Spirit together because according to the Principle aforesaid the Written Word is supposed to say nothing at all of that matter Therefore if ever it be Revealed to the Man and so if ever he be comforted in this World it must be by the Spirit without the Word And then all the poor disconsolate Mans ground of Comfort must be reduced to this That God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word But then we demand how our Authour will be able to assure the poor disconsolate dying Man that God will really do so that God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word For that immediate extraordinary Revelation being a thing that depends also upon Gods Arbitrary Free Will he may do it or not do it as he pleaseth and if God may freely not do it how can our Authour ever assure the Man that he will do it That is that he will by his Spirit immediately and extraordinarily reveal to him without the Written Word that he shall have Eternal Life and not Eternal Death for his Portion But now if our Authour should say that God hath given unto Man a Promise in his Written Word to ground his Faith upon though he hath not given a stated Rule and standing positive Law according to which he will proceed with Man at Death and Judgment We would readily reply thus Either the Promise in the Written Word made to the dying disconsolate Man is an absolute Promise that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life however it be with him whether he be converted or unconverted penitent or impenitent believer or unbeliever And we are sure there is no such promise in the Bible and to tell him of such a Promise would be at once to belie God and to delude the poor Man Or 2. It is a conditional Promise That God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life If through Grace he unfeignedly repent of all his sins and believe on Christ with a lively effectual Faith a Faith working by Love which he is bound to do under the pain of Eternal Death If this be the Promise that the poor dying Man must ground his Faith upon that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life then this is the very thing which Dr. Twisse and we after him call the Law according to which God proceeds in dispensing to his People the subsequent Blessings of the Covenant such as Justification and Glorification are And so our Authour comes over into our Camp which he must do at last and confess if not to us at least to God that he hath grosly misrepresented and falsly accused Christ's faithful Ministers and hath endeavoured to delude the People and to render the Ministers odious to the People and thereby to hinder the success of their Ministry And he must sincerely repent of having done so But if he will yet go on in the way of his own heart we shall be sorry for him and not cease to pray the Lord if it be his will to have Mercy on him and to give him repentance for the scandalous sin which he hath committed in publickly slandring Christs Ministers and in boldly asserting a notorious falsehood in matter of fact saying That the new Law of Grace is a new Word of an old but ill meaning And that he hath really done so we have not only said but proved by the plain testimonies of credible Witnesses whereof two Sealed the Truth of the Gospel with their Blood above fourteen hundred years ago SECT II. Of his second Error that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional SEcondly the Author of the Letter asserts that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional as appears from page 18. at the end and page 24. And particularly he denies that Faith in Christ is the Condition of Justification page 8. Some say that faith justifies as it is a fulfilling of the condition of the New Covenant if thou believest thou shalt be saved This he finds fault with and opposes to it the old Protestant Doctrine as he calls it That the place of Faith in Justification is only that of a Hand or Instrument c. Where we observe 1. That he makes faith its being a Condition and its being a hand or instrument to be two opposite things the one whereof is inconsistent with and destructive of the other and so in this he not only fights against us but likewise against the Assembly of Divines at Westminster who held Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition in the matter of Justification as was shewed before 2. He makes it to be New Doctrine and contrary to the Old Protestant Doctrine to hold that Faith is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace and that we are Justified by Faith as a Condition of the Covenant wherein he makes the Assembly as well as us to be Preachers of a New Doctrine and Corrupters of the Gospel since they likewise held Faith to be a Condition of the Covenant as aforesaid And again in page 9. We say that Faith in Christ is neither Work nor Condition nor Qualification in Justification but is a meer instrument and he affirms that their saying so is that by which the fire is kindled So that saith he in page 10. It is come to that as Mr. Christopher Fowler said that he that will not be Antichristian must be called an Antinomian Here it is very remarkable that he not only denies Faith to be either Work Condition or Qualification in the matter of Justification but he also in effect affirms that it is Antichristian to assert that Faith is either Work Condition or Qualification and that he will therefore rather choose to be called an Antinomian for denying than to be an Antichristian for affirming it This is and must be his meaning or else he was dreaming and knew not what he did when he cited Mr. Fowler and brought in his Judicious saying with a so that it is come to that as Mr. Fowler said c. Finally in page 25 at the beginning he says that Faith in the Office of Justification is neither Condition nor Qualification but in its very act is a renouncing of all such pretences From all which it is plain that we do not wrest his Words nor charge him with an Opinion which he doth not hold for he so firmly holds the Covenant of Grace to be Absolute and not Conditional and particularly that Faith is neither the Condition of obtaining Justification nor a qualification of the Person then Justified when he believes that he glories to be accounted an Antinomian rather than renounce that Opinion page 24. And he holds it to be New and Antichristian Doctrine to maintain that Faith is either a Condition of obtaining Justification or a qualification of the Person justified or to be justified in that instant of time wherein he believes Before we refute this Opinion we will briefly
foresaid Book called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to Practice page 195 196. As God did ordain us to everlasting Life by way of Reward of our Faith Repentance and good works so likewise he did â—rdain us to the obtaining of Faith Repentance and good Works to be wrought in us partly by the Ministry of his Word therein speaking unto us and partly by our Prayers seeking unto him to bless his word unto us and fulfil the good pleasure of his Goodness towards us and the work of Faith in Power For God doth expect that we should seek unto him by Prayer for this as we read Ezek. 36.37 Thus saith the Lord I will yet for this be sought of the House of Israel to perform it unto them Neither do we maintain that God doth ordain any Man of Ripe Years unto Eternal Lise in any moment of Nature before he ordains him to Faith Repentance and Good Works and that to be wrought in him by the Ministry of the Word with Gods Blessing thereupon according to the Prayers in common both of the Pastor and the People By this passage we see that though Dr. Twisse denies that Gods giving us Grace to Convert Believe and Repent doth depend upon any proper Condition to be antecedently performed by us before we can ever in any case receive that Grace yet he confesses and maintains that ordinarily Gods giving that first special Saving Grace depends upon the use of his appointed means and that it is Gods Will it should so depend And truly if it were not so Ministers should give over Preaching and Praying and People give over hearing them and joyning in Prayer with them in order to Conversion for it would all serve to no end or purpose but would be a taking of Gods Name in vain Thus it may appear to all that we do not believe nor teach that there is any Condition required to be necessarily performed by us antecedently to our partaking of the first Grace promised in the Covenant so that if we performe that Condition we shall infallibly have that first Grace and if we perform it not we shall infallibly not have it at all 2. From hence it follows that in consistence with our foresaid Principle we cannot hold and we solemnly declare that we do not hold that there is any Natural Condition of the Covenant of Grace for we know assuredly that there is no such Promise in the Covenant of Grace as this Facienti quod in se est viribus naturae dabit Deus primam gratiam God will give the first supernatural Grace to every Man who doth what he can by his Natural Powers It was the Opinion of the Semipelagians that we believe in Christ by our own Natural Strength without Supernatural Grace and upon Condition that we do so God promiseth to give and accordingly he gives us the first internal Supernatural Grace Augustin himself was once of this Opinion as he confesseth lib. de praedestin Sanctorum cap. 3. where he tells us that he was convinced of his Error by that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.7 What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it We bless God for that by his Grace he hath preserved us from that Semipelagian Errour and we declare our abhorrence of it And therefore it must needs be a great wickedness in the Authour of the Letter to bely us as he hath done in charging us not only with Semipelagianism but even with Pelagianism it self which are Errours that our Souls abhor as God who searcheth the Hearts of all Men knoweth and to whom we appeal yet praying him again not to enter into Judgment with that Brother for the wrong he hath done us but rather to give him Repentance and then to pardon him 3. From hence also it follows that we neither do hold nor can hold that there is any meritorious condition of the Covenant of Grace For we do firmly and unanimously believe that Christ by his Elood hath purchased for us and by his Spirit freely gives unto us the Grace whereby we performe the Condition of the Covenant the Grace whereby we sincerely believe repent and obey the Gospel Now we are perswaded that it is utterly impossible for any Man to merit of God the benefits of Justification and Glorification by performing the Condition of Faith Repentance and Evangelical Obedience because we are infinitely beholding to God in Christ for giving us freely the Grace whereby we performe the Condition and without which we could never performe it We know very well that the Papists argue the quite contrary way that our Faith Repentance and Obedience are properly meritorious because they are the effects of God's Grace in us but this we know also to be a very ridiculous way of arguing because the Argument really proves that they are not and that they cannot be properly meritorious because they are the Effects of God's Free Grace God by giving us the Grace whereby we Believe Repent and Obey the Gospel properly merits of us our most humble and hearty thanks for thereby causing us to Believe Repent and Obey and therefore our so believing repenting and obeying cannot properly merit any thing of God But we need not insist on this it being so evident in it self and confessed by all Protestants that it is impossible for a meer Creature and that a sinful Creature too properly to merit and deserve any thing from God but Death and Damnation And this being so we do assert as much as our Authour doth page 24. or can possibly do such an absolute freedom of the Grace of God as excludeth all merit But what our Authour means by excluding not only merit it self but every thing like merit we do not well understand As for the merit of a sinful Creature we know it to be a chimera that it neither hath nor can have a real being that it is impossible and implies a contradiction Now what it is that is like a chimera we leave to our profound Authour to determine But if by every thing that is like merit he means every false conceit of merit that is or may be in the foolish Imaginations of erroneous men we understand him and agree with him for we do as much as he exclude out of our own imaginations all false conceits of merit and if we could we would exclude them out of the imaginations of all other Men that so we and all other Men might ascribe unto God through Christ the Glory of all the good we do and of all the good we receive or hope to receive If our Authour by every thing that is like merit mean any other thing we are to seek what it may be and truly we cannot well imagine what it is he excludes under the notion of its being like merit unless it be Repentance in order to pardon of sin and Prayer for pardon of sin and if that
be really his meaning and he be of that mind that he will neither repent of his sins in order to obtain the pardon of them nor pray for the pardon of them for fear lest he should seem to merit the pardon of them we cannot but think him to be a very weak man and that he fears where no ground of fear is For assuredly if he do but exclude out of his own mind the proud Conceit and Opinion of meriting by his Repentance and Prayer he needs not forbear repenting and praying for the pardon of his sins for fear of thereby meriting pardon or for fear of doing that which looks like meriting pardon His own common Sense and Reason may teach him that by the very acts of repenting and praying for pardon he doth renounce all pretence to merit as well as by the Act of believing in Christ for pardon he doth renounce all pretence to the meriting of his pardon 4. We do not believe that Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience are the legal but evangelical Condition of the Covenant of Grace Which that our meaning may be understood by all we explain thus we do not believe that our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience which are the Conditions of Justification and Glorification according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace have the same Place and Office in this new Covenant and Law of Grace which most perfect sinless Obedience had and was to have had in the first old Covenant and Law of Works for in that first old Covenant personal perfect sinless Obedience was to have been Mans Righteousness by which alone he was to have been secured from Death and to have had still a Title and Right to Life but in the new Covenant and Law of Grace neither our Faith Repentance nor sincere Obedience are or can be that righteousness which secures us from Eternal Death and purchases for us a Right and Title to Eternal Life when God first made the new Covenant with us in Christ we had all lost our Right and Title to life and were become guilty of Death In which state we could never by any Act or Acts of ours by any Righteousness in us or done by us secure our selves from Death and recover our Right and Title to Life It was the satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of our Lord Redeemer Christ Jesus that could do and did do this for us It was Christs Righteousness alone that satisfied for our Sins and redeemed us from Death and that merited and purchased for us a Right and Title to Life Christ's Righteousness alone procures us the pardon of our sins and a Right and Title to Life so that it is Christ's satisfactory meritorious Righteousness alone that comes in the place of that perfect sinless Righteousness which was the Condition of the first Covenant and Law of works It is Christ's Righteousness that stands us in stead of that perfect sinless Righteousness which we should have had but have not It is Christ's righteousness alone that procureth to us the Restauration of all the good we had lost and more and better Our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience have nothing to do at all in this matter This was Christ's work alone and we give him all the Glory of it with all our Hearts and Souls And as it was Christ's Righteousness alone that merited our pardon of sin and deliverance from Death and that purchased our acceptance with God as righteous in his sight and our Right and Title to Life so it is by his Promise and Law of Grace that the Lord gives us that which he had merited and purchased for us that he gives us the pardon of our sins and Right or Title to Life upon our repenting and believing so that our repenting of our sins and believing in Christ are but the immediate nearest means which God hath ordained to be used on our part that we may be fit to receive and accordingly may receive those blessings and benefits which Christ hath purchased and which by the promise are given unto us The use of this means the performance of those Duties of Faith and Repentance is that which our Orthodox Divines call the Condition of the Covenant of Grace For upon Condition that through Grace we do those Duties we shall have those blessings and benefits The Lord will graciously give us them according to his promise on condition that we by Grace do such and such Duties according to his Command Our Faith and Repentance are not our Legal Righteousness nor instead of it that is the Place and Office of Christ's Righteousness only but they are the Condition which the Lord in the Gospel hath required of us that according to his promise we may be blessed with the pardon of sin be accepted at Righteous in his sight and have a Right and Title to Eternal Life From the premisses it is manifest that according to our Principles Faith and Repentance are not a Legal but an Evangelical Condition of the Covenant of Grace and that they do not in the least detract from the Grace of it And we desire it may be remembred that though speaking of Faith and Repentance joyntly we call them sometimes the Condition of the Covenant or the Condition of Justification yet we make a difference between them and because Repentance includes an hearty sorrow for sin and purpose to for sake it and to return unto the Lord we call it the disposing Condition but finding by Holy Soripture and the Nature of the thing that Faith above other Graces hath a peculiar respect unto Christ and his Righteousness we call it the receiving Condition so doth our Reverend Brother Mr. Williams call it in Gospel truth stated c. page 114. and we approve the distinction He was not the first inventer of it for it was used by others before either he or we were born Now if this be true as the Lord who searcheth all hearts knows it to be then let the World judge how false and injurious that Authour is unto us when in page 6. he giveth the People an account of our Principles as to this matter in these following words They will not allow this personal Righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us any otherwise than in the merit of it as purchasing for us a far more easie Law of Grace in the observation whereof they place all our justifying Righteousness Vnderstanding hereby our own personal inherent holiness and nothing else They hold that Christ dyed to merit this of the Father viz. that we might be justified upon easier terms under the Gospel than those of the Law of Innocency in stead of Justification by perfect Obedience we are now to be justified by our own Evangelical Righteousness made up of Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience And Page 28. Many manage the Ministry as if they had taken up a contrary determination even to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified We are amazed to see so many
to him and upon the best Reasons and Motives that appeared to him from the consideration of things willingly to choose or refuse them and to act or not to act to act thus or otherwise as he saw cause Whence we may confidently conclude that the formal essential Nature of Man's Free-will consists in this Power of acting willingly according to the Judgment of Right Reason and not in the former undeterminedness or indifferency of the Will to do or not to do to do Good or Evil even when all things pre-requisite to its doing and acting do meet together and concur to cause it to do and act Upon this occasion we cannot but mention with approbation a Passage of a very Reverend and Dignified Divine of the Church of England in a Discourse of Christian Liberty Chap. 11. Sect. 3. pag. 139 140 141. As for those that contend that it is more praise-worthy to do Good and forbear evil having a power to do otherwise than to be under a necessity of so doing supposing they mean by necessity such as is not from without or from an inward blind instinct but from an understanding Principle and Perfection of Nature I must needs tell them there is no Proposition in the World more false or absurd I will not therefore stick to say that to have the Will necessarily determined to all Good and from all evil from an over-powering sense of the becomingness and excellency of the one and the vileness and odiousness of the other is the very perfection of Liberty And this is so far from being impossible to be obtained by Creatures or by our selves that by the help of God's Grace it is in a large measure even in this life attainable I mean such a sense of Good and Evil as shall certainly determine us to Good and against Evil in most of the Instances of each There are some Immoralities and wicked Actions that they who have attained to but very mean and ordinary Degrees of Goodness cannot perswade themselves so much as to endeavour to reconcile their Minds to Nay there are some that no Man can easily be supposed able to consent to but an extraordinarily depraved and wicked Wretch let the Motives that are used to perswade him be what they will Such as blaspheming of God contriving the murder of our Parents of a most obliging Friend Torturing of innocent Babes and the like horrid Villanies Surely then a Man is capable of such a vivid sense of the hatefulness of Sin in gneral as will whilst it lasts render it impossible for him to will deliberately to commit any known Sin whatsoever It is confessed that we cannot hope to get past all danger of sudden surprizals so long as we inhabit these Bodies and remain in our present unhappy Circumstances but I say so powerful a sense of the infinite unrighteousness disingenuity unreasonableness folly and madness of opposing the Holy Will of our Great Creator and Blessed Redeemer may by the Divine Assistance be acquired even on this side Heaven as shall determine us effectually against all deliberate and wilful Violations of the Divine Laws For this we have the Authority of a great Apostle St. John saith in his 1 Epist 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him neither can he sin because he is born of God c. This excellent Passage of Bishop Fowler 's may help to clear up the foresaid difficulty and to shew us how the Act of believing may be a Duty and Condition of the Gospel and yet be produced by the effectual Grace of God assisting our Faculties in that production for the efficacy of Grace doth not hinder but rather further the free exercise of our liberty of Will in producing the Act of Faith So that our believing in Christ being an Act of Free Obedience notwithstanding that the Regenerating Principle of Spiritual Life and Seed of Faith inclines and byasses us to act and the actual Influence of the Spirit causeth us to reduce the Principle into Act we can see no reason at all why the actual believing in Christ may not be both our duty and likewise the condition upon the free performance of which God promiseth to justify us to pardon our sins and give us a Right and Title to Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Authour confesseth that the Covenant of Redemption was strictly conditional Lett. p. 24. Mat. 26.39 Joh. 10.18 and that Christ's offering up the Humane Nature in sacrifice to God was in part at least the strict Condition of it and yet Christ performed that Condition as necessarily and unavoidably as we perform the Condition of actual believing when we are influenced thereunto by the special and effectual Grace of God This we take to be a demonstration that the meer infallible certainty and necessity of the Elect's believing in Christ cannot hinder their Faith from being a proper Evangelical Condition of the new Covenant And having thus at large declared in what sense we hold the Covenant of Grace not to be conditional and in what sense to be conditional We shall next prove against our Authour that it really is conditional and that it is not without Ground that we believe it so to be In order hereunto we premise these two Things 1. That it is with respect to the subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant that we hold it to be Conditional that is it is with respect to Justification and Glorification For as the Professors of Leyden say in their Synopsis of purer Divinity Disp 22. pag. 259. Promissiones Evangelii sunt potissimum duae 1. De Justificatione coram Deo per fidem 2. De Haereditate vitae eternae Rom. 1.17 1 Johan 2.25 The Promises of the Gospel are principally two The first is the Promise of Justification in the sight of God by Faith And the second is The Promise of inheriting Eternal Life It is these Promises and the Covenant of Grace in respect of these Promises which we hold to be Conditional II. That by a Condition we understand a Duty which God requires of us for obtaining the Promised Benefit so as to suspend his giving us the promised Benefit upon our performing the Duty required Assuring us that if we perform the Duty required we shall have the promised Benefit but if we do not perform the Duty required we shall not have the Benefit promised These two things premised we come to prove that the Covenant of Grace is really Conditional as aforesaid with respect to its subsequent Blessings and Benefits And this we shall do 1. by Scripture 2. by Reason consonant to Scripture 3. by Testimonies of Orthodox Divines even of those very Divines whom our Authour affirms to be against us And 1. We prove by Scripture that the Covenant of Grace is Conditional in the sense before explained And we begin with Rom. 10. v. 9. where though the word Condition be not expressed yet we have the
life And therefore as he saith again John 13.17 Rom. 6.23 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them And his Apostle Paul saith that God gives eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But to whom doth he give it Why that is visible from the 22. Verse immediately before It is to them who being made free from sin and become servants to God have their fruit unto holiness It is we say to them that God through Christ gives Eternal Life as a Reward of their Holy Obedience and well-doing God in Christ is most certainly a Rector or Ruler who according to his Law of Grace will distribute at last glorious Rewards to all that fear his Name Revel 11.18 2 Cor. 5.10 James 1.25 Rom. 2.6 7. small and great And as St. James saith Then shall the Obedient Believer the doer of the Lord's Work be blessed in his deed Then as Holy Paul says To them who by patient continuance in well-doing have sought for glory and honour and immortality God will render eternal life This God will do at the Last Day to all that have so continued in well-doing to the end For so the Spirit of Truth hath plainly said by Paul and it is infallibly true and will continue to be for ever true 1 Cor. 7.19 with Gal. 5.6 Let who will contradict it and say it is false Blessed Paul assures again that Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumeision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Heb. 5.9 And that Christ is become the Authour of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Yea our Lord Christ himself saith Be thou faithful unto death Rev. 2.10 and 3.21 Rev. 22.14 and I will give thee a Crown of life and that he who overcomes shall sit with him on his Throne To all which agrees that we read in the Last of the Revelations Blessed are they that do his Christ's commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city Here we see the Lord himself hath declared them blessed that sincerely keep his Commandments because thereby 1. They have a Right to the Tree of Life whilst they live And 2. When they dye they enter upon the full possession of that which before they had a Right unto They enter in through the gates into the city But you will say how have we right unto and entrance upon full possession of Eternal Life and Glory by keeping Christ's Commandments We Answer the keeping Christ's Commandments doth not merit or give us either one or the other of them but it is the way and means which we use and the Condition which through Grace we perform for the having our right to the Tree of Life continued to us or not taken from us whilst we live And for our having full possession of Life and Happiness given us when we die So that 't is God who first for Christ's sake gave that still continues our right to us and at last will for the same cause that is for Christ's sake give us full possession But he will do all this for us in the way of continued Faith and Obedience and on Condition that we sincerely believe in Christ and keep his Commandments unto the end Thus we have proved from Scripture That sincere Obedience to the Law of Christ is a Condition of Glorification as our first believing and repenting is the Condition on our part of our Justification and of the pardon of our Sins For as the definition of a Gospel-Condition agrees to Faith and Repentance with respect to our Justification and Pardon of Sin so it agrees to sincere Obedience with respect to our Glorification and Eternal Salvation And to whatsoever the definition of a Gospel-Condition agrees to that the Nature and Essence of a Gospel-Condition must agree also From all which we conclude that the Covenant of Grace is Conditional with respect to the subsequent blessings and benefits of it The two principal promises to wit of Justification and Glorification are certainly conditional which was the thing to be proved And having first demonstrated it by Scripture Second Head of Arguments We Secondly prove it by reason agreeable to Scripture And Reason 1. First If the Covenant of Grace be not Conditional with respect to its subsequent Blessings and Benefits particularly if the Promise of Justification and Pardon of sin be not conditional we do not see how it is possible for a Minister to be faithful to God to his own Conscience and to the Souls of the People in preaching the Gospel to them It is true it is easily conceivable how a Minister may be faithful in laying before People the Commandments of the Lord and in telling them that those Commandments oblige them to believe and repent And that if they do not believe and repent they will grievously sin against the Lord and draw down his wrath upon their own Souls But now whâ—n he proceeds to encourage them to believe and repent by setting forth to them God's Promise of Justification and Pardon of Sin we do not conceive how he can do it honestly and faithfully if the Promise of Justification and pardon of Sin be not conditional For when a Minister is preaching to a promiscuous mixed Multitude of People and for their encouragement to believe and repent is declaring to them Gods Gospel-promise of Justification and pardon of Sin either he must declare and preach this Promise to them conditionally or absolutely If conditionally assuring them from the Lord that they shall be justified and pardoned through Christ's Righteousness imputed to them if they sincerely believe and repent then the Promise it self is conditional and the Covenant also is in that respect conditional For if there be no Condition in the Gospel-promise and Covenant how can the Minister preach it conditionally to the People Doth he not take God's Name in vain and abuse the People also by telling them from the Lord that all they who perform the Condition of the Gospel-promise by believing and repenting shall have the promised Benefit to wit Justification and pardon of Sin if there be no Condition in the Promise necessary to be performed by them for obtaining the promised Benefit Either then a Minister must not preach the Promise conditionally to the People or there is and must be a Condition in the Promise and if there be a Condition in the Promise then we have what we aim at for we desire no more to prove the Covenant of Grace to be conditional But 2. If our Authour will say that the Minister must preach the Promise of Justification and pardon absolutely to all the People assuring them from the Lord that they are or shall be justified and pardoned through Christ absolutely whether they perform any Condition or not whether they do any duty or not whether they believe and repent or not Then we Answer That the Minister who shall preach
a certain order and also that he doth orderly dispense them unto his People according to his Promiseâ— But we utterly deny that God's Order of Grace doth hinder one thing in that order from being the condition of another and on the contrary we affirm that it rather makes one thing to be the condition of another And that for this Renson because the Order of Grace which the Brethren speak of either 1. It is an Order in the Promise of Justification and Pardon of which alone our Question now is to wit in the promise if you sinceroly believe with a Faith working by love you shall be justified and pardoned through Christ Or 2. It is an order out of the promise but in God's will with respect to the promise If the first that is if it be an order of Gracâ— in the promise then it is plainly a Conditional order of Grace for the promise is conditional as we have proved and the gracious order of it is this That whoever performs the Condition of it that is believes sincerely with a Faith working by Love shall have the blessing and benefit of it shall be justified and pardoned Thus the order of Grace in the Conditional Promise being plainly a Conditional order we are but just where we were for the order of Grace in the promise being but conditional it doth not help us one jot to avoid the conditionality of the Promise and Covenant 2. But if they choose to say that it is the second to wit that it is an order of Grace out of the promise but in God's will with respect to the promise and so it is an absolute order of God's will that if People sincerely believe they shall be justified and pardoned We heartily grant that it is so there is such a gracious Order or Ordination in and of God's Will and it is plainly revealed also in his Written Gospel But what then This really makes against our Brethren and for us And that because this absolute order of Grace in God's will concerning the Promise is so far from overthrowing that on the contrary it most strongly establisheth and confirmeth the conditionality of the Promise For is not this a good strong unavoidable consequence God of his free grace hath absolutely ordained that Faith shall be a condition of the Covenant and that this shall be a true conditional gospel-Gospel-promise If People sincerely believe in Christ they shall be justified and pardoned Therefore it is a true conditional gospel-Gospel-promise and cannot be otherwise All this is to us very certain and evident and therefore must conclude that we have proved by reason agreeable to Scripture that the Covenant of Grace is conditional as aforesaid And without going upon this Ground and Principle we do not conceive how Ministers can preach the Gospel honestly and faithfully to all sorts of Men they meet with as by our Commission we are obliged to do Mark 16.15 16. Rom. 10.8 9. Reason 2. The Covenant promise of Eternal Life and Glory is Conditional therefore the Covenant of Grace is Conditional with respect to its subsequent blessings and benefits The Consequence is self-evident because Eternal Life and Glory is one of the principal subsequent blessings of the Covenant of Grace We prove the antecedent against Mr. Marshalls Book and against our Authour who highly approves and commends it If sincere Obedience to the Lord be the Condition of the Covenant promise of Eternal Life and Glory then the Covenant Promise of Eternal Life and Glory is really conditional But so it is that sincere Obedience to the Lord is the Condition of the Covenant-Promise of Eternal Life and Glory Therefore that Covenant-Promise is Conditional The consequence of the first Proposition is self-evident We prove the second Proposition to wit that sincere Obedience to the Lord is the Condition of the Covenant-promise of Eternal Life and Glory Because whatsoever is so required of us as a Duty in order to the obtaining of the Eternal Life and Glory promised that our obtaining thereof is by the promise suspended on our performing that Duty and we are assured by the Lord that if we perform that Duty we shall obtain but if we perform not that Duty we shall not obtain the Eternal Life and Glory promised That is the Condition of the Covenant promise of Eternal Life and Glory it being the very definition and essential Nature of a Gospel-Condition that it be a Duty required as aforesaid But sincere Obedience to the Lord is a Duty so required in order to the obtaining of the Eternal Life and Glory promised as most evidently appears by the many plain Testimonies of God's Word whereby we have already proved sincere Obedience to be a Duty so required Therefore sincere Obedience to the Lord is and must be the Condition of the Covenant Promise of Eternal Life and Glory If our Authour or any for him should say that it is true Sincere Obedience to the Lord's Command of believing is required as aforesaid but sincere obedience to any other Command of the Lord is not necessarily required as aforesaid in order to the obtaining of the promised Blessing of Eternal Life and Glory We reply 1. That if sincere Obedience to the Lord's Command of believing be required as necessary in the way aforesaid to the obtaining of the promised Blessing of Eternal Life and Glory then even according to that Answer the Covenant-promise of Eternal Life and Glory is still conditional and Faith continued and persevered in to the end which is that sincere Obedience to the Lord's Command of believing is the Condition of it For the Definition and Essential Nature of a Gospel-condition agrees to Faith under that Consideration 2. We reply That the sincere Obedience which consists in the formal Elicit Act or Acts of believing is not all the sincere Obedience which is required as aforesaid And we thus prove it If it be false that no sincere Obedience is required as aforesaid but the Act of Faith then it is true that some Obedience is required as aforesaid besides the Act of Faith This proposition is self-evident because no obedience but the Act of Faith and some obedience besides the Act of Faith are manifest contradictories and two contradictories cannot possibly be both true nor both false but one of them must always be true and the other false and it cannot possibly be otherwise This being clear and undeniable we proceed to the next proposition and subsume But it is false That no sincere obedience is required as aforesaid but the Act of Faith For if no sincere Obedience but the Act of Faith be required as aforesaid that is be required as indispensably necessary to obtain the promised blessing of Eternal Life and Glory then it follows by necessary consequence that a Christian our Authour may instance in and apply it to himself or any other as he pleaseth We say it necessarily follows that a Christian if he doth but keep Faith and now and
we believe and obey is so far from hindring our actual Faith and Obedience from being the Condition that on the contrary it conduceth very much to make them the Condition the Gracious Evangelical Condition of the Covenant and without it they could not be such a Condition As to what they say that special Grace necessarily causeth our Faith and Obedience we answered before that special Grace doth not cause our actual Faith and Obedience with any such kind of necessity as is inconsistent with or destructive of the true liberty of our Souls in believing and obeying Augustin the great asserter of the necessity and efficacy of Supernatural Grace against the Pelagians and Semipelagians says in his 46 Epist. to Valentinus Obedientiam nostram Deus requirit quae nulla potest esse sine libero arbitrio God requires our Obedience which without the liberty of our minds can be no obedience And our own Westminster Confession of Faith in chap 19. atr 7. says that the Spirit of Christ subdues and enables the will of man to do that freely and chearfully which the will of God revealed in the Law requireth to be done Dr. Twisse also saith frequently that the effectual will and grace of God doth not destroy but establisheth the freedom of our actions particularly in his Answer to Hoard his God's Love to Mankind Book 2. page 103. He writes thus against Mr. Mason when once God hath planted in us a principle of new Life of the Life of Grace by the Spirit of Regeneration See 127 page of his Desence of the Synod of Dort c. though all the powers thereof do incline only to that which is good like as the powers of natural corruption incline only unto evil yet the particular use and exercise of those is always free Like as the particular use and exercise of the powers of our Corruption is always free to the committing of this or that sin according unto the emergent occasions standing in congruity to every mans particular disposition And pag. 104. Should he Mr. Mason have laid to our charge that we maintain that God necessitates the will to any good act and to over-rule the will therein we should utterly deny it without distinction It is true he over-rules the will of the flesh but not the will of the spirit the Regenerate part but moves it agreeably to its nature and to work not only voluntarily but freely whatsoever it worketh For albeit the Regenerate part is like a moral vertue though as much transcendent to it as a thing supernatural transcends a thing natural inclining only to that which is good yet is it always moved to this particular good rather than to another most freely Like as a mans natural Corruption inclines a man only to evil yet to this kind of evil or to this particular evil rather than to that Man is moved most freely So that if we maintain not that God works a Man to every good act otherwise than freely let the very conscience of our Enemies judge whether we can maintain that God necessitates the will either of Men or Devils unto sin And in the next page 105 he brings for confirmation of what he had said the 11th Article of the Church in Ireland where this position is first laid down that God from all Eternity did by his Unchangeable Counsel ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass and then it is forthwith added That hereby no violence is offered to the Wills of the reasonable Creatures and neither the liberty nor the contingency of second Causes is taken away but established rather Then again in page 108. This is clearly our Doctrine to wit that when God never so effectually works any Creature to the producing of an act connatural to it yet he works the Creature thereunto agreeably to its Nature that is if it be a necessary agent moves it to work necessarily if it be a contingent agent moves it to work contingently and if it be a free agent moves it to work freely and in effect it is the Doctrine of all them who say that God determines the Will as the Dominicans or that God necessitates the Will as Bradwardin For they acknowledge hereby that God moves the Creatures to work freely in such sort That in the very act of working they might do otherwise if they would They confess this providence of God is a great mystery and not sufficiently comprehensible by humane reason Cajetan professeth thus much as before alledged and Alvarez maintaineth it in a set disputation Thus far Twiss whereby we see that he held all the good we do to be acts of free Obedience notwithstanding that we produce them by the assistance of Gods effectual Grace yea that they are so free that though secundum quid in some respect it is necessary for them to be produced yet simpliciter absolutè See page 116 117 118 119 120. simply and absolutely it is possible for them not to be produced And if our Actual Faith and Obedience be free acts of ours notwithstanding that they are also effects of God's Grace then they may be our Duties also And indeed they are Duties so necessarily required of us as that the obtaining of Justification and Glorification is suspended by the promises till the performance of them as was proved before And then it follows by necessary consequence that they are Evangelical Conditions of the promises because they have the Essential Nature of an Evangelical Condition Here we take notice by the way that there are some who distinguish between the Covenant of Grace and the administration of it and they say themselves and would make all others say with them that the Covenant it self is absolute to the Elect but that the administration of it is conditional in the preaching of the Gospel * A brief Account of the State of the differences now depending and agitated about Justification page 4. Now we must declare that we cannot say without distinction as some would have us to do that the Covenant of Grace is absolute to the Elect. We have already said and proved that the Covenant of Grace made with the Church through Christ is a complex of many promises whereof some are indeed absolute yet not so absolute neither as to exclude all use of means such are the promises of the first Grace of saving Faith and Repentance c. but others of them are conditional even to the Elect such are the promises of the subsequent blessings of the Covenant as of Justification pardon of sin and Eternal Life We do not find that those subsequent blessings of the Covenant are ever promised to any of Adams Posterity but upon some Condition expressed or implyed and most frequently the Conditions are expressed with a plain Declaration that as many as perform the conditions shall have the promised Blessings but they who never perform the conditions shall never have the promised blessings This shows plainly that the Covenant
it self is conditional in respect of the said subsequent blessings because it promiseth them conditionally and not otherwise And that which we see is granted to us that the administration of the Covenant of Grace is conditional because it is preached to all Elect and non-Elect Conditionally Affords us an irrefragable Argument to prove that it hath Conditions and is conditional For if the Covenant had no Condition at all with respect to the Elect how could we administer and preach it conditionally with respect to them If the Covenant which we administer and preach to the Elect were absolute to them so as to have no Condition and if yet notwithstanding that we should preach and administer the Covenant to them conditionally our Administration and Preaching would not agree with the Nature of the object and thing which we Administer and Preach and so it would be fallacious and deceitful The Covenant hath no Condition but is absolute to the Elect and yet must we tell them from the Lord that they must performe the condition of the Covenant-promise by believing and repenting and then they shall have the promised benefit of Justification and Pardon of sin but not otherwise Would not this be to dishonour God and abuse his People both at once To dishonour God by taking his Name in vain and preaching falsehood in his Name and to abuse his People by making them believe that the Covenant hath a Condition and that they must performe it otherwise they cannot be justified and saved when at the same time we do not believe this our selves which we tell the People but are perswaded in our own minds that the Covenant is wholly absolute to the Elect and hath no condition at all Either then as was said before we must not Administer and Preach any part of the Covenant conditionally to the Elect or there is and must be a Condition in the Covenant and if there be a Condition in the Covenant then we have what we aim at for we desire no more to prove the Covenant of Grace to be conditional and that it is not wholly absolute to the Elect. The Truth is here so clearly on our side that we think our Brethren should give Glory to God and receive his Truth without any farther wrangling opposition As for the Authour with whom we have to do though he several times expresly denies Faith to be the condition of Justification as page 8 9 25. Yet in page 24 where he affirms the Covenant to be absolute he grants that the offer of Christ and of all his fulness hath a Condition annexed to it that the Condition is acceptance of the Offer and that acceptance is a native Condition Here we have 1. An offer of Christ and of all his fulness which must of necessity include Justification for that is a part of Christ's fulness Eph. 1.7 Col. 1.14 Rom. 5.19 1 Cor. 1.30 2. This offer of Christ is an absolute offer which yet hath the Condition of acceptance annexed to it His meaning must be that the offer of Christ and his fulness is so absolute as to have no other Condition but yet not so absolute as not to have this one Condition of acceptance for if this be not his meaning it is contradictious Non-sense For an offer that is absolute without any Condition at all and an offer that hath a certain Condition implies a manifest contradiction And indeed his Words are that it is an absolute offer that hath no Condition in it but one Well then it is granted that the Gospel-offer of Christ and of all his fulness hath one Condition but so it is that that Gospel-offer includes an offer of Justification and therefore the Gospel-offer of Justification hath a Condition and since the offer of Justification can be nothing but the Promise of Justification held forth to the Soul by the Ministry of the Word it follows necessarily that the Promise of Justification hath a Condition And consequently that the Covenant of Grace is partly conditional it is conditional as it doth promise Justification upon a Condition 3. The Condition is Acceptance that is it is Faith for we cannot imagine what else but Faith he can mean by Acceptance For surely he doth not mean any meer natural Act of the Soul but rather some gracious supernatural Act and what that should be but Faith we cannot devise We must therefore take it for certain that by Acceptance he means Faith and our Faith in Christ is our acceptance of him and his fulness So then Faith being our Acceptance of Christ and of all his fulness which includes our Justification and our Acceptance by his own Confession being the Condition of the Offer it follows by necessary consequence that Faith is the Condition of the Offer but the Offer is the Covenant-promise of Christ and Justification through him therefore the Covenant-promise of Christ and Justification is conditional and an accepting or receiving Faith is the Condition of it Thus he contradicts himself by affirming what he had denied before and doth immediately deny again in the very next 25th Page 4. This Acceptance or Faith this accepting Faith is he sayes the native Condition of the Offer of Christ and of all his fulness and so of Justification What he means by native Condition needs an Explication for it is capable of a double meaning 1. It may signify that an accepting Faith hath a natural aptitude and fitness to be the Condition of the Offer or Promise of Christ and his fulness Or 2. That of its own Nature it necessarily is the Condition and could not possibly be otherwise so that its being the Condition ariseth wholly and necessarily from its own Nature and not at all from the Will of God constituting and ordaining it to that Office of being the Condition of the Offer or Promise Now if he mean that it is a native Condition in the first sense we agree with him for we know and acknowledge that Faith hath a natural aptitude and fitness to be the Condition of the Offer or Promise of Christ because Faith in the very Nature of it is an acceptance of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel and we conceive this might be a Reason wherefore God made choice of Faith to be the Condition of the Offer and Promise of Christ and Justification through him But if our Authour moan that Faith is the native Condition of the Offer or Promise in the second souse we must dissent from him For though the natural aptitude and fitness of Faith might be a Reason why God ordained it to be the Condition of the Promise yet it was not a necessitating Reason which so obliged God to make it the Condition of the Promise that he could not possibly do otherwise This we thus demonstrate 1. Whatsoever dependeth upon the Free-will and Soveraign Pleasure of Almighty God he might have done or not have done he might have done this way or another way if it had
is by Obedience Moreover when we say that Justification is retained by Works that is not so to be taken as if it were done for the dignity or merit of our Actions but onely for the Redeemer's sake for whose sake the Person is first accepted and then the Actions also please God which otherwise of themselves would be impure and of no account But say they the perseverance or continuance of Justification is lost by wicked works But we say evil works are two ways to be considered in us either as they cleave to us or remain in us as in all the Saints through infirmity of the flesh and we by and by rise again by Repentance and Faith and such sin as the Apostle saith shall not have dominion over us Or again they may be considered as against our Conscience we willingly give up our selves to sin that we may serve it with evil delight But this sort of sin can no wise consist with this Faith of which Paul speaks which hath place in none but in those who being turned from sin are converted unto God And in the same Book pag. 374. Love is necessary and it pleaseth God to wit in those who are reconciled and for the sake of Christ For God naturally rejoiceth in the Obedience of those that are his which though it be imperfect yet endeavours such as they are he approves in those whom he hath reconciled to himself in Christ So then Faith that is Christ apprehended by Faith justifies us freely But we again ought by no means to receive that Grace in vain But he receives it in vain whosoever he be that doth not yeild himself obedient to the Commands and Example of Christ Thus far Mr. Fox where we see he plainly grants that sincere Obedience after we are justified is necessary that we may not lose the Grace of Justification and this is no more but that it is necessary to prevent our falling wilfully under the guilt of new sins of Omission and Commission which without renewing our Faith and Repentance and returning to God and our Obedience to him again would certainly damn us and sink us into Hell We mean no more by it and we believe that God for Christ's sake will keep all his justified ones from so falling away but withal we hold that God keeps us in a justified state partly by fear of falling into sin and partly by the Faith of the indispensable necessity of Obedience and Repentance as means to be used on our part to keep us from falling away The Lord puts his fear in our Hearts that we may not depart from him and he keeps us by his power through Faith unto Salvation From Fox we pass to Rollock another good Man unto whom a Famous and Learned Episcopal Divine Dr. Robert Baron hath given this Testimony that he was Sanctissimus Doctissimus c. a most Holy and Learned Man and that the Character of Moses might be truly attributed to him that he was very Meek above all the Men which were upon the Face of the Earth This Meek Saint wrote a Book of Effectual Calling at Edinburgh in the Year 1597. just about an Hundred Years agoe In which he affirms positively that the Covenant of Grace is conditional and that both Faith and Repentance go before Justification In the First Page of his Book he says Vocati eâdem Dei gratiâ respondent creduntque in Deum per Jesunt Christum Responsio haec sides est quae reipsâ est conditio promissionis Tract de Vocat Efficaci Edit Herborn 1618. c. They who are called effectually by the same Grace whereby they are called answer the call and believe in God through Jesus Christ This Answer is the Act of Faith which is the very Condition of the Promise that is in the Covenant of Grace Wherefore Effectual Calling consists in the Promise of the Covenant which is made on Condition of Faith and in Faith quae nihil aliud est quà m impletio conditionis which is no other thing but the fulfilling of the Condition And in the 24th Chapter pap 258. he sayes Resipiscontia Justificationem antecedit c. Repentance goes before Justification after the manner that Faith and Hope go before it For it is said of the Baptist that he preached the Baptism of Repentance for the Remission of sins Mark 1.4 and Luke 3.3 And if any would know what he means by that Repentance which he sayes goes before Justification after he had fully and clearly explained the nature of it in all its parts and shewed it to be an Evangelical Repentance and distinguished it from that which is called Legal he tells us in Page 257. what he meant by giving a short but comprehensive definition of it thus Resipiscentia est post functum malum jam perpetratum dolor propter offensum Dèum ex dolwe mutatio quaedam totius animi à malo in bonum Repentance is a grief or sorrow after the fact is done and the sin is committed for having thereby offended God and a change of the whole Soul from Evil to Good arising from that grief or sorrow This is the Repentance which Rollock sayes goes before Justification and it is remarkable that he makes a change of the whole Soul from Evil to Good to be essential unto this Repentance and consequently that in order of nature before Justification there is a real change of the whole Soul from Evil to Good This Doctrine was preached and written at Edinburgh an Hundred Years agoe and then it was accounted good Divinity and old Gospel and the Preacher of it was esteemed and that deservedly a great Saint and a Man of Learning and Judgment both at home and abroad How it should come to be New Divinity and a New Gospel or part of a new Gospel now is to us a Mystery for sure it is an Hundred Years older now than it was then Any Body therefore might think in all reason that our Authour came too late to give it a new Name There must be some Mystery in this business whatever it be We with it be not a Mystery of Iniquity From Rollock we pass to Zanchy because he lived in those Times and is one of those Divines whom our Authour would make the People believe to be for him and against us and that because he is against us therefore we are against him Lett. p. 27. and generally neglect and despise him But what if after all this Zanchy be clearly for us in this matter then it is to be hoped that People nor our Authour himself will not easily believe that we not only neglect but despise our good Friend And that he is such we are content that his own Words should judge between us Credimus ad veram justitiae Christi participationem Zanch. de Relig. cap. 18. Thes 1. coque ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum Christo necessariam esse poenitentiam c. We believe that Repentance is
Saints but they raise up the fallen again that they be not ruined For the promises also are expresly extended unto the Righteous sometimes fallen into sin Psal 37.24 and 89.30 31 32 33 34. The same Authour writing against the Papist upon the same subject saith Fides tune dicitur justificare cum actum proprium c. Faith is then said to justifie when it can exercise Pareus lib. 1. de amissione gratiae cap. 7. prope finem and doth exercise its proper act of Receiving Remission of sins but a Faith that is sick wounded oppressed with the filth of the flesh and as it were bound with the fetters of sin doth not exercise nor can it exercise this act and a little after But God doth not impute sin to the just that are fallen to wit when they repent but before they repent he doth indeed impute sin to them by inflicting temporal punishments and unless they repented he would impute sin to them by inflicting also eternal punishments And he thus concludes Tune igitur fides in lapsis habitualiter tantion manens propriè justificans dici aut eos justificare non potest Therefore Faith then remaining habitually only in the lapsed it cannot properly be said to be justifying or to justifie them Thus far Pareus Whereby we plainly see that he held the Covenant of Grace to be conditional as we do that Faith and Repentance are conditions of it especially Faith is the main condition by the acts whereof we are justified and receive Remission of sin not by the habit because it is the Act and not the Habit that receives Christ and Remission of sins through him 2. He held that after Justification sincere Obedience to the Lord in the avoiding of wilful presumptuous sins of Omission and Commission is a Condition so necessary to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation that without such Obedience either continued without intermission or after some notable intermission of its acts and weakning of its habit renewed again by new acts of Faith and Repentance Salvation cannot be obtained nor Damnation avoided 3. That though there be such conditions required of the Elect in order to Justification and of the justified in order to Salvation yet they are not uncertain as to the event but shall through special effectual Grace be infallibly performed and the Elect and Justified shall be eternally saved This was the Gospel that Pareus preached and the Synod of Dort approved And it is that and no other which we preach also Therefore it must needs be a great falsehood and slander that we preach a new Arminian Gospel We find likewise that the Divines of Geneva Deodat and Tronchin in the Synod of Doâ—t were for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace in the sense before explained for thus they write in their suffrage concerning the second Article Fides est revera conditio novi foederis respectu ordinis inviolabilis a Deo instituti Act. Synod Dondrect part 2. page 132. c. Faith is indeed the Condition of the new Covenant in respect of the inviolable order instituted by God but it is also a promised gift of the new Covenant and an effect of our ingrafting into Christ In these words 1. We observe That in the Judgment of those Divines approved by the Synod of Dort God by his absolute Will hath instituted a conditional order between the antecedent and subsequent blessings of the new Covenant 2. That Faith is the Condition ordained by God for obtaining the subsequent blessings of the Covenant such as Justification Pardon of sin c. 3. That it is not habitual Faith or the first habitual seminal permanent principle of Faith but it is actual Faith because they say that it is the effect of our ingrafting into Christ but the first seminal permanent principle of Faith is not the effect of our ingrafting into Christ otherwise we should be ingrafted into Christ before we have so much as the least seminal principle of Faith since the cause must be before the effect Therefore to avoid that absurdity we think they meant that our ingrafting into Christ begins in the Spirits working in us the seminal principle of Faith which concurs to the producing of the Act of Faith which being our formal vital Act though produced by the Vertue of the Seminal Principle and the effectual influence of the Spirit is the Condition of the Covenant performed by us and withal is the effect of our initial ingrafting into Christ The same Doctrine is believed and professed at Geneva at this day Witness what was lately Taught and Published by Turretin Professor of Divinity there In Page 196. of that Book he saith that Christ requires Faith in God's Promises and Obedience to his Commandments Turrotin Institut Theologiae Eleâ—ct Part. 2. Edit Genev. 1688. as the Duties and Conditions of the Covenant And in the same Page he saith that The form of Words wherein the new Covenant is expressed I will be your God and you shall be my People comprehends both the Benefits promised on God's part and the Duties required on our part And first he explains at large what promised Benefits on God's part are implied in the Words I will be your God Secondly he shews what Duties required on our parts are implied in the Words you shall be my People After he had in general opened the meaning of the foresaid Form of the Covenant he comes to particulars and in the 29. Paragraph he sayes The Principal Duties required of us are Faith and Repentance Faith which embraces the Promises and Repentance which fulfils the Commandments Faith answers to the Promise of Grace believe and thou shalt be saved Repentance is commanded Lege Evangelicâ by the Evangelical Law walk before me and be thou perfect Gon. 17.1 For as on God's part there are two principal Benefits of the Covenant Remission of sins and the writing of the Law in the Heart so on Man's part two Duties ought to answer unto them to wit Faith which applies unto us the Remission of sins and Repentance or the study and endeavour of Sanctification which reduces into practice the Law written in the Heart by walking in God's Statutes which Christ meant when he said Mark 1.25 Repent and believe the Gospel In Page 202. he puts the Question Whether the Covenant of Grace be conditional and what are the Conditions of it And in Answer to it he distinguishes between several sorts of Conditions and as we have done shews that in some sense it is not Conditional and then he concludes that in another sense it it Conditional and Page 203. he proves it by three Arguments 1. Because it is proposed with a Condition expressed John 3.16 36. Bom. 10.9 Acts 8.37 Mark 16.16 And frequently in other places 2. Because if it were not conditional there would be no place for Threatnings in the Gospel which cannot be denounced but against those who neglect to performe the Condition prescribed For the
between him and those who do not love to say that Faith is an Instrumental Cause is more verbal than real for he doth not say that Faith is the Instrumental cause of our Justification that indeed had been to ascribe too much unto Faith but the Instrumental cause receiving Christ and his Righteousness upon which follows Justification now we all acknowledge Faith to be of an apprehensive receptive nature and that it is the Instrumental means whereby we apprehend and receive Christ and his Righteousness that we may be Justified and our using that Instrumental means as the Lord hath appointed is the receptive condition to which the Promise of Justification is made Here then seems to be a meer difference in words when we mean the same thing Lastly for sincere Obedience he holds it to be in some sense a cause of obtaining Eternal Life which is more than we have ascribed to it in calling it a Condition for a Condition as such hath no causal Influence Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 1. pag. 199. His own Words in the said Book are these Our Obedience indeed is not the principal or meritorious cause of Eternal Life For we receive the right of this life and the life also it self from the Grace and Gift of God for the sake of Christ apprehended by faith Rom 6.23 The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But yet it is a cause some way administring helping and moving forward towards the possession of this life whereof we had the right before for which reason it is called the way in which we walk to Heaven Eph. 2.10 And it promotes our life both of its own nature because it is some degree of life it self still tending to perfection and also by vertue of God's Promise who hath promised Eternal Life to those who walk in his Commandments Gal. 6.8 He that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting For though all our Obedience while we live here is imperfect and contaminated with some mixture of sin Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusts against the spirit yet through Christ it is so acceptable unto God that it is crowned with a most great reward The Promises therefore made to the Obedience of the Faithful are not Legal but Evangelical although by some they are said to be of a mixt nature In all this Ames ascribes as much to sincere Obedience and makes it as necessary to Salvation as we do If we say it is a Condition he sayes it is in some sort a Cause of obtaining the poffession of Eternal Salvation And sure to be so a Cause is as much at least as to be a Condition Next let us see what Dr. Twiss faith to these things Indeed he is so clearly on our side that if the Authour of the Letter had been acquainted with his Writings he would have been wiser than to have mentioned his Name in this Cause For thus he writes We say that pardon of sin and salvation of Souls are Benefits purchased by the death of Christ to be enjoyed by Men but how Answer to a Booke called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to practice pag. 16. not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case and onely in case they believe For like as God doth not confer these on any of ripe years unless they believe so Christ hath not merited that they should be conferred on any but such as believe and accordingly profess that Christ dyed for all that is to obtain pardon of sin and salvation of Soul for all but how not absolutely whether they believe or no but onely conditionally to wit provided they do believe in Christ Again Men are called upon to believe and promised Ibid. pag. 28. that upon their Faith they shall obtain the Grace of Remission of sins and Salvation and these Graces may be said to be offered unto all upon Condition of faith Again As touching the Benefits of pardon of sin Ibid. page 152. and Salvation procured by Christs death we say that Christ died to procure these for all and every one but how not absolutely for then all and every one should be saved but conditionally to wit upon Condition of faith so that if all and every one should believe in Christ all and every one should be saved Again It is untrue that we must have a sufficient assurance Ibid. pag. 154. that Christ died to procure pardon of sin and salvation of soul absolutely for him whom we go about to comfort it is enough that Christ died to procure these Benefits for him conditionally to wit in case he believe and repent and of this we have a most sufficient assurance Again We say not here that any thing becomes true Ibid. pag. 163. by the Faith of him that believes it but onely this that the benefit which is procured for all and every one upon a Condition becomes his and peculiarly his alone who performeth the Condition Again Now Eternal Life we know Ibid. pag. 171. is ordained by God to be the portion of Men not whether they believe or not whether they persevere in Faith Holiness and Repentance or no but onely of such as believe repent and are studious of good Works for it is ordained to be bestowed on Men by way of reward of their Faith Repentance and good Works Again The Promises assured by Baptism Ibid. pag. 189. according to the Rule of God's Word I find to be of two sorts Some are of Benefits procured unto us by Christ which are to be conferred on us conditionally they of this first sort are Justification and Salvation for Abraham received Circumcision as a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Circumcision therefore was an assurance of Justification to be had by Faith if such were Circumcision to the Jews we have good reason to conceive that such is Baptism unto us Christians for as that was unto them so this is the Sacrament of Regeneration unto us And good reason the Sacraments which are Seals of the Covenant should assure that unto us which the word of the Covenant doth make Promise of Now the word of the Covenant of Grace doth promise unto us both Remission of sin and Salvation upon Faith in Christ This by our Doctrine we promise unto all and assure unto all as well as they do by theirs If all and every one should believe we nothing doubt but they should be justified and saved On the other side if not one of ripe years should believe I presume our Adversaries will confess that not one of them should be saved Again Justification and Salvation is promised in the Word Ibid. pag. 190. and assured in the Sacraments upon performance of a Condition on Mans part Now the Condition of Justification and Salvation we all acknowledge to be Faith Thus Dr. Twiss frequently in the foresaid Book And that this was his setled Judgment will appear by what he wrote afterwards in the Year
Souls is and through Grace shall be our fervent and frequent Prayer unto him that is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think Ephes 3.20 21. unto whom be Glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all Ages World without end Amen The INDEX THE INTRODUCTION No just cause appears for raising such a clamour against the Subscribers The Test proposed by our Accuser out of the Assemblies Confession of Faith and Catechisme accepted by us who are ready to subscribe to it in the Assemblies own sense page 1. to 8. CHAP. I. Concerning the Occasion and Design of the Letter Some remarks on it page 8. to 18. CHAP. II. Of the Authours Errors in Doctrine against the Purity of our Christian Faith SECT I. Of his first Errour That there is no new Law of Grace The Controversie stated p. 20 21. The Affirmative proved by Scripture and by Testimonies of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines p. 22 to 33. SECT II. Of his second Errour That the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional 1. It is shewed in what sense we hold it not to be and in what sense to be Conditional p. 34 to 49. 2. With respect to Justification and Glorification it is proved to be conditional That Faith and Repentance with respect to Justification and sincere Obedience with respect to Glorification are conditions in the sense there declared proved 1. By Scripture 2. by Reason agreeable to Scripture 3. By Testimonies of Ancient Fathers and many Modern Divines p. 49 to 120. SECT III. Of his Third Errour that there is no real Change no Holy Disposition or Qualification no good or Holy thing wrought in or done by Man in order to and before Justification c. The question stated p. 120. The contrary Truth proved by Scripture and Reason agreeable to Scripture and by the Testimony of Protestant Divines especially of the Synod of Dort and objections an swered p. 120 to 145. An Appendix of the Third Section concerning Dispositions previous to Regeneration and Conversion Shewed what they ordinarily are p. 146. What our Opinion is concerning them p. 146 147. That our Opinion is neither new nor singular proved by Testimonies of Famous Protestant Divines p. 148 to 156. Objections answered p. 156 to 162. Bradwardin for Justification by inherent Righteousness and Humane Satisfaction some further account of his Principles and Practices p. 163 to 165. More Testimonies of Mr. Dickson Claude Charnock Turretin c. for previous Dispositions p. 165 to 168. CHAP. III. Of his Ridiculous way of Converting an Vnbeliever p. 168 to 183. CHAP. IV. Of the Calumnies wherewith he asperses Christ's Ministers and particularly of the middle way Shewed that we are neither Pelagians nor Arminians in whole or in part p. 184 to 190. That called the middle way stated and shewed not to be a new Gospel but the Opinion of Calvin and others of our Reformers p. 191 192. The Calumny relating to Justification refuted p. 193 to 195. As also p. 37 to 40 and 42 to 45. Other Calumnies refuted p. 195 to 204. CHAP. V. People are advised to try before they trust and not suffer themselves to be imposed upon and led into Errour by the bold unproved Assertions and Dictates of any Preachers or Writers whatsoever p. 204 to the end The Errata of the Press thus to be Corrected TItle Page for nostraas read nostras Preface page 3 line 2 read Rule Book p. 1. l. 2. f. flesh r. flesh p. 1. l. 10. after battle add p. 14. l. 1. for the that r. that the. p. 23 l. 36 f. perfect of r. perfect or l. 8. r. virtual p. 25 l. 2 r. pius p. 51 l. 31 r. it is a condition p. 52 l. 47 r. goeth on p. 55 l. 33 f. of them r. on them p. 63 l. 43 f. or r. of p. 67 l. 10. f. atr r. act p. 80. l. 24 f. inward applicative r. inward applicative without a Comma p. 85. lin 40. f. he an r. he is an l. 41. blot out is p. 88 at the end blot out the last word this p. 105. l. 34. r. Receive it p. 110. l. 3. after emendationem for a point put a Comma In the same line after life put a p. 115. l. 48. r. prove that no man without a p. 128. l. 32 f. he r. it and l. 33 r. penitent p. 138 l. 6 f. make r. made p. 147 l. 30. f. discourse r. discourse p. 149. l. 17 f. Ecclesiastical r. Scholastical p. 162 l. 54 f. they who r. those which p. 163 l. 20 r. Reformationem and f. predictis r. praedictis l. 23 r. punishment p. 183. l. 40 f. oar r. our p. 186. l. 30. f. in all Ages might r. in all Ages might without a Comma p. 186 l. 18 19 f. chap. 28 r. chap. 30. and l. 24. f. infer for what r. infer what p. 189 l. 46 f. and efficaciously r. But efficaciously p. 194. l. 40 and 41 r. Justification p. 198 l. 38 f. doath r. death p. 201 l. 42. r. merits of p. 202. l. 50 f. Relation r. Revelation What other Faults the Reader may find he is desired to Correct or Excuse them Advertisement A Brief Review of Mr. Davis's Vindication By Giles Firmin one of the United Brethren Printed by John Lawrence at the Angel in the Poultrey 1693. The Introduction HOly David the man after Gods own heart said of old My flesh trembleth for fear of thee Ps 119.120 and I am afraid of thy judgments We would it were thus with all that pretend to any seriousness in the Profession of the Protestant Religion at this day But alas where are such to be found where are they that are affected with the fear of God as David was and that are duly apprehensive of the Judgments of God which are actually upon and seem to be yet further coming upon the Reformed Churches Is it not visible that all sorts of men turn to their several courses of sin as the Horse rusheth into the battle They run on in the ways of their own hearts blindly and boldly without considering or fearing the issue And who can wonder that those who have hardned their hearts from Gods fear should boldly venture upon sin especially if they have got a strong but false perswasion that they are The Temple of the Lord the true the best and purest Church upon Earth most highly in favour with God and that their sins are the spots of Gods children which do not hurt them and are well consistent with his highest Love and Favour The Scriptures of truth assure us that when once Professors of Religion have brought themselves to this then they can securely lean upon the Lord and say is not the Lord amongst us none evil can come upon us Though at the same time the Lord saith that Sion for your sakes shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps Mic. 3.11 12. We wish it be
unchristian a thing he hath done in accusing the Brethren as aforesaid We 1. Here declare in general before we come to examine the several particulars in his Letter which relate to this matter That we never were and that we now are not and that we trust in God we never shall be Arminians or Pelagians This we freely and unfeignedly declare as in the presence of the Lord to whom we must give an account of all our Actions 2. And yet further to remove all ground of suspicion if it be possible of our corrupting the Gospel in the point of Justification we accept of the Test proposed to us by the Authour of the Letter Pag. 29. and declare That we will subscribe all those Articles of the Confession of Faith which he hath there transcribed together with the Passage out of the larger Catechism We say We will subscribe them in the Assemblies own sense We add this limitation because the Authour of the Letter hath not taken into his Test that part of the larger Catechism * Question How is the grace of God manifested in theâ— second Covenant which declares that God in the second Covenant requires Faith as the condition to interest Sinners in Christ Nay he denies Faith to be either condition or qualification and will have it to be only the Instrument of Justification But by Comparing the confession of Faith with the Catechism we find that the Assembly held Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition And therefore every honest Man that will subscribe in the Assemblies own sense must so hold Faith to be an Instrument as to be a Condition also Now the Question is How Faith can be both an Instrument and a Condition To which we answer That in our Judgement it is thus Distinguish between a meer Physical Instrument and a moral federal Instrument Faith is not a meer physical Instrument but it is a moral federal Instrument Now a moral federal Instrument is the same thing with a federal Condition Instrument and Condition in this sense are but two words to signifie the same thing If this do not satisfie our Brother but he will still say That the notion of an Instrument and the notion of a Condition are two distinct notions and cannot both agree to the same thing to the same faith We answer 1. If he will say so we desire the World to take notice that it is he himself who opposes the Assembly and not we 2. In behalf of the Assembly we answer That the notion of a moral federal Instrument and the notion of a federal Condition are not two distinct but one and the same notion 3. Suppose they were two distinct notions yet the same thing the same faith in different respects is capable of two distinct notions But so it is that Faith may be considered under two different respects 1. Faith is considered with respect to Christ himself and his Righteousness and so it hath the notion of an Instrument whereby we receive Him and His Righteousness and apply them to our own Souls 2. Faith is considered with respect to Justification it self or the Act whereby God Justifies us for the sake of Christ and his Righteousness and so it hath the notion of a Condition upon which God Justifies us for the sake of Christ and his Righteousness In this respect Faith cannot have the notion of a Phisical Instrument for a Physical Instrument as such hath a Physical Causality but our Faith cannot have a Physical Causality upon Gods Act whereby he Justifies Let it be considered that both our Catechisms larger and lesser affirm Justification to be an Act of God Now how an Act of ours such as Justifying Faith is can have a Phisical Causality and Influence upon the producing of an Act of God is above our comprehension Sure we are that if any Man will maintain such an Opinion he ascribes more to Faith in the point of Justification than we dare do We should rather think that the Instrument which God uses in producing his own Justifying Act is his own Gospel-promise of Pardon and Justification to the penitent Believer for the sake of Christ in whom he believes Acts 10.43 Object But doth not the second Article of the II Chap. of the Confession of Faith say expresly that Faith is the alone Instrument of Justification Answ 1. And so say we too It is the alone Instrument the alone moral federal Instrument or the alone receptive applicative Condition 2. Distinguish between an Instrument immediate and mediate Now Faith is not said to be the alone immediate Instrument of Justification nor do we conceive how it can so be in a physical sense because it hath no immediate physical influence upon the producing of Gods Justifying Act. But Faith may be said to be the mediate Instrument of Justification because it is the immediate Instrument whereby we receive Christ and his Righteousness hoc posito this being done this Instrumental Means being used and this Condition being performed Christ and his Righteousness being received by Faith as the Instrumental Means of that reception God himself for Christs sake justifies us by his Law of Faith This seems plainly to be the sense of the Assembly as appears by their saying in the passage of the larger Catechism quoted by the Letter That Faith Justifies a Sinner onely as it is an Instrument by which the Sinner receiveth and applieth Christ and his Righteousness Mark the Expression They do not say that Faith Justifies only as an Instrument whereby God Justifies the Sinner but onely as an Instrument whereby the Sinner receives and applies Christ and his Righteousness If the Authour of the Letter have any other Notions of Faith's being a Physical Instrument much good may they do him but let him not think to impose them upon us or upon the Words of the Assembly We take their Words in the sense they are capable of without self contradiction For we have more respect for that Reverend and learned Synod than to put a sense upon their Words they are not fairly capable of or that shall make them speak Contradictions Therefore as they hold Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition so do we We hold it so to be an Instrument as that its being an Instrument shall not hinder it from being a Condition And so to be a Condition as that its being a Condition shall not hinder it from being an Instrument This we take to be the plain and native sense of the Assembly and in this sense we heartily assent to their Words But so doth not our Authour for in the 9th and 25th Pages of his Letter he saith that Faith is neither Condition nor Qualification but a meer Instrument Whereas the Assembly saith expresly both that Faith is a Condition and also that it is an Instrument Therefore he contradicts the Assembly and doth not take their Words in their plain and native sense For had he so taken them as
suspicion of Antinomianism which he had brought upon himself But we are really perswaded better things of our Authour though we thus write upon a supposition which we hope he will never admit but rather than admit such a supposition with its necessary consequence he will join with us and say that Luther and Mr. Hamilton meant no more but that evil works do not first make a Man evil because ever since the first Sin of Adam and Eve all meer Men besides them two are evil by Original sin before they commit any Actual Sin Thus much shall suffice to have said of the Occasion and Design of the Letter CHAP. II. Of the Authours Errours in Doctrine against the Purity of our Christian Faith SECTION I. Of his First Errour That there is no New Law of Grace THE First Error against our Christian Faith which we find in the Letter is that there is no new Law of Grace according to which the Lord dispenseth unto his People the Benefits and Blessings of Justification and Eternal Savlation That we do not wrong him in charging him with this erroneous Opinion is evident from his Letter pag. 9 18 29. and pag. 30 31. Where he saith that Justification upon the terms of the new Law of Grace doth not agree with the sound Words of the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster and that the new Law of Grace is a new word but of an old and ill meaning Thus he And this the people must believe upon his bare word without any proof Now to refute this we need do no more but refer them that desire to know who is in the right as to this matter unto Mr. Williams defence of Gospel truth from pag. 18 to 34. where it is sufficiently proved by Scripture by reason grounded on Scripture and by the Testimony of Divines of the Reformed Churches That there is a new Law of Grace that the Gospel is that Law of Grace and that it is a new Law of Grace in the same sense that the Covenant of the Gospel is a new Covenant of Grace This Error then that there is no new Law of Grace being refuted to our hand we might well pass it and proceed to another Yet because the Authour discovers so much ignorance and boldness in what he says to the People upon this point we judge it expedient to insisâ— a little upon it both to instruct and also to rebuke him And because he would make the people believe whether he believe it of us himself God and his own Conscience know that we consider God only as a Rector ruling by a prescribed Law in all his Purposes concerning and Dealings with the Children of Men That he may not go on deceiving and being deceived We declare to the World that we never thought spoke or wrote any such thing as he would fasten upon us that he may the better misrepresent us to the people pag. 9. at the beginning to wit that God is only to be considered under the notion of a Rector and Judge as aforesaid Where by the way we cannot but take notice how honestly he deals by our Reverend Brother Mr. Williams in drawing this inference from a pretended Scheme of his Doctrine Thus saith our Authour they antedate the Last Day and hold forth Christ as a Judge rather than a Saviour Here the World sees what Doctrine he fixes upon Mr. Williams Next Let them turn to pag. 56. of Gospel Truth stated c. and there they will find these express words of Mr. Williams He Christ treats with men as his Subjects whom he will now Rule and hereafter Judge Now cannot Christ be our Saviour but by ceasing to be our Ruler and cannot we be saved by him but by ceasing to be subject to him Where is that Man's Brains who cannot see if he will that these two things do very well consist that Christ is both our Saviour and Ruler at the same time But this only on the by We declare therefore again that we never thought spoke or wrote that God is to be considered only under the notion of a Rector or Judge in all his Purposes concerning and Dealings with the Race of Man-kind On the contrary we believe that First God as an absolute Soveraign Lord of his own most Free and Gracious Will and Pleasure purposed to give and accordingly gave his only begotten Son to be the Redeemer and Saviour of sinful Men but not of fallen Angels Secondly That God as an absolute Soveraign Lord of his own good pleasure and according to the Counsel of his own will did before the foundation of the World choose some and not others of the lapsed and lost Race of Man-kind unto the participation of Special Effectual Victorious Grace and Eternal Glory through Christ Jesus Thirdly That in the first making of the Covenant and enacting of the Law of Grace with us through Christ Jesus God did not act as a Governour Ruling us according to an external Law which he had before made for us but as a Soveraign and gracious Lord who had freely purposed to save us in such a way by Jesus Christ Fourthly That in giving the foresaid Special Effectual Victorious Grace to the Elect rather than to others God doth not act as a Rector or Governour according to a stated Law prescribed to us and known by us but according to the counsel of his own Will and his hidden Purposes and Transactions with Christ concerning us Fifthly But yet in good consistency with what we have said we do firmly believe that God hath enacted and constituted a Law of Grace for bestowing upon us the subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant such as Justification and Glorification This Law God hath revealed to us in the Scriptures of Truth by this Law he both obliges and encourages us to certain Duties and also by the promises of it obliges himself to Justifie and glorifie us for Christs sake if we perform the Duties prescribed and comply with the Terms injoined It is with respect to those subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant that we say the Lord deals with us as a Rector and Governour Ruling us by a Law of Grace This Law is expressed in Holy Scripture in several Forms of Words as that See also Ps 103.17 18. Pr. 28.13 Isa 1.16 17 18. 55.7 Jer. 36.3 Acts 2.38 â— 19 16.31 26.18 Heb. 5.9 12.14 Revel 2.10 3.21 22.14 John 8.51 Ho who believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 And If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 Whosoever believeth in Christ shall receive Remission of Sins Acts 10.43 Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.5 This is that which we mean by the Law of Grace and our meaning is so plain that any Man endued with
common sense and reason may understand it But our Brethren do not like the thing it self And why we pray do not they like it 1. Is it because it is called a Law Why the Scriptures of Truth call it so expresly Rom. 3.27 the law of faith Gal. 6.2 the law of Christ The Messiah's Law The Isles shall wait for his Law Isa 42.4 Or 2. Is it because it obligeth to duty with a promise of blessing to the Performers and with a threatening of misery and punishment to the Neglecters Refusers and Despisers If this be the reason wherefore they like it not then let them receive an Answer from the Lords own Mouth Luke 19.27 Those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me But we have better hopes of our Brethren Or 3. Is it because we call it a Law of Grace Why we call it a Law of Grace because it really is so it is a gracious Law For it is a Federal or Covenant-Law that makes rich Offers of Grace of Justifying and Glorifying Grace and it is a means also whereby the Lord conveys unto his People regenerating and sanctifying Grace it is a means which the Lord hath ordained to bring his People to Faith Repentance and Gospel-obedience Therefore it may well be called a Law of Grace And we think none should and especially our Angry Brethren should not like it the worse because we call it and it really is a Law of Grace They do not like the Covenant of the Gospel the worse because it is called the Covenant of Grace and why then should they like this Law of Christ the worse because we call it the Law of Grace especially when we tell them that this Law of Grace is the conditional part of the Covenant of Grace it is that part of the Covenant of Grace which respects the way of God's dispensing to us the subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant such as pardon of sin and eternal Salvation And doth not the Apostle Rom. 4.16 say expresly that it is of faith that it might be by grace Or 4. And Lastly Is it because we call it a new Law If that be it that displeaseth why should our Brethren be displeased on that account since they know if it be not their own fault that we call it the new Law in no other sense than as we call the Covenant of Grace the new Covenant This Law of Grace we speak of is both new and old in different respects It is new in respect of the Covenant of Works made with Man in his state of innocency For that Covenant of Works was before this Law of Grace which came after and therefore is comparatively new Again as we Christians have it it is called new because we have the newest and clearest and last edition of it And as in these respects it is new so in other respects it is old It is old as the substance of it hath had an existence in the Church of God ever since the first promise of Grace made to our first Parents after the fall It is the everlasting Gospel Rev. 14.7 Heb. 12.26 27 28 29. which hath been in the Church under various forms of administration and will continue in us newest and excellentest form unto the end of the World We hear it is said by some that the Command to believe and repent with the promise of pardon to the penitent Believer and the threatening of punishment to the impenitent Unbeliever cannot be an Evangelical Law because God doth not give unto all special grace to enable them to believe and repent in obedience to that Command We answer 1. If that be it that hinders it from being a Law then notwithstanding that reason it is a Law to all Gods Elect for to them he gives through Christ the said special Grace 2. We deny the Consequence God gives not special Grace to the Non-elect therefore the Command to believe and repent with the annexed conditional promise of pardon and threatening of punishment cannot be a Law to them It may be and is a Law to them though the said special Grace is not given them And whereas it is objected that without such special Grace the Non-elect cannot obey that Law We Answer 1. That their cannot their Impotence is not physical but moral they cannot be cause they will not 2. The Non-elect to whom the Evangelical Law is promulgated together with it receive more Common-Grace more light and power from the Lord in order to their obeying his revealed Will than they make a good use of Hence the Professors of Leyden in their Synopsis of purer Divinity write thus concerning this matter Diligenter notandum est c. Disp 24. Thes 54 55. p. 290 291. It is diligently to be noted that this Non-election doth not take away or deny all Grace in the Non-elect but only that Grace which is peculiar to the Elect. But that Grace which in various measures is dispensed unto â—on by the administration of common Providence whether under the Law of Nature or under the Evangelical Grace is not taken away by this act of Preterition or Non-election but is rather presupposed because the Non elect are left under that common government of Divine Providence and the exercise of their own free-will But this administration of common providence always hath conjoined with it that communication of Benefits external and internal which in perfect of innocent nature was indeed sufficient to Salvation as it is manifest in the reprobate Angels and in all mankind considered in our first Parents before the Fall But in corrupt Nature so much remains or is superadded to nature under the Gospel that they are bereft and deprived of all pretence of excuse before the Divine Judgment as the Apostle testifies Acts 14.17 Rom. 1.20 2.1 John 15.22 and else-where Thus the Professors of Leyden And Dr. Owen in his Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit Page 198. sayes That where special Grace and real Conversion is not attained to wit by means of common Grace of which he is there writing it is always from the interposition of an act of wilfulness and stubbornness in those enlightened and convicted They do not sincerely improve what they have received and faint not mierly for want of strength to proceed but by a free act of their own Wills they refuse the Grace which is further tendered unto them in the Gospel So much briefly in answer to the foresaid Objection which was cast into our way and it being removed we go on with our Author who in Pag. 30. saith That New Law of Grace is a new Word but of an old and ill meaning Very well Here is a pretty Jingle of Words and it may be he or some that he knows are much pleased with such Trifles and if so here they are fitted For our parts we cannot see what should move him to say that the new Law of
declare to the World what our Faith is in this matter And First We do not hold that there is any Antecedent Condition of the Covenant of Grace Our meaning is plainly this That there is nothing required to be necessarily performed by us as a Condition before the Lord will make us Partakers of any Grace even of the first Grace of the Covenant For we believe that the first Grace is given Absolutely and the Lords giving of it is not suspended on our performing of some antecedent Condition by our meer natural Strength This indeed would be Pelagianism or rather Semi-Pelagianism condemned by the Ancient Church and we condemn it as much as the Ancients did We hold that there are Absolute Promises Promises of Regenerating Grace of the New Heart the Heart of Flesh of special Grace through which the Elect believe and repent This is the Grace whereby we performe the Conditions required of us in the Covenant and therefore it must be promised and given Antecedently to our performing those Conditions forasmuch as it is the cause of the performance of those Conditions and the cause must always be in order of nature and causality before the Effect There hath been and is some difference of Opinion amongst Orthodox Ministers about the Person or Persons to whom God hath made those absolute Promises Some think they are made only to Christ for the Church according to these Scriptures Isai 49.6 compared with Acts 13.47 48. and Isai 53.11 Psal 22.30 and 110.3 Others think they are made through Christ only to the Catholick Church that God for Christ's sake would shew special Mercy unto his Select People in all Ages and add them to the Church Mystical by saving Illumination Regeneration and Conversion And so that God through Christ hath promised unto the Catholick Church that she should be a fruitful Mother that should still bring forth Children unto God which should continue the Succession unto the end of the World as in Isa 54.1 Sing O barren c. ver 5. For thy maker is thy husband c. See also ver 8 10. and then consider the Promise ver 13. That all her children should be taught of the Lord. And compare that place with Gal. 4.26 27 28 29. We humbly conceive that the Absolute Promises of the first saving Grace are not made immediately to Individual Persons but to the Body of the Church to the Mother in behalf of her Children Such are the Promises recorded Isa 44.3 4 5. Isa 59.21 Ezek. 36.22 compared with ver 26 27. and with Heb. 8.10 These and all absolute Promises of the first saving Grace seem not to be made immediately unto nor to be immediately pleadable in Faith by any Individual Persons before their first Conversion but to be made unto the house of Israel as the Text expresseth it that is unto the true Church which is the Mystical Living Body of Christ in behalf of all the Children which she as a Spiritual Mother is to bring forth unto God Or 3ly To Reconcile these two Opinions and to reduce them into one it may be some judge it best to say that the aforesaid absolute Promises are made both to Christ and his Church as one Mystical Body consisting of Head and Members which is to be filled up from time to time by adding New Members to it and that continual addition of new Members is made by the fulfilling of the foresaid absolute Promises and for this may be alledged Gal. 3.16 and this way we oppose not Thus it is confessed that there is some difference of Opinion about the Persons to whom the Absolute Promises of the first Saving Grace are made and we cannot help it for it is not in our power to make all good Men to be of one mind in lesser matters and we think we are bound in Conscience to bear with one another in love notwithstanding such little differences But we thank God that we are all agreed that the Promises of the first Grace are Absolute so as to exclude the necessity of our performing any Antecedent Condition to make us capable of that first Grace And we desire it may be well remembred That we say those Promises are absolute so as to exclude any antecedent Condition but not so as to exclude the use of Gods appointed means for the obtaining of that promised Grace We plainly distinguish between an Antecedent Condition which is always and in all cases necessary to obtain the promised Grace and the use of God's means appointed for the obtaining of the promised Grace which use of means is indeed ordinarily necessary unto Men so that they have no ground to expect that ever God should give them the aforesaid Grace without their attending upon him in the use of those means yet is not the use of them so absolutely necessary as that Grace at no time and in no case can be had without them For though God hath tyed us to the means he hath not tyed himself to them by any Law or Constitution so that he can never give the first Saving Grace to any without the use of them We know God hath been found of them that sought him not so he was found of Paul and others and so he may be again in these latter days if he please God may give Faith and Repentance to a man absolutely in what way he pleaseth he may do it in the use of means or out of the use of means which is his ordinary way because he hath not made the use of means the Condition upon the performance of which he hath declared that he will always give it and never in any case without the performance of it Thus indeed it is in the matter of Justification and Glorification It is not consistent with the Truth of God's Word and Perfection of his Nature to justifie or glorifie an Impenitent Unbeliever remaining such because he hath declared that he will not and it is not consistent with his own Honour that he should do it but upon the performance of the Duty and Condition of Faith and Repentance But in the matter of Regeneration and giving Faith and Repentance in the use of means God hath not so tyed up himself by any Declaration of his Will that we know of but that he hath left himself at free Liberty as a Gracious Lord and Merciful Benefactor to give the Grace of Regeneration Faith and Repentance when and how he pleaseth ordinarily in the use of means and extraordinarily without the Antecedent use of Means This we learn of Doctor Twisse who as he affirms frequently that the first Grace and particularly the new Heart Faith and Repentance are promised and given absolutely and not upon the performance of any Antecedent Condition so he positively asserts that the said new Heart Faith and Repentance are usually given in the use of Means and not otherwise ordinarily You shall have it in his own words Thus then he writes in his Answer to the
ashamed of the Cross of Christ and to behave as if they accounted the Tydings of Salvation by the slain Son of God an old antiquated Story and unfit to be dayly preached And what comes in the room thereof is not unknown nor is it worth the mentioning For all things that come in Christ's room and justle him out either of Hearts or Pulpits are alike abominable to a Christian Again in Page 33. by an Innuendo he gives the People to understand that we teach that sincere obedience unto the Law is the Righteousness we must be found and stand in in our pleading for Justification and that in so doing we neither understand what we say nor whereof we affirm 1 Tim. 1.7 Lastly In his Appendix Page 39. by another of his Innuendo's he gives the People to understand that we bring our own pitiful holiness into Justification and thereby make it sit on the Throne of Judgment with the Precious Blood of the Lamb of God By these Passages that we have transcribed word for word out of his Letter it appears that he hath told the People a very tragical Story of some Ministers and if he mean it of us we know our selves to be so clear of those horrid Crimes he charges us with that we can declare with a good Conscience in the sight of God who will judge us all that it is as false with respect to us as any Story that ever came out of the Mouth of the Father of Lies For it hath been our chief desire and endeavour to preach Christ to the People to preach Christ both as humbled and exalted as crucified and glorified To convince them of their need of Christ of their being utterly undone without him that there is no help nor hope for them from any thing in themselves and of themselves or from any meer Creature either in Heaven or Earth that Christ is the way the truth and the life and that there is no coming to the Father but by him that there is no Salvation in any other but in Jesus Christ because there is no other Name under Heaven given unto Men whereby we must be saved That there needs no other because Christ being not onely Man but God also being God-man he is an all-sufficient Saviour able and willing to save able to save to the uttermost to save perfectly to save evermore all that come unto God by him It hath been our care and endeavour to teach the People that Christ hath not onely procured for us the new Covenant or Law of Grace according to which we may be Justified and saved if we comply with the Terms and Conditions of it but that he hath by his Humiliation and Obedience his Obedience unto Death even the Death of the Cross fully satisfied the Justice of God for our Sins merited for us the pardon of them with the acceptation of us as righteous in the sight of God and a Right or Title to Eternal Life if we sincerely Believe and Repent And moreover that he hath merited for us by his Blood and gives unto us by his Spirit all that Grace whereby we do both sincerely believe and repent and obey the Gospel We tell the People that God made with us the new Covenant or Law of Grace in and through Christ the Mediator and Surety of it That it is founded upon and ratified and confirmed to us by his Blood-shedding and Death and that he hath purchased for us all the Grace Blessings and Benefits of it We tell them and prove to them that Christ hath fulfilled all Righteousness that he most perfectly kept every Law of God that he was under the obligation of that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross That it was for us Men and for our Salvation that he came down from Heaven and was humbled and became obedient unto death That his Obedience active and passive was equivalent fully equivalent to all that we ought to do and to all that we deserve to suffer for not doing what we ought for not doing what is commanded us and for doing what is forbidden us That by his Obedience and Sufferings he hath paid the full price of our Redemption and by paying that Price hath made full satisfaction to the Justice of God for our Sins and hath merited for us the full pardon of our Sins and Eternal Salvation of our Souls if we sincerely believe repent and obey the Gospel by that Grace which he hath also purchased for us by his Blood promised to us in his Word and gives unto us by his Spirit So that we are compleat in him we have all in and from him who is the Head the living and Life-giving Head the ever blessed and glorious Head of the whole Church in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell that out of his fulness we might receive and grace for grace Moreover we call People we command them we exhort and beseech them in God's Name to believe in Christ the Son of God and Saviour of Men to repent of their Sins and to be subject and obedient unto him The more effectually to encourage and perswade them so to do we assure them in God's Name that if they do indeed through Grace believe repent and obey they shall be first justified and afterwards glorified and that not for their Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience but only for the satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of Christ imputed to them So that we teach People to plead Christs Righteousness onely as that which satisfies God's Justice for them and as that which procures and purchases to them the pardon of their Sins the acceptation of their Persons as righteous in God's sight with their Right and Title first to eternal life and at last the actual donation of eternal life for their everlasting portion and inheritance On the other hand we faithfully declare to them that they ought by no means to ascribe unto their Faith Repentance or Obedience any of these things that belong to Christ's satisfactory meritorious Righteousness That the place and office of Faith in reference to Justification is to be the consenting receiving trusting Condition of it or the Instrumental means of receiving Christ as offered in the Gospel and with him his Righteousness for which alone we are justified That the place and office of Repentance is to be the disposing condition of Justification or rather if you will of the Person to be justified it not being consistent with the Truth of God's Word nor with the Perfection of his Nature to pardon a Sinner whilst he continues his full obstinate Resolution to go on in his Enmity and Rebellion against the Divine Majesty And lastly that the place and office of sincere obedience in the notion under which we now consider it is to be a condition of obtaining Eternal Life and Glory we do not say that
uncere Obedience to be a Legal but an Evangelical Condition of the Covenant of Grace and consequently that in our Judgment they do not hold the same Place and Office in the New Covenant of Grace which personal perfect sinless Obedience had and were to have had in the first Covenant of Innocency and of Works Object But saith our Authour in his Appendix Pag. 39. It is the Achillaean Argument of the New Divinity that Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience is our Evangelical Righteousness and that Righteousness is our defence against the charge of Vnbelief Impenitence c. And what then Why in the following Pages he so shapes it as might best serve his Design which was to make the People believe that we set up our own Righteousness in the place of Christ's and maintain that Men must be Justified by their own Righteousness and not onely by Christ's And so he trips up Achilles Heels by the Fallacy of many Interrogations But it will be no very difficult Task to scatter this Mist which he hath cast before the Peoples Eyes In order thereunto let it be considered 1. That the Substance of this Argument was not invented by any amongst us dead or alive that we know of but some in this Nation having read it in some very eminently learned forreign Divines particularly Ludovicus de Dieu at large and the Holy Humble Learned and most Acute Placeus they received it and improved it as useful to clear some seeming Difficulties in Scripture obiected to us by our Adversaries the Papists 2. Consider that this way of reconciling James with Paul in the matter of Justification for the Substance of it was taken up also by the Learned Turretin 3. That it doth not appear that all of us ever expressed our selves in those Words for the clearing up of the seeming difference between James and Paul 4. That those who do take that way do not impose it upon others We know there have been many ways taken by Reformed Divines to expound James so as not to contradict Paul And some considerable difference there may seem to be among Divines in the methodizing and expressing of their Notious of those Matters But yet there appears to be very little difference amongst them as to the things themselves Indeed upon the Matter all seems to come almost to the same thing And particularly let it be considered 5. That this way of Interpreting James his Justification by Works and reconciling it with Paul's Justification by Faith seems to differ from the more common modern Opinion mostly in the manner of expression which some of us think most agreeable to the Scripture Phrase But we leave every Man to express his Notions as best pleaseth him provided that if he do not use Scripture Words yet he do not contradict Scripture sense And therefore 6. We desire it may be considered that this way of expounding James which we are now speaking of doth not in the least contradict the Holy Scripture but rather serves to explain it if it be understood as it ought to be in the true genuine sense of its Authours For 1. Though they say that our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience is an Evangelical Righteousness as indeed it is yet at the same time they declare that this Evangelical Righteousness is no other thing but the Condition of the new Covenant on our part whereby we are interested first and still keep our interest in the satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of Christ by and for which alone we are justified from first to last They do not say that this Evangelical Righteousness which is the Condition of the Covenant doth satisfie God's Justice for the least sin either against Law or Gospel or that it doth properly merit to us the least good so much as a Cup of Cold Water They give unto Christ alone the whole Glory of having by his Righteousness satisfied Justice for all our Sins and merited to us all our Mercies So that our Authour was we think a little impertinent in putting his question page 41. What is that Righteousness which justifies a man from the sin of Vnbelief For he knows well enough that the Worthy Divines as he deservedly calls them with whom he has to do in that Argument have published it to all the World under their hands That assoon as a Man who was before an Unbeliever begins through Grace sincerely to believe in Christ and to repent of his Unbelief and of all his other sins immediately thereupon Christ's satisfactory meritorious Righteousness justifies him from his sin of Unbelief and from all his other former sins both Original and Actual that is God by and for Christ's Righteousness justifies him from them upon his believing and repenting And as our Authour knows this to be true so he hath honestly confessed it in the end of the same Paragraph Will any man says he dare to tell a person who is troubled in Conscience about his sin of Vnbelief that Christ's Righteousness is his legal Righteousness against the charge of sins against the Law but for Gospel-charges he must answer them in his own name I know our hottest opposers would abhor such an answer and would freely tell such a Man that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin and that his Justification from his Vnbelief must be only in that Righteousness which he so sinfully had rejected while in Vnbelief and now lays hold on by Faith Here the Truth comes out at last and in effect he gives the lye to his own false accusations of the Lord's Ministers and acquits the accused For if his hottest Opposers freely tell People that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin and that their Justification from the sin of Unbelief must be only by the Righteousness of Christ then how can those things be true whereof as was observed before he had accused us in page 6 28 33 and page 39. That we bring our own pitiful Holiness into Justification and make it sit on the Throne of Judgment with the precious blood of the Lamb of God Ex ore tuo c. But 2. The Authors of the Argument we are upon never said wrote or so much as thought that can be known That our sincere Faith and Repentance is a Defence or Justification against a charge of Unbelief or Impenitence given in against us by God for they knew full well without being taught it by this Authour That the God of Truth cannot be the Authour of a Lye which he would certainly and evidently be if he should charge us with being Unbelievers and Impenitent at that very time when he knows that by his own Spirit and Grace we sincerely believe and repent But that which the aforesaid Excellent Divines said is yet to be seen in their Writings and it is this That our sincere Faith and Repentance is a Defence and Justification against any false charge of Unbelief and Impenitence that is or possibly may be given in against
us by the Devil and the World or by our own mistaken Consciences And who dare deny the Truth of this May not the Devil and the World falsly accuse do not they too often falsly accuse us and say that we are Hypocrites and have neither true Faith nor Repentance When this Brother accuseth us so falsly as he doth in his Letter we need not think it strange that the Devil and the World do falsly accuse us Yea we have that within our own breasts that may sometimes through the temptations of Satan or the remainders of sinful Darkness and Unbelief falsly accuse us of predominant Hypocrisie Unbelief and Impenitency Now if at the same time we are really true Converts and through Grace sincerely believe and repent what Man that is endued with common Sense and reason can reasonably deny that our sincere Faith and Repentance is a sufficient Defence and Justification of us against all such false accusations Sure we are that our infinitely Gracious God and Saviour allows our plea and we most heartily bless his Name for it hath sometimes by his Spirit and Grace sensibly helped us to make our defence by clearing up to us the sincerity of our Faith and Repentance and by enabling us to take unto our selves the Comfort and to give him all the Glory of our being sincere penitent Believers notwithstanding all that the Devil World or Flesh say falsly to the contrary But as for those who are impenitent Unbelievers indeed all the World knows that the Faith and Repentance which they have not can never justifie them from the Unbelief and Impenitency which they really have deeply rooted in their hearts In short We maintain that Christ's meritorious and satisfactory Righteousness only justifies us at Gods Bar from all our sins against any Law of God whatsoever as soon as we through Grace performe the Gospel-Condition of sincere Faith and Repentance And then that sincere Faith and Repentance is our Defence and Justification before our most Gracious God and before all honest Men against all false accusations of our not having performed the Gospel-Condition of sincere Faith and Repentance But as for those who continue still in Unbelief and Impenitence they have nothing to defend and justifie them but if they live and dye in that stare their Unbelief and Impenitence will bind upon them to Eternity the Curse and Condemnation of the Law and moreover will bring upon them the sorer Vengeance of the despised Gospel John 3.18 19 20. and Heb. 2.2 3. and 12.25 Thus Achilles is on his Legs again without receiving the least hurt from the weak efforts of that assailant who hath nothing to say to him without misrepresenting him but that he doth not like his Language pretending that it is unscriptural let p. 41 42. dangerous and tends to the dishonouring of Christs Righteousness c. but that pretence is utterly false For 1. That our sincere Faith Repentance and Gospel-Obedience is a righteousness is evident from the Nature of the thing For 1. They are Duties which we owe unto the Lord our God and it is self-evident that it is a righteous thing to give unto God the things that are Gods 2. It is confessed by our Divines in their Disputes against the Papists that our Faith Repentance sincere Obedience and Holyness is a Righteousness For they generally grant that we have a two-fold Righteousness 1. The Righteousness of Christ imputed to us 2. A Righteousness inherent in us and adherent to us which we receive from Christ by his Spirit and Grace This is expresly confessed by that same Bishop Downham in his Book of Justification which our Author page 12. of his Letter commends as an Orthodox Book There that Reverend and Learned Divine affirms that we are Righteous both by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us which is our Principal Righteousness and likewise by another Righteousness wrought in us and performed by us which is our secondary subordinate Righteousness If our Authour should have the Confidence to deny this it will be proved against him by Authority both Divine and Humane 2. This our subordinate Righteousness is rightly termed Evangelical because it is required by the Word of the Gospel wrought by the Spirit of the Gospel and is a complying with the terms and a performing of the Condition of the Gospel 3. That our sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience is a subordinate Righteousness by which we are defended and justified against the false charge of Hypocrisie Unbelief and Impenitence is so far from being unscriptural that it agrees exactly with the very Letter Scope and Sense of the Scripture in the second Chapter of James if that Epistle be Scripture as I hope we all believe that it is for there a Man is expresly in formal terms said to be justified by works James 2.21 24 25. which words can signifie no less than this That the good Works and sincere Obedience of a good Man do justifie him against the false accusation of being an Hypocrite or prophane Libertine As to what our Authour says in page 41. That works of Righteousness are only a Justification of Faith and not of the Person of the Believer it is a notorious falsehood and expresly contradicts the Spirit of God who faith that a man is justified by works and particularly that Abraham and Rahab were justified by works and not that their Faith only was justified by Works We do not deny but that good Works do justifie Faith but we also affirm with James that they do likewise justifie the person of the Believer But how is that Why they justifie his Person in tantum in so far as they are his Defence and Justification against the false charge of his being a Hypocrite or Libertine and not a true penitent obedient Believer In all this neither doth James nor we after him dishonour the Righteousness of Christ in the least for our inherent and adherent Righteousness is intirely subordinate to Christ's imputed Righteousness it hath also quite another Vse and Office than Christ's imputed Righteousness and it proceeds from it as the only meritorious cause thereof We abhor all Opinions and Practices that have the least real tendency to dishonour Christ or his Righteousness We ascribe this to Christ as his peculiar incommunicable Glory that as was said before his righteousness alone comes in the place of that personal perfect sinless Righteousness which was the Condition of the first Covenant of Innocency and Law of Works And as for that personal imperfect yet sincere Righteousness which through the Grace of Christ we attain unto by Believing Repenting and Obeying the Gospel it is nothing but the Condition of the new Covenant by performing whereof we get and keep an Interest in Christs imputed Righteousness by and for which alone we are justified from all our sins of what kind soever and have a right unto and at last get possession of Eternal Life and Glory in God's Heavenly Kingdom We have
insisted long upon this that all may see how sound and orthodox our Principles are in the point of Justification and how we have been abused and misrepresented to the People by the Authour of the Letter Whether he did it ignorantly or maliciously he knows best himself But which way soever he did it it was certainly very ill done 5thly and lastly We believe that as the Faith of God's Elect is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace so that it is not an uncertain but a most certain Condition our meaning is that before the Elect believe it is not uncertain whether ever they will believe or not It is indeed uncertain to the Persons themselves but it is not objectively uncertain the thing is not uncertain in it self nor is it uncertain unto God whether ever his Elect shall believe No it is most certain in it self and unto God that all the Elect shall believe for God hath chosen them through Christ unto Faith Christ hath merited special Grace for them whereby they shall believe God through Christ hath promised that special Grace and God by his Spirit for Christ's sake gives them that special Grace whereby they do all certainly and infallibly believe The contrary Opinion to this is by our Divines generally charged upon the Arminians It is said that the Arminians hold that it is so far left to Mens Wills assisted by Universal sufficient Grace whether they will make that Grace effectual and so whether they will believe or not that it may come to pass that not one Man in the whole World shall ever eventually believe and consequently that Christ's Blood might have been shed in vain and not one Soul have been effectually redeemed and saved by it This Opinion whoever they be that hold it we utterly detest and abhor and declare to the World that as we are infallibly sure that many of the Elect have believed already and do at present believe so all and every one of them in their several times shall by the special and effectual Grace of God believe to the saving of their Souls We also believe that this certainty of the Faith of God's Elect doth not at all hinder their Faith from being a condition but rather that it makes it to be a certain Condition The Arminians pretend they cannot understand how Faith can be a Duty required of us and a condition to be freely performed by us and that yet at the same time we are so excited to it and assisted by the Grace of God in the doing of it that it is done with an infallible certainty And therefore they say that if we did believe by such a special effectual Grace as that we could not but believe at the time we are influenced by that Grace then our believing would neither be a Duty nor Condition of the Gospel Thus the Arminians argue against Special Effectual Grace But what say our Antinomians to this Argument Why truly they say it is a very good argument that the Arminians have reason on their side and that they do effectually prove that Faith cannot be a Condition of the Gospel-Covenant Now we desire the World to take notice that the Antinomians join with the Arminians against us and take up their very Argument to prove that Faith neither is nor can be a Condition of the gospel-Gospel-Covenant And since they account this their chief argument we desire they would be so just and honest as to take the whole argument and not only a part of it and consider that the whole argument proves that upon supposition of special effectual Grace Faith can neither be a Duty nor a Condition and it proves as strongly that Faith cannot be a Duty of the Gospel as that it cannot be a Condition of the Gospel Either then our Antinomians must say that Faith is no Duty because of this argument or if it may be still a Duty so may it also be still a Condition notwithstanding the force of this Argument For ought we know the right Antinomians may be willing enough to grant the consequence of the argument to be good as to both parts of it for we are afraid they care as little for Duties as they do for Conditions and some of them have plainly renounced Faiths being their Duty and have put it over upon Christ as his Duty and not theirs But we hope the Authour of thy â—etter is not yet so far gone and that he still retains some respect for Rutherfond's Examen Arminianismi which he had a hand in publishing and where he will find these words following page 270. Quaeritur an fides non potest esse conditio c. The Question is whether Faith cannot be a Condition required of the Elect by way of Duty and free Obedience and at the same time be a thing promised by God and unavoidably wrought by God in us The Remonstrants deny it we affirm it We likewise are for the affirmative against the Remonstrants who hold the negative of the Question But how to reconcile the Efficacy of God's Grace with our Free Will in doing the Duties incumbent upon us is no easie matter S. Augustin lib. deâ—praedest Sanct. cap. 14. says that it is Difficilis ad solvendum quaestio A Question difficult to be resolved Erkstra blasphemas ignorantium auribus ingeris nos lib. arb condemnare damnetur ille qui damnat Hieron Epist ad â—tisi hontem And Epist 46. Ad Valentinum he says it is difficillima quaestio paucis intelligibilis a most difficult question and such as few can understand And again lib. de gratiâ Christi contra Pelagium Caelestium cap. 47. Ista quaestio ubi de arbitrio voluntatis Dei gratiâ disputatur ita est ad discernendum difficilis ut quando c. That Question where Men dispute about Free Will and God's Grace is so hard to discern or understand that when Men defend Free Will they seem to deny God's Grace and when they assert God's Grace they seem to take away or destroy Free Will What must we do then in this case must we deny Free-will altogether No not altogether for as Augustin saith Epist 47. ad Valentinum Fides Catholica neque liberum arbitrium negat sive in vitam malam sive in bonam neque tantum ei tribuit ut sine gratiâ Dei valeat aliquid c. The Catholick Faith neither denies Free-will whether in order to a bad life or a good neither doth it ascribe so much to Free-will as that without God's Grave it can do any good c. We must not then altogether deny Free-will the Catholick Faith will not allow us so to do nor will the inward sense and experience that we have of our own Soul and its Actings suffer us to do it For as Augustin saith Lib. 83. Quaest 98. Moveri per se Animam sentit qui sentit in se esse Voluntatem He feels his Soul to be moved by it self who feels that
thing meant by Condition as really as if it were expressed For saith the Apostle If thou shalt confess with thy Mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy Hâ—â—rt that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved This Evangelical Pronsise and Proposition is as Conditional as is that Legal one Rom. 10.5 The man that doth those things shall live by them But that Legal Promise and Proposition is Conditional and confessed so to be therefore is this conditional also If it be said that the Condition is not the same nor doth it serve to the same end and purpose we grant that For we never said nor thought that the Conditions are the same and for the same Ends and Purposes for the one is a Legal Condition the other is Evangelical and so they differ specisically and in kind But what then Therefore they are not both Conditions We deny the Consequence For though they differ in the specisical yet they agree in the generical nature of Conditions And Faith is as properly a Condition in genere conditionis Evangelicae as personal perfect sinless Obedience is a Condition in genere conditionis legalis that is Faith is as properly an Evangelical Condition as perfect sinless Obedience is properly a Legal Condition We remember that the Pelagians of old objected against the Orthodox that either our Faith is not wrought in us by the Special Grace of God or else it cannot be a Duty and so it cannot be a Condition But we know also how St. Augustin answered their Objection Lib. de praedestin Sanct. cap. 11. Their Objection was this Cum dicitur si credideris salvus eris c. When it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved The one of these to wit Faith is required of us by a Command the other to wit Salvation is offered us by Promise then that which is required is in Man's Power as that which is promised is in God's Power To this Pelagian Objection Augustin answers thus Sic dicitur si credideris salvus eris Quemadmodum dicitur si Spiritu c. That is So it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved as it is said if you through the Spirit do mortifie the Deeds of the Body you shall live Rom. 8.13 For here also the one of these two is required and the other is promised as then although it be the Gist of God to mortifie the Deeds of the Flesh yet it is required of us with an offer of the Reward of Life for our encour agement thereunto Just so Faith is also the Gift of God although it be required of us with an offer of the Reward of Salvation for our encouragement to believe when it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved For those things are therefore both commanded us and also shewed to be the Gists of God that it may be known that both we do them and also that God causeth us to do them Thus Augustin We find the like Objection with the like Answer to it in Bradwardin De Causâ Dei lib. 2. cap. 28. p. 567 569. The Objection Si Deus necessario requiratur ad agendum c. If it be necessary that God concur to the proper production of every Act of the Creatures Will since God's concurring or acting is not in the power of the Creature then no act of the Creature would be in its own power The Answer is In rerum temporalium spiritualium administratione videmus c. In the administration both of temporal and spiritual things we see that there are more Powers and Dominions over the same thing subordinate to one another as Inferior and Superior wherefore no Man ought to doubt but that though the Will of the Creature have Power and Dominion over its own Act yet thereby is not excluded a Superior Power and Lord to wit God himself from a Superior Power Dominion and Efficiency in respect of the same Act. And a little after he says out of Thomas Aquinas The Will is said to have Dominion over its own Act not by excluding the first cause but the first cause doth not so act on the Will as to determine it necessarily to one thing as he determines Nature or natural Agents and therefore the determination of the Act is lest in the power of the Vnderstanding and Will We mention both these Objections with Answers to them out of St. Augustin and Bradwardin to shew that though we cannot believe without but do believe by the Grace of God yet that no ways hinders our Faith from being a duty required of us and also a Condition of the Covenant to be performed by us and we know our Authour cannot bring any appearance of an Argument against this but that which was brought by the Pelagians in the time of St. Augustin and which he answered As for the place of Scripture we are arguing from we have Calvin on our side acknowledging that it contains a Conditional Promise of the Gospel-Covenant a Promise of Righteousness and Salvation to all that sincerely believe in Christ with their Hearts and confess him with their Mouths For thus he writes Instit Lib. 2. cap. 5. Sect. 12. speaking of this very place of Scripture to wit Rom. 10.5 8 9. id reputans Paulus c. i. e. Paul considering this that Salvation is offered in the Gospel not upon that hard difficult impossible condition which the Law requires of us to wit that they only shall obtain Salvation who have fully kept all the Commandments but upon a condition that is easie ready and soon attained unto to wit the Condition of Faith he confirms it with this testimony To wit the Testimony of Moses which Paul quotes out of Deuteronomy chap. 30. ver 11 12 13 14. and interprets it of the Doctrine of Faith in the Gospel Let any read and compare Rom. 10.6 7 8. with Deut. 30.11 12 13 14. And they will see that Calvin did rightly conclude from those places that in the Judgment of St. Paul Salvation is promised us here in the Gospel upon a much easier Condition than it was in and by the Law This conditionality of the Covenant of Grace is clearly proved also by all those places of Scripture which assure us 1. That all who believe shall be justified and saved John 3.16 18 36. John 6.40 John 20.31 Mark 16.16 Acts 10.43 and 13.39 Rom. 4.24 Gal. 2.16 and 3.9 11. 2. That they who believe not whilst they continue in Unbelief shall not be justified and saved John 3.18.36 and 8.24 Mark 16.16 Revel 21.8 These Scriptures plainly shew that Faith is a Condition of the Covenant because the definition and nature of a Condition agrees to it For 1. Faith is a Duty which God requires of us for obtaining the promised benefit of Justification and Salvation 1 John 3.23 Rom. 10.9 2. God hath suspended his giving us the promised benefit of Justification and Salvation upon our performing the required Duty of
to a mixed Multitude or indeed to any at such a rate is such a Preacher as all People who would not be deluded to their Souls ruine and destruction should have a care of and avoid as an Impostor and Deceiver For assuredly It is most false and delusive for a Minister to tell a Multitude of sinful People that they shall all be justified and pardoned absolutely without complying with any terms or performing any Condition in order to the obtaining of the promised Benefit of Justification and Pardon If the Promise of Justification and pardon be said to be made unto Sinners as Sinners and that nothing is required of Men in order to their being justified and pardoned but that they be Sinners if our Authour or any for him could prove that it is confessed that he might preach and offer Justification and pardon of Sin absolutely to all the People that hear him and the consequence of it would be that all Men even the greatest Rogues that come at any time into our Congregations should therefore believe that they are justified and pardoned because they are Sinners for that is all that is required of them to wit that they be Sinners and they are infallibly sure of that But before he or any be allowed that Liberty to preach and offer Justification and Pardon of Sin absolutely to all he must prove that God hath made an absolute Promise of Justification and Pardon of Sin unto Sinners as Sinners and hath given him Commission to preach and offer Justification and Pardon absolutely to Sinners as such Which we are sure neither he nor any Man else can ever do For our parts we declare to the World that we cannot preach to the People so as to tell them from the Lord that the Promise of Justification and pardon of Sin is made to them as they are Sinners absolutely without any Condition to be performed on their part for qualifying them to obtain the promised Benefit because this would be in effect to tell them that God will justifie and pardon all the Men in the World and that he will save and glorifie every Man of them since they are all Sinners and no other Condition no nor Qualification neither but that is required of them in order to their being justified and pardoned Whatever Promise God hath made to Men as Sinners he hath certainly made to all Men because all Men are Sinners We remember the Rule of reasoning which many Years agoe we learned in the Schools that the consequence holds good and never fails à quatenus ad omne If then God hath made an absolute Promise to Sinners as such that he will justifie and pardon them it follows necessarily that all Men without exception being Sinners they shall certainly be all justified and pardoned yea and glorified too for whom God justisies he will glorifie The Reason of this is because God will certainly make good all his absolute Promises But it is an abominable falsehood that all Men in the World without exception shall be certainly justified and pardoned therefore it must needs be a great falschood also that God hath made an absolute promise to Sinners as such that he will justifie and pardon them And since God hath made no such absolute Promise we that are Ministers and speak to the People in God's Name cannot absolutely preach such a Promise to the People without deceiving and deluding them which our Consciences will not suffer us to do If this do not satisfie our Authour and those of his way but they will still deny the Conditionality of the Covenant and think to put by both the Horns of our Dilemma because there may be a third way of preaching the Promise of Justification to the People that is they can preach it neither absolutely nor conditionally but some other way we would entreat them not to conceal that other way from us who are willing to learn of them or of any that will be so kind as to inform us aright where we are mistaken In order to this we desire our Authour who takes upon him to be the Informer of the Ministers to assign us a Medium or Mean between a conditional and absolute Promise and consequently between preaching to the People a Gospel-promise absolutely or conditionally upon supposition that we preach it at all Hitherto we have thought that all Promises are either absolute or conditional and we know none of a neutral Nature that are neither absolute nor conditional and consequently we have believed that if we preach the Gospel-promise of Justification to the People we must of necessity preach it either absolutely or conditionally and the like we say of any other Gospel-promise we must preach it either absolutely or conditionally according to the nature of the promise it self as it may be absolute or conditional If our Authour will shew us a Promise that is of a middle nature and is neither absolute nor conditional he will indeed do something to purpose something towards the rectifying our Method of preaching the Promises But we judge it impossible for him to shew us a Promise of a middle nature that is neither absolute nor conditional and that because absolute promise and conditional promise are in effect contradictories and there neither is nor can be any Medium or Mean between contradictories And that they are contradictories we thus prove To suspend the thing promised on a condition annexed to the Promise And not to suspend the thing promised on a condition annexed to the Promise are plainly contradictories This Proposition is self-evident if the terms of it be understood But it is essential unto a conditional Promise to suspend the thing promised on a condition annexed to the Promise and on the other side It is essential unto an absolute promise not to suspend the thing promised on a condition annexed to the Promise This Proposition is also clear from the very nature of these two sorts of Promises The Conclusion then follows necessarily that therefore a conditional Promise and an absolute Promise are contradictories and there can be no middle Promise between them no Promise that is neither absolute nor conditional For every Promise possible must either suspend or not suspend the thing promised on a condition annexed and so every Promise possible must be either conditional or absolute Which was the thing to be demonstrated We have understood that there are some who leave no Stone unturned to avoid the force of the Arguments which prove the Covenant of Grace to be conditional as aforesaid and they think to do it by saying That there is an Order of Grace which God observes in promising and in dispensing according to Promise his Blessings and Benefits unto his People so as not to make one thing to be the condition of another but so as to make one thing to go in order before another To this we Answer we freely grant that God doth both promise Blessings and Benefits unto his People in
may be observed and remembred that when we say sincere Obedience is indispensably necessary to Salvation we do not mean that it is required as absolutely and indispensably necessary to our Salvation that our sincere Obedience be never at all interrupted by any Acts of disobedience but that if it happen that our Obedience be at any time notably interrupted by Acts of wilful presumptuous Sin it is indispensably necessary to our Salvation that we renew our Faith and Repentance and return to our Obedience again and that we dye in Faith and Obedience to the revealed Will of God As for them who are called at the last Hour who are first converted and justified a little before their Death Actual Faith and Repentance is required of them in their own Persons and as much more sincere Obedience as they have time and strength to performe As we see in the penitent Thief he performed a great deal of Obedience in a little time he not onely believed in Christ with his Heart but confessed him with his Mouth pleaded for him and vindicated him from the blasphemous Aspersions that were cast upon him He likewise took shame to himself and gave Glory to God by confessing his own Sins and withal he expressed his Love to his Fellow-Thief by rebuking and admonishing him Lastly He trusted in and prayed unto Christ as a Lord and King who had a Kingdome in another World and who could help and save him after this Life Luke 22.40 41 42. This that penitent Malefactor did at his Death and truly this was a great deal for him to do at such a time and when Christ his Lord and Saviour was before his Face in so low and miserable a Condition to the Eye of Sense and Reason The Obedience which that poor penitent Believer yeilded to the Lord in such Circumstances may well be esteemed equivalent to all that sincere Obedience which in the space of many Years others in better Circumstances perform unto the Lord. Thus we have at large prosecuted and cleared this Argument for the indispensable necessity of sincere Obedience to the obtaining of Eternal Life and Salvation and consequently for the Conditionality of the Covenant-promise of Eternal Life and Salvation And the Argument seems to us so clear and cogent that we do not see any thing of weight that can be objected against it If any should say that sincere Evangelical Obedience is not only necessary to Salvation as the condition to be performed on our parts but upon other accounts also We heartily acknowledge that it is so It is necessary to express our Love and Thankfulness to God and Christ for their wonderful Goodness and Grace Mercy and Love to us As also it is necessary in order to the pleasing and Glorifying our God Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and that thereby we may profit and edifie our Neighbours But this doth by no means hinder its being likewise indispensably necessary to our own Salvation nay all this is a part of that Obedience which is so necessary to our Salvation If yet any should further object and say that besides Faith sincere Obedience may be indispensably necessary to Salvation and yet not be a Condition of obtaining Salvation We answer that we do not love to contend with any about the use of the word condition if they will grant us the thing signified by the Word Now by the Word condition in this matter of Obedience we mean no more but that sincere Obedience is so necessary to Salvation that God by his Promise hath suspended our obtaining of Salvation consummate Salvation in Heavenly Glory till we have performed sincere Obedience unto him assuring us that if through Grace we perform sincere Obedience unto him we shall certainly be saved but if not we shall not be saved This is all we mean by sincere Obedience its being the Condition of the Covenant-promise of Salvation If our Brethren agree to this they yeild us the thing that we contend for and there remains no more difference as to this matter but about the use of the word condition and if they do not think fit to use that Word we leave them to their Liberty not to use it as we desire they would leave us to our Liberty to use it as we have occasion For though the Word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by the Word is manifestly there as we have proved It is also a Word of Antient usage in the Christian Church even in the best Reformed Churches before ever we were born why then should we forbear the use of the Word condition or why should any be offended at our using of it Indeed we cannot forbear the using of it for the Reason given us by some well-meaning Men because it is not a Scriptural-word For if that Reason prove any thing it will prove too much to wit that we should not use the Words Trinity Incarnation Satisfaction Merit of Christ Sacrament Infant-baptism c. and which is more that we should wholly give over Preaching the Gospel and hereafter only Read the Holy Scripture without Expounding it for we are sure that no Man doth or can Preach one Sermon without using some Word or Words that are not expresly in the Scripture And as our sincere Obedience may be and really is a Condition of obtaining Eternal Salvation though it be not expresly called by that Name in Scripture so may it be and really it is a Condition though it be performed by the help of God's Grace We know this is the main Reason why our Brethren think that neither our Faith nor Obedience can be a Condition of the Covenant because they are wrought in us by the special and effectual Grace of God but we know also that this is a very weak Reason For 1. We do not say that that is the Condition of the Covenant which is the Work and Effect of Gods Grace alone Such is effectual Calling on God's part and the infusion of the Seminal abiding principle of supernatural Spiritual Life It is God only who calls us effectually and who infuses the said Principle of Grace and Life into our Souls and we are merely passive in the reception of it We never said nor thought that it is required of us by way of Duty or Condition that we should effectually call our selves and infuse a supernatural Principle of Grace and Life into our selves This indeed would be very absurd Therefore we hold that our being effectually called and our having an abiding principle of Grace and Life given in unto us is quid prae-requisitum something pre-required to our right performing the condition but not the condition it self That which is required of us by way of Duty and Condition on which God promiseth us the subsequent blessings of the Covenant It is that we do not resist his Spirit and that by the grace of his Spirit we do actually believe and obey and persevere to the end Now the Grace of God whereby
pleased him This Proposition is self-evident for it is of the very Essence of Free-will in God the First and Freest Agent that in all external temporal things which fall under his Free-will he might have done them or not have done them he might have done them thus as he doth them or he might have done them otherwise than he hath done if he had pleased But antecedently to his free Purpose and Decree the whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace and of its terms and receptive Condition depended upon God's Free-will and Soveraign Pleasure Hence the Gospel is called the Mystery of God's Will and the Revelation of the Gospel unto us is said to be the making known unto us the Mystery of his Will according to his Good Pleasure which he hath purposed in himself Eph. 1.9 Now if the whole Mystery of the Covenant of Grace depended on God's Free-will then the ordaining of this or that to be the receptive Condition of the Covenant depended on his Will also and so antecedently to the free Purpose of his Will there was no natural necessity that Faith alone and no other thing should be the receptive Condition of the Covenant 2. It is not yet past Dispute amongst Divines Whether antecedently to God's free Purpose and Decree to save us by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ alone he might not have freely purposed and decreed to have pardoned and saved us some other way Amongst our Reformed Divines Calvin Twiss and Rutherford and others were of this Opinion yea even Dr. Owen himself was once of this Opinion though afterwards he changed his mind in that as he did in other things witness what he wrote in his Book called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ Or A Treatise of Redemption c. Book II. Chap. II. Page 57. The Foundation of this whole Assertion seems to me to be false and erroneous viz that God could not have Mercy on Mankind unless satisfaction were made by his Son It is true indeed supposing the Decree Purpose and Constitution of God that so it should be that so he would manifest his Glory by the way of vindicative Justice it was impossible that it should otherwise be for with the Lord there is neither change nor shadow of turning Lam. 1.18 1 Sam. 15.29 But to assert positively that absolutely and antecedently to his Constitution he could not have done it is to me an unwritten Tradition the Scripture affirming no such thing neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence if any one shall deny this we will try what the Lord will enable us to say unto it and in the mean time rest contented in that of Augustin though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his Infinite Wisdome yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient because we find he proceeded therein Thus Dr. Owen in that Book and though he unsaid this again and embraced that Opinion which he then called an unwritten Tradition yet there are other Learned Divines of that same Opinion at this Day Mistake us not for we do not say that we are of it but that some are and that the matter is not yet past dispute And the Consequence which we infer is undeniable that if God antecedently to his Constitution and Degree could have pardoned and saved us some other way without the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ then surely he could have offered and promised us Pardon and Salwation without the Condition of Faith in Christ and upon what other Condition he pleafed 3. Though we grant that upon supposition that God would pardon our Sins and save our Souls it did not consist with the Glory of his Justice and Honour of his Law and Government to do it without Satisfaction for the Offence we had given and the Dishonour we had done him by our Sins and therefore it was necessary not onely from the free purpose of God's Will but also from the nature of his vindictive governing Justice that Christ by suffering in our stead should satisfie his Justice for our Sins yet doth it not follow at all by any natural necessity arising immediately from the essential nature of Faith without any appointment and constitution of God's Will that Faith because it is of a receptive nature and nothing else shall be the Condition upon the performance whereof Christ with his Satisfaction and Merits shall be not only offered but given unto us For as Dr. Owen saith very well in his little Book of the Trinity and Satisfaction of Christ pag. 208. The satisfaction made for Sin being not made by the Sinner himself there must of necessity be a Rule Order and Law-constitution how the Sinner may come to be interested in it and made Partaker of it for the consequent of the freedome of one by the suffering of another is not matural or necessary but must proceed and arise from a Law-constitution Compact and Agreement Now the way constituted and appointed is that of Faith or believing as explained in the Scripture Thus Dr. Owen To which we add that the Scripture explains it thus Gal. 5.6 That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but Faith which worketh by Love From this Passage of Dr. Owen and the Argument contained in it it is most evident that it doth not arise immediately and necessarily from the receptive nature of Faith that it is the Condition of the Offer and Promise but from the Will of God constituting and appointing it to be the Condition Faith's receptive apprehensive nature is but a remote Reason of its Conditionality and doth but make it fit to be the Condition if God please to make it so And it is God's Will and Law-constitution onely which is the nearest and formal Reason of its Conditionality and which doth immediately and formally make it to be the Condition of the Covenant Joh. 6.40 This is no new notion of ours we find it long agoe before many of us were born Walaeus Doctor and Professor of Divinity in Leyden in his Enchiridion Religionis Reformatae pag. 112. said that Fides nos Justificat sed relativè considerata quia haec est Voluntas Dei ut qui credit in Christum ejus meriti fiat Particeps Faith Justifies us but relatively considered because this is the Will of God that he who believes in Christ shall be made Partaker of his Merit And not onely Mr. Baxter but Cartwright also pag. 179. of his Book against Baxter agrees with him in acknowledging this Truth his Words are these The Reason why Christs Righteousness cannot Justifie except it be apprehended by Faith is this That God doth require Faith of us Faith I say apprehending Christ and his Righteousness believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that so we may be Justified Gods Will is properly the cause yet there is a congruity in the thing it self an aptitude you grant in the nature of Faith It is of an
Goaler Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved He would not only give Peter but the Holy Ghost the lye and might justly expect that the Lord would confound him Therefore we do not think that he will be so impious as to say that Peter did not give the Men a right Answer 2. If he say that it was a right Answer which Peter gave them then in effect he gives himself the lye he condemns himself and justifies us For it is the same Answer upon the matter which we give unto the Sinner that comes to us for advice which Peter gave unto the convinced Jews Peter bid them repent and be baptized c. We bid him repent of mourn for and turn from his Sins and God will have Mercy on him for Christ's sake and if the man be unbaptized as the Jews were we bid him be baptized for the remission of sins as Peter did by those Jews Whatever therefore our Authour hath said against us in this matter he hath said against Peter and which is more against the Holy Spirit himself If our Answer be wrong then Peter's was wrong before us and he it was that deceived us for we have ours from him and from God by him If Peter's Answer was right then ours is right likewise for ours is the same with his exactly if the Person be unbaptized excepting that upon his Repentance and Baptism for the remission of sius we do not promise him the miraculous extraordinary Gift of the Holy Ghost as Peter promised those Jews but onely the ordinary Gift which is common to all true penitent Believers in all Ages If our Authour say that implicitely Peter bid them believe in Christ as well as repent by bidding them to be baptized in his Name Most true and so do we nay which is more whether the Person be baptized or unbaptized when we exhort him to repent we never fail to exhort him also and that explicitely and in formal express terms to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ us Paul did by the Jaisour Where is the Fault then of our Answer taken fully and fairly as we give it Certainly no where unless Peter and Paul's Answers were both faulty for our Answer comprehends both theirs and is exactly the same so far as the different Circumstances of the Persons and Times will admit Let our Authour then look to it that by his writing thus against us he be not found fighting against God and the Holy Apostles of Christ our Saviour By what hath been said we have made it sufficiently evident that the Covenant of Grace is not absolute but conditional with respect to its subsequent Blessing and Benefits for we have proved it both by clear Scripture and Reason We have shewed also that our Authour 's own Conscience could not altogether deny it and therefore he grants that an accepting Faith is the native Condition of it How far and in what sense this is true we have shewed at large and withal we have proved that though Faith be the one native receptive applicative Condition of Justification yet is it not the only Condition absolutely but the only receptive Condition with which it is very well consistent that Repentance be the dispositive Condition which it really is and that as natively and necessarily in its kind and order as Faith can be in its kind and order It remains now that having proved the Covenants Conditionality by Scripture and Reason we shew in the third and last place by Testimonies of Divines Antient and Modern even of those very Divines whom our Authour affirms to be against us that they believed the Covenant to be conditional in the same sense as we do and consequently that our Authour has fouly belyed us in telling the People that we have invented a new Divinity corrupt the old and preach a new Gospel And 1. We shall begin with the Antient Doctors of the Christian Church and give a few Testimonies of theirs relating to the Matter in hand even as many as can well consist with our designed Brevity 2. We shall come to the Testimony of Orthodox Divines since the Reformation 1. We begin with the Fathers and among them Blessed Clement deserves the first place because he was the Antientest of them he was contemporary with the Apostles Testimonies of Fathers St. Paul speaking of him in Phil. 4.3 gave him this honourable Testimony that his Name was in the Book of Life Of this Blessed Pastour of Christ's Church we have the first Epistle to the Church of Corinth which is by all acknowledged to be genuine and which was so much esteemed in the Primitive Church that it was read publickly in their Congregations Now in the Oxford Edition 1677. pag. 17. he writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us with fixed eyes behold the Blood of Christ and consider how precious his Blood is unto God which being shed for our Salvation hath offered the Grace of Repentance to the whole World Let us earnestly take a view of all Generations and learn that in every Generation the Lord hath given place of Repentance to such as were willing to turn unto him This Testimony of Clement with what follows there shews plainly that God hath made Repentance necessary antecedently in order of Nature unto Pardon of sin and that upon Condition of Repentance he hath promised Pardon of sin unto all in consideration of the Blood of Christ shed for the remission of sin This seems plainly to be the meaning of the foresaid Words that the precious Blood of Christ being shed for our Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath offered the Grace of Repentance to the whole World For either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grace of Repentance signifies here the gracious Principle of Repentance wrought in Men and the gracious Influences of the Spirit whereby Men are effectually enabled to exert and put forth that Principle into act and such Grace is not common to all the World nor is it said to be barely offered unto Men but rather to be effectually given to some and wrought in them and by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Scapulam significat benesicium praemium Or else it must signifie here the Grace and Favour of God in now admitting all Men to Repentance and the gracious benefit which he hath promised them if they do repent And this we take to be the true meaning of Clement's Words For 1. This is a Grace and Favour common unto all Men by the Law of Christ that they are admitted to Repentance as a means of obtaining Pardon through his Blood which the Law of Works and Innocency did not admit but required a most perfect personal never-sinning Obedience as absolutely and indispensably necessary to Life and Salvation 2. This is a Grace and Favour which is really offered unto all the World that hear the joyful sound of the Gospel that if they sincerely repent of their sins they shall
breaking of God's Commandements without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire Mat. 25. These Passages do manifestly show that in the Judgment of the Church of England as sincere Repentance is indispensably necessary to obtain forgiveness of sin so sincere Obedience from a principle of Faith and Love and bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance is indispensably necessary to the escaping of eternal damnation and obtaining of eternal Salvation Let any Man read and consider the Sermon of Repentance in the same Book Tom. 2. pag. 324. and he will see this to be as clear as the Light at Noon-day We will quote one short Passage out of it in Page 339. they say The filihiness of sin is such that as long as we do abide in it God cannot but detest and abhorre us neither can there be any hope that we shall enter into the Heavenly Jerusalem except we be first made clean and purged from it But this will never be unless forsaking our former Life we do with our whole Heart return unto the Lord our God and with a full purpose of Amendment of Life flee unto his Mercy taking sure hold thereupon through Faith in the Blood of his Son Jesus Christ This excellent Passage shews clearly that as Faith is the receptive applicative Condition so true Repentance is the dispositive Condition of the Covenant of Pardon and Life and that the one is as necessary in its kind as the other is and that unless through Grace we do both we are undone for ever Thus we have shewed at large what was the old Gospel Doctrine of the Church of England at the Reformation and that our Doctrine is exactly the same Therefore it must needs be a most horrid we will not say lye but falsehood that we preach a new Gospel and that we are to be blamed for telling People that they must repent and mourn for their known sins leave and loath them and God will have Mercy upon them for Christ's sake From whole Societies of Protestants we pass to the Testimonies of Individual Pastours of the Reformed Churches And we begin with Calvin who in his Commentary on Ezek. 18.23 sayes Deus ergo non ita vult omnes salvos fieri ut discrimen omne tollat boni mali sed praecedit veniam poenitentia quemadmodum hîc dicitur Therefore God doth not so will all Men to be saved as to take away all difference between good and evil but Repentance goes before Pardon as it is here said And again on the same Text We hold therefore that God doth not will now the death of a Sinner because he calls all to Repentance without making a difference and promises that he shall be ready to receive them modo seriò resipiscant if they or on condition that they earnestly repent And in his Institutions he writes thus Lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 20. Quare ubi remissionem peccatorum offert Deus c. For which reason where God offers remission of sins he likewise useth to require on our part Repentance signifying thereby that his Mercy offered ought to cause Men to repent Doe saith he Judgment and Justice because Salvation is come near at band Isa 56.1 Likewise The Redeemer shall come to Sion and to them who turn from transgression in Jacob Isa 59.20 Again Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteousness of his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him Isa 55.6 7. Again Be converted and repent that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 Where yet it is to be noted that this Condition to wit of Repentance is not so annexed to those Promises as if our Repentance were the ground of meriting our pardon but rather because the Lord hath determined to show mercy unto Men for this end that they might repent he shews them whither they are to go to wit unto God by Repentance if they will obtain Favour In these passages we observe 1. That Calvin says expresly That Repentance is a Condition annexed to the promise of pardon 2. That the performance of that Condition goes before pardon And 3. That therefore we are to repent and so perform the Condition that we may obtain the Grace of pardon 4. That in Calvin's Judgment Repentance is a Condition of Justification and that because Calvin believed Justification and pardon of sin to be the same thing as is most evident from what he writes against Osiander Instit 3d. Book cap. 11. Sect. 4.11 21 22. 5. That in Calvins Judgment Repentance is the dispositive Condition of Justification For it must be either the receptive or dispositive Condition but it cannot be the receptive Condition for in Calvin's judgment Faith is the only receptive Condition therefore it must be the dispositive Condition And indeed Calvin so held it to be for in his third Book of Institutions chap. 3. Sect. 18. He says Privatim Deo confiteri pars est verae poenitentiae quae omitti non potest Nihil enim minus consentaneum quam ut peccata ignoscat Deus in quibus nobis ipsi blandimur c. To confess our sins in secret to God is a part of true Repentance which cannot be omitted For nothing is less becoming or suitable than that God should forgive us those sins in which we flatter or please our selves On the contrary Calvin writing against Pighius says Contra Pigh de lib. arb lib. 5. Sect. Adducit tamen Sanè humiles Deus respicit sicut illi acceptum cordis contriti afflicti sacrificium David canit Indeed God hath regard unto the humble as David sings in his Psalm that the Sacrifice of a contrite and afflicted heart is acceptable and pleasing unto him These passages show That in Calvin's judgment an impenitent sinner is by reason of his impenitence unfit for pardon but that the true Penitent by his Humiliation and brokenness of Heart is disposed and fitted for pardon so that it is agreeable to the perfections of God's Nature to accept such a Person in Christ and to pardon his sins for Christ's sake And as Calvin held Faith and Repentance to be the Conditions of our Justification so did he hold sincere Obedience from a Principle of Faith and Love to be the Condition of our not falling from a justified state and of our obtaining the possession of Eternal Life and Glory For thus he writes in his Institutions Quoties ergo audimus c. Therefore as often as we hear lib. 3. cap. 17. Sect. 6. that God bestows his benefits on them who keep his Law we are to remember that God's Children are there designed or described by the Duty which they ought to be continually exercised in that we are for this reason adopted that we should reverence and honour him for
have everlasting Life And Art 6. he sayes that Faith embraces and appropriates to ones self Christ and all that is in him for since be is offered us to be possessed by us with this condition if we believe in him one of the two thâ—n must necessarily be to wit either that all is not in Christ which is necessary to our Salvation Or if all be in him then he possesseth all things who possesseth Christ by Faith And in his short Confession Art 10. Itaque meritò concludere possumus in uno Jesu Christo contra omnia mala quae conscièntias nostras terrere possunt praesentissima remedia reperiri Sed addenda est conditio si ista remedia nobis applicemus Therefore we may justly conclude that in one Jesus Christ there are found soveraign infallible remedies against all the evils that can terrifie our Consciences But this condition must be added if we apply those remedies to our selves We see Beza put it into his Confession of Faith as an Article of his Belief that the Gospel Covenant hath a Condition and is conditional The same Authour in his little Book of Questions and Answers the First Part to the Question You say then that Good Works are necessary to Salvation he Answers that if Faith be necessary to Salvation then Good Works are likewise necessary to it non tamen ut salatis causam yet not as the cause of Salvation for we are justified and therefore live onely by Faith in Christ but as something that is necessarily joined with Faith as Paul saith they are the Children of God who are led by the Spirit of God Rom. 8.14 And John that he is righteous who doth righteousness 1 John 4.7 So that it plainly appears they are contentious Men who condemn the necessity of Good Works as a false Doctrine Thus Beza And we do no more say that Good Works are necessary as the cause of Salvation than he doth nor do we any more than he say that Good Works without Faith are the necessary Condition of obtaining Salvation On the contrary we say that Faith is the Spring of all our good Motions and runs through them all and that it is Good Works done from a Principle of Faith and Love which are the necessary Condition of obtaining Salvation Lastly To the Question What then if Faith be first given to a Man at the point of Death For this seems to have been the case of the penitent Thief who was crucified with Christ What good Works can such a Man do Beza Answers Yea the Faith of that Thief in a most short time was unspeakably energetical or effectual and operative for he reproved the other Thief for his blasphemies and wickedness he abhorred his own Crimes with a firm and most wonderful Faith he acknowledged Christ to be an Eternal King and prayed unto him as a Saviour under the very ignominy and shame of the Cross when all his own Disciples were silent and spoke not one word for him he did also openly rebuke the Jews for their Cruelty and impious Expressions But so it is that Confession of sin Prayer to God the Father through Christ and thanksgiving are the most excellent Works of the First Table which in no Man can be wholly separated from Faith And although some may be so prevented by Death as not to have power to shew forth any works of the Second Table yet in such a Man Faith is not therefore to be esteemed idle and unfruitful because it hath Love conjoined though not in Energie and Act yet in Power and Principle Thus far Beza To which we agree as we said before In such extraordinary cases God requires no more of Men as absolutely necessary to their Salvation than they have time and strength to perform but accepts the will for the deed through Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 8.12 Our next Witness is Mr. Fox the Authour of the Book of Martyrs The World hath been told already in the defence of Gospel-Truth pag. 35. that holy Mr. Fox in his Latine Book of Christ freely Justifying maintains that Faith is the proper receptive applicative Condition of Justification and that Repentance is the dispositive Condition it is that which prepares us for receiving Justification But some who read that Discourse of his in the Book of Martyrs which our Authour directs them unto may possibly object that in the second Volume of the Book of Martyrs pag. 192. he saith The Promise of Life and Salvation is offered unto us freely without any Condition We Answer It is true he doth say so but he means that it is without any Meritorious Legal Condition and all such Conditions we reject as much as he did or any Man can do as appears by what we have said at large in giving account of our Judgment concerning the Conditionality of the Covenant That this was Mr. Fox's true meaning appears from his own Words in the same Page a few Lines after The Voice of the Gospel saith he differeth from the Voice of the Law in this that it hath no Condition adjoined of our meriting but only respecteth the Merits of Christ the Son of God If our Authour will not admit of this explication of Fox's Words that he only rejected all Meritorious and Legal Conditions but will needs have it that he absolutely rejects all Conditions of the Covenant of Grace both Legal and Evangelical then we must say that he hath little respect to the Memory and Credit of Mr. Fox since he makes him most shamefully to contradict himself And was he fit then to write a Book of Martyrs or to be himself a Witness for the Truth against the Papists Can he be justly admitted to bear witness against others who by self-contradiction is a false Witness against himself Truly we should be loath so to expose that good Man to the scorn of the Papists and therefore we positively affirm that he doth not contradict himself at all because the Conditions are of different kinds which he denies and affirms He denies that there are any properly meritorious legal Conditions of the new Covenant and so do we He affirms that there is a proper Evangelical Condition to wit Faith and constant Confession They are his own Words in his Latine Book aforesaid And we join with him in affirming the same And now we do further make it known to the People that Mr. Fox in the said Book concerning Christ freely Justifying doth grant that after we are freely justified by Faith in Christ sincere Obedience to Christ's Commandments is necessary to retain or not to lose our Justification These are his own Words Quod autem dici solet per obedientiam retineri justificationis gratiam Page 369 370. ut hoc concedatur aliquo modo non tamen hinc c. As for that which useth to be said that the Grace of Justification is retained by Obedience though that be granted in some sense yet it doth not follow from hence that Justification
necessary in order to a true participation of the Righteousness of Christ and therefore to communion with Christ Mark 1.4 15. Lake 13.3 5. whereby being turned from sin and the World through the change of our Mind and Will we may be converted unto Christ and close united unto him and to the end we may obtain Remission of sins in him and from him and may be cloathed with his Righteousness and Holiness 1. Here we see that Zanchy held Repentance to be antecedently necessary in order of Nature to the obtaining of Remission of sins through the Righteousness of Christ 2. That by Repentance we are turned from sin and the world and changed in our Mind and Will From which Premisses this Conclusion necessarily follows that before we be Justified and our sins forgiven there must be a real change in us and our Minds and Wills must be turned from sin and the World This is a hard saying to those who would have their Justification and pardon and likewise their sin and the World altogether But though it be hard it is true and good and that not meerly because Zanchy saies so but because he proves it by the plain Word of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived Mark 1.4 15. Luke 13.3 5. And if we may believe the same Zanchy this is not only true and good Law but it is likewise true and good Gospel For says he de Evangelio juxta significationem in Ecclesiâ receptam usitatamque credimus nihil aliud esse quà m c. Concerning the Gospel according to the signification received and commonly used in the Church Zanch. de Relig. Christ Vol. 3. p. 509. we believe that it is nothing but an Heavenly Doctrine concerning Christ c. to wit that Mankind is redeemed by the Death of Christ so that free Remission of all sins is prepared for or is ready for all Men modo resipiscant c. so that or on condition that they repent and believe in Jesus Christ These words of Zanchy are so plain they need no Commentary to make them plainer We wish our Authour do not himself despise Zanchy for their sake since in those few words he hath comprehended the whole Summ of the new Gospel so called which is a good deal above Sixteen Hundred years old Zanchy in the same place says Tria sunt Evangelii capita quae a nobis exiguntur ut praestemus poenitentia in deum c. There are three heads or principal parts of the Gospel which we are required to do Repentance towards God Faith in Jesus Christ and a studious care to observe whatsoever Christ hath commanded And again The Gospel saith he requires only these three things That being touched with a serious grief for all the sins of our whole Life we desire from the heart that our mind and all our affections may be changed and renewed by God unto an obedient complyance with his Divine Will And that this may be done that we ask it of God by Prayer and use our own endeavours in order to the effecting of it Then that embracing Christ with a true Faith c. In all this it is evident that Zanchy requires something else besides Faith to be done by us in order to our obtaining Justification and pardon of Sin as also declares that after we are justified we must endeavour to do all things whatsoever Christ hath commanded Yea he saith that not only the Law of God but the Gospel of Christ requireth all these things And elsewhere in his Miscellanies he says That if after Justification the Saints fall into wilful sins against Knowledge and Conscience they must renew their Faith and Repentance and return unto the Lord and to their Obedience or else they cannot be saved but are undone for ever To Zanchy we may add the Testimony of Musculus that Holy and Learned Divine in whom God's special care of his faithful Servants appeared in an extraordinary manner but because it is so notorious that Musculus is for us that we cannot think our Authour is so ignorant of matters of fact as not to know it we shall quote but one short passage out of him Musc Loc. Commun de Remiss peccat Sect. 6. Discernendum est inter eam gratiam Dei quae nullas habet adjectas conditiones eam quae conditionaliter confertur ad quem modum peccatorum nobis remissio contingit We must distinguish between that Grace of God which hath no conditions annexed to it and that which is given conditionally after which manner we obtain the remission of sins Sharpius also gives in his Testimony for us in the matter we are treating of See his Book of Justification written in the Year 1609. Where page 98 he says in foedere gratiae duo sunt 1. Substantia c. Sharpii Tract de Justif edit Genev. 1618. There are two things in the Covenant of Grace 1. The substance of the Covenant which is that Righteousness and Salvation is given unto the Church through Christ The 2d Is the Condition annexed to the Covenant if the Members of the Church believe And 172 The promise of Eternal Life is otherwise conditional than by the perfect fulfilling of the Law For it is said he that believeth shall be saved Acts 16.31 Mark 16.16 and page 174. Licet ista sint conditio sine qua non non tamen salutem efficiunt Although these things to wit Love and Holyness and Continuance therein are a condition without which we are not saved yet they are not the efficient cause of Salvation And page 177 178 We grant it follows from Rom. 10.10 That Confession of Christ with the mouth is necessary to Salvation because by this way and means we must go to Salvation or to Heaven page 207. Good Works are necessary that we may escape Temporal and Eternal punishments which God threatens to inflict upon the Transgressors of his Law Rom. 8.13 1 Thess 4.5 6. page 69. The conditions of the promises are Faith Repentance Patience c. Finally page iii. God doth not forgive sins but to the penitent though not for their Repentance but for the merit of Christ And a little after spiritualis vita c. As Spiritual Life is given us freely in Christ by Faith only so it is preserved and cherished by Prayer Repentance and other Spiritual Exercises The professors of Leyden in their Synopsis of purer Divinity first published in the Year 1624 taught the same Doctrine Witness what they write in the said Book Synops purior Theol. edit 3. Lugduni Batav 1642. p. 271. Thes 29. Non omnem conditionem negamus in Evangelto N. Test requiri ad salutem Requiritur enim conditio fidei novae obedientiae quae ubique urgetur c. We do not deny that any condition is required unto Salvation in the Gospel and New Testament For there is required the condition of Faith and new Obedience which is every where urged But these
conditions are freely given by God neither if they be sincere do they by their imperfection hinder our Salvation which proceeds from another cause Here we see those four Learned Doctors Polyander Rivet Waleus and Thysius held that not only Faith but new and sincere Obedience is the condition of obtaining Salvation so that both together make up the one intire condition of the Gospel Gomarus another Learned Professor of Divinity in the Netherlands a Member of the Synod of Dort saith That the Gospel is called God's Covenant Quia mutuam Dei hominum obligationem Oper. Gomari par 3. disp 14. Thes 29. page 52. de vitâ aeternâ ipsis certâ conditione dandâ promulgat because it promulgates the mutual obligation of God and Men concerning the giving them Eternal Life upon their performing a certain condition And it is called the Covenant of God de salute per Christum gratuitâ concerning free Salvation by Christ because God in the Gospel of meer Grace publisheth and offereth unto all men whatsoever on condition of true Faith not only Christ and perfect Righteousness in him for Reconciliation and Eternal Life but also he promiseth unto his Elect and perfecteth in them the prescribed Condition of Faith and Repentance Here we see Gomarus holds Repentance to be part of the intire Condition of the Gospel Covenant Whereunto agrees the Testimony of Pemble Pemble of Justifying Faith Sect. 2. Chap. 1. page 22. who saith The Condition of the Covenant of Grace required in them that shall be justified is Faith Believe this and live is a compact of the freest and purest Mercy wherein the Reward of Eternal Life is given us in favour to that which bears not the least proportion of worth with it So that he that performs the Condition cannot yet demand the wages as due unto him in severity of Justice but only by the Grace of a free promise the fulfilling of which he may humbly sue for Ibid. page 24. And again Although saith he the Act of Justification of a sinner be properly the only work of God for the only merit of Christ Yet is it rightly ascribed unto Faith and it alone forasmuch as Faith is the main Condition of the New Covenant which as we must performe if we will be justified so by the performance whereof we are said to obtain Justification and Life Here it is observable that Pemble saith That Faith is the main Condition of the Covenant of Grace which implies there is some Condition besides but subordinate to Faith And this we do firmly hold that Faith is the main Condition because it is the only receptive applicative Condition to which Repentance the dispositive Condition and all our after-Obedience is subordinate Perkins another of those Divines whom we are said to despise gives his Vote also for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace Witness what he writes in his Reformed Catholick In the Covenant of Grace two things must be considered Reformed Catholâ— point 4. of Justif the manner differ 2. Reason 1. The Substance thereof and the Condition The substance of the Covenant is That Righteousness and Life Everlasting is given to God's Church and People by Christ The Condition is That we for our parts are by Faith to receive the foresaid benefits And this Condition is by Grace as well as the substance And in his little Latine Tract of Predestination and the Grace of God which Dr. Twiss defended against Arminius Perkins de Praedest gratiâ edit Cant. An. 1598. pag. 130. in his Book called Vindiciae Gratiae he says Gratia secunda est vel imputata vel inhaerens Imputata est in Justificatione cujus pars remissio peccatorum c. The second Grace is either imputed or inherent Imputed Grace is in Justification whereof a part is Remission of sins and this Justification and Remission with respect to sins past remains firm and will so remain for ever That saying of the Schoolmen is most true Sins once remitted never return But when any true Believer hath fallen into some grievous hainous sin the pardon of that defection or backsliding is indeed purposed and decreed by God yet it hath no actual existence at all on God's part nor is it received at all on mans part till he repent Yea if he should never repent which yet is impossible for that one sin he would be damned as guilty of Eternal Death For there is no new pardon of any new sin without a new Act of Faith and Repentance This passage of Mr. Perkins implies to the full all that we have said concerning the necessity of Repentance as the dispositive condition of obtaining the pardon of our sins and concerning the necessity of sincere Obedience continued from a Principle of Faith and Love or after any notable backsliding renewed by new Acts of Faith and Repentance as the Condition of getting possession of the Heavenly inheritance Of the same Judgment was Pareus for thus he writes in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Fidem inserit ut doceat fidem esse conditionem sub quâ Christus nobis datus est propitiatorium Pareus in Rom. 3.25 The Apostle inserts Faith in the 25th verse to teach us that Faith is the Condition under which Christ is given us for a propitiation And again in the writing against the five Arminian Articles which he sent to the Synod of Dort not being able to go himself by reason of Age and which was read in highly approved by Act. Synod Dord part 1. p. 264. and recorded in the Acts of the Synod he says that Conditio certaminis precum vigilantiae omnino est necessaria ad perseverantiam The Condition of fighting and praying and watching is altogether necessary unto perseverance But then he adds in opposition to the Arminians That the said Condition is wrought in the faithful by the Spiâ—it of God which he proves from Deut. 30.6 Jer. 32.40 Ezek. 36.27 1 Pet. 1.5 c. And to what the Arminians said that the Condition is commanded and not promised he answers Promissiones de ipsa conditione fidei precum perseverantiae in fidelibus per spiritum Dei efficiendâ disertè loquuntur c. The promises plainly speak of the Condition of Faith Prayer Perseverance as that which is to be effected in Believers by the Spirit of God Nor doth it follow that the effecting of the Condition is not promised because it is commanded and required of the faithful For it is also commanded that they fear God and walk in his Commandments and yet God promiseth I will put my fear in their hearts c. I will cause them towalk in my Statutes c. But it is commanded not that they can of themselves but that they ought to perform it that so being sensible of their own weakness they may know what they ought to ask of God neither yet do these promises wholly exclude the great or small lapses and sins of the
neglect of Faith and Obedience cannot be culpable if they be not required 3. Because otherwise it would follow that in this Covenant God is bound to Man but Man is not bound to God which is most absurd and contrary to the nature of all Covenants wherein there is a mutual Agreement and reciprocal Obligation whereby the Parties Covenanting are bound to one another Afterwards in Page 204. he comes to Answer the Second Branch of the Question to wit Which are the Conditions of the New Covenant And saies that as for Faith there is no question but it is the Condition of the Covenant because the Scripture so clearly affirms it so to be Joh. 3.16 Rom. 1.16 17. and 10.9 And he sayes that Faith is the Condition of the Covenant as it hath respect unto and is the Instrumental Means of our Union with Christ Yea he maintains as we do that in this sense Faith is the onely Condition because there is no other Condition that is of a receptive applicative Nature as Faith is no other that receives Christ and applyes his Righteousness as Faith doth But in another sense there are other Conditions of the Covenant besides Faith that is if the Word Conditions be taken for all those things which a Man by the Covenant of Grace is bound to do then nothing hinders but Repentance and new Obedience may be called a Condition because they are comprehended among the Duties of the Covenant John 13.17 2 Cor. 5.17 Rom. 8.13 Moreover he holds that though new Obedience be not the primary antecedent yet it is the secondary subsequent Condition of the Covenant because being by Faith the primary Condition actually brought into Covenant now Obedience is medium via per quam tendimus ad plenam possessionem bonorum foederis the means and way by which we come to the full possession of the good things of the Covenant He saith we should distinguish between the Condition of Justification and the Condition of the Covenant the Promise of Justification is not the whole of the Covenant and therefore that which is the Condition of the Promise of Justification is not the whole Condition of the Covenant which adequately considered is of larger extent than the Promise of Justification He tells us lastly that we should distinguish between the first accepting of the Covenant and the after-keeping of the Covenant Faith accepts the Covenant by receiving the Promises Obedience keeps the Covenant by fulfilling the Commands Be ye holy for I am holy And yet this Obedience is not Legal but Evangelical because it is not meritorious it is the Fruit and Effect of an antecedent Principle of Spiritual Life wrought in us and of the actual Influence of the Spirit of Grace upon us and it is not rigorously exacted in the highest degree of Perfection as indispensably necessary to Salvation but though it be imperfect yet it is admitted and accepted through Christ if it be sincere We have here given a true and faithful account of the Judgment of the Learned and Judicious Turretin concerning the Conditionality of the Covenant of Grace with whom we agree in this matter which contains the sum of the Gospel as to Man's Duty especially and therefore if Turretin was no Legal Preacher no more are we and if he preached no new Gospel no more do we for we preach the same Gospel and in the same manner as he did There is one thing more wherein this worthy Divine and we do perfectly agree and that is concerning true Believers fallen into wilful sin against Knowledge and Conscience We say they cannot be saved till they have first recovered themselves through Grace by renewing their Faith and Repentance and returning to their Obedience again Now he sayes the same thing witness what he writes in the same Book Pag. 671 672. where he sayes That if a Believer fallen into gross sin against his Conscience be considered in himself and as guilty of such sin not repented of verum est reum esse mortis si in eo statu moreretur certo damnandum it is true that he is guilty of death and if he dyed in that state he would be certainly damned but if he be considered with respect to God's Decree of Election he is rightly said to be one who is to be absolved or pardoned and saved God so ordering the matter by his immense Love and Wisdome that he never dies in that state but by a renewed Act of Faith and Repentance he is first restored and returns into the way before he come to the end Whence it is that according to a twofold respect these two Propositions although they seem to be contrary may be both together true It is impossible that David a Person elected and a Man according to God's own Heart should perish It is impossible that David an Adulterer and Murderer if Death seize on him before he have repented should be saved The first of these Propositions is true in respect of God's Decree of Election The second is true also in respect of the hainousness and demerit of David 's sin But God's Providence and Grace looseth this Knot by taking care that neither David nor any of the Elect dye in that state in which for his impenitence he should be excluded from Salvation This Passage shews that Turretin believed as we do that after Justification sincere Obedience is so indispensably necessary to Salvation that unless a Believer continue in the practice of sincere Obedience or if there happen to be any signal intermistion by gross wilful sin for a time unless he renew his Faith and Repentance and thereby return to his Obedience he cannot be saved And Turretin a little before in Page 669. saies very judiciously That though God hath promised perseverance to Believers yet hath he not promised it to be given absolutely and without means but by means to be used by Man himself so that whilst God keeps Man he is bound also to keep himself by the Grace of the Spirit 1 John 5.18 Whence Believers are sure of their perseverance through the Faith of the Promises not by any external force which retains them in the way of Salvation will they will they yea even whilst they are living in their sins but in the use of Means and practice of Piety whilst working out their own Salvation with fear and trembling they are confident that it is God who works in them both to will and to do and who graciously perfects the good Work which he hath begun So that an occasion of licentiousness and impiety is wrongfully inferred from this Doctrine since to indulge wickedness and to have the Grace which causeth perseverance are utterly inconsistent Yea he that hath this Hope purifieth himself 1 John 3.3 And he ought to be certainly perswaded in himself that without holiness no Man shall see God and that there is no other way to Life but the way of Piety and Godliness A most Excellent Passage this is which
1634. in Answer to Mr. Hoards Book called Gods Love to Mankind which Answer was Printed after his Death by Mr. Jeanes a very Learned and Zealous Calvinist in the Year 1653. at Oxford The Ministers of the New Testament Twiss against Hoard pag. 194 195. are called Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit that is not of the Law the Ministry whereof is not the Ministry of the Spirit but yet this is rightly to be understood to wit of the Spirit of Adoption for undoubtedly even the Ministry of the Law is the Ministry of the Spirit also but of the Spirit of Bondage to hold Men under fear It is called the Ministry of Condemnation and the Reason hereof I conceive to be because God doth not concur with the Ministry of the Law by the Holy Spirit to work any Man to the performance of the Condition of the Law which is exact and perfect Obedience But thus he doth concur with the Ministry of the Gospel namely by his Spirit to work Men to the performance of the Condition thereof which is Faith in Christ and true Repentance therefore the Letter to wit of the Law is called a killing Letter but the Gospel is joined with a quickening Spirit and therefore Piscator conceives that the Gospel in this place is called by the Name of the Spirit So then the Gospel giveth Life by the Spirit which accompanieth the Ministry thereof c. And in the same Book he saith Some Benefits are bestowed upon Man only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sin and salvation of the Soul Page 154. and these God doth confer only upon the Condition of Faith and Repentance Now I am ready to profess and that I suppose as out of the Mouth of all our Divines that every one who hears the Gospel without distinction between Elect and Reprobate is bound to believe that Christ died for him so far as to procure both the pardon of his sins and the Salvation of his Soul in case he believe and repent But there are other Benefits which Christ by his Obedience hath merited for us namely the Benefit of Faith and Repentance for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.19 And he hath blessed us with all Spiritual Blessings in Christ that is for Christs sake Eph. 1.3 And God works in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Heb. 13.21 And therefore seeing nothing is more pleasing in Gods sight on our part then Faith and Repentance even these also I should think God works in us through Jesus Christ And the Apostle prays in the behalf of the Ephesians Eph. 6.23 for Peace and Faith and Love from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that is us â—â—interpret it from God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as an efficient Cause and from the Lord Jesus Christ God and Man as a meritorious Cause thereof Now I demand whether this Authour can say truely that it is the constant Opinion of our Divines that all who hear the Gospel whether Elect or Reprobate are bound to believe that Christ died to procure them Faith and Repentance Nay doth any Arminian at this Day believe this or can he name 〈◊〉 Aâ—minian that doth avouch this Again Glory and Salvation God doth not will that it shall be the Portion of any one of ripe Years absolutely but conditionally to wit if he repent and believe And in case all 〈◊〉 page 174. and every one of the World should believe and repent all and every one how notorious Sinners soever they be found shall be saved such is the sufficiency of Christ's Merits I say this is true not of them onely who are invited to the Wedding Mat 22. Nor of them onely to whom St. Peter speaketh Acts 3.26 Or of them onely of whom our Saviour speaketh Mat. 23.37 But of all and every â—ne throughout the World And it is as true that none of them shall be saved if they dye in Inâ—idelity and Impenitency This God himself signifieth to be his will by his Promise Acts 2.38 39. on the one part and on both parts Mark 16.16 And as God signifieth this to be his will so indeed it is his will according to our Doctrine and there is no colour of Imposture or Simulation in all this In like sort as touching the Grace of pardon of sin this also God offers unto all that hear the Gospel but how not absolutely but conditionally in case they believe and Repent and it is God's will that every one who believeth shall have his sin pardoned none that I know either thinketh or teacheth otherwise whether he falleth out either to be Elect or Reprobate though how to distinguish Men according unto this difference 〈◊〉 know not I leave that unto God Now like as we say God doth signifie his meaning to 〈◊〉 that as many as believe and repent shall have their sins pardoned and their Souls saved So if it can be proved that there is no such meaning in God then in my poor Judgment it cannot be avoided but that God must be found halting in his Offers But for my part I acknowledge such a meaning in God neither have I to this Hour found any one of our Divines either by Word or Writing to have denyed this to be the meaning of God Again Whereas he Hoard fashioneth our Doctrine so as if we said that God hath decreed at no hand to save them to whom he promiseth Salvation upon Condition of Faith this is a notorious untruth Ibid. pag. 177. and such as implieth manifest contradiction For to say he hath resolved at no hand to save them is as much as to say that he hath resolved to save them on no Condition But if he hath promised to save them in case they believe undoubtedly he hath resolved to save them upon Condition of Faith Onely God's Resolution to save them is not held in suspence considering that from Everlasting he well knew who would believe and who would not c. Again It is true Baptism is ordained that those which do receive it may have the Remission of their sins but not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case they Believe and Repent as appears both in that place Acts 2.38 Ibid. pag. 201. and Rom. 4.11 and Baptism as a Seal doth assure hereof onely in case they Believe and Repent and therefore none of Ripe Years were admitted unto Baptism until they made Profession of their Faith and as for Infants they were also antiently said to be Baptized in Fide Parentum By all these Passages quoted Word for Word out of Dr. Twiss it is as clear as the Light at Noon-day that he held the Covenant of Grace to be Conditional and particularly that the Promise of Justification and Pardon of Sin is Conditional and that Faith and Repentance not Faith alone nor Repentance alone but Faith and Repentance together are
that more and worse is feared which what it should be we cannot imagine unless it be that they fear we will at last renounce Christ and Christianity But to this we will say with David 2 Sam. 16.12 it may be the Lord will look upon our case and requite us good for this reviling Dr. let p. 12. Downame Bishop of Derry whom our Authour also commends in his Letter shall next come in for a Witness on our behalf who in his Book of the Covenant of Grace saith The promises of the Gospel cannot be applyed to any aright but only to those who have the condition of the promise page 134 135. which is the justifying Faith For the Gospel doth not promise Justification and Salvation to all but to those only who have a justifying Faith Therefore a Man must be endued with justifying Faith before he can or ought to apply the promises of the Gospel to himself For as Salvation is promised to them that believe so damnation is denounced to them that believe not Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18. Again No man ought to apply the promise of the Gospel to himself who hath not the condition of the promise ibid. page 153. unless he will perniciously deceive himself For as he that believeth shall be saved so he that believeth not shall be condemned page 154. Again As we daily sin so we must daily ask forgiveness Prayer being the means that God hath ordained to that end Object Yea But saith the Papist ye forsooth have already full assurance of the remission of all your sins not only past but also to come Answ It is absurd to imagine that sins be remitted before they be committed and much more that we be assured they are remitted before they be either remitted or committed That indeed were a Doctrine to animate and to encourage Men to sin But howsoever the Pope sometimes forgiveth sins to come yet God doth not When God justifyeth a man he giveth him remission of sins past Rom. 3.25 As for time to come we teach that although Christ hath merited and God hath promised remission of sins of all the faithful unto the end of the World notwithstanding remission of sins is not actually obtained and much less by special Faith believed until Men do actually believe and repent and by humble and faithful Prayer renew their Faith and Repentance For as God hath promised to the faithful all good things But how Matt. 7.7 8. To them that ask Luke 18.13 14. that seek that knock So also remission of sins Neither is it to be doubted but that remission of sin though merited by Christ though promised by God though sealed unto us in the Sacrament of Baptisme is obtained by the effectual Prayer of those who believe and repent for whom Christ hath merited it and to whom God hath promised it in his Word and sealed it by the Sacrament even as the obtaining of the rain which God had promised 1 Kings 18. ver 1 41. and the Prophet Elias had foretold is ascribed to the effectual Prayer of Elias James 5.16 18. To Bishop Downames we add the very Learned and Pious Gatakers Testimony When â—altâ—arsh the Antinomian had objected and said either place Salvation on a free bottom or else you make the New Covenant but an old Covenant in new terms Do this and live believe this and live repent and live obey and live Gataker replies This is frivolous because as hath been shewed Gatakers shadows without Substance page 49. Salvations free bottom is no way impeached by such conditions as these required and scandalous because therein the Apostles Doctrine is not covertly but directly challenged as overthrowing and razing the foundation of free Grace For what is believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved but believe and live Or what is repent that your sins may be done away but repent and live Or what is He is the Authour of Salvation to all that obey him but obey and live And I demand again what this amounts unto whether it be any other than blasphemy to say that the Apostles by such their Doctrine did not place Salvation upon a free bottom but brought in the old Covenant again in new terms Sir Dare you say in your new revealed Mystery believe not and yet live repent not and yet live obey not and yet live Again We may truly say that you and yours are they that either cannot or will not see the Wood for Trees Ibid. page 57. the conditions on which Salvation by Christ is propounded though in the Gospel they do every where occur and offer themselves will ye nill ye to your eyes With Gataker we joyn Mr. Ball who in his Treatise of Faith recommended by a Preface of Dr. Sibbes saith Balls Treatise of Faith part 1. page 86. The promise of remission of sins is conditional and becometh not absolute until the condition be fulfilled This is the word of Grace Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved When doth this conditional proposition become absolute When we believe what That our sins are pardoned No but when we believe in Christ to obtain pardon which is the thing promised upon condition of belief Again The priviledge of Grace and Comfort which comes to the Soul by believing must be distinguished from the Condition of the Covenant Ibid. page 89. which is required on our parts before we can obtain pardon Again We can teach no Faith to Salvation but according to the rule of Christ Repent and believe the Gospel no remission of sin Ibid. page 136. but according to the like Rule Luke 24.47 Acts 2.37 38. But Faith seeketh and receiveth pardon as it is proffered in the word of Grace Repentance is necessary to the pardon of sin as a condition without which it cannot be obtained not as a cause why it is given Luke 13.3 1 John 1.9 Acts 11.18 If Mercy should be vouchsafed to all indifferently the Grace of God should be a boulster to mans sin c. Lastly We conclude this head of our defence with the Testimony of the Synod of Dort We have already shewed that the Geneva Divines in that Synod gave it in under their hands and were therein approved by the Synod That the Covenant of Grace is conditional We might be large in shewing the like of many others but we will confine our selves for brevities sake to the Embdan Bremen and English Divines their Suffrages recorded in the Acts of the Synod First The Embdane Divines in the Synod said That God required the same conditions from those that were in Covenant with him under the Old and New Testament to wit Faith and the obedience of Faith Act. Synodi Dord part 2. page 93. Gen. 12. Abraham believed God and the Apostle â—in Rom. 4. Teaches that we are saved by the same Faith Gen. 17. Abraham is commanded to walk before God and be perfect The same is every where
required of Believers under the new Testament Here we 1. See that they affirm the Covenant of Grace hath Conditions in the Plural number 2. That Faith and sincere Obedience walking before God and being perfect upright or sincere were the conditions of it under the Old and now are the Conditions of it under the New Testament 3. That this Doctrine was approved by the Synod of Dort Next Martintus one of the Bremen Divines is so clear for the Conditionality of the Covenant that none who understand what his Judgment was can doubt of his being on our side We need not quote his words they that please may see them in the Acts of the Synod The Sum of his Opinion approved by the Synod is this That pardon of sin and Eternal Life are blessings promised to all Men through Christ Ibid. part 2. page 136 137. But how Not absolutely but conditionally if they believe As we heard before from Dr. Twiss Of the fume mind were his two Collegues Ibid. p. 150 151. Iseâ—burgius and Lud. Crocius and especially Crocius most clearly as is there to be seen Lastly our own British Divines are clearly for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace no body could ever doubt of this that ever read their suffrage either in Latin or English For thus they write For howsoever Salvation in the execution thereof dependeth upon the conditional use of the means yet the will of God electing unto Salvation is not conditional Saffrage of the Divines of Great Britain Art 1. in English page 9. incomplete or mutable because he hath absolutely purposed to give unto the Elect both power and will to performe those very conditions namely Repentance Faith Obedience Perseverance By this we see that they taught not only that Faith is a Condition but that Repentance Obedience and Perseverance are Conditions of the Covenant which is the whole of what we say and it was received and approved by the whole Synod of Dort above seventy years ago Again In opposition to and refutation of the eighth erroneous opinion of the Arminians they write thus Ibid. p. 28 29. We do not deny but that there is such a good pleasure of God laid open or revealed in the Gospel by which he hath decreed to choose Faith as a condition for conferring Salvation that is by which he would have the actual obtaining of Salvation at least in respect of those which are of ripe years to depend upon the condition of foregoing Faith And this is that joyful and saving Message to be published unto all Nations in the name of Christ But this is not the very decree of Election properly taken and so much set forth or celebrated by the Apostle St. Paul For that Decree is Active or Practical ordaining some particular Persons unto Salvation not disposing of things or the connexion of things in order to Salvation and it is confined unto or terminated upon Humane Creatures themselves and not upon their qualities Ephes 1.4 He hath chosen us to wit men Rom. 8. Those whom he hath praedestinated to wit men Matth 20. Few are chosen that is few men From this passage we observe 1. That according to those Learned Divines there is an absolute pleasure and purpose of God that Faith shall be the condition of Salvation in the Covenant of Grace 2. That this absolute pleasure and purpose of God refers to things and absolutely constitutes a conditional connexion between them that is between pardon of Sin and Salvation as the benefit or grace promised and Faith as the condition in whomsoever it shall be found This good pleasure and absolute purpose of God terminating upon and constituting the conditional connexion of things is the foundation of the general conditional promises of the Gospel which we are ordered to preach conditionally to all the world as we have a Call Mark 16.15 16. Rom. 10.8 9. not making any difference between Persons and Persons as to that matter But now the Decree of Election formally and terminatively considered is quite another thing as to our Conception of it It is the good pleasure and absolute purpose of God terminating upod particular Persons singling them out from others and appointing them to obtain Salvation in such a way and by such means And this good pleasure and purpose of God in his time and way according to his word of Promise never fails to have its powerful effect upon those select persons to make them first gracious and then glorious for evermore Again In treating of the second Article their fifth position is this In the Church â—â—id art 2. p. 49 50. wherein according to the promise of the Gospel Salvation is offered to all there is such an administration of Grace as is sufficient to convince all Impenitents and Vnbelievers that by their own voluntary deâ—ault either through neglect or contempt of the Gospel they perish and come short of the ceneâ—â—t offered unto them This position they lay down as a Truth then they proceed to prove it and thus they begin Christ by his Death hath not only established the Evangelical Cwenant but hath moreover obtained of his Father that wheresoever this Covenant should be published there also together with it ordinarily such a measure of supernatural Grace should be dispensed as may suffice to convince all Impenitents and Vnbelievers of contempt or at least of neglect in that the Condition of the Govenant was not fulfilled by them These are their own words then they prove two things 1. That some measure of supernatural Grace is ordinarily administred in the ministry of the Gospel which they demonstrate by several Testimonies of Scripture 2. That that Grace is sufficient to convince all Impenitent Unbelievers either of contempt or at least of neglect which they demonstrate from John 15.22 John 3.19 Heb. 2.3 Heb. 4.12 Matth. 11.24 Heb. 6.4 5 6 7 8. And before this their second Position with respect to the Elect is that out of the special love of God by and for the merit and intercession of Christ Faith and Perseverance are given unto the Elect Ibid. page 45. yea and all other things by which the condition of the Covenant is fulfilled and the promised benefit namely Eternal Life is infallibly obtained This is their position and they prove it by Rom. 8.32 33 34. and Heb. 8.10 Again In Refutation of the Third erroneous Opinion that Christ's Death hath obtained for all men Restitution into the state of Grace and Salvation they both assert the Conditionality of the Covenant Ibid. Art 2. p. 61 62 63. and also at the same time lay the Axe to the Root of Huberianisme Puccianisme and Antinomianism or Crispianisme Their words and Arguments are these following 1. Reason Salvation is a thing promised in the New Covenant neither is it promised but upon the condition of Faith whosoever believeth shall be saved since therefore all men have not Faith in Christ under which condition only
Salvation is promised It is certain that the Death of Christ did not obtain for all but for the faithful alone a restoration absolute into the state of Grace and Salvation This they prove from Rom. 5.1 Rom. 3. and 4. chap. and Gal. 2.16 2. Reason Without faith in Christ Man remains in the state of Condemnation John 3.18 John 3.36 But they who are restored into the Bosom of Grace every one of them have remission of sins which makes men happy Psal 32.1 Neither do they remain in Condemnation neither doth the wrath of God remain upon them They therefore who want Faith are not restored by the Death of Christ into the state of Grace and Salvation Since through the Name of Christ no Man obtaineth remission of sins except he who believes in him Acts 10.43 Reason 3. If the Death of Christ hath obtained restitution for all then are they restored either 1. When Christ from all Eternity was destinated unto Death which is false for so no man should be born a child of wrath neither should Original sin any whit dammage mankind being according to this Opinion forgiven them from all Eternity Or 2. They were restored in the Person of our first Parents when the promise concerning the Seed of the woman was proclaimed which is false For our first Parents themselves were not restored into the state of Grace but by Faith in Christ and consequently neither were their Posterity restored but in like manner that is by Faith Therefore not all whether Believers or Vnbelievers are restored Or 3. They were restored when Christ himselfe suffered Death upon the Cross but that is false also and cannot be for so no man before that moment should have been restored which none will grant Neither are all restored from that time because without doubt even at that moment and afterward the Wrath of God burned hot against some of Christ's Accusers Condemners Crucifiers and Mockers Thus our Divines argued in the Synod and their Arguments were approved by the Synod Now let any man of judgment consider the force of these Arguments and he will plainly see that they do prove that no Man no not the Elect can be admitted into favour with God and be justified before he believe and performe the Condition of the Covenant as well as that all men are not and cannot be so dealt with The Elect themselves before their Conversion are not absolutely and actually in Grace and favour with God they are not in a state of Justification and Salvation because they yet want Faith the Condition of the Covenant upon which Condition those subsequent Blessings of the Covenant are only promised so that by this we may see the Synod hath in effect before-hand judged between us and the Antinomians and hath given Sentence according to Scripture on our side Lastly We find that our Divines in the Synod declared and proved that Perseverance in Holy Faith and Obedience which is the Condition of our obtaining Eternal Salvation is it self promised absolutely without any proper Condition yet not so as always and in all Elect Justified Persons to exclude and prevent a partial temporary Apostacy and Back-sliding Here then are two things held by them 1. That the Perseverance of the Elect after they are once converted and justified though it be a Condition of obtaining Eternal Salvation yet it is promised and given without any other proper Condition Therefore writing on the Fifth Article they reject the erroneous Opinion of the Arminians Ibid. Art V. pag. 157 153. That Perseverance is a Benefit offered equally to all the truly Faithful upon this Condition namely If they shall not be wanting unto sufficient Grace and give their Reasons why they rejected it 1. Say they It is not true that Perseverance is a Gift onely offered but not given For the Scriptures witness that God doth not onely offer unto his the Grace of Perseverance but also that he gives it them and puts it into their Hearts Jer. 32.40 I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me and John 4.14 1 Cor. 10.13 Again It is false say they that Perseverance is a Grace offered upon Condition for it is a Gift promised absolutely by God without any respect to a Condition The Reason is this Some Promises of God are touching the End others touching the Means which conduce to the End The Promises concerning the End that is to say Salvation are conditional Believe and thou shalt be saved Be faithful unto death that is persevere and I will give thee the Crown of Life But forasmuch as no Man is able to perform the Conditions God also hath made most free and absolute Promises to give the very Conditions which he works in us that so by them as by Means we may attain the End Deut. 30.6 And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maiest live The End here promised is Life which the Israelites could never attain without the performance of the Condition namely their Love of God But here God promiseth absolutely that he will give unto them this very Condition Since therefore the Promises of Faith and Perseverance in Faith are Promises concerning the Means they are wholly to be reckoned among those absolute Gifts by which God considering Mans disability hoth to attain the End without the Means and also to perform or effect the Means or Conditions of himself doth promise that he will make them able to performe the Conditions God promiseth Life to those that constantly fear him The Promise of Life is conditional but of constant Fear is absolute I will put my fear in their hearts that they may not depart from me And lastly Be it so that this Gift were conditional yet it is not offered upon this Condition if Men will not be wanting to themselves in the entertainment and use of sufficient Grace Fâ—â— 1. It will from this Condition follow that we do in vain pray to God in the behalf of any Man that he would give unto them the Gift of Perseverance because of Course he offers them unâ—â—ersal and sufficient Grace to which if they themselves will not be wanting they shall pâ—â—â—â—vere 2. Tâ—is is an idle Condition for it makes Perseverance to be the Condition of â—erseverance For to persevere is nothing else but not to be wanting unto this sufficient Grace If therefore God offers Perseverance upon this Condition he offers the same upon Condition of it self Thus they shewed that Perseverance is absolutely promised and given without any other proper Condition Yet for all this 2. they do not say that Perseverance is so promised and given as to exclude and prevent always a partial temporary Aposâ—acy and Back-sliding For we find that discoursing of Perseverance as it concerns the Elect their Third Position is These very same Persons thus Regenerated Ibid. Art V. pag. 121 122 123 124
obtained Hence Paul saith Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die And Heb. 3.12 Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God We do not therefore think that the Act it self of believing repenting and mortifying the flesh doth effect or merit the conservation of Justifying Grace because all these things are done by us faintly and imperfectly sometimes also through the Prevalency of some great Tentation they are as it were choaked and oppressed but we say that God himself of his free Mercy preserves the Regenerate in a state of Grace and Salvation whilst they walk in these wayes As therefore for the preservation of Natural Life it is necessarily required that a Man carefully avoid Fire Water Precipices Poysons and other things which destroy the Health of the Body so for the preservation of Spiritual Life it is necessarily required that a Man avoid Vnbelief Impenitency and other things that are destructive and contrary to the Salvation of Souls which cannot be avoided unless the opposite and contrary Actions be exercised But these Actions do not preserve the Life of Grace properly and of themselves by touching or producing the very effect it self of preservation but improperly and by accident by excluding and removing the cause of destruction Thus we have at large refuted the Authour of the Letter his Second Errour against the Purity of Christian Faith and have fully and clearly proved the Covenant of Grace to be Conditional This we have done first by clear Scripture Secondly by certain and evident Reason grounded upon Scripture Thirdly by Testimonies of Orthodox Divines and First by Testimonies of the Antient Doctors of the Primitive Church Secondly by Testimonies of Divines of the Reformed Churches both at Home and Abroad and particularly by the Testimony of the Divines of the Famous Synod of Dort Whence it is as clear as the Sun that we preach no new Arminian Gospel in this great Point of the Covenant of Grace and consequently that the Authour of the Letter is a false Witness in Matter of Fact who hath proclaimed us to the World to be Preachers of a new Arminian Gospel on the account of our Doctrine in the point of Justification If after all this he should say that though we have proved the Covenant to be conditional and Faith to be the receptive applicative condition of it yet we have not proved that Faith justifies as a Condition We Answer That look by what place of Scripture he shall ever be able to prove that Faith justifies as an Instrument and a hand by the same shall we prove that Faith justifies as a receptive applicative condition For as we said before we take a receptive applicative Condition and a moral foederal instrument to be one and the same thing So did the Westminster Assembly of Divines before us And in this sense which alone is justifiable we hold Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition with respect to Justification And if that will please our Authour we shall grant him that Faith is a hand and not only a hand but an eye and a mouth too an eye to look unto Christ crucified John 3.14 15. John 6.40 Isa 45.22 And a mouth to eat and drink and feed on his Crucified Flesh and Blood John 6.35 50 51 53 54 55 56 57 58. We shall conclude this Answer with the Testimony of Two Learneder and Wiser Men than our Authour seems to be The first is the Reverend Mr. Lukin a Worthy Judicious Congregational Minister in his Life of Faith printed above Thirty years ago Lukin 's Life of Faith p. 24 25. For the question about the Interest of Faith in our Justification whether it justifie as an Instrument or as a Condition I think saith he it deserves not half the words that have been used about it they are both of them School-terms and not found in the Scripture and should not therefore disturb the peace of the Church especially seeing both Parties at variance are agreed in the thing but not in the formal notion under which they do conceive it and I think both lides are so far agreed that Faith may be called an Instrument allowing much impropriety of speech and that it may be called a Condition while we thereby do not suppose any such thing as merit Thus Mr. Lukin Now we heartily accept of this expedient for the calming of the Tempest which the Letter hath raised We will never desire the Authour to call Faith a meritorious condition for we never called it so our selves if he will grant us that it is but improperly an Instrument of Justification The other is the Learned Turretin that famous Calvinist Professor of Divinity lately at Geneva who writes thus Caeterum non anxiè quaerendum putamus an fides instrumenti notionem induat in hoc negotio c. Turretin Instit part 2. loc 16. quaest 7. p. 737. But we do not think that it is curiously to be enquired after whether Faith put on the nation of an Instrument in this matter of Justification or likewise of a condition as it seems to some men For nothing hinders but both notions may be ascribed to it provided Condition be not taken for that in consideration whereof God justifies Man in the Covenant of Grace after the manner that works were the Condition of Justification in the Legal Covenant For in this sense it cannot be called a condition unless we come over to the Socinians and Arminians who will have Faith or the Act of believing to be accepted by God for perfect Righteousness which we have but now resuted But taking the word Condition in a large sense for all that which is required on our part to obtain that benefit whether it have the notion of a cause properly so called or only of an instrumental Cause for as that Condition hath the relation of an Instrument so that Instrument hath the nature of a Condition on our part without which Justification cannot be obtained Thus Turretin to which we fully agree except that we think he gives too much to Faith in conceiving it to be an instrumental cause of Justification yet since he says that it is no cause properly so called it follows necessarily that it is not properly an instrumental cause and so hath no proper causal influence upon the act of Justification and if so then it is but improperly an instrument as Mr. Lukin saith and so the whole Controversie comes to nothing but a strife about the propriety or impropriety of a word which Turretin plainly saw and therefore confessed that Faith is so an Instrument as to be a Condition and so a Condition as to be an Instrument of Justification And taking the word Instrument in a moral Sense for a means of receiving the benefit of Justification for Christ's sake only we do unfeignedly affirm as Turretin doth that a sincere Faith is both the Instrument and Receptive
the Scripture and considers the form of Words used there by the Holy Writer which plainly sets forth the Justification of the Gentiles as an End and their Conversion from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God as a Means to attain that End Now the Means is always in execution before the End Consequently Conversion is and must be before Justification And if so then there is a real change in the Soul before Justification the Person to be justified is prepared disposed and qualified by converting Grace in order of nature at least before he be Justified And till he be so changed by converting Grace he is not capable of being Justified according to Gods Order of dispensing Saving Grace unto his People This our Authour saw well enough Lett. pag. 16. when he quoted Gal. 2.16 to prove that a Man is to believe that he may be Justified For that plainly shews that Faith is a Means to obtain Justification and all the World knows that the Means is always first in execution as hath been said before the End be thereby obtained Now we demand if a Man must have Faith before he be Justified must there not be a real change in him must he not be changed from being an Vnbeliever to be a Believer and must he not also be initially sanctified Is not true Faith a Holy Vertue and doth it not denominate the subject of it to be so far holy as he is a true Believer Peter saith that sincere Faith is a pretious thing 2 Pet. 1.1 and Jude v. 20. affirms that our Faith is a most holy faith and it is true both of the object of our Faith the things which we believe and of our Faith it self the Habit and Act whereby we do believe both are holy And how can it be but Faith must be holy since it is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 And surely nothing but what is holy can be a Fruit of the Holy Spirit From all which we may confidently conclude that something which is holy is wrought in us and by us before we be Justified for it is wrought in us and by us that we may be Justified Thus we learn from Scripture that by preventing converting Grace there is a real change wrought in the Soul before we be Justified that that change is from falsehood to truth from evil to good and that thereby the Person to be Justiâ—ied of an unholy Vnbeliever becomes an holy Believer and so is a Subject capable of being immediately justified by Christs Righteousness imputed to him upon his Conversion and penitent believing And here we might further demonstrate that there are through Grace some holy Dispositions wrought in the Soul before Justification by all those Scriptures that put Repentance before Remission of Sins but this we have done already when we proved sincere Repentance to be a dispositive Condition of Justification Therefore we pass from this First to our Second Head of Arguments Secondly We prove by Reason agreeable to Scripture that it is an Errour to deny that there is any real change that there can be any holy qualification or Disposition wrought in us by the Grace of God antecedently to our Justification Reason 1. First we reason thus Faith is a Condition of Justification as we have proved at large therefore it may well be a qualification of the Person to be justified and we much wonder that our Authour should boldly deny the possibility of any such qualification For it is less to be a Qualification than to be a Condition If then Faith be a Condition it may much more be a Qualification And that for Faith to be a Qualification is less than to be a Condition is hence evident because Faith as the Gift of God without any Act of ours may be a Qualification but to make it a proper Condition it must be our own free Act receiving Christ and his Righteousness though produced by the strength of God's Special Grace Now it is plainly less for us to be the Subjects only passively receiving the Gift of Faith than to be the Agents freely producing the Act and performing the Condition of Faith Although then our Authour might seem to have some Reason to doubt whether Faith be the proper Condition of the Covenant with respect to Justification yet we cannot imagine why be should deny that it can possibly be a Qualification of the Person to be justified for it is very easily conceivable that it may be such a Qualification as it is a Grace given unto and wrought in the Person to be Justified on purpose that he may be thereby qualified for the great and blessed Priviledge of Justification What impossibility is there in all this That God should constitute and ordain that none thould ever be Justified by Christ's Righteousness but those that are so qualified and that Faith shall be the Qualification And then because no Man can by his natural power qualify himself with this Faith that God for Christs sake should by his Spirit give Saving Faith unto all his Select People and special Favourites and thereby qualiâ—ie them for Justification We can see no Shadow of Repugnancy and Impossibility but that God may do this if he please And when he hath done it when he hath qualified a Man with faith he most certainly hath a Qualification for the Benefit of Justification And this is so far from darkning the Glory of God's free Grace in Christ that on the contrary it greatly sets it forth and illustrates it that God will not only freely promise Justification through Christ unto all that are qualified with true faith but that for Christ's sake he freely gives them that faith and doth himself qualifie them therewith The like we say of Repentance it is a Qualification of God's own ordaining and of God's own giving Nor doth Faith and Repentance their being Conditions hinder their being Qualifications for they may be and are both All that we have hitherto ascribed to Repentance in order to Justification is to be a dispositive Condition of the Subject and that is the same thing with a qualifying Condition and a qualifying Condition is a Qualification We have indeed given more to faith for according to the Scripture we have owned it to be the only receptive applicative Condition of Justification which is more than to be either a meer Qualification or a meer Condition for neither is Qualification nor Condition meerly as Qualification and as Condition receptive and applicative of Christ and his Righteousness unto Justification To be so receptive and applicative is not essential to the general notion of a Condition but to the special notion of such a condition And yet this receptive applicative nature of Faith as such a special condition doth not at all hinder it from being a qualification of the Person to be justified For the same Faith in different respects is capable of different Notions Or if any should doubt of that
Covenant he is found to be a Godly Man through Grace to be Evangelically Godly because he is just such a Man as the Lord by the New Covenant and Evangelical Law requires him to be that he may be first justified by Christs Righteousness imputed to him that is he is found to be a Man whom God hath blessed with a new Heart and who is a true Penitent Believer and that is a Man Evangelically Godly Now there is no Contradiction at all in this for the same Man at the same time to be legally ungodly and Evangelically Godly because it is with respect to different Laws and Covenants that such contrary things are affirmed of him Let our Author if he please consult Turretine and he will find that that Learned Calvinist saith expresly Turret Instit part 2. loc 16. pag. 714. That a true Believer when he is justified by Faith in Christ is impius partim antecedenter partim respectivè ad Justificationem non autem concomitanter Ungodly partly antecedently and that is because he was altogether ungodly in former times partly with râ—spect to Justification because he hath nothing in himself that can be the matter and cause of his Justification but he is not concomitantly ungodly that is he doth not remain Ungodly when God is justifying him and till immediafely after he be justified If our Author upon this should say to us what he saith to his poor awakened Sinner That it is Non-sense Ignorance and Pride Let. p. 31.32 to maintain that a Man must be in some measure Godly in Disposition and Principle before he be Godly in Act and that he must actually believe with a Godly Faith in Order of Nature before he he justified for this is as much as to say that a Man must be pretty well recovered before he make use of the Physician c. We should reply 1. That as for his Poor awakened Sinner he makes a poor Fool of him he puts what Words he pleases in his Mouth and makes him say in effect that if he first had Faith before he first had Faith then he would first believe before he had first believed which we think no Man ever thought or said nor is capable of saying unless it be some poor Creature that is awakened out of his right Wits or else it be such an one as our Author who hath the Art of Believing or Writing Contradictions 2. That he had need to take heed that he do not blaspheme our Saviour who hath said that the Tree must be good before the Fruit can be good Matth. 7.16 17 18. and 12. v. 33. And that is as much as if he had said what we hold that there must be some Renovation of the Inward Disposition of the Heart before a Man do actually believe with a saving justifying Faith 3. That if our Author will not believe us let him believe his own beloved self for he says Pag. 16. That a Man is to believe that be may be justified And that necessarily implies that he must bring forth some good Fruit in order of Nature before he be justified and in Pag. 12. He himself quotes Matth. 12.33 To prove that the Tree must be good before the Fruit be good 4. We believe that our Heavenly Physician comes first to us ordinarily in the Ministry of the Word by his preventing Grace and doth indeed recover us in part by curing the deadness and indisposedness of our Hearts before we go to him by an actual saving justifying Faith and thereby imploy him for our Justification Christ comes first to us by his Word and Spirit and begins to cure us of our Spiritual deadness to any thing that is savingly good before we go to him by actual justifying Faith and be by him delivered from our Legal Death in Justification by Faith in his Blood 5. If our Author will yet go on to tell the People that we teach them not to employ the Physician of Souls till they have first pretty well cured themselves we take Heaven and Earth to witness that he belies us and abuses the Simplicity of the People for we believe in our Hearts and confess with our Mouths to the Glory of Christ the Physician of Souls that it is he who by his Word Spirit and Grace both begins carries on and perfects the cure of all his select People and that he doth it in the way and order set forth in his Word of which we have here given the World an account according to that measure of Light which it hath pleased him of his rich Mercy and free Grace to bestow upon us 6. And lastly We desire it may be considered whether our Authors saying that to tell the People they must begin to be Godly through Grace by being Penitent Believers in order to their being justified is all one as to tell them that they must be pretty well recovered and must cure themselves before they employ Christ the Physician of Souls we say it is our desire People would consider whether this be not a piece of Antinomian Cant for it is certain that this is the Language of Saltmarsh one of the grossest of that Sect in England That the Promises belong to Sinners as Sinners not as repenting or humbled Sinners as is to be seen in Gatakers Shadows without Substance Pag. 53. And again saith Saltmarsh like our Author in this Do you look that Men should be first whole for the Physician or Righteous for Pardon of Sin or justified for Christ Ibid. Pag. 54. or rather Sinners Unrighteous Ungodly And Gataker there Confutes this precious Stuff in Pag. 54 55 56 57 58. Again You Saltmarsh say that every one who receives Christ receives him in a sinful Condition and consequently in an impenitent one Ibid. p. 73. And again saith Saltmarsh as our Author doth in Pag. 11. of his Letter Can any Man believe too soon Gatakers shadows without substance p. 75. To which Question Gataker Answers No more than he can repent too soon Thus we have at large answered every thing which we can find in the Letter that looks like an Objection or Argument against the Truth which we believe according to the Scriptures But after all it may be some will seriously put this Question Is it likely that God will give us any Grace to sanctifie us in any Kind or Degree before he so love us as to justifie us To which we answer that it is not only likely to be but it certainly is so that God loves us so far as to make Conditional Promises to every one of his People and so far as to give them for Christs sake Grace to begin to perform the Condition before he so far love them as actually to justifie them for Christs sake and that we say is a giving of Grace to sanctifie us Initially or to begin a Holy change in us before we be actually justified and our Sins be forgiven us This we have so clearly proved by
external Amendment of their outward Conversation saving Grace being the special Gift of God to his own c. And pag. 95. The Lord makes use of this outward and common Covenanting with all Receivers of the offer as a mean to draw the Confederate in the Letter to be Confederate in the Spirit for the Faith which he requires as the Condition of the Covenant he worketh in the Elect if not before or with the external Covenanting yet undoubted after in a time acceptable and that by the ordinary means the use whereof is granted to all Confederate externally and so as common Illumination is a mean to that Special Spiritual and saving Illumination and Dogmatical and Historical Faith is a mean unto Saving Faith and external Calling is a mean to Effectual Calling so external Covenanting in the Letter is a mean most fit and accommodate to make a Man a Covenanter in the Spirit Here are Preparations and Dispositions before either Regeneration or Justification plainly asserted by Dickson then pag. 99. he enters upon a large Discourse concerning the Condition of the Covenant and he says That in receiving of grown Persons into Covenant There are three Conditions to be observed and distinguished one from another 1. The Condition of the Person desiring to be in Covenant with God for Reconciliation and Grace through Christ 2. The Condition upon which he is entered into Covenant 3. The Condition required of him for evidencing of his sincere Covenanting And Pag. 100. He says all these three are expressed by Christ in Matth. 11.28 29. First They that labour and are heavy laden are they whom Christ calleth unto a Covenant and fellowship of his Grace this that he calls the Condition of the Person is the same thing with that which we call the Disposition or Qualification of the Person Secondly He propounds the Condition of the Covenant to wit that they believe in Christ or come unto him that in him they may find full relief from Sin and Misery and in him full Righteousness and Felicity Thirdly He requires of them who do embrace him by Faith and so have accepted the Condition of the Covenant that they give evidence of their Faith in him by taking his Yoke upon them Take my Yoke upon you saith he Mr. Dickson calls this The third Condition and says a little before that it is the Covenanters up giving of himself to Christs Government and Obedience of his Commands This brings to our remembrance a Passage in the Catechism published by the Calvinists of Marpurgh in the Year 1606. Fidem sufficere ad apprehendendam salutem non autem ad cam conservandam sed amplius requiri vitae emendationem That Faith is sufficient for the first apprehending or receiving of Salvation but not for the conserving or continuing of it but there is moreover required Amendment of Life It reminds us also of what we read in the fourth Tome of Monsieur Claudes Posthumous Work in the very entrance of his Treatise of Justification Pag. 75. That there are Dispositions previous unto Justification and that there are Conditions which God necessarily supposes in Man and which ought to be found actually in him And then that there are Conditions which God imposes upon a Man when he justifies him to the end that he may observe them for the time to come In like manner he distinguishes in his Historical Defence of the Reformation Part 2. Chap. 6. pag. 218. of the English Translation Between the Condition supposed to Justification which is Faith and Repentance and the Condition imposed upon us by the Lord when he justifies us which is that for the time to come we live Holily according to the Laws which he has given us But this on the by from Dickson we pass to the Learned Charnock he saith That besides the Passive Capacity that is Charnock Vol. 2. p. 148. the Rational Faculties there are more immediate Preparations The Soul must be beaten down by Convictions before it be raised up by Regeneration there must be some apprehensions of the Necessity of it Yet sometimes the Work of Regeneration follows so close upon the heels of these Preparations that both must be acknowledged to be the work of one and the same hand The Preparation of the Subject is necessary but this Preparation may be at the same time with the conveyance of the Divine Nature And afterwards for several Pages he saith no more than what we have said That there is not any absolute causal Connection between such Preparations Ibid. p. 148.149 c. and Regeneration nor any Connection that is meritorious Yet all along he asserts Preparations From Charnock we pass to Flavel Flavels Method of Grace from pag. 347 to pag. 402. who spends two whole Sermons to prove That there is no coming ordinarily to Christ without the Application of the Law to our Consciences in a way of effectual Conviction This our Author will grant as we perceive by his Letter But Mr. Flavel spends two Sermons more to prove That this cannot be without the teachings of God in the way of Spiritual Illumination From Flavel we pass to Firmin Firm. Real Christ. p. 6 7 8 c. who shews at large That man naturally is not a subject fit or disposed to receive Christ immediately when offered to him but before he will receive him there must be some work of the Spirit upon him to prepare him make him willing and glad to receive him And if this were not so but as our Author would have it it would follow unavoidably that Mr. Hooker and Mr. Shepherd in their Books about the Souls Preparation for Christ and the several steps of it viz. Conviction Compunction Humiliation c. wrote very great impertinencies and which is worse did a great deal of hurt to the Souls of men For our parts since we are said to be Middle-way-men we think that to answer that Character that is given of us we ought to avoid all extremes as well in this as in other matters and therefore we say that no more of the foresaid Preparatory Dispositions is simply and absolutely necessary than what makes the Soul 1. See its absolute need of Christ and its being utterly lost and undone without him 2. What makes it see and believe that there is abundant help and relief for lost Sinners in Christ that he is an Alsufficient Saviour and the only Alsufficient Saviour able and willing to save to the uttermost all that come unto him and unto God by him in the way prescribed in the Gospel 3. What makes them thereupon desirous to have him and in some sort willing to receive him in all his Offices as he is offered desirous to have him and willing to receive him and his Benefits with him upon his own Terms the Terms held forth in the Gospel Of them who by the preventing Grace of the Holy Spirit are thus disposed there is no more required to be done by them in a
the Lord himself hath taught us by his holy Spirit in the Canonical Scriptures And therefore if the Scriptures be true this Doctrine cannot be false but is and must be true and it is very strange and wonderful if all true Christians be afraid to dye in the Faith of the true Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures We rather think that if they be not delirious but have the use of their Reason they are not true Christians but meer Hypocrites that renounce the foresaid Doctrine of Justification and are afraid to stand to it at Death We are sure that good Hezekiah was not afraid to stand to this Doctrine when he justly apprehended himself to be under the Sentence of Death since we find it written in Isa 38.3 4. That he prayed thus unto the Lord Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in Truth and with a perfect Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight c. And God was so far from being displeased with this his Prayer that he most graciously accepted it and shewed himself so well pleased with Hezekiah that he gave him a further Lease of his Life for fifteen years and Sealed the Lease with a Miracle a thing we do not find that ever the Lord did for any other Man before or since We have also read of many in History and have heard of others and have our selves known some who have not been afraid to stand to our Doctrine aforesaid at Death but have died comfortably in the Faith of it As for our selves we live in the Faith of it and desire to die also in the Faith of it and as we account it our Duty to stand to it in Life and at Death so we trust and hope that if the Lord be pleased to preserve to us the use of our Reason and to continue to us the Presence of his Spirit and Assistance of his Grace we shall be enabled to perform our Duty in owning at Death and if he call us to it in Sealing with our Blood the said true Doctrine of Justification which we have preached to his People in the time of our Life As for our Author we hope he agrees with us that Christs Righteousness is never to be renounced but always to be trusted to and relied upon as the cause of our Justification and Salvation both in Life and at Death What then would he have us to renounce If it be our own Merits he knows very well that we admit not the very possibility of any proper Merits of our own and that we renounce all Confidence in such a Chimera as much as he or any Man can do If it be our own good Acts or Works as the Cause of our Justification He may know by what we have said before that we renounce as much as he doth and something more too all causal Influence of any good Acts or Works of ours upon Justistification If it be Faiths being the Condition of Justification that he would have us to renounce That we can never do either in Life or at Death for the Reasons we have given before Besides he himself ascribes as much and we think something more to Faith in the matter of Justification than we do for he maintains Faith to be the Instrument of Justification and if it be a proper Instrument it must have an Instrumental Causality upon Justification and so must be an Instrumental Cause and to be an Instrumental Cause is more than to be a Receptive Condition of Justification If we may be afraid then to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Condition of Justification he may have more Cause to be afraid to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Instrument of Justification But we suspect his meaning is that we will and must be afraid to stand to it at Death that Repentance is a Condition necessary to Justification and that perseverance in Faith and in the Practice of Repentance and Holiness is necessary to the obtaining Possession of Eternal Salvation and if this be it indeed which he thinks we and all sensible men must be afraid to stand to at Death and therefore must renounce we cannot but judge the Man to be under a strong Delusion for First The Scripture is as full and clear for the Truth of these things as it is for the Truth of any other Article of the Christian Faith Secondly We have the Concurrent Judgment of Divines both Ancient and Modern agreeing with us in the same Truth as we have proved at large Thirdly We have heard of many and have known some who upon their Death-bed have bitterly lamented and bewailed that they had not repented of their Sins in time that for and through the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ they might have obtained Pardon and Justification but we never heard of or knew any who upon their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had repented too soon in order to their obtaining Pardon and Justification through Christs Meritorious Righteousness The like we may say of the Necessity of a Holy Life in Order to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation through Christ many have most lamentably bewailed on their Death-bed their own Folly and Wickedness in not preparing themselves for Happiness by the Practice of Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. But we could never hear of any who on their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had held the Erroneous Opinion that the sincere Practice of Holiness is necessary to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ On the contrary the Generality of People that are serious and sensible they then acknowledge the Necessity of sincere Repentance in Order to the obtaining Pardon of Sin and the Necessity of Holiness in Order to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through Jesus Christ our Lord. So abominably false is it that no sensible man dare stand to our Doctrine at his Death that the quite contrary is true and no knowing sensible Man but will gladly stand to it and own it with all his Heart except such Nominal Christians as are Conscious to themselves that they are Hypocrites and unconverted Sinners and fear that if the Gospel be true they shall certainly be damned And therefore they may possibly some of them at least flatter themselves with the Hopes that God for Christs sake will Pardon and Justifie them before and without Repentance and save them without Holiness But we dare not humour such People nor flatter them however they may flatter themselves and therefore we must in faithfulness to Peoples Souls tell them from God that except they repent they shall perish and that without Holiness they shall never see the Lord so as to be Happy in the sight of him And for the Hypocrites Hope of being pardoned without Repentance and of being Happy without being Holy it shall certainly perish with himself His Hope shall be cut off and
it is the cause though Calvin Twiss Ames Rutherford c. have not spared to say and write that it is in some sense a cause an inferiour disposing cause c. but a duty and condition until the performing whereof God hath suspended the Gift of Eternal Life and Glory and to the Performers of which duty and condition he hath freely promised and according to his promise he graciously giveth Eternal Life and Glory for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness only And we desire it may be alwayes remembred that from this condition of sincere obedience we do by no means exclude but include the continued exercise of Faith in Christ as that which is the spring of it and which runs through all the parts of it as also we hold that it comprehends the continued practice of Repentance and Love to God and Man Such sincere Obedience we hold to be a condition to be performed on our part Ezek. 18.24 25. Heb. 10.38 for the obtaining of Eternal Life and Glory For we learn from the Scriptures of Truth that if any of God's People should apostatize from Faith in Christ fall from the Profession and Practice of Christs true Religion and give themselves up to the wilful commission of all manner of Abominations and dye in that state without Repentance they would lose their Right to Eternal Life be shut out of Heaven and cast down to Hell there to suffer the Vengeance of Eternal Fire Whereas on the contrary all that continue to the end in the exercise of Faith in Christ and in the practice of Repentance and Evangelical Obedience they have their Right to Life and Glory still continued to them and shall through God's Grace and Mercy and Christ's Righteousness and Merits be put into the full and eternal possession of it If our Authour should object and say that we suppose an impossibility from whence there is no right arguing for or against any thing We desire him to consider what Dr. Twiss sayes in the 29 Page of his Answer to the Book called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to practice His Words are When we say the elect Saints cannot fall from Grace this is spoken not in respect of any absolute impossibility but meerly upon supposition of God's upholding them And accordingly they are said to be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 Now this impossibility of falling away from Grace in Scholastical account is but an Impossibility Secundum quid like as we say It is impossible that Antichrist should fall or the Jews be called till the time which God hath appointed is come for bringing forth these great and wonderful Works of his but the contrary is simply possible on either part Thus Twiss Our Answer then is that the Apostacy of a Saint is not simply and absolutely impossible Alas it is but too possible with respect to us considered in our selves but it is onely impossible in some respects to wit in respect of God's Purpose and Promise and Christ's Intercession c. And notwithstanding its being impossible in this sense yet we find it supposed and granted also to be possible in another sense And further we find that the Spirit of God in Holy Scripture supposes greater Impossibilities than that seems to be and rationally argues from them too Witness John 8.55 Gal. 1.8 If any should further object and say that hereby we destroy the Saints Assurance of Eternal Life and Glory by holding that their obtaining of it is suspended on a condition We Answer the consequence is false because those who are assured upon good Grounds that they are truly Converted and Justified by Faith in Christ's Blood See 1 Joh. 2.19 may from Holy Scripture be assured of the condition of perseverance through Grace in Faith Repentance and whatever God hath made necessary to their obtaining Eternal Life and Glory Indeed if our Glorification depended upon a Condition of which we could not be sure then neither could we be sure of Glorification it self But we believe and maintain that through Grace we may and ought to be sure of the Condition to wit of Perseverance and consequently that we may and ought to be sure of our future Glorification which is infallibly promised to perseverance in Faith and Holiness We know the Followers of Luther whom our Authour so much magnifies as if he were for him and his Party deny that a Saint can be absolutely sure ordinarily in this World that he shall be saved in the World to come It is true they maintain that a Saint may and ought to be absolutely sure that he is in a state of Grace and Salvation for the present but they deny and on their Principles must deny that he can have an absolute but onely a conditional assurance of his Eternal Salvation and Glorification because they say he cannot be absolutely sure that he shall not fall totally and finally from the state of Grace that he is now in If we should follow Luther or the Lutherans in this what a Clamour would our Authour raise against us how would he proclaim us to the World to be Arminians or Papists yet Luther was a blessed Man and most Orthodox Divine because in his Commentary on the Galathians he seems to hold with our Authour in some things though in other things of greater importance he be against him and us too But Holy Scripture is the Rule and Measure of our Faith in these and all other Religious Matters and according to the Prescript thereof we believe profess and preach to the People that as Christ purchased all Grace for us by his Blood so he gives it unto us by his Spirit in the use of his appointed Means and what Saving Grace he once gives unto his People he never wholly takes away from them again and that if at any time they fall into Sin against Knowledge and Conscience he raises them up again by causing them to renew their Faith and Repentance and never wholly leaves them nor forsakes them but gives them still more Grace according to their need and by Grace prepares them for and at last brings them unto Glory Thus we desire and endeavour to Preach Christ and now we appeal to all who have any Conscience of Truth and Honesty whether we neglect to Preach Christ or whether in the preaching of Christ we set up any thing in co-ordination with him yea whether we be not so far from it that on the contrary we make all subordinate to him and derive all Grace from him not only the Grace of Justification and Glorification which are promised on Condition of Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience but also the Grace of effectual Vocation Faith and Repentance in a Word all the Grace whereby we perform the whole condition of the Covenant from first to last From the premisses it may manifestly appear to any that are not stark blind that we do not hold Faith Repentance and