be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward And he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a Righteous mans reward And so to those that suffer for Christ which is reputed amongst the chief of Good deeds Rejoyce and be exceeding glad Mat. 5. 12. for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets And Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water Mat. 10. 42. only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise loose his reward And in St. Luke Christ saith But love your enemies and do good Luk. 6. 35. and lend hoping for nothing again and your reward shall be great and ye shall be the Children of the Highest For he is kind unto the unthankful and evil Here besides the positive promises is added a reason to assure all that shall do good works that great shall be their reward viz. because Gods goodness and mercy is such that he imparteth of the same unto the wicked he doth good unto the ill-deserving and shall he not much more do good to those that are good and abound in Good works To ascribe therefore so much to a modern notion of Faith as many do though the Learneder favourers of it closely dealt with are constrained to depart from this new rigour as I could show by divers instances as to divide it from it self that is the works of Faith from Faith the fountain in order to Justification and Sanctification and Salvation is in effect to denie the Christian Faith and introduce one of their own invention to the great dishonour of God and reproach of Christian Faith which consisteth in these two things principally Evangelical Obedience and a Glorious reward And now least some prejudiced mind may suppose that I have stated this point too favourably to the Roman sense and injuriously to the Franckness of Gods grace and mercy in relation both to our Sanctification and Justification and also to the vertue and efficacie of Faith in order to them I shall end this discourse with the Stating of this cause as I find it by Vortius a most severe and rigid Calvinist as they call such men in this negative Vort. disput Select Part. 2. p. 728. 726. way The Controversie therefore said he between us and the Papacie First is not Whether good works are to be done For we affirm it 2. Neither whether they be necessary and profitable to salvation we affirm both 3. Neither whether they are pleasing to God which we affirm 4. Nor whether God grants a Remuneration and Reward to them For we affirm it 5. Nor whether it be lawful to do good works with an eye to the reward We say so 6. Nor yet whether good works are sins we stoutly deny 7. Nor lastly Whether the just be worthy of a Crown For this we yield with this limitation Not out of their own worth but the worthiness of God c. And if all this be honestly and fairly agreed to I see no reason to fear the empty cavils and vain exceptions of some men who have run themselves they can scare well tell whether themselves from Popery but I may venture to tell Why viz. Partly out of a blind implicite Faith in the Teachers they raise to themselves and partly to save their Credit and purses by a strange and monstrous notion of Faith rather then their souls But the main block of Offense taken not given by this doctrine seems to be an opinion of Merit favoured hereby Of this therefore we shall speak next CHAP. XVI Of merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are Efficacious unto the Reward promised by God TO merit is of a very various and ambiguous sense among the the Ancients humane and divine It were superfluous to note all and to omit all injurious to our present design These three are the most needful to be observed For sometimes it is used in prophane Histories for Service military as the souldier under such a Commander is said to merit Mereri under him Meruit sub Servitio Isaurico in Cilicia sed brevi tempore c. Suet. de Julio Caesare in Vita Aere mereâ—t parvo Lucan lib. 9. Vocabulum merendi apud veteres Ecclesiasticos Scriptores fere idem valet quod consequi seu aptum idoneumque fieri ad consequendum Id. Cassand Schol. in Hymnos Ecclesiast p. 179 It is likewise frequently used by humane and Ecclesiastical Authors for to obtain or acquire only by just and due endeavours without any just deserts of the Partie said to merit but rather of Grace and favour of him who hath appointed and promised freely to reward such actions as are enjoyned and assigned with such ends and remunerations which far exceed the proportion or value of the work For surely in publick and antient Games from which practice St. Paul hath borrowed many a Metaphor describing the service and contention of Christians in the service of God to outrun and prevent by footmanship him that was matcht with one did not properly deserve such a vast reward as was usually conferred on him who excelled his Fellow For what title of justice can the hasting to take a crown give to him that receives it yet was he said to deserve it and that either comparatively because he in reason ought to be preferred before any other that came behind him and therefore merit it rather than he Or because the Authors of such rewards having solemnly and fairly quitted all their Rights and by publick promise setled the same upon other upon certain conditions they shall judge fit there is a conditional Right thereby devolved upon others yet not out of the worthiness of the acts leading to the accquiring the same But a third notion of merit implies such a proportion between the Act and the end or recompence that it were no less than unjust and unreasonable for him who is concerned in the reward to denie it to him or detain it from him the work being accomplished It being a Principle of common justice what Christ pronounces as Christian reason too The Labourer is worthy of his hire i. e. he merits it And therefore Luk. 10. 7. Jam. 15. 4. James saith well in the like case Behold the hire of the labourers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth and the cries of them which have reaped are entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath i. e. they crie for justice against them who are indebted to them for such service which deserve much reward Upon these general grounds thus premised we shall have easier access to the difficultie of meriting in relation to God and the reward he holdeth forth to his
others to justifie and now crouding into it all others to make it justifying they affirm what at first they were so much denyed namely That justifying Faith is not so much a single or singular Christian Grace as a confluence of many Evangelical Graces together which render a man capable of being justified according to the Covenant of Free Grace before God though never worthy To which we readily assent Again If as they say Faith Sola non Solitâ—riâ— Only not Alone justifies it will be no less difficult for them to give either good autority or reason why the same may not be ascribed to Love or Charity or to Hope and when the insufficiencie of either of these be declared to that effect it may not as reasonably now as before he replyed and said Charity only doth justifie but not alone because Faith and Hope must be conjoyned with it There is little judgment or sincerity in such manner of disputings as these But here to prevent suspition of mis-reporting the opinions of such as contend for a modern notion of justification by Faith which the Holy Fathers were ignorant of I find my self constrained to set down the state and reason of the Question as that learned man Mr. Perkins hath explain'd Perkins on Gal. 3. v. 10. c and defended Justification by Faith In his Reformed Catholique Point the fourth And in his Comment on the Galatians he moves this necessary Querie as most material to the clearing of the Controversie What is that very thing that causeth a man to stand righteous before God and to be accepted to Life everlasting To this in both places he answers altogether to the same sense and purpose and with very little alteration of words saying The Obedience or Righteousness of Christ and it stands in two things his Passion in Life and Death and his Fulfilling the Law joyned therewith which he calls the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ In which resolution there is no difference between us no exception justly to be taken Perkins Reform Catholick pag. 570 Now sayes he afterward pag. 570. Reform Cath. All both Papists and Protestants agree that a sinner is justified by Faith This agreement saith he is only in word And why so The Papist saying we are justified by Faith understands a General or Catholick Faith whereby a man believeth the Articles of Religion to be true But we hold That the Faith which justifieth is a Particular Faith whereby we apply to our selves the Promises of Righteousness and Life everlasting by Christ But if we say That even the General Faith not taken for the Object or Articles of Faith but Habit exercised performeth this sufficiently though not immediately as in truth we do by the influence it hath upon inferiour and subordinate Graces whereof a Particular is but one then in vain is all laid upon the Particular Faith And that place by him alledged out of Galatians 2. 20. makes more against what he would prove by it than for it viz. I live by the Faith of the Son of God For it is directly denyed That hereby is intended such a Particular Faith as is before mentioned by us The words of the Apostle before and the main design of his Epistle declaring that he understood no other Faith in Christ here than that General whereby he relinquished the Law of Moses with all its imperfect umbrages and betook himself by Faith to Christ and liv'd now according to Christ and not to Moses Neither doth that which follows prove the specialty of this St. Pauls Faith as he conceives viz. Who hath loved me and given himself for me particularly For this is apparently a Predicate of Christ and not of the Faith there spoken of It is a description of Christ and not of the Faith in Christ which if it were would make but little to the purpose For who knows not that a General Faith comprehends a particular Faith and the Faith whereby we believe and receive the Gospel disposes us to believe that Christ died for us which is one part of that Faith And the Faith that believes that Christ dyed for all doth necessarily lead us to believe that Christ dyed for me particularly Therefore still it remaineth unresolved what singular and signal vertue there is in the Particular Grace of Faith which other Evangelical Graces depending upon the General Faith as well as doth this Particular Faith may not be capable of in order to our Justification Hear we then to understand this better what the same learned Author sayes in the entrance to that Treatise of the Reformed Catholick A man is justified by Faith alone because Faith is that alone instrument created in the heart by the Holy Ghost whereby the sinner layeth hold on Christ his Righteousness and applyeth the same unto himself There is neither Hope nor Love nor any other Grace of God within man that doth this but Faith alone Thus he Where several things are taken for granted not to be granted First That Faith is any more created in the heart of man than any other Grace there expressed or implyed Secondly That it is an Instrument Active laying hold of Christ in a special different manner from other Graces For in truth we are not so much justified or made partakers of Christ by our laying hold of him as by his laying hold of us Thirdly That in what sense Faith may be said to lay hold on Christ in the same the other Graces may not likewise be said so to do because all Graces speaking properly which are indeed operative as is said towards our Sanctification are but Passive in order to our Justification which is an act of God only declaring and holding us Just in Christ Jesus So that the old Querie here returns upon us again Which of all these Graces prevail most to the inserting us into Christ which I grant to be the General Faith as a foundation and first mover of all Graces And as for the particular Faith compared with its fellow Graces it may be allowed a greater vertue but not of another kind in reference to our union with Christ For when an humble and desponding Christian considering his own unworthiness and the unsufficiency of his repentance it self and graces to incline God to mercy so far as for their sakes to accept him in Christ for just and innocent he as the last refuge he hath quitteth all worth and capacities in himself and fleeth with a strong confidence which in this case is called Faith unto the free and absolute Grace of God revealed in Christ Jesus unto us upon which God beholding the whole glory of the Absolution of such a sinner to redound to his Grace is pleased to receive such a person to mercy according to that of the Prophet Esay Thou shalt keep him in perfect Isâ—iah 25. 3. peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee Than which words I find no testimonies of Scripture of the many
alledged more pregnantly proving the power of that fiducial Faith as I may so call it in order to the Justification of a man before God and yet it must here be granted That this trust is much different from the Faith contended for And that from hence or the like Texts not a different vertue in nature or kind though peradventure more effectual and prevalent is ascribed to it above other Graces in order to our Justification All which is no less true of our Sanctification than our Justification For we are altogether as much sanctified by Faith alone as we are justified by Faith alone or only as appeareth from the Scripture which saith That our hearts are John 15. 3. Acts 15. 9. purified by Faith So that in this much disputed Question I know no readier way of satisfying the fearful and dubious mind than by taking a due estimate of the power of a General or Particular Faith in reference to Fides nos à peccatis omnibus purgat mentes nostras illuminat Deo concliat Prosper ubi supr our Sanctification and judging alike of our Justification thereby For we are sanctified as freely by Grace as we are justified and as much by Faith too as Prosper before cited saith And therefore lastly in answer to divers places of the Ancients which are produced to confirm the modern sense of Justification by Faith alone I answer in a word That it is true their words seem to attest so much but their meaning was plainly no more than this That Faith many times doth justifie without Works that is any outward manifestation of their Faith by such fruits but never without inward acts of Repentance and Charity distinct from this special Faith nor without such a devotion to good Works which wants nothing but opportunity to exert them which is by an extraordinary Clemencie and Grace of God accepted for the thing it self This appears by the example by them given to manifest their meaning of the Thief on the Cross who was so justified and saved by Faith alone without good Works answerable thereunto because his sudden faith was prevented by sudden death Nevertheless That his Faith was so much alone as to exclude Repentance and such Graces as were competible to one in his condition from a proportionable concurrence to that effect is no where said nor intended by any of the Fathers whose judgment is of account in the Church of God CHAP. XXI A third Effect of Justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. ANother effect of Faith or at least consequence upon it hath the certainty or assurance of our Justification and Salvation been commonly reputed The better to understand which we must take as supposed and granted the difference between the Truth of a thing and Evidence of it or the Certainty that such a thing is and the knowledge that so it is So that the doubting of our Justification or Salvation doth not make the thing infallibly so but leaves us under fears and sometimes disconsolations But a competent remedy seems to me to be ready at hand if we consider that our opinion of our selves is no good conclusion against our selves but rather being founded in humility and disowning of our worth and righteousness an introduction to a comfortable hope in Gods mercy who hath begun at least the work of Grace in us by rendring us studious and anxious about his service and our salvation unless it could be proved which we shall see presently whether so or not out of the word of God that it is his will and direct command that we should have this assurance in us For as saint John saith Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assurt 1 John 3. 19 20. our hearts before him For if our heart condem us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things i. e. the hearts and consciences of the children of God do frequently condemn them but their comfort is that God is greater than their hearts and doth not judge according to what opinion good or evil we have of our selves but according to his own Wiâ—dom and Grace So that it is no just inference at all I do not believe I shall be saved therefore I shall not be saved Nor this I do believe I shall not be saved therefore I shall not be saved Only they have great cause thus to argue and conclude against themselves who are wont on the contraâ—y to reason I believe I shall be saved therefore I shall be saved abusing and corrupting the Doctrine of Faith two wayes most dangerously First In making it the simple and direct cause or means unto Justification and then a reason of a Reflex act whereby they stand assured that they are so acquitted and justified before God But St. John in the former words cited reasons much otherwise For having in the 18. verse exhorted to and urged the duty of mutual Christian Charity he inferreth from thence in the 19. verse Hereby we know that we are of the truth c. i. e. from the Indication of Love and Charity to the Brethren â—ere is then an assurance and that before God and yet as we have seen there resteth and consisteth withall a diffidence and doubting as we have shewed The reconciliation of this seeming opposition doth lead us to a necessary distinction tending to the resolving of the principal Querie and it is between the State of Justification and the Act of Justification And again as to Assurance here spoken of It is one thing to be assured of our Justification and another of our Salvation as shall hereafter appear First then I hold it sufficiently demonstrable out of Scripture That a man may and every good Christian ought to be assured that he is in a state of being justified and saved likewise This we teach well in our Church Catechise in answer to this Question Doest not thou think that thou art bound to believe as they have promised for thee thus Yes verily and by Gods help so I will and I heartily thank our heavenly Father that he hath called me to this State of Salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour Every Christian that in Baptism hath put on Christ and is entred into a Covenant of Grace with God is bound to believe assuredly that thereby he is in a state of Salvation and Justification For thereby God hath especially elected him to salvation of which Election the Scriptures chiefly if not only speak which are drawn to signife the Eternal Decree of God choosing not only men estranged from God to the Covenant of Grace but such as are first within the Covenant to an infallible Justification and Salvation This I say is rarely if at all intended by any of those many Texts of Scripture alledged to
nay the Parties Jest with that Sacred Rite never so lightly if there be a performance of such things as are outwardly required to that solemnity it holds good to all intents and purposes even against the resolutions of the persons principally concerned therein Yet must we acknowledge a vast difference between those two most properly called Sacraments Baptism and the supper of the Lord. For undoubtedly where in either of these there is a repugnancy of the will to them their effect is nothing upon the person receiving them because this is the principal obstacle of all to the efficacy yet is the Sacrament never the less valid and truly performed as to the Nature of it And concerning the Efficacy of the Sacraments it is worth our enquiry especially for their sakes who ascribing very injudiciously and injuriously the Grace of Sanctification and Justification absolutely to a special Faith thought of but lately amongst Christians or to the unsearchable Decree of Almighty God to justifie and save such persons as are ordained to Life and Salvation affirm this Decree and good purpose of God to effect all things necessary to salvation and that the Sacraments are received only as so many pledges and seals of the good will of God in our Justification and Salvation long before concluded immutably towards us but are of no efficacy or vertue to bring them about This though Calvin Cartwright Perkins plainly and directly asserted by some eminent Reformers is no better than a pestilent Errour contrary to all Antiquity of Ecclesiastical and Scriptural Writers Of which latter it suffices to instance in those obvious places which directly inferra necessity of them and ascribe a vertue to them of effecting and not only signifying Grace or sealing it unto us For Matthew the 3. v. 11. St. John distinguishing his Baptism Mat. 3. 11. from the Baptism of Christ assureth that Christ should Baptize with the Holy Ghost and not only with Water Now if water alone signifies or seals for there is no such great difference between these as commonly is supposed and therefore the Baptism that Christ used having more in it than so it follows that it must be the efficacy and grace of the Holy Spirit And they who take notice of this argument to answer that the difference between Johns Baptism and that of Christ here prophesied of consists in this That Johns was an outward washing Christs an inward doth confirm what I said For surely this inward being invisible can be no outward sign or seal whose natures are to be visible and apparent And therefore it must be that Baptism of Grace wrought in the inward man And doth Christ when he saith Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is Baptized Mark 16. 16. shall be saved doth he mean no more than It is a sign he shall be saved Or he hath his salvation which came onely by believing sealed unto him Or are they not rather equally conjoyned to the same effect Salvation So that no more can a man expect to be saved by believing without being Baptized than he can by being Baptized without believing And this is manifest from the Baptism of Infants which puts tham into a state of salvation even before actual faith in them Again Being born of Water and the Holy Ghost of which Christ John 3. 5. speaks in St. John meaning thereby Baptism must needs be more than certain indications and signs of life Christ sayes there expresly we are born by Water and not that we are known to be born by Water only And where as Calvin with diverse followers of the Reformation presume to interpret this Water as elswhere Fire of the Holy Ghost and not of the proper Element Water I make no scruple to accuse them of extreme insolence for so doing as well because they needlesly and more immodestly oppose the unanimous consent of the Ancient Interpreters expounding it of Water-Baptism than I do contradict them whom I alwayes set in a lower form to them as also because the thing it self declares the contrary sense to be more agreeable to the mind of the Holy Ghost For Water and the Holy Ghost are put here not exegetically as they speak but distinctly as two several things concurring to the same end For though John in St. Matthew addeth to the Holy Ghost Fire as Water is in S. John Acts 2. 3. seeing there is found a real and proper verification of this baptism of fire which was at the day of Pentecost when the Apostles and Disciples were visited with fiery Tongues from above there is no necessity of fleeing to a meer metaphor and if there be none here there is none in that place where water is joyned with the Holy Ghost And reading no where that even the Holy Ghost appeared in the likeness of water we are constrained to take this properly of external water Furthermore when an effect is ascribed to a thing why should we make doubt to ascribe an efficacie or agencie to that reputed Cause But to Baptism is ascribed remission of sins as Acts 2. 38. Repent ye saith St. Peter Acts 2. 3â— and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins c. And elsewhere in the Acts God commandeth St. Paul Arise Acts 22. 16. and be baptized and wash away thy sins Can any thing but a fond partiality to the new glosses of Modern Divines incline any man to think otherwise of Baptism here than of force to take away sins Here they demand with a Passion What Ex Opere Operato From the work of Baptism done I answer The work done of it self is not thus efficacious as is said but the Co-operation of the Holy Spirit which God hath set over that work and its influence effecteth thus much Lastly The Introducers and Defenders of this opinion of the ineffectualness of the Sacraments allowing an efficacie to excite and nourish Faith which with them does all things why should they be so nice and timorous in granting another effect of the same nature For to encrease and confirm Faith being a spiritual effect is as much in nature as washing away sins or communicating new Graces I see no difference worth the noting besides that from themselves and an illaudable pronity to vary from Tradition expounding holy Writ where wit and wantonness of Judgment can find the least footing to stand out against Antiquity But whereas some argue for the efficaciousness of Baptism and the other Sacraments out of Reason and some out of Reason argue against it it is hard to see how either side can attain their ends seeing whatever efficacy the Sacraments have they derive from the Institution of God which Institution can be no otherwise known to us then from his word and therefore as Divine reason proceeding upon Scripture grounds may inform us we may conclude and no otherwise Wherefore they argue very prophanely and according to Scripture grounds ridiculously
A great Acts. 6. 8. company of the Priests were obedient unto the Faith That is believed what was Preached by the Apostles And yet more expresly St. Pauls phrase to the Romans declares this where he saith But unto them that Rom. 2. 8. are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath For no man can so properly be said to Obey as to Believe a truth But that distinction of greatest moment to the illustrating of many obscurities and solving many doubts arising to Christian Readers out of the Scripture and especially St. Pauls Epistles is that of Faith into the Doctrine of Faith or Object and in sum the whole New Covenant as manifested in the New Testament And the Act and Grace of Faith in a true Believer The former is that which we are required to believe The latter signifies the inward propension to the receiving the things so manifested in the Gospel And is again subdivided into Faith complexly or generally taken and specially that as comprehending the whole duty of a true Believer and all Christian Graces flowing from that Fountain and built upon that Foundation This as distinct from the two other Theological Graces Hope and Charity of all which St. Paul treateth distinctly in his first Epistle to the Corinthians concluding his thirteenth 1 Cor. 13. 13. Chapter thus And now abideth Faith Hope and Charity And that Faith is taken for the Doctrine of Faith or of Christ revealed in the Gospel is Acts 6. 7. very plain and very necessary to be noted as in the place to the Romans even now touched where as Obedience is taken for the act of believing Faith is taken for the Gospel it self And in the same Book it is written that Felix sent for Paul and heard him concerning the Faith in Christ that Acts. 24. 24. suâ—â—â—y was the Gospel or Doctrine of Christ or through Christ And St. Paul to Timothy Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times 1 Tim. 4. 1. some shall depart from the Faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils Where Doctrines of Devils is opposed to Faith the Doctrine of Christ And in the Acts Elimas is said to seek to turn away the Governour Acts. 13. 8. from the Faith And so Act. 14. 22. And Faith is not only so taken for the Gospel as opposed to Gentile but Jewish works and worship or the Law of Moses and that most frequently in St. Pauls Epistles as shall appear more plainly by and by In the mean time here preparing grounds for a more important disquisition it will not be amiss to note other supposed kinds of Faith of which four are vulgarly by modern Divines pitch't upon as of a quite different nature and form They are Historical Faith Temporarie Faith which last but for a season Miraculous Faith seen in working of miracles All which terms of Faith I without any more adoo grant to have ground in Scripture as so many distinct Acts but not kinds of Faith They are very unadvisedly distinguished as several Species because several events or effects they may be all brought under that of Justifying Faith not as Species under their Genus but as parts are reduced to the whole or degrees inferiour to the highest For undoubtedly Historical Faith as they call it whereby a man gives a general Credence or assent to what is delivered in Scripture is a degree and good step to that called Justifying Faith and there is no Justifying Faith without it And so are the Acts of a Temporary Faith and Miraculous Faith acts of a Justifying Faith For as for the temporariness or failing it distinguishes Christian Faith neither from Gentile nor Jewish belief nor true from false but only as to the Event that the one continues and comes to perfection and the other comes to untimely end Which puts no more difference between the Justifying and not Justifying Faith then the untimely death of a child does distinguish him from a man which is in growth not in nature according to which all good distinctions ought to be made For if nothing be wanting to the denominating this failing Faith a Justifying and saving Faith but duration how can they be thus reasonably distinguished And as to the Faith producing miracles it is the very same in nature with that which was required by our Saviour Christ to have miracles wrought upon them that were by him miraculously cured than which nothing occurs more frequently in the Gospels and is an act of Justifying Faith as supposing the belief of Christ according as the Gospel describes him which as it shall be shewed presantly is the true Justifying Faith For as Christ himselfe saith in St. Mark No man shall do a Mark 9. 39. Miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me So that by Faith in Christ such miracles being wrought who can denie it to be the effect of a Justifying Faith But that which may have deceived men is an opinion That what ever proceeds from a Justifying Faith must needs proceed from it as it justifies For in truth Miracles or the gift of the working them is not that which commends us to God to our justification but to men and Graces rather than Gifts both Sanctify and justify Yet this hinders not but Justifying Faith may be the spring from whence that Gift proceeds and so not opposite to it But it is here commonly said That Heathens and Reprobates may have the three sorts of Faith here opposed to Justifying Faith But I must crave leave to denie and declare their errour herein For It is a contradiction to say A man can so much as Historically believe all the Gospel and yet continue an Infidel The Devil therefore believing as St. James tells us for his words are much stood upon in this Case is no Infidel And yet he nor prophane Believers and reprobates are not true Christians not because they have nothing faithful in them but because this good ground and Justifying Faith Inchoate being as the Schools speak unformed and destitute of a proportion of Charity and obedience never increases to act or reap fruits of Righteousness which is to â—e Justified And Reprobates Faith may be true Faith so much as they have of it and so long as they hold it For God forbid that their Faith should make them Reprobates It is their want of Faith in perfection and perseverance that so distinguishes them For were not that Faith true real and and saving which they have or had they might be damned for having no Faith at all but they cannot be damned for not continuing and growing in that Faith as the Scriptures assure us some shall And no more at presant needs here be alledged than what St. Peter at large delivereth 1 Epistle C. 2. V. 13 14. 15. 20 c. Some add hereunto an Hypocritical Faith which indeed must needs be quite of another kind but what
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
Justification Just as much as the fair gay train of a Peacock to the bird that draws it after it make a fine show and that is all that we know of But the difficulty is yet very strong behind And that is seeing it is granted that some Faith in Christ is Justifying and some is not Justifying whence comes this about Is it not because one is a lively and operative Faith and the other is drie and unactive and unfruitful So that Faith which is said to Justifie is it self first Justified by its works For though as hath been said Faith doth absolutely produce good Works and not good Works Faith yet good Works are they in which its goodness consists next unto its object Christ and consequently render it Justifying actually And whereas they would evade his and elude St. James's autority by distinguishing the Cause and Sign of our Justification saying That we are Justified only by Faith effectivè effectually but by works as St. James saith ostensivè declaratorily as signs that we are Justified it is a sense meerly obtruded upon the Apostle there being no more grounds or occasion given by St. James why they should understand him that works justifie only declaratorily than are given by St. Paul that I should interpret that Justification which he ascribes to Faith to be only Declaratorily For though Faith received in the mind is not apparent yet when it is professed then it may be said no less to declare our Justification then good works as the Scripture it self testifies saying With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. 10. i. e. to the doing of works of righteousness which proceed from a true Faith and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation CHAP. XX. Of the Special Notion of Faith and the Influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith Solitary and Onely Of a Particular and General Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our Justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some Ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works Justifie ALL this while we have treated of the complex notion of Faith or at least as it is that first general Grace whereby we are inserted into Christ and justified by it together with its blessed retinue of subordinate Evangelical Graces which are reduced to these three Faith Hope and Charity where Faith standeth by its self and is a peculiar Grace of it self and hath in this acceptation a more then common prerogative attributed unto it in order to our Justification or the bringing us to Christ and partaking of Christ For that is it whereby we are only properly justified and all Graces serve for no other end here than to adopt us for the benefit of Justification through Christ and for Christ's sake alone So that no man can as yet complain That though I derogate somewhat from the vertue and value of Faith in reference to our Justification as it is explained by moderner Divines some I mean I do not in the least detract from the sufficiencies freeness and absolute necessity of Christ's Merits and Grace towards us Yea I establish it nay I augment and commend more the Free Grace of God then do they who have chose another way to express it For all this while I do not compare Works with Christ nor Hope nor Charity nor Obedience with Christ as is plain but I compare now one Grace with another and Faith simply considered with the obedience of Faith For Faith taken as in general for the embracing of the Fundamentum ergo esi justitiae Fides Ambr. Offic. Lib. 1. cap. 29. Lib. 2. cap. 2. Habet vitam aeternam fides quia est fundamentum bonum Habet facta quia vir justus dictis factis probatur c. Id. de Basilicis non Tradendis Fides quae est justitiae fundamentum quam nulla bona opera praecedunt sed ex qua omnia procedunt ipsa nos à peccatis nost◠is purgat c. Prosper Lib. 3. de Vita Contemplativa cap. 21. Fides est omnium bonorum fundamentum humanae salutis initium c. August in Vigilia Pentecostis whole Body of the Gospel hath this undoubted prerogative to be the Grace of all Graces the Mother of all the Fountain from which all flow and as the Fathers generally do justifie because it is the foundation of all access to Christ Which assertion of theirs however later Wits have slighted and contemned as not giving Faith its due in order to our Justification doth in my opinion with much greater perspicuity and simplicity and soundness express its proper office then those newly invented and several distinctions and sub-distinctions confunding rather than setling the judgment of a good Christian And first They ascribe this virtue of Justifying to a special Faith Then they say this Faith doth not justifie as a Work or Act but Grace Then they proceed to affirm That not as a principal cause but only as an instrument created by God in the heart to that end And yet farther Not as an Instrument active and operative but as an Instrument rather receptive and passive as appears by the example given of an Hand which is no true cause of an Alms given but yet it properly receives it But first What a disorder must these multiplyed niceties needs breed in the minds of the simpler sort who are not able to comprehend them and so are brought into great troubles of conscience whether their Faith be directed to Christ under the true relation it ought to bear How much more clear and easie is that Doctrine that teaches First That neither our Faith nor Works proceeding from thence can avail any thing without Christ and that all their sufficiencie is of Christ And next That this Faith and good Works do but qualifie us according to the Free Covenant of Grace for Christ Secondly If it be denyed as in truth it is That Faith is any more an Instrument whether active or passive or a Hand as it is called to lay hold especially in another kind of Christ than Hope or Charity I do not find how they can prove it For I may and do yield a greater degree of vertue in Faith special well founded on God than in other Graces distinct from it but I do not yield that this is the Faith properly by them contended for For It is a mixt compound Grace consisting of Hope and Love which they call Fiducia Confidence and resting upon God This indeed is a special Grace as considered in subordination to the general Grace whereby we assent and submit to the Gospel of Christ but it is not special as distinct from other co-ordinate Graces with it Calvin Inst Petrus Mart. Lo. Com. class 3. cap. 4. num 6. But what manner of Faith say they do we suppose that which goes so ill attended alone First I suppose there is such a Grace distinct from others and that which was set up against
require as absolute Righteous internal and external as man is able to attain to in this world and as the Law required though nor so as if without it there were no possibility of Salvation though for want of it there be a merit of dammation but the rigour is qualified and remitted to us upon the intuition of Christs merits who interposeth for us with God not to exempt us in any kind from any imaginable part or degree of Holiness competible to us but to mitigate and remove the displeasure of God justly conceived against us for not being perfect For it no wayes follows That because such a small proportion of Holiness shall be accepted and such a vast proportion of wickedness shall be forgiven and passed over through Gods free Grace in Christ therefore by the general tenour of the Gospel God requires no more of the one nor less of the other For if the Gospel be as sure it is a more holy Law than that of Moses Is it not so because it requires of those under it greater Holiness A third difference I find is That the Law promiseth Life upon condition of Works but the Gospel upon condition of our committing our selves to Christ by Faith This is very ambiguously spoken and inclining to a very bad sense For what Life and what works are we here to understand It is shewed above how ill-agreed wise Interpreters are Whether any life besides this present is promised by the Law as Mosaical and not Evangelical and with this imitation I profess the Negative Part. Again What works Are we not to understand Works brought in and appointed by Moses To these works are promised indeed Life answerable to thom i. e. temporal and no more But he that saith we attain Life by committing our selves to Christ by Faith doth certainly mean Life spiritual and eternal which vast diversity in the end and reward quite nulls the comparison And besides how by committing our selves to Christ by Faith So as that works of the Gospel and Faith should be laid aside Yes say they as to our Justification though not to the commendation and approbation of our Faith But the vanity of this we have already discovered where we have proved that there is no promise made to us under the Gospel of being justified by Faith that the works of Faith may not be as instrumental to our Justification and Salvation as the Act of Faith so much presumed upon and that the one is as derogatory to the fulness and freeness of Christs Grace and Gods Mercy as the other and no more A fourth difference is That the Law was written in Tables of Stone but the Gospel in the Tables of the Heart Jerem. 31. 33. 2 Corinth 3. 3. This hath a true sense and therefore may pass though lyable to just exceptions as taking the Scriptures in a sense scarce intended Fifthly They say The Law was instill'd into our Nature at our first Creation But the Gospel was above nature and given after the Fall But we are not to distinguish the part from the whole nor the inchoation of a thing from its perfection The Gospel was in more particulars of agreeing with the Law of Nature then the Law of Moses and given in substance before the Law of Moses and 't is these two whose differences are sought after at present In the sixth place it is rightly said that Moses was the Mediatour of the Old Law and Christ of the New by which they explain themselves That by Law they mean Moses his Law For Moses was not the Mediatour of the Law natural but Adam rather And truly in the seventh place it is said The Law was dedicated by the blood of Beasts but the Gospel by the blood of Christ But the conclusion to these viz. That the two Testaments the Law and the Gospel are two in nature substance and kind is so far only true as the Law is taken precisely for that introduced by Moses and not concretely and conjoyntly with that Covenant made between God and Adam after his Fall CHAP. XXXV Considerations on the Sacraments of the Law of Moses Of Circumcision Of the Reason Nature and Ends of it Of the Passover the Reason why it was Instituted Its Vse VVHAT is now said of the nature and distinction of the Covenants made between God and Man do serve much to the clearing of the Nature and Number of Sacraments here to be explained briefly For all Sacraments properly so called are of a Foederal nature between God and Man And this covenanting made by God and Man is signed sealed and confirmed by these Sacraments And therefore according to the variety of these Covenants is also the variety of the Sacraments unless we except that most ancient Covenant of all between God and Man before his Fall For while man retained those connatural Graces bestowed on him by God he needed no such outward helps as Signs and Sacraments to contain him in due obedience to him nor such signs of Gods promises to him being able to act more spiritually freely and perfectly then now But upon the disabling of his inward man by sin once committed and the hebetation of his mind it was no less than necessary that by his outward senses occasion should be offered to the increase of his knowledge fear love and faith in God which is done by the mediation of Sacraments instituted by God and these diversified according to the variety of the Oeconomie it pleased God to use to the World For under the Law of Nature before Moses or Abraham men stood obliged to serve and worship God And in this condition the Sacrifices given to God and Oblations were of the nature and force of Sacraments For whether by light of nature or by special precept men offered Sacrifice to God it is apparent that was rather a signal to testifie their revering his Majesty and duty to him than any actual absolute worship and to insinuate an absolute Dominion and Right God had to our own lives in that instead of them which were forfeited to God by sin we offered Beasts slain to him and to all things in the World in that was exhibited to him so far as might be and returned that which was received from him But to these before Abraham was added that of Circumcision and afterward that of the Passover But we must note that these two Sacraments as they were not originally or from the beginning instituted of God so neither to all men nor for all times And this will appear from the particular occasions taken and reasons rendered of their Ordination For when God commanded Abraham to circumcise his Son and himself and all the Males of his Family it was no sign at all of any thing of general concernment to mankind or of the Messias simply which was before promised but it was a sign only that the Messias should proceed out of his Loyns and Seed which was an extraordinary honour and singular priviledge conferred
That grace is the cause of such special acts of God Neither doth any prevision in God of acceptation of grace of complyance with and obedience to Gods will move to Elect or Call any man and that upon that sure ground of Thomas because Thom. 3. Q. 2. 11. c. there can be no possible way of meriting without Grace for Grace is the first Principle or beginning of all merit and nothing can be a cause or so much as conduce to its own being But the inclining of God to such a thing must come under the notion of meriting or to speak more agreeably to our ears doing well before God And therefore they much more truly may be said to be the direct cause of Grace And this not as some Pelagian Hereticks supposed at last by constraint of argument for the more ready and easie operation of mans will but simply to will that which is good Nay St. Austine saith and that truly the same of mans Understanding De Spir. Litera ca. 7. as Will. For he holds forth his mercy not because they do know but to the end they may know Neither because they are of a right heart but that they may be right of heart doth he hold forth his Righteousness whereby he justifieth the ungodly So that provision of good Works or Faith as the reason inclining God to confer Grace simply is altogether inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures and the freeness of Gods grace asserted plentifully therein But there is another and farther tearm of Gods Predestination Election and Vocation which is to his Kingdome of Glory and the Reward not of the merit but work of Faith and Holiness And to these no doubt but we are ordained and elected and called as the end by those means This is that St. Paul intended in that place to the Romans above quoted and in the second chapter telling us God will render to every man according Rom. 2. v. 6. 10. to his deeds and glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles Christ tells us in the twentieth chapter of St. Matthew that to set on his right hand and on his left in Matth. 20. 23. Matth. 25. 34 35 36 37 38. his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared and in the 25th who they are for whom it is so prepared from the foundation of the world viz. the Righteous and moreover who are the Righteous namely such who abounded in good works there particularly mentioned And to this may be referred most of those speeches at large falling from the most eminent Fathers of the Church before the time of Austine wherein they affirm that God elected some and not others upon the fore-sight of good works in them and obedience others rejecting for their disobedience Thus spake Origen thus Chrysostome Nazianzene Ambrose and Hierome too who wrote as expresly as Austine against such a freedom of the will which should give any occasion to God to confer his first Grace on man all meaning no more than the election of man to glory upon the intuition of Grace Now if this opinion should be strained to the highest it would not rise to this that God did choose any man simply and primarily for his works sake or his faith fore-seen for as is shewed God elected simply to that and not for that but the most may be wrung out of it is too great a propinquity to Merit But neither doth this follow seeing they who say God in such an order i. e. after grace upon such an occasion as those good works of which God is no less a principle cause than Man doth choose to confer glory on a man or ordain him to life do not say that such fore-seen works bear a proportion to such glory or reward The Scriptures which plainly affirms the former exclude the latter making it a matter of free promise in the original and the gift of God together with mans work as especially to the Romans St. Paul doth Now being made free from sin and become Rom. 6. 22 23. servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ There is nothing therefore more consonant to reason nothing better reconciles the seeming jarrs of the ancient Fathers before and about the time of Austin with that more wary and exact state and defence of the Question concerning Gods election of man upon pre-vision of Faith and Obedience alwayes including Christs obedience and merits and the freeness of his Grace in electing And nothing reconciles the Scriptures more clearly than the opinion which allows God to be the sole reason of his own will and the author of his Grace of Sanctification and Salvation also and yet holdeth such an order between these that God doth not choose any man to his free and immerited Grace of Salvation but through and upon consideration I do not say valuable and proportionable in weight and worth but in nature of the state of Sanctification going before Does not St. Paul render it as a reason why God was to be glorified in his Saints when he came to take vengeance of his adversaries Because our testimony among you was believed And did not the Master of 2 Thes 1. 10. Mat. 20. 2. the Vineyard who is Christ fore-ordain a penny to the Labourers in consideration of their labour foregoing Doth not St. James say the very Jam. 1. 12. same in these words Blessed is the man that endureth temptations for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Surely that which man promiseth upon a condition he doth not ordinarily bestow before that condition be performed but ordains it to follow upon it And to the same purpose speaks St. John too in the Apocalypse Be thou faithful unto death and I will Rev. 2. 10. give thee a Crown of life But perhaps they think there remains some force in Calvins argument still against this and that God must be obnoxious to that imprudence that ordinary men are not if he did not first propound the end and then make all means to conform and conduce to it so that man should first be ordian'd to his end of glory or misery before he is All this I grant and yet grant them nothing and this is all they are like to get from confounding the inward and secret acts of God with his outward or the Decrees of God with the execution of them as Twiss notoriously doth in Twissius Animadvers in Collat. Arm. cum Jun. p. 1 2. his entrance to the Animadversions on the Conference between Arminius and Junius It is certain that God doth decree a man to his end before he is but doth he ordain him to such an end before he ordains him to
either mediately or immediately The Gift was Faith of Miracles The Faith was grounded upon the Revelation and the Revelation was that God would work such and such a Miracle when they prayed commanded or imposed hands This was invented still to drown all Christian Gifts and Graces in Faith 4. Fourthly The two Testaments the Law and the Gospel Id. ib. c. 1. P. 347. are two in nature substance and kind This I know is Calvins Doctrine and his Followers but not the Fathers nor theirs who follow them For thus writeth Lactantius The Jews use the Old Judaei veteri utuntur nos novo sed tamen diversa non sunt quia novum veteris a dimpletio esâ— in utreque Idem Testator chrisius est Lactant. l. 4. Instit c. 20. Chrysost Tom. 7. Ser. 1. p. 16. Iren. l. 4. c. 26. dem Fraeceptum timentitus Lex est amaâ—tibus gratia Aug. ad Simpl. l. 1. qu. 1. Testament we the New but yet they are not diverse because the New is the fulfilling of the Old and Christ is the same Testator in both And Chrysostom thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the New and old Testaments be divided as to time yet they are united as to their scope And before both these Irenaeus speaketh thus The Precepts of perfect life are the same in both Testaments and being the same declare the same God who urged particular Precepts agreeing with each but the most eminent and chief without which we cannot be saved are the same in both And after all these and many more Austin in sundry places affirmeth the same thing as doth our Church * Articles of Church of Eng. art 7. Voet. Select Disp part 4. de lege Evang qâ—â—aest 4. It matters therefore not much with me that Voetius wou'd rather disgrace this opinion then disprove it by saying The Socinians and such as are much of the same mind with them as the Remonstrants and Papists so hold but his Party deny it absolutely Fifthly St. James cap. 2. v. 26. understands a pretended Faith or the profession of Faith as appears v. 14 18. This doth not appear any more than it appears that such is that Faith whereby they hold they are justified Why have they why can they not to this very day assign and describe plainly either that special Act or that special Proposition or Article of Faith whereby they are justified without any works of Faith in Co-ordination to Faith or other Graces Sixthly There is no offence to say He Christ suffered the Ib. pag. 277. Also on the Creed p. 215. pains of Hell so far forth as this suffering might consist with the purity of his Manhood and with the truth of his personal union This is right Calvin Seventhly The Sacraments administred by the Second sort Id. Cases of Conscience l. 2. c 8. i. e. Private Persons having no authority ordinary is a mere nullity If this be true what becomes of the Acts of divers eminent Reformers in case it be proved they never had any Ordinary Authority or Ordination Why do not they rebaptize those who are baptized by Independents whom they must confess to have no Ordinary Authority or Ordination or have renounced it as some of them have professed to my self Eighthly Baptism is appointed of God to be no more but a seal Ib. p. 74. annexed unto and depending upon the Covenant Afterwards he repeats the same in a far worse manner As also on the Galatians In Gal. p. 235. Ninthly If any man binds himself by Oath to live in single Perkins Cases of Cons p. 109 110. life without marriage and after finds that God hath not given him the gift of Continence in this case his Oath becomes impossible to be kept and therefore being reversed by God and becoming unlawful it may be broken without impiety This is a device to excuse we know whom principally and leaves men at liberty to break such lawful vows under pretence that God hath denyed his sufficient Grace to keep them and they are impossible to be kept who shall determine when God denyes that Gift Every man that is tempted to break his Vow Tenthly The Vow of Regular obedience is against the word of God 1 Cor. 7. 7. ye are bought with a price be not the servants of men And why is this so rather then for subjects to vow obedience to their Governors and children to their Parents If you say because God commandeth the latter and not the former you imply that God could command contrary things for this is to be subject to man as well as that St. Paul is quite mistaken by such Scholiasts as thus interpret him Eleventhly Whatsoever wanteth conformity to the Law of God Ib. p. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nyssen Catech. O rat c 7. is sin whether it be with consent of will or no. This supposes what is false viz. that any thing can be morally evil the will altogether dissenting both as to cause in general and effect 12. Zipporah's act of circumcising her child was a sin of Toleration Ib. p. 8. So is murder divers times and is this no other 13. Second grace is nothing else but the continuance of the first grace This I wonder at as much as any thing in him who advances Quid enim debet esse incundius vel infirmis gratid qud sanantur vel pigris gratid qud excitantur vel volentibus gratrà qud adjuventur Aug. in Bonifacio Epist 106. Cases of Conscience p. 66. Grace so highly It is contrary to Austin in many places as to name no more in his Epistle to Boniface in these words distinguishing a threefold grace For what is more comfortable to the weak then grace whereby they are healed or to the sloathful then grace whereby they are quickned or to the willing then grace whereby they are helped 14. Christ knew not that the fig-tree had no figs on it till he came to it He might better have said he knows not the day of judgment till it comes The Fathers Answer to the Arrians objecting this will serve for both 15. The fourth Commandment is Moral and hath nothing Ib. l. 2. c. â—4 Ceremonial in it 16. In regard of Conscience Holiness and Religion all places Ib. p 78. are equal and alike in the New Testament since the coming of Christ The House or Field is as holy as the Church And if we pray in either of them our prayer is as acceptable to God as that which is made in the Church The contrary will appear afterward 17. All virtues that are not joyn'd with renovation and Ib. p. 335. Item Gal. 1. 5. change of Affection are no better then sins This point the Philosophers never knew No I warrant them For had they they should have known more then any good Christian as it is thus crudely delivered Austin vulgarly quoted favors it not 18. Infidels do steal and usurp the blessings of God
which we have shewed they have not as Jews and he will undoubtedly conclude against their antiquated Religion and Innovated Superstitions CHAP. VII The Christian Religion described The General Ground thereof The Revealed Will of God The Necessity of Gods Revealing himself AFTER the consideration of Religion in General and the reasonableness thereof with the Exclusion of the principal false pretenders of worshipping the true God it follows to treat of the Christian Religion and the Reasonableness and several incomparable Prerogatives thereunto proper And first it is to be known what we mean by Christian Religion and what it is Christian Religion is the worship of the only true God in the unity of nature and trinity of persons through one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ Jesus according to his Will and Laws revealed in his holy Word commonly called the Scriptures This description whether artificial enough I will not contend but full enough I suppose it is to declare as well What it is in it self as Wherein it is distinct from others And therefore omitting to treat of the more curious and formal part thereof we shall here shew briefly What great advantages it hath above any other to the obliging us to a more faithful and devout observation thereof and that this only and no other can truly please God and lead us to him and crown us hereafter with eternal bliss and glory And it having been proved that by the consent of all Nations there is a God and it following more strongly upon that ground supposed that such a Supream and Infinite being is to be worshiped and that this worship is that which we call Religion and that of the Religions pretending to be divine the others have been found vain and deficient the Right of being received as the only proper worship of God must of necessity devolve upon the Christian Religion as that which is least obnoxious to the same or like exceptions and hath many more sober and rational inducements to perswade the same to any equal judgment Which argument might well be drawn from the very Body of this Religion and the several parts whereof it consisteth together with manifold Pregnant Circumstances attending the same But because this would ask a far longer time and more tedious labour both to Writer and Reader then can consist with this intended Compendium it may abundantly suffice to give such probable and credible proofs of the Scriptures That they are the revealed will of God as Christians do believe without question For the summ and substance of all Christian religion so far as it is truly so called and professed being founded on the Holy Scriptures and there expresly contained if it be evinced that they are of divine Original it will follow That what they deliver is so likewise and consequently the Religion built upon them But because it is one Principle which Christian Religion is built upon in common with all Religions that somewhat must so be believed that no natural reason or Mathematical can invincibly demonstrate And the reason hereof is because the ground of all such demonstations is setled upon the order of Nature between Cause and Effect in point of right rather than matter of fact But that the Scriptures are so the word of God as to be revealed by his Holy Spirit to certain select Persons to that end is altogether matter of fact and that not proceeding from such a necessary and natural Agent as that according to the course of Causes and Effects it could be no otherwise but from a free Agent which certainly might have suspended such acts of Revealing his Will And the same Reason holds against all proper Demonstration from Effect For as it cannot be demonstrated that such a Cause must necessarily have such an Effect it cannot be infallibly proved that such an Effect must have such a Cause For unless it could be proved that fire must necessarily burn it could not be proved that what we see burnt must necessarily proceed from fire For before this can be don it must be shewed that nothing in the world has the same virtue but fire and this supposes that we have a perfect and exact knowledg of every thing and the nature of it in the world Take we an instance yet nearer to our present subject It is a common Maxime amongst the Schoolmen That no Creature can work a Miracle of it self but it must have the Supernatural power of God either immediately or mediately and That whatsoever Effects are wrought by any Spirit inferiour to God deserve not the name of a Miracle And yet it is confessed withall that diverse such works which appear to us as extraordinary and above nature are not of God but some perhaps evil Creature Must it not then first be known what those extraordinary acts are and how they are wrought before it can be concluded that they are of God And how can this infallibly be discern'd but by another miracle and this by a third a third by an infinity of which there can be no knowledg So that in truth the received doctrine of the Schools being thorowly examined the contrary will appear the more reasonable of the two and that we must rather first of all acknowledg a Divine Power precedent and effecting this extraordinary stupendious work before we may call it a Miracle than first admit this to be a Miracle and then and thence infer a Divine Power So that it seems very difficult and dubious to make scientifical conclusions of any thing divine And that after all there may be sufficient presumptions to render a thing credible without lightness and rashness yet the Arguments perswading shall not be so pressing and cogent but due place should remain for a Faith or assent which may not be properly humane and natural which it must needs be if it proceeded simply from sense or reason natural but divine and an admirable temperament be found in that we call The true Christian Faith wherein the Grace of God inwardly moving and inclining the Will to embrace that to which it might notwithstanding all reasons to the contrary not altogether unreasonably have dissented and yet with reason doth assent the Grace of God pulling down 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into Captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ As St. Paul excellently saith speaking of the carnal warfare of humane ratiocinations either for or against Divine Faith and Doctrine which have no might but through God as he suffers by his justice the reasonings and eloquence of men to take place against his doctrine or to prevail towards the receiving of the truth by the superadded Power of his Holy Spirit as to this end St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians thus And my speech and my preaching was not 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. with enticing words of mans
wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your Faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Signifying unto us that the power of God is no more than necessary to concur with humane reason to the heightning it to such great effects though the Grace of God be all sufficient of it self to produce such effects without yea contrary to such reasons as humane Philosophy or Eloquence can minister to a man And this I have held not unnecessary to be premised to this great difficulty of asserting and evidencing the Scriptures to be the word of God as well ingenuously to profess there appear no such convincing reasons to prove the same as some make shew of and promise as to discover the error of such who would have Christian Religion to stand upon humane Faith For if Christian Faith be built upon the Scripture as is most undeniable and the assurance we have that the Scriptures are the word of God can be absolutely wrought by outward reasons which cannot be drawn from the Scriptures being supposed at present under question certainly all our Faith must hang upon the veracity and certainty of such Reasons Therefore must this middle way be chosen to acknowledg such prerogatives even of outward reason preparing and disposing mens hearts that no other Religion or writing can lay any tolerable claim to and yet such as shall stand in need of a divine concourse to perfect the same to the nature of a truly divine and Christian assent and Faith Now the foresaid preparatory and justly inclining motives may be these following peculiar to the Scriptures The first thing then which must be supposed in this case is that which all Religions and even common Reason require that it is the will of God that some of mankind should be saved that is become blessed and happy after this Life is ended in heaven But this cannot be supposed without due obedience and worship given unto that great and bountiful Creatour and Saviour and this Obedience or worship cannot be given unto God in a manner acceptable to him unless this manner be first of all known unto man and this cannot Vid. Thomam 1. â—â— q. 1. 1 cor be known unless God teaches him that knowledg And this teaching of him must either beby inward or outward Revelation Inward Revelation is the natural endowment of the understanding given by God unto Man enabling him to judge of things and this all People equally share in not that there is a necessary equality or so much as disposition to knowledg in all men but that no order of People are denied this benefit which some persons stir up and improve to a more high and excellent degree of knowledg yet not so but we see many persons and almost people so degenerate as not to perceive those things which conduce necessarily to the ends of common humanity and civility Therefore God at first in creating of man purposely instituted him least the greatest part of his own workmanship and that by his own intention should miscarrie in the due ends of being or the defects of him originally redound on himself To determine this more accurately is the office of some other place only this may suffice here to note that man apparently being defective in this so necessary a point standeth in need of some supply to perfect him in it divine inward Revelation failing him generally even in matters of an inferiour nature to devine worship Wherefore that his will be cleared and revealed outwardly which inwardly is obscured and corrupted is necessary to the foresaid ends And therefore that the Word of God which is received by Christians as proceeding from him and a Declaration of his Will to mankind is to be made appear so far as it may be credible to an indifferent and imprejudicate mind and serve the ends for which it was ordained of God viz. Instruction of man in the mind and will of God and leading him unto eternal happiness CHAP. VIII More special proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several Reasons IT coming to the same end to prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Religion built upon them to be of God we shall here endeavour to give farther evidence of both together in this order First If the Scriptures and Christian Religion have been preserved and asserted by God himself it is plain that they proceed originally from God For as the Scripture telleth us not without the assent of rational men Whatsoever plant God hath not planted shall be rooted out Mat. 15. 13. But God hath specially and wonderfully owned and maintained the Doctrine of the Scriptures therefore by his appointment were they ordained For it is a Rule in Natural Philosophy which holds no less true in Supernatural We are nourished and conserved by those things of which we consist Neither is it probable that God should give any direct countenance to that as Divine which is forged and counterfeit But we see that whereas many eminent and Learned mens Works highly approved and applauded have perished the Holy Scriptures have been preserved entire And this attestation of God to them hath been more apparent in the concomitant Acts and Miracles wrought by Christ the immediate Author of them and his Apostles and Servants under him Christ saith expresly My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me This he thus proves elsewhere Joh. 7. 16. Joh. 10. 25. Joh. 14. 11. The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me And again Believe me for the very works sake And again If I do not the works of my Father believe me not From all which fair dealing it appears that Christ Joh. 10. 37. intended not to impose a groundless and reasonless Faith upon the world but to commend such an one as had such competent demonstrations as that subject was capable of or the like Moral things Now that such miracles were wrought by Christ and that not by sleight of hand after the manner of cunning Impostours the Effects themselves in himself and which is much more his Followers and Servants in his name is matter of Credit as much as any thing delivered unto us in humane Histories Besides Christs Apostles professed they delivered nothing but from God and Christ to us and this they prosecuted with many and great difficulties dangers distresses and generally with the loss of their very bloud cheerfully poured out and their lives prodigally spent in that testimonie that no men of reason or common sense would have gone through so much dry service but upon a divine impulse and assurance of the truth they delivered an expectation of an everlasting reward for it Here therefore both Jews and Gentiles enter their Caveat and affirm That what Christ did was by indirect means of Evil Spirits Some Jews specially
than guide or promote men in the knowledge of Scripture it self which naked would be better understood and resolved on then with them Fifthly The seeming opposition and contradiction in Scripture are no little impediments to the setling of mens minds in the knowledg of them Sixthly a Sixth difficulty will be The distinguishing of things Judicial Ceremonial and Moral so far as to be assured How far it is lawful to use or necessary to refuse what is prescribed by Precept or example in the Old Testament Seventhly To name no more The several various Lections may much offend the simplicity of such who shall not be well inform'd concerning the substantial integrity of Divine writ And all these I recite to no other end than to flacken the precipitancy and cool the impetuous and presumptious heat of such who the less able they are to examine and judge the more confident they are to conclude out of Scriptures what they phansie and like best refusing the outward and ordinary means of receiving the true sense upon indeed a certain truth That Gods Spirit is the best interpreter of its own Laws and God is able to direct them in the sober use of them but a most unsound and unsafe inference from hence that God doth or will so assist them when they neglect those sober outward means he hath no less ordained to that end then the former Of which means we are in the next place here to treat CHAP. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to Interpret it decisively The Spirit not a Proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined THE Opinion That all things necessary to salvation are plainly enough delivered in Scripture is pious and reasonable enough taken with its due qualifications and limitations namely of Persons of Times of Places and such like For of things supposed to be necessary all are not to all men alike necessary no not to the same man at all times For there are some Articles of Faith that are sufficiently explained and propounded to him others are not so and therefore in relation to such a person not so necessary to be explicitly believed Again some points of Religion are necessary to be received for their own sakes after due proposal others are necessary to be received for the sake of others and so imediately only necessary The Articles in the Creed of the Apostles are most of the former sort to be for their own sakes believed But the Articles of the Church and its power and autority which I take not to be mentioned in the Creed as most do are necessary for the preservation of the true Faith it self For without the use and receiving of Discipline there can be no Church properly so called as may hereafter be prooved and without a Church there can be no long continuance of Faith Therefore from hence it is not difficult to null the pretensions of some ranck Disputants who lay it as a Principal foundation and so reasonable that it scarce needs any thing but clamours and out cries to make it take effect on them that shall dare to reject it That nothing is necessarily to be offered to the Faith of any or to be by him received which is not expressed in holy writ For in holy writ it is necessary to observe and obey such as are set over us in the Lord so far as we are not convinced that they determine or impose any thing contrary to the word of God And for ought doth appear it is as necessarily required that we should depend upon our Guides in the Church for the due meaning of the Scriptures as upon the suggestions of Gods Spirit which refuseth not but requireth such outward means concurring with its direction For nothing can be more absurd or vain than simply to depend upon divine intimations of Gods Spirit because it is all sufficient of it self to such purposes For it is not only sufficient to them but to all other as well divine as natural ends and yet to so rest on it as to neglect or pass over contemptuously other meanes is rather to provoke God to denie the ordinary assistance of it For God doth not act in the world according to his power but according to his Will and Promise made unto us It is true that Christ hath promised in St. Mathew Whatsoever ye ask in my name believing ye shall receive and Math. 21. 22. by St. Luke more expresly If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts Luk. 11. 13. unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him These and such like promises of being invested with Gods blessed Spirit must not be so absolutely understood as that all who simply crave it should forthwith certainly be therewith endowed because St. James as other places of Scripture explains and restrains this large promise according to the Oeconomie or more general tenour of the Gospel i. e. That we ask aright and believing which whether we in prayer do duly observe may be well doubted of us though we doubt not of the Thesis it self or Rule That he that asketh aright shall receive And besides these are senses in which such promises are truly verified and Gods Spirit truly given and yet not a full importment of all the graces which flow from it For they who at first were called to the Faith of Christ and baptized were indued with the holy Spirit and yet not presently instated in the discerning of all the mysteries of Christian Faith but still depended upon the Prophets and Apostles and interpreters of Gods will for the attaining of his will even revealed in General For according to the known distinction there are spiritual Gifts signally so called and spiritual Graces And some men may receive the influence of Gods Spirit in the way of Grace which sanctifies the will and affections and not of Gifts which illuminates the mind and understanding and that not only to the use of things absolutely necessary to our Salvation but to the benefit of others Add hereunto That notwithstanding the Spirit is so sufficient of it self and God doth grant it to them who ask it of them We know that generally it is not granted to any but in the way which Christ ordained the same and that was that first it should descend as it also did immediately and primarily upon the Church representative or Ruling who were then his Apostles and holy Disciples and in like manner is it still to be expected soberly through the mediation of such as are by Christ set to govern the Church and rule under him herein succeeding the Apostles and not immediately and by a leap from the head to the lowest members which though it may be yet is so rarely
private reason perswade him That he hath found out the truth and yet at the same time assure him That he is no less fallible than another man and therefore may possibly embrace and hug a false conception with as much fondness as a true and withal That private Judgements are not in themselves so safe as publique nor single as many What violence were this to his reason nay how much more rational than the first simple Act to comply with the Reason of others whom reason also requires to listen to and obey and Scripture much more From hence we may rightly conclude against both extremes in these days who yet agree in this very ill-grounded opinion That there must be an Infallible Director or Judge or we cannot submit to them in matters of Faith and our Salvation This is absolutely untrue both in humane and divine matters Who sees not indeed that it were to be wished for and above all things desired Who sees not the great inconvenience for want of such a standard of opinions as this But can we rationally conclude therefore that so it is Or hath God or ought he of his necessary goodness and wisdom as some have ventured to affirm to grant all things that are infallibly good for man Is it not sufficient that a fair though not infallible way is opened to attain the truth here and bliss hereafter but every one must find it Is it little or no absurditie That infinite never come to means of truth and so great that many who enjoy them do not receive the benefit by them Again Are good manners and virtues no less essential to Salvation than Faith and is there no infallible Judge of manners Is there no infallible Casuist And must there be of points of Faith How many have the infallible Rule of holy Life and yet mistake either in the sense or application of it so far as to perish in unknown Sins And yet none have to prevent that great and common evil call'd for an infallible Censour whose determinations might settle doubtful consciences in greatest safety and silence all apologies which are wont to be made for our sins and errors and so bring us nec essarily to truth or leave us under self and affected condemnation But The Ground of this mistake being farther searched into will be found very weak and fallacious An infallible Faith say they must have an infallible Judge And of these some assume thus There is no man infallible Therefore no man can be Judge of Faith Others assume thus But there is and must be an infallible Faith Therefore there must be an infallible Judge So that we see both would have infallible Judges but differ only in their choice of them For The former would have the Scriptures Judge and Rule which is very honest but very simple The later would have some external Judge which hath much more of reason in it And fails only in the choice of this Judge or in the description of him For There is nothing more unreasonable than to ordain that which is under debate to be Judge of it self besides the great absurdity of confounding the Rule or Law and the Interpreter and Judge And There is nothing more fallacious than to confound Causes and occasions together as the later opinion doth For If the Church or whatever Judge may be supposed were the true direct cause of our Faith then indeed it would necessarily follow That our Faith could no wayes be infallible unless the Judge were also infallible the effect not exceeding the cause nor the Conclusion the Premises or propositions from whence it was deduced But Because the Church is only on Occasion or a Cause without which we should neither believe the Scriptures in general to be the Word of God nor any sentence to be duly drawn from the same there is no necessity at all of such a consequence For The Infallibility now spoken of is either the thing believed which is the Word of God of which the Church I hope is no Cause or the Grace of Faith excited and exercised by us through the Spirit of Grace in us the mynistery of the Church serving thereunto acording to St. Paul saying We therefore as workers together with 2 Cor. 6. 1. him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain For as in things natural He that applies Actives to Passives that is the Cause proper to the matter about which the Action is is not the proper or natural cause of the Effect but the occasion only yet is said vulgarly so to be as when a man applies fire to combustible matter he may though improperly be said to burn it when it is the fire and not he that burns it So the Church or Judge of Scriptures sense applying the same to a capable subject the effect is true and infallible Faith but it is not the effect of the Church or instrument or mean rather but of the Holy Spirit of Grace which taketh occasion from thence to produce Faith and that infallible For Were this Infallibility we now speak of the Churches then when ever the Church should so propound and urge points of Faith they must needs have an effect in the Soul For if they say The Church teaches in an humane way they say she teaches in a fallible way which overthrows all And from this is cleared that difficulty which opposeth a Judge of Scripture and Faith because none could be found infallible For not making the Judge the cause of Faith but occasion he may be necessarily required to Faith God who is the only principal cause with his holy word seldom or never concurring without those outward means And therefore though I readily enough grant That the Scriptures are so plainly written that a single simple person wanting greater helps to attain to the abstruser sence of them and using his honest and simple endeavour may easily find so much of the Rule of Faith and holy Life as to be saved by them yet I cannot say the same of any men who presuming on Gods power against his promise which includeth the use of outward meanes or mistaking his promise for absolute when it is conditional shall look no farther than their own wits shall lead them Now The outward meanes to which God hath annexed his promise of Grace may be these First That which we have here handled a general and sober submission to the Guides of our youth and our spiritual Fathers and Pastors in Christ which to forsake is the part of a wanton and fornicating Soul according to Solomon This common Reason and nature it self seem to require of all Prov. 2. 17. under Autority by the disposition of Almighty God That they in the first place hearken unto the voice and explication of the Church wherein they are educated until such time as a greater manifestation of truth shall withdraw them unwillingly from the same For so long as Senses are equally probable on both
distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith Explicit and Implicit HAving thus spoken of the Rule of Christian Faith and its Auxiliary Tradition we are now to proceed to the Nature and Acts the Effects Subject and Object of it For as all Christian Religion is summed up in one Notion of Christian Faith so all Faith may be reduced unto the foresaid Heads Faith taken in its greatest extent containeth as well Humane as Divine And may be defined A firm assent of the mind to a thing reported And there are two things which principally incline the mind to believe The Evidence of the thing offered to the understanding or the Fidelity and Veracity of him that so delivers any thing unto us For if the thing be Fides est donum divinitùs infusum menti hominis quae citra ullam haesitantiam credit esse verissima quaecunque nobis Deus per utrumque Testtradidit ac promisit Erasm in Symbolum apparent in it self to our reasons or senses we presently believe it And if the thing be obscure and difficult to be discerned by us yet if we stand assured of the faithfulness of him that so reports it to us and his wisdom we yield assent thereunto But Faith properly Divine hath a twofold fountain so constituting and denominating it The Matter believed which is not common nor natural but spiritual and heavenly But more especially that Faith is Divine which is not produced in the soul of Man upon any natural reasons necessarily inferring the same but upon a superior motive inducing unto it that is Autoritie divine and because it hath declared and revealed so much unto us as St. Peter believing Christ to be the Son of God it is said Flesh and Boood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven This Mat. 16. 17. was a divine Faith upon a double respect 1. by reason of the object Christ a divine person 2. by reason of the Cause God by whose power he believed the same it not being in the power of flesh and blood any natural reason to convince the judgement so far as absolutely to believe That Christ was so the Son of God so that to be revealed is that which makes the Faith properly divine and not the divine object or thing believed For as it hath been observed by others any thing natural and which by natural reason may be demonstrated and so must be believed by a natural Faith being also commended unto us upon divine autority or revelation may be also believed by a divine Faith That there is an invisible Deity is clearly demonstrable from the visible things of this World and accordingly may and ought to be believed upon the warrant of natural reason it self as St. Paul teacheth us saying The Invisible things of him from the Creation of the Rom. 1. 20. world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse That is If God had not revealed all this yet men ought to believe this out of sense and reason but this hinders not but this very thing should become an article of our Creed also and so because it is revealed Form in us a divine Faith But we must be aware of an ambiguity in Revelation which may mislead us For sometimes Revelation is used for the thing revealed And sometimes for the Act Revealing that which we call now The Revelation of St John and in truth all Scriptures as we have them now are the things God did reveal unto his servants but the Act whereby they were revealed or the Act revealing this to them ended with the persons receiving them And this is no superfluous or curious observation because of a received maxim in the Schools That without a supernatural act we cannot give due assent unto a supernatural object nor believe truths revealed by God without a super added aid of Grace illuminating and inclining the mind to assent thereto From whence doth follow That of all divine Faith is most properly if not only divine which doth believe that such things are Revealed of God and not That which supposes them to have been revealed by God and that he said so as is expressed unto us doth believe For this latter even any natural man and greatest infidel in the world would believe who believes there is a God it being included and implied in the very notion of a Deity that God cannot lie or deceive or affirm a thing to be which is not But the Christian Faith mounts much higher then Heathens and by the Grace of God believes that God hath Revealed such things wherein consists his Christian Faith The first thing then a true believer indeed must believe is That the Scriptures are the word of God and this as it is the most fundamental so is it most difficult of all to one not educated in the Faith of Christians because it neither can be proved by Scripture nor whatevermen who promise nothing less in their presumptuous methods then clear demonstrations may say and argue by Tradition The Scriptures though not testimonie of it self yet matter and manner may induce and Tradition fortifie that but the Crown of all true Christian Faith must be set on by Gods Grace A Second thing in order is when we believe that God hath spoken such things that we believe the things themselves so delivered to us of God For though as is said any rational heathen may well do this yet many a Christian doth it not For The foo◠not in knowledge so much as practise 〈◊〉 14. ◠◠Ti◠◠9. hath said in his heart there is no God saith the Psalmist and St. Paul that many out of an evil conscience have made Shipwrack of their Faith which really once they had A third degree of Christian Faith is When not onely we believe that God hath revealed his Law unto us and what he hath so revealed to be most faithful true and holy but obey the same For in Scripture Faith is taken for Obedience and Obedience for Faith as in the famous instance of Abraham who is said to believe God and that his Faith was counted for Righteousness And why is Abraham said to believe God so signally Because he was perswaded that God bade him offer up his Son unto him No but because he did it by Faith as is witnessed in the Epistle to the Hebrews And this acceptation of Faith is much confirmed by the contrary Heb. 11. 17. speech of Scripture in whose sense they who obey not God are commonly said not to believe him as in the Book of Deuteronomie Deut. 9. 23. Likewise when the Lord sent unto you from Kadesh-Barnea saying Go up and possess the Land which I have given you then ye rebelled against the Commandement of the Lord your God and believed him not nor hearkened unto his voice And therefore in the Acts of the Apostles it is said
saveth the observer of it but the Spirit i. e. the Spiritual Law giveth Life But if the ministration of death written and graven in Stones was glorious so that 7. the Children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his Countenance which glory was to be done away How shall not the ministration 8. of the Spirit be rather glorious For even that which was made glorious 10. had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth All this doth shew the great disparitie between the Law and the Gospel and the preheminence of This above That So be the Law in it self and for that season and for that people glorious and good yet upon the approach of the Gospel and its being in force all that perished and the works thereof no longer good works much less justifying because they were not done in Faith not in the Faith of Christ but in the Faith of Moses The principal then yea only Good works that are now of any account as to absolute acceptation at Gods hands are those which are done in an Evangelical manner Now the manner of acting thus Evangelically to the denomination of our works Good is thus described by St. Paul For by Grace are Ephes 2. 8. ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not 9. of works least any man should boast For we are his workmanship created in 10. Christ Jesus unto Good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Which certainly implieth that Grace being taken for the Gospel of Grace in opposition to the Law Christ in opposition to Moses and Faith to the belief of Moses Law we are no longer of the Old man but the New man we are created anew in Christ and that Good works from him and through Faith in him are they only that properly can be so called and to these we are fashioned and as it were created by the Gospel So that if we should describe Good works of Christians we may call them Acts done in the Faith of Christ according to the tenor of the Gospel as a Rule directing us to the manner and End of working Nevertheless though these be good and every Good and Faithful Christian stands obliged by vertue of his Holy Faith professed and the Covenant of Grace entred into with God under the Gospel and the hope of obtaining the special promises of the Gospel yet are they not in themselves Good as to the perfection prescribed by that Rule and in Justice might be exacted by God through the ordinarily inseparable defects from humane frailty so long as we are in this world And how far they avail it now follows to be examined CHAP. XV. Of the Effect of Good Works which is the Effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical SUpposing then that there are such works which both God and man esteem Good it is next to be sought into how far their Goodness does extend and of what efficacie they are or what are the Effects of them Remembring withall that here Faith is no way excluded but advanced rather seing Good works being the Effects of Faith the Effects of Good works must of necessity be likewise the Effects of Faith as the fruit ows no less to the Root which gives life and growth to the whole tree than it doth to the branch from which it immediately proceeds Yet is it here to be noted answerable to what is said before That all good works do not proceed from Faith For the works of the Gentiles have a real goodness in them and that much more than they of the Jew as they are Jewish and yet not done in Faith nor attaining to the Decorum or perfection of the Gospel and therefore frequently called sinful and no ways conducing directly to salvation or Justification as do the works wrought in Faith I say directly because as in nature a man is said to live the Life of a sensible Creature before he come to the perfection of humane nature so may there be a preparatory or previous goodness in the works of Infidels which may dispose to not merit the life or form of Faith But because the Regeneration called sometimes the Creation of the New man to shew the absoluteness and independence of the Divine power and pleasure in such Acts doth not proceed as nature doth For that which may be as predisposing is not simply requisite to the introducing the form of Spiritual Life but by the most free and powerful providence many are elected and brought to Spiritual Life without any such previous goodness And if we should grant natural or moral Justice were necessary as an Antecedent to Faith it would not follow that it were so by way of merit or disposing God to perfect that rude beginning with the accession of his Grace For we are to make a necessary difference between Preparation to Grace so much talked of For there is a preparation of a mans self or the subject which is to receive this holy impression and there is a preparation of the Agent which conferrs this by moving or inclining him to such an End I suppose the Schools and severer assertors of the Freeness of Gods Grace to which a man cannot by acts of nature dispose himself do mean the latter viz. that no man by any principle of nature or habits of virtue acquired and exercised according to the Rules of Justice and wisdom can thereby be said to have done any thing which of it self might incline God to regenerate him by his Grace For it seems to me keeping to the Rules and sense of Scripture as unlikely that a Christian should be author any more of Spiritual Life than a man is of his Natural But no man can with any sense be said to contribute to his natural Life no more can he to his Spiritual Life which is commonly called the First Grace But that the natural man living soberly Justly and temperately is not thereby in a greater readiness and less distant from the divine Grace perfecting the same were hard to affirm as well considering the method that God usually takes though not alwaies nor is bound to any is to proceed not per saltum as they say or from one extream to another on the suddain but by apt gradations as the encouragement is from hence given to immortality it self And yet as wood being orderly laid can never thereby merit or claim a kindling or as a conveiance of a great Mannor being fully and fairly drawn can never deserve nor so much as for its sake dispose the Lord whose it is to pass it away by setting his hand and seal to it so neither can any fair hand of natural works induce God to conferr on a man the State of Grace For this
Passive preparedness we speak of doth not so much as either open the eye to discover the use or benefit of Grace nor in the least incline the Will to desire it Now because the holy Fathers and especially St. Augustine and moderner Divines do speak of the Works of the Unregenerate as not only insufficient and imperfect but sinful yea sin it is very requisite to take their true meaning which cannot possibly be as if they were simply evil for then were they simply to be forborn and omitted but Synecdochically they intend alwayes to intimate a sinfulness in defect of what was due to such Actions compared with the divine Rule Or they called them Sin not so much from the nature of the Actions themselves as the inseparable evil of Commission alwayes accompanying them as was Pride and presumption upon their such laudable works as sufficing of themselves without a Saviour or Sanctifier Extraordinarie which they were either wholly ignorant of or contemptuously rejected to intitle them to exact Philosâ—phers and observers of the law of Nature wheâ—ein the blessedness of a man in this life consisted according to them and afterward to open the door of a Paradise framed to themselves Of these Good works thus mischievously attended as constantly they were in Natural men truly might be said by St. Austine on the Psalms Good works without Faith do but help Aug. in Psal 31. men to go faster out of the way And by Chrysostom sometimes speaking more than enough of the use of works preparatory Nothing without Faith is Good and that I may use such a Similitude as this they seem to me who flourish with good works and are ignorant of Gods worship to be like the Reliques of dead persons finely adorned And the voice of Scripture is so clear that there is no need to alleadg the same against the inefficacie of the best natural Acts to spiritual ends and purposes The more principal and useful enquiry then is concerning the works of the Regenerate done upon the grounds by the vertue and to the proper ends of Faith what they may avail a true Believer For that they are beneficial and that most of all to the benefactor himself Man is in a manner consented to unanimously or if it be not we shall make no great scruple plainly and stoutly to affirm so much after the holy Scriptures have so clearly and positively delivered the same as amongst many in these places Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Phil. 4. 8. whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things Those things which ye have both received 9. and learned and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you And Heb. 6. 8. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh Heb. 6. 7. oft upon it and bringeth forth Herbs meet for them for whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God But that which beareth Thorns and Briars is rejected 8. and is nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned Who sees not here that a good Christian fruitful in good works is compared to good ground which is blessed of God and evil Christians barren and unfruitful compared to ill ground next to cursing And elsewhere This 2 Cor. 9. 6. I say he that soweth the seed of good works sparingly shall reap sparingly but he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully And the Psalmist Psalm 62. 12. agreeable hereunto saith Unto thee O Lord belongeth mercy for thou renderest to every man according to his works And Jeremie rendereth it as a Jerem. 32. 19. reason of Gods greatness which is an inseparable and essential attribute of God that he is so equal in this case saying Great in Counsel mighty in work For thine eyes are open upon all the wayes of the Sons of men to give every man according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doings And yet more plainly St. Paul to the Romans speaking of God Who will Rom. 2. 6 7 8 9. render every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuing in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile I shall add but one more Text and that found in the Epistle to Titus which not only in sense but almost in terms proves what I laid down concerning the beneficialness of good works This is a faithful saying and these things Tit. 3. 8. I will that thou affirm constantly That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintein good Works these things are good and profitable unto men And so far as we now urge good Works the answer is very sufficient to that place alledged against the Effect of good Works in general Luk. 17. 10. where our Saviour saith in St. Luke And when ye shall have done all things which are commanded you say We are unprofitable servants We have done that which was duty to do To this I say it is fully answered though more might be said We are unprofitable to God our Master who commanded us to work for so saith David likewise My Goodness extendeth Psal 16. 3. not to thee but it is not said We are unprofitable unto our selves or that no good accreweth unto our selves thereby And I would to God that though no good Christian can deny the usefulness of Good works in general that do not denie the Scriptures or common sense yet they would be more firmly setled in the belief hereof than too many are and suffer this Faith to have its proper influence upon their lives which might be safely admitted and that without any offense or prejudice to the freeness of Gods grace as will yet further appear For the Effect of Good works doth not only confine it self to certain temporal blessings of this world and outward prosperties which in truth was the proper portion and promise made by God to the Jew under the Old Law so far as it was Ritual and Mosaical upon their obedience but it extendeth it self plainly to the spiritual blessings upon earth and immortal in heaven as our blessed Lord expresly teaches us in his Sermon on the mount saying Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter Mat. 7. 21. into the Kingdom of heaven but he doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven that he shall is to make no criminal addition to Scripture the sense being so plain And so St. Paul to Timothy teaches It is a
faithful 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also raign with him And is it not certainly implied that we shall receive the promises of God which are as well of Eternal and Spiritual things if we do the will of God by Faith and works of Faith when it is said Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye might Heb. 10. 36. receive the promise And I should wonder at the subtilty of Perverters of divine Writ if they shall be able to draw any other sense from the words of Christ expressing his Rule of proceeding at the day of Judgment thus Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Mat. 25. 34 35 36. foundation of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me How can any thing be spoken more plainly to make Eternal Life the reward They falsify our Tenets saying That we hold that Good works are not means of Salvation Francis White Epist. Dedie of Good works than is here spoken Or how can any man affirm that all things necessary to salvation are plainly taught and easily to be understood in Scripture and shall denie this to be plain and such good works as are here specified necessarie to salvation For to bring in any Scholie which shall elude this will do them much more mischief in other cases as leading to the corrupting all places of Scripture which they allow to be plain and rendring them altogether useless to the ends for which they are alleadged For to say only that Faith must be here understood is most true but insufficient to make the testimonie void because otherwise they were not good works And this must alwayes be retained in memory which we have before laid as a foundation That they are not the good works of natural Reason or humanity nor the good works of the Law now voided which we here in this dispute contend for but they are the works of Faith qualified with all the due conditions of the Gospel of Grace and actuated by the Spirit of Grace And here it may be useful to instance in some of those principal adjuncts which make our works truly evangelical and leading to that blessed end spoken of And here I do not make Faith so properly a condition as a cause and a common Essential foundation supposed to all Evangelical Acts as the root is not aptly termed a Condition of the fruit but the intrinsique Cause thereof But others there are very necessarie though not in the same degree such as these First that they be done in obedience to the will and command of Almighty God ordaining Good works Anew commandment John 13. 24. saith Christ I give unto you that ye love one another And how far this extends St. Paul tells us saving He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Rom. 13. â— Ephes 2. 10. And yet more expresly to the Ephesians he saith We are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them And again to the Thessalonians he saith This is the Thes 4. 3. will of God even your sanctification Secondly the merits of Christs Passion whereby we are redeemed to God and sanctified according to St. Paul to Titus speaking of Christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem Tit. 2. 14. us from all iniquitie and purisie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of Good works A third thing requisite to constitute a work Good according to the Gospel is that it proceed from a Person adopted or made a Child of God by Grace For this is required of all true Christians That they be born again of John 3. 5. Joh. 3. 9. water and the Holy Ghost And as the same author elsewhere hath it Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God A fourth is the inward Grace of God working and moving the mind to holy works and this preventing us so that we are first excited of Gods Spirit without any natural inclination of our own to do that which is the good and acceptable will of God For to this end make our Saviours words in the Gospel where he saith Without me ye can do nothing that 1 Joh. 15. 5. is no Good work answerable to the perfection of the Gospel and the promises thereof A fifth is the outward Grace of God remitting and passing over the several Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non fit agnoscitur Aug. Retract defects and blemishes adhering to Good works even of the Regenerate For then saith an holy Father truly is the Law fullfilled when what is committed amiss is pardoned And to this relate the words quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an ingredient into the Covenant of the Gospel viz. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will Heb. 8. 12. I remember no more Sixthly Perseverance in good is likewise necessarie though not to the essence of the Act done to make it Good for perseverence doth not of it self add good or evil to an action but supposes the same and continues it as it finds it yet to the reward it is absolutely necessarie Forasmuch as Gods Judgement as mans likewise is alwayes passed according to what a man actually is found to be whether good or evil and not to what a man hath been or possibly afterwards might have been For saith the word of God Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life And Revel 2. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 8. elsewhere Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Last of all to make a good Work rewardable is requisite the freeness of Gods promises made to accept the same and to reward it not for its own sake but for his sake and Christs sake And that God hath promised blessed rewards to those that work according to the tenour of the Gospel as now described doing it as his children under the protection of Christs mediation and merits to the glory of God through the operation of Gods Spirit persevering therein till God shall call them off resting not upon themselves but his promises is most undeniable and a Principle necessary to be maintained and practised by all faithful Christians doth appear from what is before alleadged And what if any thing may be is yet more cleerly asserted by Christ saying He that receiveth Mat. 10. 41. a
faithful servants For in truth this latter sense is scarce maintained or allowed by any Good Christian or if it be we shall not account it worth the expence of so much paâ—ns and time to refute them any further than the thing it self doth rightly considered For merit as is said effect is the just right that a man hath to a thing in possession of another there being no difference in such cases between what man enjoys and what he doth not enjoy but that the one is in the possession of himself and the oâ—her of another both being of right his own the one by ancient and the other perhaps by moderner purchase And this is founded upon the equity of Commutative Justice whereby one thing is exchanged for anoâ—her as about for reward such a commensurateness of the Action of a Christian being never to be found in order to the end promised For alâ— that we can do is our duty to God and not our desert And though God may have seem'd to have receeded in some manner from his original Râ—ght over us in that he stipulates with his servants and Covenants with them for such imâ—ense â—ecompence for such light labours yet this doth not extinguish his dominâ—on absolute over us nor extenuate or bring down the vaâ—ue of the reward it self so far as to ballance the account between God and man so that they should relate to one another as do Debtor and Creditor Because whether man contracts or not whether he promises or not Justice in behalf of the Servant claims a proportionable reward and a Debtor he is really though perhaps Legally he be not But between God and man theâ—e is no such natural mutual obligation before a free promise on Gods part issued out And therefore after such promise made impossible it is that any or many Acts on mans part should be commensurate to the goodness of the reward expected but it must all depend upon favour and grace For who hath pâ—evented Job 41. 11. me saith God in Job that I should repay him And St. Paul to the Romans Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of Grace but Rom. 4. 4. of debt The principal enquiry then is about the works of such as acknowledge a Freeness of promise in God as most or all Christians do what proportion they may bear to the reward so freely promised And in truth there seems no less then a contradiction after an acknowledgement of the freeness of a promise infinitely exceeding the labour or work made to impute the reward rather to the work than to the promise For he that cannot merit the cause absolutely required to the effect cannot be said to merit the Effect so that he who protests against the sufficiency of his work to merit the promise can have no tolerable pretension to merit the effect Hence it is that Paul saith against such as may glory in their works Where is boasting Rom. 3. 27. then It is excluded By what Law Of works Nay But by the Law of Faith And yet in the two more favourable and less proper senses above specified may a man without prejudice to Gods free Grace or Faith on Christ be said to merit there being more exotiqueness to Scripture Phrase and harshness to ears tender of Gods free Grace than guilt in that word For first who can denie that he is the servant of God that he is according to the vow in baptism a Souldier of Jesus Christ that he serves under him in the work of the Gospel against the world and flesh and Devil to the encrease of Grace and vertue according to Godliness This is to merit many times with the ancient without any implication of obligation upon God or Christ towards us for our service The second acceptation then is cheifly to be discussed which allows not only a service but an efficacie to Good works so far as to render them capable of such a term as Merit For there is a wide difference between a sufficiencie of a work to obtain a thing and the efficiencie The former indeed is absolute The latter not so St. Paul saying to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 6. 1. We therefore as workers together with him i. e. God doth certainly impâ—ie somewhat of activeness and efficiency by way at least of Instrument subordinate to that of God towards the great work of advancing the Gospel but he disavows a sufficiencie when he saith Who is sufficient for these 2 Cor. 2. 16. 1 Cor. 3. 5. things and when he saith Who then is Paul and who is Apollos but Ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man and so then neâ—ther is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the 7. increase No man can be a minister or instrument to another but he must act Non est tamen alienum nâ—c arrogans si etiam David remunerâ—tionem à Domino Deo suo pro egregiis latoribus posâ—ulet Praerâ—gativa est fâ—dâ—i atque justitiae de Domini favore mercidem usurpare Ambros in Psal 119. 1. Et tamen si bene cogites ipse dedit fidem primò qua cum promeruisii non enim de tuo promeruisti ut tibi aliquid deberetur c. Aug. Tract 3. in Joan. Ipsa vita aeterna quae utique in fine sine fine habebitur ideo meâ—itiâ— praecedentibus redditur quia ea merita quibus redditur non a nobis parata sunt per nostram suffâ—cientiam sed in nobis facta per gratiam etiam ipsa Gratia nuncupatur non ob aliud nisi quia gratis dâ—tur Aug. Ep. 105. â— together with him Again No man that is an instrument or minister to another can intitle himself absolutely or principally to the effect So then supposing that upon works evangelical reward certainly follows of course of Gods promise vet this glory is not to be assumed to the Instrument but Principal causes moving thereunto which are three principally arising and over-ruling a Christian The inward Grace of Gods spirit in respect of man working The Indulgence of God in remitting the rigour of the Law according to whose exactness the work is to be but seldom or never is performed And the promise of God condescending to such low and favourable terms in bestowing his rewards So that notwithstanding as is said there be certainly an efficacy which sometimes the holy Fathers call merit in Good works there is never found a sufficiencie or such a worth in the best Christians actions which may be commensurate to our Salvation For though as many of the reformed have truly spoken we be saved by our Good works we are not saved for our Good works no more then being saved and Justified by our Faith we are Justified for our Faith as shall be seen by and by So then all the merit of a true Christian consists in this That being by Faith built upon that sure and
only foundation besides which none can â—ay any other neither is there any other name under Heaven whereby a man may be saved Christ Jesus this Faith is so active and operative in holy works proceeding from it that the Person is qualified thereby according to the frankness of Gods Covenant made with him in Christ to become capable of the benefit and end of the Covenant Viz. More Grace here and fruition of Glory hereafter For notwithstanding a the sufferings no not of Martyrdom for Christ of this life are not worthy of themselves nor indeed by the accession of Gods Grace to be compared to the glory to be revealed yet may they be a means and a Rom. 8. â— way leading to the same And though b Tit. 3 5. We are saved Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renuing of the holy Ghost Yet this we are not capable of so freely but c Gal. 5. 6. by Faith working by Love Which moveth the Apostle to exhort us thus d Phil. 2. 12. My beloved as ye have always obeyed not as in my presence onely but now much more in my absence work Out your own salvation with fear and trembling And left any man should conceive amiss of the Grace of God as perfecting all things without our concurrence or should presume so far of his own strength as to judge himself able of himself to effect that it is most wisely and seasonably added e v. 13. For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Whence it is that Eternal life is termed expresly f Rom. 6. 23. The gift of God Nay moreover the means conducing hereunto next under God is acknowledged owing unto God by the same Apostle to the Ephesians g Eph. 2. 8 9. For by Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of Works least any man should boast Yet notwithstanding these and many other places of holy Scripture magnifying the grace of God are not Works of Faith excluded any more then Faith it self from their proper vertue in obtaining the promises For still the reward is not of Debt but of Mercy as some of late distinguish and yet it is not so of mercy as that Justice subsequent and conditional to the promise should be wholy exploded For what can the Scripture else intend when it saith If we confess 1 Joh. 1. 9. our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness And doth not St. Paul joyn them both together saying That Rom. 3. 26. he might be Just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Is it not here as plain as words need make it that the Apostle concerneth the justice of God in the justification of him that believeth How then can these be reconciled but by distinguishing a twofold Justice in God in reference to the work of Man An absolute or antecedent Justice before his promise freely made and a consequent conditional Justice supposing a free stipulation made by God which never could be deserved neither is deserved by the completion of the terms to which Man stands obliged to God So that St. Paul joyns them both together thus considered without any suspition of contrariety For saith he to the Thessalonians It is a righteous 2 Thes 1. 6 7. thing and that is no less then just with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you And to you who are troubled rest with us c. But some have said concerning the reward in such cases as holy faithful working promised that it is promised to the Person and not to the Work Which if it were so as upon tryal would scarce prove so what an evasion doth this prove Seeing in such cases it is most absurd to divide and oppose those two which are inseparable For God neither doth reward the work without the person neither the person without the work but the person working as the person believing Therefore when St. Paul saith in his second Epistle to Timothy I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith he declareth his holy Life and good works and when he addeth Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous or just Judge as the old Translation had it shall give me at that day and not unto me only but unto all them also that love his appearing doth sufficiently implie an inseparableness of the person from the work and that which puts the person into a capacity of the reward or Crown is the dutifulness of the person towards God So that there must of necessity be a Causality in good deeds in order to our Salvation though considering the most vulgarousness of the word merit and not the sense diluted with the abovesaid qualifications it is both immodest and unsafe to applie the same to Acts which are Good neither for their own sake nor for the Agents sake but for Christs sake and the liberal promise sake of God So that to say That Christ merited that we might merit is very improperly as well incroachingly spoken upon the Grace of God but to say That Christ merited to the end we might effectually work out our Salvation is to say no more then St. Paul intendeth in his Epistle to the Thessalonians where he affirmeth that God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain Salvation by â—â—hes 5. 9. our Lord Jesus Christ And how obtain the words going before and following speaking of good works sufficiently declare and yet shall be more fully explained in the succeeding Chapter CHAP. XVII Of the two special Effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their Agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows it WE have shewed the Effect of Faith to be Good Works we have also shewed how and in what sense the Effect of good Works is Salvation but there remains two other effects both of Faith and works of Faith here to be considered before we proceed and they are Sanctification and Justification For good Works are fruitful not only in reference to an ample and manifold reward but in Serva ergo mandata Dei-Sanctifica cor tuum ut Deus inhabitet in te Et quotidie magis magis invenies Deum Opus Imperfect in Mat. Him 4. reference to good Works as the Parable of our Saviour in the twenty fifth of Mathew plainly informs us where it is said Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents These five talents acquired to the first five cannot be interpreted the reward ultimate for that is expressed afterward to be the Joy of the Lord
his Benefits before he be in some manner actually in Christ For if all our works are Sanctified by Gods Spirit and acceptable to God only as they are done in Christ how can any such Acts lead us unto Christ or make us capable of him seeing it is one of the greatest perfections and excellencie of good Works or Faith for unless it and we be in Christ it cannot be a saving Faith i. e. leading us to Salvation to make us effectual partakers of and one with him These difficulties constrain us to distinguish both Faith and being in Christ into I cannot say properly two kinds as two eminent Periods and Degrees of Faith and being in Christ The one is initial and preparatory as a foundation which is not a distinct building from the house finished and furnished but a part of it and material Cause thereof The other is consummate and formed yet not so but addition of perfection though not of Parts may be made all mens Faith being capable of farther degrees in this life And from hence that mystical sense of our Saviours words in St. Johns Gospel may both give and receive illustration For in the sixth of John Christ hath these words No man can come unto me except the Joh. 6. 44. Father which hath sent me draw him And in the fourteenth of John he saith I am the way and the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by Joh. 14. 6. me Teaching us That notwithstanding God is the First cause to bring us to be in Christ and that by his Predestination before time and his Calling and Electing us in time to the knowledge and Faith in Christ yet he is not reconciled unto us he doth not pardon us nor justify us before Christ brings us unto him and offers us to him as a new lâ—mp and as capable of his grace and favour which obtained we are then truly justified by Christ And as there are two distinct acts of God the one of his good Providence in bringing us to the Covenant made with mankind in Christ and the other of his special Grace in accepting us through Christ being in the Covenant So are there two principal Periods as I said of being in Christ and the First is when we are taken within the Covenant of the Gospel of Grace by baptism whereby we are made members of Christs mystical Body and inheritours of the Kingdom of Heaven Not that immediately and necessarily All baptized persons are sure to go to heaven but all baptized persons are thereby put into a capacity and Right to heaven To this St. Paul Gal. 3. 27. to the Galatians gives us his fair suffrage saying For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ And the same is implied in this his salutation Salute Andronicus and Junias my kinsmen and my Rom. 16. 7. fellow Prisoners who are of note among the Apostles who also were in Christ before me Where doubtless these persons are said to be in Christ before St. Paul because they were baptized and made profession of Christ before St. Paul And so when he speaks of the Churches of Judea which are in Christ Gal. 1. 22. he meaneth no more than such who were become of Jews Christians in Judea not intending that every one who so professed Christ should be infallibly Justified and saved by Christ as they shall who are arrived to the more perfect state of being in Christ of which the Apostle thus speaketh to the Colossians Whom Christ we preach warning every man and teaching every Col. 1. 28. man in all wisdome that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Now what is or wherein this perfection in Christ doth consist is I suppose past any mans apprehension or Judgement precisely to determine that is what degree of holiness in Christ God will accept to our Justification but in general these two States of a Christian are plainly deseribed thus by St. Paul to the Corinthians If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Where being a new Creature and being in Christ are distinguished as Cause and Effect our being in Christ Jesus being the reason and cause of becoming New creatures So that we may well observe in this case a twofold Conversion requisite to make a man truly in Christ A conversion to Christ by renouncing false Religions and false opinions of a Deity and assenting to and embracing the doctrine according to Godliness This every man doth who takes on him the name profession and mitiating Sacrament of a Christian of this is to be understood what is spoken of the conversion of the Gentiles And this conversion is rather to speak properly Acts 15. 3. a conversion to the truth of Godliness than to true Godliness Or a conversion to the Truth of Faith rather then to the life of Faith of which St. Paul to the Galatians The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith Gal. 2. 20. of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me The summ then of all this is this That to be in Christ effectually to our Justification and Salvation is so to be converted unto him as to believe the Faith of Christ and to Live the life of Christ This being cleared nearer access is made unto the solution of the prime Doubt which is What is that which so farr and fully enstateth us in Christ that thereupon God doth freely justifie us For it is now supposed and granted that our so being in Christ making us partakers of the merits mediation and Righteousness of Christ doth immediately and absolutely qualifie to Justification and secondarily that which brings us into Christ may properly enough be said to be it whereby we are Justified And here comes in the grand dispute about the vertue of Faith Whether that only and wholly performeth this For in what sense Faith may be said to bring us unto Christ or thus to lay hold as they say of Christ in the same may it be truly affirmed that next under God and Christ we are Justified by it This I know not how it can be effected better then by the help of a most obvious and necessary but most neglected distinction of the use and notion of Faith in holy Scripture omitting that threefold Faith above-mentioned and several others impertinently invented and ill imployed in this case For Faith is taken in Scripture either Complexly and Generally for the whole Body of Christian divinity and Graces contained in the New testament Or it is taken Simply and distinctly for a special Grace separate I mean in nature not in Operation from Hope and Charity which together constitute the three Theological Graces Instances of the former have been given already in the twelfth Chapter and need not here be repeated in particular For let any man of common equity and understanding weigh the subject and
end of all St. Pauls Epistles to the Romans to the Colossians to the Galatians to the Hebrews especially not excluding the other where he most expresly and zealously urges Faith against works and he shall soon perceive that his intention and drift is not absolutely to oppose works of Faith to the doctrine or Grace of Faith but the works of the Law which infirmer Christians newly entred into the Faith of Christ had so venerable an opinion of that they imagined Christ could profit nothing without the works either Ceremonial or Moral of the Law of Moses For whereas they for instance depended absolutely on Circumcision for their Justification and thought that without so sacred and solemn a Rite they could not be profited by Christ himself St. Paul on the other side resolutely and positively determineth thus Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Gal. 5. 2. v. 4. Christ shall profit you nothing And presently after Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are Justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace Can any thing be more manifest then here it is that Grace is opposed to the Law And that to trust in that is to fall from Christ And when it followeth We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by Faith is it not v. 5. as plain as need be that Faith is here taken for that doctrine and not Act of Faith whereby men are instructed in Christ believe in Christ adhere to him relinquishing the imperfect and antiquated doctrine of the Law and its practises which by St. Paul are all called Flesh in opposition to the spiritual worship of the Gospel as to the Philippians For we are the Circumcision Phil. 3. 3. which worship God in the Spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Though I might also have confidence in the flesh c. 4. Rom. 3. 21. And to the Romans But now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested that is surely now is the doctrine of Righteousness published through Christ without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all 22. 20. 27. and upon all that believe And verse the twentieth By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified c. And verse the twenty seventh the Anti thesis or opposition doth most evidently declare the Apostles intention Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith The Law of Works then is the Law of Moses and the Law of Faith is the Law of Christ And to be Justified by Faith in Jesus of which immediately before is to be understood of the whole Covenant of Grace or Faith which is made to us in Christ Jesus and revealed in the Gospel as contradistinct to that Covenant of Works given by Moses and not of any special Grace or Act of Faith as Faith is sometimes distinguished from other Evangelical Graces It may be said that the works of the Law are excluded expresly and therefore no competition is to be made between them and Faith in the case of our Justification To which my answer is That though I grant that not only the works of the Law though moral do not Justifie but not the works of Faith of themselves yet I may confidently say None of these places commonly alleadged by the Exalters of Faith and Depressors of Good works to null the merits of works done even in Faith of Christ do according to the literal meaning really perform so much yet I rather choose to affirm That the works excluded by St. Paul are not works of the Law moral so much as Mosaical For the morality of the Old Law was not properly of Moses but the Ceremonial only and consequently the Law from these taking its denomination of Mosaical when works of the Law are mentioned in the New Testament we are to understand Mosaical Works rather than Moral but not at all works of Faith So that whatsoever is contended or pretended our being justified freely by Grace and justified again by Faith do Rom. 3. 24. Gal. 2. 16. not at all deny our Justification by works of Faith or that the efficiency of such a Faith is quite of another nature from that of works done in Faith But yet it is plain from the whole design of the Epistle of St. James the Quoniam haec opinio fuerit exerta sine operibus justificari hominem aliae Apostolicae Epistolae Petri Joannis Jacobi Judae contra eum maximâ— dirigunt intentionem ut vehementer astruant fidem sine operibus nihil prodesse c. Aug. de Fide Operibus c. 14. second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude that divers of Old did so mistake St. Paul as of late dayes he hath been understood which moved St. Austin to say directly that these Epistles were on purpose contrived and published to obviate such a misconstruction of the Blessed Apostle as if he had intended when he often sayes We are Justified by Faith only a separate notion of Faith from works and effects of Faith which was far from him from whence we have a very compendious solid and clear reconciliation of St. James his Epistle especially with those of St. Paul For as is shewed already certain it is that it being his principal end to oppose and void the pretensions of the Jews to Justification without believing in Christ or as a more moderate sort of them weak in the Faith of Christ admitting no sufficiency in Christ to justifie them without a dash as least of Moses's Law he declared freely for an absolute sufficiency in the Faith of Christ to justify and save such as believe in him This doctrine of St. Paul was quite mistaken by some who supposed that the act of believing simpâ—y taken or the Grace of Faith specially used was it whereby they were in a certain way of being justified leaving out the fruits and effects of that lively Faith and making it a dead Faith as St. James calleth it who thus argueth against such a fond and dangerous presumption What doth it profit my brethren though a James 2. 14. 17. man say he hath Faith and have not works can Faith save him Faith without works is dead For the use and end of knowledge and Faith being only obedience and a life according to Faith what a monstrous and ridiculous thing would it be to divide the Cause from the effects proper to it But it is usually replied No God forbid we should divide Faith from good Works Where there is true justifying Faith there will be there must be good works and that for several other reasons but not for our Justification This is most true whereever there is a Justifying Faith there will be good Works but what do they there in order to
prove the same they meaning no more then Gods Election to the state of Grace that is the Faith and Profession of the Gospel Whence it is that the persons so called and converted to Christ are by St. Paul called the Election as Rom. 9. 11. For the children being not yet born neither having done good Rom. 9. 11. or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth Here the purpose of God is distinguished from the election of God meaning That what God had before-time purposed and resolved on he in time executed in electing the younger and relinquishing the elder and that rather from his own Free-will then my difference in the Persons so elected inducing him thereunto And so Chapt. 11. v. 5. The remnant according to his election is the remnant elected Chap. 11. v. 5. 7. 28. And again verse 7. he saith The election hath obtained And verse 28. Touching the election they are beloved In which three places it is to me plain That by election St. Paul doth mean the Persons elected from Jewish Superstition to Christian Profession As St. Peter also useth the same word saying of the Jewish Converts Elected together with you And 1 Pet. 5. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 2. Matth. 24. 22 24 32. and several other places in which nothing more is intended by the Holy Ghost than they who were in outward communion of Faith So that being sure of a mans Election as every ordinary Christian is he becomes in proportionable manner surâ— of his Justification and Salvation that is sure that the Faith he professes is altogether sufficient to lead him infallibly to salvation which neither the Religion of the Jew or Gentile can assure him of Yet to the reapinâ— of the fruit hereof it must alwayes be supposed That such conditionâ— as God requires on the Party stipulating be not wanting Now of this sort of Assurance I make no doubt but the word of God is more genuinely interpreted and applyed than of that personal assurance peculiar to some who frame another notion of being elected which is of being signally chosen out of the former Elect to an infallible assurance of their Justification and Salvation which though I willingly grant o be true viz. That God hath his peculiar ones amongst Christians too as Christians amongst Heathen yet I find little or nothing spoken of under the said Appellations of Elect Elected Election in Scripture but of the first sense generally My appeal shall be to the indifferent judge by laying the testimonies before him which are principally these many coming nothing near the point St. Paul saith to the Romans of Abraham That he did not doubt of the promise of God through unbelief but was strong Rom. 4. 20 21. in saith giving glory to God And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform How far this is beside the matter every sober man will easily see that shall consider seriously That these Promises were made directly and expresly to Abrahams person and not in common with other persons And can any man be so unadvised as to conclude That because Abraham having such a particular and personal Promise made to him by God and indeed absolute and inconditionate that he should have a Son by Sarah his wife which he believed and without staggering was assured of therefore they who have no such personal assurances given of God but only general and alwayes conditional of their Justification and Life Everlasting can be in like manner assured of the same or ought to believe that they shall be saved as much as Abraham did that God would send him a Son as he promised The sum of Gods infallible Promise to Christians is this in St. Matthew He that believeth Matth. 16. 1â— and is baptized shall be saved where it must of necessity be granted that Believing is a very comprehensive word according to our distinction of Faith above given and consequently that it cannot be so evident to a man that he believeth according to the Tenour and intent of the Covenant of Grace as it was to Abraham that God himself made such a Promise to him and therefore hath not the like footing for his Faith assuring him that he believeth aright as that he should have a Son when his common sense told him that God had promised he should It is said that Faith is opposite to doubting For Christ said to Peter Matth. 14. 31. O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt This is very true and therefore we say It is no article or object of our Faith to believe that we shall be infallibly saved but it is rather an object of our Fear and more properly of our Hope For though it be said in the Apostles Creed I believe the remission or forgiveness of sgins it is not meant that any man should thereby stand obliged to believe as an Article of Faith the actual forgiveness of his own sins but that his own sins and all other Christian peoples are remissible and that in the Catholick Church there is forgiveness to all that repent and believe And this is no more then that General Assurance that by being baptized we are in a state of Salvation as is above-said To multiply many Texts to infer this from Gods faithfulness who promiseth and from his gifts being without repentance and such like are not worth their time that use them nor would it be worth mine to examine them any farther then to say That they are a great deal too large to have any particular relation to a mans personal state As if God must needs change if a man falls from his stedfast purpose Or God when he in his own counsel determines to save any man infallibly must inseparably annex thereunto this Evidence of his will to the Party any more then it is necessary that all men who leave others their Estates should tell them so much and require at their hands that they make no question of the same under the penalty of forfeiting all The surest grounds therefore for this seem to be taken from revelation which no Christian can absolutely oppose For not only may God but God hath revealed this to others by the testimony of his Spirit or other sufficient Evidence for to beget an assurance But two exceptions are made against this way the one That the dispute is only about the Ordinary dispensations common to all true believers The other That these places alledged prove no more than the common Justification of believers and their Adoption As for instance John 1. 12. As many as received him John 1. 12. to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even as many as believe in his name Here say they believing is put for receiving so that true faith receiveth Christ and this it doth by a particular application of general promises unto a mans self Therefore a man ought to be
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
may be a falling away It could never appear which is the true Church if judgment were to be made not from the outward Forms and Faith professed but from the affection and inclination of Persons or from the invisible decrees of God of granting or denying persevering Grace to persons in the Church So that it is manifest from hence how lurious frivolous vain and sophistical disquisitions must needs be which are founded and managed upon the ground of an invisible Church properly so called The improper acceptation then of Invisible can only occasion a just controversie i. e. as it is taken comparatively and in relation to a much more conspicuous and glorious Society and that either of Infidels who may by numbers much exceed in outward glory much out-shine it in power over-rule it and by persecution and oppression so far straiten lessen and crush it that it may be termed obscure and invisible Or otherwise compared with the Societies of much more publick and outwardly glorious Hereticks and Schismaticks pretending the Catholick Church And truly if acute and exact Geographers computing the several professions of Religion and their possessions of the earth deceive us not the Church of Christ may comparatively with other superstitions Mahometan Jewish and Gentile be not unaptly said to be invisible Christian Religion being allowed but Five parts of Thirty Mahometan six and Idolaters nineteen parts of the earth But if we shall divide Christian again into Catholick according to the Judgment of several See Brerewoods Inquiries Chap. 14. Writers there will not remain at present above two parts of all the Thirty parts of the earth to be possessed by the Catholicks and if so what will become of the visibility of the Church thus understood And if a moderate sense of visibility be admitted signifying a real and apparent being only of the Church though inferiour in pomp and number unto others how doth the great end and benefit for which chiefly the Church is to be maintained Catholick and Visible shrink up into little or nothing when it cannot commend it self for any such glory to the beholder nor signalize it self to the doubter of the true Faith in the Church as may hereafter appear more fully when we shall come to speak of the Notes of the Church It may suffice to conclude this Point with these two First That Christs Church is essentially and so long as it is at all must necessarily be a Society or a communion of many For so we are taught to believe out of the Apostles Creed which speaking of the Catholick Church exegetically interpreteth what we are to understand by that term viz. The Communion of Saints And therefore we are to distinguish between being of the Catholick Church and being Christians A man may be a Christian and yet not be of the Church For no man can be of the Church who doth not hold communion with it For to deceive himself and say though he be not of the visible Communion or visible Church he may be or is of the invisible and mystical is to take for granted that which he ought to prove but never can be able but from somewhat external and the ordinary method and most effectual means of being mystically united unto Christ is by being Politically united which must be visibly unto the Body of Christ the Church It hath been therefore ever matter of greatest wonder to me to hear and read how freely all struglers and Factions of Christians how inconsiderable soever do assert to and confidently to assert that common Rule Without the Church there is no salvation and are so obscure nice or absurd in their sense of it having very little or nothing to secure themselves from self-condemnation besides an ill grounded presumption that they are inwardly united to Christ and are of the invisible Church which in truth is no Church but a certain state wherein there is no administration or order that we can learn now all Society must necessarily have order and administrations for their regulating but none such do we read of to be in Christs invisible Body Christ himself being all in all and therefore improperly called a Church And therefore all such being infallibly saved who are so of Christs Body they that so abruptly and peremptorily assure themselves they are of that invisible State do in effect contradict themselves and mean they shall be saved without being of the Church For surely the Authour of that saying meant nothing else but that before one could be according to Gods ordinary dispensation revealed in his word of Christs mystical Body called abusively the Invisible Church he must belong to the visible communion of Christs Political Body or Church So that it is not sufficient to comfort our selves with an opinion that we are good Christians and hold the same Faith entirely and purely that is required of us unless we hold outward communion And therefore secondly as Christs Church must necessarily be a Society communicating so must it be a visible communion and outward For how is it possible that such communion which constitutes a Society should be entred into unless it be visible There shall therefore as well out of the very nature of the Design God and Christ had to establish a Church as from the many promises fortifying that Resolution and perfecting that Design be evermore an outward visible company of Professours of Christian Religion in the world which shall retain the Faith of Christ and the necessary effects of it in Worship to that degree of perfection which shall or may lead a Believer certainly to Salvation as will more plainly appear from what is now to succeed viz. the outward Form of the Church CHAP. XXVIII Of the Outward and Visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church FOR the Church to be and to be visible or appear to be I reckon the same thing and therefore thought good to speak of that and premise it to what in order follows on this subject viz. The Visible Form 2. The Adjuncts or Affections And 3. the Power of the Church of Christ By the Form of the Church we mean that frame and outward constitution whereby the Society of Christian believers are not only united mystically and inwardly to Christ as their proper Head and universal nor as agreeing in the substance of one Faith and Worship but as conventing and consenting in one outward Discipline or Administration of this Body so collected So that Discipline otherwise called Government is by principal Sectaries themselves rightly affirmed to be an essential ingredient into the nature of a Church which will manifestly appear if we distinguish between the nature of a Christian or many Christians separate in themselves from any Jurisdiction and the nature of a Church For a Christian or a true Believer differeth from
thus spoken of the Political Power of the Church which we so call because it imitates that which is so more properly called in directing the visible Body of the Church to its proper end as the Pilot doth the ship to its proper Haven and hath both Visible Acts and Effects We are now to treat of that Power We in distinction to that other do call Mystical because the End and Effect thereof is not outward or visible but inward spiritual and Mysterious and therefore also call it Sacramental Sacrament and Mystery being the same in the Original Phrase of the New Testament For to the Church as they are more peculiarly called who are Officers in the same doth it of Right appertain to celebrate these Mysteries Wherefore first we shall speak of the Sacraments in General as the manner is and then in Particular The word Sacrament is rather of Gentile than Christian original there being no word in the New Testament proper to it but the vulgar Translation Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae invisibilis forma ita ut ejus similitudinemgerat et causa existat Gulielmus Antissiodorensis Sum. Lib. 4. Cap. 1. thinking fit to render Mystery Sacrament in Latin the Antienter Latin Church hath made use of it to express certain Mysterious Rites of sacred and necessary use in the Church of God about which word so long since received no contention ought to be had The Nature Number Minister and Use of them deserving principal enquiry A Sacrament is defin'd as is commonly known by St. Augustine a Visible sign of an Invisible Grace which being taken rigorously seemeth not to comprehend the whole nature of it therefore Antissiodorensis would have its defect supplied thus A Sacrament is a visible form of an Invisible Grace whereof it is also the Cause But considering the many and sharp disputes upon this subject I suppose it may be more fully described to be A visible sign ordained by God to produce an invisible effect of Grace in the soul of Man This definition may be collected from the several parts of it contained in the word of God as first from St. Paul to the Romans speaking of Circumcision a prime Sacrament given by God to Abraham and his seed And he received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom. 4. 11. of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised For there are three special properties of a Sacrament commonly acknowledged To Signifie To Seal To Effect Grace but in strickness of speech these make but two Acts. For either a Thing doth barely signify and declare another or it concurreth to the being of another where things are Related one to another For seals are no more than signs binding more firmly to the fulfilling of the contents of an Instrument or Conveyance For as in such Cases the Free good will of the Donour is the only cause of an inheritance given the Instrument of Conveyance consisting of so many words are the signs of the inward will the seals are but signs of the signs of words that is an assurance that what was signified in the said Instrument should hold good And the Actual Delivery of this is the immediate Cause of entring into possession or enjoyment of this Gift In like manner The word of God promising his Graces to us signifies the will of God to that end The Sacraments superadded do likewise sensibly signifie unto us the earnest God is in when he made promises unto us as Seals And the actual exhibiting of these signs or seals on Gods Part by his Proxy or Ministers and the due receiving of them on our Part do put us into a fruition of those things which were so signified and promised First then They must be a sign that is a Representation of a thing and not the thing it self and that to add to our knowledge and Faith for if there were no agreement between the thing signifying and the thing signified the word of God alone had sufficed to that end Secondly they must be ordained of God For if no man in common justice can give away another mans estate but the true owner of it how should it be possible or equal or credible that any other besides God himself the Owner of his graces should by instruments of his own forging convey such heavenly benefits to mankind which properly belong to God This were supream folly and presumption to attempt Or can any man know Gods mind or methods of working before he hath revealed them Therefore it is said that God gave Abraham the Sign and Seal of Circumcision Thirdly they must rather be ordained Arbitrarily of God and by special Institution then Naturally least the Free Grace of God therein contained should suffer and the effect be ascribed rather to natural than supernatural Causes For though the cutting off of the foreskin of the flesh by explication intimate the cutting off of the filth of the Soul yet naturally it could not be so well understood And God might if he had pleased ordained the cutting off of the tip of the ear to serve the same ends And so in baptism Water doth naturally cleanse bodily filthiness but without notice given of Gods will and grace it could never have been believed possible to affect the soul and purify it Fourthly as there must be some agreement between the thing signifying and signified there must also be a real difference in their nature For nothing in nature or reason can signify it self because nothing can be clearer than it self For when a thing is obvious to our senses or otherwise apparent Sicut Signum et res ipsa aliquando possint esse diversa ita saepenumero et in multis eadem esse possunt Tunstal 9. de Eucharistia fol 16. we do not say we have a sign of such a thing but the thing it self Yet this most certain Rule is sought to be bafled and overthrown by Cavillers who would bring in their false doctrine of the Eucharist and would shew from bread on a Stall or Cloath which signifies bread and Cloath as well as is bread and Cloath that the same body of Christ may be a sign of it self But their attempts in their Instance fail them because that Bread which is exposed to be sold or that Cloath is not a sign of it self viz. That it is cloath or bread but is so only but it is only a sign that either it is to be sold which is quite another thing from Cloath it self or it is a sign of other cloath which doth not appear And so the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a sign of that Body which doth appear but of that which doth not appear And therefore a Fifth condition of a Sacrament is That it should visibly signify something invisible and spiritual Lastly that Sacraments are to be not only significant or which comes to the same Sealing but efficacious in themselves upon the souls of men which may deserve further explication
same in publick and clearly in the Church seeing we could not do this when we were baptized Mast How are ye confirmed Schol. By publick blessing intercession of the Church with imposition of hands Mast But how art thou assured of this Schol. We have Word of God when he sayes Let little Children come unto me c. Thus that Catechise Another reason may be the danger from the multitude of Hereticks which possibly might have corrupted such young beginners in the Faith therefore as well for the better securing such persons as for the satisfaction of the Church that they who were once enter'd into communion with it did so persevere inviolate in the same this excellent Rite was instituted And surely because it notably discriminates Schismaticks and Erroneous persons from sober and faithful Members of Christ and his Church it is by vain ignorant and ungodly persons scoffed at railed at and contemned A third Reason respecteth the time to come wherein a man foreseeing the many and great temptations of the World Flesh and Devil which he had renounced in Baptism to increase upon him as he converses more with the World doth thereby fortifie himself by a renewed profession of his Faith and Obedience to Christ Fourthly to this conduceth very much the Benediction of his Ghostly Father the Bishop and the joynt prayers of all the Congregation which ought devoutly to be put up to God for the descent of his Grace to preserve the persons so confirmed in that holy profession which should be most earnestly desired by every pious heart that likes his Religion and fears his own frailties And it is to me an infallible argument of desperate unchristian prophaneness or a new superstition instilled into men alienating them from the truth of that Religion in which they were educated who carp at this so godly Constitution their best ground being that which is to all their frivolous reasonings Because no express place of Scripture commands it directly and because it is possible to be saved without it It is possible that we may be saved without many things which we daily use in Religion and yet they contemptuously and wilfully omitted may be a just and certain cause of our condemnation the Scriptures having not limited God to those means of saving us which they have if we would be saved And yet again they have not so particularized our duties that there should be nothing accepted by God from us which they have not expressed I find it disputed on both sides whether this Rite be of Divine Institution or not and shall not determine it but in this both Ancient and Modern Eastern and Western Churches are agreed that it is of Divine use and therefore I may determine it to be pious and profitable and them who oppose it to speak evil 2 Pet. 2. of the things they understand not for which they may utterly perish in their own corruption But I suppose the proper Minister of this Solemnity who alwayes was the Bishop of the Church hath much turned the stomach of those who very unhappily have none or most wickedly endeavour to have none against it For considering how little is to be said against it how much for it the principle ground why they are bent against it must be to defend themselves from notorious defects To understand this as likewise the manner of performing this Sacramental Rite it is to be noted there was a threefold use of Unction called also Chrism in the ancient Church whereof one pertained to the Presbyter or Priest who in the time of Baptism was wont to anoint the party baptized on the crown of the Head The other two were properly belonging to the Bishop the one being done presently Hieremias Patr. Cap 7. Censure O. rieâ—tal after Baptism on the forehead after the Priest had anointed him on the crown of the Head which custom the Greek Church retain to this day as their Patriarch Hieremias witnesseth and when this was done I suppose there followed no other Confirmation but after the deferring of Baptism ceased and the appointed times of Easter and Pentecost for that Sacrament were laid aside and children and that at all times and in all places of Divine worship were admitted to Baptism and not alwayes as most anciently in the presence of the Bishop then it became necessary that a peculiar time and proper services should be appointed to this Solemnity wherein the Party to be confirmed was signed in the forehead by the Bishop only as before in substance but with variation of circumstances In Gregory Gregor M. Epist Lib 3. 9. the Great 's days it should seem the brest was anointed by the Priest What need we trouble ourselvs in such things aswere alterable in that unalterable solemnity our Churches moderation endeavouring to prevail upon the modesty of some dissatisfied persons in it have incurred the censurre of other Churches in paring that Ordinance to the Quick from unnecessary excrescencies without any effect upon her own undutiful children but pertinacy and petulancy in their private morosities which at length may teach us how vain such charms of Charity are used upon such deaf Adders and unnatural Vipers whom nothing will satisfie but the tearing to pieces the womb that conceived them And that they may do with it what they list they make the Church speak what they list many times And therefore though it hath wisely declared and plainly but for two Sacraments ordinarily necessary to salvation they are wont to exclaim against it thereby inferring contumeliously that she holds more though not so necessary which had been no slander if they at the same time had used that candour which became them in stating the mind of the Church as they might and ought but to do this here or in other cases were to do themselves or Cause wrong and to be just to us were to be cruel to themselves A fifth pretended Sacrament is that of Repentance sometimes also called Penance with us For so I read Mr. Bradford in his Sermon on the Fourth of Matthew and the seventeenth to speak saying Penance is a sorrowing or forethinking of our sins past an earnest purpose to amend or turning to God with a trust of pardon Which description may suffice us at present For the first thing in Repentance is a sound judgment of the evil of the Facts committed or omitted the next is a belief and sense of the evil of punishment incurred by such enormities A third degree or act of the mind is a change of the resolution for the time to come to act more reasonably and faithfully A fourth is an apprehension of the Grace and Mercy of God towards him upon his humiliation and return A fifth the real execution and putting in outward practise the good purposes of heart in effects proper to Repentance A sixth is not to repent of Repentance or return to the offenses for which he was so grieved and which he renounced A seventh is the
fruits on Gods part signifying his favour towards such truly penitent Persons by the comfortable testimony of his Spirit of Grace in their Consciences witnessing the remission of sins and reconciliation to God in the face of Jesus Christ The Parts of Repentance are commonly made these three Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which to speak properly cannot so be called For of all these only Contrition is of the very nature of Repentance but Confession and Satisfaction to which we may adde Reformation or Renovation are rather the Effects than Parts of Repentance but these two are never the same in proper language And therefore in vain do they go about to justifie that description as proper of Repentance which both Chrysostome and Ambrose do give us That it is such a change which committeth not the same things again And an act whereby we lament sins passed and commit not sins to be lamented There can be nothing done more indiscreetly against a mans self or injuriously against the Fathers than to make every true saying of theirs a definition or to deny them the liberty of their Rhetorical pen sometimes when they write what is true though not so accurately as the laws of Logick may require If we mistake not this abuse of the Fathers hath done great mischief in the Schoolmens works and especially Thomas's as may appear in his Summes where a bare and secure asseveration of some Father is taken for a very sufficient definition and turns the controversie quite another way then reason according to Scripture would have it go We all know that the Fathers as all other Writers even the Scriptures themselves spake not alwayes Definitions and the Definitions they gave were not alwayes according to the Rules and Practise of Logicians but Rhetoricians with whom it is most frequent to describe a thing from the proper and most commendable effect If a man should say he is a Souldier indeed who never yieldeth till he hath gotten the victory should speak very true but this were no true definition of a Souldier For a Souldier may loose the Victory And so Repentance is that which repeateth not former sins before sorrowed for but this doth not prove that to be no repentance which ceasing a man returns to his former evil course or that repentance persever'd in which was broken off might not have carryed him to heaven For who knows not that all habits moral and graces spiritual such as are Faith and Repentance have their proper seat in the inward man affect the mind and heart immediately and from thence are known primarily and described Outward acts are but the effects and the effects may illustrate but cannot be of the essence of the Cause Therefore Repentance exactly considered is nothing more than a thorow change of the mind and heart from things contrary to Gods will and to the obedience of the same This is true repentance and if it be not effectual it is because it is not that is perseveres not in that good nature It were ridiculous to say A man never went towards London it was no real motion because he turned back again and never came at that place And no less that a man never truly repented because he gave over and reaped not the fruits of Repentance For the nature of Repentance might be the same though vastly different as to the end Once true Grace and alwayes true Grace say they but what word of God what judgment of the wisest and holiest Christians have they to bear witness to their presumptuous assertion Their own authority is too inconsiderable and their argument most vain which is taken from the event and begs the question when they thus talk If it be true Grace it will persevere and if it persevere it is true So that give the highest instance that ever was or any mans mind can imagine possible to be of Grace which failed they answer very safely if as wisely It was not true for it faild But this is no place to argue this point We except not against the things themselves in Repentance Contrition Confession Satisfaction but against the order they are set in though Mr. Bradford that holy and learned man sticks not at that accurateness in his former Sermon speaking thus We say penance hath three parts Contrition if you understand it for an hearty sorrow for sin Confession if ye understand it for faith of free pardon in Gods mercy by Jesus Christ and Satisfaction if you understand it not to Godwards but to Manwards in restitution of things wrongfully and fraudulently gotten of name hindred by our slaunders and in newness of life And Perkins makes our consent with the Roman Perk. Reform Cath. Church to consist in this That Repentance stands especially for practise in Contrition of heart Confession of mouth Satisfaction in work or deed Of these therefore we shall speak briefly and distinctly CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Proper affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession Its Nature Grounds and Vses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered COmpunction is a general word comprehending Contrition and Attrition the proper parts of Repentance and according to Bernard is an humiliation of the mind proceeding from the remembrance of sin and the fear of Gods Judgment c. But Bernard de modo bene vivendi Serm. 10. if we take Compunction generally it may be rather described An humiliation of mind proceeding from an apprehension of the Evil of sin Now the Evil of sin being twofold doth divide this Compunction into two kinds Contrition and Attrition Contrition being according to the most received distinction of it from Attrition A sincere and hearty sorrow of mind upon the sight and sense of the Evil of sin in it self and the offence thereby committed against Almighty God his goodness chiefly But there is another mischief in sin and that doth principally concern the Offender himself who thereby having violated Gods most just and holy Laws and incurred his displeasure has made him self obnoxious to the curses denounced against the breakers thereof and therefore is a Terrour of Conscience conceived upon the apprehension of Gods wrath justly due to him and impending over him These by some are made not only different as in truth they are but contrary too so that Attrition should be rather an addition to former Guilt than a method of evading Gods wrath and being reconciled unto him and their reason is because it is not done in Faith Hence they distinguish between Legal and Evangelical humiliation Perkins making the former quite distinct from the latter and opposite to it Legal contrition say they which is Attrition is nothing but a remorse of Conscience for sin in regard of the wrath and judgment of God and it is no grace of God at all nor any part or cause of Repentance but only an occasion thereof and that by the mercy of God for
of it self it is the sting of the Law and the very entrance into the Pit of Hell Evangelical Contrition is when a repentant sinner is grieved for his sin not so much for fear of Hell or any other punishment as because he hath offended and displeased so good and merciful a God This Contrition is caused by the Ministry of the Gospel c. In this vulgar account of Attrition and Contrition or the two Parts of Contrition Legal and Evangelical is a twofold errour committed not to be passed lightly over The one is a rude and common misapprehension of the state of the Gospel as if it were all made up of Mercy and consisted not at all of Justice and Vengeance to be executed upon sinners breaking the Law of the Gospel but whatever we can reasonably suppose of mercy must be owing altogether to the Gospel but if any threatning and severities of Justice be feared that must be borrowed from the Law And what Law I pray do they mean The Old Law I doubt not But the Law before Christ had its moralities or perpetual Duties and its Mosaicalness which was transient and is now actually ceased as all the Obligations and Penalties belonging thereto It cannot be that then which moves to this Legal Contrition but if any thing the moral and perpetual part consisting of Justice and Equity which are no less an ingredient into the Gospel than into the Law properly so called And because there is nothing more absurd and ridiculous than to have a Law consisting of just and holy Precepts and Rules which shall not also consist of proportionable Rewards of the Observers and Breakers thereof returning as St. Paul teaches us at large in his Epistle Rom. 2. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. to the Romans to the Jew and to the Gentile doing well honour and glory and shame and wrath to the evil doer speaking of the present state of the Gospel And we have before shewed That so far is the Gospel from being made up of all mercy that the judgments and punishments therein decreed against Sinners are more grievous than they in the Law and therefore the Gospel is called a Book of Good tidings or News not because the Sinner impenitent shall sind any more favour or so much as he might under the Old Law but because the Salvation here published is of greater extent comprehending all Nations and states of men which the Law did not And also offering full and free means of Repentance and reconciliation to God through Christ and a treasure of Grace as well to assist in the performing of the condition of the Gospel as to pardon and remit what is committed against it upon humiliation and repentance So that the Gospel has a Legal part as the phrase is and Evangelical And the terrours of the Gospel or Legal Part of it have just influence upon the Consciences of men to humble and affright them though there should be O Soror nulla res sic nos ab omni peccato custodit immunes sicut timor inferni et amor Dei Bern. de modo bene vivend Serm. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Serm. 7. Antioc◠pag. 512. To. 6 no such thing extant as the Old Testament and therefore the Attrition of a Sinner under the guilt and sense of his sins is much more an effect of the Gospel than of the Law And therefore is not so the entrance into the Pit of Hell as if directly it lead to Hell For 't is security and presumption that lead thither rather then the sorrow of Attrition This is certainly a direct occasion of going to Heaven and is an inferiour degree of more ingenuous sorrow and true contrition For this Legal as it is called Contrition is caused by the ministry of the Gospel too and is an effect of Evangelical Faith whereby a Christian having thorowly assented to and been affected with the severe and holy Doctrine thereof becomes humbled under it and is brought to the sight and admiration and affection of the other Part of it which to the truly broken and penitent offereth Grace and Pardon That which seems to have mislead so many into a false notion of the Gospel is the term Gospel or Evangel it self which sounds nothing so much as mercy though the English or Saxon word we know signifies originally no more than Gods Speech which is indifferent Rom. 4. 15. to Mercy and Justice both And such places as this of St. Paul The Law worketh wrath as if he had meant to say thereby that the Gospel did not work wrath as did the Law but that was far from his purpose intending only to shew the difference between the Law and the Gospel as they stood opposed to be in this That the Law without the Gospel which St. Paul preached wrought wrath without remedy but the Gospel though it propoundeth and threatneth wrath too to the unbelieving and disobedient yet continued in it also a sufficient and proper remedy against all those Evils And thus far of the very intrinsick nature of Repentance Attrition and Contrition which are the two proper Parts of it The two most noted acts or effects for Parts they are not are Confession and Satisfaction And first we shall explain this Confession by these degrees First Out of the Abundance of the heart it must necessarily be that the mouth should speak whether good or evil truth or falshood joy or sorrow How then can it reasonably be supposed that no outward expression should appear of so great anguish of mind as is supposed to affect the soul truly humbled and penitent No sober man much less good Christian can choose but commend such Acts as this of true Repentance For as the comparison of an ancient Father hath it well As it is with him that hath almost surfeited himself with ill digested or unwholesome meat lying heavy upon his stomach must cast it forth before he can well be eased or cured even so he whose soul is oppressed with the filth guilt and weight of his sins must vomit them up by due Confession before he can reasonably expect remedy and forgiveness Many and very pressing are the advises and precepts of Holy Scripture to confess our sins and many promises to such as do confess annexed which not intending at present so much a Paraenetical or hortatory Discourse as Dogmatical for the settlement and information of the Judgment and Consciences I shall pass over as agreed to on all hands in the general But Confession of sins being so variously taken viz. for confession to God and confession to Man for confession private and confession publick for confession to our brother whom we have offended particularly and confession to the Church to which we have given scandal none ever took the boldness on them to deny absolutely the use of Confession Nay I cannot find any seriously and positively denying the lawfulness or usefulness of private or auricular
doth not distinguish there men ought not to distinguish or limit For if it be alleadged that Instruction and Faith ought to go before this Sacrament according to Christs Intention and institution in St. Matthew It is sufficiently answer'd that seeing the Law General by which baptism is made necessary to Salvation hath no exception or condition annexed to it which may concern Infants Infants are therein contained And this implies an exemption from that naturally impossible preparation of Instruction and Faith properly so called And as Calvin well notes Believing Calvin Institut to infant-Baptism is no more requisite than working to their eating and drinking by vertue of the Apostles precept If any will not work neither 2 Thes 3. 10. should he eat Faith and repentance both are required necessarily of such who are capable of them or able to oppose them but of them who are not capable and have no actual sin to be repented of the Act of them who have the Care of them and Tuition joyned with the passiveness or non-remitency of the Infants found a capacity in them But where a Personal power of Willing is found there is exacted a personal knowledge and consent to that Sacrament This will appear from those several reasons built upon the Scriptures First That the Primest antiquity ever so understood the Scripture and practised accordingly Not that Baptism was presently as now administred to Children at their coming into the world seeing Antiquity gives us many instances of such who were not baptized till they came to years of discretion though they were born of Christian Parents For some continued Catecheumenes together with them who were young and Converted from Heathenism unto Christianity Others of purpose and design protracted the time of their baptism upon an opinion that all their Actual as well as Original sins were washed away in Baptism and concluded they had the less to answer for if they were baptized towards the latter end of their dayes Yet though this abuse of Baptism prevailed not upon that opinion only but upon the occasion which was taken of educating and instructing Infidels in the Faith for some good time before they were baptized which custome divers born of Christian Parents imitated yet we find none that the Church wilfully suffered to die without Baptism who were descended of true believers or had been competently instructed in the Faith of Christ which was alwayes according to Christs words intended towards them who had None to resign them up to God and compromise for their due perseverance in the Faith So that there is not the least evidence of Autority ancient in the Church rejecting the baptism of children or denying them to be subjects capable of it And none opposed the same until the year 1030 when Guimund Bishop of Aversa in Campania accused Berengarius Deacon of Anjou for denying Infant-baptism though that opinion was not found directly to be Berengarius's But about the year 1130 this Heresie began to discover it self in France and Germany and was Headed by Peter Bruis and Henricus his Scholar From whom that Faction was called Petrobrusians and Henricians denying withal a Capacity of Childrens entring into the Kingdom of Heaven affirming That only they who were baptized and believed could enter into Heaven But the Waldenses who succeeded them in many of their opinions rejected this their Dogme and so the controversy ceased until the year 1522. when one Nicolas Stork and Thomas Muncer two desperately Phanatical men stirred Sleiden Comment up this opinion and other wicked fancies concerning Civil Government wherein this Latter perished miserably Yet this error was not so soon or easily suppressed but spread farther and continued by the great industry and zeal of Melchior Rinck and Balthazar Hebmaier until about the year 1532 it received its complement from the tongue and hand of Melchior Hofman a Leather-dresser of Germany and so hath been propagated to other places and to this day But not only did none of the ancients oppose Pedobaptism but have declared and proved the use of it As did Irenaus Tertullian Origen Cyprian Augustine and others downward were this a proper place to shew so much We shall rather proceed to those Scriptural reasons inferring this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. cont Arium pag. 147. Tom. â— Secondly either all Children must be damned dying unbaptized or they must have baptism The consequent is plain from that Principle in Christian Religion which Anabaptists have been constreined to deny to uphold their other That all sin not washed away or expiated exposes to damnation and the Principle in Christian Religion is That Children come into the world infected with Originalâ—sm and therefore if there be no remedy against that provided by God all Children of Christian Parents which St. Paul sayes are Holy are liable to eternal death without remedy Now there is no remedy but Christ and his death and Passion are not communicated unto any but by outward Signs and Sacraments And no other do we read of but this of Water in Baptism And the invitation of Christ of infants in St. Mathew doth imply a capacity in them of Grace For Mat. 19. when Christ saith Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them Mar. 13. 14. not for of such is the Kingdome of God he doth not mock meaning literally that Infants who are not able to go or stand should come unto him on their own leggs So neither doth he mean in the spiritual sense that Children who have neither reason nor Faith should come unto him by Faith before they be baptized but be brought to him by the Faith of others which may profit them who resist not though they seek not that Grace Thirdly They that are of the Covenant and of the Body of the Church really ought also to be formal partakers of that Body and this they only can obtain by being admitted solemnly into the congregation of Christs Faithful and Elect Church As the children of the Israelites were of necessity to be admitted into the number of that Church by circumcision Gen. 17. 14. or be cut off in wrath from them For St. Paul telleth us how the children of the Believers are sanctified by their Parents And how are they 1 Cor. â—7 14. holy but by being separated from unbelievers and solemnly dedicated to God by the Laver of Regeneration And as in the same place the Apostle saith to the Romans If the first fruit be holy the Lump is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches drawing this Literal to an Evangelical sense and meaning thereby that the Parent being of the Election the Child is so and being so ought to receive the sign of Evangelical circumcision Fourthly The Analogy and apt correspondence between the Sacrament of the Law called Circumcision and that of the Gospel warranteth this For that is not true which they say against this That the Precepts of the New Testament
us but nothing could suffice to lay aside the proper cerimonies used at the Institution or form of it but such an opinion as that of Transubstantiation â—ellarmin It now sufficing according to moderner Judgments that the several Wafers now in use were all one when they came first from mill and are broken by the Teeth in actually receiving them whereas Christ represented the unity of his mystical Members and Fraction of his Natural Body by the Forms set before his Disciples the better to affect our hearts and quicken our devotion To the same end in Ancienter though not first dayes of Christianity there was an Elevation of the Mysteries made by the Priest to shew only how Christ was Lifted up on the Cross for our sins but upon the doctrine and perswasion of transubstantiation this was corrupted and perverted to the drawing people to a direct Adoration terminated in the Visible objects and not as was anciently used from that Action to take an occasion of worshipping Christ himself with a seqestration of their mind from their senses To this likewise pertains the Grosser devotion for many hundred years impractised and unknown to Christians that not only Adoration to God and Christ should be made by all who approched as Communicants to these Holy Mysteries but that the Host should be on purpose publickly exposed to the view of all enterers into the Church where it is with an injunction to exhibit all devout and divine worship to it which invention the Fathers and all Christian Churches were holy ignorant of for many hundred years and never was there so much as a Feast of Corpus Cristi till Urbane the Fourth instituted one about the year 1263. And the Adoration of the Host as Christ himself much later But if such an opinion had been of any tolerable Antiquity in the Church how could it be avoided but such direct and open Adoraâ—ion should have been given much more early it being a most ancient Principle of Christian Faith that Christ was God and of common humane reason that God is to be worshipped And yet no mention made of such Adorations as are of late introduced and required which is an argument they never believed as now the Romanists do for had they they must have necessarily done as they do But a stop must be put to this luxuriant Subject to keep our selves in the Limits presribed to our selves and here let it be Only having hitherto spoken of the Preparatories to Christian Faith the nature Kinds Acts effects and Lastly subject which is the Church and of this again in its Political and Mystical Capacity and Power which consists in the due Administration of the Sacraments as well Properly as Improperly and Equivocally so called It remains now to conclude and Crown the present doctrine of the Church with that which is most contrary of all things to the Nature of a Visible Church and that is Schism For by this unnatural state the true Nature of the Church is more illustrated and the Unitie of it by the explication of this Separation and Dis-union called Schism CHAP. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the Visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formal as to the outward form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of separation of Persons Coordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Vertual Schism All Heresie vertually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not Heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie â—eparation How separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some instances of Heretical Errours in the Roman Church Of the Guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their Vindications That the Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Vniversal Church VVHile we treat of the Church it must be alwaies remembred that we intend not to speak of the Invisible Church as it is taken for a select number supposed to belong intimately and inseparably to Christs invisible Body of which no knowledg or account can be had but by sensible outward things but we altogether enquire of the Visible Church which though it be not alwaies Actually seen or discerned from other Societies especially pretending to be Churches of Christ yet must alwaies be Visible though not conspicious And it would be a gross mistake in any so to judge of the Church Visible and Invisible as of distinct Churches or necessarily distinct parts of the same Church because the same persons may at the same time be of the Visible and Invisible Church This distinction then is to be allowed no farther than as it insinuates to us the Several States of the Members of the same Church the Church in nature being but One according to several testimonies of Holy-Writt and the very nature of all Communities and much more of the Church which is to be an Aggregate Body consisting of many parts by no natural Bond or influence united together but by divine Falsae Professionis Imagine utimur si cujus nomine gloriamur ejus instituta non sequimur Leo. Mag. Serm. 5. de Jejun 7. Mensis and Spiritual Which is manifested by certain outward Acts which renders and denominates such a society of Men Visible as a Church of Christ These Acts are principally two The profession and declaration in word or writing of the true Faith and the Exercise of those Graces and workes which that Faith requires in Religious worship and Obedience That and in what degree of necessitie this Church must be One as well as Visible is before declared and here only repeated to give light to the nature of Schisme now to be explained For to omit the Criticismes and various acceptations of the word Schism as not necessarie we shall proceed by degrees to shew these two things concerning it The Nature and Guilt of it For the Nature of Schism it doth appear from the Unitie and conjunction of Christs Body of the Church consisting in two things Communion with Christ the Head and mutual Communion of the members one with another the contrary to this must needs be Discommunion and Separation But there being two parts in Communion a Material or the things in which men communicate as faith it selfe and the substantial Part of Christian worship And a Formal the Actual outward exercise of this The First of these though it be really yet is not formally Schism as may appear more fully by and by because all Schism doth suppose some agreement with and Relation to that One Body the Church but where the foundation of such Relation is destroyed there the whole perishes And therefore a division from the Faith of Christs bodie the Church being either Total and that again either Negatively when
How can any man be said to be afflicted for his loss of a great empire or riches unless he knew that he once was possessed of them or they were at least his by Right How can any pain trouble a man which he feels not And if he feels it not how can it be a punishment to him And to this I add the Scripture saying God made man according to his own Image in Genesis Gen. 1. 26. Jam. 3. 9. and in St. James's Epistle After the similitude of God How is it less than blasphemous that a sinful guilty creature such as man must needs be having a wicked Spirit put into him should be said to be according to Gods Image or likeness And how can it consist with the Scripture elsewhere saying God made man upright but they have found out many inventions Eccles 7. 29. For though the Evil Spirit supposed to be put into man were the Author of its own wickedness yet when once that was so wicked for to put it into man is to make man wicked Now this Image of God so much spoken of in Scripture and treated of by Divines to the great honour of Man we may understand to consist in these five things Principally 1. Wisdom and Knowledg 2. Liberty of Will 3. Justice and Holiness 4. Immortality 5. Dominion For when we speak of the Image of God in Man we must be sure not to confound it with that proper to Christ the Image of God For first that of man was made as we have heard that of God Christ was neither made nor created but begotten and that not by way of Carnal Generation but purely divine and Spiritual Secondly That was as well Eternal in respect of what is past as what was to come But the Image of God in Man only everlasting as to the future time Thirdly That of Christ was immediate but that of Man mediate So that he is not the Image of God but as he is the Image of his more express and Natural Image Christ and that first as is said in Wisdom Christ being primarily called the Wisdom of his Father and deriving of the same to us For as St. John saith Of John 1. 16 his fulness have all received and Grace for Grace And God creating all things through his Natural Word his Son signified by that Metaphorical word expressed in the Book of Genesis did in particular through him communicate that Wisdom unto Adam which he excelled in at his first Institution whereby it was natural to him to understand the natures of all Creatures Earthly as well from their Causes from whence they proceeded as from their effects proceeding from them which latter is the principal means of attaining that remainder and as it were ruins of a more perfect Body of knowledg in Adam which we are capable of in the state we now are And not only Natural things but Supernatural also as God and the Holy Spirits were much more perfectly known to him than to us So that the knowledg of the First man exceeded all after him Christ the Second Adam only excepted in these three things First in the manner of enjoying that knowledg which he had it being not acquired by tedious and experimental discursiveness observations or reasoning within himself but by a divine illumination which was not given him after the manner of Revelations given by God to some of his eminent Servants transiently not to continue or to descend to others but it was by way of a connatural habit which should have passed to his posterity Secondly the object of this knowledg or extent of it transcended that of Man now adayes stretching it self to heavenly as well as Earthly things and the minuter things lying hid from us Thirdly It differed in the manner and perfection as being more accurate and less Fallible than ours The Second thing shining eminently in Adam was Liberty of will whereby he resembled his Creatour who is the only absolute and Free Agent For there was no natural inclination nor temptation in him to err or offend in choosing the Evil and refusing Good according to that of Syracides God himself made man from the beginning and left him in the hand of his Councel c. Leaving it equally in his power and choice to turn to the Eccles 15. 14. Right hand or to the Left to stand or fall And not only freely to do what he did though propelled thereunto but freely to Act or not to act which is the perfectest and most proper freedom of all From this twofold perfection of the Understanding and Will arose a Third which was perfect Innocency and Holiness which by some is called Original Justice and by others Original Grace both ayming at the same thing For Original Justice or Righteousness it may be called because it was not acquired but connatural and simultaneous to the Being of Man Again It was Grace because though it pleased God to create man with it yet he might also have created him without it and it was separable from him and so not intrinsick to his very nature Which is yet thus further to be understood that it were most absurd and blasphemous to believe that God could make a man a sinner without any precedent or concurrent act of his own will or without this original innocency and Justice for as nothing but God can proceed immediately and directly from Gods hand so neither could man as he was the effect of God be any otherwise than Good This then may be called his natural and Original Justice and Goodness and Original Grace also in some sense because though all the works of God must needs be good as his yet man for example might not have been so perfect either in his understanding and will and yet have retained innocency And this was the Grace of God Besides which may probably be asserted another Grace which to the bare stock of Nature thus put together by God superadded a more special and Free Grace called though not very properly the Grace of Sanctification not as it is in us purifying and restoring us in some competent manner to what hath been decayed or depraved by the fraud and power of the Devil in us or our own vile hearts and affections but by way of Preservation preventing the evils and dangers unto which we were subject Now this as it is called Grace because it was not necessarily due to nature So was it called Natural or Original because God conserred the same at our first being and would so have continued it had we not abused and forfeited the same And from hence sprang a Fourth beam of the bright Image of God in man viz. Immortality as an appendage to the said Natural Justice and a reward of the perseverence in it For God saying In the day thou eatest Gen. 2. 17. thereof the tree of the knowledg of Good and Evil Thou shalt surely die did imply that so long as he persevered in due
indifferently Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift 39. of the Holy Ghost For the promise is unto you and your Children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord your God shall call And St. Paul to the Romans Now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested Rom. 3. 21 22. being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference And to these many other like places of Scripture may be added declaring no man destined to incredulity or impenitency aforehand until such time as he hath declared against both and that to the end of his Life But on the other side rather that God puts no difference Now if St. Pauls argument held good as certainly it did that a wife should not put away her husband who was an Infidel nor the believing husband his wife upon the grounds of ignorance of a good event Should a man put away his Soul For what knowest thou O wife Rom. 7. 16. whether thou shalt save thy husband Or how knowest thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife So what knowest thou O man who doubtest of Gods Decrees whether thou shalt save thy soul Whence we may conclude That it is no ground of discomfort that the event is determined for it is equal on our side as much as against us but it is the ground of all reasonable satisfaction from the General Law requiring obedience Evangelical and from the Promises made without any discrimination which a man cannot apply to his disadvantage or discouragement without being first guilty of unreasonableness and unnaturalness to himself Now Religion and the designs thereof do suppose a man a true natural man to himself before it attempts to draw him to an higher good or nobler ends So that if a man will deny his own natural reason and self-love due to himself such a man is indeed no fit person to be treated with any more than a direct mad man but this natural reason suggests to him that where he knows it not to be an invincible Evil which he is to contend with and knows not but that the way is as easie the door as open the means as effectual to him as any man living to attain happiness he is to take heart and courage and resolution to effect his desires For to omit a certain duty of Faith and Hope upon an obscure and uncertain ground is monstruous and ridiculous I conclude therefore that as almost all the actions of mans life yea and his life it self which are no less determined with God then the state of Grace or Wickedness Glory or Misery do not cause him to suspend endeavours leading to the end propounded to himself so neither in the Concernments of his soul keeping his natural Reason to himself entire can he obstinately refuse to act according to the ends of Religion Yet I might adde this also which is most true that if it were revealed to a man that he should never escape damnation do he what he can or what he will yet that desperate carelesness and loseness could not be but greatest stupidity because God doth certainly proportion salvation and damnation as to the degrees of them to the degrees of Holiness and Sins in this Life and therefore it were more than worth a mans time and diligence by a more restrained and Christian conversation to obtain a mitigation of the evil he so fears And yet that part of the argument commonly used which saith That it is in vain for a man who is so determined to strive to free himself and to abound in religious acts is directly false and to be denyed For no good works shall go unrewarded And this is no less infallibly true That to him that hath shall Matth. 13. 20. Rom. 2. 8 10. more be given and to him that doth righteousness and to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life And that the external acts and means are effectual to these great ends Christ tells us saying To you that hear shall more be given than Mark 4. 24. that Gods Grace is necessarily required to all true Conversion and Holyness I know those of Dort following Calvine and Peter Martyr and such of eminencie in Reforming answer otherwise But in truth their Reply is no Answer For granting an invincible state of unregenerateness and a total insufficiencie in Man to free himself without the effectual Grace of God yea and an irreversibleness in Gods Decrees so that all endeavours and acts should be frustrated to the obtaining the blessed end generally promised and the terrour of those under this Necessity they oppose only good counsel to this and much more and reprove them lightly at least that meditate too much on the severer part of Gods Decrees the abstruser Counsels of him and determinations to the taking them off from those good duties which God without exception requires of all But all this and the like to this is very little or nothing to the purpose For they certainly hereby betray their Cause and grant the whole argument to be good and duly to infer all that is intended by it only they oppose barely the Conclusion and would not have it take place though they can find no fault with that it is grounded on What a miserable shift is it for any who are not able to deny that upon their own reason such a thing follows to say Yea but this ought not to be and to perswade contrary to conviction of themselves as well as others But occasion will be given of these matters more fully in what follows CHAP. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the Effect and not Cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God praedestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil fore-going as Calvin and some others would have it GOD having in his secret mysterious Counsels ordained all things according to his Divine will and pleasure without being lyable to that saucie expostulation of any Creature Why hast thou made me thus or What doest thou For 't is as certain Rom. 9. 20. Job 9. 12. as there is a God that God neither doth nor can do any injury to the Creature though man may and often doth injure him and himself too in mis-representing him he proceedeth next to the execution of his Decrees and Counsels which are so many acts of his Providence And because it would be much too long and extravagant to turn to the more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Protagoras
to him as were his Disciples for whom he there particularly prays the argument would be of the greater force but it is not so any more then it is true in all respects what Christ saith of himself in St. Matthew I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel So Matth. 15. 24. that as Christ before his resurrection shewed himself very nice how he dealt the Word of Life to the Gentiles so might he at the same time declare a more special desire of the salvation of his elected Servants than of others For we know which is another answer how the Scripture frequently by a note of Denyal doth not intend an absolute exclusion of a thing but comparative only as where God says I will have mercy and not sacrifice Christ prayed not for the world so intensly and particularly or at that time Therefore he prayed not at all is no good consequence And no more is that which is made from an adequateness of the Death of Christ to the actual application of the merits of the same death by such intercession as Prayer So that though Christ did not actually pray for all yet he might dye for all according to the distinction of a twofold Quantum in Medico est sâ—nare merit aegrotum Ipse se interimit qui pâ—aecepta Medici â—â—servare non vult Aug. in Joan. cap. 3. 17. Exhibition of Christ abovesaid For Christ was exhibited as an efficacious Means of Salvation and as an efficacious Cure A precious Antidote or Salve is in its own nature and the intention of the Compounder equally operative and effectual to all Persons in like manner affected All men naturally were involved in the same evil alike affected and infected And Christs Death and Passion alike soveraign to all persons and ordained for all And the difference in the first Case and the second is only in the actual Application thereof For as many as receive that are certainly cured And the Scripture tells us As many as receive him Christ to them gave John 1. 12. he power to become the Sons of God to them that believe in his name Therefore the main enquiry is much more about the difference and variety outward then in the means it self And how and whence it comes to pass that the Death and Passion of Christ are so applyed to one above another that to one they become actually efficacious and to another in aptitude and general institution only If in answer to this doubt we shall say That by Faith and Repentance we are made partakers of Christ we shall answer most truly but not sufficiently because the same difficulty returns upon us How some believe and embrace Christ and are made partakers of his benefits and not others seeing so great salvation is tendered to all Here it is absolutely necessary to take in the Grace of God and his free love towards Mankind in some sense at least by all that will be accounted Christians and not by wisdome make void the Cross of Christ For supposing that God hath made a free and general Covenant with Mankind which Covenant neither is nor can as it is a Covenant be simple and inconditionate so far as nothing should be required thereby of Man to the being capable of the benefit of it it will of necessity follow that the knowledge of this Covenant of Grace must be had by such as receive any benefit thereby For else how is it possible that they should fulfill in any manner the Condition required were it no more than some will make it to receive it by Faith without any more ado then to believe themselves into Gods Grace and Favour by a tacite internal act And this and no more being supposed that such love and gracious purpose for which no natural Cause can be found out to certifie or satisfie any man in the truth thereof were ordained for any specially it must be known by Revelation and not Ratiocination And all extraordinary Revelations besides and above what Nature can discover are purely Acts of Grace and not of Work And therefore why God doth reveal his Gospel to one people or person and not to another can have no other original Cause then the Beneplacitum Good pleasure of God as is plainly Matth. 11. 27. affirmed by Christ himself Neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him And before I thank v. 25. thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes And in St. Peters Matth. 16. 11 1 Cor. 2 14. case Flesh and bloud hath not revealed this unto thee And St. Paul saith The Natural man cannot know the things of God because they are spiritually discerned From whence it is manifest that though God hath decreed the Salvation of a man by Christ yet this general intention cannot possibly take effect without a super-added Act of Free Grace whereby this Reparation is made known Again it follows That there is no obligation upon God antecedent to his own will and inclination moving him to reveal the same and that only out of Congruity not of Justice or Necessity as supposing a decree given to Man which would be wholly unprofitable and vain without such revelation But why one Man or Nation should be blessed with this gift rather than another there is not so much as congruity to be fairly alledged or reasonably offered And as this is the first act of God on the understanding of Man towards his restitution so is the second act of Man flowing mixtly from his Will and Understanding both altogether owing to Gods Grace and that is believing what before he knew For that this is necessary no doubt can be made or that this is the true cause of being profited or not by Christ St. Paul thus writing For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them Hebr. 4. 2. but the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it This diversity is very great but what is the cause of it is not agreed upon For if any shall say It comes from the difference found in Christ as Mediatour he is known to be mistaken by what is said If any one shall say It proceeds from the will and free Election of Man he falls into a worse absurdity for the will of man as free acts or works nothing at all but as determined either by its self or by some other And if by it self either simply and absolutely or joyntly with another cause And this cause must be either taken from somewhat outward as the object duly propounded or inward by way of efficiencie But it cannot be any outward object presenting it self only as a final cause which hath only a moral and not natural influence For if it be demanded to what end such an inward act of the will
to be taken from the meer use of the Freedom of Will by one better than another of himself and improving that stock of Grace given of God by his own strength better than his Fellow but because the Grace of God besides the common stock moves one more particularly than it doth the other How the will of Man is salved we have before shown in part in that we put an immense difference of influences between outward and intrinsick motions and between the impressions made upon it by a created and increated Agent Neither have we passed over that other common and obvious objection against such absolute necessity of Gods concurse taken from the Commands Exhortations and Communications which should they say Exiâ—it pâ—siâ—lat a nobis 〈◊〉 ut habâ—at occasionâ—m dâ—â—andi ut ipsi tâ—â—buat quad â—roâ—â—viâ— Origen Hom. 35. in Lucam be all to no purpose and illusorie if there remained no power in man to do as he is commanded or not to do what he is forbidden For surely Gods commands and dehortations are binding most of them where he gives no such general aids of Grace as he doth to many persons who are unfruitful under it Therefore it becomes them who object this no less then us to answer the difficulty Again there is nothing more plain in Scripture than that God requires that of the Creature which it is impossible for it to do without his immediate power When God said at the beginning Let there Gen. 1. be Light when it wholly lay upon him to produce Light When Christ said to the Creeple in the Gospel Take up thy bed and walk When he said Mark 2. 9. Matth. 12. 13. John 11. to the man with the withered hand Stretch out thy hand Yea when he said unto Lazarus dead and buried Lazarus arise did he suppose an ability antecedent and prae-existing to his Commands or Exhortations No man surely ever phansied so much How then comes it to pass that those were not absurd and irrational but these whereby man is brought to spiritual life must be condemned for such But to this purpose we have spoken before But to excuse God from double dealing with Man in that he exacts that of reprobated persons who cannot act obediently to it as they are required for want of his necessary assistance there is brought into great use and not lately neither the distinction of Voluntas Beneplaciti and Signi a will of Good-pleasure and a will of Sign or a will Signified and a will Concealed a secret will and revealed which indeed are very untowardly and improperly devised For if they would speak intelligibly they should rather have called that revealed Will Signum Voluntatis than Voluntas Signi because it can be no other then an intimation of Gods Will. And if sincerely they would speak they should not have made the manifestation of Gods Will by signs or otherwise a distinct will from his secret Will of which it is an Indication Dr. Twisse therefore perhaps supecting this inconveniencie distinguishes to the same effect but more artificially between Voluntas Praecepti and Voluntas Propositi a Will of Precept and a Will of Purpose in God answering the contradictions contained in the Objection above made by the help of it For sayes he to Arminius against Perkins the opposition were plain and real if God had decreed and purposed with himself one thing and decreed another thing to Man but this we find not But it is no contradiction for God to decree one thing as that Peter should deny his Master and to give out a command to the contrary that he should not deny him By this means indeed he answers the Logical contradiction of terms and proposition very sufficiently and no more but he does not take off the moral opposition and inconsistencie of the things themselves For may not a man be said to cross and contrary himself who shall resolve to revenge himself on his Adversary and in the mean time gives him good words and perhaps advise to beware of him As when a man sayes to him he owes and intends a mischief Take heed look to your self I shall meet with you I will be even with you These words spoken seriously would be very ridiculous viz. That a man at the same time should kindly admonish contrary to his resolution and purpose and taken otherwise agreeable to the false nature of Man who may dissemble but not to the Majesty and Simplicity of God who needs no such arts to fetch in his enemies Certainly therefore God doth seriously intend not to punish when he threatens as Chrysostome hath observed and intend seriously to save when he warns But whom All those that are in the noise of such Precepts or Communications If indeed Gods Word were preached and his Will revealed as directly to impenitent and incorrigible men to whom he hath no such real purpose as to save them then might he be subject to like accusations as men are who particularly apply themselves to their enemies but so God dealeth not with the wicked whom he rejecteth or denyeth efficacious Grace to For as hath been said the Promises of God and Precepts and Exhortations were not in the secret or express Will of God ordained for the reprobate primarily but indirectly only and as mixed and indiscernible to the Messengers of God from the Righteous And however the success in ministring to the wicked answers not the intention of the Instrument Man yet such zealous endeavours by Man never go unrewarded by God and so it is not in vain in the Lord. For as St. Paul speaks appositely What if some Rom. 3. 3. did not believe shall their unbelief make the Faith of God of none effect The means of Faith are not in vain though the Non-elect profit not Seeing as St. Paul saith again The Election hath obtained and the rest were blinded Rom. 11. 7. To recollect therefore what hath passed on this subject the several Gradations of Gods favour to lost Man may be said to be these First by an absolute irrespective Act of Grace he determined to re-enter into Covenant with Man for his Restauration Secondly he ordained this Covenant to be in the hands of his Son as Mediatour Thirdly that his Son by taking humane Nature should accomplish in Mans behalf whatever was required by Gods Justice of him Fourthly that the effect and benefits of Christs Death and Passion should not inconditionately and immediately be made over unto all but by the means and conveyance of Faith working by Love and Obedience Fifthly that this Obedience of Faith should not necessarily follow upon the propounding of Christ crucified to the Ear but by the inspiration of Grace into the soul opening the door of the heart as it did Lyddia's to let in Christ as well with his sanctifying as satisfying Graces For as Jansenius hath well observed our of Austin there is a Jansen Auâ—â— To. 3. lib. 2. â—â— twofold Grace of
doubt Eternal Life And that Eternal Life which to the Romans he calleth the Gift of God Rom. 6. ult 1 John 5. 11. Col. 3. 3 4. Of which Life St. John speaks thus This is the record that God hath given unto us eternal life and this life is in his Son And St. Paul more expresly to the Colossians For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ When Christ who is our life shall appear shall ye also appear with him in glory So that nothing is more frequent in Scripture then that Christ is the Authour of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him as it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews and that he is the Authour and finisher of our Faith Hebr. 5. 9. 12. 2. The Authour of it in Grace and Finisher of it in Glory the perfection and consummation of Grace Of the thing therefore no dispute can be justly raised but of the manner some differences there are and they principally about the possession of that bliss or the fruition of it or the time when it first entred into and when it is in its full perfection And as touching the latter it is with greatest probability affirmed That although there be such a free and full participation of the Divine Vision whereby the Spirits of the deceased and truly and abundantly happy yet there remains somewhat to be added thereunto from the conjunction of the body once companion to the soul in all good and evil of the passed Life For as at the general Resurrection the souls of the damned shall have their torments augmented upon the re-union of the body once combining with the soul in sin so at the same time there being a conjunction of the soul and body of the just there shall likewise be an increase of felicity and glory St. Paul intimateth thus much where he saith Knowing that whatever good Ephes 6. 8. thing a man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free And yet more particularly to the Corinthians For we must all appear 2 Cor. 5. 10. before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad So that the body as well as the soul shall have the like proportion of reward or retribution as they had in sinning or doing well together Of which we forbear here to enlarge as not at all questioning the vertue and sufficiencie of Christs merits as the sonner seems to do For if the Grace of Gods Spirit the course of righteousness duly run by the servant of God the Merits of Christs Death and Passion be not efficacious to the throughly purging of the soul and conscience of the faithful in this life somewhat derogatory not to the person only of man but performance of Gods Spirits and Christs merit applyed certainly to the soul seems to be reflected The sufficiencie of Christs salvation is such that by confession of all it may avail to the acquitting from all the affections and circumstances of sin such as pollution guilt and punishment but it will not be granted that this actually is done in this life or were ordained to such an end generally For I suppose that they who have raised and maintained such an opinion do not deny the sufficiencie of Christs merits and Gods mercy to sanctifie every faithful person to the putting him into a capacity of heaven and that immediately after this life for they directly affirm that some eminent Saints and particularly Martyrs for Christ do forthwith pass from hence to absolute bliss but they deny that all that are in a state of Grace and are predestinated by God unto everlasting life are so fully cleansed from the contagion and impurities which even Venial sins taint them with that they need not another expurgation before they can be admitted into the presence of God The faith of the ancient Churches as in few words we shall shew and of all but such as profess subjection unto the Roman hold that though no man ordinarily lives without sin nor at the instant of his death is so absolutely pure as to be fit to behold the face of God who can endure no iniquity and with whom no unclean thing shall dwell yet by passing from this life into another so far is the evil remitted by Gods mercie in Christ so far accepted in Christ is that person that dyes in a state of Grace and reconciled to God that he passes immediately from this mortal and miserable state here to an immortal and less miserable yea blessed though not to the height yet far exceeding all happiness competible to the children of God during this life The demonstration of this our opinion though very true we must confess to be difficult by reason of an evasion and shift always at hand to elude our proofs For when we bring testimonies direct out of Scripture of the happiness of Gods servants after this life they answer presently that they are to be understood either of eminent Saints which are presently accepted into Gods presence or of their designation to bliss though they be not presently possessed of it which must be acknowledged to be a kind of happiness compared at least with the wickeds condition which after death is irreparable But these notwithstanding and certain others we shall take notice of by and by we declare positively that for this doctrine of Purgatory there is not any ground of Scriptures Reason or Antiquity but on the contrary all these are sufficient evidences to the contrary For if the thing be so material a point in our Religion as it is said to be we hold the Scripture to be so entire a Rule of our belief as that it must of necessity have been contained in it but there is no foundation in it for that as we shall see by and by And on the other side there are these arguments in it against it First saith Solomon Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy Eccles 9. 16. might for there is no word or devise nor wisdom nor knowledge in the grave whether thou goest Doth not this place plainly speak of the fixt and immoveable estate of the life to come And can that be connted less than ridiculous which is answer'd at the best rate That there is nothing that a man can better himself in but others by their piety may better them Or that though in Purgatory they cannot help themselves yet by the good works done before they came there they may be benefitted Who denyes but the Faith and Good works of men in this life have singular influence upon mens future life to the encrease of happiness But all this we say takes effect immediately upon the change of this mortal into immortal state For who told them that to the application of the work to the wages are required the suffrages of the living or passions
of the dead Secondly St. John in the Revelations clears this saying Write blessed Rev. 14. 13. are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth for they rest from their labour and their works follow them Their works follow them without the least mention or insinuation of being vegetated and enabled so to do with the prayers of the living And they rest from their labours without being toyled wasted and tormented with worse miseries than ever they suffered upon earth The evasion which is here borrowed from Anselme upon the words which yet in truth are no more Anselm's than the Comments under his name upon the Epistles but Herveus Natalis his living above two hundred years after Anselme that here we are to understand the time of the Resurrection might be accepted for true it is then shall the due reward be rendered to every mans works if this excluded the other For let our adversaries say whether all consideration of good works be deferred until the Resurrection Is it not in reference to them that some men are committed to Purgatory only while others immediately go to hell That some mens pains in Purgatory are gentle and light others more grievous and some mens shorter and some longer even of themselves without the help of their friends upon earth Why then must we needs understand this following of good works to be at the day of Judgment only and not in just proportion the whole time going before And therefore is that elusion we touched of being meant of perfect Men and Martyrs only rested on as the surer of the two and that from De Victore and Haymon It is true he doth speak of such but it can only be said and not proved that he speaks of such only Dying in the Lord being of far greater extent and not upon mens pleasures and the exigencie of a corrupt cause limited But distrust that these devises will not satisfie hath driven a great Champion of this Purgatory into another plainer but much more absurd answer of his own viz. That some men dye absolutely in the Lord as Martyrs c. and some men partly in the Lord and partly not in the Lord This is congruous indeed to the opinion resolved to be maintained and belike St. Augustine gives ground hereunto who in a certain Epistle saith that some men in this life are partly the Sons of Christ and partly the Sons of this world This Augustine might speak in reference to the imperfection of the state of Grace and Sonship here which will admit of some mixture of worldliness and weakness with Grace and Sanctification but doth St. Austine any where say that upon this any man is partly the child of God and partly the child of the Devil at the same time or that at the same time he is in a state of Grace and a state of Sin or reconciled to God and not reconciled This is a new invention but very suitable to the third state after this life Purgatory and both of equal truth The place of Ecclesiastes Where the tree falleth there it shall be brought against a middle state I confess hath besides the most natural sense a sense which may be aimed at besides the denyal of any middle state but that by indifferent interpreters it hath been applyed to the immutableness of mans state at his death is certain For in truth Purgatory as commended to us is a quite different state from that of bliss as a state of torment must be from a state of bliss Fourthly The Holy Scriptures teach us that The bloud of Jesus Christ 1 John 1. 7. John 5. 24. cleanseth us from all our sins and that He that heareth Christs word and believeth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into death but is passed from death unto life And we may note that Life simply taken is never used for any other state but that of happiness in holy Scripture and therefore these two states only being mentioned in Scripture it is sufficient to conclude that no more are to be added For were it so that nothing in Scripture were directly spoken against this opinion it would no more avail the defenders of it then it would any other Heretical Invention which might be yet framed without any direct opposition from thence Now the Scriptural reasons against this we make to be these in brief First that as well Scripture as Philosophy to which they assent who introduced these Purgative Flames truly hold that all spiritual purgation and sanctification must have the consent and co-operation of the will to produce any spiritual effect in the soul but the Will after death elects not merits not nor demerits i. e. deserves neither good nor evil but is fixed to the state in which it is But if sin be remaining in the separate soul it must necessarily have its seat principally in the will which is the formal principle of all good and evil And there can be no change in the will of the deceased as to the choise of good or evil simply but only as to the more full and absolute captivating of the same in the admiration of good or pertinacie in evil Therefore the Prayers of the living not having any influence upon the will or affections at that time to change them for the best or correct the pravity of them cannot avail to the meliorating of the soul in reference to its sanctity or impurity Again No corporeal cause can be effectual upon the spirit of Man immediately while it is disjoyned from the body to the cleansing of spiritual stains But the relicts of sin are spiritual and not corporal pollutions and therefore no flames of Purgatory can mundifie the soul so as to render it more innocent and fit for heaven But the flames of Purgatory are sensible and properly material And it is not said that the suffrage of the living obtain remission of sins for the afflicted in Purgatory but only deliver them from punishments there suffered Thirdly All sins being committed in the person of a Man consisting of body and soul must be accounted for as they were acted in the Person and not only in the one Part of him neither can any sin be said to be forgiven the soul without the body which was committed in soul and body together nor can the soul be purged and not the person nor the person and not the body but the body lies unconcerned untouched all this while by such tormenting remedies and therefore there is no probability of any such semi-purgation of the soul which should avail to the benefit and salvation of the whole And therefore the souls of the damned suffering the pains of Hell fire immediately after their departure from the body are not awhit the better for what they suffer Neither can this be alledged to invalidate the other because that in God punishing the souls of the Reprobates without their bodies is no unjustice but rather a
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
outward shew of self denyal and preaching Christ in sincerity Christ is no less deserved Religion no less endangered and men no less preach themselves as they say than they who with much ambition of honor profit and applause debauch the noble and Majestick Simplicity of the Gospel and preaching of Christ with the vain and impertinent mixture of human learning and eloquence the difference is only in this that the one hath his end the making of the Common people the other the making of the Court and they perhaps somewhat worse than these from whence they suck no small advantage Much and high talk there hath been of late about Preaching of Christ And scarce any body hath been thought worthy to be accounted such a Preacher who hath not first layd aside modesty manners civility prudence and gravity and flown out into certain exotique tones actions and barbarous demeanures unworthy of a man which Christ nor his Apostles nor Apostolical persons after them never taught nor practised themselves never required of them but have been taken up to serve their own turns rather than Gods and hath been a direct preaching themselves as any they could ever instance in on the contrary side There are two things surely wherein generally consisteth the preaching of Christ Sober and sincere manner of composing a mans self to that Great work and the matter he is to treat of according to which latter Mr. Perkins well noteth four things to be requisite Fist Generally Perkins on Gal. c. l. v. 15. 16. to teach the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ and of his three Offices his Kingly Office his Prophetical Office and his Priesthood with the execution thereof This in good earnest is so much Preaching of Christ that scarce any thing else is meant in Holy Scriptures where it speakes so much of Preaching of Christ they ayming chiefly thereby at the manifestation of Christ as the true Messias promised of Old and then come into the world What is said above this is or may be true but somewhat besides the Letter of the Scripture Secondly to teach that Faith is an Instrument ordained of God to apprehend and apply Christ with his benefits Which is very true in the signification of Faith common in Scriptures viz. as it is taken for that Complex Evangelical Grace comprehending all particular Christian vertues and Graces springing from that Head but not so as Faith signifies now adayes a single Grace contradistinct to others Thirdly To certifie and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ in particular so he will receive Christ 1 John 1. 11. It were to be wished this Author had kept closer to this opinion here expressed Fourthly to certifie and to reveal to every particular hearer that he is to apply Christ with his benefits to himself in particular and that effectually by his Faith Grant we now that this is to preach Christ yet that this must be done in such unnatural and uncouth manner both of Speech and Gestures as are no less than ridiculous we must not grant this is for them who affect and use it to preach themselves Again this preaching of Christ or hearing of Christ thus preached is not Worshipping of God as it hath been mistaken grossely to have been The reading of the word of God was ever looked upon as a necessary part of the service of God amongst Jews of Old and Christians to this day Believers thereby declaring their Faith towards God no small act of serving God But the Sermons of men since the Apostles never till this superstitious age were advanced to that esteem or dignity For no man can without derogation from the Scriptures call them though sound and Scriptural the word of God but with limitations Well saith a learned and grave Preacher However the whole Sermon is Dr. Donne Serm. 33. on Whitsunday the ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God meaning that it is the Precept of God that Christian people should be taught by those that have the spiritual care and tuition of their Souls but that what is taught is not worthy of the glorious title of the word of God no though it be very agreeable unto it It may much more properly be said to be the will of God than the word of God But what falls short in the nature they hope to make up in the measure of their Worship And therefore frequentation of Sermons and painful preaching as they call it must and doth carry it from all other Pretensions to the true Service of God and those they traduce with the reproach of a lazy Ministry must without farther dispute yield to be reformed by them and to their modes too And truly Industry and painfulness are such undeniable vertues in all Moral and Civil matters that no man can object against no man but must commend And in spiritual matters often arise to the nature of divine Graces which are rewardable with proportionable glory when the Great Lord of us all shall take an account of every servants improving his Talent and to the fruitful say Well done thou good and faithful Servant Thou hast been faithful in a little be thou ruler over much But what is all this and more which may be added to the nature of the work it self which God requires at our hands as our bounden service as a man may do a good thing negligently so he may do an ill thing diligently and industriously We are now enquiring whether Preaching be worshipping God or God is served principally by it If it be then no doubt but diligence therein is the more commendable But if it be not as we have shewed it is not then our diligence were better placed elsewhere namely on that wherein consisteth more formally the worship of God which is prayer But what if after all this cry of Laboriousness on their side rather than on their Adversaries part their Ministry is the lazy Ministry rather than ours as in truth it is I compare not here Persons which would be infinite but Religions and the manner of Ministration and worship constituted by the Church of England and that of any Sect whatever Let them tell which Religion requires most vigilance attendance and pains That which prescribes every Parish-Priest to officiate three dayes in a week and propounds dayly Ministration in the Publique place of worship or that which sets men free all the week unless on the Lords day That which prescribes so strictly visiting the sick upon all occasion or that which is maintain'd chiefly by their Minister visiting the Well and gutling from house to house amongst their favourers and benefactors of their Faction That which observes or commands the observation of constant Fasts or that which derides them and accuses them contrary to all Examples of former Churches of Superstition That Religion which requires a punctual observation of that Liturgy which they profess to be grievous
have from the matter it self divided the Commandments so that Four which relate principally to God should be placed in the First Table and Six in the Second which seems to be most rational though no less arbitrary than the other There are likewise among the Jews who agree not in the very matter it self of the Ten Commandments For some as the Talmudists and others following them do make that we call properly The Proaem or Preface I am the Lord thy God to be part of the First Commandment which is denyed by Aberbenel and others of them as well as most of us For this Proposition or Sentence I am the Lord thy God is as we say properly Enunciative or Indicative or purely affirmative and not Imperative or Commanding as all Precepts must be which are so properly called The First Commandment therefore is this Thou shalt have no other Gods §. I. but me Where it is first to be observed that almost thorow the whole Decalogue some variety in words is to be found in Exodus and in Deuteromy the Fifth where it is repeated The Reason whereof Grotius thinks to be this That here Moses did set down or rather took precisely what was spoken or written by the Angel but in Deuteronomy he rehearses the same himself without such absolute Punctualities of words or expressions and yet must we not dare to say or believe that Moses transgressed his own Rule given by God in the Fourth Chapter before viz. Ye shall not adde unto Deut. 4. 2. the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it that ye may keep the Commandments of the Lord your God which I command you So that it is a vain Scholie some would give us upon that and such like Texts of Scripture that nothing at all must be added to Gods word more than we find the Letter to require For undoubtedly such speeches mean no more than that we should do or say neither more or less to overthrow the intention of God in his Commandments For otherwise all the large and far fetched senses devised and applyed by the precise Masters and Mistakers of that Rule to each particular Precept in the Decalogue would be found either Superstitious or Sacrilegious inventions though not inconsistent with the Analogy of Faith Furthermore Laws are of two sorts generally Affirmative or Negative In the Negative of which this is one the ordinary method of explication is first to declare those sins of Commission which are prohibited and then the Duties Graces and Vertues which are there implicitly required on the contrary this being one general Rule of expounding the Decalogue that where any vice or sin is forbidden there the contrary vertue is commanded And on the other side Where any vertue or holy act is required there the contrary vice or evil is interdicted As for Example Here it is forbidden that we should have or make or worship any other God but the one true God therefore on the contrary there is an implicite injunction duly and faithfully to serve that one true God And though the sense Negative is most current and general through the whole Decalogue yet were the Affirmative duties they which God principally aimed at and intended For Negatives do not make us holy to God in themselves but only as they are necessary introductions and good beginnings to the more perfect performance of Positive Duties It would avail a man very little towards the fulfilâ—ing of this First Commandment not to worship more Gods than one for so he mâ—ght worship none at all and be a greater offender than the Idolater that worships many We are therefore in the first place to enquire what are those Vertues and Graces God commands and so shall we more readiâ—y and easily conceive what errours and sins we are hereby commanded to avoid Some of both sorts we shall here instance in to make more compleat that rude and imperfect account given above of the Acts of Obedience and Holiness owing from every good Christian to God but as in a Table rather than in a Treatise The Supposition then that this first Precept requires of us the true worship of God doth infer all that train of Graces thereunto necessary which are commonly reduced to these three Theological Vertues Faith Hope and Charity Of the nature of Faith as well in General as Particular have we spoken largely in the first Part Yet rather in a speculative than practical or obediential way which is proper to this place By the duty of Faith then it is first required that we should have a competent knowledge of God and of his will for some knowledge must of necessity go before Faith There is a twofold knowledge One of simple apprehension or intelligence and this must go before Faith For how Rom. 10. 14. saith St. Paul shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard It is impossible a man should worship God before he believes there is a God And impossible he should believe there is a God before he hath some notion or apprehension of a God either by hearing which is the ordinary way or by some inward suggestion And therefore we read that Paul inquiring of the Acts 19. 2. Novices in Christianity at Ephesus Have ye received the Holy Ghost they answered We have not as yet heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. And there is another knowledge of Assurance which assurance is caused in Humane Sciences by an orderly and necessary connexion of natural causes one with another but in Divine matters by Faith which causes that or greater perswasion than any outward artificial Demonstrations And therefore both the encrease of our knowledge and the encrease and strengthning of our Faith are much required by this Precept according as we have the Scriptures more particularly advising us and that by St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 5. And beside all this giving all diligence adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance c. And so in his first Epistle 1 Pet. 2. 3. 1 Tim. 2. 4. Taste and see how good the Lord is And St. Paul to Timothy God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth And infinite other places Next to knowledge of God seems to be the fear of God according as Acts 9. 39. the Scripture hath it And the Churches were edified walking in the fear of the Lord. Next to Fear comes Repentance and Sorrow for sins past then Renovation or that properly called Obedience in Newness of Life with many others not here to be insisted on The second Grace is Hope which excites to walk and act according to the Gospel from the consideration of the many Promises and upon the intuitiâ—n of an excellent reward to follow certainly the fulfilling the will of God Of which we have spoken in treating of Gods works Lastly Charity with its retinue of Divine Graces is required
Tinder-box when they have attained so much of their ends as by the flames they raise to undo and destroy others and enlighten themselves and become powerful and glorious they presently cover those mischievous sparks and put them quite out denying they teach or hold any such things easily foreseeing they must needs have the same effect upon themselves as they had upon others if they be suffered to blaze out as they did when they lighted their Candles Yet so again that they reserved to themselves the same instruments and means of kindling new flames to their advantage when their Interest shall so require it This we have seen done most unjustly and disingenuously unless therefore men could be persuaded first to be faithful and severe observers of the Rules of sincerity and common Justice and deliver no other Rules to their Superiors to Govern them by than they themselves being in Power would hold reasonable to keep religiously themselves which we hear indeed much prosessed but ever saw practised contrarily in vain do men endeavour to dispute men into Reason Faith or Truth It must be the singular and Almighty power of Gods Grace to convince and convert them to the Truth they being the true object of our Pity and Prayers but not of Instructions Perswasions or Arguments And what more pertinent and particular prayer ought we or can we offer to God for their more sound information and confirmation in the truth of Gods Word and Worship then that they object so oft and unadvisedly against us viz. That God would vouchsafe to deliver them from their many private and humane inventions and not teach for Doctrines the Commandments Matth. 15. 9. Hebr. 13. 9. Jer. 7. of Men nor be carried about with divers and strange Doctrines Nor worship God so as he never commanded them neither came it into his heart Alas if they would but keep themselves faithfully and entirely to these Laws which with so much rigour and zeal they exact from others they must let go their hold not of Ceremonies and orders meerly devised by themselves but the greatest part of their Doctrines and Worship wherein they differ from us And the time will once certainly come when we shall not only with confidence but with the greatest comfort expect the full decision of these unchristian Controversies For as St. Jude saith Behold the Lord Jude v. 14 15. cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them c. I shall end all this with one or two instances of their Superstition and into erable rigour who loudly tax the Church therewith They have often charged the Church with Idolatrous Superstition in propounding and practizing Adoration towards the East And Voetius who hath another dogme for the Puritans comfort viz. That preciseness can no wayes be separated from Voetius Disp Part. 3. de Idolatr In dic th 2. true Religion hath also said That it is a sort of Idolatry by interpretation for a man that prayeth in the Church to turn himself to the East although he hath no consideration that there is or was the Quire wherein Papists are wont to turn to the East But what saith his fellow-Calvinist Maresius who Quo utroque asserto nihil absurdius Sam. Maresius Fascicul Paradoxorum Part. 22. Nec minoris erit superstitionis c. reckons up this and another of his dogms of like nature Then both which assertions nothing is more absurd And after a little interposed he addeth Neither will it be any whit less superstitious to beware of the East at the time of prayer precisely then precisely to make choice of it which was most truly spoken Another instance we have from the same Authour in the same Treatise Paradox 2S where speaking against Voetius his preciseness in pleading for hair shorn close to mens head a fond piece of Religion which in past years Puritans were wonderfully strict in but have of themselves lately seen the vanity of such their practises and laid down he saith As he doth amiss Id. Parad. 28. Ut perperam faciat c. who glories in long hair so shall not he be void of Superstition whoever shall affirm the hair ought wholly to be taken away or clip't above the ears and shall therefore think himself holier than other men that he shows the Asses ears of Midas and then adds very soberly True Godliness is strong and being supported with the base of Christian Liberty throughly understood is not pressed with such anxiousnesses Well adviseth Tilenus Part. 2. Thes Disput 44. Chap. 19. 20. That where the true knowledge and sense of this Liberty is wanting Consciences can take no rest there is no mean nor end of Superstitions For Satan is wont of very toyes and trifles to make dangerous and deadly snares for souls Rom. 14. 5. So he that shall begin to doubt of eating flesh or the use of certain garments by little and little shall find scruples of a murmuring Conscience in other things likewise and at length shall hang in suspense in a perplexed and inextricable Labyrinth Thus far they The evil event of the contrary precise Superstition appearing from two or three instances given by the Parrons of Scruples For according to former grounds Voetius his son by his Fathers insinuations as may well be presumed in a publick Disputation at Utrect June 7. 1643. delivered it for unlawful to wear shooes much longer than the foot or horn-like And I make great doubt whether he had any better reason against that fashion than a certain noted Puritan who seeing me being then a young Scholar wear such shooes accosted me in these very words Why dost thou make thy foot longer than Jesus Christ hath made it To whom I presently answered in these words Why dost thou make thy hair shorter than Jesus Christ hath made it And in truth I continue of this mind still that such a reply is no idle answer to such an idle superstitious question For if it should be demanded why I extend Christian Liberty in the use of Ceremonies farther than Jesus Christ hath extended it not commanding them I would first answer I do not extend it farther because it is impossible for him or any man else to prove that Christ hath denyed this Liberty For that which they imply that Christs command must go before all Christian Acts or Ceremonies in his Service is quite contrary to Christian Liberty For no Christian is left to his liberty where such Laws or Precepts are delivered to him But Christian Liberty is an undetermined power of doing or not doing within the sphere of Good and Evil prescribed which power next under Christ residing in the Heads or Governours of the Church may restrain the indifferencie of inferiour Members of it Secondly I would
Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
be pronounced by others who are ordained of God to be judges of our state of Grace upon the discovery of our consciences to them then can be by our selves which is sufficient but of the unalterableness of that state no man can certainly affirm any thing Which holdeth true likewise as to the contrary state of Damnation For though a more than probable judgment may be made of the state of Damnation of him who continues impenitently in notorious sins yet may no man pronounce a peremptory sentence against any such person that he inevitably shall be damn'd because he cannot see into the abstruse Counsels of Almighty God so far as to deny a Liberty left in him to confer such efficacious grace upon such a notorious offender as may reduce him to God no more than withdraw grace from him who at present standeth in all probable way of perseverance This being so it followeth from hence necessarily That the Church of Christ taken for the so faithful and elect that they shall without all peradventure attain the Crown of the Triumphant is evermore in its own nature invisible that is not to be distinguished by us nor known certainly and if so then in vain and to no purpose at all are such Disputations as are made about the invisible Church in that sense of invisibility which signifies that which can in no manner appear certainly to us The other sense of invisibleness according to which a thing is possible to be seen is an object of sense but actually is either not to be seen or with very great difficulty For as in Philosophy it is with Divisibility so may it be with Visibility in Divinity Every thing that hath Quantity according to the Philosopher is divisible or is capable of being divided into lesser parts even without end but yet so small may the parts so divided become at last that no Artist shall be able to cut them any more in pieces So may we understand a thing to be visible which is so small and inconsiderable that actually it can hardly if at all be perceived But visible and palpable being taken for things which not only affect the senses simply but with some more than common notoriety the usual question Whether the Church of Christ is alwayes visible ought to be understood of such a competence of perspicuity as may ordinarily be discerned by persons rightly disposed in their understandings taking here right disposition of our inward apprehensions in a proportionable manner to that which relates to our common outward senses which if it be called into doubt as it may no wonder that the other may be and that without remedy Now according to the most strict acceptation of Visible for whatsoever may possibly be discerned the reasolution will be easie That Christs Church is and must alwayes be visible For thus to be Invisible is as much as not to be at all For seeing the Parts of which it consists be they but two or three persons in the most rigorous sense are Visible the whole must needs be visible too of it self however it may in the more received sense be termed invisible because compared with the Church of Christ as prophesied of and promised in the Gospel it is so inconsiderable as may deserve rather to be accounted invisible it being out-shined and over-shadowed by other Pretenders But there being two things which constitute the Church one the association of many persons into outward communion one with another the other the inward communion in the true Faith of Christ and the former being common very often to Hereticks as well as true Christians it may be doubted whether the true Church of Christ as opposed to heretical Societies is at all visible For seeing the true and orthodox Faith together with its practical holiness do not occur plainly to our senses the true Faith cannot be discerned visibly from the false by any outward sense How can it possibly be said that the Church of Christ is at all visible or apparent to a man 'T is true a man may discern a real man from a painted man or from any other creature from the outward notices of his body though he cannot see his soul which doth primarily constitute the person of man but he cannot see whether he be a true and honest man in a moral sense from any thing appearing outwardly So may one discern the Faith professed in general to be Christian by the outward frame and fashion of the Church professing the same but the soundness of the same and sincerity according to Christs will and institution he cannot from thence conclude upon And therefore if the Catholick Faith as Catholick in the stricter sense can never be visible the Catholick Church so being and denominated from that Faith can never be said to be properly visible but only as a Society not as the true Society of Christians in opposition to the false For instance sense or common reason not informed from the word of God could never judge whether the Arrian or the Catholick Faith as it then began to be called were most truly Christian but they both might judge that they were Christian Societies and so at least outwardly made a true Church But because it is one thing to profess the true Faith and another quite distinct from that Truly to profess the Faith as it is one thing to profess Justice and Truth and Honesty and another truly to profess these and practise them therefore can there be no estimate taken of the true Catholick Church from the persons professing the Catholick Faith who are alwayes uncertain and mutable but judgement must be made from the outward constitution only which are Discipline or Government and not Doctrine or Faith For where the former is not rightly composed according to the mind and institution of Christ there cannot be said to be a true Church And where the second is wanting there must likewise be no Church the foundation of the Church and Rule failing viz. the true Faith But wherever these be inviolately and incorruptly preserved and publickly professed though we should suppose every particular Member of such a Society to be notorious Hypocrites yet the Church might be said to be a true Church because the Church doth not receive any more than its material subsistance from the persons believing but its formal and more distinct Being it hath from the true Regiment and Faith which it is possible though scarce probable may be sufficiently preserved under hypocritical and wicked members of the same This is not only true in it self but appears so to be from the necessity of having any knowledge of the true Church at all and its being visible at any time For it never being certainly visible who are the predestinate infallibly to Life and who are not who shall constantly stand and who shall fall who are inwardly hypocrites and who are faithful and sincere indeed seeing notwithstanding the exactest judgment and search of man there