draw each other into truth or error pref p. 10 11. By what means the Gospel was so much and so suddenly propagated at the begining of the Reformation by Luther pref p. 39 40. How the further propagation of it was stopped ib. p. 40 41. Gospel Comforts are Antidotes against sin and carnall liberty not fomenters of it par 2. p. 162 163 167 168. Mr. Brs Reasons to prove his doctrines not to be legall and against the Gospel examined part 2. p. 266. to p. 276. Whether or in what respects Christ hath or hath not satisfied for sins against the Gospel as for sins against the Law p. 1. p. 219-227 Whether works as holpen by Grace justifie part 1. p. 139. to 143. Mr. Br. the papists vainly make this their common plea to excuse their arrogance in ascribing justification to works ib. p. 175 176 H Whether beleevers ought to serve for fear of Hell part 2. p. 155-157 Hiding viz. Fraud I What the judgment of many learned protestant Divines hath been and is about justification as an Immanent and eternal act in God part 1. p. 231. to 238. What Scriptures they bring to prove the affirmative ib. p. 238. to 247. Mr. Brs dispute against them examined ib. p. 248-262 Faith the Instrument of justification p. 1. p. 330. And the some both Gods and mans Instrument and in what sense each is such ib. p. 332 334 336 to 341. Mans Instrument 334-336 342-348 Mr. Brs cavils against this doctrine answered ib. p. 358. to 361. 364. to 368. 370. Whether believers as well as the reprobates shall be judged for according to their works in the last day largely discussed against Mr. Br. p. 2. p. 124-136 Whether the Scriptures which speak in the future tense of justifying do denote the day of Judgment p. 1. p 278-280 Judgment viz. Devil 282. The State of the question between Mr. Br and the Protestants about Justification by works Part 2. p. 4 5 6. Justification by works denyed ibid. c. Scriptures produced to prove that Workes have no part with Faith in justifying ibid. p. 10. to 17. The Scriptures cited by Mr. Br to prove the contrary assertion examined ibid. Chap. 3. VVhether according to his own principles he rightly calleth Faith the more and works the less principall Condition of Justification ibid. p. 49. 51 278 279. And if so whether this proveth that when we are said to be justified by Faith onely we are said to be justified by works also and yet justified by Faith alone ibid. Or whether the Reducibleness of all works to faith in some kinde prove it ibid. p. 49 50 52 53-56 278 279. Justification considerable in 3 respects 1 in God 2 in Christ 3 in our own persons and how in every of these Part 1. p. 89 -91. Mr. Brs distinction of justification and pardon into Title of Law and sentence of Judgement Constitutive and Declarative virtuall and Actuall examined and proved unscripturall and vain and his reasons to prove a Justification in the day of Judgement answered
Part 1. p. 277. to the 286. More of Justification see Bellarmine Repentance Faith Works Condition Scripture Lord Prayer Forgiving Love Easie Christ Papists Paul Cozen Grace Causes Reconciliation Degrees K. The kingdome and pardon of God and of Christ are one and the same Part 1. p. 228 229. L. VVhether beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works largely discussed against Mr. Br. part 1. p. 61 to 97. Protestants reasons for the Negative ibid. p. 62-66 Mr. Brs Sophistry in stating the question ibid. p. 66-70 The Law not repealed as a Covenant of Works to any but in a right sense nulld to beleevers part 1. p. 71-74 The vanity of the distinctions fallaciousness of the Arguments which Mr. Br brings to prove the Affiâmative ibid. p. 75. to the 97 Many abuse the Law in preaching it first not onely to kill but then also to make alive again Pref. p. 11 12. Distinguishing the same works into works of the Law and works of the Gospel viz Paul and Moral Law-giver vid. Lord. Legal or Law teacher vid. Gospel Secular Learning see Arts Sophistry Tertullion Bullinger The doctrine of Faith gives not the Reins to carnall Liberty Part 2. p. 286. to the 295 The doctrine of Mr. Br so accusing it doth se ibid. p. 170 171 c. Do and Live whether and in what respects the voyce of the Gospel and in what sense to work for Life not from Life or from Life not for Life are either and both sound doctrine Part 2. p. 137. to the 153. 158. Part 1. p. 179. Whether Christ Justifie as our Lord and Law giver and that it follow thence we are justified by works as well as by Faith Part 2. p. 64. to the 84. How farr and in what sense onely the affirmative may be granted ibid. p. 79. The question stated ibid. p. 65. Mr. Baxters Arguments to prove the affirmative answered ibid. p. 71. to 84. VVhether Love cooperate with Faith in Justifying Part 2. p. 37. 40. Our Acting from Love to God denieth not a regular Love to our selves Part 2. p. 293 294. M. Mr. Brs Magisteriall and usurped Authority in saying without proving Part 2 p. 252 253. Marks vid. Evidences Metaphysicks see Arts. Mr. Brs doctrine of Merits examined in which he shews himself as high-flown a Papist as any of the Jesuits Part 1. p. 186. to the 194. An Admonition to such Ministers as inconsiderately suck up Mr. Brs doctrines Part 1. p 59 60. What the Moral Law is as considered in it self and in what sense taken Part 1. p. 197-199 VVhat Relation it hath to the severall Covenants ibid. p. 201 202 c. Why the Gospel continues it as a Rule and that it can be no more repealed or abrogated than God un-Godded ibid. p. 199 200 203-206 N. Novelty or Newnes of words and phrases used oft for the Vshering in of errors Part 1. p. 128 129. O. Obscuring see Darkening How all the Offices of Christ concur in our Justification yet nothing concludible thence for Justification by works Part 2. p. 63 64. Origen how great a Scholar and how great an abuser of his Learning and corrupter of the Gospel Pref. p. 33 34. P. VVhether our doctrine by excluding works from justifying be a stumbling block to Papists hindering their conversion and an occasion given to many learned men to turn Papists and therefore unsound Part 2. p. 188 to 197. Mr. Brs doctrine compared with the worst of the Papists and found one and the same with theirs Part 2. p. 215. to p. 222 His doctrine compared with such of the Papists as write more moderately found worse than theirs ibid. p. 223. to the 229. VVhether his doctrine contradicts Pauls or not ibid. p. 234. to the 258. His first Reason refuted viz. that Pauls question was what is the proper Righteousness by which we are justified but his own by what means we may attain this Righteousness though they answer differently to these differing questions they consent in Judgements ibid. p. 239 to the 250. His 2 reason that Paul excludes the works of the Law not of the Gospel vain and Popish ibid. p. 251. to the 257. His 3 reason that Paul under the word Faith implyeth works and obedience vitious in the same kinde with the former ibid. p. 257 258. It is no sound reason that Christ commands not the Perfect Righteousness of the Law because Mr. Br seeth no Reason why he should require what he enableth no man to perform Part 1. p. 215. 217 VVhat Reasons thereof may be given ibid. p. 216 217. Perfect See Sincere and Righteousness Person vid. Work Philosophy vid. Arts. Whether Mr. Brs doctrine be as he contendeth free from Popery Part. 2. p. 209 to 215. VVhether it be possible for us to perform a Righteousness perfect to Justification Part 1. p. 194. 196. Whether and in what sense Praying for pardon may be said to be a condition of pardoning and justifying Pa. 2. p. 31-33 Promises see Qualifie Punish and Punishment vid. Curse and Affliction VVhether Mr. Br hold for Purgatory Part 1. p. 54-56 Q. Promises of life made to persons so and so Qualified describe the Justified but demonstrate not for what they are justified Part 2. p. 40 41. 269. Rules given by our Divines for the right understanding of such promises to persons of such qualifications P. 2. p. 112 c. Quotations without the words of Scripture or shewing how he would argue thence why so frequent with Mr. Br. P. 2. Cha. 2 3 in the beginning thereof R. Whether ReconciliatioÌ denotes the same thing with or different from Remission and Justification Part 1. p. 227 228 308 309. VVhether and in what Respects sin may be Remitted before it be committed Part 1. p. 310. to the 313. Whether and in what sense Repentance may be said to officiat in Justifying Par. 2. p. 26. to the 31. Scripture seemingly asserting it examined ibid. What Legal Repentance is ibid. p. 26. What the life promised and death threatened under the Law to this legal Repentance are ibid. p. 26-28 What Gospel Repentance is and how manifold ibid. p. 29-31 Sometimes one with Faith ibid. p. 29 30. In what sense life is promised to it ibid. Repentance either in its large or strict sense how it giveth life ibid. p. 28 29 30. Mr. Brs doctrine of a twofold Righteousness absolutely necessary to Justification the one Legal the other Evangelical this in our selves that in Christ and his Reasons to make good 1 his phrase 2 his matter examined and refelled Part 1. p. 119. to p. 143. His dispute that his doctrine is not derotory to Christ and his Righteousness proved fallacious and false Part 2. p. 259. to the 265. VVhether Righteousness be a Reall Being or else but a Modification of a Being Part 1. p. 149 150. 159. to 161 VVhether the Scripture call men Righteous only for performing the Cnnditions of the New Covenant Part 1. p. 144. to 163.
VVhether the inherent Righteousness of Beleevers be perfect Part 1. p. 181 to the 186. Whether Faith as our Righteousness Justifie Part 1. p. 366-368 S. What to judge of some passages that fell from Mr. Saltmarsh his pen. Part 1. p. 138. Salvation twofold the state of Grace and of Glory Part 2. p. 104 105. In the former sense it is the same with Justification ibid. p. 105. Whether in the latter sense it runs upon the same Conditions with Justification ibid. p. 105 Mr. Brs arguing for the affirmative proved fallacious and invalid ibid. p. 102 oth e 1 12. The Scriptures which he alledged to prove works the condition of Salvation found incompetent and invalid to prove it ibid. p. 116. to the 123. As soundly may we argue from Justification to Salvation that it is universally conditionall as convertibly p. 1. p. 331. Satisfaction vid. death Schoolmens Learning and studies described Pref. p. 37 38. Mr. Br. pretends to admit the Scripture as Judge in the Controversie of Justification by works but fallaciously Pa. 2. p. 7 8. What Scriptures he produceth to prove Justification by works pa. 2. p. 25 c. These all collected by the Papists to his hands ibid. These severall Scriptures examined whether they make for him ibid. p. 25. to the 48. His calumny that the Protestants wrest and implyedly that the Papists truly expound the Scriptures ib. p 9 85 86 87 89. Whether and in what respects God doth see or not see sinn in his pâople Part. 1. p. 70. to 72. Signes vid. Evidences Similies prove not but illustrate what is proved Part 2. p 172. Sincerity what it is Part 1 p. 210. Whether the Gospel requires Perfection or sincerity onely ibid. p. 208. to the 217. Part 1. p. 270. Reasons ministring doubts of Mr. Baxters much applauded sincerity Pref. p. 5. to the 9. Mr. Brs oft excusing himself from affectation of Singularity true yet examined upon what grounds it is true and that he doth it Part 1. p. 331. Whether and how far Mr. Brs doctrine is tainted with or free from Socinianism part 2. p. 229. to the 234. Mr. Brs Sophistry and the evils thereof discovered p. 1. p. 8. to 21. 284. to 281. Sophisticall distinction how pernicious part 1. p. 180 189 278 382. How incoherent with the mind of Christ ib. p. 350. Whether to affirm that Christ Suffered the idem for us denies pardon and free grace part 1. 229 230. T Tertullians judgment of secular intermixed with Divine learning in Gospel matters pref p. 34 35. The Testimonies of those eminent writers whom Mr. Br. citeth as Patrons of his opinion manifested to be against him not for him part 2. p. 197-208 W Word alone competent to determine in Gospel matters pref p. 16 18. to 21. Works and duties co-ordinate with Faith to justifie according to Mr. Br. part 2. p. 4. what duties and works these are ib. p. 5. In what consideration and sense he makes them to justifie ibid. How far we are justified by them before men viz. Charity Mr. Brs and the Papists arguing from St. James for justification by works examined and refelled part 2. p. 184 to 102. His arrogant ascribing to works under his Causa sine qua non or condition part 2. p. 274-276 VVhether when we are said to be justified by Faith works be comprized in faith part 2. p. 281. to 284. How apt mans nature is to put it self under the Covenant of works part 2. p. 285 286. Mr. Brs untoward question answered whether if God had ordeined any work or vertue to justifie it should not have done it part 1. p. 379. c. In what sense our Divines say God justifieth first the person then his actions pa. 1. p. 193 194. Covenant of works see Law More of works see Life and Live Grace and Justification In what sense and respects the Scripture calleth the Saints worthy part 1 p. 187 188. FINIS