tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that Book words or reading it followeth not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith 11. A thousand Texts of Scripture may be not known and understood by one that is Justified but all the Baptismal Articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved 12. Those Church-Tyrants Dogmatists or superstitious ones who deny the sufficiency of this Test and Symbol made by Christ and his Spirit to its proper use to be the Symbol of such as in Love and Communion we are to take for Christians do subvert the summ of Christs Gospel and Law and do worse than they that add to or alter the lesser parts of the Word of God 13. Therefore our further Additional Confessions must be only to other subordinate ends As 1. To satisfie other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the faith 2. To be an enumeration of Verities which Preachers shall not have leave to preach against though they subscribe them not 14. Object Hereticks may profess the Baptismal Creed Answ 1. And Hereticks may profess any words that you can impose on them taking them in their own sense All the Councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing Hereticks We must not make new Symbols Rules and Laws as oft as Knaves will falsly profess or break the old ones there being none that may not be falsly professed and violated 2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures that yet are Hereticks 3. Church Governours are for this to cast out those or punish them who preach teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess Judicatures are not to make new Laws but to punish men for breaking Laws A heart-Heretick-only is no Heretick in foro Ecclesiae He that teacheth Heresie must be proved so to do and judged upon proof which may be done without new additional Symbols Rules or Laws of faith So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the Baptismal Creed as the Symbol of Christian Love Communion and Concord I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the Epistle to convince men of the true terms of Union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of Adding and Corrupting overdoers that divide us THE PREFACE AGAINST CLERGIE MENS Contentions AND Church-distracting Controversies THAT the Churches of Christ are dolefully tempted and distracted by Divisions no man will deny that knoweth them That the Clergie is not only greatly culpable herein but the chief cause cannot be hid But which part of the Clergie it is and what be their dividing Errors and Crimes and how they should be cured is indeed easie for the truly faithful and impartial Spectators to perceive but exceeding hard as experience tells us to make the Guilty throughly know and harder to do much effectually for the cure For the error and sin which is the true cause is its own defence and repelleth and frustrateth the Remedies And so each party layeth it from themselves on others and hate all that accuse them while they are the sharpest and perhaps most unjust accusers of the rest I shall here freely tell the Reader the History of my own Conceptions of these matters and then my present thoughts of the Causes of all these Calamities and the Cure I. I was born and bred of Parents piously affected but of no such knowledge or acquaintance as might engage them in any Controversies or disaffect them to the present Government of the Church or cause them to scruple Conformity to its Doctrine Worship or Discipline In this way I was bred my self but taught by my Parents and God himself to make conscience of sin and to fear God and to discern between the Godly and the notoriously wicked For which my Parents and I were commonly derided as Puritans the Spirit of the Vulgar being commonly then fired with hatred and scorn of serious godliness and using that name as their instrument of reproach which was first forged against the Nonconformists only And the Clergie where I lived being mostly only Readers of the Liturgie and some others that rather countenanced than reproved this course I soon confined my Reverence to a very few among them that were Learned and Godly but Conformists and for going out of my Parish to hear them my reproach increased About eighteen or nineteen years of age I fell acquainted with some persons half Conformists and half Non-conformists who for fear of severities against private Meetings met with great secresie only to repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and by Pious Conference edifie each other Their Spirits and Practice was so savoury to me that it kindled in me a distaste of the Prelates as Persecutors who troubled and ruined such persons while ignorant Drunkards and Worldlings were tolerated in so many Churches yea and countenanced for crying down such persons and crying up Bishops Liturgie and Conformity Before I was aware my affections began to solicite my understanding to judge of the Things and Causes by the Persons where the difference was very great But yet my first Teachers kept my judgement for Conformity as Lawful though not Desirable had we Liberty till I was ordained But soon after a new acquaintance provoked me to a deeper study of the whole Controversie than I had undertaken before which left me perswaded that the use of Liturgie and Ceremonies was lawful in that case of necessity except the Baptismal use of the Cross and the subscription to all things c. But in 1640. the Oath called Et Caetera being offered the Ministry forced me to a yet more searching Study of the case of our Diocesane Prelacie which else I had never been like to have gainsaid At a meeting of Ministers to debate the case it fell to Mr. Christopher Cartwrights lot and mine to be the Disputers and the issue of all that and my studies was that I setled in the approbation of the Episcopacy asserted by Ignatius yea and Cyprian but such a dissent from the English frame as I have given account of in my Disputations of Church Government My genius was inquisitive and earnestly desirous to know the truth my helps for Piety were greater than my helps for Learning of which I had not much besides Books sickness helpt my seriousness keeping me still in expectation of death All my reverenced acquaintance save one cryed down Arminianism as the Pelagian Heresie and the Enemy of Grace I quickly plunged my self into the study of Dr. Twisse and Amesius and Camero and Pemble and others on that subject By which my mind was setled in prejudice against Arminianism without a clear understanding of the case whereupon I felt presently in my mind a judgement of those that were for Arminianism as bad or dangerous adversaries to the Church and specially of the then ruling Bishops which yet I think I had not-entertained had I not taken them withal for the great Persecutors of Godly able
believe in him as the purchaser of pardon and to believe in him as the Teacher and Ruler of the Church as to believe in him as the justifyer of believers The inseparableness of these acts is commonly confessed 110. Indeed it is essential to this faith 1. To be the act of the three essential faculties of man's Soul the Vital Power the Intellect and the Will 2. And to have for its object God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and that in Christ all that is essential to him as a Saviour be its object And therefore 1. That it be an Assent Consent and practical Affiance 2. That it be a believing in Christ as God and Man and as the Teacher Priest and King of the Church revealing the Gospel reconciling us to God and Ruling us in order to Salvation 111. To say that some one only of these parts of Christ's office as they are Concept us inadaequati of a Saviour is the only object of justifying faith and to say that justifying faith is only one Act of the Soul or many acts of one only faculty or to say that we are justified only by such a one and that to expect to be justified by Assent Consent and Affiance or by believing in Christ as our Teacher and Ruler as well as Priest and as a justifying Judg as well as a Justifying Sacrifice and as a fulfiller of the Law is to expect justification by Works as Paul denyeth it This is a vain distinguishing a falsifying the Doctrine of faith and justification a departing from the Scripture simplicity by corrupting seeming subtility and one of those humane inventions which have wronged the Church And it is no wiser than to say that when we speak of taking or receiving a Man to be a Husband a Physician a King it is but one physical aâ— of the Soul that is meant or about one only physical conception in the object which is inadequate Whereas all such Moral or Civil acts coâ—tain many physical acts and are suited to all things in the object which are essential to it in its moral or civil nature or relation 112. And it is but the same deluding subtility and vain curiosity â—â— a playing with deceitful words to say that we are justified by faith Quatenus recipit Christi Justitiam As it believeth in Christ's Sacrifice and perfect obedience only and not As it believeth in him as Teacher Ruler Sanctifier Judg or as he intercedeth for us in Heaven c. when the Scripture saith no such thing at all but simply maketh faith in Christ supposing Faith in God the Father to be that by which we must be justified 113. This distinction is founded in another falshood supposed which is that the effects of all Christ's saving works are as distinctly to be ascribed to several Receiving Acts of faith as they are to the several procuriâ— acts of Christ the object of faith which is another corrupting additioâ— to God's Word One part of the work of our Salvation was done by Christ's humiliation and another by him in his exaltation one by his overcoming the Devil and another by his overcoming the World one by his Cross another by his Grave another by his Resurrection another by his ascension another by his making the new Covenant another by his sending the Spirit another by his sending the Apostles another by his intercession in Heaven another will be done by our Resurrection and another by his last Judgment and our Glorification one by hiâ— as an obeying-subject another as a Sacrifice for sin many by him as a Prâ—phet many as a Priest and many as a King and Judge But to say therefore that our acts of faith as Receptive have as various respects to the effects or benefits and that we are justified by him only as we believe iâ— him as Righteous or a Justifyer and that we are adopted as we believe in him in another respect and sanctifyed as we believe in hiâ— in another respect c. these are the dreams of corrupting curiosity For that Christ who by all these several works hath done all the office of a Redeemer to procure these several effects is preached and offered to us to be entirely as such a Redeemer believed in and received and upon the condition of such an entire faith only Christ and all these benefits conjunctly are by one Covenant given us and no otherwise And believing in Christ as Christ who by all those acts hath himself procured us this Covenant and these gifts is that by which we are justified as it is one undivided faith And the quatenus here as to Christ's own procurement of the effects hath its place but as to the Act of our faith and Christ as the object constituting that faith there is no such diversity or order to be feigned as if the several effects were accordingly to be ascribed to our several Believings or Receiving acts 114. The ambiguity of the very word Receiving hath drawn many into this error Receiving signifyeth sometimes a Physical reception which is meerly Passive or the Relation of the Patient as such to the Act and Agent And this is twofold 1. The Reception of a real being and so to be sanctified is to Receive Sanctification 2. The Reception of a Relation such as all Jus Right to a thing is and so to be pardoned justified and adopted and to Receive pardon justification and adoption is all one 2. Sometimes it signifyeth Moral or Civil receiving which is nothing but 1. The consent of the mind called Acceptance 2. And as to corporeal objects sometime the voluntary act of the body as the Hand taking that which is offered Now if the Receiving in question were physical either rei vel juris ad rem then indeed it would be so neerly related to the thing received which as received is no object because Receiving so is no act as that this quatenus in question might be applyed to it For it may well be said I receive Justification quatenus Justificatus sum as I By this you see the answer to what Mr. Lawson in his excellent Theopolitica hath said against me on this point Of which see fullyer my answer to Mr. Warner in my Disputes of Justification am justified and I receive Sanctification as I am sanctified and vice versa for they are but various words signifying the same thing But of Moral Receiving the case is otherwise For this is not physical Reception but only a Moral Act which is made a necessary medium or Condition to Physical Reception and thence is called Receiving so Accepting or Consenting is a moral means or condition of that Having or Possessing which is consequential And this Acceptance hath relation immediately to the thing as Given only to be made ours according to the Will of the Giver and not made ours according to the order of the things given That is 1. The Ratio proprietatis the Reason that they are ours is the will of the Donor
may be called 1. A Receiving Cause 2. And a mediâ—â— or dispositive Cause of the effect Justification as Received but not as Given As I said Dr. Twisse chooseth to call it But this causa Dispositiva is pâ—â— of the causa Materialis viz. Qua disposita A cause or more properly a condition why I receive Justification and by receiving it am Justified which is their meaning who call it A Passive Instrument that is A â—â—ceiving Instrument 199. The plain easie truth is that Faiths Nature which is to be â—â—lieving Acceptance of Christ and Life offered on that Condition being â—â— very essence is but its Aptitude to the office it hath to our Justification by which the Question is answered why did God promise us Christ and Life â—â— the Condition of faith rather than another Because of the congruity of its Nature to that office But the formal Reason of its office as to our Justification is Its Being the performed Condition of the Covenant And if God had chosen another condition a condition it would have been Now the true notion in Law being a Condition Logicians would call this improperly a Receiving cause and more properly A Receptive Disposition of the matter reducing it to Physical notions But the most proper term is the plainest We are justified by that faith which is the Believing Practical Acceptance of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as Given us on that condition in the Baptismal Covenant because or as it is made by God the condition of his Gift thereby Understand this plain doctrine and you have the plain truth 200. They that say contrarily that Faith justifieth proximately as it is an Instrument or a Receiving Accepting act and not as a Condition of the Covenant do evidently choose that which they vehemently oppose viz. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere justifieth For the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the â—â—â—â— of Faith is to be an Acceptance of Christ given But if they will to avoid this say that By Faith they mean Christ believed in then they say that by Receiving Christ they mean not the receiving of him but Christ himself And why then do they not say so but trouble the world with such unintelligible phrases But to open the senselessness and coâ—sequents of that Doctrine would but offend All know that Chriâ—â—â—â— the object is connoted as essential to the act of Faith SECT XII How Repentance is joyned with Faith 201. Repentance is a Dispositio materiae recipientis too and a part of the condition of the Covenant And so far a Material or dispositive Receiving Cause But not an Acceptance of the Gift formally in its averting act 202. Faith and Repentance are words used in Scripture in divers significations Saith Malderus Gu. Amesius a parte recedit ab antiquo Calvinismo quiae requirit ad justitiam bonae operâ— tanquam conditionem praerequisitam quod â—tiam extendit ad ipsam â—lectionem See here how little the Papists understand us As Faith is sometimes taken for bare Assent as Jam. 2. and usually for Affiance or Trust and always when it denominateth a Christian or Justified Believer as such it essentially includeth all the three parts Assent Consent and Affiance but yet denominateth the whole by a word which principally signifieth One act which commonly is Affiance as including the other two so Repentance is sometime taken comprehensively for the whole Conversion of a Sinner to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and so it includeth Faith in the narrower sence and is the same thing as Faith in the larger sence but express'd under another formal notion Sometimes it is taken more narrowly and that 1. As to the Act. 2. As to the Object 1. As to the Act and so the word Repentance signifieth only the Aversion of the Soul from evil by sorrow and change of mind And this is the strict formal notion of the word though usually it be taken more largely as including also the Conversion of the Soul to Good which is the usual Scripture and Theological sense though the word it self do chiefly signifie the Averting act 2. As to the Object 1. Repentance sometime signifieth the Turning of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God And so Repentance towards God is distinguished from Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ 2. And sometimes it signifieth only the turning of the Soul and life from some particular Sin 203. Repentance as it is the turning of the Soul from sin and Idols * The Papists take Repentance it self to be part of the Remission of Sins And let the Reader note for the fuller opening of what I have said of their darkness thereabouts that Jansenius Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. maketh four things to be inseparably conteined in Remission though distinguishable 1. The Conversion of the Soul to God 2. The abstersion of the Macula or filth 3. Reconciliation or the remission of Gods offence 4. The relaxation of the aeternal punishment That all these are then at once given us we are all agreed But whether the name Remission or Pardon of sin â—e meet for them all we disagree Is it not visible then how unhappily we strive about words wheâ— we talk like men of several Languages But all is but removation and remitting the penalty of which Gods offense is the first part And Macula is either the sin it self or the relative consequents to God is the same with Faith in God in the large Covenant-sence and includeth Faith in God in the narrower sence Repentance as it is our Turning from Infidelity to Christianity is the same with Faith in Christ in the large Covenant-saving-sence and includeth Faith in Christ in the narrower sence as it is meer Assent Repentance as it is a Turning from the Flesh to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer is the same thing as our Faith in the Holy Ghost in the large Covenant sence and includeth Faith in the Holy Ghost in the narrower sence But when they are the same thing the ratio nominis or formal notion is not the same As man's mind is not so happy as to conceive of all things that are one by one entire single Conception so we are not so happy in our language as to have words enough to express things entirely by one name but we must have several words to express our inadequate conceptions by And so that is called Repentance as the Souls motion from the Terminus a quo which is called sometimes Faith or Affiance and sometimes Love from the motion of the Soul to the Terminus ad quem though the Motus be the same But when Faith and Repentance are distinguished as several parts of the Condition of the new Covenant the common sence is that Repentance signifieth the Conversion of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God which is or includeth Faith in God And Faith signifieth specially Faith in Christ as the Mediator and way
disposition to love God as God and acted this he was Holy If he had not it must needs be a Privation in him and not a meer Negation For a rational creature must needs be naturally obliged to love his Creator yea this is the first and summary Law of Nature to him Therefore not to do it must needs be Sin and the sum of all Sin Therefore Adam thus is made a great Sinner ab origine before his fall 2. If Adam loved not God in his weakest degree of recovering Grace he was unsanctified But if he did as certainly he did then it is not like that in his least degree of his recovering Grace he was Holyer than in Innocency though he might stand on surer grounds 3. And this opinion maketh unholiness of Nature to be no part of Original Sin Because it would be no Privation but a Negation For our Nature in Infancy is not obliged to have that holiness which it never had and lost in Adam And so Original Sin is almost all denyed and an unholy heart is made as innocent therein 4. We are renewed according to the Image of him that created us in wisdom righteousness and true holiness Col. 3. 10. Therefore it was holiness which was the Image of God which we lost and needs renewing 336. The Argument for Perseverance from Gods Immutability will hold as to all the Elect as such but not to all the sanctified or justified as such For the Angels and Adam's fall did not prove God mutable And God can judge a thing or person to be changed without being himself changed but only denominatione extrinseca a relatione ad mutatum is variously denominated And even his Law or Covenant which saith He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned will not at all be changed if it justifie a Believer to day whom it condemned as an unbeliever yesterday and should condemn him again to morrow if he should apostatize or if it conclude us guilty every day anew of every new Sin which we commit 337. It is a very hard thing to confute an Anabaptist without granting that Infant Justification may be lost For experience proveth * Brianson in 4. q. 4. 1. Corrob fol. 36. Handling the question why the baptized Infants have infused Habits of Grace and Virtues citeth their opinions that hold the contrary but inclining to the affirmative he hath no better answer to them that object experience which oftest findeth no signs of such habits when they come to age than that they are known to us only by Faith Matth. 28. 19 20. Eph. 4 2 3. that the Children of Godly Parents too often prove ungodly And if they had Justifying Grace in Infancy they lose it And if they have not then the Covenant in which they are entered doth not certainly Justifie them And if so then it is either the very same Covenant which the adult are baptized into or another If it be another then their Baptism is another thing For Baptism is but the celebration of our Covenant with God And another Covenant in specie maketh another Baptism in specie And if so it seemeth to be no Baptism of Gods appointing For he hath but One Covenant of Grace to be entered by us and sealed nor but one Baptism Indeed on man's part there is a Covenanting with the Heart and with the mouth an outward as well as an inward Covenanting or Consenting But it is all to one and the same Covenant of God It is the same species of Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost which baptized Hypocrites and true Christians do profess And Infants have no Faith of their own to profess but are dedicated by another's will the title-condition of the Adult is their own consenting Faith but the title-condition of Infants is nothing in themselves but their Parents consenting Faith without them which dedicateth them to God Now we suppose the Parents to do this sincerely If then the Covenant ascertain not present Justification to the Infant who hath all the condition required by the Covenant how can we say that it any more ascertaineth Justification to the adult it being proved to be the very same Covenant and not another But if it do ascertain it then many lose it I run not into their error who tell us and would have none of us Preach Christ's Gospel that will not say the same that It is certain by the Word of God that Infants baptized dying before actual Sin are certainly saved without excepting the Children of any Infidels Pagans or Apostates which I cannot prove of the Infants even of Hypocrites or unsound Christians or that the Child can he saved by that false Faith which will not save the Parent or him that dedicateth him to God or that the Children of Hypocrites or Infidels have the condition of Justification And if that Word of God had been cited that maketh the assertion certain it would have been a great kindness to us from those whose Justice must go for such But we are thought unworthy of it For my part I determine not the difficult case of Infants loss of Justification Their case is left dark to us in the Scriptures But my judgment is fulliest expressed by the words of the Synod of Dort Art 1. § 17. And Davenant's Treatise on that point is very judicious and considerable if wherever he speaketh of Baptized Infants you will but suppose him to mean the Infants of true Christians and not all 338. It seemeth a hard saying that any member of Christ should be cut off and become a member of Satan and perish though he were but an Infant member But we must not let the Metaphor deceive us It is not a Natural member of Christ's Person that perisheth as if part of Christ himself fell off But a Metaphorical Mystical Political Member And Christ thought it no absurdity Joh. 15. to warn his chief Members that they fall not off and to speak by way of supposition of his branches as cut off withered and burned And Adam and the faln Angels before their fall were the Beloved of God and his Children and yet fell from that love There must be therefore stronger Arguments than this to turn the Scales SECT XXIV The sum and end of this Discourse of certain Perseverance 339. The end and sum of all that I have said of Perseverance is but this that the controversie is neither 1. Of such weight nor 2. Of such facility and certainty as that it should be made necessary to our charitable converse or Church Communion to hold either this or that But we should number it with the dogmata not to be imposed on others nor fit to make any breach in the love and concord of Christians and for my part I profess that I take him for the worser Christian caeteris paribus whom I hear with disaffection blotting the names of others with notes of unsoundness and culpability for dissenting in
How will you prove it against them that think Solomon had but common Grace till he wrote Ecclesiastes or repented of his Fall A. He was a pen-man of the Scripture the Proverbs before And he was beloved of God and excelled all others in Wisdom B. 1. Whether he wrote or only spake the Proverbs you prove not 2. You cannot prove that writing part of the Scripture is a more certain sign of a Saint than speaking part of it And Balaam spake part of it what Job's Friends were I know not And if many Workers of Iniquity did by the Spirit prophesie and cast out Devils in Christ's Name how prove you that they may not write part of the Scriptures To pass by that Pilate Festus Claâ—dius Lystaâ— and other such wrote part of it And an ungodly Preacher may now speak and write excellent things 3. His Wisdom which he begged and is magnified for is described objectively to be political physical and ethical but how far spiritual the Text doth not speak 4. God might be said to love him as Christ did that man that was not far from the Kingdom of God Complacencially according to the good that was in him And benevolently as he purposed his future Sanctification and Salvation I write not this as my own Opinion but to tell you that you cannot prove so much as you think you can The fifth Crimination A. * Even Bradwardine l. 2. c. 15. who goeth as high against Free-will as Hobs or any man doth yet confidently holdeth the Apostacy of Saints though not of the Elect and questioning what causeth perseverance in Glory he consuteth all thâ—t lay it on any thing as sufficient but Gods Will which he calleth his Love and the Holy Ghost 1. Them that lay it on the nature of Grace 2. Or the degree of Grace 3. Or the sight of God 4. Or the intenseness of that sight 5. Or the delight in God 6. Or the degree of that Delight 7. Or on uniting adhesion to God 8. Or the degree of that adhesion 9. Or on our not seeing any good which we want 10. Or the fear of misery by sinning 11. Or that the joy taketh away Free-will 12. Or on a perfect beatitude in all these All which he saith are insufficient and Gods Will is the cause though using these And so in this life men stand or fall not because God giveth some his inward Grace for that may be lost and others not but because God willeth the persevering and obedience of one and willeth it not to another This is over-doing of the Champion of Grace against Free-will They shew exceeding much immodesty 1. In holding an Opinion which is contrary to the Doctrine of the universal Church from the Apostles till of late times neither Orthodox nor Heretick being ever known to hold it unless perhaps Jovinian alone till above a thousand years after Christ No not Augustine and his Disciples who were thought by many to run towards an extream in over-pleading for Grace so that they were called by some Predestinarian Hereticks 2. And yet they have the face instead of being ashamed of their own singularity to revile others as heterodox if not heretical who will not be as singular as they and set as light by the judgement of Christs Church B. I am not one of them that will cite any scraps of the Fathers contrary to their current expressions to contradict you Vossius hath copiously related their judgments in his Pelagian History and that as favourably for perseverance as there was cause And Dr. Twisse who frequently speaketh his distast of him saith nothing to prove his History false Which in this he that readeth the Fathers must confess to be true But this should somewhat moderate you in your censure 1. That the Writers of the first three hundred years are few and their Writings except Tertullians Origine and Cyprian very short even Clements Alexand. and Justins not long And few of them very learned and accurate Writers who are the common Managers of Controversies nor was this Controversie started in their times and therefore not accurately searcht into 2. And if you say that this is the more for your cause if it were not so much as made a Controversie I add that the Platonick Philosophy which then most prevailed might do somewhat to dispose them that way For as Grotius de fato hath copiously proved out of above thirty Philosophers and philosophical Christians most of all the Philosophers especially Platonists were for Free-will and most learned Christian Doctors came out of Plato's School and most of the learned Hereticks too 3. And yet Laertius in Zenone tells us That the Stoicks were against falling away and taught that no truly virtuous man did ever cease to be such 2. But above all I would have you consider 1. That this Point was not held by these consenting Doctors for an Article of Faith and necessary to Church-Concord and Salvation but as one of those many Opinions which were left free 2. And that many or most of these Fathers did agree in some Opinions that are not true 3. Yea that the greater part of them are by the Papists themselves charged with several Errors and some and not a few with Heresies 4. And that therefore the holy Scriptures being the only and sufficient Rule of Faith we need not be so much ashamed as you intimate in some things to differ from the generality of those Fathers if the Scripture be more for us than them There is many a Text of Scripture which Papists themselves interpret contrary to most of the Fathers notwithstanding their Trent Oath to the contrary Therefore your heavy Accusation of immodest singularity is too keen But as for their Cross-Accusation of you as heterodox I now meddle not with the truth nor excuse any uncharitableness therein The sixth Crimination A. They contradict abundance of express Scripture which asserteth that the godly may fall finally from true Grace B. And they think that you rather contradict abundance of Texts that speak expresly for the contrary It is none of my work now to defend either them or you I have long ago written a peculiar Tractate of my own Opinion herein Who is in the right I am not now determining But that you over-magnifie the difference on both sides usually I shall shew you in the end No doubt but the Scripture is of it self sufficient to decide all Controversies as a Rule of sound Doctrine so far as God would have them clearly decided But yet he that denieth that some things in Scripture are hard to be understood will contradict not only Peter's words but his own and all mens experience For as it pleased God to make up the World of variety of Creatures so also to make up the Scripture of Truths of various degrees of necessity and evidence And in this Point there are so many Texts that both Sides think do favour their Opinions that we have not the same certainty
and freely giveth him Christ and Life 5. Doth not God praise his Servants more than the Devil or wicked men do And will you not please the Devil and Malignants to tell them the contrary And is it not the mark of a just man that a vile person is contemned in his eyes but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Doth not God himself praise Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Moses Joshua David Job c. Wrangle not against the unresistible Light Our light must so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our heavenly Father Matth. 5. 16. Christ will come at last to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe because the Gospel was believed by them 2 Thess 1. 10 11. No man hath seen God at any time in his Essence but we see him here in a glass and that is in his Works and Image in which it is that his glory shineth And to say that Gods Works and holy Image are not worthy or Morally fit to be praised is to deny God his praise and glory on earth He that despiseth you despiseth me saith Christ and consequently him that sent me Luke 10. 10. Lib. Faith Love Holiness Obedience Patience are worthy that God should be praised for them but not Man for they are worthy as Gods works but not as ours P. 1. They are none of our works as the chief agents but only second causes under God And are not second causes to be praised in their places and degree Will you not praise Sun and Moon and Stars and all Gods works that he may be praised for them Do you not praise a good Servant a good Horse or Dog a good House or Land yea and your Friend or Teacher Do you not praise your own party when you say that they are wiser and better than others 2. Believe and regard the Word of God Do none of these Texts following speak of Praise as due to men in subordination to God Deut. 26. 18 19. The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people and to make thee high above all Nations in Praise and in Name and in Honour and that thou maist be an holy people to the Lord thy God Prov. 27. 21. As is the fining pot for Silver and the furnace for Gold so is a man to his praise Isa 62. 7. Give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth Zeph. 3. 19 20. I will get them praise in every land c. I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth Rom. 2. 29. Whose praise is not of men but of God John 12. 43. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God 1 Cor. 4. 5. Then shall every man have praise of God 2 Cor. 8. 18. The brother whose praise is in the Gospel c. Phil. 4. 8. If there be any praise think of these things 1 Pet. 2. 14. Governours are sent by him for the praise of them that do well See Prov. 27. 2. 28. 4. 31. 30 31. 1 Cor. 11. 2. Prov. 29. 23. Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit 21. 21. He findeth life righteousness and honour Psal 149. 4. This honour have all his Saints Prov. 3. 16. 4. 8. 8. 18. 15. 33. 20. 3. 22. 4. Eccles 10. 1. John 5. 44. Rom. 2. 7 10. They that by well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good 9. 21. 12. 10. 13. 7. 1 Tim. 5. 17. The Elders that rule well are accounted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 6. 1. 1 Sam. 2. 30. Them that honour me I will honour Psal 91. 15. John 12. 26. If any man serve me him will my Father honour 1 Pet. 2. 17. Prov. 13. 18. Do you believe and regard no one of all these words of God Lib. I grant that God will praise the good but not because we are worthy of it P. 1. Have I told you that he himself calleth his servants worthy and will you contradict Gods Word 2. Dare you yet deny any thing to be worthy to be called what it indeed is Is not a Christian worthy to be called a Christian and a sober man to be called a sober man and an honest man to be called an honest man Must humility make us lyars Tell me Are you worthy your self to be accounted and called an Infidel a Heathen an Apostate a Heretick a wicked ungodly man that never repented nor did good Lib. That were to lye or slander to call one what he is not P. Are you not worthy then to be called contrarily that is what you are Lib. â—â—ought so to be called but not for my worthiness P. Must God and man account you such as you are not fit or worthy to be accounted And will you go on to accuse and contradict Gods Word Your fancy hath got some harsh conceit of the sense of the word Worthy and that cometh still into your mind as if it meant a worthiness which supposed not that all that we have is of mercy and grace when the Scripture meaneth no such worthiness but such as is that of a loving dutiful thankful Child of the inheritance A moral fitness Lib. Well suppose that our actions and we are worthy of Praise that is to be called as they are yet they are worthy also of dispraise that is to be accounted as menstruous rags defiled with sin and deserving Hell and is not this a pittiful praise P. Did you ever hear us deny any of this Why talk you of that which we are all agreed in But 1. It is not holiness but the faulty imperfections of it and the sin that is contrary to it which deserveth Hell 2. And the faults of sincere believers deserve not Hell according to the Law of Grace by which we are to be judged so as to be lyable to it but only so as to be accounted condemnable had we not been pardoned Lib. But if our faith and holiness deserve some praise what 's that to the deserving of salvation or being worthy of Heaven P. All these words your obstinacy hath put me to use to convince you that Faith and Holiness is worthy of any thing at all and that the word Worthy which God himself useth of them is not abused by God nor false But what it is that God will account the righteous worthy of the Scripture must determine where I have shewed you before that the words are plain They are counted worthy of God 1 Thess 2. 12. and of his Kingdom 2 Thess 1. 5. Worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection Luke 20. 35. They shall walk with Christ in white for they are worthy Lib. Still I grant it in the Scripture sense but not in yours P. To end this tedious talk with one that seemeth loth to understand say Yea
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Camâ—ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial â—cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness â—an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
believe and accept the gift So that it is only Meriting under a Law made by a Governing Owner and Benefactor for the sapiential orderly disposal of a free Gift As a Father will teach a Child Obedience by telling him that he will give him Gold or Meat if he will thankfully accept it 9. It is not true therefore that it is only a free Gift For as it is a free Gift in regard of the Value and quoad rem so that Gift is a Reward in regard of the Order of Conveyance and tenour of the Donation and the moral capacity of the Receiver which men call Merit 10. That we cannot per impotentiam voluntariam moralem perform the Condition without Divine Grace is nothing against the Tenour of the Donation nor the nature of the Relation of a Reward 11. But Reward and Merit in this case are furthest from that of Commutation and leaveth least to man to boast of 12. Yet may he truly glory in the effects of Grace with thankfulness to God as Paul did 2 Cor. 1. 11 12. that in simplicity and godly sincerity c. and 2 Tim. 4. 8. that he had fought a good fight c. And he may justifie his sincerity with Job chap. 13. 15 16. And Christ will say Well done good and faithful servant c. Let him that glorieth glory in this that he knoweth me saith the Lord c. And Paul would rather dye than any should make his glorying void as to his free preaching the Gospel 13. And it is very false that in this sense a Christian is not bound to trust to his Faith Repentance Love Obedience only in their own place and office assigned them by God but no further As we may trust to the Bible Preacher Parents so to hearing reading praying c. for their proper part else we shall take them all to be in vain Are they Means or no Means If Means they must be judged and trusted as they are and no further And people are not to be frightned from necessary truth by putting an ill sense upon words 14. And though here be nothing of Commutative Justice yet there is that which Justifieth the name of Wages used analogically in the Scriptures Because Love in a Father maketh a Childs interest to be partly his own and the Pleasure of his Will is that to God who is Love it self and delighteth in his Childrens good which Profit is to a humane proprietor And now I will proceed with you in my Questions Quest 9. Do you think that Papists or Arminians do believe that either Man or Angel or Christ can merit of God by Profiting him in Commutative Justice Or that it is possible for any creature to have any Good which is not the free gift of God supposing man a free agent in his duty L. I have hitherto thought that they so judge Why else talk they of Merit of Congruity and Condignity and that say some ex dignitate yea and ex proportione operum R. It seemeth you think not that you hold all this your self Let us try 1. By Merit they still mean a subordinate Merit which supposeth the Benefit 1. To be Gods Gift 2. Merited by Christ L. How prove you that R. It is the express words of the Trent Council de Justif Can. 8 We are said to be Justified gratis because nothing that goeth before Justification whether it be Faith or Works doth merit the Grace it self of Justification For if it be Grace it is no more of Works else Grace is not Grace Can. 16. Though so much be given in Scripture to Good Works that Christ promiseth him that giveth but a Cup of cold Water to one of the least that he shall not lose his reward yet far be it from a Christian to trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord whose Goodness is so great to all men that he wills those things to be Their Merits which are His Gifts And Anath C. 26. they thus open their Doctrine of Merit If any say that the Righteous ought not to expect eternal retribution from God by his Mercy and Christs Merits for the good works done in God if by well doing and keeping God Commandments they persevere to the end let him be Anathema C. 31 32. If any say that a Justified mans good works are so Gods Gifts that they be not also the Justified mans good merits or that the Justified do not truly merit increase of grace and life eternal by the good works which are done by Gods Grace and Christs Merit of whom he is a living member c. Anath sit C. 16. To them therefore that do well to the end and hope in God Life eternal is to be proposed both as Grace mercifully promised to the Sons of God through Jesus Christ and as a Reward faithfully to be given by Gods own promise to their Works and Merits L. Yes this ridiculous Doctrine of our Meriting by Gods Grace and Christs Merits I have often read and heard of in them R. It is somewhat bold to deride that which Scripture Reason and all the antient Churches do accord in That Christ merited that we should subordinately merit that is be Rewardable as before explained hath no less consent And Contra Rationem nemo fobrius Contra Scripturam nemo Christianus Contra Ecclesiam nemo Catholicus L. But if the Council of Trent deny that Justification is at all merited what is meant by the Papists Merit of Congruity R. II. I think you hold not only as much of that as they but do you think it somewhat more 1. As much For 1. De nomine some of them deny that this is any merit at all as well as you And their Council asserteth it not that I see 2. De re They mean the same thing by Merit of Congruity which Mr. Rogers Bolton Hooker and the rest call Preparation for Christ or for Conversion And so the Council of Trent calls it Which maketh a man a more Congruous Receiver of Grace than the unprepared but doth not prove God obliged to give it him as a Reward And do not you hold all this de re 2. Yea and more For the Council of Trent taketh Justification for Remission of sin and sanctification together as after Faith And so hold that Faith it self doth not merit Justification But do not you hold more de re that Faith hath a flat promise of Justification which is true And so God hath as it were obliged his fidelity to give it which is it they mean by Merit L. But what is their Merit of Condignity then Is not that abominable R. III. 1. You know that the words Worthy and Worthiness are used in the Scripture Bear therefore with Scripture words 2. And de re they mean not all one thing or use not the same expressions at least Some and many with Scotâ—â— say that it is ex pacto from Gods Promise that the Merit and dueness do result or from Gods
to sin entertained we must go as far from sin as we can But poor deceived souls run into it under the conceit of going far enough from it and sometimes into greater than they avoid S. What sin have such Protestants run into in their opposition to Popery P. I will tell you some I. In Doctrine and II. In the consequentâ— and practice I. It is more than one injudicious Protestant Divine that hath printed such unfound Opinions as these in opposition to Popery for want of judgement 1. While they plead against the Romish false Tradition they have weakned faith by denying that necessary use of Historical Tradition of Scripture which Christianity doth suppose As others have denyed the necessary use of Reason unto faith 2. They have wronged the Church by undervaluing the Tradition of the Creed and the Essentials of Christianity by many means besides the Scriptures 3. They have much wronged the Protestant Cause by denying the perpetual Visibility of the Church and almost given it away as I have shewed against Johnson 4. And their dâ—nyal of its Universality and confining it long to the Waldenses and such others is an exceeding injury to the Church and Truth 5. And so is some mens over-doing as for the Scripture who teach men that they can be no surer of Christianity as delivered many years in Baptism before any of the New Testament was written than they are that there is no one error in all the Bible by the carelesness of the Scribes and Printers nor any humane frailty in the phrase 6. And also their feigning the Scripture perfection to consist in its being a particular determiner of all those circumstances of which it is only a general rule 7. And those that make every form of prayer or Ceremony to be Antichristian 8. And those that make Justifying faith to be a certainty or full perswasion that we are elected and pardoned and shall be saved 9. And those that say that To believe that I am justified is to believe Gods Word or â—ides divina either as most say because one of the premises is in Scripture or as excellent Chamier saith because the Witness of the Spirit is Gods Word 10. And those that say All that have true faith are sure they have such as Keckerman and too many others 11. Those that deny Christ to have made any Law 12. And those also that assert Imputation of Christs Righteousness in that sense which I have proved to subvert the Gospel 13. And those that deny Faith it self to be Imputed for righteousness 14. And those that deny that there is any personal Evangelical Righteousness in our selves that is any way necessary to our Justification 15. And those that lay all the stress of Faiths Justifying us on the notion of Instrumental efficiency 16. And those that say we are Justified by no act of faith but its receiving Christs Righteousness and all other acts of faith are the Worâ—s by which none is justified 17. And those that say that Evangelical obedience is not meritorious as it signifieth only Rewardable in point of Paternal Evangelical Governing Justice and as all the antient Fathers used that word because we merit not by Commutation 18. And those that say that man hath no free-will at all of any sort to spiritual good 19. And those that say that Christ was in Gods reputation the greatest sinner or wicked man Adulterer Murderer hater of God in all the world 20. And those that say that he suffered in soul Pain altogether of the same kind with those that the damned suffer in Hâ—â— 21. And those that in opposition to the Popish Government Confession Austerities and several acts of Worship do run into the conâ—rary extream against due Government Confession Austerities c. And those that from dark uncertainty or à minus notiâ— do gather many conclusions against known truth I pass by such as the Antinomians who as I have proved subveâ—t the Gospel it self by running into the contrary extream from Popeâ—â—â— S. You are as â—ad as Parker or the Debate-maker that thâ—s lâ—y sâ—â—ndal on the Reformers themselves If these were their faults you â—â—â—â— cover them and not open them This had been enough for â— Romish Râ—bshakeh P. You know not what it is that you say This is to aâ—hoâ—â—â—â—â—â—tance and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God yea to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion lest the erroâ— of â—â—â—â— be shamed But all men are lyars that is fallible and God is â—â—â—â— He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy but he that hideth it shall not prosper Are there not with you even with you also saith the Prophet sins against the Lord our God Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants and fomeâ— them to such open Confessions Did Paul wrong Peter and â—â—â—â— Gal. â— or the Ministry when he said All seek their own thingâ— and noâ—e the things of Jesus Christ or did the Evangelists wrong all â—he Disciples by saying that They all forsook him and fled or James all Câ—â—stians saying In many things we offend â—ll I think the Prouâ— Impeâ—itence of many Professors that will not confess sin nor endure to be â—â—led to it lest Religion be dishonoured is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for When such evils have â—â—â—â— held and done as our age hath known either it must be said that they are not evil or that they are If we deny it and say they are God â—â—â—â— and mâ—ns duty we feign God and Scripture and Religion to be for all that evil which is to blaspheme If we say It is evil we must saâ—â— that we are the guilty causes of it God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it S. I think you would fain perswade us that Protestants are as bad as Papists and perswade us into the Roman Tents P. That is but your pievish inference But little do you know how much of Popery it self you have while you think that you hate it more than I. S. You would make me believe any thing if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party only They to their Sect and You to yours 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters only they excommunicate and burn them and you deny them your communion and reproach them But their charity extendeth much further than yours and you condemn more dissenters than they do 3. Do you not agree with them in
getteth a right to any benefit by his fault What then Why the Precept to that man is past into a Virtual Judiciary Sentence condemning him as disobedient even as it is with those in Hell 239. Therefore since the fall the Law of Innocency in it self is the same which once said Thou shalt continue perfectly Innocent but it doth not properly oblige us as a Law to that Innocency or perfection which we were born without because we are become uncapable subjects Much less is that Innocency now the Condition of any Promise or Covenant of God as if he still said Be personally and perpetually Innocent and thou shalt live and that thou maist live But the Law being still the same we that are uncapable of the duty are not uncapable of the guilt and condemnation Vid. Bellarmin de Grat. lib. aâ—b li. 5. per totum c. 30. de dist necessitates And therefore the Law and Covenant are now become a Virtual Sentence of Condemnation for not obeying personally perfectly and perpetually to the death For he that hath once made Innocency Naturally Impossible to him is Virtually in the case of one that hath persevered to the death in sin 240. But if the contracted Impossibility be not Physical but Moral the case is quite different For then the thing is a threefold sin in it self as aforesaid 1. The disabling sin 2. The vicious Disability or Malignity of the Will 3. And the after sin thereby committed and omission of duty More of Physical and Moral Impotency 241. 1. No righteous Law forbiddeth Physical Impotency as such nor commandeth men Physical Impossibilities as is said But Gods Laws primarily forbid the malignity of the Will which is its Moral Impotency Bradwaâ—dine plainly saith li. 3. c. 9. p. 675. that Nullus actus noster est simpliciter in nostra potestate we grant not absolutely and independently sed tantum secâ—ndum quid respectu Caâ—sarum secundarum Nihil est in nostra potestate nisi subactiva subexecâ—tiva subservienâ—e necessariâ— necessitate naturalitâ—r praecedente respectu â—oluntatis divinae Quod ideo in nostra dicitur potestate quia cum volumus iliud facimus voluntarie non inâ—iti So that by him no creature was ever able to do more or less than it doth except you call him able to do it that can do it when God makes him do it but that is not to be able before or when he is not caused to do it 242. 2. Rulers use not to make Punishments for Physical Impotency But for the Wills Malignity God doth 243. 3. Rulers use not to propound Rewards for Physical Impossibilities But for the fruits of Moral Sanctity or Habits and for themselves God doth 244. 4. No just Judge condemneth men for Physical Impotency But for Moral God and man do 245. 5. No Good man hateth another for Physical Impotency But for Moral malignity God and man do 246. 6. An inlightned Conscience accuseth and tormenteth no man for meer Physical Impotency and Impossibilities But for the Wills Malignity Conscience will torment men So that it is evident that one sort of Impotency maketh an act no sin in its degree and the other maketh it a greater sin For Nature and common notices teach men to judge that the More Willingness the more culpability But he that hath Actual and Habitual Wilfulness and is as some Adulterers drunkards revengeful persons proud covetous c. who are so bad that they say I cannot choose are the worst of all the sorts of sinners by such disability 247. It is most probable that God overcometh Moral Impotency and giveth Moral Power by Moral Means and Operations For though God can give it by a proper Creation without Moral Means and we cannot say that he never doth so nor how oft he doth or doth not yet it is most probable that his special Grace doth by his Trine Influx of Power Wisdom and Goodness Life Light and Love suscitate the natural faculties of the soul to the first special Act and by it cause a holy Habit which he radicateth by degrees And this is Metaphorically a Creation 248. This is certain that since the sall we have the same essential faculties that Original sin is not as Illyricus so long and obstinately maintained though an excellently good and Learned man a Substance though it be the Pravity of a substance And that sin changed not the humane species Nor doth Grace change our species It is certain that the Acts of these same natural faculties are commanded to all men even the unregenerate under the names of Faith and Repentance And so these are their duties And it is certain that a Course of Moral means preaching reading meditating conference threatnings promises mercies afflictions are appointed and used to the procuring the said faculties to perform these commanded acts It is certain that these Means have an Aptitude to their end And that God worketh by his own means And appointeth not man to use them in vain And that in working Grace God preserveth and reformeth Nature and worketh on Man as Man and according to the Nature of his means 249. And I think none dare deny but that God is Able by his Spirits powerful operation without any Antecedent new Habit or disposition to set home these same means so effectually on the Natural powers of the soul as shall excite them to the first Acts of Faith and Repentance And by them imprint a Habit as is said and shall be said again in Part 3. And if he Can do so and Can do otherwise which then is likest to be his ordinary way I leave to the observers of Scripture and Experience 450. This is the Common sense of Divines who place Vocation exciting the first act of Faith and Repentance before Union with Christ and before Sanctification which giveth the habit till Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. taught otherwise whom Bishop G. Downame confuted in the Appendix to his Treatise of Perseverance 251. As to the question How this Grace is called Infused and not Natural I answer It is called Infused and Supernatural because 1. It is not wrought by any Natural-moral means only but by Supernatural-moral means viz. Revelation in and by the Gospel of Christ 2. And this supernatural Revelation cannot work it without the special extraordinary operation and impression by the Holy Ghost above the common concurse of God with all his Creatures as he is fons naturae This the Schools have Metaphorically called Infusion 252. But it may be called Natural 1. In that mans Natural faculties receive Gods Influx 2. And perform the act 3. And are perfected by it as the Natural body is by Health 253. And what the difference is ex parte Dei agentis ex parte effectus between Gods Natural and Gracious operations I shall after open in the third Part. 254. The Schoolmen especially the Scotists and Ockam and many Franciscans Benedictines and other Fryers yea such Oratorians as Gibieuf
be justified by any act of Faith in specie besides the recumbency on his Righteousness to be imputed to us or by any numero besides the first will likely say that it is Justification by another Righteousness than that which the Scripture saith is imputed to us to be justified by the Imputation of any but the first Act of Christ's Obedience Or else that if all be imputed we have a redundancy of Righteousness and deserve many Heavens or one oftener than needs But when men have received some unsound Principles all things must be forced to comply with them § 37. M. S. Towards the end the M. S. summeth up my Assertions and setteth down some as contrary to them In reckoning up mine he sheweth candor and ingenuity and a good memory having not the Book at hand But I must advertise his Readers 1. That he taketh all from my Aphorisms the first Book I wrote in my youth when my Conceptions of these things were less digested wherefore I have above twenty years ago retracted that Book till I had leisure to correct it and have since more fully opened my judgment in my Confession and in my Disput of Justification and other Writings and most fully in my Methodus Theologiae unpublished 2. That he over-looketh my asserting our Adoption to be by the Merits of Christ's Active Obedience yea and our Justification too as well as by his Passive 3. That reciting my words that it is by Gods Will in the form of his Donation or Covenant that Faith hath that use to Justification which is nearest it viz. the formal Reason of a Condition he leaveth out my other assertion that Faith 's material disposition or aptitude to this form or office is the very nature of it as fitted to that use about its Object Christ which Gods design and our case required His Assertions as against me are as followeth § 28. M. S. 1. There is no way to Life but by Doing It is not enough that the Law be not dishonoured but it must be glorified An. Doing is a word of doubtful sense It 's one thing to Do all that the Law of Innocency required and another thing to do all that the Law of Grace maketh necessary to life It 's one thing to Do all our selves and another thing for a Mediator to merit Pardon and Life to be given conditionally by a new Covenant by Doing all in kind and much more than all that we should have done for us though not in our persons The way to Life now hath many parts 1. Christ's perfect habitual active and passive Righteousness fulfilling the Law of Innocency and the Law of Moses and the peculiar Law of the Mediator to merit Pardon Spirit Adoption and Glory to be given by the New Covenant on its terms 2. The said New Covenant as the donative Instrument and Law of Life and Pardon and Adoption by it 3. Our doing or performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by Grace But our personal Doing all according to the Law of Innocency really or reputatively to be justified by that Law is none of the way of Life which you think the only way And I hope we shall both meet there § 39. M. S. It 's clear as the light of the Sun that their fundamental distinction is absurd to make sinning and suffering equivalent to doing because he that hath born the utmost penalty hath done no more towards living than he that never sinned or suffered else Adam in Innocency should have been sentenced worthy of life If a Servant instead of his Service steal and restore it he meriteth not his wages c. An. 1. It 's certain that you mistake and wrong us I never put sinning among the things that are equivalent to doing or meriting Of this before 2. I doubt you noted not sufficiently that no Creature can merit commutatively as a Proprietor of God as a Servant doth his wages nor can have any thing of God but what in respect of such merit and the value of the thing is an absolute free Gift free as to commutation And that all Gods Laws of Life are but a prescription of the wise Order in which he will give his free benefits As a Father will give Lands to the Son that will behave himself decently and thankfully and not to the contemptuous Rebel So that as to commutation no Man or Angel hath other merit than not to commerit the contrary perdition God is never the better for our Doing If you dream of meriting commutatively from a Proprietor by work for wages I can soon tell you what we set up instead of such merit I hope you had no such thoughts but want of due distinguishing But as to Doing and Merit in respect to Paternal Justice that which I set instead of fulfilling the first Law is a◠aforesaid not sinning and suffering but 1. Christ's Satisfaction and the Merit of his compleat Righteousness 2. The Gift of Pardon and Life by a new conditional Covenant merited and made by him 3. Actual Pardon of all sin thereby 4. Actual Adoption 5. Our fulfilling the Condition of that Covenant that these may be ours And thus the Law was dishonoured by our Sin but is glorified by Christs Obedience and Satisfaction And Gospel-Justice but specially Mercy glorified in our personal Obedience to the Gospel without such Doing indeed Christ's as Principal in fulfilling the Law in the Person of a Mediator and ours as subordinate in obeying the Gospel there is no Glorification And I think this is plain truth But in your instance of a Servant deserving his wages you seem to look at Commutative Justice when we have to do only with governing Paternal Justice And you should have remembred that if the Servant do not his Work in order of governing Justice it is his crime And if he have no fault he hath no fault of Omission And he that hath no Sin of Omission hath done all his Duty and so deserved the Reward As for Adam 1. In the first instant of his life he was bound to no present Duty before he could do a moral Act. 2. But afterward I think he merited in tantum pro tempore and had not the Condition of the Promise been of further extent than one act he had merited life But a Reward for a years Duty is not merited by an hours § 40. M. S. There is a medium between just and unjust He was non-justus He was not actually just though habitually He had done nothing for which the Law could justifie him else why did he not live for ever An. 1. Habitual holiness fits a Soul for Glory where no more is due as if one die immediately And so it would have done Adam had God translated him instantly and made him no Law of actual Duty 2. But afterward that Adam in Innocency did that for which the Law would justifie him in tantum for that time He fulfilled all the Law for so long else he had
loving obeying and overcoming and so to justifie us primarily by his Merits and Covenant and subordinately by our performance of the Conditions And 10. He that believes that instead of all this we our selves did by Christ as our legal Person both keep all the Law of Works from first to last and merit Life and also satisfie Gods Justice for not keeping the Law and so redeem our selves or suffer in Christ for our own Sins and purchase Pardon and Salvation for our selves 11. Or that God accounteth us so to have done what we did not 12. And so that it is the Law of Works and Innocency by which we our selves are justified 13. And that for meriting in Christ we are fixed presently in the immutable state of eternal life which is the Reward 14. And that this is not a Reward to Christ only but to us as Meriters in him He that can believe all this with abundance more of the Libertine new Gospel-Doctrine commonly called Antinomian which dependeth on it doth quite differ from my Faith who believe that Christ suffered satisfied fulfilled the Law and merited in the Person of a free Mediator only fulfilling all his own mediatorial Law or Covenant and receiving his Reward and freely upon these Merits and his Power received making a Deed of Gift of Himself and Life Pardon Adoption Spirit and Glory to all that truly consent to his Covenant and overcoming do persevere therein and perform sincere Obedience to the last by which Law or Covenant he will judge men at last that is will justifie or condemn them And this short and plain Doctrine of Faith is it which I am constrained by the full and plain testimony of the Scriptures to embrace And I never yet saw any thing against it which is not easily confuted though my life is not like to be long enough nor am I idle enough to write against all that have written against me In conclusion I must give notice to the Reader that there are many great and weighty Points of great difficulty concerning our LOVE to GOD and the order of it in respect to Faith Repentance the love of our selves and our felicity and our love to Creatures c. which I pass by in this Treatise as having spoken with some care of them in my Christian Directory in the Appendix to the Chap. Of loving God in Tom. 1. And if that seem too intricate to any as being too long in brief I suppose that the Thomists grosly err in placing beatitude chiefly in the Intellect and their Reasons especially as Medina useth them are very weak and the Scotists are more sound who place it in the Will and those other most sound who place it in the perfection of the whole man actively but objectively in God And most plainly that very plain judicious School-man Aegidius Romanus Quodlib 3. Qu. 18. p. 187 188. who saith in short 1. That God is the final Object simply 2. That the love of God or velle is the final act or beatitude formaliter 3. That beatitude or rather the ratio finis is principally in the Object and next in the Act 4. That subserviently or quodam genere the visio Dei is the Object and the velle videre Deum the Act. See also Aegidius Quodl 4. qu. 11. clearly proving three ways that we must love God above our selves yea and not properly for our selves but for himself and our selves and all things for him But 1. I think he mistaketh in saying that the Act of the Will is not the Object of the Will and so that Visio and not Amor are felicity objective For as Amesius saith Dicimus omnium gentium consensu volo velle and one Act may be the Volition of the next and a complacency in that past And what doth a Believer will more than perfectly to love God next to God himself And Amo Amore is an Act that we have full experience of 2. And I am past all doubt that Beatitudo nostra qua talis is not the principal end of man but God 1. In his own Perfection or God-head 2. The fulfilling or pleasing of the Divine Will 3. The Glory of Gods Image or Perfections as shining 1. In the Universe 2. And therein most eminently in the glorified Society 3. And therein most eminently in the Person of Christ 4. And next in all those that are most excellent in their Order 5. And among them in our selves our holiness and felicity And this but in our own rank and place For our Perfection and Unity with Christ and the glorified will end all that narrow corrupt selfishness which now maketh men dream that they are chiefly their own ends that is their own gods and that their Beatitude is the highest final notion as if God were to be loved chiefly for our selves as the means of our Beatitude It being worth the considering whether it be not a wrong to God to love him at all sub ratione medii to our selves as an end though we must love him as the first Efficient of all our Good and our Great Benefactor our selves and benefits being but means to Him though yet not He but many of his Gifts may be loved as means to our Happiness and that and all things for God himself Among the Scotists Rada well openeth this Case and the worst of them all in 4. Sent. de Beatitud is far better than Dr. Stern the Dublin Physitian in his Medela Animae and too many more novel immature Disputers who would make our Happiness the chiefest end both of our selves and God meerly because that God can have no addition of Felicity A reason vainly excluding such other respects as men that write of such Subjects should not be ignorant of especially when they reproach the School-men and save themselves the labour of understanding them when though they are too presumptuous and curious yet one Rada one Aegid Column Rom. one Joseph Angles c. hath more clear explication of such Difficulties as they presumptuously tamper with than an hundred of our late Oratorical Novelists who are proud of their undigested new Philosophy and their unripe daring Wits THE Second Part. OF GODS GOVERNMENT AND MORAL WORKS SECT I. The first Law 1. GOd the free Creator Lord and Benefactor of the world was pleased to make his Creatures of various ranks and among the Rational to make Man a free undetermined self-determining Agent not fixed by Necessity in Love and Obedience but left with a Power of Loving and Obeying which he could use or not use that so he might be a fit subject of Gods Moral Government by Laws and perswasions in this world in order to a more fixed state of holiness Not but that Angelical Confirmation had been better for us But it pleased not God to compose the universe of Creatures only of the noblest order 2. When God exerciseth only a Moral not-determining operation upon this world of Free Agents it is not any dishonour to his
optimum omnium qui uâ—quam extiterunt Estque hoc ipsâ—us peculiaâ—e eâ—coâ—â—â— quod ita prâ—dicetur citra exceptionem â—llam praedicatur Mer. Causabon Praef. in Vers Angl. ut citat per Gataker what is said But the question whether any or how many are actuaâ—â—y saved doth depend on the resolution of the question whether any of them are truly sanctified that is do truly love God and Holiness abâ—â—â— the Pleasures Profits and Honours of this world For nothing is moâ—â— certain in Gods Word than that all that do so shall be saved For a â—â—â— to live in Hell with the predominant love of God is as great a contradiction as for a man to be sick in health and both in the greater degree God cannot damn or forsake a Soul that loveth him and is holy in sensu composito 88. And whether any or how many without the Christian Church do truly love God is a question which dependeth as to probability upon the foresaid grounds but as to the certainty of the fact upon that heart-knowledge of other men which belongeth to God only 1. How can I that live in an obscure corner of England know whether any love God in Siam China Japon or Persia or at the Antipodes 2. If I were with them all and acquainted with every person in the world I could have but a probability of the affirmative of any one because I am not acquainted with the heart But when the Scripture assureth us that it is the Law of Grace and not only that of Innocency which all the world is governed by and shall be judged by and so that their Sanctification and Salvation is possible there is so great a probability that this Covenant and the mercies of it are not in vain to all of them that are under it alone and that the thing that is possible to so many millions doth come to pass with some that an impartial considerer of Gods Nature and Government may easily see what to think most probable 89. Those therefore that teach the Church that it is a certain truth that no one in the world Infant or Aged is saved from Hell fire but Christians only and that this is not only certain to such great understandings as their own but must be so to all true Christians do but discover that they over-value their own understandings and that siding hath contracted their thoughts and charity into a sinful narrowness and that the Opinions of men counted Orthodox prevaileth more with them than the evidence of truth and I think that they are to be numbred with those that by over-doing do dangerously undermine the Christian Faith 90. The Texts urged by them for this pretended certainty are all abused some of these ways 1. Either some one difficult Text is expounded contrary to the current of the whole Scripture 2. Or the words that are spoken only of privative Unbelievers who hear the Gospel are expounded of negative not-Believers who never heard it nor could do 3. Or that which is said against Unbelievers in general is exâ—pounded as against the non-Believers of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are superadded since Christ's Incarnation in special As if all the Apostles before they believed Christ's Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. were Infidels in a state of damnation 4. Or else they suppose without proof that the Spirit and Grace of Christ can extend it self to none that know him not as incarnate crucified risen glorified c. and so that the Apostles had no Grace till the Resurrection Some such fallacy is in all these particular textual arguments easily discernable 91. Were it not evident in Scripture that the world is under the Law of Grace as the norma officii judicii as it is yet could no man truly say that he is certain that no one of them should be saved For if they were all under the Law of Innocency yet there is this great difference between it and the Law of Grace that whereas the sentence of the latter is peremptory excluding all hope of Dispensation and Pardon to the final Rejecters of its Grace for ever yet the former was a Law whose penalty was remissible and it did not pass a peremptory sentence of dispair Though it gave no hope of Pardon yet it took not away the hopes of it that is It had a threatening-dispensable as Dr. Twisse and many other say Without a Saviour had God so pleased And as others say Through the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice even to them that know him not For the commination of that Law which threatened not the death of a Surety but of the Sinner was actually dispensed with in our Justification And what God can do they ought not to say that they are certain that he never will do it unless he had first said so himself 92. If in all Humane Judgments Nature dictateth that in doubtful cases the Judge should rather propend to the better interpretation and favourable Judgment why should it not be so in our judgment of God and man The Nature of God is infinitely good He hath proclaimed his Name as aforesaid even in the terrours of Mount Sinai to be a God gracious merciful long-suffering pardoning c. He hath protested or sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked â—â—â—â— rather that he repent and live and so that he first seeketh the Glory of his Mercy and exerciseth justice in mans destruction but as his second work He that saved no man but Christ himself glorified upon the terms of Innocency but all by Grace and never else took one Soul to Heaven who had not first deserved Hell doth surely first seek the Glory of his Grace And we know that 1. All Judea was a small Country like England An inconsiderable point or spot of the Earth as to its magnitude 2. That most of the worlds duration in likelihood was over as Bishop Usher reckons 4000 years before Christ's death and the second Edition of the Covenant So that if none but Jews were ☞ saved all that while the number was comparatively next to none 3. That no man that I know of hath presumed to say that before Moses time none but the Seed of Abraham were saved 4. That the Covenant made by Moses at Mount Sinai and the inclosure of the Jews was no casting off the rest of the world into a worse condition than they were before 5. That none yet have presumed to say they are certain that all the Seed of Keturah of Ishmael of Esau were damned much less that Sem and all his Subjects Japheth and all his Subjects and Posterity till then or that Job and his Friends and Melchizedec and all his Subjects were certainly damned 6. That the Jews themselves were for the most part so wicked that seeing few even of that little Country were saved if you are sure that no others were saved they were but a few in the world indeed 7. That the Apostles
he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn But then it must be understood that this distinction iâ— not applyed to the Will of God as he is meerly an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor but as he is the King or Rector of the world and so his Legislation is his Antecedent Will and his Judgment is his Consequent Will And no man of Religion can deny either that Gods Law is the signification of his Will or his Will signifyed or that his Judgment and â—â—cution is his Will declared or that Gods Law of Grace doth conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man's performance or rejection of the condition or that God condemneth Infidels consequently to their Infidelity The Law Antecedently to Mans part acted saith He that believeth shall be saved and the Sentence consequently to his fact saith Judas an unbeliever or impenitent shall perish And thus the distinction hath no doubt or difficulty 103. God by commanding faith and repentance and making theâ— necessary conditions of Justification and by commanding perseverance and threatning the Justified and Sanctified with damnation if they fâ—â— away and making perseverance a condition of Salvation doth thereby provide a convenient means for the performance of his own Decree of giving Faith and Repentance and perseverance to his Elect For he effecteth his ends by suitable moral means and such is this Law and Covenant to provoke man to due fear and care and obedience that he may be wrought on as a man 104. To be justifyed by Faith in general agreeth to the ages before Of Justification by Faith c. Christ's Incarnation and those since But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justifyed For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justifyed by to them that are under the last edition of the Covenant of Grace than was or is to them that were under the first alone Abraham believed not all our essential Articles of faith 105. To be justified by faith in Paul's sence is all one as to be justified What that Faith is by becoming Christians To be a Believer a Disciple and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sence 106. The faith by which we are justified as is aforesaid is best understood The Controversie between the Papists and us about Justification is agitated iâ— vain till we agree of the sence of the words Justification and Remission As I said elsewhere they take not only Justification for a qualitative change such as we call Sanctification but Remission of Sin for they know not what themselves most of them talk as if it were a putting away the Sin in its essence which can be meant of nothing but the Habit for the fact cannot be infectum Others seem to take it for remitting the punishment also with that change Malderus most plainly in 1. 2. q. 113. a. 1. and p. 567. saith that Remission of Sin is Ablatio Reatus culpae At esse longe aliud quam Nolle illud punire non enim tantum facit Hominem non puniri sed etiam non esse Poena dignum Minus tamen est quam in amicitiam recipi though yet no man is in a middle state neque Dâ—i amicus neque inimicus yet cogitations possunt seterari Peccata Remittere idem est quod non imputare si hoc non accipias pro dissimulare sed pro desinere esse offensum cum per Remissionem Deo non imputante est quasi non fuerit By this you may see that these Papists hold the same with those Protestants whom they seem most to resist and cannot hide it But 1. It will be true to eternity that Peter sinned 2. To say so is to blame him 3 His sin deserv'd death 4. The Law and the nature of sin past are the same after pardon as before 5. God doth not change his mind of sin 6. Gods offence or displeasure is not a passion or mutable but his essence as denomina ed from the object to be his Velle punire and Justice that must punish 7. For God to be appeased and no more offended is but his Nolle punire peccatorem and not to be obliged in Justice to punish him but by his Covenant related to him as one that will not punish 8. This change is in the sinner becoming not punishable 9. That is not worthy of it in the Gospel-sence though worthy by the Law of Innocency 10. All this is but that the Reatus pâ—na culpae quantum ad poenam is remitted but not the Reatus culpae simpliciter in se And thus we are all agreed by the Baptismal Covenant and is essentially a Believing Fiducial consent to our Covenant relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Reconciled Creator and Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer connoting the forsaking of all inconsistents For it must needs be the same faith by which we have right to the benefits of that Covenant and by which we are justified because we have our remission and justification by the Instrumental donation of the Covenant it being one of the benefits given by it But Practical Faith or Believing-consent is our condition of receiving our Covenant right to all the benefits in general therefore to Justification in particular 107. The Phrases of Justifying faith and Faith justifying us are humane and not Scriptural at all And though they may be well used with explicatory caution as being well meant yet they are more lyable to mislead men than the Scripture phrase that we are justified by Faith Because the former phrases are apter to insinuate an Efficiency than the other whereas faith is no efficient cause of our Justification nor any other act of Man And the Scripture that speaketh of Justification by Faith sometime useth the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which no more signifyeth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex operibus And though sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used it is to signifie no more than that God hath appointed it to be the Medium of our Justification as a condition but not as any efficient cause 108. The Faith by which we are justified as I touched before hath God the Father for its object as essentially as Christ the Saviour as the said Baptismal Covenant sheweth and that not only secondarily as Christ being the Mediator and way to the Father our faith in Christ connoteth the final object but also directly and primarily as the Father is the first in Trinity and as Creator first related to us and as the end is first in our intention Joh. 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent Joh. 13. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me 109. And as essential is it to this Faith to believe in Christ as the Purchaser of Holiness and Heaven as to
person or as fully representing us all the Gospel is over-turned There is no room for Repentance none for the satisfaction of Christ none for Faith in his blood nor for Pardon or prayer for Pardon or any Grace Act Duty or Ordinance Sacraments Confession or any thing which supposeth Sin To say that Adam's Law meant Do this by thy self or by Christ and thou shalt live is a Humane fiction not found in Scripture confounding the Law of Innocency with the Gospel And to say that the New Covenant maketh us one Person with Christ and then the Law of Adâ—â— doth justifie us is a double error We are not reputed one Person with Christ nor doth the first Covenant justifie any but the Person that performeth it But we maintain as well as they that the same Righteousness of God in himself is manifested in both Covenants and the same holy love of perfect Obedience and the ends of the first Covenant are secured by the second But the tenour and terms are not the same nor the Righteousness of the subject as denominated from those terms It is not the same Law which condemneth us and justifieth us nor that justifieth Christ and us nor is it the same Habits or Acts which are the immediâ—â—e fundamentum of the Relation of righteous in Christ and in us â—ough his Righteousness be the meritorious cause of ours And thereâ—â—re not the same with the thing merited 130. The Truth which they grope after and must reconcile them â—â—â—â— is as followeth Christ in his Sufferings did stand in the room of â—â—ners as their Sponsor and satisfied Justice as was said before And â—â—d had other ends yet to accomplish It was meet that the perfection â—his Law should be glorified by a perfect fulfilling of it by Christ â—en we had failed Satan was hereby confounded God pleased and â—noured Man shewed what he should have been and yet should do â—ns nature in Christ was thus actively and habitually perfected By all â—s Christ performed his Obedience to the mediatorial Law and his Herveus Natal quodlib 4. q. 14. could speak thus much better than many Protestants Sicut meritum Christi quantum ad actum quem exercuit non transit in alios transit tamen in alios quantum ad effectum illius meriti illis qui applicantur ad Christum mediantibus Sacramentis vel mediante fide propria Qui quidem effectus est Gratia quae est câ—ntraria culpae quae reddit hominem dignum vita aeterna Ita etiam demeritum Adae licet non transeat in alios quantum ad actum quem exercuit tamen transit quoad effectum culpae originalis quae est contraria gratiae reddit dignum poenae aeterna indignum vita aeterna How doth this differ from the soundest Protestants as to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us or Adam's sin â—venant of Redemption and so acquired a right first to himself of giving â—t the purchased Benefits to Sinners by a new Law or Covenant of Grace â—â—d according to it By which Covenant only as his Instrument the â—her and Son give us Right to them in an Order there established â—â—â—â— that is there given to us Christ purchased for us by performing his â—n Covenant first with the Father by perfect Holiness and Obedience â—en in his Sacrifice on the Cross and by all that he undertook to do as Redeemer antecedently The Purchase was made for this Donation â— its end and is commensurate to it just so much as Christ hath given â—â—â—â— as to matter manner terms degree time c. he did purchase and â—rit for us and no more Had he antecedently done all that he did â—â—â—â— our person and we in him in Law sense the thing it self with its separable consequents and effects had been all ours ipso facto before and â—thout the donation or conveyance of a new Law or Covenant nor â—d they been ever given us upon terms and conditions when they were â—â—â—â— own before without those terms But now what is given us by the â—ew Covenant we have title to on this account because it was purâ—ased by the perfect Merit and Saerifice of Christ and so given us by â—m and by the Father So that it is ours as sure as if we had merited it â—r selves but not ours in the same order and measure and time and â—ms as if we had merited it our selves in our natural or legal perâ—ns For then it would have been all ours at once ipso facto even â—e merit it self and the fore-said effects We deserved punishment â—nd Christ was punished in our stead that we might be forgiven not â—mediately but on Covenant-terms we had forfeited Life by sin And â—hrist merited Life for us by his Perfection not in our persons but in â—e person of a Mediator which Life was to be given to us by the said â—ovenant The antecedent benefits such as the Covenant it self he â—veth absolutely and antecedently to any act of ours God reputeth all his Satisfaction and Merit of Christ to be as meet and effectual to proâ—ure us all these Benefits to be thus given as if we our selves had done and â—ffered And in this sense Christ's Righteousness is given us and made ours â—â—â—â— that it is given for us and we have the said benefits of it Not that God doth give us the very habits of Holiness which were in Christ nor â—he transient acts which he performed nor the very Sufferings which he â—nderwent nor the Relation of righteous satisfactory and meritorious as â—â—â—â— was that numerical Relation which immediately resulted from Christ's â—wn Habits Acts and Sufferings For such a translation of accidents is â—â—â—â— contradiction But God giving us all the effects or Salvation merited â—n it self properly is said also not unfitly to give us the Merit or Righteousness which procured them that is as it was paid to God for us to procure them even as he is said to give Christ himself antecedently â—â— our Faith to the World as a Saviour And thus Christ's Righteousness Merit and satisfaction may be said to be imputed to us in that it â—â— thus given us and thus truly reputed ours 131. But when the Text saith Rom. 4. 24. Righteousness is imputed â—â— us the meaning is no more but that God reputeth or judgeth us righteâ—â—â— though we have not the Righteousness of Innocency or of the Law â—â— Works which indeed is done for Christ's meritorious Righteousâ—â—â—â— procuring it But the Text speaketh not of Christ's personal Righteousâ—â—â—â— in matter or form imputed to us as being it self our own Impuâ—â—â—â— Righteousness to us is a consequent Act after Faith of God as Judâ—â— and not an antecedent donation 132. And it is true that formaliter non-punire praemiari â—â—â—punish and to Reward are not all one And in some cases a man may â—â— freed from punishment who is not rewarded But it is as true as is aâ—â—â— said 1. That Gods Salvation and
really all is but a Thankful Accepting of the mercy of the new Covenant according to its nature and use as it is offered 196. It is a great question whether a man may Trust to his own Faith Of Trusting in our own faith repentance holiness c. Repentance or Holiness But some men still trouble the world with unexplained words where no sober men differ No wise man can dream that we may Trust to these for more than their proper part as that we may Trust them to do any thing proper to God to Christ to the Spirit to the Promise c. And to use the phrase of Trusting to our own faith or Holiness when it soundeth absolutely or may tempt the hearers to think that they may Trust them for Gods part or Christ's part and Of which see more in my Life of Faith Tollit gratia Meriâ—um non quod omnino nihil agamus sed quia non satisfacimus legi procul absumus a perfectione Melancth in Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. not only for their own is a dangerous deceiving course But that really they may be Trusted for their own part and must be so no sober person will deny For so to believe obey pray to God c. and not to Trust to them in their place that is not to think that we shall be ever the better for them is unbelief and indeed distrusting God and saying It is in vain to serve him and what profit is it that we call upon him And such diffidence and despair will end all endeavours Let every man prove Gal. 6. his own work and so shall he have rejoycing in himself and not in another This is our Rejoycing the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity 2 Cor. 1. 12. and Godly sincerity we have had our Conversation in the world If we are Justified by faith we may Trust to be Justifyed by it But the rare use of such a phrase in Scripture and the danger of it must make us never use it without need As if we were disputing whether the Popish or Protestant Religion be that which a man may trust for his Salvation or the like And when ever it 's used it implyeth our Trust in God and our Saviour only for their part 197. To conclude this great point of Imputed and Inherent Righteousness The last objection of the mistakers of Imputation To save me that much labour of citations I desire the Reader to see in Guil. Forbes Consider Pacific the Concessions of Vega Pighius Stapleton and other Papists about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as granting us all that Protestants mean as Bellarmine expresly doth as Davenant Nigrinus Joh. Crocius and many others have observed it may be objected that The same man may well be judged a Sinner deserving hell never fulfilling the Law nor satisfying Justice nor deserving Heaven in himself that is in his Natural person and yet be Judged one that never sinned but fulfilled the Law is perfectly holy and righteous and merited Heaven in his Legal or Civil person in and by Christ To which I answer One man is but one and hath but one person But if you take the word Person equivocally as signifying another that is made like him in some respects or that hath his Nature or doth somewhat in his stead and for his benefit as a second person say so and we will strive with no man about words If you will say we are now on earth in our Natural persons and are in Heaven in Christ or that we are Redeemed in our Natural persons but Redeemed our selves in Christ or that you are sick in your Natural person and well in your person in Christ c. I like not your language but there are scarce any words so bad which a man may not put a good sence on But we would be understood and plainly ask whether Christ was properly every sinners or believers person in Law-sence so that ipso facto God accounteth us to have been habitually and actively perfect in Him and to have merited and satisfied in him If so the Law can look on one man but as one And he that paid a debt by his Servant or any other as his Legal person cannot be required to do it again in his Natural person unless you will say that God loveth our Legal person and will save it and may hate our Natural person and damn it The Scripture useth no such contradictory subtleties as these SECT XI How faith Justifieth 198. The common saying that faith justifieth as an Instrument might pass as tolerable if too many did not strain it to a wrong sence and raise Note that when we call faith an Accepting it relateth to the Donation of the Covenant and the Donatum which is a Jus ad beneficia Renovation is effected by faith as a second cause but Pardon is Accepted by it And we fully grant the Papists that Renovation and pardon go together whatever they call them And some of themselves do speak just as we de Remissione Macula which others are confounded about Vid. Wotton's citations out of the Schoolmen de Macula de Reconcil pec And Brianson saith in 4. q. 8. fol. 116. that sin as â—emitted or guilt is Tantum quaedam Relatio rationis in quantum est objectum intellectus Voluntatis divinae Quia postquam commissit peccatum Dei voluntas ordinat ipsum ad poenum correspondentem peccato Intellectus praevidet pro omni tempore donec poena debita sit soluta Videre peceata Dei est ad â—oenam imputâ—re Avertere faciem est ad poenam non reservare August Ergo niâ— aliud est post actum câ—ssantem pâ—â—catis offâ—nsa Macula reatus nisi ista relatio rationis Sâ—d hujus Ordinatio ad â—oenam ut est disconveniens ipsi animae dicitur ejus Macula ut autem est obligatio formaliter ad istam poenam dicitur Râ—atus Et ut est divinae voluntatis c. dicâ—tur Offensa Nil n aliud est Offendi vel Irasci in Deo quam vâ—lle Vindicare ista poena But he after owneth that the culpa is another thing unwarrantable Doctrines from it and harden the Papists by unwarantable Answers A Justifying Instrument properly is an efficient Instrâ—mental cause of Justification which I have elsewhere too largely proved that faith is not either Gods Instrument or ours Physical or Moral noâ— any way efficiently justifieth us But justifying is one thing to Receive justification is another thing and to be justified is a third Faith iâ— no justifying act But faith is in its Essence the Acceptance of an offered God Christ Spirit for Life This Acceptance is by the Covenant made the condition of our passive true Reception and Possession of Right before opened To be such a Condition performed is to be a removens prohibeâ—s of the said Reception which is strictly to be Dispositio materiae recipientiâ— And so it
As the Angels rejoyce at a Sinners Conversion and therefoâ—â— know it so the notifying of Gods acceptance and pardon to the Angelâ— may be called some sort of sentential Justification 215. And the notifying our constitutive Righteousness to our Consciences is some kind of sentential Justification 216. But this Justification called in foro conscientiae is not the Justification by Faith so much spoken of in Scripture For that ever goeâ—â— before this A man is ever made just before he can be esteemed judged or known to be so And this in conscience is an uncertain mâ—â—â—ble thing according to the weakness of the man And oft he that â—â— just before God doth most doubt of it and condemn himself This justification may cease when we sleep or think of other things and may rise and fall daily if not be often lost And it is not of that grand importance to our Salvation as justification by Faith is 1 Cor. 4. 4. SECT XV. Of initial executive Pardon or Justification 217. But the most notable justification by way of sentence is 1. By Gods initial Executions here 2. By the publick Sentence and Executiâ—â— at the Day of Judgment 218. God speaking not by Voice that is called his Sentence which dâ—cisively declareth his Judgment But the Execution most notably declareth that Therefore though they be two things with men and sometimes with God yet Sentence being oft passed principally by Execution they are then both one 219. In this sense to sanctifie a man is to justifie him executively and so sententially For executive Justification and Pardon is the actual Impâ—â—ity removing of deserved Punishment and actual giving possession of Life and Salvation which constitutive Justification gave us Right to And as our privation of the Spirit and Holiness and to be left in sin is a great punishment so to have the Spirit and Holiness given us is executive See my Epist before Mr. Hotchâ—â— Book Of Forgiveness and his Book Pardon and Justification And so will Glorification much more 220. Executive Pardon and Justification therefore though the last of three sorts is the noblest as supposing both the other and being their end and the perfecting of the whole work 221. Non-punire is not always Pardon because it may respect an innoâ—ent and uncapable Object But the Rulers non-punire sontem is pardon â— what degree soever But a non-punire as the execution of an Act of â—blivion or Gift of Right to Impunity is the fullest executive â—â—rdon 222. The same must be said of nolle punire which is no pardon as â—â— the Innocent nor to a fore-seen Guilt not yet existent no more than â—â— a stone But when the person becometh guilty and obliged to suffer â—â—en Gods nolle punire becometh de novo a pardon denominatione extrinâ—ca without any change in God 223. For God perfectly to forgive sin while any sin remaineth in the More of that imperfection of Pardon against Ockam and others â—oul epecially habitual is a contradiction For sin it self though not â—â— sin nor as effected yet as permitted and not healed is the greatest â—unishment as was said And there is no perfect pardon of the punishâ—ent while such punishment is continued And Ockam's great subâ—lty failed when Quodlib 4. q. 1. he determined that per potentiam abâ—â—lutam Deus potest salvare hominem sine charitate creata unless he meant that he can charitatem dare aliter quam creando For to save a man withâ—ut Grace or Love is a contradiction His first Argument is God can do that immediately which he can do by â—â—y second Cause efficient or final * * * Can they tell us intelligibly how the sin of Unbelief and not-loving God and other privations can be really put away without the contrary quality or act Scotus with Rada other Scotists go the same way upon the same false suppositions And to confute one of them is to confute all And so the Papists that say Original Sin is forgiven in Baptism as to the whole calpability and penalty as Petavins in Elench Theriac Vincent-Lenis i. e. Fromondi p. 111. c. 2â— do grosly err For 1. It cannot be that the pravity of mans will should not be culpable 2. And the remaining of that pravity is it self a great punishment of the sin which procured it The truth is which should satisfie them that to the truly baptized or â—â—eartconsenters to Gods Covenant Original Sin and all sin is pardoned at to the great eternal pernicious punishment But not absolutely and perfectly pardoned yet as to all degrees of punishment Nor is all the â—â—â—pability ceased But Love or Grace given is an efficiâ—t or final second Cause Therefore God can save a man without it Ans The minor is your mistake Love here is Salvation it self begun â—â— this life and perfected in the next And to give it and not to give it â—re contradictions All the rest of his arguments go upon the same â—istake as if Love were but a meritorious cause of Salvation and not â—e thing it self And as erroneously Q. 4. he determineth that per potentiam absoluâ—m God can remittere peccanti culpam poenam sine infusione gratiae â—eatae unless he had put the question only de modo conferendi gratiam â—n alio modo sine infusione Deus illam potest efficere But who knoweth â—hat infusion is distinct from other Divine efficience Or unless he had â—poken only of Gods giving the jus ad rem non rem ipsam viz. Ipsam â—mpunitatem For undoubtedly the poena damni properly poena is â—he privation of the Souls rectitude health and happiness which all â—onsist in the love of God And to pardon a mans forfeiture of Happiness executively without giving him the happiness which he forfeited â—r to give man happiness without giving him love to God are both gross contradictions unless equivocally you meant making a man some other thing and giving him the happiness of that other thing His first argument here is Whomsoever God can by his absolute power â—ccept as worthy of life eternal without infused Grace to him he can forgive â—all sin without infused Grace But c. For proof he referreth us to that which I now confuted adding That God could accept a man in his pure naturals to life eternal I answer It is a fiction that ever man had such naturals made by God as were not indued with the principle and disposition of holy love the same thing which infused Grace first restoreth much more that Adam lived without the acting of this love But if it were so yet to accept man to life eternal is to accept him to the love of God so that if he did prove that a graceless man might be predestinated to Glory he did but prove that he is predestinated to perfect holiness and the love of God And though without this he may be predestinated or might have had a promise and right by promise yet without
it he could never have the thing promised for that were to have God and not to have him nor yet his necessary disposition for fruition for without holiness he is not a capable disposed recipient of Salvation The rest of his arguments run all upon this error as iâ— love and holiness were only the means and not the end and Salvation given SECT XVI Of assurance of Pardon Justification and Salvation And whether it be Faith 224. The Faith by which we are justified is not a believing that â—â—â—â— justified but a believing that we may be justified Not a believing tâ—â— Christ is ours more than other mens or that we shall be saved but â— believing in Christ that he may be ours and we may be saved by him 225. There is assurance in this Faith not assurance that we are sâ—cere or shall be saved But assurance that Gods Promises and all â—â— Words are true and that he will perform them and that Christ â—â— the Saviour of the world and that the love of God is our End â—â—â—â— Happiness and that all this is offered to us in Christ even Pardon â—â—â— Life as well as others which offer Faith accepteth truly But the Believer is oft uncertain of the sincerity of his own belief and so of â—â— Salvation 226. How much certainty we have of Divine Revelation and Scripture verity I have so fully opened in many Tractates and lastly in oâ—â— I know that the learned Conciliator Guiliel Forbes doth confidently charge them as guilty of confusion who place Faith in more faculties than one and that call it Fiducia But I doubt not but the error is his own which tendeth to confusion by not distinguishing a meer physical act from a moral or political which is made up of many physical acts And if he or Bishop Gror. Downame Camero or any that go that way had been put to tell what one physical act they will confine Christian justifying Faith to they would have â—ound themselves in confusion To say It is assent denieth not but that it must be an assent to many verities And this assent signifieth at once a belief that God is true and that this is his word and that this word is true He that saith It is a belief of the assertion for the oredibility of the Asâ—ertor can scarce prove that he nameth but one Act And I know no such assent which â—â—â—â— bit essentially contain a trusting to the word of the Assertor or Testifier called Fiducâ—a Can you believe a â—aâ—â— â—oâ—â—â—â— be true because he is credible and not trust his credibility so far as believing him importeth It is a contradiction Fâ—â—â— eredentis is nothing but a trusting to the Fides dicentis and they are Relatives as Act and Object Though I grant that â—â—â—â— is also a quietting applicatory Trust or Fiducia which is but the exercise of Faith as supposing me to see my 〈…〉 Promise which cometh after our first believing in which we see but our receptive capacity that the Promise 〈…〉 with the rest of Mankind and the thing promised is offered to me called The certainty of Christianity without Popery that I will not here repeat it further than to say that it is not a perfect apprehension which we call our certainty nor yet an uneffectual doubtful one But such â—â—â— as will carry a man on confidence of Gods Word to a holy life and â—â— the forsaking of all other hopes even life it self for the hopes which â—â— given us by Christ which yet may have several degrees in several persons But objective certainty which is the evidence of verity is mâ—â—â— full than our subjective certainty for want of our due receptivity â—â— us and is still the same in it self though not equally brought or reveaâ—â— to all 227. Even doubting of the truth of the Scripture and Christianity may stand with saving Faith and Salvation when it is not predominant nor so great as to keep us from the said forsaking all for Christ and Heaven 228. Doubting of mans own Salvation is not always from weakness of Faith directly much less is it the want of Faith it self â—oâ— sometime a man may doubt meerly as doubting of the sincerity of â—â— own Faith and not at all doubting of the truth of the Word of God But when it is the doubting whether the promises be sure which makeâ— a man doubt whether he shall be saved this doubting is the debility â—â— Faith 229. The same may be said of dispair That dispair is from the weakness or want of Faith which cometh from an unbelief of the truth of the Promise And that also is pernicious dispair which from what Cause soever is so great as to take men off the use of necessary means to attain Salvation But that dispair which cometh from overmuch self-condemning and a conceit that a mans heart is false and not that Gods Promise is false may stand with true Faith and Salvation if it be not so great as to take him off the use of necessary means 230. No man ordinarily can be assured of his Salvation or Justification without extraordinary Revelation but by being assured first of the â—ruth of Gods Promise and of his own sincerity in believing For his assurance is of the conclusion of this argument Whosoever sincerely believeth and repenteth is justified But I sincerely believe and repent â—herefore I am justified And the weakness of the apprehension of either of the premises is ever in the conclusion which always followeth partem debiliorem 231. There are therefore but two sorts of men who can believe that they are justified by a Faith properly called Divine that is which is a belief of Gods Word herein 1. Those that God revealeth it to by proâ—hetical or extraordinary Revelation if there be any such 2. Those who are more certain of their own sincere Faith than they are that Gods Word it self is true if any such there be in the world For with all others the certainty of the sincerity of their own Faith being weakest â—he conclusion followeth it 232. If any man can possibly doubt more of the truth of Gods Word â—han of the soundness of his own Faith though that mans Faith may be called Divine it is no honour to it because it hath so much doubting of Gods Word mixed with belief And it 's like his greater assurance of his belief of it is but his error or infirmity 233. Ordinarily therefore no Christians can believe fide Divina that they are justified and shall be saved that is this is no Word of God but a conclusion of which one of the premises only and that the stronger is Gods Word 234. To say that he that believeth shall be saved is equivalent to this I shall be saved is not true nor reasonable seeing I believe is not Gods Word nor so certain as Gods Word And one of the premises is not equal to both 245. When they say That it 's all one when I am sure that
being Infidels unsanctified impeniâ—ent Hypocrites Apostates and so of having no part in Christ and the free Gift even by our personal Evangelical Faith Holiness Repentance â—incerity and Perseverance And all this justification by Works St. James â—s for and it is undeniable by any thing but prejudice ignorance and â—ding pievishness Let the Reader of quick understanding pardon my â—epeating the same thing which others will not yet understand 366. Christ's Sermons Matth. 5. 6. 7. 10. 13. 18. 21. â—nd Luk. 6. 11. 12. 16. 18. 19. and Joh. 1. 3. 5. 6 c. with all the Sermons in the Acts and all the Catholick Epistles of Peter James Jude and John and Paul's Epist to the Rom. Chap. 1. 2. 4. 6. 7. 8. â—2 c. Gal. 5. 6. and a great part of the rest of his Epistles are â—ade up of this Doctrine of * * * Me-thinks Jansenius greatly wrongeth his Cause when he saith To. 2. c. 13. that Primus Augustinus intelligentiam divinâ— gratiâ— novi Testamenti fide crediti a peruit fidelibus ecclesiae If we should say that Primus Lutherus they would take it for a note of novelty and errour was the Church for 400 years ignorant of Grace and fundamental Verities Contrarily I think that Christ's plain Doctrine in his Sermons and the old Churches for 300 years in their plainer uncurious Writings plainly delivered all the necessary Doctrine of Grace yea even the Creed it self containeth it Grace which I have asserted And the â—eading of them will better instruct you in the true sense of Remission and â—ustification than most Treatises written on that Subject which I have seen 367. The perfection of Justification and Pardon will be by the final executive act the taking the justified into Glory SECT XXVII Of the fewness of the glorified and the many that perish 368. Though it be comparatively but a little Flock and part of this world to whom God will give the heavenly Kingdom yet the number will in it self be exceeding great And it 's very probable that this Earth being a very little punctum of the Creation that taking all God's rational Creatures together the number of the damned will be found a very small number in comparison of the blessed even as the Malefactors in the Jailes are to the Subjects of the Kingdom For the worlds above us are incomprehensibly vast and glorious And the Text telleth us Heb. 22. 22. That we are come to an innumerable company of Angels Though the proportions be unknown to us I speak this again that mistakes tempt not men to unworthy thoughts of the infinite amiable goodness of God or of the Christian Faith 369. And what the Saints do want in number they shall have in excellency to glorifie the goodness of God The little Flock which shall have the Kingdom shall be all Kings and Priests and shall judge the world Judgment in Scripture is much put for Government They shall be equal with Angels and shining Stars in our Fathers Firmament and shall sit with Christ upon his Throne And shall in a word in the perfection of their Natures perfectly know love and praise obey and delight in God in a perfect society in the sight of Christ's Glory and be assured of this to all eternity Amen And we see in Gods Works of Nature high Excellencies are rare There are not so many Suns as Stars nor Stars as Stones or Leaves or Trees nor so much Gold as Earth nor so many Men as Flies Fishes and other Animals nor so many Kings as Subjects nor so many Teachers as Learners nor so many men of learning and wisdom as ignorance And we see there are not so many godly as ungodly 370. And as I told you before that as Israel was not all Gods people in the world before Christ's Incarnation and that the Chatholick Church now succeedeth them in their high and rare Peculiarities and Priviledges above the rest of the world and far exceedeth them in the greatness of our Mercies and that Christ's Incarnation hath put the rest of the world into no worse a condition than they were before and that all the world is under a Law of Grace and none under the Law and Covenant of Innocency only So I now add that all shall be judged by that Law which they were under They that have sinned without a written Law shall be judged without that Law And what state each particular Rom. 2. Soul is in the Judge only knoweth and not we who are insolently arrogant if we will step up into his Throne and judge his Subjects without his Commission But this we know that God hath various degrees of Rewards and Punishments as to Infants and Adult so to the Adult among themselves And that he that gained but two Talents shall be Ruler of two Cities And he that had but one might have improved one though he could not have improved more than he had And that they that have done good shall go into everlasting life and those that have done evil to everlasting punishment And the kinds and degrees of their different Matth. 25. last punishments hereafter how great and how far involuntary they are beyond the very miserable case of their sinfulness it self are things that are unknown to us But certain we are that the Judge of all the world will do righteously and that all wise and righteous mens judgments when they shall see what the number of Sufferers and the sorts and degrees of their punishment are shall be fully satisfied of the Goodness Clemency Wisdom and Justice of God and never once wish it had been otherwise And that the Servant that knew his Lords Will and prepared not himself nor did according to his Will shall be beateâ— with many stripes But he that knew not and did commit things worthy Luk. 12. 47 48. of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes For unto whomsoever much is given of him shall he much required and to whom men have committed much of him will they ask the more 371. It is little understood by most how much man by sin it self is effectively his own Tormenter which tempteth man to doubt of Hell as if it were Gods too much severity so to punish How Sin is a punishment it self and how God antecedently made mans nature such that if he would sin it should torment him and undo him of it self like poyson to the Body I have opened in the first Chapter See Gabr. Biel in 2. d. 36. that Omne peccatum est poena and the four Reasons of Bonavent recited by him 372. The Stoicks and Platonists Revolution and the Pythagorean Re-incorporation are so like the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection that though we must not with Origin seek to make them liker than they are yet those Infidels are unexcusable who take this for incredible and yet take the other for the most rational conjecture
Conditional Covenant of Grace for I talk of no other extendeth not universally to all men but that any men are yet lest under no other Law or conditional-promise or Covenant than that of Innocency For if that were true 1. Then God should be supposed to make men a promise of Life on a condition of present natural impossibility And to say to sinners If you be not sinners you shall live 2. And to oblige men to the same Impossibilities as the means of their salvation saying still to sinners I require you sinners that you be no sinners that you may be saved 3. Which is indeed to say that the case of all that are under the first Law of Innocency only is desperate and they have no more hope or remedy than the Devils 4. And then Christ had mistaken the matter himself when he commanded his Ministers to Preach this Gospel or Covenant to all the world and every humane Creature and tell them that If they believe they shall be saved and to offer them Baptism if they consent 5. And either Preachers must preach an untruth to many or else not know what man to preach to 6. But the actu-al force and obligation of the Covenant puts all out of doubt that the world is under a Law of Grace For what man that by siding hath not his understanding utterly distorted to look only on one side can say that none but the Elect are bound to Believe in Christ or to Repent of sin or to turn to God and this as a means of their salvation What man dare say that any Heathens in the World are under no obligation to use any means at all for the pardon of their sins or the recovery and saving of their souls What man dare say that it is no sin in them not to use any such means And what duty or sin can there be without a Law And what Law can bind men to accept of Grace and to seek it and use means for pardon renovation and salvation but the new Covenant or Law of Grace Sure the Law of Innocency hath no such obligation 7. Lastly And Gods usage of all the world puts the case past Controversie For he useth no man according to the meer Law of Innocency All the world have a great proportion of the Mercies of the New Covenant and therefore are not under the Covenant of Innocency alone Yet we maintain that the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency as to the future is still in force to all men Obey perfectly And that the penal part is so far in force as to make death in the first instant due for every sin But we add 1. That the Remedying pardoning Law being in force with it doth immediately dissolve that obligation and make it uneffectual to the punishment of believers 2. And that the Promising part of the Covenant of Innocency is utterly ceased by the cessation of mans capacity And therefore that the Preceptive part for perfection is now no Condition of Life to any man Two things I was wont in my Ignorance to say against the universal tenour of the new Covenant 1. That God distinguished and excluded some at the first making of it under the name of the Seed of the Serpent But 1. No Scripture giveth us the least ground to think that men equally guilty are some called the Seed of the Serpent and some of the Woman meerly as denominated from or distinguished by Gods own will or decree without any real difference in the persons 2. And if the Image of Satan in Original sin were it that denominated the Seed of the Serpent then all the world should be excluded because all are such before they are regenerate 3. Therefore it is plain that it is not meer Original sin that denominateth any one the Serpents Seed in the sence of that Text but a consequent rejection and opposition of the Mediator or Grace of the new Covenant 2. I was wont in my great Ignorance in my youth to think that All men were meerly under the first Covenant till Conversion and then they came under the second only But this was but Confusion To be under a Law or offered Covenant as the terms of life or death is one thing And so all are under a Law or Covenant of Grace and no man under the meer Law of Innocency obliged to perfection as the sole condition of life And to be obedient to this Law and a Consenter to this Covenant and so to be in the Covenant as Mutual is another thing And this is the case of Consenters only So that I may take it for granted that we are agreed that as to the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam and Noe it extendeth or is in force to all the world at least till by enmity against Grace they have made themselves desperate as the Serpents seed Yea then the Law of Grace is in force to them though they reject the Grace of it 2. And as to the last Edition of the Covenant of Grace by Christ 1. The tenour of it extendeth to all as is visible Matth. 28. 19. Mark 16. 16. Joh. 3. 16. 2. And Christ hath made it the office of his Ministers by his commission to promulgate and offer it to all 3. And whereas providence concurreth not to the universal execution we must all confess that Christ came not to put the world into a worse condition than he found them in If he did any no good by his Incarnation he would do them no harm Therefore they that never hear the Gospel are still under the first Edition of the Covenant made with Adam and Noah so far as it is unaltered I add that word because that so far as the Promise was to give salvation by the Messiah hereafter to be incarnate none is now bound to expect his future Incarnation because it is past But the same benefits that were due to believers before Christs incarnation are due since upon the true performance of so much of the condition as is still in force and not repealed 3. And we must needs agree that the Ignorance of the Apostles before Christs sufferings of his death sacrifice and resurrection doth shew that the faith of the Godly Jews then was far more general and less particular than the faith now required of Christians 4. And also that more was required then to be known particularly by the Jews that had the Scripture and Tradition to acquaint them with the Messiah to come than of the rest of the world that had not those distinct discoveries nor Abraham's promises made known unto them And how much Gen. 3. 15. might cause them to understand we may conjecture by the words At least this much was required of all that they believe that their sin deserveth punishment and misery and yet that God of his abundant mercy by his Wisdom securing his Truth and Justice will pardon sin and grant salvation to all that truly Believe and Trust in
be an Active Spirit * Indifferentia Voluntatis in ordine ad auxilium praevium est indifferentia passiva caeterum in ordint ad actum liberum quâ—m producit praedeterminata tali motionâ— praevia indifferentia Voluntatis est activa libera Alvarez de Aux disp 23. pag. 115. and therefore what ever it receiveth it receiveth it as it is in that nature 2. But the same soul is Passive as well as Active and that in the prior instant of nature For it must receive from God the first cause which made the Greek antient Doctors and many of the Latines say as Damascene in sense though in grosser words that the soul in respect to bodies was immaterial or incorporeal but it was material in respect of God § 2. Not only in its Receiving the Spirits first Impulse to Believe the soul is Passive before it is Active but also in its Reception of every sort of Divine Influx even to every natural act So that in this there is no difference between Conversion and any common act For the soul is first passive in allâ— even in receiving that Natural Influx by which we Live and Move and Be. § 3. But the soul which is passive in Receiving Gods Impulse to believe the first effect is Active in the producing of its own Act of believing which is the effect of many Concauses And as I said It is not the Habit of faith properly so called which it passively Receiveth before the Act. SECT XVIII Whether the first Grace and the New and Soft Heart be Promised and Given Absolutely or on any Condition on our part And so of faith it self Answ § 1. BY the first Grace is meant either simply the first or the first special renewing Grace on the soul proper to them that shall be Justified Of the first Grace simply there is no Condition for it is given Universally to all viz. a Reprieval a Law of Grace a Redeemer c. And after this there is much common personal mercy given conditionally and much absolutely to all or some * * * And as to the first moving inward Grace see how copiously the Jesuit Ruiz as Vasquez and others proveth that it hath no initium in us no not an occasion or disposition much less merit for which it is given And he reasoneth from the Names Creation Generation by the seed of God resuscitation and Gods being found of them that sought him not and from the Cause of the difference between man and man De pradest Tr. 3. disp 18. â— 4 5 6 7 8 c. p. 227 228 c. Even Medina 12. p. 596. is so hesitant as to say Esse probabilem sententiam Doctorum quod facienti quod in se est ex facultate naturae Deus ex sua misericordia nunquam denegat gratiam Sed dico quod probabilius est magis consentaneum sanctis patriâ—us praeclpuâ— Augustino non esse Legem infallibilem quod homini pâ—â—atori facienti quod in se est ex facultate natura continub conferatur gratia Nam si esser Lex infallibilis certè initium bona pars justificationis esset à nobis c. Thus the Papists herein differ as much as the Protestants among themselves § 2. It seemeth to me an error which by oversight I was long entangled in my self to think that by the new and soft heart is meant the first special Grace For most Divines agree that it is proper sanctification which is meant by it as distinct from antecedent Vocation Vid. Ames Medul de Vocat Rolloc de Vocat Bishop G. Downame against Pemble Hookers Souls Vocation Joh. Rogers of faith and many others In Vocation they suppose the Act of Faith and Repentance suscitated by the Spirit and thereupon a Covenant-Relation to Christ and to the Holy Ghost with Regenerating Sanctifying Habits â—o be given And I see no reason to be singular herein § 3. That faith is by the Law of Grace made a Condition of this Sanctification and the Spirit promised us if we will believe and so the Spirit given to us by Covenant in Baptism when we believe is plain ill Scripture and the commonest doctrine of all Divines § 4. Therefore if it be this Spirit of Sanctification that is meant by the New the Tender the Circumcised heart it is not promised and given absolutely but on condition of faith § 5. Let us peruse the several Texts where it is promised Dent. 30. 1 2 3 6. When thou shalt call to mind among all the Nations and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day thou and thy children with â—â— thy heart and all thy soul that then the Lord thy God will turn thy câ—â—tivity And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maist live Here it is a Grace consequent to a condition even to much obedience which is described And Deut. 10. 16. it is a command Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts and be no more stiff-necked Jer. 32. 36 37 c. I will gather them out of all Countreys whither I have driven them and will bring them again into this place and I will cause them to dwell safely and they shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever So Ezek. 11. 16 17 18 19 20. And Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 28 29. In all which there is a promissory Prophecy how great a deliverance God would give the Nation of the Jews both for body and soul And their temporal return and liberty is promised and prophesied in the same manner as a new heart is But here is not a syllable to prove that this is the first special Grace any more than perseverance is which in the same manner is promised in Jer. 32. 40. I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart To say nothing how far in the first sense this was National to the Jews nor how the performance did expound it For doubtless it is performed the Text it self premiseth I will be their God and they shall be my people with other mercies And no doubt but Faith and Repentance go before this Covenant-Relation to God and therefore before the following gift of the Spirit ver 9. and Ch. 11. 19. And Ezek. 18. 31. the same is commanded Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit § 6. The promissory Prophecy of Jer. 31. 31 c. is recited by the Penman of Heb. 8. 8 c. to prove the cessation of the old Jewish Câ—venant and that a better should succeed And this much is easily proved out of both 1. That God would certainly have a holy people among the
have said to A. before and I think you favour them too much and make their Errors to seem smaller than they are B. Do you follow the same method that he did Begin with the same Point and suppose me an Arminian for this time and tell me the worst that you have against their Opinions not medling with the Pelagians who deny Original Sin nor with the rash or odd sayings of particular men and let us try how wide you can prove the difference here to be and whether all be not resolved into the Controversies of Grace and Free-will The first Crimination C. I. They destroy the comfort of the Faithful by * Episcop ubi postea p. 414. Nullo modo sequitur quod ad gloriam prius fuerant electi quam crederent denying that God did certainly and immutably elect individual persons to Salvation B. You mistake them They hold that he did certainly and immutably elect particular persons to Salvation They hold that he foreknoweth what motions means and circumstances will eventually take with mens Wills without such necessitation as is inconsistent with their liberty and that to certain persons he immutably decreeth to vouchsafe them all those means and motions and that he then fore-seeth that De certo numero electorum salvandorum de hoc opinionem Catharini Thomistarum c. vide in Vasqu in 1. Tho. q. 23. d. 101. c. 1 2 3. these will prevail and that they will believe yea decreeth that they shall thus prevail and so decreeth that all those persons shall be justified And in like manner that he fore-seeth what means and motions will prevail to their perseverance and that he decreeth to give them those means and motions and that by them they shall eventually presevere and shall infallibly be saved The moderate Jesuites and Arminians and Lutherans do maintain and will grant all this And all this is from eternity And is not here then an eternal ascertaining immutable Election of individuals The second Crimination C. II. * Qui habet gratiam efficacem ad conversionem aut fidem praeordinatus est ad conversionem et fidem Malderus 1. 2. q. 111. a. 3. p. 519. They feign an election of †Vid. Episcop Instit Theol. li. 4. sect 5. cap. 6. p. 413. Things instead of an election of Persons and say that Election is Gods Decree to make Faith the condition of Salvation And so they bring in an indefinite Election of Universals or Species of persons that God decreeth to save Believers damn Unbelievers B. Doth any Christian deny any of this * Restat ergo ut voluntates eligantur sed voluntas ipsa nise aliquid occurat quod delectet atque invitet animum moveri nullo mâ—do potest Hoc autem ut occurrat non est in bominis potestate August lib. 1. ad Simplician q. 2. 1. That God hath de facto made Faith the condition of life is visible in the Gospel And what God did in time from eternity he decreed to do Therefore he decreed to make Faith the condition of life 2. That God hath in his Covenant made a Deed of Gift of Christ and Life to all true Believers and of Heaven to all that so persevere and that he hath promised to perform this Covenant is visible in the Scripture Therefore God decreed to do this from eternity even to justifie Believers and glorifie persevering Believers Make not the world believe that any of us question this But if you mean that they deny all other Decrees of Election and extend it not to individual persons you mistake them Read but Molina Suarez Vasquez Penottus and other Jesuites and you will see it And so you may in Arminius himself They hold an Election of Individuals as I last described it in the way of their scientia media besides the Election of Believers in general See also our Playfaire on the Point The third Crimination C. III. They deny any Decree or Will of God to give men the first special Grace effectually to make them believe and repent but only that he decreeth to give them sufficient Grace which their own Wills must make effectual * They commonly acknowledge a preventing operating Grace â—quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur But the Ratio efficaciae is controverted among them B. Did not I tell you that all the Controversie of Predestination is resolved into that of effectual Grace Such Grace as he giveth men such he decreed to give them This all consess But what it is that denominateth Grace effectual we are to consider in its proper place Only let me here tell you that all will grant you of whom I now speak that God decreeth to give men that special Grace which shall cause them to repent and believe But on what terms and in what manner it so causeth it is afterward to be handled * See Ruiz de praedef d. 6. sect 4 5. proving Faith Perseverance c. to come from Gods Decree The fourth Crimination C. Their Doctrine de * Of this see more in the first Book scientia media on which they ground their Opinions of Gods Decrees is many ways injurious to God and is a fiction not to be made good B. 1. I doubt all sides are over temerarious in their distribution of Gods Decrees and Volitions But 1. All are agreed that ex parte Dei Volentis there is no real difference in his Volitions nor ex parte Dei scientis in his knowledge For so his Knowledge and Will are his Essence 2. All agree that ex parte objecti cogniti decreti there is a real difference 3. All must agree that in Gods Intellection and Volitions as denominated ab extra viz. ab objectis there is a relative or denominative difference 4. Ex parte objecti there is no man can question but that this Proposition If John have such and such means and helps he will believe doth differ from this Proposition It is convenient and good that John shall believe and from this John will believe 5. If you are against mincing Gods Knowledge into such scraps as these various objective Propositions do infer you must be against the old distinction into scientiam simplicis Intelligentiae scientiam purae visionis For no doubt but God knoweth all things how various soever unâ— intuitu with one simple knowledge ex parte sui though it be by our weakness denominated many even innumerable ex relatione objectiva vol terminatione rei in quam transit Doth not God with one Act know Convenients Desirables and Futures And cannot I here copiously thetoricate against you for your first and second sort of Divine Knowledge as well as you do against them de scientia media 6. It is agreed that God knoweth all things to be what indeed they are and not otherwise 7. It is agreed that God knoweth not as man doth by Names Propositions or Syllogisms And yet that
equally prepared as he did on Saul Doth he call all to follow him as effectually ex parte sui as he did Peter Andrew c. who presently left all and followed him Did Christ himself preach to all Nations or only to the Circumcision Were not the sins of the Jews as much aggravated as those of Tyre and Sidon Sodom and Gomorrah or the Indians why else should it go worse with them in the day of Judgment and why else would Tyre and Sidon have repented if they had but had their means were they not then as much prepard for mercy Doth God equally send the Gospel to all Nations and Persons equally unworthy Can you confute St. Paul Rom. 9. Or can you give any reason why God must shew equal mercy unto all A. Yes because else he is a respecter of persons * Ruiz a Jesuite confesseth de Vol. Dei disp 20. sect 6. p. 226. That according to Augustine Christ so died for all as that he had a special intent of saving his Elect for whose sake as being among the rest it is that he died and prayed for all in common Aug. in Tract 31. in Joan. c. 7. Non debebant desperare pro quibus Dominus in cruce pendens dignatus est or are videbat quosdam suos inter multos alienos Illis jam petebat veniam a quibus adhuc accipiebat injuriam Non enim attendebat quod ab ipsis moriebatur sed quia pro ipsis moriebatur He that would know Augustines mind herein may find it fully in Jansenius or in the Trias Patrum de gratia c. B. I fully confuted this before 1. Respecting persons is the fault of a Rector as such especially as Judge And so God dealeth equally his Law being Norma officii judicii as to all But no man ever yet took either 1. A Proprietor Dominus absolutus 2. Or a Benefactor to be obliged to equality to all Must you needs use all your Grounds Trees Goods Cattel c. equally Must you needs make all men equally your bosom-Friends your Heirs your Beneficiaries who are equally worthy in themselves Must you needs give equally to all the poor that are of equal need and merit All this is contrary to the common sense and usage of Mankind 2. And in a Judge respecting persons is the vice of them that deal unequally with men for some by-respect unworthy of such a difference As for Birth Beauty Wealth Power Eloquence Parts Wit Kindred or any selfish interest to pervert Justice or deal partially But God maketh no difference on such accounts Yea a Judge himself or a King when he acteth not as a Judge but as a King above Laws or as a Benefactor may reprieve or pardon one Thief rather than an other yea and choose that which is the most learned strong wise and capable of future Service to the Common-wealth A. This seemeth a wrong to the rest that are not so used B. Would it do the Thief that is hanged any good to have the other unpardoned Would it ease their pains in Hell to have the company of all those that be in Heaven If it be no wrong to them to suffer themselves nothing but envy can call it a wrong to them to have others escape Had they love to others as themselves it would be some comfort to them to think that others are in Joy and Glory A. At least this is a real difference between the Parties B. 1. The School-men and many learned Jesuites as I have proved Lib. 1. make it not a difference And will you called Arminians or Lutherans go further from your Protestant Brethren than the learned Papists and Jesuites themselves go Are you not ashamed of this 2. The Papists can bear with one another in these Points and live in communion in one Church though the Jansenists Case hath had more than ordinary heats and stirs And yet the Dominicans go higher and further in the Controversie of Predetermination from the Jesuites than the Synodists do And are you more fierce or unpeaceable than they 3. But remember here once for all that you were not able to name any one benefit which Christ's death procured for all other than the Synodists hold as well as you But only you charge them as asserting more to the Elect. They give more you say to some but not less to all 4. And all this lieth in the point of Intention and Divine Decrees which was sufficiently reconciled before But you have by all this entised me to mingle various Controversies and to anticipate that of Grace and Free-will which is to be handled by it self in due place But I have a word more to give you by way of caution if you will think on it A. What 's that B. What will you say if Episcopius Arminius Corvinus are the men that deny most Universal Redemption while the Synod maintaineth it How can Christ die for the sins of any Infants in proper sense if they have no sin and deserve no punishment Or be a Saviour to save them from sin and punishment that have none The second Crimination A. By denying common Redemption they deny the express words of 1 Joh. 4. 14. 〈…〉 guish of the phrase of dying for us that we may not cheat our selves by confounding things that differ To die for us or for all is to die for our benefit or for the benefit of all Now these benefits are of a different nature whereof some are bestowed only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sin and Salvation These God doth confer only on the condition of Faith and Repentance Now I am ready to profess and that I suppose as out of the mouth of all our Divines that every one who heareth the Gospel without distinction between Elect and Reprobate is bound to believe that Christ died for him so far as to procure both the pardon of his sins and Salvation in case he believe and repent But there are other benefits that Christ merited for us viz. Faith and Repentance c. Twisse against Hord li. 1. p. 154. Scripture which saith That Christ tasted death for every man Heb. 2. 9. That he is the Saviour of the World Joh. 4. 12. That he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. That he died for all that they which live should live to him that died for them 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. That he is the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. That the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation to all men hath appeared Tit. 2. 11 12. That he is the Propitiation for our Sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World 1 Joh. 2. 2. with much more to the same purpose And do these men deal sincerely with God and the Scripture that can distort all
stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Gratâ— saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more increased for not performing these acts And again page 170. It is true there is a Faith infused by the Spirit of God in regeneration But who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a Faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation C. I am amazed at this especially his supposing that no man ever said that which I thought no man of us had denied B. I would think that his meaning is that men are not condemned for want of Gods infusing act but their own believing act or for the privation of Infusion but for the privation of Faith or of Faith not quatenus infused but as they ought to have believed without infusion But he was not so wanting in accurateness but that he knew how to have exprest himself had that been his meaning And then I know not how his words will consist with this sense I never read that any mans damnation was the more increased for not performing these acts where changing their own hearts is one And whoever said that any man was damned because he did not believe with such a Faith Here it is the Faith as such which is supposed spoken of the privation whereof is not the meritorious cause of damnation And indeed though the power of this Faith would have been in us had there been no Sin or Saviour yet there would have been no obligation to believe in Christ as Mediator And therefore if the Law of Innocency had stood alone even the want of an acquired Faith in Christ would have been no sin But this is the unhappiness of such as must read Controversial Writings There is no end of searching after the Writers meaning But the thing it self I think is plain c. that only an effectual special Faith will save us and it is such a Faith of which Christ speaketh Mat. 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned though he believe with any other Faith whatsoever which he calleth acquired Perhaps this his opinion hath some dependance on what he saith before ibid. He punisheth the disobedient with eternal death True but according to what Covenant Not according to the Covenant of Grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according to the Covenant of the Law the Covenant of Works Woful error and confusion The Covenant of the Law is almost as bad a phrase as the Covenant of the Covenant 1. Gods Law of Innocency was a Law and Covenant in several respects 2. So was the Jewish Law which Paul meaneth by the Law of Works 3. So is the Christian Law of Christ and of Grace No man is now condemned by the Jewish Law of Works as such it being ceased and never did it bind the Gentile world The Law of Nature and of Innocency indeed condemneth the disobedient but the Law or Covenant of Christ or of Grace doth condemn them to much sorer punishment Luke 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should reign c. Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 25. throughout But this confounding of the Covenants I must not here rectifie But yet I hope he meant only that men suffer not for want of Gods Regenerating Infusing Act but for want of their own act of Faith The fifth Crimination C. I find Dr. Twisse ibid. alibi saepe charging it on them as holding that Grace is given according to Works which is Pelagianism For they think that God looketh at some preparation in the Receiver and giveth it to some because they are prepared for it and denieth it to others because they are unprepared whereas it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in him that of his meer good pleasure sheweth mercy B. There is enough said of this after about differencing and effectual Grace But if we must say more I ask you Quest. 1. Do you by this phrase according to Works mean to urge the Scripture that speaketh in that phrase in its proper sense or do you Vulgatum illud facientâ— quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam intelligitur de faciente â—â— gratia auxilie Pet. â— S. Joseph Thes Univers de auxil pag. 83. Idem pag. 90. Nequidem ipsius Christi opera fuerunt actu meretoria citra promissiâ—nem Dei usi ex se essent valoris inâ—â—â—iti which needeth explication only use the phrase in some other sense of your own C. I use Scripture phrase in Scripture sense because I rest on its Authority B. Quest 2. Are we not also saved without Works in Scripture sense And would it be contrary to Paul to say we that we are saved by Works yea or according to them in that sense that he speaketh of them See James 2. 14 c. Tit. 3. 5. Ephes 2. 5 8 9. Gal. 3. 2. 5. 10. Acts 15. 11. c. and 16. 31. Rom. 5. 10 And yet saved according to Works in another sense James 2. 14 c. Phil. 2. 12. Gal. 6. 4. Rom. 20. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 10. C. In several senses of Works we deny it not B. Quest 3. At least you will grant that we are not justified by Works and yet that we are justified by Faith yea in another sense by Works Quest 4. Is not believing and repenting in order to Justification and all holy obedience in order to Salvation as truly opâ—â— a work and in a far nobler sense than preparation for Faith is C. That cannot be denied B. Then you cannot affirm that the phrase not according to Workâ— which excludeth not Faith Repentance holy Obedience to justification and salvation doth intend the exclusion of all preparation in order to Conversion or Faith in Christ when by Works excluded it meaneth the same thing or sort in all C. But saith Dr. Twisse ibid. page 154. Pardon and Salvation God doth confirm only on condition of Faith and Repentance But â—â— for Faith and Repentance doth God confer them conditionally also If so whatsoever be the condition let them look to it how they can avoid the making of Grace to wit the Grace of Faith and Repentance to be given according to Works B. I know he frequently saith the same But 1. I speak now only of the sense of that Scripture and say that this goeth upon a most false and dangerous supposition that Justification and Salvation are given according to Works though Faith and Repentance be not whereas in the sense of Works there meant by Paul no man can be justified by Works And though Christ saith This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom the Father hath sent yet it is not that which Paul meaneth Let not therefore Scripture words be abused to mislead mens understandings 2. But as to the matter of the Controversie I spoke to it enough
they were made less Receptive and more disposed as to the universal means and Influx And by his secession from the holy seed he was deprived of much outward means And having forfeited the Spirit he had less also of its helping Influx And thus he and his posterity made themselves to differ as if a Generation of Sinners should be born blâ—nd while the Sun shineth as it did before 8. The Holy seed that 's not yet Apostate have great subjective and objective Grace 9. The seed of Cain are still under the same Law of Grace and universal conditional promise that If they will believe and repent they shall be saved And they have some Means and some Help of Grace yet left them which have an aptitude by degrees to bring them back again to God And if they will not use that lower degree of Grace by returning as they can they forfeit that and further help 10. But yet God hath besides this Universal Grace some special and extraordinary ways and degrees of Grace for some according to his Good pleasure But this with the answer to your other two questions will come in better anon under the next head C. Having spoke to the matter now speak of the sense of the Text 1 Cor. 4. 7. and Rom. 12. 6. For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it B. It is most evident that Paul speaketh of the Gifts or Excellencies themselves primarily and of Differing from others but as a resultancy from those Gifts And he medleth not here with the question why others have not those Gifts as well as they and so why others differ from them q. d. Are not all those things of which you glory the free gifts of God And is it not by those free gifts that you differ as more excellent than others And should you boast of that which is Gods free Gift of which you are but Receivers To pass by the common answer that Paul speaketh of Ministerial Gifts and not of special Grace what Arminian can deny any of this about the Grace of faith it self 1. He must confess that we have no Grace to cause faith but what we have received For the Act which we performed is no otherwise to be said to be received but as we receive the gracious operation which causeth it 2. He cannot deny that by this Received Grace and Faith the believer in excellency differeth from unbelievers 3. Nor that such a Receiver hath no cause of boasting as if he had not received it Who will deny this C. But they leave him to boast that by his better preparation and disposition he was a fitter Recipient than another And so all boasting is not excluded B. 1. In Paul's Case of extraordinary Ministerial gifts there is less room for that much because they are not given so much according to preparations as saving Grace is For even ungodly men may have them 2. The boasting which is excluded is a boasting of our selves as against or without the glory of Grace as if we had some excellency which we had not received But our very Receptive disposition was received by Gods Grace even from his common preparing Grace And that common Grace was freely given 3. If by boasting you would mean an acknowledgment of Gods grace then all thanksgiving is boasting Or if a Rejoycing in the effects of that Grace as Received and improved by us then Paul so boasted often yea and to the death rejoyced in this testimony of his Conscience that in simplicity and Godly sincerity and not in fleshly wisdom he had had his conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. And that he tamed his body and that he suffered for Christ and that he had fought a good fight 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. If praising Gods grace in his Servants and that holy use of it in wisdom faith love obedience and patience be boasting God so boasteth of them and praiseth them even at judgment Math. 25. Well done good and faithful Servant And Scripture throughout so boasteth of them And we that must honour those that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. must so boast of them also But this is not the forbidden boasting And as to Rom. 12. 6. 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 1. 6 7 8. and such like its past question that God freely diversifyeth Offices and such Gifts as he pleaseth and we know of no praedisposition to which even ordinarily he tyeth himself as to many of them But saving Grace is given more under a Law and stablished course of means in the use of which we must be fit Recipients The ninth Crimination C. They make the Grace of God to be Effectual not from the Will of the Giver nor from the proper force of the Grace it self so much as from the will of man concurring For they think that Gods Grace is but universal and indifferent and leaveth it to mans will whether it shall produce the act of faith or not so that the posse Credere velle is of God but the actu credere velle is of our selves This is the grand difference which I have reserved to the last and as Dr. Twisse oft noâ—eth the question Unde Gratia fit Efficax is it which they are loath to be brought to answer B. I know that this is cryed up as the great difference And where-ever things are mysterious and hard there will be variety of Conceptions and words from whence it will be easie to pretend real differences and make them seem great But because order befriendeth Truth we must be agreed first of the subject of the question what Grace is it whose Efficacy you dispute of I take it for granted that it is such as is to work in genere Causae Efficientis But tell me first whether you Arminius confesseth Gods infallible operation thus Nihil mali caveri posse nist Deo impediente certum est Sed de modo impediendi disputatur an ille sit ex Omnipotentâ— Dei actione in voluntatem hominis agente secundum modum naturae unde impeditionis existit Necessitas an vero ex tali actione quae agâ—t in Voluntatem secundum modum voluntatis quâ— liberâ— est unde impeditionis infallibilitas Armin. Exam Perkins pag 501. Note by Necessity Arminius doth mean Necessity consequentis vel effecti and confesseth necessity Consequentiâ— which here he calleth â—nfallibility And Dr. Twisse professeth that he and all the Schoolmen hold no other And note the unde that he maketh the Infallibility to result from the operation of God and not from his fore-knoâ—ledge only confess or not that there is such a thing as Universal Grace or Help of the Spirit fixedly or ordinarily accompanying or working by the means of Grace which operateth as the Sun ad modum recipientis and will not produce the same effect on one receiver as on another C. I
as in many other Points and therefore not the same consent and concord among the learnedest Divines and the godliest Christians And in my Observations most on each side are more moved to their Opinion in this from the congruity that they think it hath with other Verities or the Analogy of Faith than from the proper plain sense of the Texts which they themselves alledge So that though no doubt the Truth is to be found in the Scriptures yet not with such ease and certainty as will allow us to make the decision of this Point any part of the terms of our necessary Concord THE Tenth Days Conference Between B. and C. OF PERSEVERANCE B. You have now some advantage for your censure of Dissenters See Ruiz de Praedes d. b. Sect. 4 5 6. Proving that Faith and certain Perseverance of all the Elect proceed from Gods decrees or predefinition and that all things work for their good c. This the Jesuites acknowledge where the difference is real But I am loth you should make it greater than it is or make as hot and contentious work about it as Marbachius and Zanohy did How odious soever Thompson and Bertius have been made by our side and Jovinian Calvin and his followers by the other though I wish there were no difference at all I undertake to prove that the difference is not of so great moment as is commonly on both sides pretended And no greater than should consist with true Love and Communion even between the Members yea the Pastors of the same Church who are therein of differing opinions But first let me hear what you have to aggravate it The first Crimination C. Their Crime is that they overthrow the comfort of Believers by denying them any certainty of Salvation * Paraeus himself maketh such an Intercision of Justification in Believers as I cannot own in Bellarm. de Amiss Grat. l. 1. c. 7. Fides tunc dicitur Justificare quum actum proprium accipiendi remissionem peccatorum exercet Hinc vero actum non exercet neque exercere potest fides aegra saucia sordibus carnis oppressa peccatorum compedibus quasi ligata Justificatiâ— laâ—â—iâ— Dâ—â—â— non imputat peccata nempe resipiscentibus Ante resipiscentiam certe imputat infligendo poenas temporales imputarit â—tiam â—â—fligendo poenas aeternas nisi resipiscerent Tunc igitur fides in lapsis habitualiter tantum â—aneâ—s proprie Justificans dici aut cos Justificare non potest But his reason is bad For faith is not called Justifying for the Reason which he giveth The like say the Polonian Protestants in Colloq Thorun de Grat. Sect. 2. n. 11. Falso accusamur quasi statuamus semel justificatos Dei Gratiam â—jusque certitudinem ipsum Spiritum Sanctum non posse amittere quamvis in peccatis pro lubitu volutentur Cum contra potius doceamus ipsos etiam renatâ—s quoties in peccata contra conscientiam recidunt in iisque aliquandum perseverent nec fidem veram nec Dei gratiam justificantem nedum ejus certitudinem aut Spiritum Sanctum pro tempore retinere sed novum irae ac mortis aeternae reatum incurrere Ac propterea nisi Speciali Dei gratia excitante quod in electis fieri non dubitamus ad resipiscentiam iterâ—m renoventur reipsa etiam damnandos esse This is the same with the Doctrine of Augustine and Musculus or near it Yea both Ursine and Pareus seem to come as far Catech. de Peccat actuali Peccatum regnans est cui peccans non repugnat ideoque fit obnoxius aeternae morti nisi c. Propter quod non tantum ex ordine justiâ—iae Dei sed ex reipsa aeternarum poenarum reus est qui illud habet Talia sunt omnia peccata in non renatis quaedam etiam in renatis ut error in fundâ—mento fidei lapsus contra conscientiam cum quibus fiducia remissionis peccatorum consolatio vera non consistit donec resipiscant Quod enim etiam renati possâ—t cadere in peccatum regnans satis ostendunt tristissimi lapsus Sanctissiomrum hominum ut Aaronâ—s Davidis c. Rob. Baronim in his excellent little Treat de Pec. Mort. veniali saith that by Mortal Sins the regenerate may 1. Be excluded from that Grace and favour of God by which he before loved them yeâ— he incurreth Gods hatred and displeasure so far c. 2. Their Prayers Thanks Obedience yea nothing that proceedeth from them is then acceptable to God 3. In that state God cannot forgive them and give them peace of Conscience and joy B. To be absolutely certain of Salvation no doubt would be a very great comfort But let us enquire I. What number will be by this Doctrine hindered from this certainty II. In what degree this tendeth to their discomfort 1. And by the first enquiry I doubt we shall find that you also hold Doctrines that hinder most men from concluding themselves certain of Salvation and yet perhaps be very true These Questions therefore I crave your answer to Q. 1. Do not you grant that we must take no comfort but what God giveth us and on his terms and that the false comforts of presumption are worse than none or not desirable And that all Doctrine is not true that were it true were comfortable C. Yes none will deny it you B. Q. 2. Do you not find by experience being a Pastor who hath discoursed with your Flock man by man about their state that of those that you account truly Godly persons there is not one of fifty yea of an hundred yea of many hundreds that will say that they are certain of their Salvation properly and fully certain C. I suppose your question implyeth your own observation which I contradict not B. Q. 3. And as for the multitude of more careless and loose Christians do not you think that whatever they say their certainty is less than these Godly persons C. Yes no doubt for their evidence is less or none B. Q. 4. Do you not think that it must needs be so that certainty of Salvation must be exceeding rare considering that all these things must go to it 1. There must be a certainty that Gods promises are true whereas the faith of most is weak 2. There must be a certain understanding both of the meaning of the promise and what are the true Conditions of it and the difference between true saving Grace and all that is but counterfeit or common Whereas most are uncertain and dark herein if not mistaken 3. There must be these Evidences in the person himself not only in reality but in ascertaining-discernableness which cannot be unless it be 1. Much and strong for that which is small is so like to the common and counterfeit that it is seldom certainly discerned 2. It must be in Activity For Grace out of Act is not discernable 3. It must be powerfully operative without and in the
have followed thereupon The just Extenuation of this last Controversie IN all these things following the parties are agreed for the most considerable 1. That Adam fell from true Righteousness and Holiness and lost the Spirit 2. That therefore we cannot argue from the Nature of Holiness alone to prove that it cannot be lost 3. That as the word Possible relateth to man's Power to do evil and omit good it is not only Possible to fall away but too easie yea it is not opus potentiae sed Impotentiae except as Natural Power is exercised in the meer Act with Moral Impotency 4. Yea without Gods preserving Grace it is not possible to persevere 5. God hath appointed us much duty to be done that we may not fall away And among the rest to discern and fear the danger of falling away and in that fear to depart from evil and temptations 6. God hath promised us Salvation on Condition that we persevere 7. God oft threatneth the faithful with damnation if they fall away and describeth to us the sin and misery of Apostates 8. The Justified may lose many degrees of true Grace and dye with far less than once they had and so become uncapable of that Greater Glory which they were morally capable of before 9. It 's too possible for them to fall into heinous sin They are not certain that they shall never commit Adultery Incest the Murther of Parents Wife or Children c. nor certain just how oft they may so fall or not 10. Such Sins make them so far morally uncapable of Glory as that See the Brittish Divines Suffrages at Dort of perseverance a sound Repentance for them and from them and a renewal of Faith are necessary to full right or moral capacity 11. God doth not decree any man's perseverance let him live never so securely negligently or vitiously For those that do so are faln already It is a contradiction to persevere in holiness and to live unholily But Gods Decree is ever entire that such a one shall fear danger fly temptations live holily in the use of means and therein persevere unto the end He never separated these in his Decrees 12. Except Hierome truly accuse Jovinian with it there is not that I know of any Father Christian or Heretick that hath written that Lege Vossi Histor Pelag de Perseverant no truly Justifyed persons fall finally away from Grace and perish for above a thousand years after Christ And it 's commonly granted that generally they held the contrary Even Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius not excepted 13. It is confessed to be a sad clog to the contrary opinion that it is held against the Judgment of the Universal Church for above a thousand years and so seemeth to bear the imputation of novelty and singularity Though that be not a sufficient confutation of it 14. It is confessed that the Greek and Roman Church the Lutherans and Arminians and most Anabaptists are against this Doctrine 15. It is confessed that all these Fathers and Churches of old and all these Churches and Christians of late are not void of the Christian comforts of the Gospel even of faith and hope of Glory 16. It is confessed that the Scripture hath many passages so much seeming to favour both the opinions as hath made the controversie thus difficult to so many Learned Godly Men And what the Scripture is it will be to the worlds end 17. It is confessed that none can be sure of Salvation or perseverance who are not first sure of their Sincerity and Justification 18. And to be uncertain whether one be a true believer and justified is more uncomfortable than to be sure of that and uncertain of his perseverance 19. No man can ordinarily be certain that he is Sanctified and Justified that is not certain of the truth of the Gospel and hath Grace somewhat strong and active not clouded by great Soul-wounding Sins nor frightful or melancholy passions nor any that through Ignorance is uncertain of the true Nature of the conditions of the Covenant of Grace 20. Certain experience of the defect of these qualifications and of mens own Consessions assureth us that not one of a multitude of the strict Religious sort have that which we call proper certainty of their Sincerity Justification and Salvation though they hold against the Arminians that certainty of perseverance must be asserted as that which may be attained by them that are first certain that they are in a state of life 21. Yet the fore-mentioned knowledge of Gods Mercy Christ's Love and Covenant with experience and many evidences of great probability may cause even such as are uncertain of their Justification to live in some good measure of true Christian peace though mixed with some doubts and fears Because their Probability is much greater than their cause of fear And much more may they do so that doubt only of their perseverance 22. It must be confessed that the Doctrine that none fall from Justification hath its temptation also to discomfort as in the two or three fore-mentioned particulars which I 'll not repeat 23. It is confessed that if God should condemn those whom he before Justified it would argue no change in Him or his Word but in them alone 24. It is confest that some Justified persons who live in as much sin as will stand with sincerity are at present unfit for assurance of perseverance and salvation For it would not stand with that humbling correction which they are then most fit for 25. Lastly it is confest that this point is no Article of our Creed nor is an agreement in it necessary to Church-communion or Christian Love but difference in it must be accounted tolerable In all this the moderate are commonly agreed On the other side 1. It is commonly granted that all that are elected to salvation shall persevere though how far that election is upon foresight they quarrel Cur ergo id quod Apostolis tunc fecit Christus non concedemus pro omnibus praedestinatis fecisse ut peculiari modo sua merita illis applicaret perseverantiam eis obtineret nam si multi sancti pro aliis orantes conversionem eorum perseverantiam impetrarunt cur dicemus Christum pro omnibus praedestinatis non orasse peculiari suâ oratione tantam gloriam gratiam illis obtinuisse Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. a. 8. d. 94. c. 3. 2. It 's granted by all that not only such election but fore-knowledge of salvation and perseverance maketh it Logically Impossible quoad consequentiam not to persevere that is It Necessarily followeth God foreknoweth it Therefore it will come to pass 3. It is commonly granted that God forsaketh none till they forsake him 4. And that so great is his Goodness that no willing â—oul that solidly understandeth the Grounds of the Christian faith and hope and is in Love with God and Holiness and willing to use means and avoid temptations hath any
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by
faith mentioned so oft in Scripture that is Upon and by believing we are first made just by free-given pardon and right to life and true sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just But this is not without our Faith and Repentance 2. And that Faith and Repentance are a Righteousness Evangelical that is a performance of the conditions on which the Covenant of Grace doth freely give us right to Christ pardon and life and so are the Constitutive causes of that subordinate Justification Lib. But your subordinate Righteousness hath no hand in our Justification P. This is but singing over the old Song by one that will not consider what is answered Have you thought on all the Texts even now cited Hath faith no hand in our Justification Hath the performance of a Condition and the Moral Disposition of the Receiver no hand in the Reception of a Gift What think you is the meaning of Christs words Matth. 12. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned What meaneth St. James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only Are men justified by that which hath no hand in their Justification Lib. Christ meaneth before men and so doth James and not before God P. This is notoriously false as contrary to the plain Text Christ speaketh of the Account to be given of our words in the day of Judgement vers 36. And James speaketh of that which men are saved by vers 14. and that Justification which Abraham had and that in an instance where Man did not justifie him and of that which was faiths life and perfection vers 17 22. and of Gods imputing faith for righteousness as to a friend of God vers 23. And is this nothing but Justification before men Lib. This is not the justifying of the man but of his faith P. 1. You contradict the Text which saith Abraham Rahab A man is justified by Works 2. You contradict your self For if the faith be justified the man is justified to be a true believer For how could a man that fulfilled the Law as Christ and Angels did be justified but by justifying his actions And how can he that fulfilleth the Gospel conditions be justified in that point but by justifying that he fulfilled them Lib. At least I may say that this is not the great and notable Justification which is only by Christs Righteousness P. We are not contending for its preheminence but its truth and necessity in a subordinate place Indeed we have one Justification by our Judges sentence which hath many parts and causes God as Donor is one cause and God as Judge another And Christ as meriting is the only meritorious cause of the Justifying Gift and Covenant and Christ as Intercessor another cause and Christ as Judge another And our Righteousness as it is our Right to Impunity and life another and our faith and Repentance are conditions All this is sure Lib. But the Justification by faith is our Universal Justification and that can be only by Christs Righteousness And we are not to trust to a Righteousness mixt of Christs and ours nor doth Christs Righteousness need to be patcht up with our menstruous rags P. 1. No question but Christs Righteousness is perfect and ours imperfect and ours is no patch or supplement to Christs He is not made righteous by our righteousness but we by his 2. But that which is perfect in him is not made perfectly ours nor formally ours in it self as distinct from its merited effects It is not ours as it is Christs Christ that is our Righteousness is also made of God to us wisdom and sanctification And will you say therefore that we are not to be Wise or Holy by any Wisdom or Holiness of our own for fear of adding our patch to Christs 3. You use to say that Christs Righteousness is ours as Adams sin is ours and say some as Adams Righteousness would have been had he persevered But 1. Adams Righteousness would have indeed made an Infant initially just by propagation that is the innocent Child of an innocent Parent But as soon as that Infant had the use of Reason and Choice he must also have a Righteousness of his own or perish And this is no patch to Adams righteousness And indeed in his Infancy he must have a seminal Holiness of his own to justifie him as well as the relation of a Son of Adam 2. So also though we are guilty of Adams sin by propagation yet we have with that guilt 1. An inherent pravity of our own 2. And at age our actual sin And both these are our unrighteousness as well as Adams sin imputed to us Even so Christ the second Adam is a Root of a righteous seed Our Contract by faith is as to him what our Natural propagation is as to Adam that is the Condition of our Interest in his merits We have as believers an initial righteousness in our relation to Christ But we have also from him 1. Inherent habitual righteousness 2. The actual righteousness of faith and true obedience and love And these have their proper use and office without which we must perish 4. And I must tell you that the word Universal is too big to be properly given to any mans justification or righteousness but Christs Properly he only is Universally justified or righteous who hath no unrighteousness at all imputable to him and is justifyable in all things But the best believer 1. Was once a sinner originally 2. Did oft sin actually 3. Hath still sin in him 4. And for some sin may be punished by the Magistrate 5. And for sin is judged and punished by chastisements and death by God 6. And the earth still cursed for our sake 7. Yea which is worst of all we are still under the penaâ—ty of some privations alas how great of Gods Spirit and its Grace and our Communion with God And all this must be confessed And such a one is not Universally justified or just Lib. But still our own Righteousness doth but make us such as thankful persons must be for their Justification by Christ and is no part of that Justification by faith For if faith it self be that Righteousness we have not faith by faith and faith is not imputed to faith but Christs Righteousness is it that is imputed P. Of Imputation in due place 1. What need you talk against that which none of us assert Do we not all hold that our personal Gospel-Righteousness is subordinate to Christs and is by his Gift as ouâ— Wisdom and Sanctisication is Who dreameth that our faith is any part of Christs Righteousness But why do you waste time in vain cavilling against plain certain truth Is there any thing in Name or Thing asserted by us that you can deny or question Quest 1. Do you deny that Scripture commandeth us to Believe that we may be justified Lib. No. P. Quest 2. Or
that we are commanded not only Thankfully to Accept but Thankfully to obey our Lord Redeemer and Saviour Lib. No. P. Quest 3. Date you deny that life or death eternal dependeth on this as a Condition or Moral means and that we shall be judged according to it Lib. No. I deny it not P. Quest 4. Is it not a Law that thus commandeth us and by which we must be judged Lib. Yes If it were no Law there were no duty and sin in belief and unbelief P. Quest 5. Is not a man so far just and justifyable by that Law as he keepeth it and justifyable against the charge of being one that must be Damned by producing the Condition of pardon and life performed Lib. Yes I deny it not P. Quest 6. And doth not the same Law virtually justifie the performer now whom it will justifie as the Rule of Judgement at last Lib. Yes no doubt P. Quest 7. And is not the Name of Righteousness many score times given in Scripture to our own actions done by Grace and measured by the New Covenant Lib. Yes I cannot deny it P. Why then while you deny neither Name nor Thing what wrangle you about And let me plainly tell you that such men as you by indiscreet ever-doing are not the least of Satans instruments to bring the Gospel under scandal and harden the world in Infidelity and the scorn of Christ while you would so describe the Christian Religion as if this were the very heart and summ of it Believe that all the Elect have fulfilled perfectly all Gods Law by another and that Christ did it as personating each of them and therefore no crime of their own is imputable to them nor any kind or degree of Goodness or Righteousness in and of themselves is at least required of God as any means or condition of their present or future justification by their Judge or as having any hand therein As if God were become indifferent what we all are so that Christ be but Righteous for us when as it was Christs grand design to restore lapsed man to God which he doth not only by Relative benefits but by Renewing them to his Image in love and holy obedience Lib. Have you not lately and oft been told that holiness and obedience are necessary now but it is to other Ends than to justifie us as for Cratitude c. P. 1. We easily grant it is for other Ends than Christs Merits were and not to justifie us as they do nor in that Causality They are not to purchase for us a free gift of pardon and life nor the Holy Ghost c. as Christ did 2. But again tell me Hath not Christ a Law that commandeth our obedience to those ends as Gratitude which you mention And is not the keeping that Law a thing that the same Law will so far justifie us for Yea a Condition that life dependeth on And if the Cause in Judgement be Have you kept it or not must you not in that be accordingly Justified or Condemned Give over cavilling against plain necessary truth Lib. By this you will fall in with the Papists who take Justification to be partly by Christs Righteousness and partly by our own and partly in pardon and partly in faith and holiness P. Tell not me of the Names of Papists or any to frighten me from plain Scripture truth 1. Why may not I rather say Why go you from all the antient Writers and Churches even Augustine himself by your new and contrary opinion Was true Justification unknown for so many hundred years after the Apostles 2. The most zealous Antipapists do confess that some Texts of Scripture do so take the word Justification And multitudes of Texts so take the words Righteous and Righteousness And he that will impartially consider them may find that more Texts than are by us so confessed do by Justifying mean Making us Just and so Accounting us on all these causes conjunct 1. As being Redeemed by Christs Merits 2. And freely pardoned 3. And having Right to life 4. And renewed to Gods love and Image 5. And so justifyable at the Bar of Grace by the Law of faith and liberty 3. And the reality of all the Matter of this Doctrine is past doubt if the Controversie de nomine Justificationis were not so decided CHAP. IV. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ Lib. III. YOu bring in your doctrine of personal Righteousness to Justification by feigning Christ to have made a new Law whereas the Gospel is but a Doctrine History and Promise and not a Law and so no Rule of Righteousness and Judgement And this many Protestants have asserted P. I have read some such sayings in some men And some I think meant no more but that Christ did only expound and not add to the Law of Nature called by them the Moral Law And these I have excused for their unhappy kind of expression But for the rest that mean as the words sound universally they subvert Christianity and as the Arrians denyed Christs Godhead so do they his Office and Government and are somewhat worse than the Quakers who say that the Spirit within us is the Law and Rule of Christ which is better than none I pray answer me Quest 1. Is Christ the King and Ruler of the Church Lib. Yes P. Quest 2. Is not Legislation the first and principal part of Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 3. Do not they then that deny Christs Legislation deny his Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 4. Is it not essential to Christ as Christ the name signifying Relatively his Office to be King Lib. Yes P. Quest 5. Do they not then by this deny Christ to be Christ Lib. No for they confess that he hath a Law but not that he made any since his birth P. We grant 1. That the Law of Nature now is His Law 2. And that the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam after the fall was his Law 3. And Moses Law was partly his But you will not say that we are under this last nor I hope that he hath no other than the two first Lib. Why what other can you prove P. It is the Name or the Thing that you deny for you use to confound the cases 1. Whether the name be fit judge by these Texts Gal. 6. 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ James 1. 25. The perfect Law of Liberty Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 3. 27. Boasting is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of faith Mic. 4. 2. For the Law shall go out of Zion c. So Isa 2. 3. 8. 16 20. 42. 41. The Isles shall wait for his Law 1 Cor. 9. 21. We are under the Law to Christ Heb. 8. 10 16. I will put my Laws into their minds and hearts James 4. 12. There is one Law-giver c. Isa 33.
Righteousness is it but Christs that is said to be imputed to us P. It is none but what we have from Christ But the phrase of Imputing supposeth it ours And the meaning is no more but that we are reputed Righteous And the causes are not included in the phrase of Imputing righteousness to us but in the words before and after As Imputing sin to us and not Imputing it is but to Repute reckon or judge us sinners or by sin guilty of punishment or not guilty so is it here So that it is supposed 1. That Righteousness that is This Relation of being Righteous is the thing imputed 2. Christs Righteousness is the meritorious cause 3. The Gospel Donation is the instrumental Cause 4. Our Faith in Christ is the condition and as such the subordinate matter necessary on our parts And that faith is imputed for Righteousness plainly meaneth but this that Christ having merited and satisfied for us all that is now required on our part to denominate or primarily constitute us Righteous is to be true Believers in him or true Christians And I further ask you Do you thus paraphrase the words Faith that is Christs Righteousness is imputed to us for righteousness Lib. Yes I do so because the act is put for the object P. Were it so said but once and otherwise oft you had some colour for this But when it is never said Christs Righteousness is imputed to us and so oft said Faith is imputed for righteousness how shall ever the Scripture be understood at this rate if still by faith it mean not faith at all but Christs righteousness And why must not all other places that mention faith be so understood also But read the Texts and set all together and see what sense thus will be made of it Rom. 4. 3. What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it that is not his believing but Christs Righteousness was Imputed to him for righteousness Is this a sober and modest paraphrase or a shameless violence Doth not it refer to believing God before mentioned Vers 4 5. To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned or imputed of Grace but of debt But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith that is not his faith but Christs righteousness is counted for righteousness Is this a modest Exposition Vers 10 11. We say that Faith that is not faith but Christs righteousness was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness How then was it that is not his faith but Christs righteousness reckoned In uncircumcision And he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the fiath that is not of the faith but of the righteousness of Christs righteousness which he had being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of them that believe that righteousness that is Christs might be imputed to them also who walk in the steps of that faith which Abraham had c. doth faith here also signifie no faith Vers 13. When the promise is said to be through the righteousness of faith and Vers 14. faith made void is it no faith that is here also meant by faith And Vers 16. It is of faith to that seed which is of the faith of Abraham is not faith indeed here meant by the word faith So Vers 18 19 20 21. Who against hope believed And being not weak in faith he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able to perform is it no faith that is meant in all these words yea or no act of faith but accepting the righteousness of Christ So next Vers 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness that is Not his faith but by It is meant only Christs Righteousness though it was faith that was over and over mentioned as the antecedent So Vers 23 24. It was not written for his sake only that it that is not faith but Christs righteousness was imputed to him But for us also to whom it that is not faith shall be imputed if we believe is not that faith neither on him that is God the Father that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead which is a distinct act from Consenting to have his righteousness who was delivered to death for our offences and was raised again for our Justification Is the meaning that we are justified by the Imputation of Christs Resurrection so to us as that in Law sense we rose again in him and by Rising fulfilled the Law of Innocency I will not for shame and weariness thus go over other such Texts but I must be so faithful as to say that if good men and wise men and men that cry down the Papists and others for adding to Gods Word and corrupting it and calling it a Nose of Wax and introducing new Articles of faith will yet own such Expositions as these and accuse those that own them not they are as great Instances as most I remember except the defenders of Transubstantiation how far education or custom or humane dependance or faction and partiality and prejudice may blind the reason of professed Christians and godly men And that man that dare lay his comforts and hopes of justification and life upon such expositions of Gods Word should be modest in crying down the false hopes of others and reproving them that build upon the sand Lib. You have made a long discourse to make us odious upon a false supposition We do not say that in all or any of those Texts by faith is not meant faith but only that it is not faith as faith or as an act of ours but as connoting its object the Righteousness of Christ P. 1. Alas a great number of better men than you have too oft and plainly said without distinction that Faith is not imputed to us for righteousness I hope they meant better than they spake but I would it could be hid from the world that these words are not only in the Independents Savoy Confession but even in the Confession of the Westminster Assembly cap. 11. Not by imputing faith it self the act of believing or any other Evangelical obedience to them as their Righteousness but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to them So also in the larger Catechism Not as if the Grace of faith or any act thereof were imputed to him for his Justification How well soever they may mean Gods oft repeated Word should rather have been expounded than denyed 2. But what mean your cloudy words It is not faith as faith but as connoting the object They that cannot speak clearly seldom clearly understand what to speak The Question is Whether it be really and properly Faith that is meant in all these Texts or whether it be only Christs righteousness If you say that It is both in several respects you grant then that it is saith it self in one respect that is
as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And â—â— the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ whoâ—e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the efficaâ—y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Mediâ—m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not lâ—ss free â— g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall