reason surmounting the reason and capacity of the people to comprehend And these questions which they spin and spit out by dozens yea hundreds thousands as they are mostly superfluous vain useless and many of them presumptuously and arrogantly proposed about things which the Lord hath kept secret in his own bosom not revealing them by his word so are they oft no less peremptorily and audaciously by these men answered and determined out of their Philosophicall and Metaphysicall fancies without one particle of the word to ground their determinations upon Thus by their questionary sophistry they have both obscured if not totally quenched all true Divinity i. e. the Doctrine of the Gospel and have foysted in a confused Chaos of titular Divinity that hath nothing of light or life in it such as the Scripture owns not from their own reason Compare we now Mr. Baxter with these to see whether as the Apostle calleth Timothy his own or his naturall son in the faith 1 Tim. 1. 2. because he walked directly after him in the steps of his faith So Mr. Baxter doth not also declare himself the own and naturall sonn of these sophisters by walking directly after them in the steps of their cunning and subtlety to destroy the Faith The Poets feigned that Minerva was begotten and born of Jupiters brain because she was all wisedom it self And I think Mr. Baxter would be offended if it should be denyed that all the quintissence of sophisticall learning that hath been in all the brains of all the Schoolmen and Jesuits were not so extracted from them as to have its residency now in his He was as far as I can understand born and brought up in the Protestant Church within this nation as Costor Pollux c. were in the house of Leda but by a new and strange generation or adoption of eggs layd by these Serpents he discovers himself now in a manner to be wholly theirs so fully doth he resemble yea parallel them that unum nôris omnes nôris you may read in him alone the Genius and the Craft of them all Attend we els to his own words in his explication of his 7th Thesis pag. 25 c. All that he hath written before I passe by without exception against it pag. 19. he layeth down his 7. Aphorism in these words Bax. Jesus Christ at the will of his Father and upon his own will being perfectly furnished for this work with a Divine power and personall Rigteousness first undertook and afterward discharged this debt viz. mans debt to God by suffering what the Law did threaten and the offender himself was unable to bear To this as to the rest he addeth that which he calleth an Explication i. e. an Exposition explainning or making plain of the Aphorism or point so laid Let us trace him how now he makes it plain beginning at the 25. p. before mentioned I should be too large to write all his words yet shall not wrong him by writing any save his own words or the very substance of them Bax. Here we are cast upon many and weighty and very difficult questions 1 Whether Christ did discharge this debt by way of solution or by way of satisfaction 2 Whether in his suffering and our escape the threatning of the Law was executed or dispensed with 3 And if dispensed with how it can stand with the truth and justice of God 4 And whether sinners may thence be encouraged to conceive some hope of a relaxation of the threatnings in the Gospell 5 And whether the faithfull may not fear lest God may relax a promise as well as a threatning 6 And whether if the Law be relaxable God might not have released his Sonn from the suffering rather then to have put him to so great torment and to have freely pardoned the offenders And p. 27. The resolving of the first question depends upon the resolving of two other questions both great and difficult 1 What it was which the Law did threaten 2 What it was that Christ did suffer Various are the judgments of * He means the Popish Doctors specially for they with him are the Divines Divines about the former c. 1 Whether Adams soule and body should have been annihilated and destroyed so as to become in sensible 2 Or whether his soule should have been immediately separated from his body as ours are by death and so be the only sufferer of the pain 3 Or if so whether there should have been any resurrection of the body after any space of time that so it might suffer as well as the soul 4 Or whether soul and body without separation should have gone down quick into hell ar into any place or state of torment short of hell 5 Or whether both should have lived a cursed life on earth through everlasting in exclusion from Paradise separation from Gods favâ—ur and gracious presence loss of his image c. 6 Or whether he should have lived such a miserable life for a season and then be annihilated or destroyed 7 And if so whether his misery on earth should have been more than men do now endure And the more importance are these questions of because of some others that depend upon them As 1. What death it was that Christ redeemed us from 2 And what death it is that perishing Infants dye or that our guilt in the first transgression doth procure For it being a sinn against the first covenant only will be punished with no other death than that which is threatned in that Covenant And pag. 31. Besides it is needfull to know what life was the reward of that Covenant that we might know what death was the penalty and this also comes into question about the reward whether if he had not fallen he should after a season have been translated into heaven without death as Enoch and Elijah or whether he should have lived for ever in this terrestriall Paradise without addition of further bliss to that which he had at his first Creation And as touching the death which Christ suffered whether it were the same that was threatned to Adam Pa. 33. If we take the threatning at its full extent as it expresseth not only the penalty but also its proper subject and its circumstances then it is undenyable that Christ did not suffer the same that was threatned For the Law threatned the death of the offender but Christ was not the offender Adam should have suffered for ever but so did not Christ Adam did dye spiritually by being forsaken of God in regard of holiness as well as in regard of comfort and so was deprived at least of the chief part of his image so was not Chrst Yet neither is this certain that Christs death was not the same c. for It is disputable whether these two last were directly contained in threatning or not whether the threatning were not fully executed in Adams death and the eternity of it were not accidentall even a
them worse than himself Matt. 23. 15. And what should that be but that God takes satisfaction to his justice by his judgments upon them here that they may not have or may have the less to satisfie for in hell or in Purgatory In this therefore as in the two former points I take him expressing himself an adopted sonne of the ghostly Fathers of Trent 4. The Papists hold that there is a Purgatory which they describe to be a prison as hot and full of the same materiall fire and flames as hell it self into which the souls of Christians after this life are cast to satisfie Gods justice for all their veniall sins that they have not made satisfaction for in this life by suffering or doing and being once cast into this prison they cannot come forth out of the torment untill they have paid the utmost farthing of their debt i. e. untill they have suffered so much as may counterpoise to a very grain the sinns whereof they dye unpardoned This they prove by many undeniable Arguments specially by the testimony of many good souls that have obteined a dispensation to come thence with their bosoms so full of fire as of flesh and bones to tell them so Doth Mr. Baxter joyn with them in this opinion also Soft and fair There is skill in daubing first he will try how this Tractate will take if according to his minde probably we shall have a second part and therein he may tell us plainly his judgment in this and many other of his mysteries that here he leaves obscure and ambiguous In the interim it pleaseth him not to deliver his minde herein in words at length but in dark and uncertain figures Yet joyn we together what he saith here and there in parcells and somwhat may be made or at least conjectured of it First then he telleth us that some part of the Curse must be executed upon beleevers i. e. upon the whole man the soul as well as the body Thes 9. 2 That untill the day of Resurrection and of Judgement all the effects of sin and law and wrath will not be removed from them pag. 74. Pag. 71 Arg. 8. Therefore thirdly what he will not doth not at least say of any of their former sufferings he saith of death That there is no unpardoned sin in it which shall procure further judgment and so no hatred in it though there be anger A glorious privilege no doubt such as according to our usuall proverb a man may find at Billingsgate for a box on the ear from the worst of men that he meets with When a man hath in revengefull fury persecuted his hated nighbour with all the strokes and stormes of wrath and mischief and after many years persecution hath at last slaughtered him and trampled his dead Corps into the mire and dust now at last he ceaseth from hatred is but angry with his poor reliques forgives him all the rest when he can do no more to him and forgivenes can do him no good Such tender mercies of Cruelty as the wise man terms them Pro. 12. 10. doth Mr. Baxter here ascribe unto God in his gracious dealings with beleevers for Christs sake viz. to persecute them with all the strokes of his wrath and all the Curses of the law all their life time sparing neither their body nor soul and at last with great indignation to destroy them and trample their bodies into the earth dust and rottennes yea and their souls whither he list and under what torment he list and after this so remarkeable is his love he will hate them no more but be angry with them still When they are dead and can offend no more and God hath inflicted upon them all his judgments that he can inflict no more now their sins shall be so pardoned that they shall suffer no more no more than all which they already suffer Who denies this to be the very quintessence of mercy and spirits of love when Mr. Baxter hath so defined it and held it forth to us as the most Celestiall comfort that we shall finde in death There is saith he no unpardoned sin in the death of beleevers that shall procure further judgement Where note 1 that he saith not simply and absolutely that there is no unpardoned sin upon the Saints now dead and buryed but no sin so unpardoned that it should bring further judgement than that which is already upon them And 2 That when he denyeth that their sin shall bring any further judgement upon them he doth not deny but rather imply their sins to be yet still unpardoned as to the holding those judgements upon them that are already inflicted A comfort that the Devills and reprobates in hell shall not want after the very day of judgment in the midst of their flames That there is none of their sinns so unpardoned as that it should bring any further judgment upon them But put we all together 1 That the beleever must bear the Curse even the whole man in body and soule also 2 That he shall not be delivered from this curse in soul and body untill the resurrection 3 That although death puts him into a freedom from further judgments yet it doth not at all deliver him from those that at death are inflicted upon soul and body How shall we now make up the matter If the whole man both soul and body must suffer and not be wholly freed untill the resurrection this is not fulfilled in the suffering of the body alone If the soul also untill then must suffer then is it not forthwith upon its seperation from the body exalted to Heaven for there is no suffering no affliction Neither doth it suffer in hell for Mr. Baxter exempteth thence all that persevere in the Faith according to his definition of faith untill death Where and whence then shall it suffer but in and from the fire of Purgatory And so there is no unpardoned sin upon beleevers after death that can procure to them any further judgment beyond this If Mr. Baxter meaneth not so it is his fault to write with so much ambiguity and so little plainnes and perspicuity as to toll us on to a strong Conjecture that he meaneth so and is in this as in the rest apostatized to the Papists 5 I might add also here that he seemes to joyn with the Papists in holding beleevers in an uncertainty of their salvation all their life long It is considerable that neither in his Aphorism nor in the whole explication therof nor in all his arguments by which he goeth about to prove beleevers under the Curse doth he once name any pardon of sin or freedom from further judgment which they attain untill after death and then when they have persevered to the end and dyed in Christ now he mentions and affirms it What doth Arg. 8 p. 71. this argue but that he would with the Papists have men to hope well but to be still
5. 24. 6. 35 40. 47. 7 38. 11. 25 26. 12. 46. Act. 10. 43. Rom. 3. 26. 4. 5. 5. 1 10. 4 10. 1 Jo. 5. 15. Mar. 1. 15. 6. 12. Luk. 13. 3. 5. 24. 47. Act. 5. 31. 11. 18. 20. 21. 2. 38. 3. 19. 8. 22. 26. 20. Rev. 2. 5 16. Heb. 6. 1. 2 Pet. 3. 9. Mr. Br having as he thinks laid prostrate the whole generation of Christ and antipapisticall beleevers under the Curse under the wrath of God sticks as close to them as the vulture to the carkas or the beetle to the doung or the flesh-fly to the sore For here again he concludes that the very Tenor of the New Covenant is that notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction made to the law they must remain unjustified unpardoned under sin under vengeance to the end and then possibly after many hundreds and it may be thousands of yeers wherein their bodies have laid under rottennes and their souls under all hell-torments which the law can inflict they shall be justified And this very probably shall be about that time when Origens reprobates and devills shall arise from hell and fly away thence all at once and together to heaven For whosoever is not justified and pardoned here in this life shall surely not attain it untill that St Nevers day of Origen But to this it hath been answered already He seems now to bring some new thing and that which every beleeving soul gaspeth to hear made out in its fullnes viz. What the Tenor of the New Covenant is viz. That whosoeve will repent and beleeve to the end shall be justified after the end When the Serpent hath got his head into the hole the body also by little and little followes Erewhile it was he that beleeveth to the end now it is he that repenteth to the end and beleeveth to the end that shall be after all ends and worlds justified Yet this is but the head and neck of the Serpent The bulk and belly are behinde and the same full of all the qualifications and good works that Mr. Br can devise or all the herds of Monks and Jesuits have devised to his hands These all must be according to Mr. Baxters Gospel as effectuall as faith or Christ himself to Justification I should but preoccupate a dispute here to examine whether repentance be one of the many thousand conditions of Justification which Mr. Br in the sequele of this Treatise holds necessary to Justification I shall therefore leave the handling thereof to its due place Onely by the way if by repentance Mr. Br here meaneth any thing heterogeneous or specifically distinct from faith I affirm and shall in its place make good that this his assertion is totally Popish against the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles As for the Scriptures which he doth here roll out in a Crowd without rank or file to prove it partly because he neither alleageth the words nor shews how he would argue from them partly because his shuffling them together in Clusters tends onely to make the labour of his answerer almost intolerable to shew particularly how little each Scripture makes for him and how much many of them against him partly because he doth still reserve to himself whatsoever be said in answer an advantage to evade by telling us that the force of that Scripture doth in another way and not in that to which we have answered prove for him but principally because he quotes the same Scriptures over and over again in another place more proper where it shall be more pertinent to answer them I shall therefore here forbear to speak to them lest I should there be forced to omit it or to say over again what had been here said before Nay himself will not have them to be answered here for he speaks so ambiguously that he will not have his meaning understood telling us onely that upon these Conditions forsooth performed we shall be justified in another world but doth not let us know from him whether upon performance of them we may be justified in the present world But he passeth to the explication Explication Bax. Christs satisfaction to the Law goes before the New Covenant though not in regard of its payment which was in the fullnes of time yet in regard of the undertaking acceptance and efficacy There could be no treating on new terms till the old obligation was satisfied and suspended I account them not worth the confuting who tell us that Christ is the onely party conditioned with and that the New Covenant as to us hath no conditions so Saltmarsh c. The place that they alleage for this assertion is that Jer. 31. 31 32 33. cited in Heb. 8. 8 9 10. Which place conteineth not the full tenor of the whole New Covenant but either it is called the New Covenant because it expresseth the nature of the benefits of the New Covenant as they are offered on Gods part without mentioning mans conditions that being not pertinent to the busines the Prophet had in hand Or els it speaketh onely what the Lord will do with his elect in giving them the first Grace and enabling them to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant and in that sense may be called a New Covenant also as I have shewed before p. 7 8. though properly it be a prediction and belong onely to Gods will of purpose and not to his legislative will But those men erroneously think that nothing is a condition but what is to be performed by our awn strength But if they will beleeve Scripture the places before alleaged will prove that the New Covenant hath Conditions on our part as well as the old Some benefit from Christ did the condemned here receive as the delay of their condemnation and many mere mercies though they turned them all into greater judgements but of this more when we treat of generall redemption I shall here propound some questions to Mr. Baxter about his own words to be answered by some of his Chaplains or Disciples For I am not so ambitious as to expect his stooping in person to so low an office 1 Whether Christs satisfaction to the law were undertaken and so virtually made without an agreement between the Father and the Son that the Son should give and the Father accept such satisfaction Mr. Br so great a Master of reason who hath sacrificed all his religion to reason can judge whether this could rationally if possibly be done 2 If by agreement whether this agreement was not by way of Covenant between the Father and the Son and so whether the whole busines of mans justification were not transacted and concluded upon first between the Father and the Son 3 Whether Christ undertook to give satisfaction or the Father to accept it for any other besides those that in time have or shall have the full benefit thereof I mean besides the elect whom
Covenant and that pretious Gospell promise He that beleeveth in the Son shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life so I affirm faith to be both Gods and Mans instrument Gods effective and mans receptive instrument in relation to justification as shall be beneath more fully explained First it is Gods instrument This justification is but Gods pronouncing and declaring a man to his own conscience to be just and discharged from sin and condemnation through Christ so that he perceives and apprehends himself absolved and doth acquiesce in this absolution One chief instrument by which God doth thus justifie or declare and manifest man to himself just and pardoned is faith This is Gods instrument in the same sense in which Mr. Baxter maketh the promise and grant of the new Covenant to be Gods instrument and that more fully as I in part shewed before For that grant doth but declare a possibility to a man as it is considered by it self to be justifyed promising forgivenesse and life to all that shall beleeve By this act alone no singular person is actually justifyed But now this grant premised when God is pleased to infuse faith into the soul of any singular person by it as by his instrument he declareth that person to himself just and acquitted from condemnation so that he can thenceforth plead out his own justification God hath pronounced them all just and pardoned which beleeve in his Son I so beleeve therefore I am pronounced and declared of God just and pardoned So this faith is the instrument of God for so Lawyers term Deeds and Grants in writing instruments yea instruments of him that makes the Deed or Grant And the promise of the new Covenant or the new Testament is called novum Instrumentum as it is his evidence written not without the man as that Gospell grant but by the finger of Gods Spirit in the hearts of the Elect so that they may read this instrument of Gods writing within their hearts evidencing and manifesting to themselves their justification from God And this is one principall instrument and evidence of God promised under the new Covenant Jer. 31. 31-35 recited as now fulfilled by the Apostle Heb. 8. 8-12 10. 16 17. I will write my Lawes in their hearts c. what Law but the rule doctrine and evidence of life and salvaâ—ion But what benefit by having it written within them more then if it were in writing without them Yes this They shall not need externall teaching to know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest What knowledg of God was this whereupon they should not need teachers They shall know him to be their God their Justifyer their Saviour for so much intimate the next words For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more This was one chief part of the Law or will of God written in their hearts justification or everlasting remission of sins This they should not need to be taught from without the instrument of writing or evidence thereof should be within their own hearts apparent not to others but their own reading And what more principall evidence or instrument of writing within our hearts thus to assure us then our faith engraven by Gods own hand in us I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself whether I wrest this Scripture from its proper sense or if any shall except against me I doubt not but I shall make it good to be the minde of the holy Ghost which I have here given To the same purpose is it that Faith is called the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Whose evidence Gods evidence given us by which he declareth to us and manifesteth to our consciences the invisible things of our justification and salvation and when given then our evidence also by which we not only apprehend but also plead against all the accusations of the Law yea of sin and Satan our actuall justification And that it is called the witnesse of God in us or within us because God by this witnesse as his instrument declares and evidenceth us to our own consciences justifyed 1 Joh. 5. 10. Secondly It is mans instrument by which he applyeth to himself and without which he cannot applie to himself this justification and remission of the new Covenant to know and be sensible of it that he may rest and rejoyce in it being justifyed in himself i. e. in his own knowledge and conscience God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5. 19. Reconciliation and Justification as hath been shâ—wed are one and the same thing That we may receive it therefore from him in Christ he gives us as many as are his Elect this living faith as an instrument by which he may apply it and bring it home into our bosomes Therefore is the operation of the soul by faith set forth in the Scripture by a comparison of a mans working by the severall members of the body as by his instruments Calling Faith sometimes the eâ—e of man by which he looketh to Christ crucifyed as the Israelites to the brazen Serpent thence to obtain cure to the wounded and poysoned soul Joh. 3. 14 15. Sometimes the fooâ— of the soul by which it runs and comes to Christ for life and justification Joh. 5. 40. Sometimes the hand of the soul by which it apprehendeth Christ and the justification that is in and by him To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to as many as beleeve in his Name Joh. 1. 12. Sometimes the mouth of the soul by which it eateth and drinketh in Christ with the life that is in him both to justifie and sanctifie He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2. 3. Sometimes the armes of the soul by which it embraceth and holdeth in possession Christ with his life and righteousnesse He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Sâ—n hath not life 1 Joh. 5. 12. What doth all this imply lesse then that faith is instrumentall to our justification Yea given to us to be the sole instrument on our part by which to apply to our selves the justification offered by God in Christ Or what else is meant by the generall voice of the Gospell pronouncing us to be justifyed by faith but by faith Gods instrument and evidence to declare and manifest it to our souls and our instrument to apprehend and hold it fast and firm to our selves It remaineth now to examin Mr. Baxters reasons by which he assayeth to prove that it is neither mans nor Gods instrument First that it is not mans instrument he thus argueth B. Not mans instrument for he is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself Both this and all that which followeth in this his dispute
Wherefore puts he the soul for the man but to cheat in stead of informing his reader If any say faith is the instrument of the soul he speaks by a Synecdoche putting the part the chief essentiall part of man for the whole man after the common use of the Scriptures and why may not the severall faculties of the soul be as well mans instruments as the severall members of the body It is not unproper to call the eye the instrument by which man seeth or his ear the instrument of hearing or the the tongue of speaking or the hand of working c. and why should it be then unproper to call the faculties of the soul the instruments of man to act those offices by each faculty to which each faculty is appropriated Or when faith is infused into the soul doth it disinstrument the faculties thereof that they become no more instrumentall to man in their places Nay it makes them instrumentall to work henceforth upon spirituall as before upon naturall and morall objects And this also answereth his second reason why the habit of faith cannot fitly be called our instrument because saith he the holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument I grant it but this is not the question That which he was to disprove is that faith makes not the faculties of the soul into which it is infused instrumentall to the applying of Christ to justification The Compasse is the Mariners instrument by which to steer his ship yet would it be nothing instrumentall to this purpose were it not touched with the Loadstone that points it to the North-pole so are the will and understanding instrumentall to the receiving of Christ and justification in and by him not by any innate power in themselves but as they are touched and pointed directly by faith to the bloud of Christ for justification as to the doctrine of Christ for illumination and to the Spirit of Christ for sanctification And for this cause we call not so much the faculty of the soul the instrument as faith because faith makes it instrumentall to justification The power and disposition which it hath to this act being not naturall from it self but supernaturall from faith infused into it and working on it In stead of answering in order to every particle of what he addeth it shall suffice to discover his Sophistry by which he seeketh to elude a sacred truth of the Gospell in all that he saith upon this Argument and this will be enough in answer to all that he saith yea manifest him unworthy of an answer As before he first maketh all the instrumentality or causality whether proper or improper of faith to consist in the act of faith or faith actuated as if the Chirurgeons instruments were not his instruments while they lie by him but then only while he actually useth them in the severall offices to which they are appointed and faith were no longer an instrument if an instrument of justification then while it is actually receiving Christ and so the same man should be justifyed and unjustifyed oft in the same day in the same hour being no longer justifyed then while faith is in the act of applying Christ And 2. In contracting the whole man yea Christian into a soul as if we did make such a faculty of the soul the souls and not the mans instrument to receive Christ which himself knoweth to be the meaning of no one of them against whom he fighteth but a slanderous and subtle trick of his own devising to make their doctrine seem absurd in an alien sense which in their own sense he can in no wise confute So 3. Here he further sophisticateth and perverteth their doctrine in contracting the whole man not only into a soul which he had done before but into some one or two faculties of the soul into which faith is infused and inherent as in its subject as if they taught that faith is the instrument of a faculty and not mans instrument The holinesse of the faculties is not their i. e. the faculties instrument saith he but themselves rectifyed The absurdities therefore which he infers as consequents of such an assertion are the consequents of his slander not of their doctrine None ever taught faith to be the instrument of a faculty or instrumentall to justifie a facultie but mans instrument and nstrumentall to justifie man 4. In supposing it as a thing granted that faith in the soul or faculties of the soul is nothing but the holinesse of such faculties or their being rectifyed and not a being distinct so distinct as may be called their instrument a doctrine well agreeing with his principles who makes sanctification the condition of justification and no further attributes any thing to faith but as it is a part of our sanctification Pag. 195. n. 5 6. and thorowout this whole Treatise but altogether denied by the Protestant Churches which ascribe not to faith any instrrumentality to justification as it is a part of our holinesse and rectitude but as by a supernaturall virtue which it infuseth into the soul to carry it out to Christ to God in Christ for remission and reconciliation Otherwise godlinesse hope love meeknesse and all other the fruits of the Spirit should justifie us equally with faith because the holinesse and rectitude of the soul consisteth no lesse in these then in faith And this is the thing in question if we grant it all is granted which the worst of Jesuites seeks or Mr. Baxter in this whole book contends for so that to make the whole thing in question a known and granted conclusion from which he will prove a particle in question is too grosse and un Baxterlike a Sophism he is wont to spin finer webs what make such course threads in his fingers And why saith he Not so distinct is faith a being distinct from the faculty in which it is Even this that it is a being distinct from the essence of man speaks it capable of an instrumentality to mans justification especially God having appointed and fitted it to that end much more of being an instrument in generall for mans use which is all that Mr. Baxter should have denyed when he denies it to be the faculties instrument 5. In reiterating the soul for the whole man and annexing captious words to it Who ever called habits or dispositions the souls instruments Thus he playes the Sophister to make the instrumentality of faith ridiculous as if we affirmed it instrumentall to justification quatenus as it is and only in this respect because it is a habit or disposition of the soul when contrariwise we ascribe this power and office to it as it is a virtue or gift of grace endewed with this property from the author of it to cleave to Christ and draw forth the soul with it to Christ for justification as hath been before expressed and in this office it hath no other habit power or disposition of the soul naturall or infused
the integrity and purity of its celestiall endowments Without spot if this be but half Christ which is the other half 2 Or because he understands by whole Christ Christ in the fruits of all his offices as is most probable whether he will deny them to receive whole Christ which apply not all the severall Acts and Fruits of his severall offices to one and the same end but to severall ends to which his wisedom hath appropriated them Suppose a son of some Luke that is a Physician a Minister of the Gospel and a Father in his Family If the sayd son shall make use of the Acts and Fruits of all these Offices of his Father not at all to one end but to the severall ends to which they are proper of his Art and Physick to cure his diseased body of his Gospel-doctrine to illuminate his understanding and heal his wounded soul and of his provision of victuals to preserve his life and nourish his body and not of physick word and bread together for one and the same the nutriment of his body shall this man therefore be said not to own and receive his whole Father but half of him Even so the Offices of Christ are various and his actings in them tend to various ends some to our quickning som to our enlightning some to our justification some to our sanctification c. Do I take but half Christ because I apply not all the Actings and Fruits of all his Offices to my Justification only and none of them to the other honourable ends to which he hath appointed them who can bear the absurdity 3 Whether it be possible for any man according to the rule and tenor of the Gospel by a lively faith to apply to himself the satisfaction of Christs death and yet to remain unpardoned and unjustified or for such a one to abide unspiritualliz'd and unsanctfied If not then the reason why the multitude which profes they trust Christ for the saving of their souls as Mr B. is pleasd to phrase it do remain unjustified is because they profess but have not a lively faith in his death and not as Mr. Br. saith for want of I know not what Moral Theological decompounded phantastical sincerity consisting in laying hold on the half of Christ i. e. either his wounded and not his whole parts or Christ the Mediator not the Mediator Christ I can no better distinguish his meaning sith himself hath refused to do it Of the same nature is that which he hath pag. 328. B. Though some thinke nothing is preaching Christ but preaching him as a pardoning justifying Saviour Indeed among the Turks and Indians that entertain not the Gospell it is necessary to preach his pardoning office yea and the verity of his Natures and Commission Therefore when the Apostles preached to Jews and Pagans they did first and chiefly teach them the person and offices of Christ and the great benefits which they might receive by him But when they preach as James to be professors of the Christian Faith they chiefly urge them to strive to enter to fight that they may conquer to run that they may obtain to lay violent hands upon the Kingdom c. Either all this relates to Justification or it is meer babble in the Ayr sound without sense or substance as much to his purpose as was his that trudged about all the Town from shop to shop to buy two penny-worth of Circumstance for the cure of his tooth-ach For his quere is whether our Doctrine which teacheth Justification by faith without works do not confirm men in their soul-cozening Faith If all doth relate to justification then let him that can find help me without help I cannot find as much as a grain of reason in all or any part of it such reason at least as befits Mr. Br. who grounds all his Religion upon reason To the first Clause I stand stupified not knowing how to preach Christ to justification but as Christ the Justifier to pardon but as Christ the pardoner or to salvation but as Christ the Saviour Should I preach him as a condemner to justification as an unpardoning Judg to salvation As to his justifying me as he is a Law-giver either there hath been wanting something in Mr. B. dexteriry of teaching or in my docility to apprehend I am yet to be taught this lesson All that he hath said hitherto hath made it but odious and absurd and here hee saith no more to perfect it To that which follows the absurdity of it doth enough confute it self Who can endure to hear that the Apostles when they preached to Jewes and Pagans did and we if we should be sent to preach to the Turks and Indians must first preach Christ alone to justification and so generate in them a soul-ct zening faith But when once they become professors of the Christian Faith then the Apostles did and we must teach them better urging them no longer to cozen their souls with faith in Christ the Saviour but by their own works to justifie and save themselves He that delights in such a Gospel let him be Mr. B. disciple It seems he is angry with James for not helping him erewhile in his great exigency that he singles out him from all the Apostles to father him with this intolerable doctrine But whether James give him herein any relief hath been before examined As for the rest of the Apostles let Paul give the Testimony for himself and them There is one Lord and Mediator Christ Jesus one Faith one Baptisme one Lord and Father of all Ephe. 4. 5. 1 Tim 2. 5. Not two Christs and two Faiths one to cozen at first and the other to save the soul afterward If Paul or an Angell from heaven should preach any other Gospell then what you have heard from me at first while Pagans let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. Therefore many years after the Romans and Galathians had been professors of the Christian faith he seeks to root them fast by faith alone in Christ and not to start from their first principles reducing such as went a whoring after works to help faith in justifying them pronouncing them accursed and Apostates from Christ that should so fall off from their first liberty in Christ That all obedience yea faith in Christ to all obedience vertue and good works is to be preached and urged upon them that profess the Christian faith is so true that he is but a maimed preacher of Christ that doth it not but all to sanctification not to justification This is the true Preacher of Christ that preacheth Christ to good works not works to win Christ that seeks to bring us into Marriage-union with Christ that we may bring forth fruit to God Rom. 7. 4. Not that we should bring forth bastard-fruit from another that we may be married to Christ But this is not Mr. Brs. business he speaks of fruit to justification To conclude what I have to say to this