Rome in it Page 227 Whether Infants were saved by their Parents faith and how before circumcision Page 26 27 28 Severall propositions laid down Page 29 c. Infant-Baptisme Severall benefits of it Page 185 c. See Baptisme Infirmities Men Covenant not with God to be above all infirmities Page 392 Meer infirmities no Covenant-breaches ibid. Their happiness whose sins are not above infirmities Page 393 Sins above infirmities and towards presumption ibid. See Sin Institution A word of institution necessary to the being of Sacraments Page 58 Repetition and explanation of this word of institution singularly usefull Page 59 All Sacramentall rites must be of divine institution Instrument Faith The instrumentality of Faith in justification asserted Page 437 Scripture Texts holding out the instrumentality of Faith as in other actions so in justification Page 444 Whether the action of the principall cause and of the instrument in Morall operations is alwayes one Page 445 The unanimous consent of Protestant writers that Faith is an instrument ibid. c. Faiths instrumentality makes not man the efficient cause of his justification Page 438. 464 Faiths instrumentality in receiving Christ being granted its instrumentality in justification cannot be denied Page 441 Faith is the instrument of the soul and not of it self in receiving Christ Page 443 Instruments of meer reception and further operation distinguished Page 448 Faith an instrument of the proper reception of Christ Page 460 It is the instrument both of God and man in the work of justification Page 448. 487 The grant of the New Covenant is not an instrument of justification solely sufficient Page 466 Concauses instrumentall have efficacy one from another Page 470 Instruments Cooperative or Passive Page 474 Whether the word be a passive instrument or Cooperative with the Spirit ibid. An instrumentall effiâ—iency ascribed to Faith respective to Salvation Page 486 Arguments for the instrumentality of faith in justification Page 485 Proofs from Antiquity for its instrumentality in justification Page 628 c. See Faith Justification The relative change in it necessarily presupposes a reall Page 447 God and man not co-ordinate causes in it Page 449 In justification of man God acts not without man Page 446 Quaeres put in what sense the grant of the New Covenant is said to be solely instrumentall in the work of justification Page 478 Arguments against the sole sufficiency of the grant of the New Covenant for justification Page 489 Justification by Gospell grant and by the sentence of the Judge how they differ Page 556 557 Justification at the day of judgement not specifically distinct from that which precedse Page 558 The Father appoints the termes of justification and salvation Page 559 Paul treats directly and industriously of justification by faith Page 576 Justifying Faith which is short of justifying gives title to Baptisme Page 163 c. Severall arguments vindicated Page 120 c. Exceptions examined Page 143 Additionall arguments to prove it Page 161 Covenanting and justifying not Synonima's Page 135 136 None able to Baptize if justifying faith onely give admission Page 160 Jurisdiction Admission to the Lords Supper is no act of jurisdiction Page 253 Arguments evincing it ibid. c. Objections answered Page 262 K. Knowledge A necessary prerequisite in faith Page 500 Knowledge distinguished Page 501 See Ignorance L. Law ANd Covenant are not to be confounded Page 598 Law Morall Arminians Socinians and Papists oppose the perfection of the Morall Law Page 601 Authorities of Protestant writers for the perfection of the Morall Law Page 602 Arguments evincing the perfection of the Morall Law Page 603 Objections answered Page 605 There is no sin that is not condemned in the Morall Law Page 603 In what sense the preceptive part of the Morall Law is a perfect rule of righteousness Page 605 c. Actions are denominated good or bad from the Law onely Page 613 Men are denominated really and not equivocally righteous that imperfectly obey the Morall Law Page 614 The Law commanding duty and the end of the duty are not opposite but subordinate Page 614 Law nature What meant by the time of the Law of nature Page 24 No Sacraments appointed of God during the time called the Law of nature Page 24 c. Scripture silence a probable argument Page 26 Jesuites arguments herein examined ibid. The preceptive part of the Law of nature delivered to Moses and as used by Christ whether they differ Page 600 Leiturgy Divine ordinances must not stand or fall upon the want or fruition of any set leiturgy whatsoever Page 308 Leiturgy of the Church of England taken into consideration ibid. c. 1. As to the work it self Page 308 2. As to the sanction put upon it Page 309 Life What meant by it in the Covenant of works Page 11 Not barely an animall life ibid. c. The tree of life had not any naturall power to answer its name Page 12 Lord. Faith in Christ qua Lord is not the justifying act Page 554 The position at large discussed Page 555 c. Lords Supper See Sacraments Supper Lunatick Persons uncapable of any benefit by the Lords Supper Page 229 M. Man His first originall is in sin Page 363 Arguments evincing it Page 364 In mans restitution his nature must be healed and his guilt removed Page 366 The healing of his nature and the removall of guilt is the work of Christ Page 366 Manna Whence it hath its name Page 523 The time it continued with Israel Page 524 Miraculously provided ibid. A fable concerning it ibid. Of a Sacramentall nature Page 525 No standing Sacrament Page 526 Meanes Their necessity for our help in the way of faith and obedience Page 17 Objections answered Page 17 18 Mediatour See Christ Metonymies Frequent in Scripture Page 572 Marriage The Matter Page 540 Form Page 540 Minister Page 540 Reasons evincing it to be no Sacrament Page 541 Minister Allegations for a Ministers sole power in admission to the Sacrament Page 251 Inconveniences objected against it answered Page 262 A Ministers prudence in this work to see with more eyes then his own Page 272 Where an Eldership is erected to make use of them ibid. To make scrutiny into mens knowledge with all tenderness Page 273 Not to refuse but upon known crimes ibid. When he cannot in this do what he would he is to do what he is able Page 274 Ministerial Dispensation of Sacraments a part of the Ministeriall function Page 277 Whether Ministeriall dispensation be of the essence of Sacraments Page 277 c. Gospell order transgrest when Sacraments are not dispenced by a Ministeriall hand Page 278 Doctor Abbots and Mr. Hookers judgement in it ibid. Mixt. Lawfull to communicate in mixt congregations Page 314 Arguments evincing it ibid. c. Morall Perfection or imperfection is in reference to a rule Page 592 Duties naturally Morall bind all Page 195 Where a positive command is given there is a Morall tye to obedience ibid See Law
former as is concluded by Interpreters we must understand the like or somewhat much like it in the latter Man will have like immortality in sin as he had omniscience by sin Therefore he puts and keeps him out of Paradise that now being deprived of the thing he might not delude himself in the outward sign or Sacramental representation of it Sixthly It remains therefore that these trees were set apart of God from other trees of the garden for a Sacramental use having no more power of themselves to confer life or knowledge then water in Baptisme or bread and wine in the Lords Supper to conferre pardon of sin or spiritual life on the soul g Arbor igitur vitae non ab in sita vivificandi facultate sed à Sacramentali signifâ—câ—tione sic dicta est The tree of life was so called saith Wollebius not from any innate quickning faculty but from a Sacramental signification Paraeus indeed putting it to the question whether the tree of life be so called by reason of the effect that it had produced had man stood or by way of signification saith these two opinions in his judgment may be joyned and sayes h Sine dubio habitura erat haec arbor seu ut cibus seu ut medicina vim conservandi hominis sanitatem vitam ne corpora vergerent in senium aut sentirent defecâ—um donec in coelestem immortalitatem transirent Deinde data fuit homini in vitae Sacramentum The tree might give life as food or as physick and preserve from age till man should be translated into an heavenly immortality and then proceeds to shew how it is a Sacrament of life But sure these opinions are altogether inconsistent Sacraments are so signs that they are not physical causes of the thing that is signified If they had any such effect in nature then all mystery in the Sacrament ceased and there needed no word from God to clear it every man would know that food hath a natural tendency to life and physick to health if there were no Scripture If we were able to make it good that they were physical causes of life and knowledge then we must disclaime their Sacramental use but seeing that cannot appear and the contrary is evident This other must be asserted It may easily be made out that the tree of life was a Sacramen Man was to put forth his hand to eat of it as the Jewes did the Passeover and we do the Lords Supper i Voluit igitur hominem quoties fructum arboris illius gustaret in memoriam revorareunde vitam haberet ut se agnosceret non propria virtute sed Dei unius beneficio vivere Neqâ—e esse intrinsecum bonum ut vulgo loquuntur sed à Deo provenire And as often as he ate of it or had his eye upon it as Calvin well observes he was to remember from whom he received life and blisse and by whom he was preserved and upheld that he had no principle of life and blisse in himself but as he received it from God so by his favour and free Grace it was continued And to mind himself of his duty on what tearms he stood with God and upon what condition his life and blisse was continued whilest he sinned not he must not dye as long as obedience lasted he must enjoy a life in happiness Others add that it shadowed out Christ by whom both he and the Angels stood in happinesse but I have already spoke my thoughts to that particular But how to bring that other tree of the knowledge of good and evil so aptly to hold out the nature and use of a Sacrament is not so easie and I find many Interpreters asserting it but not any that I can meet with demonstrating it And it must be confest that this Sacrament did herein differ from all other Sacraments Those did consist in their use This in mans abstinence from it In this it is said thou shalt not eat In the Passeover and the Lords Supper the communitants must eat But God hath it in his power to institute Sacraments according to pleasure by way of prohibition as well as by way of injunction In other Sacraments in the due use men attain to the good that is promised In this by abstinence man should have avoyded the evil threatned In eating of the tree of life while man persisted in obedience he was assured of life that was a seal and pledge of it And while he abstained from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he had like assurance of freedom from death This alone was a negative Sacrament and it was proper to this Sacrament onely that not the fruition of good but the avoydance of evil was the thing signified The reason of the name is the enquiry of many why it was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Some that would deny it to be any Sacrament say that it had the name from the natural effect that it was apt to produce being created to quicken or ripen man in the use of his reason conceiving that our first Parents were created weak in knowledge of an infant understanding And to know good and evil that is choose the good and refuse the evil in the Hebrew phrase setting out the use of reason as Esay 7.16 Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good They say this tree was to work them to this maturity in knowledge How false this is of our first Parents weaknesse in knowledge is clear by the names that man gave to all creatures upon sight as he had dominion over them so he understood the nature of them as also in that speech that he uttered concerning Eve when the Lord upon her creation brought her to him to give her in marriage The Wise man sayes that God made man upright Eccles 7.29 And this uprightnes comprizes mans whole conformity to God in all in which his image doth consist which was as the Apostle tells us in knowledge as in righteousnesse and true holinesse Col. 3.10 To avoid suspition of inclination to any such opinion some when they speak of mans first estate purposely avoid the word innocency and choose to use the word integrity And how unapt the fruit of a tree could possibly be in nature to produce any such effect that which was spoken concerning the tree of life being applyed hither may demonstrate And whence this opinion came but from the Devil I cannot tell who told our mother Eve that God did know that in the day that they eat thereof their eyes should be opened and they should be like unto gods knowing both good and evil Gen. 3.5 He was the first that vented it and she was the first that believed it when she saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and a tree to be desired to make one wise she did take and eat thereof Gen. 3.6 The taste
a may to life as though we must get Salvation by our fulfilling of its conditions nor must we look upon its curse as lying upon as remedilessely This is as much as I assert or rather imply in that which I say that the Covenant of works is of no use to the attainment of Salvation upon which the Sacraments of that Covenant the see are laid aside with it we hear no more of a tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Rivet Exer. 40. on those words Lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and live for ever Observes a resemblance between that proceeding of God and the Churches proceeding in keeping unworthy men from the Sacrament The l Quemadmodum nunc ex Dei instituto à Sacramentis arcentur indigni ne sibi Symbola sumant ad judicium condemnationem ita hac prohibitione usus est Deus tanquam ex communicatione minori quam abstensionem vocant ad hominem magis magis humiliandum ut se indignum agnosceret vita qui à vitae Symbolo arcebatur unworthy saith he are kept from the Sacrament lest they should eat of those signes to their judgement And so God made use of this prohibition as a lesser excommunication called suspension for the further humiliation of man that he might see himself to be unworthy of life being kept from the outward symbole or Sacrament of it But me thinks this is so far from resemblance of that kind of Excommunication which is called the lesser that it is a sentence in terrour farre above that which is highest and greatest And this it seemes my Author saw and therefore addes m Praeterea tale Sacramentum homini lapso non erat amplius aptum quia arbor vitae non data erat ut vitam restitueret mortuo sed ut viventem in statu vitae commodo conservaret Ergo Adamo per peccatum mortuo mutanda fuerunt Sacramenta Furthermore such a Sacrament was unmeet or unsuitable to fallen man because the tree of life was not given to restore a man dead to life but to preserve life in a living man therefore Adam being dead by sin and his condition changed the Sacraments were to be changed likewise Two sorts of men then are here fitly to be parallelled with Adam in this proceeding of God against him 1. Those that God casts out of Covenant taking away their Candlestick and his Kingdom refusing to be their God or to own them as his people God denying them his Covenant all must deny them the sign and seal of it 2. Those that cast themselves out of Covenant and apostatize from the faith of Christ Jesus Where there is no Covenant in which men may expect happiness where there is no profession of such expectation there is to be no Sacrament there the seal is put to a blank and these Sacred Mysteries are prophaned Therefore I cannot but marvel at those that deny the Church of Rome all being of a Church and affirm that they are in no Covenant-relation to God yet yeeld that they have Baptisme in truth among them explaining themselves that it is as a true mans purse in the hand of a theefe But the purse and the man stand not in that relation as Covenant and Sacrament the Covenant being gone the Sacrament hath no truth of being remaining Satans imitation of God in his precepts of worship to his followers Fourthly Let us yet see how forward Satan is to imitate God in prescribing a way of worship to his servants and how ready the world is to follow Satan in these things by him prescribed God appointed a tree of life as a sign and pledge of immortality in the due use of which man might have lived for ever and been preserved from the evils and infirmities of age and Satan among those in the world that are his for worship hath of old found out a fiction of certain meats called by them Ambrosia and certain drinks named Nectar and Nepenthe which the gods using to take were preserved from age and death It cannot be imagined how they should reach such a fancy but that the posterity of Noah had scattered some Divine light of this tradition among them Their gods who were but men and some of them the worst of men bringing all wickedness to renown by their example being supposed to have an immortal being must have some way or means to come up to immortality As they had their meats and drinks that made immortal so also their fountains found out by Cadmus to whom they ascribe the first invention of letters Aganippe Hippocrene Castalius near to Parnassus at which their Muses drunk which raised them in eloquence These they have borrowed from these symboles of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil dreaming of a Physical operation and not understanding any Sacramental efficacy God also instructed his people in the use of sacrifices which we know was with his people from the beginning and I cannot believe with some Jesuits that this was of the dictates of nature which as they say led them without any revelation to the use of sacrifices For in what sense soever we take sacrifices Nature could never teach man to give it unto God If we take it more largely for a gift tendred reason would tell that the Divine Majestie stands in no need of it And in case we understand it more strictly and make the destruction of that which is offered essentiall to a sacrifice how could this in reason enter into any mans thoughts that when a man had sinned a beast must dye And that of the Apostle Heb. 11. doth fully contradict it Abell offered by faith and faith is not of nature but above it This then was a worship of God by institution not commanded in the first but second Commandment and this Satan is ready to follow As there was scarce a Nation as the Orator observed but worshipped a god so there is scarce a Nation that did not sacrifice to those gods and the Apostle gives us to understand what those gods were The things that the Gentiles offer in sacrifice they offer to Devils and not to God 1 Cor. 10. It is his worship and he teacheth his the way of it As in duties of worship there is this imitation seen so in wonders and prodigies in like manner there is an emulation God had his miracles in Egypt and Satan his We know the general Deluge in the sacred Histories in which none were preserved from death but Noah and his family by an Arke prescribed of God Heathens must have a fable in imitation and tell us of drowning of the World onely Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha in an Arke preserved likewise And as Noahs Arke rested on the Moutains of Ararat upon the asswaging of the waters so theirs rested on the Mountain of Parnassus We have a narrative of Jonah cast into the Sea
his sayings Here is a full tender of a Covenant and Covenant-termes on Christs part he that accepts of Christ as his Lord and professes to keep his sayings enters Covenant he that hath in him such an heart as God wished in Israel To feare him and keep all his Commandements alwayes Deut. 5.29 keeps Covenant Gospel-Preachers hold out Christ in Covenant and they do not onely tender mercies but engage to duties Act. 5.31 Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins and this duty of repentance is in order to the priviledge of remission of sins as we find from Peter Act. 3.19 Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the duty of the Covenant is neglected the mercy of the Covenant is lost This caused them in their Ministery to be so zealous to urge men to it Testifying both to the Jewes and also to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Christ For the usuall solemnities of a Covenant In the usual accessories on solemnities These are found in the transactions between God and his people as well as the essentials of it 1. Covenants used to be written for memorial for posterity and so is the Covenant between God and man as in Old so in New Testament-times These things are written that you might believe and that believing you may have everlasting life Joh. 20.31 2. Covenants used to be confirmed with outward visible signes as the killing of beasts Jo. 15. Jer. 34 This was done in the old administration Exod. 24. Half of the blood was sprinkled upon the Altar to denote Gods entering of Covenant vers 6. The people also were sprinkled with blood to shew their voluntary entering into Covenant vers 8. And in the new dispensation a new and unheard of ratification was used the blood of the Mediatour of the Covenant Matth. 26.27 28. This Cup is my blood in the New Testament which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins This latter is a plain allusion to the former in which you may find 1. A threefold agreement Either of both these were Covenants 2. Either of both these had their ratifications and confirmations 3. Either of both were confirmed with blood 2. A threefold difference 1. The former was the Old Covenant which was antiquated This is the New 2. The former was ratified and sanctified with the blood of beasts This is ratified and sanctified in the blood of Christ 3. That blood could never take away sin Heb. 10. This was shed many for remission of sins Thirdly Covenants use to be confirmed by seal so is this Covenant between God and his people as remaines to be spoken to As the being of a Covenant is thus plentifully proved by Scripture-testimony so we might as amply prove it by arguments drawn from thence Arguments evincing a Covenant in the proper nature of it The Churches of Christ are espoused unto Christ Hos 2.19 20. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindness and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. 2 Cor. 11.2 I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you to Christ and Spouses are in Covenant with their Bridegroom The Churches of Christ are married to Christ Esay 54.5 Thy maker is thine Husband the Lord of hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called And wives are in Covenant with their husbands Their sins against God are branded with the names of Adulteries Whoredomes and these are not barely disobedience of a Command or neglect of a favour but breaches of Covenant The Churches of Christ are servants of Christ Levit. 25. houshold servants Ephes 2.19 and servants are their Masters by Covenant Their sins in this relation are not barely obstinacy stubbornness or ingratitude but they are charged with treachery falsehood dealing falsely in Covenant and their hearts being not stedfast in Covenant It is above me to conceive how man can be a Covenant-breaker not alone respective to man but God as he is frequently charged when there hath past no Covenant between God and man They may question whether there were ever any such thing as a Covenant in the world SECT III. Proposition 2. SEcondly Whereas there is an usual distinction almost in all that write or speak of the Covenant of a double Covenant between God and his people one external and the other internal one passing outwardly and the other inwardly kept and observed Or as Doctor Preston expresseth it a single and a double Covenant which I shall forbear to examine seeing I know there is a right meaning though I much doubt whether there be in the Reader a right understanding My second Proposition shall be that it is the external Covenant not the inward that exactly and properly is called by the name of a Covenant and to which priviledges of Ordinances and title to Sacraments are annext This Proposition occasioned by this received distinction is of three heads which in case the Reader please he may subdivide into three distinct Positions 1. The outward and not the inward Covenant is most exactly and properly called by the name of a Covenant The outward and not the inward Covenant is properly a Covenant which I thus make good That Covenant to which the definition of a Covenant doth belong hath exactly and properly the nature of a Covenant this none can deny The definition sets out the nature of the thing defined But the definition most actly belongs to the outward Covenant not to the inward this is plain An agreement of parties on tearms and Propositions is the definition of a Covenant Now the outward Covenant is an agreement on tearms and Propositions as elsewhere I have abundantly declared In that Covenant God engages himself to man for his happiness and man engages to faith and obedience The inward Covenant hath no tearms or Propositions at all for man to make good upon account of his Covenanting seeing the performance of the conditions of the Scripture-Covenant is his very entrance into the inward Covenant He that believes and repents keeps Covenant nothing more is expected of God or promised by man But believing and repenting is the first closing with God in Covenant according to them that speak of an inward Covenant A Covenant to perform conditions is a Covenant properly so called But the outward Covenant not the inward is a Covenant to performe conditions is plain The conditions in the inward Covenant are the Covenant That which confounds entrance into Covenant and keeping of Covenant is no Covenant properly so called In a Covenant properly so called these are distinct But the inward Covenant confounds entrance into Covenant and keeping of Covenant and therefore in exact propriety of
down a ladder at the same instant he is climbing up it When I bring this similitude for illustration of the point in hand that a promised service and fidelity in war is enough to get listed and to do service is of necessity to be rewarded I am told that this runs upon the great mistake which I have been so often told of and am further informed that the formal reason and denomination of a condition is from the donors constitution or imposition giving this benefit onely on the terms by him assigned and not upon our promise to perform them If I have been told of it often it is well if I can be convinced of it now I utterly deny that the denomination of conditions of a Covenant in actual being is from the one and not from the other that is exclusively to the other I well know the donour is to prescribe and the receiver is to accept without putting in Exceptions But if there be no acceptance of terms there is no Covenant and there being no Covenant there can be no Covenant conditions as is plain by the usual definition of Covenants where the Gospel is preached and no entertainment at all given there is no Covenant people of God they stand bound by Law precepts but are under no obligations to Covenant conditions Argument 4. reviewed The next Argument in which I am concerned and the last which in this thing is produced is That the Eunuch must first believe and then be baptized upon his desire of Baptisme Philip saith If thou believest with all thy heart thou maiest This I have confest carries more colour then all the former and indeed I never met with any thing either in Scripture or reason produced that carries with me so much as any colour for it this excepted Yet this is not unanswerable One difficult text does not use to take us off our hold of many plain ones I answer 1. Philip may call for that de bene esse when the Eunuch was to be admitted which was not yet essential to his admittance Those that preach preparatory Sermons for the Lords Supper call for allthat may give the highest comforts and not barely for that which is the Minimum quod sic to give admission 2. As I have said so I say still that dogmatical faith is a true faith and to prevent needlesse Criticisms it is truly a divine faith so that none can say that Jesus is the Christ can believingly subscribe that Article but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 And whosoever sayes with assent of judgment and understanding that Jesus the Son of Mary is Christ the Son of the living God speaks more then flesh and blood can suggest and is not attainable but by Divine revelation And whereas it is objected that it is a false faith when it pretends to be that which Scripture calls faith in Christ and denominateth believors I answer 1. I have shewed before that our prosession qualifying for Baptisme is not a profession that we have such faith which cannot be done without an eminence of faith to assurance but a profession of the necessity of it to salvation and an engagement to it 2. It denominates believers in the ordinary and common language of Scriptures and wheresoever believer is put in opposition to unbeliever or infidel faith of this nature is still understood In that famous text 1 Cor. 7.14 every man and woman is a believer that was removed from heathenish Idolatry to the profession of Christianity or as Paulinus whom Jerom so much magnifies speaks was a baptized person Otherwise the case there put about the validity of marriage and lawfulness of marriage society were not between an infidel and a professour of Christianity but between a regenerate man whom this language onely makes a believer and one unregenerate which in this language are infidels which were a case never yet put to question When mention is made through the History of the Acts of so many thousands that upon the Apostles preaching believed it can denote no more then the embracing of the way of Christianity in opposition to Judaisme or Heathenisme If it imply a through Regeneration of the soul there could be no unregenerate ones among them which is wholly against the nature of visible Churches and all experience as hath been abundantly manifested As for that distinction which seems to be hinted between believing Christ and believing in Christ Mr. Ball in his Treatise of Faith pag. 5. hath sufficiently shewed the groundlesnesse of it pointing out Scriptures where a preposition is added to the word believe when nothing but assent of mind is signified And where it is put without a preposition when trust and confidence is implyed Abraham believed God Rom. 4.3 where no preposition is added and it was counted to him for righteousnesse And on the contrary the Rulers believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or on Christ and loved the praise of men more then the praise of God Joh. 12.42 43. It followes I think if a man say This is the Son the Heir Come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours we will not have this man reign over us that these are not true believers nor have right to Baptisme though their belief that he was the heir be a dogmaticall faith true in its kind I am sorry that such things should be mentioned where inquiry after truth is contended and contention not studied It is well known that I speak to a faith of profession which is theirs that take to that party which is for Christ and not with those that professedly go in a full opposition against him and are in a high rode any such conviction of spirit supposed of sin against the Holy Ghost I know not why Dr. Ames should be brought in telling us that in those places where saving faith is spoke to trust in the Messiah is ever included seeing we are speaking of a faith that is short of saving nor yet that I should be told that words of knowledge and assent do in Scripture oft imply affection and consent unlesse that it be to let me know that it doth not generally hold which in case I were in a strait and at want for a present answer would well help me out And whereas I am demanded whether I do not know how ordinarily saving faith it self is denominated from the Intellectual act alone I answer that I do know it and if I were ignorant of it before Mr. Burgesse hath taught me the same thing with the same reason of it in his Spiritual Refining page 170 171. Pos 8. And I know also that it hath its denomination often from the act of the will alone But will it follow that the understanding is never fully perswaded for assent but the will is also not alone somewhat moved but throughly inclined for consent and acceptance If the understanding at any time be brought to a reall assent whilest the will is swayed by lusts
acceptance Secondly They that worthily shew forth his dearh and acceptably keep a memorial of it will not without horrour and trembling have a thought of drawing upon themselves the guilt of it we would hot bear the guilt of the blood of the meanest peasant in the world not of such a one that Job would not set with the dogs of his flock Job 30.1 Such may with David Deliver me from blood guiltinesse How much lesse would we bear the guilt of the Prince of life To have this in our thoughts that he must be our Judge we have been his murderers may indeed set pricks in the heart as it did in Peters hearers Act. 2.37 These men of sin that come to the Sacrament in sin wilfully furiously draw this guilt upon themselves and become accessary to it He that sleightly passeth over the death of an innocent person making a small matter of it either he makes the innocent to be indeed nocent one that hath justly deserved to be slain who being slain deserves so little regard or at least he makes himself nocent breeding ajust suspition that he was or would have been consenting to that mans death saith M. Pemble pag. 33. These in the sleighest way passe it over not with the least evidence of zeal or indignation against it Thirdly They that judge Christ fit to be numbered with malefactors and transgressors discern not his body do not judge of him according to his glory and excellency and so cannot with comfort come to the Lords Table But these judge him fit to be numbered with transgressors when in their foulest sins they dare joyn themselves to him and have communion with him This is their case that come in sin to the Lords Table Here some may object that according to the principles laid down the Ordinance may be an hopeful meanes to take such off from their wayes of sin having previous light to see what they do hear they may see high aggravation of their wickednesse An heart-breaking a soul-melting Ordinance being set before them there may be all hopes that it may be efficacious unto soul-melting and heart-breaking here they may see what their ugly sins have done and who it is that their sins have pierced and crucified whereof a Publican or Harlot may easilier be convinced then a Pharisee or justiciary And Christ being here set out both bearing sin and a sacrifice for sin the sight of their just demerit in his suffering and hopes of freedom from guile by his blood-shed there may be expectation of conviction and contrition and consequently somewhat at least done towards conversion and upon this account some would have the worst of men admitted to the view though not to participation in this Ordinance Others taking advantage of this admission of them to the view of it and knowing it to be a novel thing that any should gaze and not partake they conclude they are to be admitted unto both The further improvement of it by them seems at least some way hopeful when to the ignorant and erroneous it is impossible That I may speak my whole thoughts to this thing somewhat is necessary to be premised both by way of concession and assertion By way of concession it must be yeelded 1. That there is more weight in this objection then personally hath been acknowledged which I see upon conference with many godly learned is more and more discerned It is not so easie to evince all hopelesnesse of good in a bad mans receiving the Sacrament as in a man that is grossely ignorant no text so fully and clearly to any grounds to put a barre to men in sin as to those that are in ignorance neither doth the nature of the Sacrament so clearly evince it 2. Arguments usually brought to conclude against their admission to this Ordinance that are in wayes of sin and under no sentence of excommunication seem to me scarce concluding It were too long to name the Arguments and point out the exceptions Some of them also perilously ensnaring and upon several accounts 1. Their Arguments conclude equally against such mens hearing praying and attendance upon any other Ordinance as they do against their participation of the Lords Supper the same Medium wherewith they conclude against one concludes against all as hath been shewn 2. These Arguments intended onely against the scandalous to conclude a necessity of their exclusion equally conclude against all that are not actually in grace when yet the disputants themselves will not yeeld that either actual grace or positive signes of such grace should be any rule in such proceedings as to instance some say that Ministers in holding out the Sacrament to wicked persons whom they have excommunicated in the Word shewing that no unrighteous person shall enter into the kingdom of heaven they absolve them in the Sacrament and if this have any force in it it must conclude in this manner None may be admitted but these that may be actually absolved and while they assume that the wicked may not be actually absolved others will alike assume that no unregenerate man how knowing civil and unblameable soever may be absolved And the same guilt that these in their reasonings conclude that Church-officers bring upon themselves in admission of the scandalous they contract that admit of any ungenerate ones By way of assertion it must be delivered 1. 2. By way of assertion That the fundamental proper right unto or interest in this Ordinance is not questioned Church members lay a just claime to Church Ordinances visible members to visible Ordinances If this be once denyed we are in inextricable snares 2. Here can be no such prophanenesse in promiscuous administration of this Ordinance as the putting of Gods seal to blank paper There is no blank but a name legibly written where there is a Covenant entered and that there is a Covenant entered with such as it cannot be denyed by any that will confesse that the Scripture should be umpeir so it is yeelded by all of those that baptize the infants of such persons The first right of parents that are such is taken for granted when their children are thus received 3. It is then an orderly edifying and prudential wa in administration that is here enquired after and this admits of a greater latitude then Covenant and no Covenant regenerate or non-regenerate in which if an hairs breadth should misse there were a transgression as we discern the person to whom it is meet to give onely milk and to whom to give strong meat so we judgeof those that we admit onely to the Word and Prayer and those that we admit to the Lords Table And though I see not concluding strength in several Arguments produced but suppose they are grounded on mistakes which also apt to lead into danger otherwise I had been silent yet I cannot recede from that ancient received opinion of Fathers Schoolmen Protestants whether of the Episcapal Presbyterial or Congragational judgement that scandalous
over to any such powers But exclusion from and admission to other Ordinances of eminent height and excellency to which all are not promiscuously admitted as private Fasts and doubtful disputations Matth. 9. Rom. 14. is left to prudence and not to the exercise of any juridick power Ergo. Reason 10 Lastly If this be an act of jurisdiction to admit to the Sacrament and keep off from it then there must be a Law of Jesus Christ in it a Gospel-Ordinance for it This is plain Jesus Christ hath not left to his Officers an arbitrary Goverment he hath left no Commission to rule at pleasure as they are to speak so they are to act according to his will and pleasure known But no such Law no such Ordinance of Jesus Christ is found in Scriptures A command we have in the Gospel for administration of Sacraments as well Baptisme as the Lords Supper and Covenant-interest is our Directory as you have heard to lead us to those that have fundamental interest in them But concerning exclusion of any thus enrighted there is nothing by way of Ordinance written Therefore this can be no act of jurisdiction The Assumption is that which many will question It lyes upon them then to quote this Law to make known this Ordinance of Jesus Christ But instead of that I shall shew upon what grounds it yet appears to me that there is none at all If any such be it is either in plain and full words exprest such as the Law given to Israel to put out of the Camp every leper and every one that hath an issue or is defiled by the dead Numb 5.1 2. or else it must be such as is deduced by fair consequence from the nature and use of the Sacrament or preparation to it or benefit received by it That there is no Ordinance in such plain full words needs not to be doubted In all that enquiry into this so much controverted businesse it would have been long since produced In case it be deduced from any such consequence as hath been spoken it will hardly be made good to be an instituted Law or constituted Ordinance Mr. Firmin hath well excepted against the proof of institutions by syllogismes though to his great disadvantage in that dispute of a Church-Covenant Where there is an Ordinance in power as there was for exclusion from the Passeover proof may be made up by consequence for the latitude to discern who those be that are within the verge of it and concerned in it But consequences will hardly prove the enacting and instituting of it I shall be willing to gratifie Mr. Tombs in this that parity of reason will set up no institution A good cause is wronged when Ordinances of this nature are pretended and cannot be produced and on the other hand when a Ministeriall prudence in the Stewards of Christ is undervalued which might supply it Let it be granted that there is no Ordinance to debar an unexcommunicated man from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper yet a promiscuous admission will not follow when the end and use of the Sacrament is considered it will appear to them that have the care and charge about it that some are not in a present aptitude for it There is command for the preaching of the Word in a way to edification 1 Cor. 143 12. yet the particular way of application suitable to mens capacities so as to give milk to babes and children and strong meat to those of growth that have their senses exercised to discern between good and evil is not done by any vertue of any specifick particular institution but the Ministers prudence VVhich prudence was exercised by Paul 1 Cor. 3.1 2. Heb. 5.12 by Christ himself Joh. 16 12. There is no Ordinance for admission to or exclusion from private Fasts or punctual direction who are to be called and received or who past by yet our Saviour Christ from the high nature of the duty concludes that it is not for novices in the faith And as it is a point of prudence not to put a piece of new cloth in an old garment unwrought cloth some understand there will be a double inconvenience the weaknesse of the one will not bear the strength of the other and so the rent that was before will be made greater and the whole garment become uncomely and unsuitable nor yet to put new wine which is windy and working into old bottles the weaknesse of such a vessel being not able to bear it so neither had it been a point of prudence in our Saviour Christ to have put such an austere discipline upon the necks of his newly entred disciples Matth. 7.6 vindicated If any shall object that Text Matth. 7.6 Give not that which is holy unto dogs neither cast ye pearles before swine as I know it is produced as an Ordinance for the withholding of this Sacrament from those that are ignorant and scandalous I shall desire the Reader for answer to take it into consideration whether it be not more agreeable to the Text to make it an exhortation to an holy prudential circumspection in the dispensation of holy things in general whether in a private or a publick way then to make it a distinct peculiar Ordinance about any one piece or part of worship Making it a peculiar Ordinance we shall run our selves upon inextricable difficulties Our Saviour laying it down in an indefinite way All whatsoever that is holy must there be understood and pearles and holy things are the same one being exegetical of the other holy things excelling other things as far as pearles excel acorns And by doggs and swine both which were unclean in the Law we must understand all that Scripture comprehends under those names they are both put for one 2 Pet. 1.21 and so the result of all is that no person in visible uncleannesse must taste of any thing that is holy From which it followes that as Christ thought it not fit at that present to gratifie a Heathen with a miracle when he said It is not meet to take the childrens bread and cast it unto doggs Matth. 15.26 So it will at no time be meet or lawfull to preach the Gospel to any heathen or impenitent and unclean Christian they being no other then dogs or swine and the Gospel the most precious of holy pearles but understanding it as an exhortation to Christian prudence and observing the reason added lest they trample them under feet and turn again and rent you these absurdities and snares will be avoided and the result of all will be onely this that the holy things of God and rich Gospel-pearles are not to be communicated where there is no possible expectation of doing good But all the issue of it will evidently be danger to him that doth impart them and all scorn and contempt of the holy things themselve which was the Apostles way of dealing when the Jewes were filled with envy contradicting and blaspheming Act. 13. and is
Cyrenius in Syria to Pilate in Judea Luke 2.2 Luke 3.1 is given by the Apostle to these here mentioned A military or politicall word saith one which is spoken of a publick person who is possest of power either in Common Wealth or Army And if those other texts of the Apostle be consulted Hebr. 13.17 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Tim. 5.19 2 Cor. 2.6 and 5.12 13. 1 Thes 5.12 to mention no more so much will easily be found in them that speaks a government within the Church it self not going out of its own limits Whether some texts ordinarily produced hold out so large an enumeration as is by some bottom'd upon them may happily be disputed but that there should not so much as any government at all be spoken to cannot be imagined which thing in reason is also plain 1. The Church is a society a visible Kingdom an incorporation a body and when all of these have their lawes governours censures punishments it cannot be thought that this society should herein so farre differ and be so farre inferiour to all other societies as to be wholly destitute when all others enjoy government governours for their strength defence and more compleat being the Church alone shall be like that City which the Wise man speaks of broken down and without walls Prov. 25.28 2. The Church consists of men as do other societies subject to failings yea to enormities and exorbitances in judgement and practice There hath no age past in which the Church hath not had her schisms errors and scandals No society or body politick is so like to run upon miscarriages seeing the lawes to which Christ ties are so averse to our natures when we can bear others we are apt to say we will break these bonds and cast them away from us Satan envies no other society or bond of men as he doth the society or bond of Christians His kingdome will consist together with all other states and kingdomes they may rule and he rule likewise onely this of Christs Kingdome is wholly averse to Satans and militates against it for the ruine of it 3. The Church from the beginning hath exercised this power within it self when all other powers were adverse and contrary to it How long was it before the Church had a Christian Magistrate and lay under the persecution of heathen states in all which time a discipline vvas yet kept up If the Church had no such povver hovv could it then exercise it 4. The Churches that have been remisse in their improvement of this povver have had their check from Christ himself in glory He manifests his displeasure from heaven against the Church of Pergamos that they had those that held the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and against the Church of Thyatira because they suffered Jesabel to teach and seduce his servants Rev. 2.14 15 20. The censure that lyes upon the Kings of Judah upon neglect of reformation in their time argues that they vvere in povver for it So the censure of these Churches upon like account argues their povver in like manner Even those that plead most for freedome of conscience and liberty in religion vvith all impunity from the civil povver yet confesse from these and like texts a povver vvithin the Church it self for censure of delinquencies To all this some are ready to subscribe as being not able to gainsay the clear Scripture evidence of a povver Ecclesiastical and confesse that it vvas so in those times but novv they contend that the case is othervvise Providence hath ordered a change of things and all is swallowed up in the hand of him that is chief in power since the time that the Church hath enjoyed Kings for her nursing fathers and Queens for her nursing mothers not barely accusing them of error that dissent in opinion but charging them to resemble those sons of Belial that upon the Israelites institution of Kingship were ungratefully asking this question How shall this man save us 1 Sam. 10.27 Making good their assertion of a change of this nature by this similitude As in the first Church among the Jewes whilest they were in a wandring condition as their need was greater so Gods personal providence and guidance of them was more expresse and apparent and therefore whilest they were in this Theocraty their government was not to be managed by any setled universal authority besides that of God himself or any one who took not in all weighty things immediate direction from him until such time as being throughly settled in peace and security from their enemies he might make his recesse and permit and appoint to them a King of their own Nation So in the first founding of the Christian Church during the time of their persecution as their weaknesse required were in a Theocraty too guided by the expresse direction of our Saviour himself given to the Apostles during the time of those fourty daies that he was conversant with them upon earth but now after the time that God hath perfected the time of the Churches deliverance and free establishment in peace and rest from all about her and the Prophecy is fulfilled by appointing Kings her nursing fathers and Queens her nursing mothers and having sons to be set as Princes in all Lands so that now under Constantine the uproomes and wandring Tabernacles as formerly under Solomon are converted into stately temples for men now to think of their running into their Wildernesse and persecuted condition by entertaining those temporary forms which unto that condition were most fit doth import both ingratitude and murmur against God and imprudence towards themselves Thus farre this similitude But those of this opinion I doubt would take ill that free dealing toward themselves which they use toward others and that upon their casting off all Ecclesiastical government under the notion of temporary forms we should apply that speech of the Lord himself to Samuel concerning the people of Israel upon their resolution to make a change in government 1 Sam. 8.7 They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them And to make the dissimilitude in this simile further apparent it should I suppose be taken into consideration that when God was pleased first to permit and then appoint a King over Israel that the former fabrick of Government written in the Law was not taken down but the whole Levitical order still stood as to all purposes prescribed of God the change was no more nor further but in him that rul'd in chief Instead of one raised by an immediate hand of God as their exigence required they now had one after the manner of other Nations of constant standing And God forbid that we should murmur that the Church hath her sons for Princes and that those that rule over us serve the Lord Jesus with us But we think that these servants of Christ thus raised in honour should see that what Christ hath set up should
For my conclusion in that instance of arising again it is said that It is by faith and natural knowledge mixed that I shall rise again and I am further told Thoâ—gh in strict sense it be thus mixed In our ordinary discourse we must denominate it from one of the premises and usually from the more notable alwayes from the more debile Scripture saith that all men shall rise reason saith that you are a man Though the conclusion here partake of both yet it is most fitly said to be de fide both because Scripture intended each particular man in the universal and because it is supposed as known to all that they are men and therefore the other part is it that resolves the doubt and is the more notable and more debile part To which I onely say that of two premises the debilior should be the more notable or that a Proposition which is laid down terminis terminantibus of God himself should be more weak then that which reason concludes I am to learn I am further told that it is an undoubted truth with me that conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem That it followes deteriorem partem I long since learnt so that if one of the premises be false the conclusion cannot be true but that it must have its denomination à debiliori in the sense here spoken to I never yet heard nor could I have once thought that upon the account of the weaknesse of that Proposition of faith All men should rise it should be yeelded to be of faith that I should rise and not otherwise And here I am put to it to answer whether I have a fuller evidence that I am a sincere believer then I have that all sincere believers are justified And am told It seemes by your following words that you have or suppose others to have I wonder what words of mine those are that speak such madnesse Can I be more sure that I see the Sun than I am that there is a Sun to be seen I am yet told If you have as evidently concluded that faith is in your heart saving faith as that reason is in your soul and know your self to be a believer as evidently as you know your self to be a man then your conclusion may be denominated to be de fide as a parte debiliori But what if any man have concluded though not with that evidence and full strength of light how it is hindred but that still it may be a conclusion de fide I confesse I am to seek in this new learning to enquire into premises whether is debilior whether fortior and so to give the conclusion denomination à debiliori what if I cannot tell in which of them most strength lyes as it seems Mr. Baxter himself is sometimes to seek then I shall be at a stand whether the conclusion is to be denominated of faith or of sense or reason I take it to be de fide when I have warrant from the Word of God for it and it leads me to believe it Mr. Baxter had said in his Appendix Otherwise that is as I understand him if this proposition I shall be saved be sealed in the Sacrament every man rightly receiving the seales shall be justified and saved To this I have answered I see no danger in yielding this conclusion Every man rightly receiving and improving the seales must be saved and justified He that rightly receives the seales receives Christ in the seales and receiving Christ receives salvation In his reply he first explains himself and then retorts upon me He saies by rightly I meant having right to it and that onely in foro Ecclesiae and not rectè and confesses he should plainlier have expressed his meaning Let him then bear with others if their words do not alwaies speak their meaning so plainly as he would desire I think my meaning was never so in the cloudes as his is here He then retorts upon me in these words Whether you here contradict not your doctrine of Baptismal faith where you suppose justifying faith to be the thing promised by us in Baptisme and therefore not prerequisite in it I leave you to judge and resolve as by your explication I have busied my head not a little to find out where any colour of contradiction lyes If it be in this that I yield that every man that rightly receives the Sacrament shall be saved and yet affirm that men that are not in a state of salvation have right to Sacraments then it is a contradiction to say that any man may have true right to any thing that doth not rightly use it which indeed is a contradiction much like to some others with which I am charged and might with as good reason have found a place in an Index Having yielded to Mr. Baxter That Papists have great advantage given them by those that mistaking the nature of justifying faith think it consists in a belief of the pardon of my own sinnes Yet to make it good that the conclusion that my sins are pardoned or I shall be saved may be de fide when the soul hath a right proceeded in the premises I say As it is an error to hold that to believe my sinnes are forgiven is of the nature or essence of faith as though none did believe but those that had attained such assurance true faith hath assurance in pursuit onely sometimes and not alwaies in possession so on the other hand it is a mistake to say that it is no work of faith The Apostle calls it the full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 and describeth faith to be the substance of things hoped for faith realizeth salvation which we have in hope to the soul A description of faith saith Dr. Amesius out of a Schoolman by one of the most eminent acts that it produceth therefore I take that to be a good answer that is here charged with error that when it is written he that believeth is justified it is equivalent as though it were such or such a man is justified in case with assured grounds and infallible demonstrations he can make it good to his own self that he believeth Upon this he comes in not with a few animadversions the two first are to conclude from my own mouth that assurance is not faith in that I say it is not of the nature and essence of faith and hath it sometimes onely in pursuit and not in possession In which he seems to take for granted that I had affirmed that assurance is faith when I can produce witnesses that almost 30. years ago I have opposed it and I still persist in the denyal of it 3. He saies I know none that deny assurance to be a work of faith which Mr. Bl. saith here is a mistake to say love and obedience are works of faith but not faith it self A work I mean as my words import attainable by faith and if faith by Scripture-promises is able to conclude it then the
world and death by sin so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned or in whom all have sinned 4. The readinesse and pronenesse of little ones to run upon sin is an evidence of it The thornes bryars and weeds that the earth casts out when precious flowers and choise plants are more hardly nourished is an argument that the earth is under a curse and is not now as once it was The sins that even in childhood appear and together with age grow forwards when graces are difficultly planted and that which is good very hardly produced is as great an evidence of a mans innate degeneration This even Heathens could see though they knew not whence it was e Homines natura sua esse malos induci non posse ut justitiam colant Plato observed that men by nature are wicked and that they cannot be brought to learne righteousnesse and f Hominem à natura noverca in lucem edi corpore nudo fragili atque infirmo animo ad molestias anxio ad timores humili in quo divinus ignis sit obrutus Referunt Theol. Lydenses Disp 15. Thes 6. Tully lamented that man is brought into the world by his stepdame nature with a body naked frail and weak a mind anxious in troubles low under fears weak for labour prone to lust in whom every Divine spark is overywhelmed If any man demand how it comes to passe that we are thus we must look as far as Adam to see the inlet of it By one mans disobedience many were made sinners Rom. 5.19 His was peccatum originans giving the rise to all evils in us thence issued peccatum originatum our original condition as before decribed Sin seizing upon the Angels made them unclean and they have through that defilement the denomination of unclean spirits sin seizing upon man hath rendered him unclane It defiled not onely the person of man but the nature of man had man stood all mankind had stood man falling all mankind became filthy Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.4 Adam begat a son in his own likenesse Gen. 5.3 like himself when he had lost the image of God what sin made man that an infant is so far as of capacity to be not to act sin he that can do nothing cannot do evil but in them there are those principles that shew themselves in action so far as there is power to act A young Serpent doth sting none poysons none but there is in them a poysonous and destroying na ure which growes as nature growes 5. By the duty incumbent upon Christians to put off the old man Ephes 4.22 which is not so called in opposition to that which is young as though man grew up to it by degrees many years being gone over his head before he had gotten that name but in opposition to that which is new as we see ver 23. The old hath the precedency of the new and is before it as the old garments are worne and put off before the new put on why must all of necessity be new if the old would serve the turn Secondly This sin which is mans hereditary estate This Original state of man is not onely a want of Primâ—tive integrity but is attended with universal defilement hath in it not onely a want of that Priwitive purity which God stamped upon man according to his own likenesse but also an universal defilement and pollution Therefore the Apostle setting out this estate under the name of the old man gives it this character corrupt according to deceitfull lusts Ephes 4.22 All the pollution in the world is from lust 2 Pet. 1 4. that is the sink and source from whence all proceeds and the old man is wholly made up of these corrupt filthy and defiling principles They promise better when they draw aside but that is their work and therefore as they are corrupt so they are branded as deceitful likewise Upon this account it is that man is dead in trespasses and sins able to rise no higher in nature then that which is sin and this renders his conversation to be according to the course of this world after the prince of the power of the air the former is his pattern and the later is his Soveraign the one is followed the other served And consequently with guilt or ordination to punishment In fulfilling the desires or wills of the flesh and mind Ephes 2.23 serving divers lusts and pleasures Tit. 3.3 as wholly enslaved by this defiling principle And as this is of the being so guilt or ordination to punishment is a necessary adjunct or consequent of it Death is in as great a latitude as sin Rom. 5.12 the proper wages of that work Rom. 6.23 Therefore all that have a nature thus defiled are by nature the children of wrath Ephes 2.3 Men may descant as they will upon the word and tell us of another use of it in prophane Authors but all their wit will not work men from under this guilt or gain him any thing more in his birth-state but wrath for his portion Thirdly To restore man to his Primitive happiness his nature must be healed Nature must be healed and guilt removed for restitution of man to his Primitive glory and his guilt removed there must be a change wrought in his principles and a pardon vouchsafed of his sin If either the stain continue or the guilt hold man will be wretched till he be again like God and reconciled to God his case is forlorne This needs no proof man was without stain or guilt when God made him upright his stain must be washed and guilt removed or else his happinesse is not repaired And this was the converted Corinthians glory they were under the defilement of Adultery Idolatry Fornication Drunkennesse c. and upon this account under the sad doome of exclusion out of the Kingdom of heaven but being washed sanctified justified the doome is reversed However you Interpret these several phrases we have their deliverance from the stain and guilt of sin in them Fourthly Either of both of these is the work of Christ and the happy priviledge of all of Gospel-interest Either of both of these is the work of Christ by his blood and Spirit He takes off the stain in the work of Regeneration and Sanctification by the power of his Spirit as by our fall we were dead in sin so by this new work on our hearts we are dead to sin we were free from righteousnesse now we are alive to righteousnesse Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you When we were dead in sins he hath quickened us together with Christ Ephes 2.5 Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might Sanctifie and cleanse it
mentions and not the sense 2. Saith he I knew I had much Scripture and reason against it but I find no reason from him but that which some know that I have urged Terminis Terminantibus before his Aphorismes ever came to light and had I not been able to have given my self satisfaction I had been in that opinion if not before him yet before I had any light from him to lead me to it That horned Argument of his that if faith justifie as instrument it is either as an instrument in the hand of God or in the hand of man with his reasons against both I have made use of argumentandi causâ before any work of his saw the light 3. The instrumentality of faith makes not man the efficient cause of his own Justification I thought it saith he of dangerous consequence to say that man is the efficient cause of justifying and pardoning himself and so doth forgive his own sins And I think every honest man should be of that mind and I shall wait the time when proof shall be made that Justification by faith in opposition to works makes man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The efficient and that Justification by works gives it to God onely If this be once made good I shall be more sorry than ever for holding such self-exalting and man-advancing doctrine as Justification by faith and that ever I opposed that self-denying man-depressing doctrine of Justification by works and shall hence forth conclude Where is boasting then It is excluded by what Law of faith Nay but by the Law of works There is added Yet all this had never caused me to open my mouth against it but for the next viz. I found that many learned Divines did not onely assert this instrumentality but laid so great a stresse upon it as if the main difference betwixt us and the Papists lay here For in the doctrine of Justification it is say they that they fundamentally erre and we principally differ and that in these four Points Four great errours laid to the charge of Reformers 1. About the formal cause of our righteousnesse which say these Divines is the formal righteousnesse of Jesus Christ as suffering and perfectly obeying for us or as others adde in the habitual righteousnesse of his humane nature and others the natural righteousnesse of the Divine nature 2. About the way and manner of our participation therein which as to Gods act they say is imputation which is true and that in this sense that legaliter we are esteemed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ 3. About the nature of that faith which justifies which most of our forreign Reformers say is an assurance or full perswasion of the pardon of my sin by Christs blood 4. About the formal reason of faiths interest in Justification which say they is as the instrument thereof Adding his own censure I doubt not but all these four are great errours Of how dangerous consequence soever it is that man should be made the efficient of justifying and pardoning himself yet it had pass'd without controll if worse than this had not been vented by the learned of the reformed Religion It is yet well that when the ignorance of all his professed Antagonists is of that eminence that yet so many learned are on their party Those learned errours should be taken into further consideration and some that are learned have entred the lists with Mr. Baxter in them The second of these great errours he tells us is true and how a great errour can be true I cannot tell unlesse his meaning be that it is truly an errour which is as high an equivocal speech as any that is fastened upon the Scriptures And when this second is true I cannot see and I think few of his Readers will see how the first to which it relates can be false If it be true that by Gods imputation of this righteousnesse of Christ we are legalitèr esteemed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ then that is true also that they say that Christ is our righteousnesse or that the righteousnesse of Christ of meer grace is made ours And how much good will is here shewen to the reforming part is too manifest in making one Party amongst them to hold The natural righteousnesse of Christs Divine nature is not our Justification that the natural righteousnesse of the Divine nature is our Justification as Bellarmine did before him and is answered by Davenant de just habit p. 313. That in this all the Churches of the Protestants have exploded Hosiander It being his singular opinion and another sayes This opinion was almost like Jonas his gourd that did presently wither As for the third the charge is upon our forreign Reformers onely and not upon all that have idly busied their learned heads in this bad cause They onely say that saith is a full perswasion of the pardon of my sins by Christs blood I shall request from him therefore a Latine Treatise for their better information in this thing and not to trouble Controversies in English with that in which his English Antagonists stand right himself being witnesse Neither is it all forreign Divine that go that way Gomarus putting it to the question saith That there be some of those that have opposed Papists on either part All forreign Reformers make no faith a full perswasion and himself determines with them that side in this with our English Reformers Tom. 2. pag. 371. So that in these three our English Reformers at least stand fully acquitted That which followes I doubt not will be the trouble of many of his Readers That which troubled me saith he was this to think how many thousand might be confirmed in Popery by this course and what a blow it gave to the reformed Religion For who can imagine but that young Popish students will be confirmed in the rest of their religion when they find that we erre in these and will judge by these of the rest of our doctrine especially when they find us making this the main part of the Protestant cause what wonder if they judg our cause naught It is a greater wonder that old Popish students have not discovered this to their novices but have left this work to Mr. Baxter to give them light in this in which Reformers so erre and unreformed Papists stand right so that it must be his work not Bellarmines Stapletons Suarez or any others to unreform But lest this should be a stumbling block to offence that so eminent a man that is like if himself may be heard to draw away so many speaks out such Language let us oppose against him on the other hand Albertus Pighius whom those of his party as Peter Martyr saies loc com pag. 541. made their Achilles and thought that he alone by his subtile wit had pierced into the inward Mysteries of truth So that I hope I am not too low in my comparison Pighius
or proper passive reception that it is therefore called receiving it self and it is therefore as I think called so because it is so and that it hath its concurrence and way of efficacy for possession I think few except Mr. Baxter will deny It followes Yet still I say if any will please to call it an instrument in this sense I will not quarrel with him for the impropriety of a phrase especially if some men had the same ingenuity that others have that say it is but Instrumentum Metaphoricum There is not I hope so much ingenuity desired as to smother or blind their reason If it be a metaphorical instrument there must be some real analogy between it and an instrument properly so called in doing that which is done by an instrument and when an instrument is as is affirmed an efficient An instrument without any efficiency at all is a strange kind of Metaphor It had been better to have held to the old dialect of Equivocal There followes But to say saith he that the act of Faith is the instrument of Ethical active reception which is that which I argued against is to say receiving Christ is the instrument of it self It will sure rather follow that Faith is the instrument of the soul in receiving Christ We say faith receives as we say the hand takes Faith is the instrument of the soul and not of it self in receiving Christ That faith is the eye and hand of the soul are Scripture Metaphors or the sword kills but we mean the man receives by the hand and the hand kills by the sword and so we mean the soul receives Christ by faith I explained my self in giving instance in mens usual language concerning faith which is rejected with no little disdain affirming that these speeches Faith is the eye of the soul the hand of the soul are Metaphors of meere humane use forgetting it seems that ever the Scripture said that Moses by faith endured as seeing him that is invisible or that the promise of the Spirit is received by faith If I had added that faith is the foot of the soul they had all been Metaphors of Divine use I urge Scripture texts We receive remission of sins by faith and an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified is received by faith Act. 26.18 To which is replyed If by signifie an instrumental cause it is either alwayes or sometimes You would not sure have your Reader believe that it is alwayes if but sometimes why do you take it for granted that so it signifies here This I might well retort If it signifie and an instumental cause sometimes why is it not made appear that it does not so signifie here But I confesse that by hath not alwayes such signification Bartimeus sate by the high-way-side begging in which place by is no instrument but when the particle by hath reference to that which hath immediate reference to a principal cause and sometimes is put to the principal cause it self I suppose nothing else but an instrument can be intended when Christ is said to be set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3.25 and that we are justified by his blood Rom. 5.9 I know not how the blood of Christ can be a principal cause and faith not denote an instrument I said why else is this righteousnesse sometimes called the righteousnesse of faith sometimes the righteousnesse of God by faith but that it is a righteousnesse which faith receives To this is replyed It is properer to say Credens recipit credendo the believer by believing receives it then to say faith especially the act receives it Here is an egregious subtilety It is more proper to say I receieve a gift by my hand then to say my hand receives it of the same stamp with another where it is said that Scripture sayes That we are justified by faith yet denyed that Scripture sayes that faith justifies But be it so that is properer does not Scripture speak as improperly Eye hath not seen Eare hath not heard It had been as much properer to have said No man hath seen with his eye or heard with his ear I quote Ephes 3.17 Christ dwells in us by faith and Gal. 3.14 We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith There I say Scripture speaks of faith as the souls instrument to receive Christ Jesus and to receive the Spirit from Christ Jesus and I am answered You odly change the question we are speaking of faiths instrumentality in receiving a right to Christ or Christ in relation and you go about to prove the reception of his Spirit or graces really or himself objectively and so we have a large discourse of Christs dwelling in us But is it not to the purpose to shew that the phrase by faith notes instrumentality which these texts make good and does not Christ dwell in us to more purposes then one Is it not to all purposes that by faith we receive him And then our receiving right to him is not here excluded I said the instrumentality of it in the work of justification is denyed because the nature of an instrument as considered in Physical operations doth not exactly belong to it which if it must be alwayes rigidly followed will often put us to a stand in the assignation of causes of any kind in moral actions To this is replyed I said 1. The action of the principal cause and of the instrument is but one action is not this true of moral operation as well as Physical To this I answer I think here some demurre might be put and scarce believe that it will be fully made good that the action of the principal agent and the instruments which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are alwayes exactly one though the act of the instrument may be in such cases Interpretatively called the act of the principal agent as David is said to have slain Vriah with the sword of the Ammonites Saul I am sure was of an other mind when intending the death of David he said Let not my hand be upon him but the hand of the Philistines 1 Sam. 18.17 But in case it be granted what hath he gained He adds 2. I say the instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect of the principal cause by a proper causality that is in suo geneâ—e Demanding Is not this true of moral operations as well as Physical Then yeelding that it is true Moral causes may be said to have a lesse proper causation then Physical c. And this lesse proper causation I doubt not but may be found in faith and as proper a causation as an instrument of this nature will bear I say The material and formal causes in justification are scarce agreed upon and no marvel then in case men mind to contend about it that some question is raised about the instrument c. To this there is much spoke telling me what he would have me to have concluded
the mercy-seat durst not lift up his eyes to heaven seeing a large list of sins and not of vertues or praise-worthy carriages goes away justified rather then the Pharisee Here is a subject morally qualified to be a fit patient to be justified not yet actually justified which also was their case Acts 2.37 with the Jaylours Act. 16.30 which I think neither Mr. Baxter nor Mr. Woodbridge can find affirmed of any actually in the faith who according to Scripture are actually justified and not barely qualified to be fit patients in due time to receive it There followes I would have Pareus here put against this which is quoted out of Mr. Woodbridge speaking by way of objection against the Orthodox doctrine of Justification he saith Faith justifies that is Fides justificat i. e. disponit ad justitiam Respondeo Glossa contorta Scripturae ignota et repugnans Justificare enim dicitur fides accipiendo donum justitiae absque operibus non disponendo ad justitiam Nec justificatio fit per motum sicut calefactâ—o sed per imputationem Quod si sicret per motum admodum impâ—oprie fidei tribueretur Neque enim motus ad rem est res ipsa nec dispositio generat sed est via ad generationem Non igitur per motum dispositionis fides justificat it disposes or fits for Justification and answers A wrested glosse unknown to Scripture and contrary to it For faith is said to justifie by receiving the gift of righteousnesse without works and not by disposing for righteousnesse Neither is Justification by motion as is warmth but by imputations And if it were by motion it were most improperly ascrib'd to faith Neither is motion to a thing the thing it self nor doth a disposition obtain any thing but is the way to obtain it Therefore faith do's not justifie by any motion of disposition Pareus in Rom 3. Dub. 8. The reason of this is That this is onely donation or the will of the donour signified that can efficiently convey a right to his own benefits the receiver is not the giver and therefore not the conveyer of right I wonder what this is a reason of if it be intended for a reason of that which goeth immediately befote that faith doth morally qualifie in the way mentioned it is above me to see any reason in it It is further said Every instrument is an efficient cause and therefore must effect and it is onely giving that effecteth this right But it effects no such right without receiving where it is given upon that proviso that it be thus and thus received After much ado and to what purpose let others judge The conclusion is The great thing therefore that I affirm is this that if you will needs call faith the instrument of apprehending Christ or righteousnesse yet doth it not justifie proxime formaliter as such but as the condition of the gift performed And the great thing that I would affirm is That the instrumental apprehending Christ or righteousnesse is this condition of the gift It is given upon condition that we make use of our faith to apprehend it and so the summe is That faith doth not justifie formaliter proxime as apprehending Christ or righteousnesse because it doth justifie proxime formaliter as thus apprehending Faith as a condition certainly doth somewhat and this it is that it doth according to the Scripture The eighth and last of his accurate heads followes In which he saies he opens his meaning together about this point though as he saies with some repetitions I cannot then without repetitions give any further answer which to the Reader would be too troublesome yet somewhat is observable that I find not before Faith saith he must first be faith i. e. apprehensio Christi in order of nature before it can be the condition of right Actual existence not necessary to the being of a condition in a Covenant If faith must have an actual being before it can be the condition of right then perfect obedience according to the old rule as Mr. Baxter calls it must first be perfect obedience in actual being before it can be a condition of the Covenant of works and so it will follow that that Covenant hath no condition seeing there is no such actual obedience A condition may be a condition though not made good though never made good The delivery in of an hundred foreskins of the Philistines was Davids condition for Marriage of Sauls daughter before any Philistine was slain and had stood as a condition though had never been given in If he mean that faith must be faith before the condition be made good this is false for the actual being of it is the making of it good and so it is as much as if I said I must wink in order of nature before I shut my eyes He further distinguishes of apprehensio Christi and conditio praestita when apprehensio Christi is conditio praestita as though I should distinguish between Abrahams sacrificing of his son and his obedience of Gods command in sacrificing him when all know that his sacrificing him was his obedience To say that there is such a thing as faith in the general notion before Christ doth constitute a condition were somewhat but to say that we believe or apprehend Christ before we perform the condition is to say we must perform the condition before we perform it Having led the Reader through all this accuratenesse I must further consider his animadversions I said The Spirit will do nothing without our faith and our faith can do nothing without the Spirit man cannot justifie himself by believing without God and God will not justifie an unbelieving man faith then is the act of man man believes yet the instrument of God that justifies onely believers To which I have a multiplication either of answers and scornes in place of answers 1. It is said The Spirits working in sanctification is nothing to our question of justification It is yet somewhat for illustration for which alone it was brought though nothing for proof for which it was never intended 2. It is said The Spirit works our first faith without faiths coworking and that is more then nothing What need he to have told me this when I had told it him before as the Reader may see in words which he omits I speak there of the Spirits work in the soul where faith is implanted 3. The Spirit moveth faith to action before faith moveth it self Here is an exception to fill up the number If I move my pen to write before it move then I write something without my pen. 4. It is said It is not so easily proved as said That the Spirit never exciteth any good act in the soul nor yet restraineth from any evill without the coworking of faith But why is not this disproved with ease I would know for my learning what act of the Spirit upon a beleeving soul is
put in their lives about their health their estates the nature of their grounds or how to carry on their Trades besides those multiplyed ones of meer vanity and inconsiderable concernment they never had it in their thoughts to move a question of any concernment to their soules The young mans question the Jaylours question Peters hearers question never came into their heads I have seen little evidence of good in these and I see little ground to believe any thing of faith in their soules You may speak of some of these as of men of good dispositions of a fair nature and harmlesse life and course these may grow up in nature moralized and regulated when yet faith is far from them they may grow up high in profession but growing in the blade or leaf onely and not in the root they may justly be suspected Every tree that bears a fair leaf doth not bear good fruit and every apple of a fair colour is not to be desired for food Such fruit as this may take where faith will not grow The Prophets words then should be heeded Break up your fallow ground and sowe not amongst thornes this way must be taken for soul-humbling that men may be brought to believing The nature of faith wherein it consists A necessary prerequisite in faith 2. The next way of discovery is to take notice of the proper and true kind the genuine nature of this grace And here I hope the Christian Reader may reape a double advantage First to understand what faith is and the requisites in it Secondly helps for proof of themselves whether they be in the faith And here we may observe First a necessary prerequisite of faith Secondly the essential parts of it The prerequisite to it is knowledge which some indeed make a part of faith but faith I suppose rather presupposeth it then is made up of it The essential parts are either in the understanding or in the will or affections for faith is an act of the soul and the whole soul is implyed in it First then of that which I make a prerequisite Knowledge is in that way required to the making up of faith that is often put for faith as Isai 53.11 And when God works to faith he is said to open the eyes or to work to knowledge or light Heb. 10.32 Act. 26.18 We come to faith by hearing we must therefore hear and know before we can believe Knowledge is the first act or work of the soul that conducerh towards faith in the heart Now knowledge is threefold First of sense we know what we see Thomas knew Christ that is the person of Christ when he had seen his wounds and put his finger into them This knowledg is not necessarily required in faith Christ there saith Blessed is he that seeth not and believeth John 20.23 And the Apostle saith that faith is the evidence of things not seen Secondly of reason we know those things which our reason is able to reach This knowledge runs through all sciences in which we attain knowledge by discourse and the clearer head the better Artist and the more of knowledge This we do not require to the being of faith though faith be not alwaies against yet it is oft above all our reasonings yea our reasonings and hammering out conclusions are oftentimes against faith The word of faith beats down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and brings into captivity every thought 2. Cor. 10.5 Our Notionalists are indeed men of sublimated understandings in case they can alwaies reach unto that which according to the Gospell they are to believe Thirdly of authority we judge our selves to know a thing which men worthy of credit do make known and if we receive the witnesse of men saith the Apostle the witnesse of God is greater 1. John 5.9 The testimony of man gives a morall certainty and such that we will not question The multiplication of witnesses renders our knowledge grounded on such authority more firm and therefore the proverb in a well qualified sense is at least near to truth Vox populi vox Dei The voice of the peopâ—â— unanimously witnessing is as the voice of God We do no mâ—re doubt that there was a massacre of Protestants in Ireland about the year 41. then we do that there was one resolved upon at Shushan in the reign of Ahashuerus Esth 3. The testimony of God is alwaies of infallible truth as to the substance so to every circumstance of it many passages about that massacre we may justly question so we must not any thing which divine verity hath made known This knowledge we require in faith and know it to be necessary to the being of faith we must know that God hath revealed in his Word a Trinity of Persons or else we shall believe no such thing as three distinct subsistences in God that the holy Ghost is God that Christ is God and man in one person or else we shall believe no such doctrine We must know the creation from the Scriptures or else we shall not believe a creation but run into that opinion that all things have ever been as they are We must know the offices of Christ or else we shall not believe that any such office was undertaken by him The same we may say of every doctrine of faith perhaps without Scripture we might have known somewhat confusedly of some of them as that there is a God and that the world had a beginning but we should have known nothing at all of many of them and nothing distinctly of any of them These we must know and from the Scriptures of God know or else we cannot believe we may as easily see where nothing is to be seen as believe where that is not known which is to be believed Ignorant persons therefore that know not the right hand from the left in religion and are to seek in the very first principles of the Oracles of God in the very beginnings of the doctrine of Christ that either come not to hear that they may learn or that learn nothing at all by hearing ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth are in an incapacity of faith Men weak in knowledg can hardly make proof of their faith they do not well know the nature or lively workings of it so want the comfort but not the thing Men without knowledge are without faith have not gone the first step towards it The essential parts of faith The essentiall parts of it are as we have said in the understanding will and affections In the understanding there is an assent to that which is revealed upon the authority of him that doth reveal it 1. In the understanding An assent When we believe any thing upon that account that we suppose we see a reason of it as that the middle region of the ayr is coldest or that the Sun is in many degrees
for life and power and so the life that we live in the flesh is by faith in Christ Jesus So that faith I suppose may be fitly defined to be A firm assent of mind to the whole truth of God in the way that he doth reveal it with an acceptation of all that good which God confers by Christ in the way that he doth tender it I know this grace is diversly held out and is so comprehensive that the full nature of it is not easily laid open A common definition of it is that it is A resting upon Christ alone for salvation purposely given to correct their mistake that have made assurance or a full perswasion that what Christ hath done I shall enjoy in particular to be of the nature and essence of faith But though this may vertually comprize all that is required in this grace yet it is no full and explicite definition of it for unlesse the understanding give its assent that salvation is alone by Christ the will cannot rest upon him for it This assent in that definition is presupposed But it is convenient that it should be expert Other things besides salvation are received by faith from Christ but salvation is the most eminent and principall and all other as by consequent depend upon it This that I have delivered is more explicitely full not onely virtually but expresly holds out all that faith compriseth And as all of those are here as we have heard convinced of unbelief that know not those necessary truths that God hath made known and upon that account can give no assent together with those that believe even in necessary and fundamentall doctrines otherwise then God hath revealed that pick and choose in doctrines of faith assenting or denying assent at pleasure So also all those that give other things the preheminence above Christ or at least take them in in coordination with him When Christ is offered in the Gospel to the soul and men are urged by his Ministers to receive him for life and happinesse the things of the world are still ready to make tender of themselves The lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh the pride of life that is profits pleasures honours When these are hugged prosecuted and followed Christ is refused and slighted A covetous man will make sail of Christ for a piece of silver he will lay out more strength of affection to compasse earth in the way of a calling then to compasse Christ in Ordinances The man of pleasures will sell Christ for his cups for his sports for his wantonnesse the like we may say of the man of honours He that for the cause of Christ can forsake and abjure all is the onely man in whom Christ by faith makes his residence The necessary nourishment of faith Thus we have seen the two first wayes for the tryal of faith the third followes which is The means appointed for the nourishment and strength of it It cannot live unlesse in the use of means it be kept up Declensions are apt to appear in soul as well as in body He observes little about his spiritual estate that does not see his faith oftentimes apt to languish as well as his health And though we be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation yet it is in the use of means and not otherwise He therefore that lives in faith is careful in the use of means to keep faith alive The means appointed of God for this end are especially the Word Sacraments and Prayer The Word 1. The Word is food as well as seed as it plants so it waters as it begins so it perfects the work of grace When Paul left the Ephesians whom he had begotten to the faith through the Gospel he leaves them this Legacy Act. 20.32 We are born again of the immortal seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1.23 and as new born babes we must desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 No man ever knew a child live without the breast or other suitable means for nourishment Nor men of strength without answerable sustenance no more can a man in grace live without the Word of grace Our imaginations and carnal reasonings will be stirring and working and faith hath not a more deadly enemie The Word which is the sword of the Spirit must beat those down and hold them under 2 Cor. 10.5 The word of promise underproppes our faith and must be frequently heard diligently heeded or else it cannot be upheld Those therefore that prize the Word as a child the dug esteeming it with Job as their ordinary food Job 23.12 and to this end to keep life in their souls faith in their hearts here is a sign both of life and growth but when it is with men as with Israel in the wildernesse their soul loatheth this heavenly Manna as light bread having their appetite far better pleased with other things their ear being of the temper of Jeremies hearers The Word of the Lord is a reproach to them they have no delight in it Jer. 6.10 these never had faith in the power and life And all they that lose in their love to the Word lose also in their faith Many here might be convinced to be wanting in this righteousnesse upon their want of faith to intrest themselves in it 1. Those that take themselves to be above any necessity of hearing having learnt as they think so much that they may now well lay aside their teachers God vouchsafing of grace those gifts for the perfecting of the Saints having gained as they think perfection they matter no more intermedling with them If these could shew us any Scripture-Saint that ever reached to this height or ever set upon any such resolution or if they could give such experience to all that know them that they might know that they want nothing of the highest top of perfection then they said something But when the highest of Saints that we read of in the Word highly prized the Word and the more high they were the more high prize they put upon it and these that upon this pretence reject it proclaime to the vvorld many vvants in their souls even in that vvhich lyeth at the very bottome of faith and is of greatest necessity to the being of it their knovvledge being but in part in most of these very lovv and little or nothing vvhere most should be knovvn vve may vvell conclude that all this talke of perfection is vain Take tvvo persons the one of them talking and boasting of vvealth the other labouring hard in tillage or trade to gain vvealth and if you can tell whether of these the talker or the labourer is like to encrease in substance then you have determined the question whether these unruly talkers that boast of faith or those that diligently attend on Ordinances for gaining of it are more richly stored with it 2. Those that neglect to hear or
your self having in this very page said The condition is his that performeth it not his that imposeth it And I am sure that God imposeth and we perform the conditions of Faith and Repentance therefore they are not his conditions but ours You say There are sufficient reasons why God is said not to believe though he cause us to believe If you please to produce these reasons I shall he artily thank you I have said plainly enough that God causes us to believe denâ—'d that he is properly said to believe Your reasons then must needs be acceptable You tell me of Praedeterminants and their Adversaries Jesuites Arminians All of which acknowledge God to be the cause of uâ—â—acts And I acknowledge the same and so far there is a â—aire and â—â—iâ—ndly accord Bâ—t you say I adventure a step farher and say that faith and repentance are mans work and not Gods To which yâ—u reply 1. What meane you then to yeeld afterward that God worketh all our works in us Those which he worketh are sure his work Answ What need you to aske that question when I there explaine mine own meaning Your â—râ—uâ—ent à conjugatis What God worketh is his work must have its due limits or else you will run into many absurdities God works our motion from place to place and yet he himself does not move The text it self by me quoted gives an answer Having asserted that God works them the denominâ—tion is still given to man God workâ— all our works in uâ— when he has wrought them they are yet said to be ours I freely subscribe to that of Eâ—â—ius upon the words Deus omne bonum ac totum ab initio bonae voluntatis usque ad consummationem boni operis in nobis efficâ—citer operatur ordine sc causalitatis You â—dde I never met with any Orthodox Divine but would yeeld that Faith is a work of Gods Spirit and the Spirits work is doubtleâ—s Gods work Farther telling me If you go the Common way of he Praedeterminants you must acknowledge that God is the Physicall Efficient Praedeâ—ermining Principall Immediate cause of every act of every creature and therefore doubtlesse of our Faith and that both immediatione virtutis suppositi So that it is more properly his act then ours Here you furnish me with an answer Though in the highest way of Praedeterminants I should ascribe all in every act to God yet they are not Gods works or acts in a rigid proper sense but by a Metonymie of the cause He works them because he work us for the acting of them and so I explained my self We are his workmanship fitted and prepared for good works Christ was the principall efficient when he raised Lazarus yet it was Lazarus and not Christ that did rise Concerning acts of this nature that we are upon I believe that Quod voluntas agit liberè agit interim ex naturâ non est libera ad bonum sed per gratiam liberata libera in radice non in termino Homo denuò natus vult perficit quod est bonum Deus autem operatur velle perficere ordine sc causalitatis You professe your self of Bp. Davenants mind who saith As for the predetermination of mens wills it is a controversie between the Dominicans and Jesuits with whose Metaphysicall speculations our Protestant Divines love not to torture their brains or at least should not Declaring your self that you take it to be a poynt beyond the knowledge of any man which way God works on the will in these respects I much marvaile then that you will so much trouble your Reader about it You tell us that if you must incline to any way it would be rather to Durandus for stronger reasons then you find in Ludovicus à Dola who yet you say hath more then you have seen well answered And yet perhaps à Dola in case he had seen your arguments would have judged his as strong as yours Notwithstanding your great abilities to give answer to them when all others that you have seene have been wanting So farr as I have looked into the Author I see him a man of much modesty and one in whome reason is not wanting though I will not undertake to declare either with or against him When I say Our dexterity for holy duties is from the frame into which grace puts us and so still the work is ours though power for action is vouchsafed of God You reply Both velle and perficere are the gift of God and not only posse velle perficere To which I say I had thought that Power for action had included that wnich you say and not denyed it namely a powerfull inclination of the will to the work Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110.3 The will is still mans when grace has wrought him up to it I had thought there had been no such danger in Paules words Phil. 4.13 I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me You conclude that I have not confuted your answer namely to your Quaerists question when indeed I never intended it and if I would now go about it I need not finding it as I think done to my hand You give in your reason 1. That I have not disproved the absolute promise of the first speciall Grace Answ You say no more of this in your reply to your Querist that I can find but Whether the Apostle mention it as an absolute promise is a great doubt and that you think we may call it an absolute promise when you had said before that they are meer gratious predictions 2. These supposed promises as you say in your answer are not within the proper conditionall Covenant and therefore I had nothing to do with it 2. You further say that I have not disproved God to be the Author of our faith so as that it is his work Answ I do not find that in all your answer and you most unfairely make the title of this Section to be Whether Faith and Repentance are Gods works My businsse was against your Querist affirming them to be Gods conditions not ours 3. You say If I had yet Believing which is our work is not the same with giving faith or moving us to believe which is Gods work Answ This I confesse You did not affirme it before that I know and I yeeld it now The former is ours viz. to believe the latter Gods viz. to give Faith or move us to believe A mighty proofe sure that your answer is not confuted if it had been intended because I have gainsayed what your answer never asserted For that wich I intended not against you but as I thought for you That Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods I thus further argue Arguments evincing that Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods in the proper conditionall Covenant Those conditions that are not mentioned in the proper conditionall Covenant