These things the Scriptures teach not They teach that Christ is our righteousnes Pembl of Justif ca. 2. pag. 41. and that we are justified by his bloud and obedience But that he hath merited by his obedience that we should be justified by our own Righteousness and Obedience is a perverse assertion of men that love to run about the bush and leaving the streight to run into crooked and froward wayes Like to theirs is Mr. Brs dispute here and no less than they deserving the same censure The Holy Ghost Calls upon us for a Faith to Justification that Consisteth in taking and receiving Mr. Brs distinctions for a Faith that Consisteth in dooing and performing The Holy Ghost in the dispensation of Gospel-grace saith Take Freely Rev. 22. 17. Mr. Brs distinction presseth upon us to give all or we shall receive nothing The one saith Without money and without price Isa 55. 1. The other makes all our hopes to depend upon our payments and rents How apparent is it that the spirit of bondage that speaketh in Mr. Br is a Spirit of a contrary nature to the Spirit of Liberty that speaketh in the Gospel He should not abuse the Scripture that shall say to Mr. Br what Peter said to Simon the Magician Act. 8. 20. Thy money thy pepper-corn perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money with pepper-cornes But in stead of saying so against him I shall pray for him CHAP. XVII That Popish Luciferian doctrine of the Perfection and Merits of mans inherent Righteousness to Justification here taught by Mr. Br. examined To which is added something in answer to what he bringeth about the Justification first of the person and then of his works and of the possibility of performing this perfect meritorious Righteousness Bax. Thesis 24. p. 129. THis personall Gospel Righteousness is in its kinde a perfect Righteousness and so far we may admit the doctrine of personall perfection Thesis 26. p. 137. Neither can our performance of the conditions of the Gospel in the most proper and strict sense be sayd to merit the reward seeing there is nothing in the value of it or any benefit that God receiveth by it which may so entitle it meritorious Neither is there any proportion between it and the Reward But in a larger sense as promise is an obligation and the thing promised is called Debt so the performers of the Condition are called worthy and their performance merit though properly it is all of Grace and not of Debt Rom. 4. 4 10. 5. 15 16 17. Hos 14. 4. Mat. 10. 8. Rom. 3. 24. 8. 32. 1 Cor. 2. 12. Rev. 21. 6. 22. 18. Rom. 11. 6. Gal. 5. 4. Eph. 2. 5 7 8. Gen. 32. 10. Matth. 10. 11 12 13 37. 22. 8. Luk. 20. 35. 21. 36. 2 Thes 1. 5. 11. Rev. 3. 4. c. I joyn these two together because of their affinity either to other and annex them to the former viz. the 23 Thesis because of their dependance on it standing or falling with it there being no new thing in substance but in degrees onely here asserted In the 23 Thes he had asserted a personall Righteousness of our own necessary and effectuall to Justification Here least he should seem a younger Brother to any of the Jesuites he mounts himself Check-mate with the worst of them in his gradations affirming that Righteousness of our own to Justification Thes 24. to be a perfect Righteousness and Thes 26. a Meritorious Righteousness Hath any of the most zealous Children of Babylon raised his scaffolds higher to exalt the pinacles thereof to a more stupendous height There shall not be need of speaking much by way of answer to him in these positions and their explications For he doth here build Chimaera's upon Chimaera's and nothings upon nothing We deny and so do all the true Churches of Christ any such personall Righteousness of man as righteousness necessary or required to Justification affirming that every imagination of such righteousness as effectuall or ordeined to justifie is a monster begotten of the pride of mens hearts which in the midst of all their gawdy knowledge never experimentally knew Christ or the operation of that justification which is by Christ alone upon their Consciences Neither hath Mr. Br brought any one reason worth a rush to prove such a Righteousness So these two positions are answered in the last before it There being no such righteousness the blinde man may see that No righteousness cannot be either a perfect or meritorious Righteousness The subject Righteousness being evaporated the accidents thereof perfect and Meritorious are turned to vapours with it The Adjects stand not where the subject is dissolved It can be but an imaginary dress that is put on upon a meerly imaginary body Yet I shall look after Mr. Br in his imaginations if peradventure there fall from him any thing here and there deserving an animadversion In the Explication of the 24 Thesis he spends two whole pages viz. 130 131 in spitting of wit and playing with his imaginary perfection of personall Righteousness unto Justification as with a shuttle-cock here I hit you there I missed you there you were mine here I came short of you and when he hath taken his fill of this game in the last line of pag. 131. and so forward in the next page confesseth that all this is nothing to his meaning or purpose and yet is it full to it Nothing to his purpose or meaning in reference to the explication much less to the proving of a personall righteousness required to Justification or a perfection of such a righteousness yet full to his purpose to delight and allure to him such as have nimble wits but dull Consciences how should these but run after him finding more wit and art in these two pages of his than ever they met with in all the doctrine of the dull Apostles and Prophets though they should add to them their Master also Well Haec non successit alia aggrediamur via That which he hath said is not home to his meaning But that which he saith next shall come home to it And what saith he Nihil quod non dictum est priùs Onely that which he had said before once and again Holines is a quality Righteousness is not so but the Modification of our Acts as to the Rule viz. to the Rule of the New Covenant in point of Justification Here is nothing but what was said before and hath been answered before in our Examination of the Explication of the former Thesis But he adds which is not varyed secundum magis minùs alleaging Schibl Metaph. li. 2. ca. 9. Tit. 7. Art 2. His word Which I conceive he will have to relate not to the Rule which was the next Antecedent for this serves nothing to his purpose but to the more remote Antecedent which he calls the Modification of our Acts or
of all Christs Apostles Christ was annointed with the Spirit to preach the Gospel to the poor Luke 4. 18. Isa 61. 1. And had received from the Lord God the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary Isa 50. 4. This mans Spirit carries him aloft in the Aire to clowd the Gospel from the poor and to darken with his vaporous Sophistry the things which God hath hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes and useth the tongue of the learned to amaze and intangle not to refresh the weary Paul descended from all excellency of speech and of wisedom to the capacity or rather incapacity of the weak Christians in the Ministry of the Gospel 1 Cor. 2. 1 2. and fed the babes with milk 1 Cor 3. 1 2. And even then when he spake wisedom to the perfect because perfect it was not the wisedome of the World or of the Princes for learning of the World but the Mysterious and hidden wisedom of God and this he spake also not in the words which mans wisedome teacheth which the subtile Sâ—phistâ—rs made uâ—â— of but which the Holy Gost teacheth comparing spirirituall things with spirituall 1. Cor 2. 6 7. 13. This man casting away the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and useth in the holy Scriptures sends his poore lambes to feed and seek spiritual pasture in the thorny Copses of his Master Aristotle and his Saint Suarez Saint Vasques Saint Fonseca's Metaphysicks and Metaphysical Jesuitical Divinity or in Seraphical Scotus his Quodlibetary learning all which understood just so much of the Spirit and mystery of the Gospel in this greatest point of Gospel Doctrine Justification as the unlearned people of Kederminster do of this and the like peeces of this tractate of Mr. Baxter As for the matter it self he that understands it not shall be as much endoctrined by it as he that understands it For my own part I professe I see nothing in it of any more force to refute the opinion which he here opposeth Eternal Justification or Justification as an immanent Act in God than there is in a Peacocks Feather to dash out all the teeth of a Lion For should wee grant to him all that he here saith the thing in question onely excepted That immanent in God must be understood not Positively but Negatively for that Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause that Gods justifying a man when he believeth argues no change in God any more than is found in the Sunne glasse or eye by the variety of creatures faces colours set before them as he mentioneth what of all this What will he conclude at length against that which he saith Doctor Twisse maketh the Major of his Argument vizt That all immanent Acts in God are from Eternity will he deny it Nay but distrusting the weaknesse of his reasoning he doth rather grant it But grant saith he that all Gods immanent Acts are eternal which yet I think is quite beyond our understanding to know This is the result of all his Argumentation as to the Major It is true notwithstanding any thing I have said or can say against it onely I think it is beyond our understanding to judge whither it be universally true or no. As to the Minor of Doctor Twisse his Argument vizt That Remission and Iustification are Immanent Acts he disputes with as little dexterity as to the Major Most Divines saith he will deny the Minor and tell you that they are but transient Acts. Be it so But what have those most Divines to say for the disapprâ—ving of the Minor 'T is true saith Mr. Baxter what they say but I could never have the happinesse to see or hear it well cleared by any For to prove it transient they tell us no more but that it doth transire in Subjectum Extraneum By making a moral change on our Relation c. But this saith he is to affirm and not to prove What then doth Mr Baxter himself to supply what is in his most famous Divines deficient This onely he tels us a tale of a Tubb about relations how they are made up and thence hee brings in his Conjectures to make clear how this change of our relation is made up that our Pactional Justification or Justification according to the New Covenant is a Transient Act of God which I was never so happy or unhappy in my slender reading to find any one that denyeth And all this being granted yet may it stand as a firm foundation that Remission and Justification are immanent Acts in God as hath been before and shall be if there be need more fully afterward shewed He that readeth Mr. Baxters dispute must acknowledge that I do him no wrong in this Epitomizing of it And let every rationall man judge whether the heat of the man in promising so confidently before pag. 93. and in charging all his impetus or impotent impetuousness here as against the Pillars of Antinomianism be answered with strength of reason to beat down what he would have down Gods Eternal acceptation and approbation of his beloved ones in Christ Jesus Thus feeble are the most Nervous armes in fighting against God and so vain in their imaginations as the Apostle saith do they become who whet their wits upon the threshold of humane literature to dispute against God But after this generall view of his dispute it shall not be impertinent to take notice of the particulars also therein enclosed And 1. Why doth he call Doctor Twisse and Master Pemble Most excellent famous Divines Doth he so stile them for the excellency of their Philosophick Scholastick learning He should then more properly have termed them Most excellent famous Philosophers or Schollars Except he will also make Aristotle because he in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes the Treating of God one part of that Doctrine which is to be handled in that Science which is commonly called Metaphysicks to be a Theologer or Divine also Or for their abundant knowledge in the Doctrine of Christian Religion together with their great ability and faithfullnesse to teach and maintain it against the Adversaries thereof Much more proper had it been then for him to have followed the Genius and policy of the chief Priests as in other things he doth that would not say any thing to the Praise of Iohn that his Baptism or Droctrine were Divine and from Heaven fearing lest the Lord Jesus should then urge upon them Why then did yee not believe him Mat. 21. 25. For so Master Baxter here opens his bosome to the dint of the like reproof Were they excellent Why doth not he close with them in their excellency No one of the Papists or Arminians against whose Sophisms and impostures these two Champions so excellently and famously propugned the truth of Christ hath more deviated from their doctrine i. e. the Doctrine of Christ which they defended than Master
again with the strokes of his Curse so sorely that we shall be healed no more while the world lasteth I have sworn that I would no more be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee Isa 54 9. i. e. I have sworn but never meant to stand to it I might instance hundreds more of such Scriptures wherewith Mr. Brs. glosses and distinctions do as well agree as fire towe together If Mr. Br. did so much honour the very intrals of Gods word as hee doth the backside of Aristotles Topicks he would not dare so to elude and elide them But Gods authority with him must it seems stand or fall as it hath or hath not approbation from Aristotles or Socinus his Reason being submitted to the censure thereof And then what living plant of God can stand where this man brings the Axe of his distinctions to fell and prepare billets in heaps for his Cole-fires B. 2. As to the Covenant of works though he make them Concomitants with Faith in justifying and that the voyce of the New C is after his Assertion the same with the voyce of the Old Do and Live yet he denies his doctrine to be herein Legall Because there is a manifold difference implyed though not expressed between the Lawes and the Gospels justifying by works 1 The Law requireth an obedience or righteousness of works in every number and degree perfect to justification But hee makes the New Covenant or Gospell to require only sincere obedience or obedience perfect in sincerity for the attainment of this end Aph. pa. 133. 316. and Thes 77. pa. 310. and App. pa. 76 77. And the sincere covenanting of this obedience or this sincere obedience covenanted must be thus conditioned else it is not sincere 1 It must follow upon the knowledg of the Nature ends conditions of the Covenant 2 It must be done deliberately and not in a fit of passion or rashly 3 It must be done seriously and not dissemblingly or slightly 4 Freely and heartily and not through meer constraint and fear 5 Intirely and with a resolution to perform the whole Covenant and not with reservations giving themselves to Christ by the halves or reserving a purpose to maintain their fleshly interests 6 It must be the taking and obeying of Christ alone not joyning others in office with him but renouncing all other happiness save what is by him and all government and salvation from any which is not in direct subordination to him Append. pa. 33. These make up a sincere and perfect obedience a sincere and perfect Gospel-righteousness perfect in respect of Evangelicall though not of legall perfection For sincerity is our Gospel perfection being a conformity to the rule of perfection viz. the New Covenant as it is a Covenant a perfection of sufficiency in order to its end which is to be the condition of Justification Aph. p. 132 133. Who now is there of all men that hath eyes in his elbows but seeth distinctly a vast difference between the Laws and the Gospels justifying by works For it is justice which requires perfect but Grace that requireth but sincere obedience to justification All this is without book the dictates not of the Holy Ghost but of Mr. Br. and that spirit which wrought in his Masters from whom he learned it For 1. The Scriptures which he alledgeth in any part of this Treatise to make any part thereof probable have been examined and none of them found to speak for him most against him Neither do these assertions of Scripture that affirm Christ to give or promise that he will give life salvation c. to such or such qualified or working persons as to them that love him or fear him or obey him or to the meek the righteous c. any more infer that these qualifications or works have any proper or improper causality to produce their justification than when the Scriptures affirm him to give grace and life to Centurions Publicans Harlots Sinners Enemies Uâ—godly Chief sinners Samaritans Heathen do infer that their being such had any causality unto their justification 2. Nay the Scriptures utterly deny the Gospel to have to do with the Law in this voyce Do and Live as I have before oft alleged them Not by works of righteousness which we have done but of his Mercy he hath saved us by Faith not of works Not of workes but of Grace And how poor a shift Mr. Br. useth to elude the force of these and the like Scriptures hath been shewed in the examination of his vindicating himself from being contradictive to St. Paul 3. Yea if works in any notion or consideration be brought as coupled with Faith to promote Justification the Scriptures affirm them to destroy the hope of Justification and to repell the grace of Christ by which the Beleevers are justified If ye be circumcised which in Pauls sense there is if yee bring but this one work to forward your Justification by Christ ye are bound to keep the whole law Christ is become of no effect ye are faln from grace and faln under the Curse Gal. 5. 3 4. 3. 10. 4. And if works or obedience in Mr. Brs. sense which is the doing of the moral Righteousness that the Law commandeth be not as much as adjuvant to Justification then surely sincere obedience cannot be helpful where obedience yea perfect obedience is excluded This is and appears to be either an instinct or a distinction of Mr. Brs. own brain not a doctrine of the Scripture for which way shall we turn the leaves thereof to find it 5. Yea how rational or how ridiculous this distinction or gloss of Mr. Br. applyed to those Scriptures which deny justification by the obedience of works I leave both to the seeing and the blind to judg By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified saith the Apostle i. e. saith Mr. Br. by the perfect obedience of works but by unperfect obedience if sincere we may be justified Not of works but of grace i. e. not of works perfectly done but of works unperfectly yet sincerely done so grace and works may be made friends that is Gods grace and mans vain glory may kiss each other as co-equal workers of mans justification Not by works of Righteousnes which we have done but of his mercy c. i. e. which wee have done perfectly but which we have done maimedly yet sincerely If some Festus should hear such a Commentary of Mr. Br. upon Paul he would conclude sure that one of them is beside himself much learning hath made him madd Either Paul that he had not wit or words to express his own meaning that in the whole bulk of his disputes denying unto our works and righteousness indefinitely all operation to Justification doth not as much as with a Parenthesis in any place inform his Reader that he speaks not of Gospel but of legall works not of sincere but of perfect obedience that these are rejected from those necessarily
revealed save his own and his Fathers testimonie Joh. 8. 18. Joh. 5. 31 37. Let there be but an iota produced of this kind of literature whereof I treat that our Saviour any where used for the confirmation of the Gospel-doctrines which hee delivered Nay hee denies all ability and possibility that any man by naturall or acquired parts should see or shew forth untill he hath received divine revelation one ray of Gospel-light Therefore when Peter had made but a course and confused or obscure confession of Christ he answers Blessed be thou Simon Barjonah for Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in heaven Mat. 16. 16 17. Insinuating that the very threshold of Gospel-knowledg is transcendent and above all the reach of humane Arts and fleshly or naturall wisdome to find it out for themselves or make it out to others Hence are the universal conclusions and assertions which hee layeth down to this purpose No man can come to me except the Father draw him It is written they shall be all taught of God Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh to me Joh. 6. 44 45. No one knoweth the Sonn but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father but the Sonn and he to whom the sonn will reveal him What he speaketh of knowing the Son and the Father he meaneth of knowing the minde and will of God touching the Gospel-way in which he hath purposed to bring sinners to salvation This is a wisdome not borrowed of but hidden from most of the wise and prudent in secular learning and revealed to babes Mat. 11. 25-27 And the Scripture giveth reasons why there is no power in the wisdome and learning of men to dive into the Mystery of the Gospel and Evangelical knowledg of God No man hath seene God at any time The only begotten sonne which is in Joh. 1. 18. the bosome of the Father hath declared him Joh. 1. 18. No man hath ascended to heaven but he that came down from heaven even the sonne of man which is in heaven Joh. 3. 13. What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. What is here spoken of the knowledg of God is to be understood as in the former Texts the knowing of Gods will and mysterious way of bringing many sons ere while enemies to glory The scope of the Argumentation in these Scriptures runs thus None but such as have seen God seen into him have been in heaven with him nay have been in his very heart and bosom can possibly know the mind and purpose of God hidden in himself touching the justification and salvation of men But Christ only the Spirit of Christ have been and are still in heaven have seen God and are in the bosom of God reading and knowing all the purposes of his mind Therefore none but Christ and his Spirit alone know and can reveale this mind of God to us The Scripture here speaketh of Teachers none hath been in heaven to come thence as a Teacher into the world of what he hath seen in the bosom of God but the Son and the Spirit And the teaching or revealing of which it speaketh is meant original teaching and revealing None can reveal the mind of God but the Son and the Spirit or they to whom the Son hy his Doctrine and Spirit hath first revealed it What weight then can there be in the Testimony or learning of the Heathen Philosophers or of the Angelical and Seraphical Doctors of the Romish Church who never ascended the Heavens to look into Gods bosom and are as void of Christ and his Spirit as those Heathens themselves that any thing of Gospel-wisdome should be grounded upon their authority From Christ discend we to the Apostles and first he that chose them to goe forth into the world to bring forth fruit Joh. 15. 16. i. e. by the preaching of the Gospel to bring home many souls to God to furnish them with abilities for so great end noble a work promiseth to send unto them the Spirit and to what end but to lead them into all truth Joh. 16. 13. into the cleer and full knowledg of the mysterious truths of the Gospel bidding them not to go to Athens to learn from the Philosophers in their Schools any thing that might further their illumination herein but to tarry at Hierusalem untill they were endued with this power from on high Luk. 24. 49. And if we look to the accomplishment of the promise Acts 2. 1 c. we shall finde that the Holy Ghost discending in a glorious manner upon them wrought on them if not only yet principally these three effects as abundantly sufficient to enable them for the Apostleship and Ministry of the New Testament as the Apostle terms his Office 2 Cor. 3. 6. 1. A sudden and wonderfull irradiation of them with all the depths of Gospel-knowledg that without communion with flesh and blood they had the sacred secrets of the Gospel made out in an instant to them by the revelation of Jesus Christ as afterwards Paul manifesteth the Lord Jesus to have dealt with him in like manner Gal. 1. 12. 16. And thus they that were but mechanick and illiterate men were filled suddenly with light and knowledg enough to enlighten the whole world then in darknesse 2. The gift of tongus by which they were enabled to spread abroad unto all men of all nations in their severall Languages the wonderfull things of God i. e. the glorious and untill then hidden ways of salvation Act. 2. 11. 3. A magnanimous and celestiall boldness to hold forth defend and maintain those sacred and saving truths revealed to them in despight of all the powers of Earth and Hell banding against them Act. 4. 13. Here as there is none that will deny the Apostles to have been sufficiently yea abundantly gifted for the execution of their function so I do not so much as suspect there will be any found that supposeth them to have received among the Abundance of their Revelations any inspiration of the before-mentioned humane learning as usefull and needfull to plant the knowledg of the Gospel in the hearts of men or to confirm it after it was planted And 2ly with that learning and power so received they went on in the execution of their Ministry so far from using as that they purposely rejected the use of humane reason and wisdome holding fast to the word alone as the mind of God therein was revealed to them by the Spirit for their rule in preaching and authority in confirming the truth of the Gospel which they taught In stead of all attend we to Paul that laboured more abundandantly then they all Rom. 15. 19. When he had fully preached the Gospel from Hierusalem in the regions round about even to Illyricum he gives this account
soaring still higher towards the very top of it and sinking lower from the Orb of Christian verity So by that something of man that must enright him to Justification he must mean something more then Repentance and Faith which he had before concluded necessary to Justification Thes 14. Els were he upon a retreating not a marching posture Nevertheles how subtlely doth he dâ—wb and paint to gull the simple and catch them that are made to be taken by putting fine words upon his course purposes telling them that we are justified by Faith and that there is required on our part but receiving and applying of Christs merits as if he were as innocent as a Dove and had none of the Serpent in him when contrariwise the sequele of his Tractate proclaimes him by that which he calls here somewhat of man to mean at the full with the worst Papists mans works to the totall exclusion of Gods grace In mean while his words leave it doubtfull here what this somewhat of man is and whether it be the hand or the heel that must receive and apply Christ to Justification His Disciples are not yet enough moulded he thinks to receive the Dragons voice in his own tone they must be accustomed to bear the Calf daily untill he become an Oxe that he may be born then too and at length we shall finde the instruments which Mr. B. appoints to receive Christ to be instrumentall onely to push him from us However he concludes thus because he will have it so That no man by the meer satisfaction made is freed from the Law and Curse c. absolutely but conditionally onely i. e. not at all And this he hath said over and over already and there needs no further Answer then that which hath been before given So that where he repeats this Assertion again in the Explication That Christ doth not justifie by the shedding of his blood immediately without somwhat of man intervening c. adding that All the Scriptures alleaged p. 79. do prove it I grant what he saith for I finde no Scripture there alleaged But if he mean p. 89 90. what I said there I say here again he shall not misse of an answer to them when he comes to alleage them again in their proper place and declares how he will argue from them Yet because the man is delighted to deliver first in generall what he will after deliver again in particulars I shall say something also in generall to his generall assertion That Christs satisfaction justifieth not without something of man intervening to give him right to it Let us see what the Scripture saith for or against it The Apostle speaking of mans redemption and justification and shewing the cause why some have and some have not their part in it affirmeth and proveth that it is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Rom. 9. 16. By the willing is to be understood all the good qualifications and operations of the soul by running all the good works of a mans life and practice as all confess When the Holy Ghost excludeth every somewhat of man within the man and every somewhat of man without man from conferring any thing to Justification what other somewhat remaineth of man to intervene c Let it be judged whether Mr. B. doth not purposely fight against Scripture Again Rom. 5. 6 8 9 10. When we were yet without strength viz. to any spirituall operation Christ dyed for the ungodly while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us and we were justified by his bloud while enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Here the Result of the Apostles reasoning discovers to us two things to our purpose 1 That according to the minde and language of the Holy Ghost Christ dying and by his death satisfying for any mans sinns and that mans justification and reconciliation to God by that satisfaction are equipollent terms holding forth one and the same thing For so the Apostle here useth justification and reconciliation as words of the same sense and weight And Amesius manifesteth Ames Med. Lib. 1. c. 27. Sect. 22. in what respects they must needs be taken for the same thing and makes both the same with Christs dying for him So that every person for whom Christ hath by his death made satisfaction is effectually justified and reconciled to God I mean in Christ though possibly not yet in his own apprehension 2 That we are thus justified and reconciled to God while ungodly while sinners while enemies while without strength to that which is good What somewhat of man can there be in such to enright them to justification unless any will say their impotency ungodlines sin and enmity shall do it Such contrariety is there between Mr. Br and the Spirit or word of truth There needs not much deliberation to determine which to follow But he proceeds Bax. p. 93. Let all the Antinomians shew but one Scripture which speaks of Justification from Eternity And what if it be but one of all or one that is not an Antinomian that shews it will Mr. Br harken and submit his judgement to that Scripture so alleaged I say in like manner Let all the Antichristian Jesuits or Mr. Br. or his Mr Grotius shew one Scripture which asserteth onely a conditionall and not an absolute Justification purchased to us by Christ I will hear and submit though I see not then how to be saved As to his Challenge I shall speak in a more proper place Bax. I know God hath decreed to justifie his people from eternity and so he hath to sanctifie them too but both of them are done in time Justification being no more an immanent act in God than sanctification as I shall shew afterward I shall therefore wait on him untill he hath the leisure and pleasure to shew it In the mean while why doth he Conclude so hotly and peremptorily before-hand that which he brings nothing save his own bare affirmation to prove He said not unwisely which said Let not him that girdeth on his armour boast as he that putteth it off 1 King 20. 11. Bax. The bloud of Christ then is sufficient in suo genere but not in omni genere sufficient for its own work but not for every work There are severall other necessaries to Justifie and save quibus positis which being supposed the bloud of Christ will be effectuall Qui non vult intelligi debet negligi He that will so speak that he may not be understood is worthy to pass without an Answer If he mean that the bloud of Christ is sufficient to compleat our justification before God and that this is its own work But that there are other necessaries to justifie us in our selves and our own apprehensions which being supposed the work is ended I will abstein from all contradiction If he mean otherwise and will not express himself Hony soit Qui male
I know that the observance of the Law of Ceremonies and the seeking of Life by the works of the Law are both commonly called Legall Righteousnes and that Christs legall righteousness imputed to us is commonly called Evangelicall Righteousness he must needs mean primarily that these are so Called Commonly in holy Scriptures and but secondarily that they are so called by Ecclesiasticall Writers as they derive from the Scriptures a Chaste Scripture phrase wherein to expresse spirituall doctrines For so the Scripture mentioneth onely two kinds of Righteousness that ever Came or shall Come into Competition about our Justification the one a legall righteousnes or righteousness of the Law the other the Evangelicall righteousnes or righteousnes of the Gospel The legall Righteousness it affirms to be a righteousness of works which we have done i. e. of good qualifications within us and good operations flowing from us the Evangelicall righteousness to be of meer grace and mercy Tit. 3. 5. The latter it terms Gods Righteousness i. e. that which God giveth and imputeth the former our own righteousness i. e. which is wrought within our selves and acted by our selves Rom. 10. 3. Phil. 3. 9. That of the Law a Righteousnes of works this of the Gospel a Righteousness without works Rom. 4. 6. That a Righteousness in our selves inherent This a Righteousness in Christ imputed Eph. 2. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Or let Mr. Br shew any one Scripture that terms the Righteousness which is in and by Christ a legall or that which is inherent in our selves an Evangelicall Righteousness or that terms any gift or qualification in man or work and deed of man his righteousness any peece of his righteousness unto Justification So that his quarrell here is against the Holy Ghost for speaking so improperly and incongruously in Scriptures and Calling the Righteousness which is by Christ Evangelicall and the righteousness which is in our selves Legall Righteousness But how will he Confute the Holy Ghost and prove an absurdity and impropriety in the language of the Holy Ghost Forsooth by opposing himself his own authority and learning to the Holy Ghost and his wisdome and authority Himself he affirms to speak logically and by Consequence strictly and properly But the Holy Ghost is no scholar never read Aristotle therefore speaks rudely rustically like one of the Rural Animals not as an Artist out of the schools Himself gives scholar-like a denomination to these two Righteousnesses from that Covenant which is their Rule from the Formall Reason of the thing But the Holy Ghost for lack of school-learning gives names thereunto from more Alien Extrinsecall respects This is the summe of his reasoning And is it not possible to request from Mr. Br that he would take the Holy Ghost a while as a pupill into his Tuition to read unto him some Logicall Lectures by which he may be instructed to mould a new the Scriptures into another a Logical insteed of that spirituall and Celestiall phrase in which we now finde them Or if the Spirit of truth and wisdom should be the Teacher not the Schollar of Mr. Br then may we break out into Mr. Brs words against Mr. Br Moâ—strous Doctrine pride reasoning and that which every Christian should abhorr as unsufferable But if Mr. Br be not in more haste than good speed a word or two we shall request from him to be resolved in some few questions before we part upon that which he hath here written First Whether it hath not been the Common slight of all subtle heretikes to make new and unused phrases their harbingers to promote and make way for the vending of their new opinions and monstrous doctrines yea whether he himself had not first laid down a purpose within himself of broaching his doctrine of Justification by works and inherent righteousness and then after devised this new distinction of our legall righteousnes in Christ and Evangelicall righteousness in our selves both necessary to our justification or to what other end hath he coined this novelty of words and phrase in opposition to the language of the Gospel but to make it subservient to the novelty of his pernicious doctrine Contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel 2 Whether by this novelty of phrase he doth not attribute more excellency and efficacy as to justification to mans inherent than to Christs imputed righteousness For pag. 98. himself affiâ—meth that The primary most excellent and most proper righteousness lyeth in the conformity of our actions to the precept the secondary less excellent Righteousness yet fitly enough so called is when though we have broke the precepts yet we have satisfied for our breach either by our own sufferings or some other way Compare we with that which he there spake that which here he speaketh and we shall finde him attributing that which he calleth the primary most excellent and most proper righteousness to our selves viz. our Conformity to the precepts of the Gospel and that which he calleth the secondary less excellent righteousness to Christ in and by whom we have satisfied for the breach of the precepts of the Law If this be not the nullifying surely it is the abasing of Christ And he that would thus veil will be ready also to quench as much as in him lyeth the glory of Christs Righteousness 3 What shew of truth is there in that which he assigneth as the Cause of his departing from the usuall phrase of Scripture to a new expression of words Calling Christ our Legall and our own qualifications and works our Evangelicall Righteousness which no man since the very foundation of the world was laid I think ever so termed before him They so take name saith he from the Covenant which is their Rule c. and their Denomination from the formall Reason of the thing To the unveiling of this Mystery Davuâ— sum non Oedipus It must be some of Pythagoras his mysticall and not of Aristotles Dialectick learning that must so bring this about that we may finde and fathom it For first how is the Law of Nature or Covenant of works the rule of Christs Mediation or satisfaction made for us Whether we Consider it as it was fullfilled by Christ or as it is apprehended by us to righteousness is the Law or old Covenant made with mankinde a rule or direction to him or us Did this law at all either binde or direct the eternall Sonn of the eternall God to assume our Nature and in it to offer himself a sacrifice for our sinn and so make satisfaction to divine Justice Indeed as in Christs sufferings we see him onely a patient drawn and dragg'd to judgement and death for our iniquiâ—ies laid on him so was his passion the effect of the Law But if there were no more to be seen in his sufferings he should not have been our righteousnes either Legall or Evangelicall For what merit could there be in a suffering of Constraint and Compulsion But when in his sufferings he
other sin but final unbelief and rebellion But this finall unbelief and finall rebellion hath its belly so full of other small sins threatned in the womb of their Mother Rebellion as ever a man found of the berries in the belly of a breeding Lobster And in his Appendix pag. 23. he makes finall unbelief the genus to which he attributes but three species of which the first viz. Ordinary finall unbelief is not to bee considered as species specialissima but subalterna which being looked upon as a genus hath so many species or as a species hath so many individuals under it according to Mr. Baxters doctrine as the best Arithmetician in the world saving himselfe will not dare to yeeld up upon his casting the true summe of them to satisfie Mr. Baxters censure therein as it will appear when Mr. Baxter comes to unlace and rip abroad his Justifying Faith in its largest sense Thes 70. To these I might adde many more quaintisies of the same nature breathing out themselves from the veins of this his dispute But all the rest as those already mentioned are but tarrying irons to take up the time of men that are Malè feriati rather love to play with the buttons then to close with the body and drink in the spirit of true Christianity And what other end can Mr. Baxter have in these his chippings and mincings but to shew the delicacy of his wit Whom hath he in the substance of what he speaketh his adversary We grant and teach with him 1. That there is no sin prohibited by the Gospel or New Covenant which is not a sin against the Law and Old Covenant also 2. That finall unbelief and rebellion are sins if not unpardonable as if they exceeded the bounds of Gods grace and Christs merits to pardon them yet which have no futurition of pardon shall never be pardoned in this life or in that which is to come For so hath the Lord declared his purpose in reference to these sins 3. That both the Law and the Gospel concurre in damning such persons the Law as a Covenant of Workes properly for their refusall to submit even till death it self to the will and authority of God requiring Faith in Christ for their redemption from vengeance The Gospel improperly by withholding its shelter from the Laws sentence against them because they would never be perswaded to come under the shelter of it yea more in strengthning the hand of the Law to give them the sorer punishment for the contempt of Gods grace as well as of his Authority and Justice And thus not onely the mountains of their sinnes against the Law but also Christ the Rock shall fall upon them to their greater shivering for that they dared to dash themselves against him and would not be induced to be built against all the stroakes of vengeance upon him This is the summe of all that which Mr. Baxter here in substance saies To what purpose then are his elaborate distinctions of the differing respects and aspects senses and non-senses in which Christ hath either satisfied or not satisfied for mans sins unlesse it be Balaam-like to lay a stumbling block in the way of the simpler people of Gods Israel to occasion their fall to puzzle their judgements and consciences and to make the way of grace which is in it self as discovered by the Lord Christ easie and plaine to be unto them by his evill working therein intricate perplexed and full of snares To all sober men it sufficeth to know 1. That there is no one of their sins in whatsoever consideration it be taken but hath death and hell in the tayl of it 2. That there cannot be any other way of exemption from the death hel which every such sin of theirs meriteth by any other meanes but by the redemption which is by and in the Lord Jesus 3. That the blood of Christ hath in it a perfect efficacy to cleanse from all sin whatsoever no one excepted if it be applyed to cleanse Not the very sin against the Holy Ghost which it hath not power totally to purge out from the conscience if it were truly applyed But therefore is that sin never pardoned and purged from the soul because the Spirit of God never doth nor will apply the blood of Christ to the soul that is guilty of it nor generates Faith in such a soul to run unto and wash in the Fountain of Christs blood that it may be clean Let there be any one sin named of all the sins whereof our corrupt nature is pregnant that is so much a sin against the Gospel but that the purging or not purging away of it the absolving of the conscience from it or retaining of it upon the conscience doth not wholly depend upon the application or not application of the blood of Christ to the soul and I shall acknowledge that I have seen but the Letter and was never yet acquainted with the Spirit and drift of the Scriptures Or suppose we should take a delight to contend about that which is a meer lana caprina whether it be hair or wooll that grows upon the Goats shoulders how feeble might we manifest the reasons to be which Mr. Baxter beingeth to prove that the sins against the New Covenant are not satisfied for by the sacrifice of Christs death As 1. When the Apostle affirmeth Christ to have suffered death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament Heb. 9. 15. Doth it follow thence that he hath not redeemed from the transgressions against the New Covenant also If I say that Christ forgave to Peter or Paul or Mary Magdalen all their sins committed before conversion do I thereby as much as imply that he retains still and revengeth upon them all the sinnes they committed after they were converted Or should one of Mr. Baxters acquaintance say that whatsoever Mr. Baxter preached and wrote untill four or five years since was good and Orthodox doth it follow that all that he hath since preached and written is heretical and erroneous Nay the purpose of the Apostle here is to convince the Hebrews that sought in part for righteousnesse by the Law or Old Testament that it could not make its observers perfect For Christ dyed to redeem the transgressions of them that were under the first Covenant which he needed not to have done if all the Sacrifices under the Law could have purged them And thus the Morall Law is not here at all opposed to the Gospel that the Gospel or New Covenant doe purge the sinnes onely that were committed under and against the Morall Law because all the righteousnesse of the Morall Law could not purge them but the sacrifice of Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant is here opposed to the Leviticall sacrifices under the Legall Covenant What these could not the sacrifice of Christ hath expiated 2. Where he tels us that Christ could not satisfie for sinnes committed against the New Covenant
Gods evidencing and manifesting to the beleever that he was really justified in God from eternity but also in Gods Actual and Judiciall pronouncing of the sentence of Absolution to the soul drawn to Gods Tribunal and gasping for pardon thorough Christ By means whereof the poor sinner is constituted as well as declared actually and personally righteous and that before God his Justifier 3. That as oft as the Gospel speaketh of Justification by Faith it is in reference to this Transient Act of God not that Immanent 4. That as I conceive the Covenant between God and Christ to be if I may so term it a fruit in order to that immanent act in God so I think also that the Covenant of Promise the Covenant under the Law the Covenant under the Gospel and the very Covenant of Works to be subservients to this Covenant made with Christ as a publick person representing us to work all coordinately to the advancing of the glory of Gods Grace to his Elect in justifying them in himself from Eternity Yet so that if I find a candid Teacher in any or all these to inform me better I hope I shall not be wanting to shew my docility I should have wholly forborn to touch upon this point so famous a Divine having lately taken upon him the Province but this was written before and it will not hinder his further prosecution thereof to which I hear hee will bee provoked As to Mr. Baxter let him pretend what he will of his zeal against this Doctrine because it is a Pillar of Antinomianism yet his conscience tels him that his rage against it is under this consideration as it is a slâ—dge to beat in peeces the conditional Justification Election Redemption and Grace together with the pride of mans Free-will Works and Righteousnesse uncertainty of Perseverance c. Which are the Articles of Faith common to Mr. Baxter with the Papists and Arminians If Justification as an immanent act in God from Eternity hold all these must fall and Master Baxter and his fellows bee crushed with the ruines thereof The worke of the next Chapter therefore shall bee to examine the force of his reasons and arts whereby he seekes to refute and subvert it CHAP. XXI Arg. Mr. Baxters Reasons and Dispute examined by which he endeavoureth to refute Justification as an Immanent Act in God and from Eternity B. A great question it is whether Remission and Justification be Immanent or Transient Acts of God The mistake of this one point was that that led those two most excellent famous Divines Doctor Twiss and Mr. Pemble to that errour and pillar of Antinomianism viz. Justification from Eternity For saith Doctor Twiss often All acts immanent in God are from Eternity But Justification and Remission of sins are Immanent acts Therefore c. By Immanent in God they must needs mean Negatively not Positively For Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its Subject but of an Effect to its Cause Now whether all such Immanent Acts are any more Eternall then Transient Acts is much questioned As for God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is now just or sanctified c. Gods fore knowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not Yet doth this make no change in God no more then the Sun is changed by the variety of creatures which it doth enlighten and warm or the glass by the variety of faces which it represents or the eye by the variety of colours which it beholdeth For whatsoever some say I doe not think that every variation of the object maketh a reall chaâ—ge in the eye or that the beholding of ten distinct colours at one view doth make ten distinct acts of the sight or alterations of it much less doe the objects of Gods knowledge make such alterations But grant that all Gods Immanent Acts are Eternall which I think is quite beyond our understanding to know yet most Divines will deny the minor and tell you that Remission and Justification are Transient Acts which is true but a truth which I never had the happiness to see well cleared by any For to prove it a Transient Act they tell us no more but that it doth transire in subjectum extraneum by making a Morall change on our relatio though not a reall upon our persons as Sanctification doth But this is onely to affirme and not to pâ—ove and that in generall onely not telling us what Act it is that maketh this change Relations are not capable of being the patients or subjects of any Act seeing they be but meer Entia Rationis and no reall beings Neither are they the immediate product or effect of any Act but in order of Nature are consequentiall to the direct effects The proper effect of the Act is to lay the foundation from whence the Relation doth arise And the same Act which layeth the foundation doth cause the Relation without the intervention of any other Suppose but the subjectum fundam entuÌ„ terminus and the Relation will unavoydably follow by a meer resultancy The direct effect therefore of Gods actuall Justification must be a reall effect though not upon the sinner yet upon something else for him And thence will his passive Justification follow Now what Transient Act this is And what its immediate real effect who hath unfolded I dare not be too confident in so dark a point But it seemeth to me that this justifying transient Act is the enacting or promulgation of the New Covenant wherein Justification is conferred upon every beleever Here passing and enacting this grant is a transient Act. 2. So may the continuance of it as I think 3. This Law or grant hath a Moral improper action whereby it mâ—y be said to pardon or justifie which properly is but virtuall justifying 4. By this grant God doth 1. Give us the righteousnesse of Christ to be ours when we beleeve 2. And disableth the Law to oblige us to punishment or to condemn us 3. Which reall foundation being thus laid our relations of Iustified and pardoned in title of Law do necessarily result A matchlesse and egregious dispute able to tum all the immanent Acts of God into Transient yea if spell'd backward to turne all his Transient Acts into immanent of force enough to extort from Gods bosome all that waâ— in him from eternity that it shall abide in him or with him no longer Here is Doctrine fitted to purpose for his ignorant babes and tender lambs of Kederminster for whose sake and use this worke if wee will believe the Author was chiefly published No lesse proper for them than the Scripture in the Latine tongue by his holy mother appointed for the illumination of them that cannot read the English or their Country language What a supereminent measure of the Spirit hath this man received above Christ himselfe above Paul the most learned
as his Masters have done before him My labour therefore here will be the lesse because the labour of so many before me hath been so full to manifest how alien and improper these Scriptures are to desend what these men would have defended by them For why should I say again what so many worthies have said untill Mr. Baxter shall make it his taske to prove some infirmity and insufficiency in that which they have spoken All that Mr. Baxter here saith he doth almost wholely transcribe out of Bellarmine giving us a compendium of what Bellarmine hath at large and so Mr. Baxter here is but Bellarmine abridged Let us lay them together and 1 They jumpe in one common conclusion That the bare act of beleeving saith Mr. Baxter faith alone saith Bellarmine Thes 60. is not the only condition of Justification but many other duties c. One of these duties according to Bellarmine first and after Explicat p. 234. him according to Mr. Baxter here is Repentance In this alone they differ that Mr. Baxter puts Repentance as the first and Bellarmine puts it as the fourth in order after Faith and concurring with it in the pardon of sin and salvation The Scriptures which Mr. Baxter alleageth for repentance are some from Bellarmine some from Bellarmines fellowes To this place I referred those Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quoted Thes 14. pa. 90. beginning with Mark 1. 15. to prove repentance a collaterall with faith All which are here quoted over again saving these three Act. 20. 21. Revel 2. 5. ver 16. all which three Scriptures speak no lesse home to his purpose then if he should thus argue Kederminster is in Worcestershire ergo it supports Pauls Church at London Act. 20. 21. The Apostle having affirmed himself to have dealt faithfully in preaching all that was profitable to them to evince it gathers into two heads the sum of all his doctrine which he had testifyed among them viz. Repentance toward God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ what is there in this to prove repentance a concomitant with faith to justifie is every profitable doctrine effectuall to justifie A mans food and garments are both profitable to him shall I therefore concude either that his garments do nourish him or his meat clothe him Revel 2. 5 Christ admonisheth the Angell of the Church of Ephesus To repent and do his first works else will he come and remove his candlestick out of its place except he repent what is this to justification will he say that the removing of the candlestick out of its place was either the justifying of the unjustifyed or unjustifying of him that was before justifyed And Revel 2. 16. Christ cals upon the Angell of the Church at Pergamos Repent or else I will come to thee quickly and will fight against them viz. the Balaamites and Nicholaitans mentioned in the two former verses with the sword of my mouth Surely Mr. Baxter must flie from the latter and rationall meaning and follow the precepts of Origen in fishing after the Spirit or an Allegoricall sense of these words to make them speak any thing for his justification by repentance All the rest Scriptures quoted in the 14. Thesis we have again in a bunch here pa. 235. in the explication of his 60. Thesis to prove the same thing And here why doth he deal worse then Bellarmine in attributing justification which he makes to consist in pardon and salvation to repentance without manifesting as Bellarmine doth what he means by repentance This is but to strive about words and leave the matter in darknesse As for the other particular Scriptures here quoted if I should particularly examine them we should find not a few of them as the three former coming no neerer to the question in hand then Tybris doth to Thames As for all such of them as have the least shew or sound of speaking for him he hath them in part from Bellarmine whom he here followeth and in part from other Jesuits and Fryers that controversally handle the Popish justification against us I refer therefore the reader to informe himself from the many answers of the many Protestant Theologists which they have extant against Bellarmine and the rest of that generation from whom if truth and sobernesse be dear to him it is almost unpossible but that he must receive satisfaction Yet something shall I speak in generall of these quoted Scriptures As many of them as do hold forth the promise of life upon condition of repentance to sinners or to sinners if they repent all the rest quotations being altogether besides the purpose These all speak of a legall or of an Evangelicall repentance Of a legall repentance consisting meerly in a feeling of humiliation and contrition for hatred against departing from sinne and applying of the endeavours to all morall vertue and obedience This is a meerly morall repentance derivable from the strength of naturall conscience illuminated by the Law and common knowledge of Gods will and nature In this sense is the word taken in most of the Scriptures quoted from the old Testament and some also possibly of those that are quoted out of the new But then the life by these Scriptures promised is not the life of justification or of spirituall and supernaturall blessednesse but that which the administration under the Law is wont to call life viz. 1 The fruition of the land of Canaan which prefigured the life and rest both of grace and glory And 2 Of the blessings of health honour peace plenty safety and other temporall benefits promised to the obedient in the Land of Canaan This is clear to him that will see from the 18 of Ezek. where so often mention is made of life and death Turn and live if ye turn not ye shall die what is here meant by this life and death may be understood from that proverb cursedly used by the Jews whereof mention is made in the beginning of the Chapter The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge the fathers have sinned and death is inflicted upon the children for their fathers fault This gave occasion for the delivery of all the doctrine comprehended within this Chapter in which God throughly vindicateth his justice from inflicting death upon the children righteous children for their wicked parents offences shewing how justly they dyed which dyed and lived which lived in reference to their own not their fathers sinne and righteousnesse what then was this death here denounced or the setting of the teeth on edge but the plague famine sword which had been upon them in the Land and their captivity and exile now upon them in Babylon out of the Land of their inheritance these temporall evills are the death here affirmed to be inflicted and denounced to be continued upon them The life promised upon condition of their repentance and turning from their evill wayes was their restauration to the land and blessings of the
by the father of it with the name of justifying faith This definition he giveth Thes 70. pa. 279. I put this in the third place not because Mr. Baxter doth so for he hath many things between the former and this but because of its cognation if not identity with the former No doubt he saw the former argument more to shame then help his cause therefore in likelihood he brings it here again in another mode and forme if so paradventure it may relieve him Thus then runs his definition B. Faith in the largâ—st sense as it comprehendeth all the condition of the new Covenant may be thus defined It is when a sinner by the word and spirit of Christ being throughly convinced of the righteousnesse of the Law the truth of its threatning the evill of his own sin and the greatnesse of his misery hereupon and withall of the nature and offices sufficiency and excellency of Jesus Christ the satisfaction he hath made his willingnesse to save and his free offer to all that will accept him for their Lord and Saviour doth hereupon beleeve the truth of his Gospell and accept of Christ as his onely Lord and Saviour to bring them to God their chief good and to present them pardoned and just before him and to bestow upon them a more glorious inheritance and doe accordingly rest on him as their Saviour and sincerely though imperfectly obey him as their Lord forgiving others loving his people bearing what sufferings are imposed diligently using his means and ordinances and confessing and bewailing their sins against him and praying for pardon and all this sincerely and to the end Sponte Cretizantem quis neget esse Cretem Never more dubiousnesse in the most dubious Oracles of Apollo Delphicus then in this definition if indeed it be a definition because Mr. Baxter so calleth it He so speaks all that by all he might astonish some and deceive others yet if he be questioned his words bind him to nothing but that he may goe off and on at his pleasure The subtilissimus Doctor could not more warily have provided himself with evasions so sure that if all the world together should indeavour it none can catch him 1 If we demand of him whether he speak of faith quae Justificat qua Justificat which Justifyeth and as it Justifyeth he leaves us here at a losse and will noâ— tell us 2 In saying Faith as it comprehendeth all the condition c. and by all the condition understanding all the duties which the Law requireth if he be demaunded whether there be a faith which comprehendeth all these or if so whether as parts of it self or things reducible to it or if the latter why are all these or how more comprehended in faith then faith and all other of the rest in his sensu composito comprehended in any one of the rest or if in the former sense whether it be a faith of Gods making or of Mr. Baxters making made in the defining and defined in the making To no one of these our doubts that he leaves upon us by his ambiguity of speaking hath he one word to resolve us so that where to finde an answer to him he leaves us uncertain 3 If we should aske him where he saith in the beginning of of the definition It is when a sinner c. whether he means that the quando is the genus of faith or whether it be a regular definition of an act or habit to posit when it is and not what it is and if so why doth he not define it by a certain rather then by an indefinite time by Anno Mundi or Anno Domini or Imperii or Regni c. that from the Chronicle we may seek and finde it Or if by his quando we can find out the time how shall we find and know the thing Be it that we can hit the time when all that followeth is done and so upon Mr. Baxters authority conclude that then faith is yet do we not remain so uncertain as at first what it is that we may make use of it to justification he speaks nothing to certifie us that from what he saith we might take the occasion to consent with him or dissent from him 4 If we would know from him of all those things at whose being positure and acting he tels us faith is whether they include faith constitutively or else but declaratively whether faith consists of these as the whole of its parts or the genus of its species or the compound of its simples or else whether all these do but declare and evidence the truth of faith in a man If declaratively alone how then do those things which only declare faith any more then declare and evidence Justification by faith and how then holds his conclusion hence that we are justifyed before God by these because so justifyed by faith Or if constitutively as many severall parts and ingredients they make up as it were the body of faith how then doth the holy Ghost oppose faith and works even to the excluding either of other about the point of justifying as in other Scriptures so in that before mentioned Text Eph. 2. 8 9 10. Is there a conflict of flesh and spirit Jacob and Esau Christ and Eaxter in one and the same body and bowels of faith either to destroy the other as to Justification or if faith be made up of works and the holy Ghost doth so frequently in Scripture reject yea accurse works from the justification of the new Covenant how is not faith it self which is nothing else but a body and bundle of works accursed from justification also In none of these ambiguities that he hath left in his Thesis doth he speak one word to saâ—isfie us Lastly where he saith that faith is when all these duties are done sincerely to the end if we demand him whether he mean thaâ— when there is an end of doing them or of the man that doth them that then faith hath its being and not till then and so all other duties act in justifying while we live and faith after all when we are dead or whether he means that as long as these duties are done faith is but when they arâ— not done or when they cease to act faith is not but loseth its being Fuit Ilium ingens gloria Teuerorum I had once a faith and a ravishing joy in beleeving either while I was under sufferings for Christs sake but now my sufferings are ended and I am no more persecuted my faith is expired or while I waited on all the ordinances of Christ but now my sick bed or prison or banishment intercepts me from many of Christs ordinances My faith is lost which of these wayes or in what third sense he will be understood let him that can conjecture but in respect of any thing that we have under his hand in the Thesis he is yet free to choose his meaning so that in all that he
Br. with so much impetuousnâ—sse and impotency to use his Mounts and Mines against them Neither can I see any ground of objecting that either of these two doctrines can in any respect dull the affections to good works sith it is confessed that they have no co-officiating with Faith to Justification 4 To Christs satisfying for sins against the Gospel as wel as against the Law I doubt not but ye see both the nicity and falsity of Mr. Brs Negation thereof The chief Doctrines of the Gospel are Grace and Gratitude Justification and Sanctification If Christ hath not satisfied for our long unbelief and contempt of the word of Faith before we beleeve and of the infirmities of our Sanctification and Thankfulness when we have beleeved or that there are sins against the New which are not sins against the Old Testament also or that the Lord Jesus is not the Mediator of the New Testament but of the Old onely or that in any of these it should be Antinomianism to dissent from Mr. Br These all are so grosse Paradoxes that your gravity and wisedom cannot without Nauseousness smell them plainly enough declaring indeed that whatsoever standeth in his way of Babel building he will curse it though never so sacred and fright them that are as feeble as fearfull with his scar crow of Antinomianism though he make himself never so ridiculous thereby to the intelligent and prudent I have no more to say upon this subject and what I have said hath been before him that being omniscient knoweth that I have spoken singly the whole truth and nothing but the Truth Neither can all the strength of my jealousy suspect any least or greatest thing besides these wherewith either Mr. Br. or any of his Disciples câ—n charge me as with Antinomianism so that I do with some confident boldnesse appeal to your judgment whether I deserve from them this imputation Inded such soul-reviving comforts have flown in upon me from the Grace of God in Christ that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak and I can scarce Preach any other thing then Christ and him Crucified yet in holding forth a wounded I hold not forth a maimed Christ to the people but Christ with all his benefits in particular to Sanctification no lesse then to Justification If it be Antinomianism so to reduce all to Christ and derive all from him I must undergo the worlds condemnation for Christs sake that hath justified and will at length receive me One thing more I have to add and I shall be no further tedious It may be a Charge against me that I am too plain broad and unsparing in my words against Mr. Br. throughout this Tractate That which I have to say for my self is 1 That it ariseth not so much from my own temper as from the occasion thereof given by Mr. Br. I am ready for Christs sake to become the footstool of the meek but where I find a self exalting I cannot cry Abreoh When I see Mr. Br. usurping the Chair to passe sentence and censure upon all the Divines that have written these are learned those unstudied Divines to exalt and degrade better men than himself as they are more either concurrent with or abhorrent from his Bellarmin and Arminius I cannot I dare not use words that might strengthen but rather vilifie the self confidence and arrogance of the man So when the Wolf comes in sheeps clothing to devour when under the profession of a Protestant and Presbyterian Divine he vends his Popish and Arminian under the name of Protestant Tenets dissembling his confederacy with the enemies thereof Si natura negat facit indignatio versum The view of such hypocrisy is enough to make a sheep a Satyrist Had I been to deal with a Papist or Arminian that had discovered themselves unmasked I should have spoken in another Dialect 2 It sprang from other mens yea Ministers too much admiration and almost adoration of him when from all parts there was such Concurse in a way of Pilgrimage to him to blesse him or be blessed by him and the admirers returned to the deceiving of others with no lesse applaus and triumph than the Turks from visiting the shrine of their Mahomet at Mecha It was requisite to discover whether he were a God or an Idol to whom such honour was presented 3 I have herein Christ and his Apostles my leaders from whom though we seldome heare a course word against any other sort of men yea of sinners yet when they speak against Impostors and Heretikes specially such as bring their own works and righteousnesse to Justification they so speak as if they were made up of bitternesse and invectives Ye hypocrites sowred with the leaven and whose doctrine is the doctrine of hypocrisy Mat. 16. 3. 6. 12. Ye Serpents a Generation of Vipers how can ye escape the judgment of Hell Mat. 23. 33. Wo unto you wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of God against men ye neither go in your selves nor suffer them that would to enter c. Mat. 23. 14 15 c. Children of hell blind guides fools and blind whited Sepulchres ver 15 16 17 27. The Publicans are justified rather then you enter into the Kingdome before you Lu. 18. 14. Ma. 21. 31. More joy is in Heaven for one sinner repenting than 99 such c. Lu. 15. 7. False brethren Gal. 2. 4. Subverters of souls Acts 15. 24. Grievous Wolves not sparing the flocke Acts 20. 29. False Apostles deceitfull workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ Satans Ministers transformed into Ministers of Righteousness as Satan transformed himself into an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11. 13 14 15. Doggs evil workers the Concision Phil. 3. 2. Let them be accursed Gal. 1. 8. I would they were cut off Gal. 5. 12. with many other the like passages It savours not of the spirit and zeal of Christ and his Apostles not to speak home to this kind of men above the rest But if I have not fully proved Mr Brs principles and doctrines to be the same in substance with these false Apostles as elswhere in this Treatise so specially Part 2. Chap 19. I acknowledge my self not to understand either Saint Paul or Mr. Br. My Request now shall be such as hath equity in it that as far as ye find this Tractate Orthodox and Consonant to sound Doctrine ye will be pleased to grant it and the Author of it your Patronage and prayers for a blessing upon it and where ye see it otherwise to vouchsafe to its Author your Admonition not suffering him to stray whom charity binds you to reduce into the way This is desired as from all so from every of you by From my Lodging in Aldersgate street Decemb. 24. 1653. YOVR Humbly devoted Servant in the Lord Jesus JOHN CRANDON To the truly Vertuous and Religious Lady Margaret Hildesley of Hinton in the County of South-Hampton
Baxter if he think it safe with sophisticall subtleties to dispute himself into heaven Neverthelesse the position stands firm even in the fall of the credit of the assertor That such humane learning is of no force to decide judg and conclude any thing in questions meerly Evangelicall such as is Justification and all other Gospel-graces and priviledges This may be with much facility evidenced to as many as have not their eyes blinded by the God of this world as yet and that by these following reasons 1. All the Doctrines of the Gospel are transcendent high and above the reach of the most sublimated reason Eye hath not seen nor eare heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to know them 1 Cor. 2. 9. The natural man receiveth not cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned ibid. Vers 14. They are mysteries hid in God from the beginning of the world from ages and generations but at last made known by the Spirit in the preaching of the Gospel not only to the Saints on earth but also to the Principalities and powers in heavenly places i. e. to the Ministring Angels and Spirits before God in heaven Ephes 13. 9 10. Col. 3. 26 27. So that at the revelation thereof by Christ and his Apostles the very Angels desired to looke into them as learners of that sacred Doctrine which before they had not attained 1 Pet. 1. 12. But all this humane learning whereof we speak is naturall flowing originally from naturall and heathen men who in their either most profound or most sublime speculations could not see a span above Nature no nor to the top of Nature by many fathoms Therefore is there a totall invalidity in it to discern one ray of Evangelical and spiritual things To produce any thing therefore out of this humane literature to discern and judg of Gospel-doctrines is no lesse folly than to make a blind man judg of colours or a deaf man of sounds or to set a dead man to running of a race Yea to hold forth any thing hence to cleer up and evidence spiritual things is but to hold a candle nay a dark Lanthorn to the Sun for the cleering of its beams that we may see it If any object that Spiritual and Evangelical Doctrines are by none brought as Spiritual and Evangelical under the Tryall of this humane learning but as they fall under some Topicks of this or that Art or Science as Eâ—s Substantia Accidens Actio Relatio c. and so farr only they are disputed of by and according to the Maximes and Canons of those places I answer that even this is to subject supernatural Doctrines to the judgment and censure of Natural Reason It will not be denyed that the first Founders of these Arts and the precepts thereof were meerely Naturall and Morall men and neither did nor could accommodate their precepts and rules to any other but natural and Moral things were so farr unable to reach them to things supenatural that they left them in many things unperfect as to things natural so that after all the amendments of all their followers not a few of their Canons remain disputable and controverted as to Natural and Moral things still Therefore to prostrate spiritual things to the judgment of this Natural learning is to subject the Authority of Christ to the Authority of men the wisdome of the Spirit to the wisdome of the Flesh and that which is infallible to that which is both fallible and fallacious Nay all the doctrines and precepts of Philosophers are to be tryed by the word but in no wise are the dictates of the Spirit and doctrines of the word of grace to be tryed by the precepts of Men. I forbeare to speak here that otherwise not Christ but Aristotle must in matters of salvation be made our Ipse Dixit or that none but Schollars can have any stable setlednesse of faith the unlearned in humane literature remaining uncapable thereof because they cannot prove the truth of what they believe as well by the rules of Art as by the Testimony of the word of Christ I only say when Christ by his word hath said and determined here not to subject and rest satisfied but to consult with flesh and blood with the rules of humane Art for my fuller resolution is no lesse indignity to Christ than to set mans wisedom in the Chair and to prostrate Christ to be his Footstool 2. If it have any power and efficacy to this end it must be either from some naturall and intrinsicall vertue of its own or else by Gods ordination and infusion Not by any naturall vertue of its own as appeareth by what was last said and by this that none ever by such secular learning attained one least spark of Gospel-knowledg nor yet by Gods ordination and inspiring strength into it to operate for such an end For let it be declared in what Scripture God instituted or owned it as an in-strument usefull and effectualized for such a work And if neither of these ways it be powerful or in a capacity either to declare or confirm Gospel-matters then hath it no power at all to such a purpose If any thing be excepted against in this Argument it must be the latter disjunctive particle thereof in the Assumption which denieth the humane learning before mentioned to be ordained of God or qualified by him as instrumental and effectual to determine any thing in Evangelical and Spiritual Doctrines But this may be cleered and confirmed by the Reasons following 1. Because neither the Lord Christ nor any of his Apostles or Prophets have made use of it to this end Not his Prophets under the Old Testament For when they spâ—ke any thing of the Mystery of Christ and his Gospel that were afterward more fully to be revealed they did it by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3. 16. and the revelation of the spirit of Christ which was in them 1 Pet. 1. 11. not as having dipped the same from the broken Cisterns of humane inventions and learning And when they will add a confirmation to such Doctrines the only authority which they produce is divine Thus saith the Lord The Lord of Hosts hath said it the holy the lofty the mighty one of Isroel hath spoken it without any Philosophical or Metaphysical Arguments to prove it No lesse is to be said of Christ himself our own and only Mr. when he descended from Heaven to reveal his Gospel in its fulness and glory affirming his doctrine to be onely and wholly that which his Father taught him Joh. 8. 28. which he had seene with his father Joh. 8. 38. as he had commandement from his father Joh. 10. 18. even as the father said unto him Joh. 12. 50. as he heard from his father Joh. 15. 15. Lo all from heaven from the Father nothing from earth from men in revealing the Gospel No nor to the confirmation of it being
of good and evill But the Love overcometh the Anger therefore the good is greater than the evill and so death hath lost its sting 1 Co. 15. 55 56. There is no unpardoned sin in it which shall procure further judgement and so no hatred though there be anger 9 The Scripture saith plainly that death is one of the enemies that is not yet overcome but shall be last conquered 1 Co. 15. 26. And of our corruption the case is plain 10 The whole stream of scripture maketh Christ to have now the disposing of us and our sufferings to have prevented the full execution of the Curse and to manage that which lyeth on us to our advantage and good but no where doth it affirm that he suddenly delivereth us We have here an Antiscripturall and an Antichristian Conclusion yea a conclusion that hath many Antichristian and Popish Conclusions involved therein Therefore Mr. Baxter being extremely ambitious that an assertion of that nature should stand hath pillared and propped it up with no less than ten Arguments delighted more as it seemes with number than with the waight and strength of them And that he may go orderly to work he forelaies such a stating of the question as may not disadvantage him leaving the question obscure and ambiguous still The Common judgment saith he i. e. The Consenting judgment of all the reformed Churches is that Christ hath taken away the whole Curse though not the sufferings by bearing it himself and now they are afflictions of love and not punishments Who can perswade the Serpent to be streight and ceas from Crookednes and winding in his motions He that mainteineth a good Caus needs no shifts simplicity ingenuity and plain dealing sufficeth him Shall we think that Mr. B minceth and maimeth the judgment of the Orthodox Divines but for the advantaging of the Popish Caus which he mainteins against them With a Counited Judgment they assert a totall freedome by Christ both from the Curs and the sufferings also as they have reference to the execution of the law yea from the law also as it threateneth and curseth them that are in Christ so that their sufferings are chastisements and tryalls flowing from the same grace love from which Christ himself and the redemption which we have by him have issued dispensed toward them by a gracious and reconciled father not inflicted upon them by an incensed and unreconciled Judge But Mr. B casteth a veil over their judgments and le ts but a corner thereof to appeare becaus if he had set forth their judgment at the full it would have marr'd most of his Arguments wherewith he fights against them CHAP. V. The question stated between Mr Baxter and the Papists and Arminians whom he followeth and the Protestants whom he opposeth Scriptures and Arguments from scripture produced by the Protestants to prove 1 That Beleevers are not subject to the Curse 2ly That their sufferings have not the wrath and hatred but the love of God in them are not vindicatory judgments but Chastigatory tryalls LEt us now a little more fully state the question by shewing wherein that which Mr. B calleth the Common judgment and that which is his own pretendedly at least private judgment do consent together and wherein they differ either from other and so we shall avoyd all impertinencies and strife about words which are besides the question It is agreed then on both sides 1 That the Curse is the penalty or the revenging Judgment or an effect of Gods revenging wrath by the execution whereof he taketh satisfaction to his justice upon Transgressors for the breach of his Law so Mr. B. makes it out p. 17. 2 That the justice of God is so fully satisfied by bearing this Curse or penalty as by a complete fulfilling of all the righteousness which the Law requireth p. 48 50. 3 That the Lord Christ hath undertaken and made full satisfaction to God for all the sinnes of beleevers bearing the curse due to them and paying if not the idem according to Mr. B. yet the tantundem that their debt did amount to 4 That God resteth as fully satisfied with this satisfaction of Christ as if it had been made personally by the beleevers themselves These two last Mr. B so frequently asserteth that there is no need to quote the places To which I may add 5 That Afflictions are incident to the beleevers as well as to the unbeleevers so that Love and hatred are not discernable to the lookers on by that which befalls men in this life Eccle. 9. 1. 6 That these afflictions have in them a smart and bitternes as they befall the very Saints so that oft-times in their apprehension the very wrath and curs of God seemes to be in them These two things we grant Mr. B so that hitherto the judgements consent Heb. 12. 11. The difference then betwixt him and us consists principally in these two things 1 Whether when Christ hath by doing their law paying their debt and bearing their curse satisfied the justice of God for the sinns of beleevers when God hath accepted the satisfaction given when the beleevers have by faith apprehended and laid hold on it They do yet remain liable to the curse of the Law in whole or in part to be inflicted upon them 2 Whether the afflictions which God inflicteth upon beleevers in this life are the effects of Gods revenging justice the Curse which the law threateneth and so consequently whether after that God hath taken ful satisfaction from Christ he doth in whole or in part require and take satisfaction from them also Mr. Baxter with the Papists and Arminians mainteins the affirmative of both these questions we the Negative He that 1 after Christ hath born the Curse of the law for beleevers they are liable to beare it in whole or in part themselves also And 2 that the afflictions which they suffer are from the revenging justice of God the effects and Curse of the Law vindictive punishments of sin full of the wrath of God as in this his answer to the 3 question he declares himself But we utterly deny both these propositions either that the beleever is any more after his union to Christ subject to the Curse or that the afflictions which he suffereth have the Curse of the law and revenging justice of God in them but proceed not from the wrath of an angry judge but from the tender grace and love of a most wise and indulgent Father Both these assertions we ground upon evident Testimonies of Scripture First that beleevers are no more liable to but wholly freed from the Curse we have the Holy Ghost affirming Gal. 3. 13 14. Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the law being made a Curse for us c. that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith What can be said more cleer and full to the Confirmation
of our assertion or refuting of Mr. Baxters The Holy Ghost saith not Christ hath purchased to us a liberty for the future that in time we may be delivered from the Curse but he hath redeemed us hath obteined a present freedome for us from the Curse of the Law And how being made a curse for us He hath made present payment that we might have present deliverance Even as a surety making full satisfaction to the Creditor for the principalls debt obteins thereby for him a present discharge from his obligation not that he shall be for a season liable to arrests and imprisonments and after much fear and sufferings in this kinde be at last discharged This were enough but the wisdome of the Holy Ghost proceeds yet further to evidence this truth and to stop every mouth that shall presume to open it self against it That the blessing of Abraham might come even upon the Gentiles beleeving viz. the promise of the Spirit or Spirit promised by faith All must acknowledg that the entrance of the blessing and removeall of the Curse by the vertue of Christs death are coaetanea of one time and standing But the blessing which is the receiving of the Spirit is actually and oft in the beleevers own spirituall feeling existent and working in him assoon as by faith he is united to Christ Therefore also assoon as he is united to Christ he is actually freed from the Curse of the Law Again Rom. 8. 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus It will not be denyed here that condemnation is either put for or includeth in it the punishment to which the offenders are adjudged or condemned and so the meaning of the words must be this that there is remaining no curse no vengeance to which they that are in Christ might be condemned nor any sentence to adjudge or condemn them to it viz. because Christ hath born both for them and in thier stead This is fully confirmed in the second verse but I forbear to annex it because it is capable of many interpretations which would be too long here to insert but all tending to the Confirmation of this truth laid down in the first verse And if there be no condemnation no vengeance no curse to which beleevers are subject than are they freed from the Curse as well in its parts as in the whole So Rom. 6. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace In what respects shall not Sin have dominion over beleevers It is expressed partly ver 12. It shall not so reign that they should obey it in the lusts thereof And more fully before cap. 5. 21. It shall not so reign as formerly it hath reigned unto death i. e. to expose them to the curse and wrath Why Because they are not under the law but under grace The law denounceth and Gods revenging justice inflicteth the Curse yet upon none besides them which are under the law But beleevers having done their law in and by Christ come no more under the dominion of the law to be cursed by it but ever after they are in Christ they are under Grace at the disposition and under the dispensation of Gods grace from which all blessings but no curse hath its derivation No less absurd therefore is it to say that beleevers are liable to the Curse than to affirm that the Curse is an effect of Gods grace and not of his revenging justice And is there any thing less to be gathered from thapostle affirming Col. 2. 14. That Christ hath blotted out that Hand-writing of ordinances which was against us and contrary to us and taken it away nailing it to his Cross What was there in that hand-writing of Gods lawes and ordinances more against us and contrary to us than the curse but this th'apostle affirms Christ to have blotted out cancelled crucified in respect of any further power that it can challenge over the Saints Or when the promise of God is thus gone forth I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sinns and their iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 8. 12. Who will give any other interpretation to these words but this that God will not be wanting in his grace to remember the iniquitie of beleevers to purg them from it yet he will never more so remember it as to inflict the curse and wrath upon them for it Not to heap up scriptures beyond measure to this purpose I shal conclude with that of the Apostle Rom. 8. 15. Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father When was their time of bondage and fear but when they were under the law or what did they fear but the curse death and wrath which the law threatned But now being in Christ freed from the law they have received together with a new Condition or relation a new Spirit a Spirit not of fear but of Confidence not of fear because they have a freedom from the law and curse which before held them all their life time in fear but of Confidence because that being in Christ they are adopted to be the children of God no more to fear the curse from him as a Judge but to dwell upon his mercies as the mercies of an indulgent Father Enough for the confirmation of the first assertion and in all that hath been said there is nothing of the fallacies and querks of mans wit and learning but the very demonstration of the Spirit by the word The proof of the second is included in this If true beleevers are not obnoxious and liable to the Curse and wrath of God it must follow by necessary Consequence that then the afflictions and sorrowes which befall them here are no parts of the Curse or effects of Gods vindicative justice upon them But further to manifest that they are fruits of Gods love and discending from the grace of God I shall annex some Scriptures that give their suffrage hereunto First that in Heb. 12. 5 -8 may stand in stead of all in which the Apostle doth so fully dispute and determine this question as if it had been in his dayes Controverted He will not have us to forget that exhortation which speaketh unto us as to children My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord neither faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what son is he whom he chasteneth not But if ye are without chastisement whereof all are partakers ye are bastards and no sonnes Three Arguments eminent above the rest we here receive from the hand of the Apostle full to our purpose 1 He calls the afflictions of the Saints Chastenings or Chastisements not punishments or judgements insinuating that the troubles which they suffer toto coelo
before and in those thousands of years oft held out afresh and renewed but in opposition to the Covenant of Grace as it is now held forth in a new form and administration under the Gospel So that the two Covenants there mentioned are termed Old and New not for their differing in substance but for their different wayes of administration The Church of Israel then and the Churches of Christ now are and were under the same Covenant of Grace in substance but the Church then under a legall and the Church now under an Evangelicall and spirituall administration thereof That was the old this the new administration and in respect hereof the same Covenant then and now are termed the Old and New Covenant This is evident from the Text It shall come to passe saith the Lord that in those dayes I will make a New Covenant with them not such as I made with their Fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Aegypt which my Covenant they brake though I were an Husband to them saith the Lord. But this is the Covenant that I will make with them in those dayes I will put my Lawes in their minds c. And I will be their God c. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour c. For I will be mercifull to their unrighteousnes and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more Here Mr. B. must 1 Grant that the Old Covenant in this place mentioned was the Covenant of the Law given in the Wildernes For this is expresly affirmed where it is said to be made with their Fathers when the Lord took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Aegypt And 2 Notwithstanding Israel being under the Covenant they were not either wholly under a Covenant of works or besides the Covenant of Grace For the Apostle maketh these two phrases to be Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and Strangers from the Covenant of Promise to sound one and the same thing Ephes 2. 12. and telleth us that the Law which was 430 years after could not null the Covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ so as to make the Promise of no effect but that after the addition of this Legall Covenant that Gospel Covenant made with Abraham and them iâ— him of blessednes by Christ the seed of Abraham stood firm unto them still Gal. 3. 17. This also will doubtles be granted 3 That therefore the Gospel Covenant in this Scripture promised is called a New Covenant not in opposition to that made with Abraham for that is the same with this here promised onely that was confirmed of God in Christ to come this in Christ already come and yet in opposition to that legall administration of it and additory Covenant of the Law 430 years after annexed 4 That this additionall Covenant was that Pedagogy of the Law under which the Apostle affirmeth the Jewes though Lords of all to be kept untill the coming of Christ in the third and fourth chapters to the Galathians And it consisted partly of Ceremoniall Lawes and typicall Ordinances pointing to Christ that was to come and obscurely teaching Christ and Faith in him partly of the Morall Commandments the observation whereof was injoined as a condition of attaining that blessednes before promised to Abraham in Christ yet so as this condition If ye will obey was still in the hand of a Mediator satisfying for disobedience because no perfect obedience could be fulfilled This Pedagogy or leading of the Jewish Church by the hand while it was a child in the knowledg of the mystery of salvation by Christ was needfull it could not well be without the typicall Ordinances which by Lectures read upon them by their teachers might discover and seal up much of Christ to them Neither could it well be without the promises and threats of the Law while yet the Grace of the Lord Christ was veiled to them that in the light joy and brightnes thereof they could not as the Saints now run the race of Gods Commandments of pure love without some mixture of servile fear 5 It will hence then follow that the New Covenant here promised is termed a new Covenant because exempted from that additament of the Law 1 From the Ceremoniall Law which in its revealing of Christ veiled him and let out but a dark shadow of him and the grace that is by him so that there was need of a large exposition upon every figure Circumcision Passeover Sacrifices c. Brother to teach Brother and one Neighbour another what these things meant and yet at last both teachers and learners remained exceeding dark in the mystery of Christ But it is otherwise with us under the Gospel The shaddowes are vanished and we have the very body which is Christ Col. 2. 17. Our eyes have seen we have heard with our ears and our hands have handled the bread of life 1 Joh 1. 1. All is made out to us cleerly by the Doctrine and Spirit of Christ The Law by which the Prophet speaking in the tone of the Iewes and in a phrase which under that administration they best knew understandeth the Gospel and Law of the Spirit of life is written in our hearts revealed and sealed up to our Consciences We need not say Who shall ascend up to Heaven or who shall discend to the deep c. But the word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart this is the word of Faith which we preach Rom. 10. 6-8 So that there is not so much need of brothers teaching brother c. because all is held forth not in the shadow but in the clear light 2 From the conditions of the morall Law yea from all conditions which made that former administration of the Covenant terrible because conditions could not be performed The New Covenant saith the Holy Ghost shall be absolute not such as was made with their Fathers that might be broken but free and absolute all begun and ended by the meer grace of God I will teach c. I will be their God and they shall be my people I will be mercifull to their unrighteousnes and their sins and iniquity will I remember no more I am not so happy as to express my self in few words nor so either reckles or evilly subtle as under a pretence of brevity to leave things in ambiguity for self-ends This I conceive to be the meaning of this text and in these five Positions I have sub calculo melioris judicij expressed what yet I conceive to be the truth about the Covenant of Grace 1 between God and Christ 2 between Christ and man To this last thing handled that the Covenant of Grace in its present administration is free and not conditionall otherwise then I have before granted the Apostle giveth purposely his suffrage affirming the Covenant made to Abraham is that which now stands in force that the Law
and the same conformed not onely to the Law but the Gospel also as before hath been mentioned In respect of this sanctification though yet but unperfect wee indeed affirme the godly to bee sometimes called Righteous yet not righteous to Justification but in regard of the life of Righteousnesse new begotten and inherent in them But it is observable how subtlely he slanders the Orthodox Teachers with a fault which is his not theirs how hee would condemn them for men attributing too much to the Law and Workes because they call those virtues and good works which the Law commandeth a righteousnesse with which the godly do serve the Lord in and through Christ Jesus When himsel◠affirmes the same to be the very Righteousnesse by which they are justified For if he be demanded whether the personall Righteousnesse which he contendeth to bee necessary and effectual to Justification ought not to have at least some unperfect agreement to the Law of God he answers affirmatively and fights strongly for it in the sequele of this Treatise Let him be demanded whether any other supposed Righteousnesse that the Law command not can be our personal righteousnesse to justifie us This he◠denyeth What then is the difference betwixt him and them This onely that they will not say with him that his righteousnesse so unperfect as hee here termes it and which in the las◠words of the former Section he pronounced unrighteous hatefull and accursed is the personall righteousnesse by whic◠men are justified before God If you ask how such workes should justifie being so unrighteous and accursed yes saith he as God hath appointed them to be the conditions of the New Covenant the performance whereof justifieth and maketh us personally righteous before God Here now is a heavenly Gospel Such conditions and such a justification if the one bee accursed much more the other And where is Gods Righteousness if hee will not justifie but upon accursed conditions Those that will not have not consented to this doctrine of his he calls intolerably ignorant Let him now name any one either Divine or understanding Christian in any of the Churches that have shook off Popery and not suckt it back again consenting with him in this doctrine else it is not his humility that is discovered in calling all the godly and learned that are or have been in any of the Churches of Christ intolerably ignorant Satis pro imperio enough Magisterially out of doubt What he talks of the streight crooked line hath its dependence onely upon the fallacious definition which hee before gave of Righteousness making it a mear empty notion not a vertue or gif of Gods grace which definition falling this comparison fals with it For if we grant unto Righteousness a real being Master Baxter himself will not deny but as one sparke of fire under a vast heap of ashes is as true and real fire as if no ashes were there so one spark of righteousness I mean living Righteousness under a whole body of infirmities is as true and truly Righteousness as if no infirmities were there And if God vouchsafe to call a man righteous in reference to that poor pittance of Righteousness rather than unrighteous for the whole mass of his corruptions what art thou O man that repliest against God is thine eye evil because he is good B. Most they say to maintain it is in this simple objection If we are called holy because of an unperfect holinesse then why not Righteous because of an imperfect righteousnesse Answ Holinesse signifieth no more but a dedication to God either by separation onely or by qualifying the subject first with an aptitude to its Divine employment and then separating or devoting it as in our sanctification Now a person imperfectly so qualified is yet truly and really so qualified And therefore may truly be called Holy so farre But Righteousnesse signifying a conformity to the rule and a conformity with a quatenus an imperfect rectitude being not a true conformity or rectitude at all because the denomination is of the whole action or person and not of a certain part or respect therefore imperfect Righteousnesse is not Righteousnesse but unrighteousnesse It is a contradiction in adjecto Object But is our personal Righteousnesse perfect as it is measured by the New rule Answ Yes as I shall open to you by and by I could here heap up a multitude of orthodox writers that do call our personal Righteousnesse by the title of evangelicall as signifying from what rule it doth receive its name The words of the Poet are here verified by Master Baxter mali bonos malos esse volunt ut sint sui similes Hee is angry with the simplicity of the godly and orthodox that they are single and sincere in their disputes and would have them double and crafty like himselfe In this sense I acknowledge the Argument which he saith they bring and is most they say to maintain their assertion is a simple objection They have more to say for the maintenance thereof then all his sophistry can subvert And this argument though simple yet is not silly or weak but strong and sound against all his batteries It is drawn à pari If there be a parity between righteousnesse and holinesse to give a denomination of holy and righteous persons then the argument is firme and men may be as properly termed Righteous in reference to a righteousnesse not yet perfected as holy in reference to a holinesse not perfected at verum prius ergo Postorius The former is true therefore the latter also Master Baxter denyeth the assumption and goes about to shew a disparity in this case between righteousnesse and holinesse making holinesse to be either onely a separation of a thing or person to holy use without an infusion of a new qualification to fit him for holy employment or at least the qualification of such a person first alway and then a separating of him afterward as if usually the consecration or separation by the blood did not go before the new qualifying of him by the Spirit of Christ this indeed is not so squaring with the Popish Canon as his way But to let passe this touch onely upon that wherein he opposeth righteousnesse to holinesse Holinesse he grants to be a qualification and consequently to have a real Being This here he denyeth as before of righteousnesse A meerly fallacious evasion for righteousnesse hath no lesse a real being than holinesse as hath been before shewed And the Scripture gives its Testimony making Righteousnesse and true Holinesse as it were the two essentials of the New Man which is created after God i. e. in answer and conformity to that essentiall Righteousnesse and Holiness that are in God himselfe Eph. 4. 24. And what els doth Saint Peter mean in affirming the Saints to be Partakers of the Divine Nature but by the infusion or creating of Righteousnesse as well as Holinesse in them by which they are reformed to
performance of homage therefore the personall performance of Faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment as if we had payed the full rent because Christ whom we believe in hath paid it and he will take this for satisfactory homage So it is in point of personall performance and not of value that Faith is imputed I should have left this passage as meerly windy to the wind finding nothing in it that hath the least force to disturb or shake any wel-grounded Christian Only because not all that are true Christians are also so well grounded and rooted in Christ and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets as could be desired but not a few children in understanding whirled to and fro with every winde of doctrine for prevention of their sliding I shall say something and there is not much need of speaking much to it Mr Baxter shews himself to be a notable proficient yea a perfitist in the art of Imposture As hee hath his feats and shifts of sophistry still in readiness to beguile them that pretend to learning so he hath and here makes use of his good words and fair speeches smoothnesse of language and a shew without substance of reason which the Holy Ghost affirms to be the common slight of false teachers to deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. His scope here seemes to be two-fold 1. To hold himselfe in favour with the Arminians his younger brothers and kindly to draw them with him up to a full closure with the Papists the worst of Papists to speak not onely the same thing but also the same words with him and them in the point of Justification 2. To delude and charme with golden words of painted vanity in stead of sound verity the weak and unwary Christians among us into a confederacy with him in his opinions 1. In reference to the former part of his aim and purpose it is evident that though the Arminians are led by the same spirit with the Papists and as much as we can understand by their writings have even sacrificed themselves to drive on the Papists interests yet they speak not altogether so broad and home as Master Baxter doth in the Popish dialect in this point of justification The times of Master Baxters and Arminius his declaring themselves for the Popish synagogue were not one and the same Here Master Baxter hath the advantage of Arminius improves it diligently Arminius was to broach his doctrine in Common-wealth where he knew he should have all the Magistracy Ministry and people also on a sudden rising up with co-united strength to oppose him yea all the Magistrates and Ministers of the reformed Churches round about bringing their co-united help to extinguish his wild-fire Needfull was it therefore for him in policy to speak warily non repente fieri turpissimum not at once to discover himselfe at the worst The times do better serve Master Baxters purposes Providence hath cast him upon a people of itching ears at a time when the promoting and admitting of Monstrosities in opinions is the fashion mainly in request in religion the most like the Athenians harkening â—fter nothing else but news and novelties in doctrine having set up Altars in their hearts to the unknown Gods are ready to burn incense and offer sacrifice to every phantasm of falshood which under the name of a new light or truth shall be discovered to them It behoved him therefore for the full attaining of his designs to make use of the opportunity to strike home and to the purpose while the iron is hot and having his mouth once open to vomit out all the poyson in his belly in one floud while there are so many mouthes and bellies open to receive it Hence it is that Arminius and his followers though they had as good stomacks as Mr. Baxter yet did not open their mouthes as wide as hee in Babel language Though they spake the tantundem yet they spared to utter the idem with the Papists to obscure the Grace of God in our Justification They termed not as the Papists do Faith the very or part of the very righteousness which justifieth of it self but that which is imputed to us for or in stead of perfect righteousness to Justification asserting not that it justifieth by its own inherent virtue or righteousness but to bee graciously accepted for righteousnesse at Gods tribunall Christ say they hath merited for us that our Faith should be accepted and esteemed of God for and in place of the perfect righteousness of the Law to justifie us in his sight In substance they speak the same thing with but in words they are somewhat more favourable and modest then the Jesuits But Mr. Br. doth not thus speak thorow his teeth lisping to mince the matter but having the advantage of a good wind and tide as hath been said hoyseth sayles and is at once carried into the very Lateran of Rome through the streams of Tibris and speakes out in the Romish tone asserting Faith to be the personall righteousnesse by which we are justified and makes the righteousness of Faith a collateral with the righteousness of Christ to our justification Yet doubting his good friends the Arminians will be angry for his posting before them and finding them in reverence to their Father Arminius yet sticking to and loath to depart from his words that Faith is but imputed for righteousness he calls back notwithstanding all his haste to them inviting them to follow him for he is still of the same mind with them and endeavours to shew them that Faith it self may be our righteousnesse and yet be imputed to us for righteousnesse also Which also he doth so graphically paint out to them that they may if they will not be too wayward easily perceive that they may own the Pope for their Father and be nevertheless the genuine sons of Arminius still What effect his fine words will take upon the Armians I know not I care not Only this was requisite to be made out to be one end that he had in this passage of his that we might the better know the man what he is One that hangs so close to Rome as the bur to the garment yet holds sweet correspondence with the Arminians too to draw them to so full a discovery of themselves as himself hath made of himself 2. In reference to the weake and unwary Christians among our selves his aime is to fasten both the Popish and Arminian doctrines before mentioned upon them and that not by strong arguments of Scripture whereof he is wholly destitute in this point but by fine paints and flourishes of words and delightful fimilies pretending much sweetness and innocency in those doctrines having learned of his forefathers that images are Laymens best books viz. to carry them into idolatry error and pictures are of more force to work upon the ignorant then sound doctrine To prevent therefore what
us with the leaven of the Papists He saw these 2 Theses which I have examined together viz. Perfection Merits of works if they should come together one in the neck of another without any Calm betwixt them would make so terrible a sound as would be enough to waken and startle all that were but sleeping and not dead for fear the Pope or the Devill had been come to assault them Therfore to keep all quiet he interposeth this Thesis and its explication in which he pulls the ears of our Divines for saying that God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties and actions pag. 134. deinceps in the explication telling us it is a doctrine of dangerous consequence many wayes and except we will take it in his that is in the Popish sense it smells rankly of Popery setts up Justification by works from the very thought whereof he starts startles away as affrighted Notable dissimulation not of a learner but of one learned in the Trade Clodius accusat Maechos Catilina Cethegum He that affirms our Righteousness equall with the righteousnes of Christ to justification that entitles it a perfect righteousnes a meritorious righteousnes is the first man in all the world that fears of the advancing of Justification by works by them whom he hateth for oppugning it If there were that which he calls danger in this phrase or doctrine of setting up such a justification would not himself be the first man to kisse it to eat it up to promote it What is it that makes him to disrelish the phrase so extremely is it not that it inverts his order in Justification that he would have the works to justifie the man when contrariwise this doctrine makes the justification of the person to be the ground of the acceptance of his obedience Is it not the very depth of Satan from which he is moved to guise disguise himself to act Satans part with all guile and subtlety to betray the Saints of Christ and the truth of Christ to damning Popery and yet here and there to transform himself into an Angel of Light a Minister of Righteousnes to blinde the eyes of the simple that they may not espy him untill they be taken in his snare and lost for ever As for the doctrine or phrase it self he knowes our Divines mean this onely when they say God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties actioÌ„s viz. That God having first justified their persons from all the guilt that was upon them doth thenceforth also justifie them in refâ—rence to all the duties which thorow Christ the Mediator they shall perform unto God not imputing to them the imperfections thereof so that they may rest Confident of Gods accepting both the performers and the performance in and through Christ the beloved In this respect and not as Conditions of the New Covenant as Mr. Br dreameth doth the Gospel teach our works to be accepted of God There is yet one link of the Popish Chain wanting without which it will be unperfect and unusefull If it were granted that there is 1 a personall righteousnes of Gods own appointment necessary to justification 2 That this righteousness consisteth in ouâ— own Faith and sanctification or good works 3 That it is a perfect and 4 a Meritorious Righteousness yet all this cannot be effectâ—all either to save or deceive us unless it be a righteousnes also possible for us to perform Thaâ— he may not be wanting therefore to the Popish Cause in any one branch of Popish doctrine he addeth this also Thesis 27 in these words pag. 141. Bax As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of Works by that power which he received by Nature so is it possible for us to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ To which he adds in the Explication pag 142 c. Bax This possibility is to be understood not in Relation to the strength of the Agent But in the Relative sense the Conditions of the New Covenant are possible to them that have the assistance of Grace So that strength which was in Adam to fullfill was a power which he received by Nature But the strength by which we perform is the power which we receive from the grace of Christ If any should have asked him what that grace of Christ is the man was very Coy he could but he would not tell whether it were a Pauline or a Pâ—lagian Grace a grace equally extended both to the Elect and the Reprobats or a grace peculiar to the Elect a grace that comes no further than the ear or a grace operating upon the heart also c. He had other fish to fry and had not the leizure to stay câ—ack these nutts now He bids us to turn over many volumes and specially Parkers Theses to search if possibly we can finde what Mr. Brs judgment would be many years after in this poynt But it is easie to perceive the mans meaning by his gaping in many passages of this book We should have had all this in rank and file in his much promised Tractate of Vniversall Redemption by which as by a second famous atchievement he meant to endear himself to his holy Father but that unluckily there is one of his own spirit step into his Holinesses Parlour to present him with this gift and so anticipated this favour which Mr. Br would have had entire to himself so that now the expected advantage being lost he not using to open his Commodities to sale a day before the Fayr we might possibly for a couple of Capons obtein to know his meaning herein In the mean while it must needs be his intent in reserving to himself what he meant by grace to puâ— upon us a kind of impossibility to say readily yea or nay to his asserted pâ—ssibility of performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by a power which he leaves us uncertain of knowing what it is As for the two fold opposition which he puts in his Thesis 1. between the conditions of the Old Covenant New 2. Between the power which Adam had by nature and the power which we have by the Grace of Christ there is nothing but a windy sound of words therein to deceive his reader into an opinion that he hath some honest and sound meaning in what is here posited or said For neither doth he make any real difference between the conditions of these two Covenants but makes our own Righteousnesse consisting in faith and works to be the substance of the conditions of both Covenants onely he puts a supposed difference in the measure of them One an imaginary perfection of sincerity in doeing them answering to what the New Covenant requireth the other an absolute and gradual perfection in doing them without the least particle omitted or committed besides or against the rigorous exaction of the Old Covenant And this
Baxter how is not then himself in famous in reference to that for which he pronounceth them famous Or in granting them at the highest the name of Theologers doth he not inure upon himself the brand of a Theologaster But peradventure he thus insignizeth them in respect of the opinion that others have of them though in his own accompt or in comparison with himself he knowes not whither to terme them Cranes or Pigmies Or it is a peece of that subtlety which elsewhere he useth frequently to abuse the ignorant with a conceit that all which he delivers is orthodox because of his pretending himself to be an admirer of such in whom verity and Godlines with profoundness in learning are met together Or lastly Ambition of popular glory and praise might invite him so to magnify them The greater the Champions are with whom he Combateth The more glorious he may conceive his victory to be if he return out of the field Conqueror And he might expect that the lesser and lower rank will be as mute as fishes when they see the Classicall Doctors of highest esteem once battered by his disputations Two Kings could not stand before him how shall we stand 2. Kin. 10. 4. so c. However it be all that know them and him will conclude certainly that hee doth in no wise so speak of them because he can say of them in the words of John whom I love in the truth 3. Jo. 1. But note ye out of the same mouth in the same breath come Blessing and Cursing The Kiss and the stab of Joab go together Majestically rather than Magisterially he mounts them to the top of the Stage to hurl them down thence in the same Momâ—nt headless Master Pemble long since while he was yet a young man slâ—pt in Christ But Doctor Twisse not untill of late in a venerable old age was laid in the grave and Master Baxter a Punie to him throwes his curses after him that he was erroneous hereticall yea one that set up the Pillar of that which he calls and detesteth as the worst of Heresies Antinomianism Dared he but to have whispered so while Doctor Twisse was yet living It is come to passe what I conceived and intimated to divers of my friends at the first coming abroad of Doctor Twisse his works that during his life we should finde none that would write against him but after his death there would be many censurers though never an answerer of him Our eyes have seene since his death brought forth into the light those Tractates which while he lived dared not come forth out of the womb of darknesse And those mouths now open after his death to snarl at him which for fear of him were as fast shut while he lived as the Egyptian doggs at the presence of an Israelite Exo. 11. 7. yet may some take it to argue an ignoble Spirit in Master Baxter so to tread on the neck of a dead Lion having not so much as looked thorow the Grate upon him while yet living and to seek honour by the Conquest of them Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ But there is but little harm where there is but barking onely without biting And how little impression upon Doctor Twisse his either Doctrine or reputation Master Baxters sugillation hath made we have in part and in generall seen already and may yet take notice more particularly 2. Then when in opposition to Doctor Twisse his Major proposition vizt All Acts immanent in God are Eternal he tells us that Immanent in God must needs be taken Negatively not Positively § To speake more scripturally than Metaphysically I answer I see no ground of such a necessity but that it may be understood as well positively as yea rather positively than Negatively What is immanent in God but abiding or residing in God or to use the Scripture terms hidden in God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 3. 3. Yet so that when it is revealed it abides notwithstanding and hath its immanency in God still Approbation Acceptation accounting us just and loving us in Christ are Acts of Gods Knowledge and will and both before and after we have the revelation thereof to our soules they are immanent and abiding in God fâ—om everlasting to everlasting Are there not immâ—nent Acts in the soul of man much more in the minde and will of God What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him Even so none knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. By the things of God and the things of a man I doubt not but it will be granted that we must understand the apprehensions volitions purposes and affâ—ctions if I may so speak of God and of men And are not these things in God as well as the things of God So they are as properly termed Acts immanent in God in a positive sense as actually abiding in God as in a Negative in opposition to their Transiency and termination upon a subject without God The latter is not onely or so much denyed as the former affirmed And thus our justification is positively and depositively immanent in God from eternity Posited in the bosom of God the Father as in the Cabbinet of his counsells and deposited in the hand of God the Son as in the hand of a faithfull Mediator and surety for us upon his undertaking to make satisfaction which God the Father accepted as present satisfaction made for our sinns 3. The reason which he annexeth to prove that Acts are not positively immanent in God is insufficient and reasonlesse For Acts saith he have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause As if Acts and effects could not also abide and remain in their cause Master Baxter no doubt hath read Bellarmine Arminius and Corvinus in their disputes against the Doctrine of the reformed Churches suppose now an act of approbation hath passed within him so far as that their Faith is become his Faith also but secretly and not fully yet manifested to the World Is not this approbation an Act of Master Baxter if so is it not also an immanent Act abiding in himselfe within his owne minde as well positively the râ—siding as negatively not transient upon those Writers to produce any new relation or passion in them Himselfe and his Master Grotius concurre That the effects of efficient voluntarie causes do not alway immediately follow them That God hath decreed from eternity the transient Justification of the Elect in their own consciences yet the execution thereof follows not untill they beleeve Thes 15. and its Explication and here againe pag. 177. I demand now where this decree this act lyeth hid untill the execution thereof It must be either no where and consequently null and annihilated or else abide still and bee Immanent in God and so what was in God from eternity is immanent in him from eternity
said we may easily perceive without any further and new summing up the particulars what the assertions are which may be truly and properly charged with Antinomism and gave first the Term of Antinomism to the Assertors Now let us see also what the Tenents of Master Baxters Antinomists are and what opinions he curseth to Hell unde the name of Antinomianism Their Heresies according to Master Baxter are these which follow 1. That Justification is or there is a Justification from Eternity pag. 93. 2. That it is an immanent act in God pa. 173. 3. That our Evangelicall righteousnesse by which we are justified is without us in Christ pa. 109. or performed by Christ and not by our selves pa. 111. 4. That Justification is a free act of God without any condition on our part pa. 169 170. 5. That God seeth not sin in his justified ones pa. 207. 6. That we must not work or perform duties for life and salvation but from life and salvation or that we must not make the attaining of justification or salvation an end of our endeavours but obey in thankfullnesse onely because we are saved and justified pa. 324 325. 330. 7. That they acknowledge no condition of life but bare beliefe in the narrowest sense that is either belief of pardon and justification and Reconciliation or affiance in Christ for it so also they acknowledg no proper damning sin but unbelief in that strict sense as is opposite to this faith i. e. the not believing in Christ as our Saviour Append pa. 20 21. 8. To these he addeth many more or rather mostly the same in other Termes out of the Marrow of Modern Divinity I mean the book so entitled which in due place we may as far as shall be thought needfull examine Appen pa. 100. to pa. 106. Lastly he seems to accuse them of all the prodigious Doctrines which Colyer Spriggs Hobson and the rest of that Anabaptistical Enthusiasticall and phanatick strain of men have if indeed they be of them that have at any time said and unsaid whether such as they have derived from Nicolas Stock David George Thomas Muncer John of Leyden Cniperdolins c. and others of the same stamp in these latter times or such as either of them hath by a kind of Necromancy raised up from the ashes of Manes Samosatenus Arrius and other cursed Hereticks of antient times All these he would willingly inure upon the Antinomians i. e. upon them that will not say the same things with him who speaks the same things with the Jesuits in the point of Justification This he doth subtlely and underhand to beguile his unwary reader Append. pa. 99. Of all these onely the fift hath been as far as ever I could finde by any considerate and judicious person nicknamed with Antinonism untill Master Baxter and some other of his fellowes in these late years have taken upon them a Soveraignty as Lords and judges from Peters Chair which they have Canonized again to baptise with new names all the Doctrines of the Gospell that crosse the pride of their selfe-righteousnesse And even the sift it self in Scripture sense as I have before shewed is a Soul-comforting truth which we must no more suffer to be wrested from us than our Christ and all our happinesse by him vizt that God seeth not sin in his justified ones to impute iâ— to hate and condemn them for it Hee seeth not the guilt of any sin upon them having laid it and the condemnation to which it obliged upon Christ Jesus But that God doth not simply see sin in them either Originall or Actuall to act about it in a way of grace and truth according to his promises in Christ This I take to be a foppery the fruit of mens willfullnesse and pertinacity to have their own words and phrases stand as impregnable as Christs truth lapt up in them Let it be called Antinomism or Antigospellism or what else Master Baxter will stile it I shall not herein withstand him To me the truth and spirit of the Doctrines conteined in the word sufficeth the letter I shall no further propugn or oppugn than as through it the spirit and truth is levelled at To the first and second I have before spoken and let any man upon earth be produced that ever charged them with Antinomianism saving Master Baxter himselfe or one of his Disciples And if they be Antinomian Tenents then is Master Baxter one of those Antinomians being forced after his long and impotent cavill against as last to grant both as wee have before seen To the third I have also before answered Neither hath Master Baxter named nor can he I am confident name one man but either a Papist or at best an Arminian that before him hath either called Faith and Gospel obedience the Evangelicall Righteousnesse by which we are justified Or that hath denyed our gospell righteousnesse by which we are justified to be without us in Christ So that he pronounceth here all the orthodox of all Churches yea all professed Christians saving Papists Arminians and perhaps Socinians to be Antinomians So much of Antichristian pride and impudence possesseth him To the fourth and seventh I answer 1. That they are contradictory either to other For how can both be true that they affirm Justification to be a free Act of God without any condition on our part and yet teach also Faith or affiance in Christ to be a necessary condition of our Justification who shall take upon him to defend him that arraigneth and proveth himself to be a slanderer 2. Yet may it without contradiction be both affirmed that Justification as an act immanent and Eternall in God is absolute and without condition but as it is transient and Terminate upon the conscience of a believer not to be without condition 3. Because the Scripture never nameth Faith much lesse works the condition of Justification in time to question whether Faith itself may not more properly be termed by some other denominâ—tion in reference to justification than a Condition is no peece of Antinomism but a point of Christian prudence to consider and examine specially at such a time when Master Baxter and other of the Popes Factors under the word condition bestirre themselves to re-erect Justification by works 4. That Justification by that which Master Baxter abasingly calleth bare belief or affiance in Christ the Saviour i. e. by Faith without works is no Antinomian Doctrine but the Doctrine which Christ and Paul and the rest of the Apostles have preached and sealed with their blood that which all the reformed Churches have unanimâ—usly maintained and do maintain unto this day and that which Antichrist with his vassalls and others apostatized from the reformed Churches to them do pursue with fire and fury unto ruine With whom though Mr. Bax. come up in the rear driving Jehu like furiously in his Charriot to destroy it yet shall it stand impregnable as the prime Article of their Creed who either
to Christ that they perish not by following their own thoughts What then shall become of the wicked which are wholly full of corruption and unbeleef without any spark of faith and whom the Lord hath given up to a spirit of slumber like Bastards without all Chastisements hindering to roll themselves into ruine B. Rom. 6. 16. His servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousnesse The Apostle here speaketh of the righteousnesse not of Justification but of Sanctification except we will say he here digresseth from that which he makes the subject of this whole Chapter But whether he means the righteousnesse of justification or of sanctification yet the obedience he here speaketh of is that which cap. 1. ver 5. he declares himself to have received commission and Apostleship to preach viz. obedience to the faith the suâ—me whereof is faith in Christ Jesus What he would infer from his two last quotations 1 Pet. 1. 2. 22. Let him that can understand declare and make answer to it I yeeld that his profoundnesse condemns my shallownesse I dare not contradict him in what he would because I have not the wit to imagin what he would say It seems he had determined such a number of quotations and took at adventure those that came next to his view to make up that precise number Any other Scriptures besides these being as to my apprehension no lesse pat and proper to his purpose then these CHAP. IV. The vanity and ridiculousnesse of Mr. Baxters second and third Arguments discovered The former that Because faith is the more principall and works the lesse prinpall condition of our Justification and that all other duties are in some respect or other reducible to faith therfore we may be said to be justifyed by other works and duties yet to be justifyed by faith alone The second drawn from a wide and irregular definition of faith that it containeth all works in its belly therefore whosoever is justifyed by those works is justifyed by faith only A second Argument he drawes from an anticipation of an objection which he prevents by turning the edge of it against the objectors and applying it to the strengthening of his own assertion The objection that he sees in readinesse against him is that this doctrine of justification by duties and works wholly overthroweth that highest and most fundamentall Gospel doctrine of justification by faith alone This he denies and affirmes Thes 62. p. 238. that although we be justifyed by a thousand duties besides B. Yet faith may be called the only condition of the New Covenant i. e. of justification True if Mr. Baxter give the denomination but the question is not what things may be called but what they are A woe is pronounced to them that call or put light for darknesse and darknesse for light good for evill and evill for good c. I shall no further presse the unaptnesse of the phrase Mr. Bavter declaring in that which followeth his meaning to be that faith may be the only condition notwithstanding which he proves thus B. 1 Because it is the principall condition and the other but the lesse principall And as the whole countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the conditions of this Covenant from faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it either being presupposed as necessary antecedents as means or contained in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necescessary subservient means or consequents I speak first to the latter of these two arguments because he speaks first in the explication to the confirmation of it It is almost as wise an argumentation as I knew once used by some home-bred course-spun sons of a Country farmer who having heard that their father upon a day was sworn Constable at the Court made merry at home concluding from their fathers Constableship that they were all Constables and must rule the Parish because they were his sons and dwelt in house with him or as that of the Athenian boy that boasted himself to be the ruler of Athens thus proving it that he ruled his mother and his mother swayed his father and his father being Lord Maior that year swayed Athens Yea more of reason at least lesse of reasonlesnesse is there in both these arguings then in that of Mr. Baxter theirs concluded only the sons to to partake necessarily of their fathers office this man makes all that are in any respect of kindred yea of any relation to faith for such their relation to partake of the office of faith to justifie For so he reasoneth all the rest are reducible to faith as Antecedents going before it means to obtain it or parts or properties or necessary adjuncts and modifications or products effects or consequents What then Ergo these all in regard of their alliance or affinity to faith justifie and bear a part with faith in its office of justifying And yet when these justifie as much as faith we must understand that faith justifyeth alone Because what all these allies of faith do that faith it self may be said to do This is indeed Logick to prevail with his Kederminsterians or rather such of them as know no difference between Logick and Garlick It is as if I should dispute thus God made choyce of David before all and any other of the sons of Abraham to be King and to rule over Israel therefore all the progenitours of David as well Tamar and Ruth and Râ—hab as Judah Pharez and Booz yea more specially Jesse the father of David and all the brethren of David yea all the sons and generation of David to Joseph the Carpenter let me dilate my self more boldly all the tribe of Judah which were flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone nay all Israel which were allies to him and met with him in one common father Jacob these all partaked of Davids kingship and were partners with him in the office of ruling because they all were one way or other reducible to David as going hefore him or following him c. and yet when all these were Kings with David neverthelesse David was King alone Or thus The eye only of all the members of the body is appointed to the office of seeing neverthelesse the head that holds and gives influence to it the eye-lids that cover it the veins that convey nutriment to it the cheeks nose lips and teeth that are contiguous to it the hands and feet that are guided by it c. all these and many more do partake of the office of seeing together with the eye and when all these doe see as well as the eye yet the eye doth see alone because all the rest are reducible in some way of alliance to the eye If Mr. Baxters dispute be not one and the same with this in its grounds then is all my reason gone out of my head into my cap.
is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a minde to God hath put all his Sons offices into the condition to be received and submitted to Either all or none must be accepted And if all be in the condition then the receiving of all must needs justifie upon the grounds that I have laid down before It is not a new thing to see heresie usurping the chaire to condemne truth of errour The reasoning here is wholly carnall and naturall besides the rule of the Gospell When he calls faith a naturall way of receiving the mercy offered by Christ and our own worth and works implyedly the spirituall way how doth he put light for darknesse and darknesse for light giving to the truely spirituall cause of renewing that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 14. The naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God c. Can Heaven and Hell be more opposite either to other then the Apostles doctrine to Mr. Baxters The Apostle cals the way of faith alone the Spirit and the way of works superadded to faith for justification the flesh Gal. 3. 3. Is it Flesh or Spirit in Mr. Baxter that makes him a contradictor of the holy Ghost speaking by the Apostle The way of faith is the way of grace supernaturall Flesh and bloud cannot reveal it unto us but our Father which is in heaven But the way of works is beneath grace dictated by nature it self therefore naturall but so that all the force of nature cannot effectuallize it to justification It is a slander that he puts upon the Orthodox whom he hateth therefore represents them as Noddies and Simpletons pretending that they teach faith to be nothing but an accepting of pardon and accepting of holinesse c. Nay we make neither pardon nor holinesse nor the c. but Christ Jesus the object of our faith adhere and cleave to him for all yet not confounding his benefits or the means by which he applyeth them but wait by faith at the severall sluces by which he conferreth his severall benefits to receive the washing away of our guilt by the effusion of his bloud and holinesse or sanctification by the effusion of his Spirit and not contrariwise holinesse by his bloud and pardon by the effusion of his Spirit So we repair by faith to Christ for all because in him as in the spring is all yet so as that in coming to him alone that hath all we come to the Sun of righteousnesse for light to the fountain for life and to the Spirit of sanctification which flowes from him for holynesse He cryes against separation and makes it as I have shewed for union and makes confusions Where doth he mention any office or operation of faith to sanctification or use of sanctification but to justification or what is faith with him but a compound of all endowments works and duties And thus he confounds faith and works Christs righteousnesse and mans righteousnesse morall honesty and Gospell sanctification of all together making up one linsy-woolsy justification or righteousness to justification which the Spirit of God never revealed but the spirit of Mr. Baxter hath hatched What he speaketh of Christ stablishing his office either is above my understanding or else is not at all to his purpose And what of accepting as under the notion of accepting or as under the notion of a condition hath been enough spoken to in what was before said about the instrumentality of faith All that followeth is wholly averse from and adverse to the doctrine of the Gospell Jewish and Popish For what meanes he by our title in Law and the wedding garment but the whole furniture of works and duties done in obedience to a supposed legislative authority of Christ Without these and before these to take possession i. e. to dare to adhere to Christ for justification is usurpation and an incurring of Gods vengeance for usurping Thus beating off from Christ sinners chief sinners for whom Christ hath dyed How doth the spirit of the rejected Jewes work upon this man when they heard of righteousnesse and Act. 22. 21 22 23. salvation offered to the Gentiles a common and profane people that were not holy how did they stretch their throats and rend their clothes in a zeal against this indignity So this man hearing of the justificition of Publicans and sinners hath his eye evill because God is good tears himself with anger crying usurpation vengeance hell-fire why because they had not put on the filthy rags of mans righteousnesse which he cals the wedding garment and thereby gotten title to Christ before they were so bold as to beleeve in him and girded on their own gaol-clothes first and then have put on Christ upon them that their own righteousnesse might have been neerest the heart and Christs righteousnesse at a further distance as having no efficacy but from our own righteousnesse effectuallizing it Unto all this I shall use only that oracle of the Lord Christ The Publicans and harlots enter into the Kingdome of God before these Pharisaicall justiciaries and whited sepulchers Let Christ alone be my wedding garment I leave all that unrighteous righteousnesse which Mr. Baxter would wrest out from the Kingly office entire to Mr. Baxter to compleat his righteousnesse to justification I know no other title to the justification of the new Covenant which the chief sinners must look after before they possesse it but the grant of grace in the new Covenant and their closure by faith with Christ in whom God presents himself to justifie and reconcile them to himself One voice of my Bride-groom crying Whosoever thirsteth i. e. is dry and empty of all good in himself let him come to me and whosoever will let him drink of the well of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. is of more force with me then ten thousand contradicting voices such as this of Mr. Baxter There is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a mind to If this man had the imaginary place of Peter to be Porter of heaven how quickly would he forfeit his place by repelling those whom alone Christ will have admitted and admitting those that Christ will have repelled Christ admits beleevers not doers this man rejects all beleevers that are not doers before they are beleevers The rest that he saith here is sacrificed to his Goddesse the Lady Condition A deity that the Scriptures never knew nor yet all the whole University of Athens They erected an Altar indeed to the unknown God Act. 17. 23. see the depth of Mr. Baxter he hath found the Antipodas which the old Mathematicians wrote of but could never find the deity which the learned Athenians worshiped but worshiped they knew not what This Goddesse Condition by some help of the Socinians and Arminians hath M. Baxter brought to light and invested her with more glittering ornaments then they had wit to do only he hath not yet
9. 15. So that it is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy verse 16. Many other Arguments have our Divines against the Papists about this question which I intreat the Reader to fetch from them for his fuller satisfaction Now let us see what Mr. Baxter brings to prove that obedience and good workes are the condition of our salvation Yet by the way let us note that the Argument it selfe which here Bell. de ju 〈…〉 4. 〈◊〉 he seeks to confirme is the Papists and great is Belarmines striving to maintaine it as his great prop of justification and salvation by works Si promissio vitae aeternae est conditionata faith he ut C 〈…〉 probavimus certè necessarium est implere conditionem si quis salvus fieri velit â—â—e if the promise of eternall life be conditionall 〈◊〉 I have proved in the first Chapter certainly he must nec 〈…〉 fill the condition that willâ—eâ— saved This Condition of which hee speakes is the same with Mr. Baxters viz. the Condition of works Neither shall it be impertinent heer to take into consideration some rules of our Divines for the right understanding of the minde of the holy Ghost in promising eternall life unto persons of such and such qualifications or that perform such and such duties before wee descend to examine the particular promises and testimonies which Mr. Br. alleadgeth These are principally such as follow 1. That they belong so farre as to bee effectuallized to none else but such as are vitally within the covenant of Grace under the protection of the bloud of the Lamb in spirituall union with Christ Jesus the mediator of the new Covenant according to that of the Apostle All the promises of God in him are yea and in him Amen never effectuallized to them that are not in him 2 Co. 1. 20. To Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not his seeds as of many but of one and to thy seed which was Christ viz. in him alone and to them alone to be confirmed which are in Christ Gal 3. 16. Therfore the blessedness which Matthew in sound of words seems to hold forth more generally Ma. 5 3. c. Luke as the Expositor of him or rather of the mind of Christ in those promises contracts to the right objects or persons to whom they were to bee made good thus Jesus lifted his eyes upon his disciples and said Blessed be YEE poor for yours is the Kingdome of God Blessed are YEE that hunger YEE that weep c. implying that the blessedness was to come upon them not by the vertue of these Acts and qualifications mentioned but upon this ground alone that they were his Disciples by him Gospellized and received into Covenant this is that which Augustine so much presseth in such promises to looke to the Root which is Christ and that the reward is not from their works because they are holy but because they are holy or Saints which wrought them and that they are thence saints from whence righteous not from the works but from the Faith of the workers 2. That in such promises the qualifications or works of the persons to whom they are directed are mentioned not as the ground or foundation of the blessednesse promised but to shew the method and order which God observes in bringing them to the possession therof Because he is holy pure spirituall therfore he powrs into them his purifying sanctifying and adopting spirit to conform them to his own will and nature before hee brings them into the full and reall fruition of himself So hee promiseth all the heaven of felicities to the meek the righteous the saints to them that love him that fear him that obey him not therby insinuating that hee found them but that he hath made or will make them such as many as he will crown at last with glory Heerin the power of that father of Spirits excelleth and exceedeth the power of the fathers of our bodies He new creates their hearts new forms their wills puts into them a new spirit therby making them as Peter saith partakers of the Divine Nature and to enjoy the kingdome of God within them heer before they be translated to it above 3. Nevertheless the foundation of all these promises is not such acts and qualifications in us but the relation of sons in which wee stand before God Such God beheld us in Christ before wee were born such hee hath made us that truly beleeve by the grace of the new Covenant having begotten us to himself of incorruptible seed 1. Pet. 1. 23. we are born of God and have received the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father So that our salvation dependeth not upon the vertues and good works which are mentioned in the promises but upon this our relation of sons if sons then heirs c. Ro. 8. 15. as a speciall friend of Mr. Br. who walks by the same rule and the same spirit with him hath acknowledged heerin consenting with our Divines and stoutly maintayning their Assertion at least because it seemed to give some fulture to his cause And I suppose Mr. Br. will not heer leave him whom in all the rest he followeth 4. Yet what the Lord giveth to and hath prepared of endlesse glory for his children as his children he doth oft-times hold forth and promise to them as a reward of such gifts of grace in them and of works which they have done or sufferings that they have undergone for his sake Not but that it was provided for them and promised to them before all such works and sufferings as they were children but for some other honourable ends which I shall in part mention having first instanced some promises of this kind Before the birth of Isaac long had the Lord of free grace promised to Abraham all blessedness corporall and spirituall present and future that his seed should be as the dust of the earth as the stars of heaven numberless that he should bee blessed and in him all nations of the earth be blessed that the land of Canaan the type and the eternall land of Promise the Antitype should be his and his seeds for ever Ge. 12 2. 3. and 13. 15. 16. and 15. 1-6 and 17. 1-8 Yet afterward cha 22. when Abraham had shewed that notable fruit of his faith fear and love to God in offering his son Isaac in obedience to Gods command God called from heaven to him by an Angel and sayd By my self have I sworn because thou hast done this thing and hast not with held thy son thy only son That in blessing I will blesse thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars in heaven and as the sand c. and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice Ge. 22. 15-18 We see heer that promised as a reward of this act of
To the 2 d. That it hath had a great hand in turning many learned men from the Protestant Religion to Popery 1 I demand whether there be not a contradiction in the Quere How were they ever escaped from the dreggs of Popery that yet held Justification by works which is the very root out of which all other Popish errors almost spring and by it self alone is worse than all the rest Or how can such persons be said to have turned from the Protestant Religion that joyned not with the Protestants in the very Foundation Let all the Confessions of all the Protestant Churches be read and but one produced that hath not with all defiance râ—jâ—cted justification by works as a foul abhomination They must needs be very learned men that had learned this mysticall Art of turning in Religion from them to whom they were not joyned unto them from whom they were never severed 2 If any have so turned they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would without doubt have continued with us But they went out from us that they might be made manifest that they were not of us 1 Joh. 2. 19. 3 Nevertheless they that are truly learned i. e. which have the mysterie of Christ revealed to them not by flesh and blood but by their Father which is in heaven that have learned as the truth is in Christ Jesus that have been taught of God and have so heard and learned of the Father that by his teaching they come to Christ being drawn and given to Christ by the effectuall teaching of God these shall never turn back again They are built upon the Rock and all the gates of Hell shall not prevail against them It is the will of the Father that of all those which are thus given to Christ he should lose nothing but raise it again at the last day Mat. 16. 18. Eph. 4. 21. Jo. 6. 45. 39. 4 By the vanity levity changes and whirlings of these learned ones in humane literature the Lord is pleased to publish to the world how vain and of no power such learning is while unsaâ—ctified to true blessedness I thank thee O father c. that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Mat. 11. 25. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent saith the Lord. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 1. 19 20. Professing themselves wise they became fools because they became vain in their imaginations Rom. 1. 21 22. So vain that they bring the transcendent mysteries of divine things to be tryed in the scales of humane reason and that which the Apostle saith is falsly called Science i. e. philosophicall learning A due stroke of Gods judgment upon them that will be wise without Christ and against him that while they will dispute and in their disputations subject the doctrines of Faith which can have no other foundation but the authority of the word to the rules and principles of secular Arts they shall with all their Art and Learning dispute themselves out of Christ out of Happiness 5 No more hath befaln them herein than God had before threatned should be the doom of such Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved For this Cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they might all be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 10. 12. 6 And most justly for pride goeth before destruction And what higher degree of pride than that an impure worm should swell with such an opinion of his own righteousness that he will refuse the life and salvation which are by Christ except his own righteousness be valued at so high a rate by the eternall God as to constitute him worthy of it Yet such is the high spirit of these self-righteous workers that they will enter heaven triumphing in their own strength and righteousness or els refuse to enter Magis honorificum est habere aliquid ex merito saith Bellarmine speaking of Merit quam ex sola donatione ideo deus ut filios suos magis honoraret c. It is more honourable to have something of merit than of meer gift Therefore God that he might the more honour his Children hath made a way that they should get to themselves eternall life by their own merits To the same purpose is that of another of the same nest Absit ut justi vitam eternam expectent ut pauper Tapper in Art Lovan Tom 2. art 9. Eleemosynam multo enim gloriosius est ipsos quasi victores triumphatores eam possidere tanquam palmam suis sudoribus debitam i. e. Far be it that the righteous should expect eternall life as a poor man doth an Alms. For it is much more glorious that they should possess it as conquerours and triumphers do the Crown due to their labors When this arrogant conceit once possesseth M. Brs. learned men to make themselves glorious by their ecclypsing of the glory of Gods grace no marvail if we see them not so much turning as turned out among the dogs and swine How can ye believe which seek honour one of another and not the honour which is of God only John 5. 44. 7 Yet for one that Mr. Br. can mention who in hatred of this Doctrine hath made a defection from I dare to undertake to produce hundreds that by the sweetnesse of it and demonstration of the Spirit in preaching it have been drawn to the profession of the Protestant Religion It is a conclusion of Luther lamenting the schisms and Controversies stirred in the Churches about lighter and lesser things That if these had been layd aside and this one Article of Justification by Faith alone had been by the counited labors of all the Churches most of all though not only preached and continued to be preached to this day saith he the whole Kingdom of the Pope had by this time laid wholly shivered How adversatively do the spirits of Luther and Mr. Br. fight either against the other Yea of the many learned that Mr. Br. speaks of we can find him particularizing but one his St. Grotius pag. 331. thus B. This Doctrine was one that helped to turn off Grotius to Cassandrian Popery See Grotij votum 21 22 23. 115. Is Grotius so turned off most likely is it sure that Mr. Br. will follow him and truly we may add if not this doctrine surely that which is worse hath turned off Mr. Br. to Tridenâ—ine and Jesuitized Popery See Mr. Brs. Aphorisms not in four pages only but almost in all the passages of that Book and its Appendix And thus Grotius and he make up if not many yet a number of
Qu. 14. that he so layeth this position that he may thereby lay a ground-work for Justification by works Doth Dr. Preston to this end make Christ as Lord the object of Justifying Faith or any where affirm him to be offered as a Law-giver or Commander of morall works and duties to our justifying Much less doth he affirm that such works have any thing to do with Faith in justifying A notable skill hath Mr. Br in confounding when he should divide and distinguish and in distinguishing when there is no need as either may serve to his purpose He knowes that Dr. Preston when he treats of the New Covenant comprehends under it the whole doctrine and all the Promises of Grace made Yea and Amen in Christ as the same Christ is given to us not onely to Justification but also to regeneration illumination sanctification and whatsoever the Grace of the Eternall Father hath made him to us And when he treats of Faith he handles it as the instrument by which not onely Justification but also all the other benefits of Christ may be made ours in receiving Christ the treasury spring of all appropriated to us Therefore in describing the New Covenant he describes it in generall as the womb of all the blessings which are attainable by Christ and not of Justification and Salvation alone And in describing Faith he describes it as the instrument by which we apprehend and appropriate to our selves not onely Christ as righteousness and salvation but also as wisedome and sanctification yea all that tends to the perfecting of a poor sinner to our selves Therefore is it that he speaks more largely of the Covenant and treats more fully of it then needed if he had been to speak of it onely to Justification and Blessedness and that he speaks of Faith more largely and mentioneth other acts of it then are required to this one end And necessarily must he so do else should he have maimed both the Covenant of Grace and the Faith of Christ Here whatsoever Dr. Preston speaketh of the Covenant and Faith in generall of which some part belongeth to the interessing of us to sanctification and other blessings which are by Christ Mr. Br to beguile his Reader confoundeth and confineth to Justification as being spoken of it alone When contrariwise the Doctor doth enough cleerly express the distinct benefits of the Covenant and the distinct acts of Faith receiving the distinct benefits in the very words which he alledgeth out of him App. p. 117. Thou shalt receive the gift of Righteousness wrought by him for an absolution for thy sins and for a reconciliation with me This is our Justification And thereupon thou shalt grow up in love and obedience towards me This is our sanctification But suppose he should have affirmed that Faith as it cleaveth to Christ not onely for the sprinkling of his blood for Justification but withall for the effusion of his spirit to sanctification and the shedding forth of his beams for illumination and the stretching forth of his Almighty arm for supportation c. doth in all these acts justifie as some Divines do seem to speak though without prejudice to their reputation not enough advisedly yet both he and they are so far from making either the most spiritual knowledge and wisedom which are the immediate fruits of illumination or love righteousnes and holines and their acts or works which are the immediate fruits of sanctification to be in any respect usefull to justification that they utterly deny peace joy and hope the immediate fruits of Justification to be any way effectuall and usefull in this business But I find not Dr. Preston any where laying that ground-work much less erecting such a building on it To the five last points if Mr. Br hold them in that which I have expressed to be Dr. Prestons sense yea which himself expresseth to be his own sense I have nothing to say against him The tenth onely excepted to which I must be also mute because neither doth Mr. Br alledg what the Doctor saith and I have not that Treatise of his to inform me But all this is but a playing with holy things he might as well have said Dr. Preston consents with him in confessing there is a God a Christ a Justification a man a sinner to be justified as have said most of what he hath here said We expected he should have produced testimonies of other Divines speaking in common with him what he speaks in common with the Papists in opposition to the doctrine of the Protestants In his Appendix p. 167. and thenceforth to the end of the Book he brings a new supply of Testimonies which he intituleth Bax. Sayings of excellent Divines added to satisfie you who charge me with singularity I shall examine so many of them as have any shew of agreement with Mr. Br in those things wherein he fights against the doctrine of the Protestant Churches Bax. 1 He alleadgeth Dr. Twisse his discovery of Dr. Jacksons vanity p. 528. What one of our Church will maintaine that any one obteins actuall Redemption by Christ without Faith esspecially considering that redemption by the blood of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one Eph. 1. 17. Col. 1. 14. How prettily would he here instill into the thought of his Reader that Dr. Twisse is a man of levity here a subverter of Antinomianism whereof in his Aphorisms p. 173. he complained him to be a Pillarer that here he subverteth Justification from eternity whereof elswhere he is an assertor Nay here he speaketh of the Justification which is by vertue of the New Covenant of the obteining of it actually to our selves This neither Papist nor Protestant neither Dr. Twisse noâ— Mr. Br ever affirmed to be without Faith Bax. 2. Bishop Hooper cited by Dr. Jackson Christ onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law Expounded by Dr. Twisse against Dr. Jackson p. 584. His meaning in my judgment is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfection of our faith and holiness although we continue therein untill death But he hath not made satisfaction for the contempts and hatred of his word c. in case men do continue therein unto death Here is nothing of that which Mr. B. hunts after that Christ hath satisfied for no offence no infirmity committed against the New Covenant but this alone is the sum of it that they shall have no benefit by Christ no one sin committed against the Law or Gospel pardoned to them who live and dye impenitent and unbelievers According to that of our Saviour Jo. 8. 24. Therefore I said unto you ye shall dye in your sins for if ye beleeve not that I am he ye shall dye in your sins B. 3 Alstedius Distinct Theol. cap. 17. p. 73. The Condition of the Covenant of Grace is partly Faith partly Evangelicall obedience or holiness of life proceeding from Faith in Christ 1 In
praises of the man yet this act of his meriteth it not no not from Mr. B. For as far as he transcribes him p. 182. Mr. Ball no further foâ—lowes Grotius then to Gods relaxing of the Law to take satisfaction from Christ in our steed But if he had also asserted that after satisfaction actually taken they which in Christ have satisfied are yet all their life-time under the Curse of the Law to bear it in their own persons would Mr. B. have hidden it Yet this is the thing in question between Mr. B. and the Protestants whether after the giving and receiving of satisfaction for our breaches of the Law the Curs of the Law be either nulled or els onely in part relaxed as to our bearing it Yea if he â—e as Mâ— B. stiles him then have we the testimony of so great learned and holy a Divine as almost England ever bred against Mr. B. himself not being able to deny any one almost that England ever bred which hath written more directly and contrarily to Mr. B. then this man in his Tractate of Faith about Justification If elswhere he contradicts himself I shall oppose Ball against Ball yea Ball in afflictions when he lived by Faith and had nothing else but Christ apprehended by Faith to support his troubled soul to Ball nâ—w raised to a prosperous state in the world and whâ— seeing the Court infected with Popery Socinianism and Arminianism and no other bridge to prefermâ—nt so effectuall as some shew of bending at least to these wayes might possibly as far as Conscience would permit him make use of the language there held most authentick I say of the language for I cannot condemn his doctrine alledged in his three following Testimonies it taken in a good sense But his ambiguities of words seem to speak him out to have had a levell to somewhat els besides the supporting of the truth and yet his Conscience seems to hold him bound from saying any thing manifestly against the truth Mr. B. may possibly tickle himself with his words but his matter duly pondered gives him a sting sufficient to perswade him to forbear laughter Let the unbiassed judicious Reader add consideration to his reading and then judge The rest of the testimonies which he hath here cited and quoted I let passe as altogether besides the questions which Mr. B. hath set in agitation between himself and all the Protestant-Churches And thus at length have his Arguments been examined which he brings to confirm his Justification by works He hath many things tending to the confirmation of some other Paradoxes scattered in his Aphorisms beginning at p. 123. of his Appendix and ending at p. 164. but because those things are handled by way of disputation against others and Mr. B. as a challenger doth call out there by name Mr. Owen and Maccovius to a Duell with himself each after other exposing them to the world as base and silly Animals in what they have said except they come forth into open field to make it good It shall be both impertinent and uncivil in me to meddle in a business to which others and the same far more worthy and able are called as to their peculiar task I should not be excused by any herein from being one that loveth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be busie in another mans office specially seeing I know not what these challenged have done or are doing in the defence of themselves and the doctrine which they have asserted Were it that their reputation alone and not a truth of Christ which they had undertaken to defend were here clouded by Mr. B. I should think it no fault in them to pass it by in contemptuous silence but seeing Mr. B. endeavours upon their ruines to erect his mounts against the City of the living God to destroy it or at least spoyle it of its principall immunities denying the full justification of the Lords redeemed ones in this world holding them under the curs and wrath of God both in their life and death I perceive not how they can be silent without betraying the truth of God which they once undertook to defend Since this was written I understand Mr. Owen hath fully vindicated himself and learnedly defended all that Mr. B. had laid on his score Thus far to his Arguments that he hath brought to prove Justification by works I find no more nor in these have I hidden any thing but set them forth in their fullest strength CHAP. XV. Mr. Baxters Plea to prove his Doctrine free from Popery examined and refuted I Come now to the most accurate finest and chiefest part of Mr. Brs. Art his Alcumistry by which hee turneth the basest metals into gold darkness into light death into life deformity into beauty and hell into heaven it self All this he with strong endeavours labours to accomplish while with strong confidence hee goes about to vindicate his doctrine from all error all infection of Popery Socinianism Pharisaism and to render it the same with the doctrine of Paul and of Christ guiltless of all derogation to the praise of Gods grace Christs merits or the Saints comfort Yea to set it forth in such a splendor that although hee hath hitherto described such a grace of God as by his donation was no more appropriated and peculiarized to Peter then to Judas to the cursed in hell than to the Saints in heaven and such a Christ as reigneth Tyrant-like in the Kingdom of grace chaining up his own all his own subjects and friends under the curse of the Law to bear the horrors and torments of it in soul and body all their life yea after death as long as the world shall continue though he hath taken away from the Saints after their self-denyall repentance building themselves by their most holy Faith upon Christ the Rock after their renovation and sanctification by the Spirit all hope and possibility of attaining any assurance of Gods unchangeable love to them or of their sinns irrevocably pardoned or of their perseverance in the state of Grace or of their indefeazable right to glory or of their exemption from the curse and wrath of God while they live or of the rest and freedom of their souls after death either from the flames of Hell or of Purgatory as long as the world standeth After hee hath taught that no man shall have any part in Christ and his benefits which procureth it not by his own righteousness his own perfect righteousness in suo genere yea by the merits of his righteousness After that he hath proclaimed that his Gospel brings no better tidings of joy than these Yet at length hee comes to varnish over such a Grace such a Christ such a Gospel such a state of believers who are all of his own faigning with such paints and fine colours as by them to enamour all men to embrace these as the only true and appetible Grace Christ Gospel and state of beleevers That this Doctrine
Righteousness is in this Obedience Most accursed Doctrine so far am I from this that I say The Righteousness which we must plead against the Laws Accusation is not one grain of it in our Faith or Works but all out of us in Christs satisfaction Only our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience are the conditions upon which wee must partake of the former And yet such conditions as Christ worketh in us frely by his Spirit How forcible and unresistible is the power of Conscience flying in the face of the guilty and accusing where men applaud or at least hold their peace Who either of men or Angels could have charged Mr. Br. for saying that which he had not yet said or for venting Socinian Doctrine in his writings before he had yet written What none els can do M. Br. is forced by Conscience to do against himself to arraign himself at the Bar for Socinianism Conscience is the accuser what Patron will he retein to be his defender Nothing out of himself can suffice to answer an accuser within himself Therefore he fees Reason that is his sophisticated and sopisticall wit art and craft to plead his Cause against Conscience The first of these exceptions which these make for him against the Charge is the abuse which some make of this imputation laying it upon all that speak not as they But 1. This is besides the Charge These some had not then spoken against Mr. Br. it is the accusation of his own conscience which he should have answered and he hnows it not to have confederated with those some of whom he speaketh 2. I know none of those some that have layd that aspersion upon any of those Divines which he mentioneth save one and that one I suppose would be very angry with any other man in England M. Br. alone excepted that should go about to rob him of that honour which Mr. Br. calls a reproach It is for brotherhoodssake that he hears it from him 3. But his craft herein is to befool his Readers with an opinion that he is of the same judgment with Pareus Wotton Gataker c. of whom they that are dead have as much shewed their abhorrency from and opposition against his Doctrines as any that have lived upon earth And those that are living if they be consistent with themselves in their former writings whereof I nothing doubt are as far from Mr Br. as he is from Christ and his truth 4. His jeer that he casteth upon them that are Adversaries to his Doctrine terming them Zealous Divines infinuating that they have zeale without knowledg and learning I leave as proper to him that in that way of wisdom and righteousness which his own reason either as refined with Philosophy or corrupted with Sophistry suggesteth seeks for justification and eternall glory Let us be accounted fools to the world and no bodies in that which is falsly called science so that we may be wise in and zealous for that which is the power and wisedom of God to salvation The second Plea which he makes for himself is the singlenes and sincerity of his studies bent rather to seek out what is Scripture truth than what is Socinianism that he thinks that Socinus his Nature Studies and Attainments did not so much vary from his name Faustus the happy that he should be so unhappy as to hold nothing true and consequently that neither himself is so unhappy but that he hath learned some Truths from this happy Socinus and perhaps such as he could never learn from Christ his Apostles or faithfull Ministers But 1. This may be said of Faustus the Conjurer who by giving himself to the Devill did not exterminate all notions of all truths from his soul Will Mr Br. be his Disciple also Both had the like effectuall influence from Satan neither know I which to prefer 2. Who sent Mr. Br. to learn from such Teachers to seek for light in darkness or Heaven in Hell or Scripture-Truth in the precept of Pagans or glosses of Papists or Socinus his God Reason Is it not because there is no God in Israel that he goes to enquire of Baal-zebab the God of Ekron 2 King 1. 3. The Lord Jesus rebuketh silenceth and refuseth to hear the Spirit of lies even when hee speaks truth Mar. 1. 23 24 25. and abandoneth the spirituall Devil no less than if he had blasphemed Mat. 4. So also Paul Acts 16. 16-18 The truth of Christ needs not any disdains all props from Hell to sustain it He that will not dip from the fountain but at the pools which the unclean beasts have defiled let him without our envy have mudd and dung enough in the water which he drinketh 3. It is much to be doubted the mans heart deceives him Were his studie so unfeigned and serious to know what is Scripture truth he would more study the Scripture it self and less Bellarmin Socinus Arminius and such like Sophisters whose whole study it is to corrupt all and to leave no Scripture unperverted 4. Had he not ploughed with Socinus his Heyfers or rather Bulls he could never have sowed so much darnell in the field of Christ The third Plea which he bringeth to prove that his Doctrine is free from Socinianism is because there is one point wherein hee dissenteth from Secinus That Socinus and his followers deny any expiatory sacrifice that Christ hath offred to God to satisfie his Justice for our sins or that ther is any effectual vertue in Christs death to purge our Consciences from dead works But that he becomes our Saviour only in this that he hath given us more perfect precepts of Righteousness than were contained in the Law and the Prophets and withall he hath given us a Copie or pattern by his own practice to which we must be conformed And so we must be justified not by the blood of Christ but by our own obedience in following these precepts and this pattern which he hath given us In this point Mr. Br. professeth himself so farr from joyning with him that hee casteth off this Doctrine with abhorrence But this reasoning hath no soundness in it For 1 It is the same as if I should argue that Goliah was not of the race of the Giants because he had not upon each hand six fingers and upon each foot six toes at some of the Giants progeny had and possibly the Giant himself Or that Mr. Br. should seek by this Argument to prove himself no English-man because he dwels neerer the Severn than Thames So also might the Jews elude the words of Christ and Elymas the words of Paul as slanderous arguing themselves not to be the children of the Devill because they had flesh and bone so had not the Devill They had never carried Christ aloft and set him on a pinacle of the Temple fearing they might fall headlong thence themselves so had the Devill The seed the Lusts of the Devil abiding and reigning in them spake them
an opinion that he and the Papists his Masters have the whole body of the Scriptures on their side to prove Justification by works But that the Protestants can only catch here and there a sentence of Scripture that hath a seeming and scarce a seeming to speak for them It is a Maxime of Mr. Br. himself that men are seldom bold with Scripture to force it but they are first bold with Conscience to force it pag. 297. Yet here he is bold not only to force but to stifle Scriptures When himself quoteth a Scripture to maintain his Popish Justification see how he improves it in the same page If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it were to be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter c. no whiâ— dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scripture say what it will to the contrary Lo what a mountain he can make of a mole-hill and bring all Scriptures into the belly of one making that one of what dimension he listeth all the rest to say what he commands them when he is to plead for the Papists But here when he is â—o produce what the Protestants have to urge against the Papists what mincing and mayming doth he use forcing the whole body of the Gospel into a Cherristone it is but here and there a sound without substance that they beguile themselves with Did the man as he pretends seek to apprehend to himself and sincerely to make out unto others Scripture Tâ—uâ—h we should find him faithfully alledging what the Churches of Christ have cited against Antichrist His false dealing herein declares his hatred of the Truth that he will not have the Scriptures shine upon it in their full splendor that it may not be known and embraced Nay we have the main body of the New Testament speaking for us specially almost all the Doctrinal part of the Epistles to the Romans Galathians Ephesians Colossions Hebrews all the four Evangelists specially St John as I have before shewed A breviate of Scriptures which our Divines have urged to this purpose I have before given and it would be useless here to rehearse 3. Even these few Scriptures which he quoteth affirm that man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law that if he were justified by Works he had whereof to glory and boast himself that if they which are of the Law be heirs Faith is made void and the promise of no effect That it is of Faith that it may be of Grace that it is by Grace through Faith not of Works Were there nothing else is there not a strong appearance of Contradiction in these Scriptures to Mr. Brs. doctrine that we are justified by Faith and Works together 4 But see we how he evades these Scriptures and all other Testimonies of the Apostles viz. That his dispute is what is the Righteousness which we must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which we are justified as the proper Righteousness of the Law and this hee well concludeth is neither works nor faith but the Righteousness which is by Faith i. e. Christs Righteousness But St. James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by this Righteousness of Christ whether Faith only or Works also so farr Mr. Baxter Must not Mr. Br. needs be happy that hath learned so perfectly that which he cals else-where the Papists Feat of making the Scriptures a nose of wax and turning them into his own complexion Let any one now alledg against him that of the Apostle Gal. 1. 8. If Paul or an Angell from heaven shall preach to you any other Gospel than what you have received let him be accursed Cannot he as prettily and solidly shift the Curse from him and retort it upon the denouncer as he doth these Scriptures upon the alledgers True may hee say but I am not Paul nor an Angell from heaven therefore the Curse cannot fall on me Nay I have made Paul to preach another Gospel since his death thatn what he preached in his life Therefore Paul is accursed As good grounds hath he for this as his former arguing But let us see whether his interpretation of these Scriptures be so solid as pretty To that of James I have spoken before therefore shall say little here Onely I cannot omit how unsufferable his audacious confidence is that he thinks it enough to say without shewing or endeavouring to shew it from the Context or otherwise this is the meaning of Pauls and that the scope of James his dispute No such immodesty is oft there to be found in the very Jesuits Socinians and Arminians They when they go about to pervert in stead of expounding any Scripture labour stoutly from the Context and from a seeming Coherence of other Scriptures to make such a perverting exposition either probable or plausible This man doth all pro Imperio Sic volo sic jubeo c. I say it what man or Angell dares to deny it Doth hee think all the world to be his Diocess that he may force what he hath or saith he hath upon his Kederminsterians upon the consciences of all men an implicit Faith that all must believe when and because he saith it Is the infallible spirit gone out of Zedechiah 1 King 22. 24. or out of Bellarmine or Arminius inâ—o him Or doth he execute the office of the Popes Legate speaking to us only that which is decreed in his unerring Chair or hath hee gotten a monopoly of Socinus his Right Reason which is infallible what else can hee alledg that his word must be taken for a Law without dispute Or is it indeed because he finds Gods word will yeeld him no succour therefore he must proprio Marte militare act in his own name because God is not with him So indeed it seemeth for neither God nor reason nor any thing els but a high conceit of himself will be accessary to his reasonless Conclusions viz. that James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by Christs Righteousness when James in his whole dispute there neither expresly nor implyedly utters a word of Christs righteousness or if Mr. Brs Jesuito-Arminian condition nor any thing that can easily be reduced to Christ himself Or where doth Paul dispute only of the righteousnes proper to justification and not also of the way and means by which this righteousness may be applyed to us and made ours Or in which of his quoted Scriptures or any other of the Apostles writings when he excludes works doth he exclude Faith also from its subserviency to justifying Such peremptory dreams of a haughty brain cannot be more fitly answered than with contempt and â—ilence Thus should I do were it not in respect to some
Pauls This is not all that he hath to say his other Reasons or rather Sophisms follow in the next Chapter CHAP. XXI Mr. Baxters other Reasons to evince the same thing Examined Bax. 2 p. 308. PAul doth either in express words or in the sense and scope of his speech exclude onely the works of the Law that is the fulfilling of the conditions of the Law our selves But never the fulfilling of the Gospel conditions that we may have part in Christ Indeed if a man should obey the Commands of the Gospel with a legall intent that it might be a righteousness conform to the Law of works this obedience is not Evangelicall but legall obedience for the Form giveth the Name No less or-cuâ—aâ—ly than the Devil of old was wont to speak out of Delphos For this also as the former is onely said not shewed and proved What doth he mean by such imperious Conclusions but out of the abounding of his humility and self-abasement to proclaim to the world that he is a God and that the words of his lips must be made the judge of all Scriptures and the Canon of all mens Faith When he hath spoken we must subject both judgments and Conscience without searching further It is a truth he that cannot err hath said it Were it a Conclusion universally received in the Churches of Christ which he here delivereth it had been indeed superfluous to wast time and labour in proving what all grant But when it it but a dream of his own brain sneezed thence through his Nostrils or some spirit by his Chimistry â—xâ—râ—cted out of Bellarmine Socinus and Arminius their notionall Fanciâ—s when all the pious and judicious of all the Protestant Churches have been unacquainted with it lay down Conclusions câ—nâ—radictory to it what els but a most arrogant self Confidence and contempt of his betters could move him thus to spit Paradoxeâ— without the least eâ—deavours to give a demonstration of the least probability of them Doth he thâ—nk his raptures so Divine that the holiest and most judicious of all mortals must lick his spittle as Angels food without enquiring what substance and vertue there is in it But this is the spirit and genius of the esuits whom he followeth as his guides if not Gods and against whom in this very case our Classicall Divines have so much and justly complained in these latter years Sâ—tis est hodie Jesuit is nostris saith Dr. Twisse pro authoritate nescio qua quidlibet affirmare dictata sua nulla probatione fulta nobis obtrudere i. e. The Jesuits of Vind. lib. 1. par 2. degr 3. sect 1. prope finem our time think it sufficient by their own I know not what Authority to affiâ—m any thing and obtrude upon us their own dictates without any proof to support them And Chamier often calling it their Tyranny Sic volo sic jubeo c. Qui cum alienam sententiam Panstr tom 1. lib. 1. c. 19. n. 11. adeo refellant frigide suam tamen obtrudant nulla confirmatam Argumento i. e. which when they so coldly refell the opinion of others yet obtrude their own without any Argument to confirme Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 6. n. 8. it Againe Quis non miretur abijs viris null◠〈◊〉 indicatam vim consequentiae sed relictam nobis divinandam At haec non jam segnities est sed dolus malus Certe hoc eorum est ingenium qui maxime sunt inter sophistas nempe ut eas occultent partes quas vident infirmissimas i. e. Who would not marvell that these men should conclude without shewing by any sign the force of the Consequence But leaving us to Divine or conjecture it This is not sloth but evill deceit This indeed is the quality of these men that are greatest among the Sophisters to hide those parts which they see most weak As to Mr. Brs distinction here which is of the same kind with the most of those that he hath in this Tractate between the works of the Law as they are they fulfilling of the Conditions of the Law our selves or as they are the fulfilling of the Conditions of the Gospel enough were said if I should onely say what Chamier saith to the like wild distinctions of the Jesuits Si e Scriptura Id. To. 2. l. 8. cap. 6. n. 17. cedo locum cedimus Sin e Scholasticorum somniis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. If these distinctions be taken out of the Scripture name where and we submit but if out of the dreams of the School men we leave them to the Crowes But observable it is that when the most conspicuous men in Learning and all outward accomplishments do once fall from the truth and simplicity of the Gospel they forth with yeeld up themselves not caring what stone they throw if with it they may wound the Grace of God and face of the Lord Christ Thus do we find Mr. Br. here contradicting himself to choak the truth In his former Sophisticall eluding of the authority of Pauls testimony against him we found him affirming that where Paul and James treat of Justification it was James his Question and not Pauls what is the Condition of our Justification by the Righteousnesse of Christ whether Faith onely or works also But Pauls Question to be what the Righteousnesse is which we must plead against the accusations of the Law or by which we are justified as the proper Rightousnesse of that Law viz. whether our own or Christs righteousnesse Here now in the very nexâ— breath without any one word interserted he affirms Pauls Question to be what he there denyed what the condition is of our Justification by Christ or having part in Christ What he excludeth and what he includeth to this purpose This is the integrity of the man first wilfully to lay down his Conclusion that he will pervert the Gospel of Christ and then to say and gain-say any thing all things that Malice it self against the Gospel can prompt or dictate to him And what is it that he produceth here in the second place to elude and lay prostrate Pauls authority The notion and sound of his great God Condition a god which neither Christ nor any of his Prophets or Apostles ever knew much less ever named as operative in the business of Justification Yet such a Dagon to Mr. Br. that if he fall shivered all Mr. Brs. Divinity together with himself must fall after into the dirt As to the matter it self whether there be any Conditions of the Gospel and what Condition and how far it may be granted all these have been so fully examined before that unless I delighted to feed upon crambe a hundred times more then bis cocta I must here to prevent the inconvenience of nauseousness to my self and the Reader in steed of Answer transmit the Reader to what hath been Answered oft before As for that which he philosophizingly distinguisheth between the works
required to justification Or Mr. Br. that without craving leave of Paul by such gross distinetions goes about to make him unsay what he hath said and the world to believe that in all what he wrote of Justification hee meant to be understood on the contrary to what hee speaketh 6. If we bring works at all to procure justification by Christ we do by evacuating the grace of God and merits of Christ to our selves oblige put a bondage upon our selvet to fulfil the whole Law legally in its perfection else can we never be justified but abide under the Curse for ever For he that worketh requireth the reward as a debt in law and not as a gift of grace therefore except his work be so perfect as that it can in strict justice save him hee can never attain salvation as by comparing together these Scriptures will be evident viz. Gal. 5. 3 4. 3. 10. Rom. 4. 4 5. 9. 30 31 32. 7. As to the rules or qualifications which he gives to covenanting and obedience that it may be sincere they are in substance meerly legal the Name of Christ being only put in stead of the Name of God And who is there not only of the Jesuits Socinians with the Arminians from whom he borroweth most of his principles but even of the reall Antinomians whom he pretends to oppose who in all those particulars thinks not himself or gives not cause to all to think them as sincere as Mr. Br what ground have we to conclude but that they know the ends nature and conditions of the Covenant so truly and obey with so much deliberation and as little fittishness and rashness so seriously without dissimulation and slightness so freely intirely and singly aâ— Mr. Br. doth Thus every stigmatized Heretick in his own way bringing with him such a sincerity of obedience shall thereby be possessed of the investiture of Christs righteousness though he seek it in his own not in Gods way by his own righteousness and not by Faith alone which alone God hath stamped with an aptitude and efficacy to this work B. 2. The Law saith he requireth obedience and doing by its own righteousness to justifie us but the Gospel requireth it as a Medium to acquire to us Christs Righteousness by which wee may be justified So that the one requires works to justifie us withoutt the other the same works to justifie us by a Mediator This he saith so frequently in substance that it were lost labour to quote the places And it hath been almost so oft answered as said Therefore I shall referr the Reader to the places where it hath been answered and specially to the examination of those his disputes in which he labours to cleer his doctrine from all tincture of Popery from all contradiction to Paul and from being derogatory to Christ his righteousnes Here only I add that this doctrine is the same with that of the most legal Pharisees against whom the Apostle so much inveigheth wishing them accursed cut off for troubling the Churches therwith Gal. 1 9. 5. 12. For they arrogated to themselves alone part in Christ his Righteousnes because of their own personall righteousness in the works and obedience which the Law requireth resisting the Gentiles denying to them all possibility to partake in the Justification which is by Christ by means of Faith alone except they also fulfilled the righteousnesse which the Law required to give them right to him and it Yea Mr. Br. with these ascribes more to works than the very unbeleeving Pharisees For these claymed Justification only by their works but he and the beleeving Pharisees challenged for their works right both in the Justifier and in his justification also For Causa causae est etiam causa causati As farr as they ascribe to their works a Causality to make Christ theirs they make them causal to render the Justification which is by Christ theirs also B. 3. That neither is his Doctrine legall nor doth he ascribe too much to works because he maketh Faith and obedience to be but a Condition or a Mâ—dium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non of our Justification Aph. pa. 223 224. and our doing no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness for this hee seems to have ascribed before to our sufferings in bearing the Curse but to be our Gospel-Righteousness or the Condition of our participation in Christ who is our legall Righteousness so of all the benefits that come by him App. p. 78. I say that subjection and obedience justifie 1 Not as works simply considered 2 Nor as legall works 3 Nor as meritorious workes 4 Nor as good works which God is pleased with 5 But as Conditions to which the free Law giver hath promised Justification and life Nay your i. e. the Protestants doctrine ascribeth farr more of the work to man than mine For you make Justification an effect of your own Faith and your faith an instrumentall cause of it and so make your self your own Justifier And you say your faith justifieth as it apprehendeth Christ which is the most intrinsicall essentiall consideration of Faith so faith hath much of the Honour But while I affirm that it justifieth only as a condition which is an extrinsicall consideration and alien from its essence and Nature I give the glory to him that freely giveth mee life and that made so sweet a condition to his Covenant and that enableth me to perform the said Condition App. pag. 120 121. All this hath been oft and fully examined before in its place also and how little truth there is in any part or parcell thereof discovered It would be weariness to the flesh and vexation to the Spirit but to look so often upon his great Goddess his Queen of Heaven CONDITION as he blesseth her O that his conscience had been so well acquainted with Christ as his fancy is with this Idoll he would not then have pestered the Church with such an imaginary Deity nor prostituted all that is called God at the feet of such a Proserpina I am weary any more to attend to him making the will of God i. e. God willing conditional and so the immutable God a conditional God the salvation of Christ conditional so Christ a conditional Saviour or the witness seal of Christ a conditional seal and witness and so the Holy Ghost a conditional Spirit of Adoption or the gospel of righteousness forgiveness and life a conditional Gospel and consequently nulling all thâ—se and pronouncing them no God no Christ no Holy Ghost no Gospel For a conditional proposition doth Nihil ponere and after Mr Brs. principles it is in mans righteosness to give or destroy the actual existence of every of these But I leave to him that delights therein to bury himself in this guâ—ph I conceive my self obnoxious to censure for spending and spilling so many words already to shew the deformity and
to be received both as a justifier and sanctifier declareth him to have descended from heaven both to justifie the ungodly and to sanctifie the justified That he is made unto us of God not onely Righteousness but Sanctification also To justifie us by an imputed and sanctifie us by an inherent righteousness The one by the effusion of his bloud the other by the infusion of his Spirit That his office is not onely to satisfie justice for us that we may live but also to new principle and create us that we may live to God Not onely to redeem us from all iniquity but withall to purifie us into a peculiar people zealous of good works In whom both these works are not in good measure neither of them is in any measure effectually accomplished That sanctification is the purchase of Christs bloud but the immediate effect of his Spirit merited by his death but Conferred and Communicated by his life as all power both in heaven and in earth is given into his hand and as he is ascended on high to give gifts to men That both imputed and inherent righteousnes as termined and actually existent in and upon man proceed from his union unto Christ That Sanctification is as great and glorious a work as Justification and our real as our relative holiness and righteousness Neither could it be discerned so cleerly how we were quickened in Law raised from the dead who were dead in sinns and trespasses and so passed from death to life from Condemnation to salvation by the forgiveness of sinn were we not also quickened raised up from under the death and bondage of sinn no more to serve sinn but as alive from the dead had our fruit and living motions to practicall holines and righteousness That as well our sanctification as our Justification is in Christ and both from him derivable to us by Faith in him That Faith is qualified by God to apprehend Christ both to purifie us by his bloud and to sanctifie us by his Spirit and so becomes instrumentall both to Justification and sanctification yet by a twofold Act as the Condemned Traytor extends one and the same hand to receive from his gracious Prince a pardon of his Treason and a Commission to be his vice-gerent in some Noble and magnificent office therein to serve his Prince promote the welfare of his Countrey and make his own name and person famous and pretious in the eyes of all men among whom his present vertuous behaviour and Noble atchievements may wipe off and bring to oblivion the stain of his former delinquency That one and the same a chief end of our Justification by Christ is our sanctification the fruits thereof here inchoat and increasing hereafter Consummate and perfected Therefore are we delivered out of the hands of our enemies that we may serve him without Fear in holiness and righteousness Luk. 1. 74 75. Therefore are we dead to and delivered from the Law by the body of Christ that we should be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit to God and serve not in the oldness of the letter but in the Newness of the Spirit Rom. 7. 4 6. Christ hath made us Kings and Priests or a Royall Priesthood unto God to offer up living sacrifices acceptable to God through him 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. Rev. 1. 6. To our instalment therein are pre-required the sanctification of Consecration and the sanctification of habitual righteousness and holiness infused into us and set in actual operation in us The former of these is done chiefly by the sacrificed bloud of Christ sprinkled upon the Conscience and the sacred vestiments of his Righteousness put on by Faith as was typified primarily of Christ the High Priest and secondarily of the Priesthood of Saints under the kingdome of Christ by the Consecration of Aaron and his sonns with the bloud of the Altar sprinkled on them and the putting on of holy vestiments upon them their own being Cast off Lev. 8. The latter Chiefly by the Spirit of Christ in livening enabling and acting them to the work and worship for which they are Consecrated and I know not but this may be also figured in the ordination of the Priests under the Law by the Anoynting oyl in the same Chapter mentioned and used That differs but little from Justification as termined to this its end This differs not at all from sanctification when it is taken in the sense wherein the scriptures often and our Divines still use it when they distinguish between Justification and sanctification viz. in its active sense the inspiration of the habits of holiness and righteousness in its passive sense the same habits inspired into the soul Whosoever wanteth either of these prerequisits to this sacred office we grant him to be but a titular Priest a Mock-Saint For without Consecration to offer as a Priest speaks him an usurper And to profess Priest and not to offer speaks him a rebell and revolter We own no sanctification by the Spirit of Christ which hath not Justification by his bloud in order going before it nor any Justification or forgiveness by the death of Christ which hath not sanctification by his Spirit in order of nature following it Thus we do not as the Papists and Mr. Br. learning from the Papists object calumniously exclude works from the life of a Christian but assert them to be necessary to a Christian life so necessary that without them whosoever is Capable of working is no Christian Though we exclude them from Justification yet we include them in sanctification their habits as parts in the whole their acts or themselves acted as fruits thereof Nay we do not deny in a good sense some kind of Causality which they have to sanctifie that is to the increase of sanctification To him that hath it shall be given and he shall have more abundantly Well done good and faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull in a little I will make thee Ruler over much c. saith our Saviour Ask and ye shall have seek and ye shall finde knock and it shall be opened to you The ground or earth which drinketh in the Rain which cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs or fruit c. is neer to a blessing But that which bringeth forth bryars and thorns is rejected and neer to cursing c. Heb. 6. 7 8. with many other the like Testimonies of Scripture which it would be superfluous here to recite How then do we in the least measure blunt the edge of mens affections to good works by teaching that they do not justifie when we affirm them necessary to sanctification If Mr. Br. should affirm that Bread and Wine and other Creatures appropriated to mans nutriment are not ordeined of God to Clothe him or that his garments are not ordeined of God to Feed him doth he therein minister to me just Cause to exclaym against him that
judgment nor to admit any thing what another hath introduced of his will and judgment Apostolos Domini habemus auctores qui nec ipse quicquam ex suo Tertul. l. de prescript advers Haereticos Arbitrio quod inducerunt elegerunt sed acceptam a Christo disciplinam fideliter nationibus adsignaverunt i. e. We have the Apostles of the Lord herein our authors or patterns who neither made choise of any thing from their owne invention to impose upon Christians but faithfully delivered to the Nations the discipline which they had received from Christ So that if an Angel from heaven shall preach any other doctrine let him be accursed And having mentioned some doctrines not of Christs prescribing pronounceth of all such Hae sunt doctrinae hominum Daemoniorum prurientibus auribus natae de ingenio sapientiae saeculi c. i. e. These are Doctrines of men and Devills sprung forth from itching ears of the nature of the wisdome of the world which the Lord calling foolishnesse hath chosen the foolish things of the world even to the confusion of Philosophy it self Ea est n. Materia sapientiae saecularis c. For this Philosophy is the matter of worldly wisdome a rash interpreter of the nature and dispensations of God from it Heresies are suborned And having particularizâ—d what severall heresies have been foysted into the Church from the severall sects of Philosophers and what from all conjoyned and inveighed against Aristotles Logick as an enemie to Christian Religion he thus breaks forth Quid ergo Athenis Hierosolymis Quid Academiae Ecclesiae Quid haereticis Christianis Nostra institutio de particu Solomonis est c. Viderint qui Stoicum platonicum Dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt c. i. e. what then hath Athens to do with Jerusalem the Academy with the Church Hereticks with Christians Our Institution in Religion is out of the porch of Solomon c. Let them look to it that have hatched out a Stoicall Platonicall and Logicall Christianity to us We have no need of curiosity after Christ nor of inquisitivenesse after the Gospel When we believe viz. Christ and his Gospel wee desire nothing beyond believing For this we believe first that there is not viz. in Philosophy or other Arts any thing that we ought to believe unto salvation beyond the Gospel of Christ And a little after he that is not satiâ—fied with the Scripture but seekes further authority from reason and Philosophy his curious inquisitivenesse argues him either not to believe or else to be vain-glorious in seeking after the praise of worldly wisdom therefore annexeth this counsell Cedat curiositas fidei cedat gloria saluti i. e. let curiosity give place to faith and vain-glory stoop to salvation So much and much more not unworthy the reading hath Tertullian in this Book And none will easily affirm that Tertullian condemns that learning which himselfe wanted to hide his own nakedness All his polemicall works or controversall writings declare the contrary specially his book against Hermogenes where having to deale with one that little regarded the Scriptures sets upon him in his own fortresse and assails him with his own weapons and philosophically convinceth the Philosophaster and dialectically the Sophister in his own arts and element confuting and confounding him But some may object that seeing he holds the use of these arts unnecessary and hurtfull to Christian Religion why doth himself make use of them Himself both moves and answers the question else-where and thus puts the question Whether ohere be not some Tertul. de Anima lib. truths to be found in philosophy and 2ly whether a Christian may not in some case make use of it in his disputations His answer is somewhat large the summ and brief of it runs in this tenor That it is not to be denyed but there are some truths delivered by Philosophers in the more common and open things of Divinity i. e. as I granted before in naturall and morall things and those we are to take up not for the authority of the Phylosophers who by the groping light of Nature have by a kind of blind happinesse found out and delivered the same but for the authority of God who by his undeceiving word hath manefested it to us and further that in our disputes with such to whom the prescripts of philosophy are more authoritative and authentick than the oracles of the word when it may be done without prejudice to the word we may retort upon the adversarie his own arguments and stop his mouth with testimonies of Philosophers which to him are most authentick Nevertheless it is the safest and most pious way when wee treat with Hereticks that professe Christians to hold them close to the Scriptures Aufer Haereticis quae cum Ethnicis Tertul. lib. de Resur carnis sapiunt saith he ut de solis scripturis questiones suas sistant stare non potuerint i. e. Take from the Heretieks those arguments which they draw from heathen learning that they may state their questions from the Scriptures alone and they will not be able to stand With Tertullian consented the judgment of the sound and orthodox Fathers which lived after him during the first six hundred years in the Christian Church and my purpose was to demonstrate it from the very words of such of them as I have read but finding the Preface swelling above its measure already and the little or no use which they make of these pieces of learning in their works enough declaring their judgments that they held the same useless and superflouâ— at least in all their writings holding thewselves fast to the word not medling with prophane arts to help or back the Gospel of Christ saving when they were necessitated to disabuse the people in discovering the fallacies of the Manichees Arrians and other sophistical Hereticks I think it more pertinent to ease my self of this burthen By the way only noting that as Julian when he gave his mind once inordinately to the study of philosophy and coveted to be a learned and philosophical Christian did quickly declare himself to be an Apostat and no Christian So the like apostacy no doubt by the like means befell many others though not openly declared And this must needs follow in part upon all such as make not the word to be the whole foundation of their faith but so farr only as it hath reason and philosophy consenting with it But the word of the Gospel is transcendâ—nt above the reach of Philosophy and natural reason they cannot comprehend it to give testimony to it so that to make reason the touch-stone of Gospel-doctrines and truths is the ready way to apostatize from Christ and his Gospel although the self-deceivers declare not their apostacy but profess Christianity still To be a Christian only so far as the very extracts and spirits of natural reason suggest cause so to be is to be a Christian only
in name but as void of the truth and power of Christianity as are the very Pagans that never heard of Christ I come now to speak of the fatall if I may so term it and almost totall ruine of the Church and Gospel Towards the end of that which is called the Primitive Church and of them which are dignified with the name of the ancient Fathers of the Church As the Saracens invaded the Eastern Churches so a most stupendous and barbarous people not onely unchristian but also inhumane the Goths and Vandals made incursions upon these Western Churches with one swelling tide carrying all at once before them and made impression into Italy it self and seizing on Rome made it their imperiall City and reigning over or at least molesting all those nations which in this western part of the world were then termed Christians made it their work for more then a hundred years not only to raze out the very being of christianity from the earth but also all polite learning filling all things and places with their barbarism which also in length of time they accomplished almost to the utmost Now when at length by the valour of Carolus Magnus they were discomfited and wholly driven out of these christian Lands after their subversion there sprung out of the Barbarism which they left behind them a Barabarian sect of Divines more pernicious to Religion then the Goths Vandals had been In a general term they are usually called Schoolmen or School-Doctors These like the Babel-builders erected upon other foundations and of other materials a Babel-Church with such barbarous slime in stead of cement and morter as was never before used since the first building of the old Babel who exauctorating Christ and his Gospel from having any soveraignty in matters of Religion and permitting them but now and then to peep for their advantage canoniz'd Aristotle the most subtle but untill then the least regarded of all the sects of Heathen Philosophers to be their ipse dixit chose Peter Lombards sentences to be their Text themselves to be the Commentators The matter of their Commentary a Miscellane partly of the excrements of their own brains partly of moralities legalities formalities and partly of superstitions idolatries and heresies borrowed some from the Jewes some from the Heathen and the rest from Hell it self The Language in which all is set forth no Language but being cought out in syllabical barbarous and bombastical sounds of their own coining would better fit the bellowing of a beast than the utterance of men or if the utterance of men more beseeming Conjurers and Charmers than Divines The God whom they serve and sacrifice unto in all is not Christ but Antichrist whose commands and decrees assoon as they have received they must and will with all their Hyperborean conjurations of ghastly words defininitions argumentations and a cell or hell full of distinctions maintain them to be from heaven though they smell of nothing but hell it self Nimble work-men leaving a glory upon their disputes when they meet with sublunary matter with a subject not above the comprehension of natural reason but such whereof all men have an idea or image within their Synterisis or natural conscience but when they meet with Gospel-doctrine that makes men wise to salvation blinder than Balaam that saw less than his Asse which hee rode upon These have erected and held up many hundred years a religion which can save none but damneth all that cleave strictly to it and they have this peculiar vertue that they have still waxed wors and wors the second generation more impure than the first and the third than the second and so lineally every generation almost until now save that in these last times they have attained so much of the subtlety falshood and impiety of Satan that there is scarce a possibility of receiving a further addition If then any man will read how far the humane Learning of which I am speaking may be helpful to propagate maintain the truth of the Gospel let him but look back to the fruit of these sophistical Doctors Labours these many hundred years last past and by that which hee seeth he shal be able to answer himself viz. that it hath been and is powerful to deface and subvert utterly the whole truth and salvation of the Gospel in relation to their Disciples that rest upon their Learning and Precepts for look what of Religion worship and ordinances there is in the Popish Church the praise of it redounds to philosophy and sophistry the main instruments of laying its ground-work and the sole instruments unless ye will annex to it the fire and fagot and tyrannical inquisition for the maintenance thereof Having seen how great a corruption and how long a desolation of the truth of Religion there hath been while Sophistry was made its perfidious Advocate We are now in the next place to consider how the same truth of Christian Religion thrived when delivered out of the captivity of and communion with this secular Learning After the long holding of the purity of the Gospel in unrighteousnes by these Theologasters it pleased God to raise up to himself for the reformation of his Church men of his own choise and gifted with a measure of the Spirit answering so great a work to which they were deputed as Luther Zuinglius and many other learned and godly men some their contemporaries some their followers These restored the Scriptures to light again which had been many hundred years buried in darknes and preached again the true and clear Gospel which had been long also clouded with mens inventions traditions and superstitions What success this their Ministry had cannot be unknown to them that know any thing of the history of those times Disciples came in by thousands and ten thousands unto Christ being totally revolted from Antichrist Whole Kingdoms Nations Dukedoms that ere while worshipped the Beast now fell flat at the feet of Christ to submit to his Scepter And this not as constrained by the command of their Magistrates or Laws but even while Magistrates and Laws slept yea when Magistrates and Laws persecuted with Fire and Sword all that went this way even then the Kingdom of heaven suffered violence and the violent tooke it by force i. e. by an unresistible conviction of the word and wonderful operation of this Spirit upon their souls they were carryed out in contempt of all dangers and persecutions to receive the Lord Jesus Christ purely revealed in his righteousnes beawty and salvation to them So that in few years maugre all the malice of the Pope Emperour Kings Princes World and Hell Christ might be even seen reigning in the midst of his Enemies and whole Lands at least great multitudes of many Lands which were darknes became light in the Lord even so farr as we see the Protestant Religion at this day propagated If it be demanded here how it came to pass that the word and truth of