our Church speaks spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith in so much that a true and lively Faith may be known by them as a Tree is discerned by its Fruit. But still it is Faith not works that do justifie for they having no intrinsick value of their own cannot conferr it on any but Faith alone which takes hold as some speak of the all-sufficient merits of our Blessed Saviour Or as our Church speaks sends us directly to Christ for the remission of our Sins and by which we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the remission of our Sins which thing none other of our Vertues or Works properly doth therefore the Scripture useth to say That Faith without Works doth justifie Not that even Faith it self is a proper and necessary cause of Justification but that it has pleased God to accept it as a cause or means by embracing or taking hold of the merits of Christ which are the true proper meritorious cause of Justification Which justification or righteousness which we so receive of God's mercy and Christ's merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of by God as our perfect and full Justification And this is the reason that the Gentlemen of the Authour's persuasion are so unwilling to have Faith onely to justifie Secondly This ought to be an Orthodox Faith in all Fundamentals at least All the admirable Effects which the Scripture does attribute to Faith must be understood of a true Faith such as is agreeable to God's word which is to be the rule of our Faith and not of a false or Heterodox Faith which any one takes up from a Party of Men or from his own Imagination A Heterodox Faith is no more Faith than a dead man or a painted man is a Man they agree in one common equivocal Name 't is true and in nothing else So that an Heterodox Faith can no more pretend to those supernatural Effects which a true Faith by God's grace does produce than a dead Man can pretend to all the Properties and Operations of a live one There is but one Faith as well as one Baptism so that to hope to be justified by a false or another Faith is as unreasonable as to expect to come into the Church by another Baptism So that they that teach a Justification by works or any other Faith than an Orthodox one do themselves for ought as I see teach another Gospel Thirdly The reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as that he should make this the great Means of Justification And here I hope to give an Answer to the Authour's Dilemma and to shew that our Faith in Christ is not irrational and then we are no Fools and as for our merit by Faith we are far from pretending to it we acknowledge it as an infinite mercy of our gracious God that he will accept our Faith in Christ's blood for our Justification and do not go about to argue the worth of it which is none And as for the grounds of our Faith in Christ for Justification I know not what can be more reasonable than to expect only to have our weak Performances accepted for the sake of his all-all-sufficient Merits And of all our Actions that we can perform I know not what can be more pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God than for an humble and desponding Christian considering his own unworthiness and the insufficiency of his Repentance it self and all other Vertues to incline God to mercy so far as for their sakes to accept him for just and innocent he as the last refuge he hath quitteth all worth and merit in himself and fleeth with a full and undoubting Faith in all God's revelations and a firm confidence in all his promises unto the free grace of God revealed in Christ Jesus and hopes for the sake of his Righteousness alone that he will justifie his imperfect Performances This certainly when we have done the utmost of our Endeavours is more pleasing to God than any action we can do more For if we could be justified by our works it would tempt us to reflect with Pride upon our vertuous Actions but this teaches us a pious despondency in our selves and to cast all our hopes upon our blessed Saviour And this is the summ of the Apostles Arguments Eph. 2. 8. For by Grace ye are saved through Faith not of your selves nor of works least any one should boast And the learned Cassander though a Papist says thus much in favour of this Doctrine of the Protestants that in this Question by the word Faith they mean only the grace of God which is correspondent to faith quae fidei ex adverso respondet and to be justified by faith alone signifies the same as by grace alone in opposition to all kind of works CHAP. III. What figure Faith made in natural Religion OUR Authour in the beginning of this Chapter lays down Faith as a duty in natural Religion that it is a branch of Justice by which we pay to God what is due to his Veracity that this was before all positive Law and that upon this the Gospel is built because the Faith of Abraham which is recommended for our pattern Rom. 4. was nothing else but this Justice that the lack of this Faith was reproved by the Angel in Sarah and was punished in Lot's Wife Gen. 18. and in the incredulous Lord 2 King 7. And that this is the Faith lastly which is commended in the Worthies mentioned Heb. 11. And last of all he endeavours to shew the excellency of Abraham's Faith to consist in believing God against so many difficulties from this natural notion of his Veracity Any one that understands the nature of the Authour's Book will easily see into his design here which is to bring down all Faith to be a meer Creature of Reason to be no longer that which the Schools call an infused Habit or the inspiration of God but only a bare rational belief upon divine Testimony Now as to his notion of Faith its being a branch of Justice and that by the light of nature we are taught to believe God upon his Testimony this is in some measure most certainly true as appears by the practice of the Heathens themselves who had nothing but the light of nature to walk by in their believing their Oracles Auguries Prophesies c. and in suiting their actions according to them So that 't is plain that natural Religion tells us God is to be believed upon his Testimony so that when a Man under natural Religion does believe any thing upon God's Testimony our Authour may if he pleases call this Faith But Theological Faith or Faith under the Gospel is quite of another kind this is not only an assent of the understanding but a divine Grace or Habit infused though our Authour would have them the same by saying the Gospel is built upon this and moreover That Faith in Abraham
it from hence follows That they must be saved by a Faith in Christ or else they would be saved by Faith in another Name I say They must be saved by Faith in his name for that is the onely Means of Salvation God has proposed That was one of the express terms of Reconciliation agreed upon with the Father to be performed on Man's part so that they could reap no benefit from this Covenant without performing that condition As to his other Instances to prove Faith in the old Testament to be only a natural Faith as of Enoch Moses Josuah Rahab c. I answer First 'T is very certain that the word Faith in Scripture is taken in very diverse acceptations sometimes for the Profession of the Gospel sometimes for a belief of Christ's being able to cure Diseases sometimes for a trust and reliance upon God's promises in general which are all distinguished from the particular reliance upon God's mercy and Promises through the Merits of Jesus Christ which is the only true justifying Faith Now 't is true the Apostle in the eleventh of the Hebrews where he reckons up all those eminent examples of Faith does not understand by Faith here strictly the justifying Faith but only a firm reliance upon God's promises that he will in his good time deliver his Servants and therefore he urges these precedents of Faith and trusting in God to encourage the Christians to a chearful undergoing of their Sufferings and a perseverance in their Belief that God will shortly deliver them by destroying the Jews which were their bitterest Enemies for in the Verses immediately preceding this Chapter he comforts his fainting Converts in these words Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Now the just shall live by Faith but if any Man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him By which it is plain That the Examples that are afterwards brought to comfirm those wavering Christians in this sort of Faith or Perseverance in their Sufferings must be famous for their Perseverance in Afflictions upon account of this Faith or reliance upon God's promises to deliver them and that this sort of Faith is that which is chiefly recommended here But then Secondly It no ways follows that these good men whose examples are here proposed had no other Faith but this These and all other good men under the old Testament had a formal Faith in the Messias or Christ Jesus which is the true justifying Faith Moses wrote of Christ Act. 3. 2 to the end as our Saviour tells the Jews that they might believe on him Joh. 5. 46. And many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which they saw Matt. 13. 17. and that many Kings have desired it Luk. 10. 24. Jacob when he was dying said that he had waited for the Salvation of the Lord Gen. 49. 18. Anna the Prophetess spake of Christ to all them that looked for redemption at Jerusalem Luk. 2. 38. Philip said that he had found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Joh. 1. 45. The Samaritan Woman knew that Christ cometh Joh. 4. 25. St. Paul speaks in his Oration to Agrippa of the Promise made unto the Father unto which the Twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come Act. 26. 6. From all which it is plain That all these good Servants of God did believe in Christ the Saviour of the World and that this Faith of theirs was imputed unto them for Righteousness And so now what is become of our Authour 's natural Faith which he makes to be the Mother of the Evangelical The Faith of these good Men was the gift of God as well as ours they were justified by Faith and so are we Gal. 3. 8. they live by Faith in Christ Jesus as well as we they disclaimed all righteousness in works as well as we so that if theirs be a natural Faith ours must be so too And so now by our Authour 's natural Faith and other Mens moral grace we are in a fair way to have all Christianity dwindled into downright Paganism CHAP. IV. That Credulity is not Faith but an opposite Vice OUR Authour being resolved to carry on his notion of natural Faith and to make it a compleat Heathen Virtue has resolved to bring it to the test of the Heathen Philosophy and to make it to suit the better with the Aristotelian Vertues has gotten it two extream Vices to surround it Infidelity in the defect and Credulity in the excess But 't is Credulity is the Vice that our Authour has the pique against and therefore spends all this Chapter to prove that Credulity is not Faith And this we could readily have granted him without all his pains of proving it Now one would think that this was easy enough to prove and yet he has unluckily failed in the attempt For instead of proving that Credulity is not Faith which is easy enough of all Conscience to do he first goes to prove that Credulity is an excess of Faith as Fool-hardiness is of Valour or Prodigality of Bounty And secondly That they that believe contrary to reason are guilty of Credulity Now one would think that when our Authour had before laid down that Faith was only Justice to God he would make Credulity which he would have the excess of this Justice to be summum jus and so consequently to be summa injuria towards him and this he should do if he kept up to his own Rules and the analogy of these moral Vertues But he very fairly lets that alone and falls again to proving that which no body will deny That Men must not believe in contradiction to their reason in compliance with any humane Authority Now for ought that the Authour has gained of his point in this Chapter he might as well have proved that a Bear was not a Man or a Man was not a Mouse all that ever he could propose to himself was to insinuate into his unwary Readers that our Faith in the Blessed Trinity is not Faith but Credulity and that we are therefore Credulous because he would suppose we ground that Faith only upon humane Authority by which 〈◊〉 means chiefly the Authority of ancient Councils Therefore what 〈◊〉 shall say to this Chapter I shall reduce to two heads and shew First That Credulity is not excess of divine Faith Secondly That an acquiescence in the determinations of General Councils in matter of Faith is not Credulity First That Credulity is not an excess of divine Faith Credulity is a Vice by which we easily give our assent to the relation of another without just reasons and motives for it Now this Vice in its ordinary notion is only opposite to that just humane belief that is owing to one another as we are Men. For humane Faith or Belief of what another Man says when neither the matter it self nor the Relater is liable to any
just exception is a social duty and which any Man that speaks truth and has not justly lost his reputation may claim from us as Fellow Creatures But when the matter related is incredible or which my Reason tells me is not enough probable or when the Relater is sufficiently exceptionable or if any thing else accompany the Relation which will give sufficient suspition of falsity to a prudent Man then if I believe such a Relation I am truly said to be Credulous because there I make my Belief exceed its just bounds I give more credit to the Relater than he ought to have whereas my Faith in this case ought to stop at the confines of probability I let it pass over them and believe things improbable But there can be no such thing in a divine Faith for taking that in our Authour's sense to be only a piece of justice to God there can be no excess in believing what he reveals or relates to us 't is impossible there should lie any exception against him as a Relater for he is most true and cannot deceive us as to whatever difficulty there lies in the matter related he is most powerful and can make good what he promises his Wisdom is infinite and knows exactly the express Modus of those Truths he had revealed to us which our finite understandings cannot comprehend It is impossible for us to believe too much what God affirms unless we could suppose that our Belief could be greater than God's Veracity or that God could say something was so which we knew impossible to be so So that to make Credulity an excess of Faith is to prescribe bounds how far Men should believe God and to give them caution that they should not credit him any farther than they saw reason for it but when his Relations began to them to seem unreasonable that then they should choose whether they would believe him or no that then they should stand upon their own guard for fear of being censur'd for easy Men and being thought the worst of all Fools the Credulous So that in short whatever Credulity is 't is not an excess of divine Faith unless we could believe God too true or that God could tell us something was true which was manifestly false Secondly That an acquiescence in the determinations of General Councils though in matters of Faith is not Credulity I would not have our Authour think that we ground our Faith in the Blessed Trinity upon the determinations only of general Councils which he means by his greatest humane Authority as if we had nothing in Scripture to urge for it we have Arguments enough from thence to confound all the force and subtilties of our Heretical Adversaries and several learned Men in the beginning of this Age have brought so much from thence as perfectly silenced this Heresy for a time and has baffled their Cause for ever I am sure at least against all such espousers of it as this Authour seems to be And as for Councils when we rely upon their determinations in asserting and explaining the Ancient Faith I do not think we are so much credulous as these fort of Gentlemen are saucy to say no worse when they bespatter these August Assemblies with so much Contumely and Buffoonry as they use to do There are none of our Church that look upon the determinations of general Councils to be the infallible Oracles of God they are as our Authour speaks humane Authorities but then they are the greatest humane Authority upon Earth they are the Representatives of the Church Universal and if our judgments are apt to be inclined by the Authority of single Doctors they ought to be much more so by the Authority of such a number of good and learned Men convened from all the parts of the Christian World We do not run up the Authority of Councils so high as to give them power to constitute new Articles of Faith as the Papists do but then we look upon them to be the best Judges in the World of old ones and of what was the true ancient and Catholick Faith to declare what Doctrines according to Lirinensis's Rule have Universality Consent Antiquity when they come to be contested by Hereticks For the Members of these Councils being Bishops drawn from all parts of the World are able to give an account of the Belief of the Faithful in their Districts and of the uncorrupted Writings and Traditions of their Fore-fathers Neither yet do we allow them if they shall oppose their Opinions or Traditions against the express word of God but only when they declare the truth of their Doctrine as Theodoret speaks of the Nicene Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Scripture words piously understood of which there is no oâ—e but must allow them to be the most excellent and the most authentick Expositors And yet though we cannot grant it to be an Article of our Christian Faith That general Councils cannot err because there is no such proposition found in Scripture nor by any necessary consequence to be deduced from thence but most good Men look upon it as a Theological Verity for which there are some probable Arguments out of Scripture alledged as Mat. 18. 20. When two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in the midst of them and Joh. 16. 3. When the spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth and the most good and learned Men in all times have generally thought that the inerrability of a general Council that was fairly called and duly celebrated was one of the piè credibilia which a good Man though he is not necessitated is yet well disposed to believe For if we consider the great love which God does bear to his Church and the peculiar Providence he does exercise over it if we consider the promises that he has made to it that it is his desire that all Men should be saved and should come to the knowledge of all necessary Truth there is no good Man but will be inclined to believe that God out of his infinite love and goodness which he has declared to bear to his Church will not suffer the Representatives of it in these sacred Assemblies to err in any important matter of Faith that he will not permit any deadly poison thus to sink into the bowels of his Church when they use all the fair and honest means they can to avoid it but that he will give his holy Spirit to direct them in settling the true Faith as may be best for the edification of his Church But though general Councils have not a divine inerrable Authority yet they have in matters of Religion the greatest humane and coercive one especially when owned and confirmed by the secular Power therefore though we were certain that they had determined something erroneously and which our own reason and judgment told us was so yet we ought to keep this reason to our selves and
either can from hence conclude that God is in some manner he does not understand three and yet one which is all the notion any one can have of the Trinity Here is no such remote distance between the word and the consequence but any one of the meanest Capacity may find out for Men in their ordinary business every day make conclusions at a wider distance from their premises than this or else I am sure they are not fit to live or deal in the World As to what he instances in the consequence which the Papists draw from Christ's bidding Peter seed his Lambs the Papists when they think fit may answer that for themselves 3. The Third Qualification he gives for Matter of Faith is That it be expresly honoured in Scripture with the promise of Eternal Life Now 't is a little arbitrary methinks in the Authour to lay down a Rule here as he does and give no reason for it especially such a one as he might reasonably expect would be contested and 〈◊〉 one should make bold to deny it he would I believe have a difficult Task of it to prove That every particular Article of only the Apostles Creed had the Promise of Eternal Life expresly annexed to it in Scripture He first tells us a wonderful thing That every thing in Scripture though it be equally true yet it is not equally Gospel and for the Proof of this he brings in the business of Paul's Cloak which he left behind him But I hope the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity is of something more Importance to those that believe it especially than the Relation of Paul's Cloak And if we should ask any Socinian in the World whether supposing it true it was not of greater Importance than this I believe the Vnitarian himself would give such an Answer as would make the Authour ashamed of such an impudent and saucy Comparison And now one would think that the Man that would be so bold as to make this Comparison would bring something to prove That the Belief of Christ's Divinity had not Eternal Life promised to it or that all other Doctrines which were required to be believed had But instead of this he brings one Text of Scripture which makes perfectly against the Doctrine he designs to establish and that is Mark 16. 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Now if the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity be revealed in the Gospel as we have shewn it is and the Belief of the Gospel have Eternal Life promised to it then the Belief of Christ's Divinity has a Title to this Promise as well as the Belief of the Resurrection or any other Christian Doctrine because it is revealed in the Gospel as well as that From this Rule thus firmly established he draws four Corollaries First There is no need of an Interpreter of Scripture or Determiner of Doubts in Matter of Faith Secondly The Scriptures cannot be denyed to be sufficient Thirdly We need not ought not to be uncharitable to any who differ from us in other Doctrines to the Belief whereof the Promise is not appropriated Fourthly There is no need of a Catalogue of Fundamentals How well these Corollaries follow from his Proposition I shall not now dispute though upon examination I believe the Consequence would not be so genuine and there might be some occasion for one of the Authour's Heralds to derive it but as for the Two first of them they make nothing at all against the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity which the Authour knows well enough we do not ground upon Infallibility and pure Tradition but only he has a Mind to give us a Cast of his Heretical Malice by blackening this Doctrine as much as he could and by making it look something more of a Romanish Complexion As to his Third Corollary First That is grounded upon Supposition That the Belief of Christ's Divinity has not the Promise of Eternal Life annexed to it Now I wonder with what Confidence the Authour can go about to invalidate a Truth which is so firmly established even upon his own Principles How often in one Chapter of St. John's Gospel Joh. 3. is Eternal Life promised to Belief in the Son God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. He that believeth on him is not condemned v. 18. He that believeth on the Son hath eternal Life By all which believing is meant a believing in Christ's Divinity and not a believing the Truth of his Doctrine for believing in is only attributable to God as implying an unlimited Trust and Relyance in him which it is Idolatry to afford to any Creature For there is a great deal of difference between credere Deo believing God and credere in Deum believing in him which is a Distinction which is made great use of by some of the Latin Fathers and the School-men they allowing bare believing to be applicable to a Creature but that none is to be believed in but Almighty God But besides there are other Texts of Scripture which do promise Eternal Life namely and expresly to the Belief of Christ's Divinity This is life eternal that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Joh. 17. 3. Now what can be meant by knowing Jesus Christ but knowing or believing his Divinity That he was Man they could not chuse but know that he was a Prophet his Miracles shew'd so that they could know him no other way truly but only by knowing his Divinity And this was the Purport of our Saviour's Prayer just before That God would glorifie him that is would make his Divinity conspicuous to the World v. 1. which he puts out of all doubt by his explaining his meaning v. 5. And now O Father glorifie thou me with thy own self with the glory which I had with thee before the World was Now that Glory which he had before the World could be only the Glory of his Divinity therefore the Promise of Eternal Life was made to the knowing or believing Christ's Divinity The same thing is as plainly expressed 1 Joh. 5. 20. And hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God even eternal life Where he that is the true God is said to be Jesus Christ and the knowing him to be the true God i. e. believing him to be such is promised to be rewarded with Eternal Life Secondly As to his saying we ought not to be uncharitable to those that differ from us in Points which have not this Promise this depends upon the Truth of his Assertion that those Truths he means have not such a Promise in Scripture