Similitudes in our Thoughts of God while we exclude all the Imperfections of such Similitudes § 15. But after all till the Love of God be shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost and God as LOVE look on us with his attracting and exhilarating Aspect or Communication all these notions will be dull and barren and will leave the Soul under fears and despondency It is Love by vital Influence warming the Affections that must give us a sweet taste of what we know and overcome the fear of Death and Wrath and give us comfortable Boldness and Courage in all the Dangers that we must go through And seeing Christ telleth Philip If thou hast seen or known me thou hast known the Father we must by Faith see the Father in the Son incarnate who came into our Nature to be a Mediator of our Thoughts and Conceptions of God and especially as he is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE and I think in his GLORY will in Heaven be the Mediator of our LIFE INTUITION and FRUITION Come Lord Jesus Amen CHAP. 2. Of Trinity in Unity § 1. WHen I wrote the foregoing Treatise I found the generality of Christians Protestants and Papists agreed about the Trinity but Heresie and Debauchery encreasing together the Case seemeth partly altered And the ambitious rich and worldly sort being from their Childhood bred up in fleshly pleasure and in ignorance and contempt of serious Christianity having really no true Religion but a Name and Image of it at last by their Tongues declare what is in their Hearts and living in a Land where Atheists and Sadducees are in splendid Dwellings whilst fear of sinning maketh Confiscations Jails and Ruine the Lot of multitudes who are zealous Protestants they take the advantage decrying what they never had But before they disown all true Religion and declare themselves Sadducees or Brutes they begin as Disputers at the points where they think Difficulty will excuse them and especially at the Trinity and the Godhead of Christ and Socinian Errors § 2. I have perhaps over-tediously and prolixly handled the Doctrine of the sacred Trinity in my Latin Methodus Theologiae opening the various Opinions about it reciting the words of the Fathers School-Doctors and Protestants who handle it And through the whole Book I have shewed That the Image of Trinity in Unity is imprinted by God on the whole known frame of Nature and Government or Morality and that Doctrine of the Trinity which to the ignorant is a Stumbling-block greatly helpeth to confirm my Belief of the truth of the Gospel and Christianity while I find it so congruous to the foresaid Impress and attested so much by all God's Works especially on Man § 3. It is a truth unquestionable that without some knowledge of God there can be no true Religion no Love to God no Trust no Hope no Obedience no true Worship of him Prayer or Praise § 4. And it is as certain that no man can have an adequate knowledge of God that is adequate which comprehendeth the whole Object knowing it perfectly and leaving nothing of it unknown And with such an adequate Knowledge we know nothing not a pile of Grass nor a Worm or a Hair Much less God With such a proper Knowledge nihil scitur is true and yet aliquid rerum is known of all § 5. Yea it is certain that of God who is incomprehensible we have here no partial Conception that reacheth so high as to be strictly FORMAL but only such as are called analogical aequivocal metaphorical or by similitude Neither Substantia Vita Perfectio Potentia Actus Intellectus Voluntas Love Truth Goodness Mercy c. are formally and univocally the same in God and in the Creature Scotus excepteth only ENS Which is true as ENS is only a Logical term signifying no more than EST or Quoddity and not QUID est or Quiddity § 6. Yet this Knowledge by similitude is not â—ull or vain but the greatest advancement of Man's Understanding All that which is formally excellent in the Creature is EMINENTLY and transcendently in God Though he have not that which we call Knowledge Will Love c. he hath that which is infinitely more excellent which these in Man have some likeness to whereby we know him § 7. Man's Knowledge beginneth at our selves and not at God We do not first know God But first we perceive our own Souls Acts and thereby we know our Power and our Substance and thereby we know what all is that is such as we and so what a Spirit is and so what GOD is As by seeing hearing feeling we perceive that we see hear feel c. every Sense having essentially a self-perception So by thinking knowing willing â—illing loving joying we perceive that we do it essentially yet though the famosius significatum be our own Act as to formality and priority it is God's as to Eminency and Perfection § 8. It is certain that as all God's Works bear some notifying Impress of his own Perfection so Man is especially made in his Image and therefore our Knowledge of God must there begin seeing we have no immediate and formal knowledge of him § 9. As God is the God of Nature Grace and Glory so he hath made on Man the Image of these three 1. The natural Faculties of his Soul are his natural Image on Man as Man For which it is said Gen. 9. that blood shall be punished with blood because Man is made in the Image of God 2. His moral gracious Image is Holiness of Intellect Will and executive Power 3. The Image of his Majesty Glory and Greatness is 1. in all men the Dominion over the lower Creatures 2. And in Governours a Power over Subjects or Inferiours § 10. To begin where our Perception beginneth 1. It is certain that the mental Nature in Man hath three distinct Faculties in one undivided Substance That is 1. Vital Active Power Intellect and Will The Vital Power being considerable first as exciting Intellection and Will and after as Executive The same Essence or Substance is this vital Activity Intellect and Will But the Active Power is not the Intellect nor the Intellect the Will nor the Will the Intellect c. And as Melanchton told his Hearers to the admiration of George Prince of Anhalt and the Duke of Saxony That the Concrete and Abstract were here differently to be used we may say that the Intellect may be said to be willing but not to be the Will the Will to be Intellectual but not to be the Intellect c. § 11. I have fully proved in Methodo Theol. parte 1. in a peculiar Disputation that these three Faculties are not Accidents of the Soul but its essential form in a triple inadequate Conception and fully confuted all that Zubarel saith to the contrary who epitomizeth all the Thomists Arguments and vindicated Scotus and added many Arguments of my own and therefore must thither referr the doubtful § 12. Not
Transubstantiation and Mr. Tho. Beverley's drew me to write some Animadversions on this Doctrine as moderating between Extreams but on further consideration I am very Ioth to be so venturous in a Case of such tremendous Mystery as to meddle for or against them left etiam vera dicere de Deo si incerta sit periculosum Though I doubt not but their exposition of Ioh. 6. is unsound while they make the Flesh and Blood of Christ which is Transubstantiated and eaten and drunk to be the eternal Flesh and Blood of Christ a Man from Eternity § 29. The difficulty of the Controversie which this leadeth to Whether the World be an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause or God from all Eternity till the forming of this lower World and Adam had no Being but Himself Doth deterr me from meddling with it lest I be blinded by presuming too nearly to gaze on the Light that should guide me and God that is Love should for my boldness be to me a Consuming Fire Things revealed only as for our search § 30. But the Conclusion which all this prepareth for is this That whatever else besides the Trinity of Primalities before described doth constitute the Trinity of Persons it is rendred altogether credible to an implicit Faith by the full Evidence and Certainty of the aforesaid Trinity of Faculties or Primalities which are God's Image on Man's Soul and the like imprinted on the whole Creation which certainly is not done in vain § 31. I pass by the rest because I have so largely handled it in Method Theolog. And among the numerous Authors there cited I desire the Reader especially to peruse the words of Guitmundus A. B. Aversanus Edmund Cantuariensis Richardi ad Bernard Pothonis Prumensis with whose words I will conclude cited pag. 103. There are three invisibles of God Power Wisdom and Benignity of which all things proceed in which all things subsist by which all things are ruled The Father is Power the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Benignity Power createth Wisdom governeth Benignity conserveth Power by Benignity wisely createth Wisdom by Power benignly governeth Benignity by Wisdom powerfully conserveth As the Image is seen in the Glass so in the state of the Soul by Humane Nature c. To this Similitude of God against Man approacheth nearly to whom God's Power giveth Power to Good and his Wisdom to Know and his Benignity â—iveth to Will This is the threefold Force of the Rational Soul posse scire velle to be able to know to will which co-operate to Faith Hope and Love or Charity § 32. Among all the Attempts that are published for our Conceptions of the Deity and Trinity I know of none that give us their Notions with greater Confidence and Pretence of Revelation than I. P. M. D. Dr. Pordage and his Leader Iacob Behmen Many other of the German Prophets going near the same way as C. Beckman describeth them I. P. his Mystica Theologia pretendeth to far greater discovery of the Deity and Trinity and the World than ever Christ Prophets or Apostles gave us First In his Globe of Eternity or the Divine Essential World pictured by 1. An Eye the Father 2. A Heart the Son 3. And the Effluvia or breathed Beams the Holy Ghost with the innumerable Progeny of such Eyes flowing from that pregnant Essence differing from it only as lesser from greater each an Individual yet making no Composition but Unity in the Deity Secondly In his Abyssal Nothing or World of Potentialities Thirdly In his Eternal Nature and the septenary included Worlds c. But 1. I consess there are many things in him and in Peter Sterry which Reason left to its conjectures would think plausible but short of Aristotle and Plato 2. And he is so high in his Description and Defence of Trine-Unity that even where I consent not I dare not call him therein unsound 3. But many Passages in his Description of Eternal Nature are apparently the effects of Ignorance and erroneous 4. And he goeth further in his making this Nature eternal and a World that is the Body of God than I dare do 5. And though I would not be too forward to contemn men that pretend to know such Mysteries by Vision and Revelation yet I resolve to take Christ for my sufficient and infallible Teacher and to pretend to know no more of the Deity and unseen World than he hath thought meet to reveal For no man hath seen the Father at any time but the only begotten Son nor doth any else know him but he and those to whom he revealeth him And what Christ hath not revealed of God I think it is because it is fittest for us to be yet ignorant of it as a necessary difference between our present and our future state To search for more will but confound and lose us and resting practically in what Christ hath revealed and for the rest trusting our selves fully in his Knowing for us his Love to us and his Promise for us may safely and sufficiently quiet the Mind that can be well quieted no other way CHAP. 3. Of the Incarnation and Hypostatical Union § 1. NO wonder that it seemeth hard to Man to understand how the Divine Nature assumeth the Humane into Union when it is so far beyond our reach to conceive how God is near to all his Works and how he operateth on every man Christ hath told us That we know not how a man is born of the Spirit no more than we know whence the Wind cometh and whither it goeth And can we easilier know how God became Man § 2. It is certain that God being infinite is as near to us as is possible our Souls can be no nearer to our Bodies nor perhaps to themselves And though Philosophers dispute Whether Spirits be in loco and whether God be in us or we in him and whether he be quasi locus spatium to the World yet it is past question that he is omnipresent and intimately proximus to all things § 3. It is not therefore his meer Presence or Proximity of being that is this Hypostatical Union else it would extend to all the World It is harder therefore to prove that God is not as nearly united to all than to prove that he is not so united to the Humane Nature of Christ. Which caused Peter Sterry and such others to hold That Christ hath three Natures that is That the Divine Nature first produced the prime superangelical emanant Nature by which he seemeth to mean an universal Soul to the Matter of the World and that this superangelical Nature did unite it self to all but eminently to the humane Nature of Christ which he calleth One top-Branch in the Tree of Beings Some say the superangelical Nature being Christ's only Soul assuming but a Body others that it assumed a Body and Soul § 4. The grand difficulty about God's Unity with the World and the World with God is how to
Slave and also promiseth him great Possessions and Honours in a Kingdom in the East Indies or at the Antipodes if he will leave his Servitude and his Country and all that he hath there and go with him in his Ship and patiently endure the Sea-trials till he come thither Here he must 1. believe that the Prince hath paid his ransome 2. That he is a wise man and knoweth what he promised and skilful to conduct him safely through all the perils of the Seas 3. That he is an honest man and intendeth not to deceive him 4. That he is sufficient or able to perform his word 5. And if upon this belief he trust him he will let go all and venture in his Ship and follow him And here one tells him that the Ship is unsound another tells him that the Prince is a Deceiver unable to perform his Word or unskilful or dishonest and some way untrusty and another tells him that small matters in his own Country are better than greater with so much hazard and sets out the dangers and terribleness of the Seas Now if the man be ask'd Do you believe or will you trust me or will you not here every one by believing and trusting knoweth that a practical Trust is meant which lieth in such a confidence as forsaketh all and taketh the promised Kingdom for all his hope Such is our Saving Faith § 12. As many Acts and many Objects go to constitute Saving Faith so if you will logically anatomize it all these following must be taken in § 13. 1. The principal Efficient Cause is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost respectively according to their several operations § 14. 2. The Instrumental Cause is the Word of God and the Preaching and Preachers of it or Parents Friends or some that reveal the Word unto us § 15. 3. Subordinate auxiliary means are Providential Alterations by some awaking Judgments or inviting Mercies or convincing Examples c. § 16. 4. The Soul of Man in all its three Faculties Vital-active Intellective and Volitive is 1. the Recipient of the Divine Influx and then 2. the immediate Efficient or Agent of the Acts of Faith § 17. 5. Preparatory Grace and Duty is ordinarily Man's Disposition as he is the Recipient of God's Grace and the Agent of believing But God is free and can work on the unprepared but it is not to be taken for his ordinary way § 18. 6. The formal Object of the assenting Act of Faith is veracit as Dei revelantis the Veracity or Truth of God revealing his Will § 19. 7. The formal Object of the accepting and receiving Act is the Goodness of the Benefits offered us by the Covenant as offered § 20. 8. The formal Object of our Trust or Affiance is God's fides Fidelity because of his aforesaid Veracity in promising and his Power Wisdom and Benevolence as a Performer and this full Act comprehendeth all the rest It is God's Trustiness § 21. 9. The material Objects of the assenting Act in genere are all God's Assertions or Revelations More especially the Gospel or the Christian Faith objective according to the Edition of the Covenant which we are under § 22. The Essentials of our objective Christian Faith constitute the Essence of our active Saving Faith and the Integrals of it constitute the Integrity § 23. And it is of great importance to distinguish here as to the Word and Objects between 1. the signa or words 2. the signification or sence 3. the things matter or incomplex objects as distinct from words and sence viz. God Christ Grace Heaven Goodness Iustice Men c. And to hold 1. That the words are not necessary for themselves but for the sence and therefore Translations or any words which give us the same sence may serve to the being of Saving Faith 2. That the sence it self is not necessary for it self ultimately as if Holiness lay in notions but for the things which that sence revealeth viz. God to be loved and obeyed Christ to be received the Holy Ghost to be received and obeyed Holiness and all Grace to be received loved used encreased our Brethren to be loved Heaven to be desired c. All sence will not bring us to the reception of the things for all is not apt but any that doth this which must be divine and apt will constitute us true Believers § 24. 1. The material Objects of our acceptance and consent are the Word of God commanding offering and promising and the good of Duty and Benefit commanded offered and promised that is All that is given us in the baptismal Covenant God the Father and his Love the Son and his Grace and the Holy Ghost and his Communion The Father as reconciled and adopting us the Son as having redeemed us to teach rule justifie and save us the Holy Spirit to sanctifie comfort and perfect us § 25. 11. The material Object of our Trust or Affiance is God himself the prime Truth Power and Good and Christ as his Messenger and our Saviour and the Holy Ghost as the Author of the Word and the Word as being the Word of God You must pardon us as necessitated to call God a material Object analogically for want of words § 26. 12. The ultimate or final Objects of Saving Faith are 1. God himself the ultimate ultimum that is the perfect Complacency of his will in his Glory eternally shining forth in our Glory and the Glory of Christ with all the Church triumphant 2. Next to that This Glory it self which is a created thing and the Perfection of the Universe and of Christ's Church and our selves in which it consisteth And therein our own Perfection and our perfect sight love and praise of our glorious God and our Redeemer 3. And next under that the first fruits of all this in this World in the foresaid love of the Father and Grace of the Son and Communion of the Holy Spirit and the Church § 27. If therefore we were put to give a full description of Saving Faith we must be as large as this following or such-like in sence viz. The Faith which the Adult must profess in Baptism as having the Promise of Justification and Salvation is a sincere fiducial practical Assent to Divine Revelations and especially to the Gospel revealing and offering us God himself to be our God and reconciled Father Christ to be our Saviour viz. by his Incarnation meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice Resurrection Doctrine Example Government Intercession and final Judgment and the Holy Ghost to quicken illuminate and sanctifie us that so we may live in the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit and of the Christian Church being saved from our Enemies Sin and Misery initially in this Life and perfectly in eternal perfect Glory With a fiducial acceptance of the Gifts of the Covenant according to their nature and a sincere federal Consent and with a sincere
that Man's Soul is there by three forms for all are but one form But Man's narrow Mind cannot conceive of them but by three Conceptions which yet are not Fictions but as Scotus calis them FORMALITATES and as Campanella Primalities or Essentialities or as the Nominals extrinseck Denominations and Relative by connotation of the Objects and Effects He that hath a Wit subtile enough to conceive of Scotus his FORMALITIES as noting only a fundamentum objectivum distinguendi will not wonder that a Soul made in God's Image should be of difficult Conception § 13. II. The same Soul of Man hath three more general Faculties that is mental sensitive and vegetative or igneous These are distinct but not divided yet are not three Souls but one though the inferiour Operations at least may be alterable according to Organs and Objects and some uses of Senses and Vegetation cease § 14. III. The sensitive Soul in Brutes hatk the Faculties 1 Vitally active 2. Sensibly apprehensive 3. Sensibly appetitive one of these Faculties is not the other yet all are but one sensitive Soul § 15. IV. The igneous Nature in Plants called Vegetative hath three Faculties Motive Discretive differencing its proper Nutriment from other things and Attractive which is assimilative yet all are but one substance § 16. V. The Sun and all igneous substances have their formal Powers that is Motive Illuminative and Calefactive The motion in power or act is not formally the Light nor is the Light the Heat nor is the Heat the Light or Motion Nor are these three Suns or Substances but one Substance is in all three whose form we necessarily conceive of by this triple inadequate Conception And thus it is in all the Creatures of Active Nature which the Receptivity of the Passive also answer and as I have proved elsewhere through all Morality also Melancthon Loc. Com. per Maulium p. 3 4. mentioneth many such instances in the Sun in Astronomy in Musick in Geometry in Grammar in Arithmetick to which Logick and Politicks might be added All Effects have only three Causes which in the general of Causality are one that is the Cause efficient Constitutive and Final For Matter Receptive-disposition called Privation and Form are but the three parts of the Constitutive Cause My Mâ—th Theol. instanceth in many more § 17. It is certain that the three grand Attributes Principles Primalities Essentialities or Formalities as men diversly call them of which the three Faculties of the Soul are an Image are in God not univocally the same as in Man but eminently and transcendently And his other Attributes of Truth Mercy Justice c. are these variously exercised and related that is Vital-act Intellect and Will called as Perfect Omnipotent Activity Omniscience or Wisdom and Goodness or Love And I have proved ubi supra that these are not Accidents in God but his Essence in a threefold formal Conception truly distinguishable some say Ratione rationata some say formaliter and some ex connotatione relatione ad objecta and perhaps all little differ in Sence § 18. All Theologue agree That GOD must be said to be essential Life Self-knowledge and Self-love to be essentially sui-vita se-scire se-amare and that these are best exprest by Substantives abstractly and not only in the Concrete by Adjectives or Verbs sui-vita sui-scientia sui-amor Thus far â—â—ere is no doubtfulness § 19. As in man we must conceive inadequateâ—â— of the three prime Faculties distinctly not â—â—paratingly 1. As in virtute vel potentia 2. As 〈◊〉 actu immanente ad se. 3. In actu transâ—unte ad 〈…〉 ia so must we inadequately conceive of them as 〈…〉 inently in God § 20. It is undeniable that GOD is CREATOR REDEEMER and SANCTIFIER the God of Nature Grace and Glory Vitae Medicinae Salu 〈…〉 s. And though Father Son and Holy Ghost are all these yet usually in Scripture Creation is said to be the Work of the Father by the Son and Spiâ—it and Redemption the Work of the Son sent by the Father and Perfection or Sanctification the Work of the Holy Ghost as sent by the Father and the Son Therefore Baptism which is our Christening bindeth us in Covenant to God as in these three Relations which I hope may be easilier understood than all the Schoolmens Disputes of the Trinity And no doubt but our Baptism is a practical Covenant Thus the Trinity of Principles in Unity is considerable as is aforesaid 1. Radically in virtute Essentiae 2. In the immanent acts of self-living self-knowing and self-loving 3. And exeunter transiently in Creation Redemption and Sanctification considered not as Effects but ex parte agentis as acting them § 21. The word PERSON by the custom of the Church having been so commonly used is not to be disused while it is well expounded lest we seem by changing the word to change the Doctrine But the Church had the same Faith before that word was applied to the Trinity and it was long before the use of it was agreed on some being for Hypostasis and some for Persona and some excepting against both but not knowing what word to substitute And is it any Wonder that Humane Language wanteth proper words to signifie that of God which is so far above our comprehension So that it is not because they are wiser than he that some except against the judicious Dr. Wallis for being no more zealous for this Name nor peremptory for any substitute but because they understand not so well how unfit man is to make Names for God which he hath not made himself and taught us § 22. The bare use of the name Person by one that knoweth not what that word signifieth doth prove no man Orthodox but only that he useth Orthodox words it will save no man to use a word which he understands not And the dislike of that word or the word Hypostafis as Hierome did will condemn no man who believeth the thing whiâ—h those that understandingly use the word do believe The Scripture hath all necessary names of the Trinity § 23. Doubtless the word PERSON of the Trinity is of very different signification from the same word applied to Man And what constituteth a PERSON in the Trinity none have so curiously searched and disputed as the Schoolmen yet he that shall read but what I have recited out of them in Method Theol. will find it past the capacity of an ordinary Student to know what they mean and impossible to reconcile them with each other Certainly their sence of the word PERSON was never made necessary to the Christian Faith § 24. Many Protestant Doctors take up with the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whenas the usual sence both of that Word and of Persona is but a Relative Person not Aquinas and such others Relation which is a substance but properly the same Person Natural as related diversly And if this were all no man that owneth One God would question a Plurality of Persons
Word of God And I think that I have elsewhere proved that Generative Traduction of Souls and yet God's present yea immediate Causation of their Essence which may be called Creation are here Consistent Which here I must not now repeat Vid. Meth. Theol. and Reasons of Christian Religion CHAP. XI Of our Redemption by Christ. § 1. SIN having made Man guilty and depraved unfit for duty and felicity odious to the most Holy Righteous God and lyable to his Justice the eternal Wisdom and Word of God did interpose and by Mercy did save Man from the deserved rigour of Justice promising Actual Redemption in the fulness of time and on that supposition giving fallen Man a pardoning and saving Law or Covenant of Grace with answerable help of his Spirit and Means and outward Mercies fitted to his Recovery and Salvation § 2. But God would not have this Recovery and Salvation to be perfect at the first but gave Man a certain proportion of Common Deliverance and Mercy binding him to a Course of Duty in the performance of which he should receive more by degrees till he were perfected As Phisicians cure their Patients § 3. Therefore God did enter into Judgment with fallen Man and did sentence him absolutely to some degree of Punishment even to Labour Pain the penalty of the Cursed Earth and finally to Death which Temporal Punishment God would not remit nor give him a Saviour to procure the pardon of it but only to the Faithful to turn all this unto their Benefit and to deliver them from the greater everlasting Sufferings § 4. And their own sinful pravity and privation of Holiness and communion with God which also was their greatest punishment by Consequence God would not at once nor in this Life perfectly save them from and therefore accordingly pardoned them their punishment but by the forementioned degrees For he is not perfectly pardoned or saved who is yet left under so much penalty § 5. Some thinking it hard that for 4000 Years the World should have no Existent Mediator and that an Existent Faith in the future Mediator should be more necessary than an Existent Mediator and his Work and thinking withal that it would solve many Textual Difficulties objected by the Arians and explain the Appearances of Christ to the Patriarchs have conceived that Christ hath a threefold Nature viz. The Divine Nature a created Super-Angelical Nature to which the Divine Nature was united before the Incarnation and the Humane Nature assumed at the Incarnation and that so we had an Existent Mediator from the time of the Fall But whatever conveniences this Opinion may seem to have I find no satisfactory proof of it in Scripture nor that the Christian Church did ever hold it And it is overmuch boldness to take up so great a Doctrine as a third Nature in Christ which the Church of Christ was never acquainted with And the Texts that seem to be for it are capable of the common Exposition § 6. If any think that this was the Judgment of abundance yea the most of the Antient Writers before the days of Arius because they have such unhappy expressions of Christ which the Reader may find truly Collected to his hand by Petavius de Trinitate and that it is fitter to Expound them as speaking only of Christ's second Nature than to account them all Arians or to honour the Arians by making them on their side I answer I leave every Man to his own judgment upon perusal of the Fathers words allowing all Charity that hath sufficient ground But I cannot perceive that these Writers talk of any more Natures in Christ than two and pious ends must be served by no Fictions and Untruths I think that we must rather gather with Petavius there that the Votes in the Nicene Council tell us that then the greater part of the Church were against Arius and therefore they were so before because they held in so great a point the Faith which they had received from their Fathers And that the greater part of Writers might differ from the greater part of the Church And withal these Writers having more than other men to do with the Heathen Philosophers and Orators who were prejudiced against the Doctrine of the Trinity did shun their Offence by too much stretching their speeches to that which they thought they could easilier digest which gave Arius his advantages The Conclusions either way are harsh and sad but I leave others better to avoid them § 7. The Deity it self may not unfitly be called our REDEEMER before the Incarnation though not so fitly a MEDIATOR and though Redemption by Christ's Death and Merits in the Flesh was not then wrought Because the word Redeeming is oft taken for a merciful Delivering though without a price and also because the Price was promised from the beginning But thus the word REDEEMER is equivocal signifying either the Deity as a promising undertaking Saviour or the Mediator who was promised and who performed the undertaken means § 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy it was no inconvenience that God then had all the Glory and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour but God himself the infinite Good § 9. It troubleth men much to open how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator before his Incarnation And what his merits sacrifice and intercession could do before they did exist And the common Answer is That Moral though not Physical Causes may cause before they exist and so operate as foreseen foredecreed or willed But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question instead of satisfactorily answering it This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so but quasi causa Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient final or constitutive Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God or only of some following effect § 10. It must be concluded that Christ's merits sacrifice and Intercession make no real Change in God his Understanding or Will and therefore have no such Causality § 11. But God's Promise first and Christ's Merits and Sacrifice next make a Change in the state of things laying that Ground-work or necessary Antecedent and Condition upon which it becometh meet right and just for God to give the rest of his mercy which this is the Condition of and the true meritorious Cause And so the Change was neither on GOD nor immediately on Man but for Man on the state of things which God and man were both concerned in It is a causa ordinis while that is done first which is prerequisite to what is to follow And it is a causa rei benefici◠while it not only removeth moral Impediments of our Pardon and Salvation but also setteth matters in such a state in which it becometh congruous
devoting and giving up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and renouncing of all that is inconsistent with this Covenant Which Assent Consent and Trust are the effects of the Gospel and Spirit of Christ and are founded on God's Fidelity that is on the Veracity Love and Sufficiency of God Almighty most wise and good and on Christ the Father's great Apostle and on Christ's sub-Apostles and on the Gospel and especially the Covenant of Grace as on God's revealing and donative Instrument and on the manifold obsignant operations of the Holy Ghost miraculous and sanctifying as God's infallible Attestation to the Gospel-Verity § 28. Historical Tradition of the Words Books and Matters of Fact are subordinate necessary means of transmitting the Objects to our sense of Hearing who live at such a distance from the Time Place and Facts § 29. But though all these things aforesaid are in true Faith yet a distinct Perception or Description of them all is not necessary in him that hath them But a more general Conception of it which will but consist with the true Reception of the Things signified by the Words God Christ Grace c. may be certainly saving to a plain and simple-hearted Christian when one that can describe it accurately may be graceless For it is Believing and not Defining Faith which God hath made necessary to Salvation § 30. Therefore we do ordinarily well use shorter Descriptions to the People and sometime we say That Faith in Christ is our Christianity that is our Assent and Consent to the Baptismal Covenant and our Self-dedition to God therein For in Scripture it is all one to be a Believer a Disciple of Christ and a Christian. § 31. Sometimes we say That saving Faith is a fiducial-practical Assent to the Truth of the Gospel and Consent to the Covenant of Grace or an Accepting of all the Benefits of the Covenant as they are and on the terms offered or an Accepting of Christ and Life in and with him there offered us § 32. Sometimes we say It is a practical Affiance or trusting on Christ as our only Saviour for Salvation or to bring us to God and glory And in all these and the like we speak truly and mean the same thing some terms being used on occasion while the rest are implyed and to be understood § 33. Those that will needs call no act by the name of Faith but Assent and confine it to the Intellect do yet seem to differ with us but de nomine about a Word and not the Matter For they confess if there concur not a Consent of the Will it is not saving but as some call it â—ides informis and so that Assent and Consent make up our necessary Condition or means of our Union with Christ or Interest in the Covenant-Rights or Gifts And then seeing we are agreed so far of the matter it 's not worth much striving whether one only or both Acts shall be called Faith § 34. When the first Reformers had to do with men that commended uncertainty of our Sincerity and Salvation and kept People under a Spirit of Bondage and tempted them contrary to the Nature of Faith to love this World better than the next and to be afraid of dying by being doubtful whether they should be saved in the heat of opposition some of them called Faith Assurance or certain or full Persuasion of our own personal Election Pardon and Salvation But those that came after them and those that conversed practically with Men of troubled Consciences and observed the state of the greatest part of good Christians followed not this Example but spake more cautelously and soundly and described Faith as I before have told you For they found that not one of a multitude of godly Christians could say they were certain of their Election Sincerity or Salvation And some that were forwardest to say so were none of the best and had not what they said they had § 35. But whatever the transmarine Divines say I can witness that except ignorant Antinomians or such Sectaries rejected by the Orthodox I remember not that I have met these forty years with one Divine that taketh saving-Faith to be such Assurance of our personal Election Justification or Salvation especially the first act which is not to believe that we are justified but that we may be justified § 36. Indeed you would think those few must hold this who say That Justification is an immanent eternal Act of God But 1. this is but a difference about the word Iustification All confess that God's essential Volition of our Justification is eternal as being himself but some think that his Will may be denominated an Eternal Iustification and others better say Not But all confess that the Law of Grace doth justifie no man till he believe much less the Sentence of Christ as Judge And though some call our Perswasion that we are justified by the name of Faith yet they deny not another act of Faith antecedent to this that maketh us true Christians § 37 And indeed besides Mr. Pemble and Dr. Twisse both excellent Men it 's rare to meet with any English Divine that talks for Eternal Iustification And Mr. Pemble who let fall some such things in his Vindiciae Gratiae did set all right again in his Treatise of Iustification being very young when he wrote even the last And Dr. Twisse who in his Vindic. Gratiae hath some such words speaketh elsewhere soundly as Mr. Iessop his Scholar hath shewed in a Treatise purposely written to prove it when I had taken exceptions against his words § 38. It is therefore shameless Calumny of those who perswade their Followers That the Reformed Churches take Faith for such an Assurance or Belief that we are justified or elected and shall be saved only because they find some such word in some former disputing Doctors of ours when as all or near all have so long renounced that Opinion that he would be a Wonder among us in England Scotland or Ireland and I think abroad that should hold it § 39. Yet we still say That saving Faith is not only a believing that God's Word is true but a believing it with personal Application to my self § 40. But that Application is such as followeth 1. I believe that Christ hath died for my sins as well as for the rest of the World 2. I believe that the Gospel offereth Pardon and Salvation to me as well as to others 3. I believe that God will have mercy on me and Christ and Life shall â—e mine if I shall truly believe and repent and Glory if I persevere 4. Hereupon I accept the Offer and Consent to the Covenant of Grace which giveth me right to these Benefits if I consent 5. And so far as I can say that I am sincere in my repenting and believing so far my Faith helpeth me to conclude that I am justified § 41. But this last is a mixt act and a rational
Believers or consent to the Covenant of Grace if at age 3. These penitent Believers sins are pardoned virtually before they are committed supposing them but Sins of Insirmity but this is properly no Pardon nor so to be called because it is but the position of those things which will cause Pardon hereafter To be only virtual is not to exist but to be in causis But it is too grosly inferred hence by some That it is not God then that actually justifieth but Man that performeth the Condition as if the Condition which is but a suspension of the Donation and the performance a removal of the suspending Cause were the donative Efficient and so the Receiver were the Giver As if he that opened the window were the Sun or efficient Cause of the Light or he that lets off a Crossbow by removing the Stop were the spring that effecteth the motion of the Arrow § 62. Neither Pardon nor Justification are perfect before death For there are some correcting Punishments to be yet born some Sins not fully destroyed some Grace yet wanting more Sins to be forgiven more Conditions thereof to be performed The final and executive Pardon and Justification are only perfect CHAP. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness § 1. THE great Contentions that have been about this Point tell us how needfull it is to distinguish between real and verbal Controversies The opening of the Doctrine of Redemption before Chap. XI hath done most that is needful to the solution of this Case we are commonly agreed in these following Points § 2. 1. That no man hath a Righteousness of his own performance by which he could be justified were he to be judged by the Law of Innocency that is all are Sinners and deserve everlasting Death § 3. 2. That Jesus the Mediator undertook to fulfil all the Law which God the Father gave him even the Law of Nature the Law of Moses and that which was proper to himself that thereby God's Wisdom Goodness Truth Justice and Mercy might be glorified and the ends of God's Government be better attained than by the Destruction of the sinful World and all this he performed in our Nature and suffered for us in our stead and was the second Adam or Root to Believers § 4. 3. That for this as the meritorious Cause God hath given him power over all Flesh that he might give eternal Life to as many as are drawn to him by the Father and given him Joh. 17. 2. He is Lord of all and all power in Heaven and Earth is given him Matth. 28. 19. and he is made Head over all things to the Church Eph. 1. 22 23. Rom. 14. 9 And for these his Merits a Covenant or Law of Grace is made to sinful Man by which all his sins are freely pardoned and Right to Impunity and Life is freely given him if he will accept it and penitently turn to God § 5. 4. Whenever a man is pardoned and justified or hath Right to Life this Law of Grace doth it as God's donative Instrument And whoever is so pardoned and justified it is for and by these Merits of Christ's Righteousness § 6. 5. But Christ doth initially pardon and justifie none by this Covenant but penitent Believers and therefore hath made it our Duty to repent and believe that we may be forgiven and have right to life as the Condition without which his donative and condonative Act shall be suspended § 7. 6. God never judgeth falsely but knoweth all things to be what they are And therefore he reputeth Christ's meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice to be the meritorious Cause of all mens Justification who are justified and of the conditional Pardon of all the World 2 Cor. 5. 18 19 20. and as sufficient and effectual to the assigned ends as our own personal righteousness or suffering would have been and more though it be not so ours as that of our own performance would have been nor so immediately give us our Right to Impunity and Life but mediately by the Covenant § 8. 7. And as God reputeth Christ's Righteousness to be the prime meritorious Cause for which we are justified by the Law of Grace as afore-said so he truly reputeth our own Faith and Repentance or Covenant-consent to be our moral Qualification for the gift and our Holiness and Perseverance to be our moral Qualification for final Iustification and Glory which Qualification being the matter of the Command of the Law of Grace and the Condition of its Promise is so far our righteousness indeed and oft so called in the Scripture as is aforesaid § 9. 8. Therefore God may in this Sence be truly said both to impute righteousness to us and to impute Christ's righteousness to us and to impute our Faith for righteousness to us in several respects § 10. Thus much being commonly agreed on should quiet the Minds of Divines that are not wise and righteous overmuch and it beseemeth us not to make our arbitrary Words and Notions about the Doctrine of our Peace with God to be Engines to break the Church's Peace seeing Angels preached to us this great Truth That Christ came into the World for GLORY to God in the highest and for PEACE on Earth and for GOOD-WILL or LOVE from God to Man or mutual complaâ—ency and his Servants should not turn his Gospel into matter of strife § 11. That which we are yet disagreed about is the Names and Notions following As 1. What is meant by the Phrase of Imputing in several Texts of Scripture as Rom. 4. 11. That righteousness might be imputed or reckoned to them also Ans. The words seem to me to have no difficulty but what men by wrangling put into them To have righteousness impuâ—ed to them is to be reputed judged or accounted as righteous Men and so used the cause being not in the Phrasâ— it self but fore-described § 12. So what is meant Rom. 4. 6. by imputing righteousness without works Ans. Plainly reputing or judging a man righteous without the works which Paul there meaneth § 13. So what is meant by Not imputing sin Psal. 32. 2. 2 Cor. 5. 19. Rom. 5. 13. Lev. 7. 18. 1 Sam. 22. 15. 2 Sam. 19. 19. Rom. 4. 8 Ans. Not-judging a man as a Sinner guilty of punishment not charging his sin upon him in Judgment which is as 2 Sam. 19. 19. c. because he is not truly guilty or as Rom. 4. 8. c. because he is forgiven § 14. 2. What is meant by imputing our Faith to us for righteousness But of that more purposely anon § 15. 3. Whether imputing Christ's righteousness to us be a Scripture-phrase Ans. Not that I can find § 16. 4. Whether it be a fit or lawful Phrase and whether in so great matters departing from Scripture-phrase and pretending it necessary so to do be not adding to God's Word or the cause of Corruptions and Divisions in the Church and an intimation that we can speak better than the