also of the objec as an offered good besides the understandings Assent to the Truth of the word which offereth it The former is by the Apostle oft distinguished from Love and is said to work by Love as the lively acts of the understanding produce answerable motions in the will But the later is that faith which justifieth to wit The Receiving of an offered Christ And this comprizeth both the Act of the Understanding and Will as almost all Protestant Divines affirm But both these acts together are called Faith from the former which is most strictly so called because the great difficulty then lay in Believing the Truth of the Gospel and would do still if it were not for the advantages of Credit Education Custom c. therefore the whole work is thence denominated though yet the compleating of the work be in the Will and the Understandings Act but preparatory thereto 2. You must also distinguish between Love to Christ the Mediator and the Grace of Charity in general as it is extended al so to God as Creator to Saints to all men c. And between that first act of Love which is in our first receiving of Christ and the love which we afterwards exercise on him and so I answer you 1. That as the Apostle distinguisheth between Faith Hope and Love So do I. 2. Faith taken strictly for assent to Divine Testimony produceth love in every one of the forementioned senses of the word Love 3. Justifying faith comprizing the wills acceptance produceth both the grace of Charity as it is exercised on other objects and also the following acts of it towards Christ the Mediator And so I acknowledge that Faith worketh by Love and that Love is not faith But yet whether Love be not in some sense essential to justifying faith if you speak only of Love to Christ and that not as a distinct grace but as it is comprized in our Acceptance of him at first I shall leave to your consideration when you have first resolved these things 1. Whether justifying faith be not an act of the Will as well as the Understanding Few but Papists deny it and not all of them 2. Whether Christ himself be not the object of it Few Protestants will deny it 3. Whether Good be not the object of the Will and so Christ be not willed as Good None doubts of it 4. Whether this willing be not the same as Loving as love is found in the rational appetite Sure Aquinas saith so no man that I know contradicting it 5. Whether you can call Affiance or any other act of the will justifying faith excluding this willing or not principally including it For 1. This is the Wills first act towards it object and will you say that Love goes before justifying faith and so before Justification and such a Love as is distinct from justifying faith as being no part of it How then is Love the fruit of faith and as Divines say a consequent of Justification Yet it is beyond all doubt that this Velle or Love to Christ goes before Affiance on him or any other act of the Will vide Aquin. 1.2 Q. 23. a. 33. Et. 1. Q. 20. a. 1 Et Tolet de anima l. 3. cap. 9. Q. â—7 28 Et Ames contra Gravinchou pag. 16. 2. And can it be imagined that preceding assent and subsequent Affiance in Christ should be conditions of our Justification and yet the Velle Christum oblatum that Willing which we call Consent Election or Acceptance which goeth between assent and Affiance should be excluded as no part of this condition 3. Especially considering that Affiance contains divers acts whereof one is of the Irascible of the sensitive and so is but an imperate act of the Will and less noble then that elicite Act which I plead for as well as Posterior to it and if Aquin. be not out in his Philosophy when he so oft saith that fiducia is spes roborata then our Divines make Hope to justifie Yet for all this I have not espoused this saying that Love to Christ is Essential to justifying faith nor will contend with any man that thinks it unmeet if we agree in the things of moment I hate to quarrel about words Nor do I think it a meet phrase to say we are justified by Love though in the sense before mentioned I think it true because it is but a part or affection as it were of that reception by which we are justified and stands not in so full a relation to the object received And yet if I had said none of all this I see not that I need any more then to deny your consequence as being wholly ungrounded For it followeth not that if it be an essential part that therefore it must have the Denomination of the whole yea though the whole be said to work by that part The Brain and Heart are essential parts of the Body and yet not to be called the Body and it is more proper to say that the body works by the Brain or Heart or that the vegetative soul doth work by the natural heat and Spirits then to say the Body worketh by the Body or the vegetative soul by it self I will explain all together in my usual Similitude which is Dr. Prestons or rather Pauls A condemned Beggar is offered a Pardon and also to be made a Queen if she will but take the Prince for her Husband Now here put your Questions 1. Is Love any part of the Condition of her Pardon and Dignity Answer Yes An essential part for Consent is of the Essence of it and Love is essential to true consent to receive any offered good Not love as it is a Passion but as it is an act of the rational Appetite which is but Velle And Eligere Consentire Acceptare are nothing else but a respective Willing 2. But it is not Love as a Vertue in general or as exercised on any other object which is this essential part of the Condition but only love to him whom she marrieth And so her first love is necessary to her Pardon and Dignity as begun and her continued love and marriage-faithfulness is necessary to them as they are to be continued supposing the Prince to know the heart as Christ doth Qu. 2. Is it then a meet phrase to say that she is pardoned and dignified by loving such a Prince Answ It hath some Truth in it but it is not a fit speech but rather that it is by marrying him because Love is but a part or as it were an Affection of that Marriage Covenant or consent which indeed doth dignifie her Love may be without marriage but not Marriage cordially without Love So in our present case justifying faith is the very Marriage Consent or Covenant with Christ It is therfore fitter to say we are justified by it then by love because the former expresseth the full condition the latter not Qu. 3. If love be an essential part of the
soul on Christ for Righteousness I doubt not as it intendeth Affiance but it is as Perkins Dr. Downam Rob. Baronius c. say a fruit Of faith strictly taken rather then faith it self but if you take faith in a larger sence as the Gospel not seldom doth and against which I am no adversary so Affiance is part of faith it self But that it is the whole of that faith I shall never believe without stronger Arguments where you say Its the receiving Christ as the hand embraceth any Object I answer 1. I am glad you here grant Christ himself to be the Object 2. If you mean as verily as the hand c. So I grant it if a moral receiving may be properly said to be as true as a physical But if you mean By a Physical Contact and Reception as the hand doth c. then I am far from believing that ever Christ or our Assembly so meant or ever had so gross a thought Where you say I take it not the in sence as the Scripture words imply I answer When I see that manifested I shall believe it When it is said John 1. He came to his own and his own received him not 1. Is it meant they took him not in their hands or received not his Person into their houses the later is true But 1. Only in a second place but their hearts were the first Receptacle 2. Else those were no Unbelievers where Christ never came in person And that had no houses 3. And that receiving cannot belong to us that never saw him nor to any since his Ascension 2. Or is it the Intellective Reception of his species I trow not I have said enough of that before 3. Or is it a moral Reception of him as thus and thus related volendo eligendo consentiendo diligendo pardon this last it is but the qualification of the rest consequenter fidendo I think this is it If you can find a fourth way you will do that which was never done to my knowledge and then you will be a Novellist as well as I. For your next expressions I answer to them that you do truly apprehend that I am loth to seem to recede from others and as loth to do it but magis amica veritas And I cannot believe what my list nor like those that can By which you may truly know that I do it not out of affectation of singularity as he knoweth that knoweth my heart nor intend to be any instrument of division in the Church And if my assertions are destructive of what others deliver it is but what some men and not what all deliver Not against the Assembly nor many learned Divines who from several parts of the Land have signified to me their Assent besides all those great names that appear for me in print But you tell me that I may not build on some Homilitical popular expressions in any mans books Answer Let me again name to you but the men I last named and try whether you will again so entitle their writings The first and chief is Dr. Preston who was known to be a man of most choice notions and so Judged by those that put out his books and his credit so great in England that he cracks his own that seeks to crack it And his Sermons were preached before as judicious an Auditory at least as your Lectures and yet you defend your own expressions Yea it is not once nor twice not five times only but almost through all his Books that Dr. Preston harpeth upon this string as if it were the choisest notion that he intended to disclose Yea it is in his very Definition of faith as justifying and Dr. Preston was no homiletical Definer I can produce the like Testimony of Dr. Stoughton two as great Divines in my esteem as most ever England or the world bred Another is Mr. Wallis Doubtless Sir no homiletical popular man in Writing nor could you have quickly bethought you of an English Book that less deserves those attributes His words are these I assent not to place the saving Act of faith either with Mr. Cotton as his Lordship cites him in the laying hold of or assenting to that Promise c. nor yet in a particular application of Christ to my self in assurance or a believing that Christ is mine c. But I choose rather to place it in an act of the Will then in either of these forenamed acts of the Vnderstanding It is an Accepting of Christ offered rather then an Assenting to a proposition affirmed To as many as received him c. that is to them that believe in his name John 1. God makes an Offer of Christ to all else should not Reprobates be condemned for not accepting of him as neither the Devils are because he was not offered to them Whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely Rev. 22.17 Whereupon the believing soul replies I will and so takes him When a Gift is offered to me that which maketh it to be mine is my Acceptation c. If you call this taking of Christ or confenting that Christ shall be my Saviour a Depending a Resting or relying on Christ for salvation if you speak of an act of the Will it is all one for Taking of Christ to be my Saviour and committing my self to Christ to be saved is the same Both of them being but a consenting to this Covenant I will be your God and you shall be my People c. And if you make this the saving Act of faith then will Repentance so far as it is distinct from Faith be a consequent of it Confidence also c. Thus Mr. Wallis is clear that the Nature of Faith is the same that I have affirmed and in no popular Sermon but in his Truth tryed pag. 94 95. And on these grounds he well answers Bellarmines Dilemma which else will be but shiftingly answered The next is Mr. Norton of New England a man judged one of their best Disputants or else they would not have chose him to encounter Apollonius And will you call his very Definition of Faith in an accurate Catechism an homiletical popular expression What then in the whole world shall escape that censure His Words are Quest What is justifying Faith Answ It is a saving grace of the Spirit flowing from Election whereby the soul receiveth Jesus Christ as its Head and Saviour according as he is revealed in the Gospel I subscribe to this Definition from my heart The next cited was Mr. Culverwell not in any popular Sermon but in a solid well approved Treatise of Faith and not in common passages but his very definition of faith pag. 13.17 and after all concludes pag. 19. Thus we see that the very nature of faith consisteth in the true Acceptation of Christ proclaimed in the Gospel The next I cited about the Definition of faith was Mr. Throgmorton who in his accurate Treatise of Faith and not in any
it is not by Assent properly or fully that we receive Christ So Amesius ubi supra § 19. Crediturus etiam porro cum ex miseriae sensu omnimoâ—ae liberationis cum in se tum in aliis defectu necesse habeat se dedere Deo in Christo tanquam Servatori sufficienti fideli Deditionem istam facere non potest ullo modo per Assensum Intellectus sed per Consensum Voluntatis And indeed I think this Dedition or self-delivery to be part of Faith and that the covenanting in heart with God in Christ is the very justifying faith taking him for ours and giving up our selves to him as his and the external Covenanting is the profession of Faith and that Baptism is the marriage-solemnization and engaging sign and means 6. That Act which cannot be discerned in a Saint in it self from what may be in the wicked is not the receiving of Christ fully or properly which justifies But the Act of Assent to the Truth of the Gospel as it is in a Saint cannot in it self be discerned from what may be in the wicked Therefore the Act of Assent is not the Receiving of Christ which justifies The Major is hence evident In that justifying faith being the condition of our Justification must needs be the great Mark to know by whether we are justified or no But if it could not be known to be sincere it self in vain is it made a Mark to know our state by yea or a Condition almost when a man can never tell when he performeth it The Minor I have endeavoured to prove in an Additional Chap. to the third part of my Book of Rest to which for brevity I refer you Dr. Stoughton I have there shewed you saith as I Aâ—esius saith Medul l. 1. c. ◠§ 4. quaÌ„vis fides praesuppmat semper notitiaÌ„ Evangelii nulla tamen datur in quoquaÌ„ cognitio salutifera ab illa quo in quibusdam non salvandis reperitur diversa nifâ— consequenter ad actum istuÌ„ voluntatis ab ipso dependens Job 7.17 and 8.31.32 1 John 2.3 I doubt not but in the Intensness of Degree there is a difference between the Intellectual acts as Knowledge and Assent in a Saint and a wicked man but if any think that they are in themselves discernable I would he would tell me one Mark of the difference In their different Effects on the Will I know they are discernable 7. If you acknowledge that other Graces receive Christ as well as Faith and receiving of Christ doth make him ours and so justifie then you must acknowledge that other Graces justifie as well as faith yea not secondarily only but as Principally as Faith But that you will be loth to do The consequence will not be avoided but by shewing that there is a twofold receiving of Christ and that one justifieth and the other not which when you have proved from Scripture I will yield but then at least I shall gain this that receiving Christ justifies not properly ex natura actus sed ex voluntate Ordinantis and if I get that I get the main part of the cause in controversie 8. Affiance is judged by Divines to be an Act of the Will But Affiance is judged by the same Divines to be the justifying Act Therefore they judge that the justifying Act and consequently the Reception of Christ belongs to the Will 9. The Velle or Elicite act of the Will which I insist on is the very first Act and goes before Affiance as it denotes any other Act of the Will Therefore either this Velle must be the justifying Faith and Reception of Christ or else they must say that there is a saving reception of Christ that goes before the justifying or Reception which sure they will not grant that make that Faith the actus primas vitae spiritualis 10. Lastly The opinion seems to me so Improbable without and against reason and so dangerous that God doth assign one only Act of the soul to the Office of justifying especially the act of assent that I dare not entertain it without proof It is improbable that in a Moral Political Theological Matter the Holy Ghost should speak as if it were in the strictest discourse of Physicks It is improbable that God should speak to man in such a Moral discourse so as no men use to speak and therefore so as men could not without a further explication understand Doth he that speaks of receiving a man to be our Husband King Master c. mean it of one only Act though I know Consent is the chief Or he that gives any great matter on Condition of such Receiving Doth he mean that any one single Act is that Condition Much less Assent Or is there any likelyhood that when other Acts do receive the same Object Christ in a way of as high honouring him that yet God should confine Justification to one Act setting by all the rest Yea when the rest are acknowledged to be part of the Condition and Receiving as Lord to be the fides quae I know God is not bound to give man a Reason of his Laws but yet he usually doth it and we must take heed of asserting that to be Gods Law which appears unreasonable till we can prove what we say Yea what a dangerous loss will Christians then be at who will hardly ever be able to find out this single Act what it is and when they have it And he that knows how quick Spirits are in their actings and withall how little able we are to observe and discern them perhaps many doubt whether you can find a name for any single act of a soul or know when it is one Act and when many In the forementioned Instance A woman is condemned for Treason the Prince writeth to her that he hath dearly paid her Ransom will not only deliver her but also make her his Queen if she will Believe this and Receive him accordingly If now the Lawyers should dispute the case what single act it was that she was Delivered and Dignified by whether an act of the Intellect only or of the Will only whether Assent only or Affiance Yea whether agendo vel patiendo as many here do would not men think that learning made them dote And I would entreat you to consider whether it were Gods Design in the Gospel to advance any one Act of mans soul above the rest and so to honour it or rather to advance the Lord Jesus whom faith Receiveth as Mr. Gataker tels Salâ—marsh Many speak dangerously in over-magnifying their own faith when they should magnifie Christ whom it relates to I know the great thing that sticks with some is that the Scripture oft seems to describe faith by the Act of Assenting But consider so it doth in other places by Trusting Resting Taking Receiving Coming Eating and Drinking which Metaphors must needs signifie acts of the Will c. which shew that it is not any single