earnestly presseth me with his Quem quibus who is the Man I profess I dreamed not of any particular Man But I will again tell you whom my Judgment magnifies in this Controversie above all others and who truly tell you how far Papists and Protestants agree viz. Vinc. le Blank and Guil. Forbes I meddle not with his other Subjects Placeus in Thes Salmur Davenant Dr. Field Mr. Scudder his daily Walk fit for all families Mr. Wotton Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Gataker Dr. Preston Dr. Hammond Pract. Cat. and Mr. Lawson in the main Abundance of the French and Breme Divines are also very clear And though I must not provoke him again by naming some late English men to reproach them by calling them my disciples I will venture to tell the plain man that loveth not our wrangling tediousness that Mr. Trumans Great Propit and Mr. Gibbons serm of Justif may serve him well without any more And while this worthy Doctor and I do both concord with such as Davenant and Field as to Justification by Faith or Works judg whether we differ between our selves as far as he would perswade the World who agree in tertio And whether as he hath angrily profest his concord in the two other Controversies which he raised our Guilt of nearer Parents sin and our preferring the judgment of the wisest c. it be not likely that he will do so also in this when he hath leisure to read and know what it is that I say and hold and when we both understand our selves and one another And whether it be a work worthy of Good and Learned men to allarm Christians against one another for the sake of arbitrary words and notions which one partly useth less aptly and skilfully than the other in matters wherein they really agree 2 Tim. 2. 14. Charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit but to the subverting of the Hearers yet study to shew thy self approved unto God a workman that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth Two Sparks more quenched which fled after the rest from the Forge of Dr. Tho. Tully § 1. DId I not find that some Mens Ignorance and factious Jealousie is great enough to make them combustible Recipients of such Wild-fire as those Strictures are and did not Charity oblige me to do what I have here done to save the assaulted Charity of such Persons more than to save any Reputation of my own I should repent that I had written one Line in answer to such Writings as I have here had to do with I have been so wearied with the haunts of the like Spirit in Mr. Crandon Mr. Bagshaw Mr. Danvers and others that it is a work I have not patience to be much longer in unless it were more necessary Two sheets more tell us that the Doctor is yet angry And little that 's better that I can find In the first he saith again that I am busie in smoothing my way where none can stumble in a thing never questioned by him nor by any Man else he thinks who owns the Authority of the second Commandment And have I not then good Company and Encouragement not to change my Mind But 1. He feigneth a Case stated between him and me who never had to do with him before but as with others in my Writings where I state my Case my self 2. He never so much as toucheth either of my Disputations of Original Sin in which I state my Case and defend it 3. And he falsly feigneth the Case stated in words and he supposeth in a sense that I never had do do with Saying I charge you with a new secondary Original Sin whose Pedegree is not from Adam I engage not a syllable further And pag. 8. You have asserted that this Novel Original Sin is not derived from our Original Father no line of Communication between them a sin besides that which is derived from Adam as you plainly and possitively affirm I never said that it had no Pedegree no line of Communication no kind of derivation from Adam 4. Yea if he would not touch the Disputation where I state my Case he should have noted it as stated in the very Preface which he writeth against and yet there also he totally overlooketh it though opened in divers Propositions 5. And the words in an Epistle to another Mans Book which he fasteneth still on were these Over-looking the Interest of Children in the Actions of their nearer Parents and think that they participate of no Guilt and suffer for no Original Sin but Adams only And after They had more Original Sin than what they had from Adam 6. He tells me that I seem not to understand my own Question nor to know well how to set about my Work and he will teach me how to manage the Business that I have undertaken and so he tells me how I MUST state the Question hereafter see his words Reader some Reasons may put a better Title on this Learned Doctors actions but if ever I write at this rate I heartily desire thee to cast it away as utter DISHONESTY and IMPUDENCE It troubleth me to trouble thee with Repetitions I hold 1. That Adams Sin is imputed as I opened to his Posterity 2. That the degree of Pravity which Cains nature received from Adam was the dispositive enclining Cause of all his Actual Sin 3. But not a necessitating Cause of all those Acts for he might possibly have done less evil and more good than he did 4. Therefore not the Total principal Cause for Cains free-will was part of that 5 Cains actual sin increased the pravity of his nature 6. And Cains Posterity were as I opened it guilty of Cains actual sin and their Natures were the more depraved by his additional pravity than they would have been by Adams sin alone unless Grace preserved or healed any of them The Doctor in this Paper would make his Reader believe that he is for no meer Logomachies and that the difference is not in words only but the thing And do you think that he differeth from me in any of these Propositions or how this sin is derived from Adam Yet this now must be the Controversie de re Do you think for I must go by thinking that he holdeth any other Derivation than this Or did I ever deny any of this But it is vain to state the Case to him He will over look it and tell me what I should have held that he may not be thought to make all this Noise for nothing He saith pag. 8. If it derive in a direct line from the first Transgression and have its whole Root fastened there what then why then some words which he sets together are not the best sense that can be spoken It is then but words and yet it is the thing What he may mean by a direct Line and what by whole Root fastened I know not but I have told the World
so to whirle them about till you have made them giddy Answ How easie is it to talk at this rate for any Cause in the World Is this Disputing or Reasoning Cannot I as easily say thus against you But the question is of Things visible I willingly appeal to any intelligent impartial Divine who will read what you and I have written of Justifi-fication which of us it is that hath done more to bring Men out of Woods and Mazes into the plainest Road Let them that have leisure for no more read but my Preface to my Disput of Justif and mark which side wrongeth weak Christians and the Charter of Salvation § XVII Pag. 29. you add Sir I understand something at these years without your Tutorage of the duty both of Pastors and People But I know not what you mean to make the way to Heaven revealed sufficiently to all c. to be a matter of high abstruse Speculation as if none but great Scholars and Men of extraordinary Judgment could by the right use of Scriptures and other ordinary common means be able to find it out till they have met with that Elias c. Answ Still I see we shall agree whether you will or not O Sir it is just the contrary that I wrote for And I need but repeat your words to answer you I am not disparaging your understanding otherwise than you may so call the vindicating of needful truth Nor did I ever presume to offer you my Tutorage You speak all this with too much tenderness But that which I have written almost all my Books of Controversie against is this making the Way to Heaven more difficult and be wildring than the Scriptures make it Therefore it is that I have perswaded Men to lay less stress on arbitrary humane Notions But the question is now whether it be your Course or mine that is guilty of this Are Logical Definitions the necessary Way to Heaven Doth the Scripture sufficiently reveal such Definitions to all Do all ordinary Believers by the use of the Scripture know how to define Do not Logicians make true defining one of the surest signs of clear and accurate knowledg Why should you and I dispute thus about Matters of Fact I know by the principles of Conformity that your Judgment is not like to be narrower than mine about the state of determinate Individuals I suppose you would take as many to the Lords Supper as Believers as I would and absolve as many and pronounce as many saved at Buryal Let you and I call but a dozen of the next Families together and desire every Man and Woman of them to give you a Definition of Justification out of the hearing of the rest and if they all give you a true definition and one definition I will write a Retractation I know you not but by your now telling me of your understanding of the duties of Pastors and People I may suppose that you have been a Pastour else And if so that you have had personal conference with most if not all of your Flock If you have found them all such able concordant Definers of Justification you have had a more learned Flock than I had I doubt your Learned Scholars could not do it till they met with some such Elias or Aristotle as you Yea let us take only such as by their Lives we commonly judg truly Godly Christians And if all these give you one and a true definition of Justification then do you tell them that Defining is no such difficult work but ordinary Christians may and do attain it and I that make it difficult make the way to Heaven difficult for Defining is the way to Heaven But if not one of many Score or Hundred till you teach them anew do give you a true and the same Definition I will go on and still say that They wrong Souls the Gospel and the Church who pretend such necessity and facility of defining and will censure reproach or damn all that agree not with them in a Definition when they have as real though less distinct a knowledg of the thing I doubt not but you know how much difference there is among Learned Men about Definitions themselves in general Whether they belong to Metaphysicks Logicks or Physicks Whether Definitio Physica as Man is defined per Animam Corpus Vnionem be a proper Definition Whether a true Logical and Physical definition should not be the same Whether Definitio objectiva be properly called Definitio or only Formalis Whether Accidents may be properly defined An Genus definiri possit An pars Logica definiri possit An individua possint definiri Inquit Hurtado Negari non potest Individuis definitio substantialis quidem essentialis Physice est enim de essentia hujus hominis haec anima cum hoc Corpore Imo essentialis Metaphysice si individua recte possent penetrari illorum definitio esset omnium perfectissima An ea quae differunt definitione distinguantur realiter With a multitude such And is the Art of Defining so easie as that ordinary Christians salvation must lie upon it when so many things about Defining are among the subtilest Doctors undetermined And as Ignorant as I am while you suppose me unable to define Justification I would wish you not for my sake but theirs that you will not sentence all as unjustified to Damnation that are not more skilful in defining than I and that you will not reject all such from the Sacrament and Communion of the Church § XVIII Yet again pag. 30. you tell me I cannot well swallow down in the lump what you would have me and others to do when you direct us to prefer that one Man before the Rulers and majority of Votes till you acquaint us who that Gentleman is and what sort of Rulers and Majorities you mean Answ What you cannot swallow you must leave I will not cram or drench you I could wish for your own sake that you had not thus often told the World of such a Malady as that must needs be which hindreth your swallow When 1. You your self receive the same Rule in other Instances and make all this stir against it only as to the Definition of Justification even the Logical definition which is Actus definientis called Definitio formalis and not the Definitio objectiva as the Ipsum definitum is by some improperly called 2. And when the words in that Instance are not ONE MAN but a few Men which your Eyes may still see and when in the General direction where one Man is mentioned there is no such word as that one Man or the least intimation of an Individuum determinatum You greatly wrong your Honour by such dealing As you do by adding 1. For the single Person that Monarch in Divinity to whom we are upon differences to make our Appeals c. Answ If you hold on thus to talk as in your sleep and will not shut your
God's Word Scriptures besides the former Declaration 1 Joh. 2.29 Every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 3.7 10. He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he is Righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God 2 Tim. 4.8 He hath laid up for us a Crown of Righteousness Heb. 11.23 Through Faith they wrought Righteousness Heb. 12. The peaceable fruit of Righteousness Jam. 3.18 The fruit of Righteousness is sown in Peace 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness Mat 5.20 Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees c. Luk. 1.71 In Holiness and Righteousness before him all the days of our Life Act. 10.35 He that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Rom. 6.13 16 18 19 20. Whether of sin unto death or of Obedience unto Righteousness 1 Cor. 15.34 Awake to Righteousness and sin not Eph. 5.9 The fruit of the Spirit is in all Goodness and Righteousness Dan. 12.3 They shall turn many to Righteousness Dan. 4.27 Break off thy sins by Righteousness Eph. 4.24 The new-man which after God is created in Righteousness Gen. 7.1 Thee have I seen Righteous before me Gen. 18.23 24 25 26. Far be it from thee to destroy the Righteous with the Wicked Prov. 24.24 He that saith to the Wicked thou art Righteous him shall the people Curse Nations shall abhor him Isa 3.10 Say to the Righteous it shall be well with him Isa 5.23 That take away the Righteousness from the Righteous Mat. 25.37 46. Then shall the Righteous answer The Righteous into life eternal Luk. 1.6 They were both Righteous before God Heb. 11.4 7. By Faith Abel offered to God a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark by which he became heir of the Righteousness by Faith 1 Pet. 4.18 If the Righteous be scarcely saved Math. 10.41 He that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall have a Righteous mans reward 1 Tim. 1.9 The Law is not made for a Righteous man but for Many score of texts more mention a Righteousness distinct from that of Christ imputed to us Judg now Whether he that believeth God should believe that he Imputeth Christs Obedience and Suffering to us for our Sole Righteousness That which is not our sole Righteousness is not so Reputed by God nor Imputed But Christs Obedience and Suffering is not our sole Righteousness See Davenant's many arguments to prove that we have an Inherent Righteousness Obj. But they mean our Sole Righteousness by which we are Justified Answ 1. We can tell no mans meaning but by his words especially not contrary to them especially in an accurate Declaration of Faith 2. Suppose it had been so said we maintain on the contrary 1. That we are Justified by more sorts of Righteousness than one in several respects We are justified only by Christs Righteousness as the Purchasing and Meritorious Cause of our Justification freely given by that new Covenant We are Justified by the Righteousness of God the Father as performing his Covenant with Christ and us efficiently We are justified efficiently by the Righteousness of Christ as our Judg passing a just sentence according to his Covenant These last are neither Ours nor Imputed to us But we are justified also against the Accusation of being finally Impenitent Unbelievers or unholy by the personal particular Righteousness of our own Repentance Faith and Holiness For 2. We say that there is an universal Justification or Righteousness and there is a particular one And this particular one may be the Condition and Evidence of our Title to all the rest And this is our case The Day of Judgment is not to try and Judg Christ or his Merits but us He will judg us himself by his new Law or Covenant the sum of which is Except ye Repent ye shall all perish and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be condemned If we be not accused of Impenitence or Vnbelief but only of not-fulfilling the Law of Innocency that will suppose that we are to be tryed only by that Law which is not true And then we refer the Accuser only to Christ's Righteousness and to the Pardoning Law of Grace and to nothing in our selves to answer that charge And so it would be Christ's part only that would be judged But Matth. 25. and all the Scripture assureth us of the contrary that it 's Our part that it is to be tryed and judged and that we shall be all judged according to what we have done And no man is in danger there of any other accusation but that he did not truly Repent and Believe and live a holy life to Christ And shall the Penitent Believer say I did never Repent and Believe but Christ did it for me and so use two Lyes one of Christ and another of himself that he may be justified Or shall the Vnholy Impenitent Infidel say It 's true I was never a Penitent Believer or holy but Christ was for me or Christs Righteousness is my sole Righteousness that is a fashood For Christs Righteousness is none of his So that there is a particular personal Righteousness consisting in Faith and Repentance which by way of Condition and Evidence of our title to Christ and his Gift of Pardon and Life is of absolute necessity in our Justification Therefore Imputed Righteousness is not the sole Righteousness which must justifie us I cited abundance of plain Texts to this purpose in my Confession pag. 57. c. Of which book I add that when it was in the press I procured those three persons whom I most highly valued for judgment Mr. Gataker whose last work it was in this World Mr. Vines and lastly Arch-Bishop Vsher to read it over except the Epistles Mr. Gataker read only to pag. 163. and no one of them advised me to alter one word nor signified their dissent to any word of it But I have been long on this to proceed in the History The same year that I wrote that book that most Judicious excellent man Joshua Placaeus of Saumours in France was exercised in a Controversie conjunct with this How far Adams sin is imputed to us And to speak truth at first in the Theses Salmuriens Vol. 1. he seemed plainly to dispute against the Imputation of Adam's actual sin and his arguments I elsewhere answer And Andr. Rivet wrote a Collection of the Judgment of all sorts of Divines for the contrary But after he vindicated himself shewed that his Doctrine was that Adam's fact is not immediately imputed to each of us as if our persons as persons had been all fully represented in Adam's person by an arbitrary Law or Will of God or reputed so to be But that our Persons being
Righteousness consisting in 1. perfect Innocency 2. And that in the Works of the Jewish Law which bind us not 3. And in doing his peculiar Works as Miracles Resurrection c. which were all His Righteousness as a conformity to that Law and performance of that Covenant which was made with and to him as Mediator But his Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause and Reason of another Righteousness or Justification distinct from his freely given us by the Father and himself by his Covenant So that here indeed the Similitude much cleareth the Matter And they that will not blaspheme Christ by making guilt of sin it self in its formal Relation to be his own and so Christ to be formally as great a sinner as all the Redeemed set together and they that will not overthrow the Gospel by making us formally as Righteous as Christ in kind and measure must needs be agreed with us in this part of the Controversie Object 9. When you infer That if we are reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by Christ we cannot be again bound to obey our selves afterward nor be guilty of any sin you must know that it 's true That we cannot be bound to obey to the same ends as Christ did which is to redeem us or to fulfil the Law of Works But yet we must obey to other ends viz. Ingratitude and to live to God and to do good and other such like Answ 1. This is very true That we are not bound to obey to all the same ends that Christ did as to redeem the World nor to fulfil the Law of Innocency But hence it clearly followeth that Christ obeyed not in each of our Persons legally but in the Person of a Mediator seeing his due Obedience and ours have so different Ends and a different formal Relation his being a conformity proximately to the Law given him as Mediator that they are not so much as of the same species much less numerically the same 2. And this fully proveth that we are not reckoned to have perfectly obeyed in and by him For else we could not be yet obliged to obey though to other ends than he was For either this Obedience of Gratitude is a Duty or not If not it is not truly Obedience nor the omission sin If yea then that Duty was made a Duty by some Law And if by a Law we are now bound to obey in gratitude or for what ends soever either we do all that we are so bound to do or not If we do it or any of it then to say that we did it twice once by Christ and once by our selves is to say that we were bound to do it twice and then Christ did not all that we were bound to but half But what Man is he that sinneth not Therefore seeing it is certain that no Man doth all that he is bound to do by the Gospel in the time and measure of his Faith Hope Love Fruitfulness c. it followeth that he is a sinner and that he is not supposed to have done all that by Christ which he failed in both because he was bound to do it himself and because he is a sinner for not doing it 3. Yea the Gospel binds us to that which Christ could not do for us it being a Contradiction Our great Duties are 1. To believe in a Saviour 2. To improve all the parts of his Mediation by a Life of Faith 3. To repent of our sins 4. To mortifie sinful Lusts in our selves 5. To fight by the Spirit against our flesh 6. To confess our selves sinners 7. To pray for pardon 8. To pray for that Grace which we culpably want 9. To love God for redeeming us 10. Sacramentally to covenant with Christ and to receive him and his Gifts with many such like which Christ was not capable of doing in and on his own Person for us though as Mediator he give us Grace to do them and pray for the pardon of our sins as in our selves 4. But the Truth which this Objection intimateth we all agree in viz. That the Mediator perfectly kept the Law of Innocency that the keeping of that Law might not be necessary to our Salvation and so such Righteousness necessary in our selves but that we might be pardoned for want of perfect Innocency and be saved upon our sincere keeping of the Law of Grace because the Law of Innocency was kept by our Mediator and thereby the Grace of the New-Covenant merited and by it Christ Pardon Spirit and Life by him freely given to Believers Object 10. The same Person may be really a sinner in himself and yet perfectly innocent in Christ and by imputation Answ Remember that you suppose here the Person and Subject to be the same Man And then that the two contrary Relations of perfect Innocency or guiltlesness and guilt of any yea much sin can be consistent in him is a gross contradiction Indeed he may be guilty and not guilty in several partial respects but a perfection of guiltlesness excludeth all guilt But we are guilty of many a sin after Conversion and need a Pardon All that you should say is this We are sinners our selves but we have a Mediator that sinned not who merited Pardon and Heaven for sinners 2. But if you mean that God reputeth us to be perfectly innocent when we are not because that Christ was so it is to impute Error to God He reputeth no Man to be otherwise than he is But he doth indeed first give and then impute a Righteousness Evangelical to us instead of perfect Innocency which shall as certainly bring us to Glory and that is He giveth us both the Renovation of his Spirit to Evangelical Obedience and a Right by free gift to Pardon and Glory for the Righteousness of Christ that merited it And this thus given us he reputeth to be an acceptable Righteousness in us CHAP. VI. Animadversions on some of Dr. T. Tullies Strictures § 1. I Suppose the Reader desireth not to be wearied with an examination of all Dr. Tullies words which are defective in point of Truth Justice Charity Ingenuity or Pertinency to the Matter but to see an answer to those that by appearance of pertinent truth do require it to disabuse the incautelous Readers Though somewhat by the way may be briefly said for my own Vindication And this Tractate being conciliatory I think meet here to leave out most of the words and personal part of his contendings and also to leave that which concerneth the interest of Works as they are pleased to call Man's performance of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace in our Justification to a fitter place viz. To annex what I think needful to my friendly Conference with Mr. Christopher Cartwright on the Subject which Dr. Tullies Assault perswadeth me to publish § 2. pag. 71. Justif Paulin. This Learned Doctor saith The Scripture mentioneth no Justification in foro Dei at all but that One which is Absolution from
justified that is Righteous by that Imputation 3. And how unable is my weak Understanding to make his words at peace with themselves The same Man in the next lines saith Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat and all Justification before God must be legal or none so that no Man is justified but as reputed Innocent or a performer of the Law And yet Justification is our Absolution from the Punishment and Malediction of the Law As if he said No Man is justified but by the pardon of that sin which he is reputed never to have had and Absolution from that Curse and Punishment which he is reputed never to have deserved or been under Are these things reconcileable But if really he take Absolution for justifying or acquitting from a false Accusation and so to be absolved from the Malediction of the Law is to be reputed one that never deserved it or was under it then it 's as much as to say that there is no pardon of sin or that no Man that is pardoned or reputed to need a Pardon is justified 4. All this and such Speeches would perswade the Reader that this Learned Disputer thinketh that I took and use the word Legal generally as of that which is related to any Law in genere and so take Evangelical contrarily for that which is related to no Law whereas I over and over tell him that speaking in the usual Language that I may be understood I take Legal specially and not generally for that Righteousness which is related to the Law of Works or Innocency not as if we had indeed such a Righteousness as that Law will justifie us for But a pro-Legal-Righteousness one instead of it in and by our perfect Saviour which shall effectually save us from that Laws condemnation And that by Evangelical Righteousness I mean that which is related to the Law of Grace as the Rule of Judgment upon the just pleading whereof that Law will not condemn but justifie us If he knew this to be my meaning in my weak judgment he should not have written either as if he did not or as if he would perswade his Rsaders to the contrary For Truth is most congruously defended by Truth But if he knew it not I despair of becoming intelligible to him by any thing that I can write and I shall expect that this Reply be wholly lost to him and worse 5. His Lex nisi praestita neminem justificat is true and therefore no Man is justified by the Law But his next words praestitam omnes in Christo agnoscunt seemeth to mean that It was performed by us in Christ Or that It justifieth us because performed perfectly by Christ as such Which both are the things that we most confidently deny It was not Physically or Morally or Politically or Legally or Reputatively take which word you will fulfilled by us in Christ it doth not justifie us because it was fulfilled by Christ as such or immediately and eo nomine It justified Christ because he fulfilled it and so their Law doth all the perfect Angels But we did not personally fulfil it in Christ it never allowed vicarium obedientiae to fulfil it by our selves or another Therefore anothers Obedience merely as such even a Mediators is not our Obedience or Justification But that Obedience justifieth us as given us only in or to the effecting of our Personal Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity and to God's Favour and Life freely given for Christ's Merits sake and in our performance of the Conditions of the Law of Grace or that free Gift which is therefore not a co-ordinate but a sub-ordinate Righteousness and Justification to qualifie us for the former This is so plain and necessary that if in sense it be not understood by all that are admitted to the Sacramental Communion excepting Verbal Controversies or Difficulties I doubt we are too lax in our admissions § 5. Next he tel's us of a threefold respect of Justification 1. Ex parte principii 2. Termini 3. Medii I find my self uncapeable of teaching him that is a Teacher of such as I and therefore presume not to tell him how to distinguish more congruously plainly and properly as to the terms And as to the Principle or Fountain whence it floweth that is Evangelical Grace in Christ he saith It is thus necessary that in our lapsed State all Justification be Evangelical Answ Who would desire a sharper or a softer a more dissenting or a more consenting Adversary Very good If then I mean it ex parte principii I offend him not by asserting Evangelical Righteousness The Controversie then will be only de nomine whether it be congruous thus to call it And really are his Names and Words put into our Creed and become so necessary as to be worthy of all the stress that he layeth on them and the calling up the Christian World to arrive by their Zeal against our Phrase Must the Church be awakened to rise up against all those that will say with Christ By thy words thou shalt be justified And with James By Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only and we are judged by the Law of Liberty and as Christ Joh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son and that shall recite the 25 th Chapter of Matthew Even now he said at once There is no Justification in foro Dei but Absolution c. The Law of the Spirit of Life hath freed us c. Here is no mention of any Justification but Legal And now All our Justification ex parte principii is only Evangelical So then no Text talks of Evangelical Justification or of Justification ex parte principii And Absolution which defineth it is named ex parte principii And yet all Justification is Evangelical Is this mode of Teaching worthy a Defence by a Theological War 2. But Reader Why may not I denominate Justification ex parte principii Righteousness is formally a Relation To justifie constitutively is to make Righteous To be Justified or Justification in sensu passivo is to be made Righteous And in foro to be judged Righteous And what meaneth he by Principium as to a Relation but that which other Men call the Fundamentum which is loco Efficientis or a remote efficient And whence can a Relation be more fitly named than from the fundamentum whence it hath its formal being Reader bear with my Error or correct it if I mistake I think that as our Righteousness is not all of one sort no more is the fundamentum 1. I think I have no Righteousness whose immediate fundamentum is my sinless Innocency or fulfilling the Law of Works or Innocency by my self or another and so I have no fundamentum of such 2. I hope I have a Righteousness consisting in my personal Right to Impunity and Life and that Jus or Right is mine by the Title of free Condonation and
him hereafter to use it in no other sense than the Scripture useth it 3. If that will not serve if the Masters of Language will agree yea to pass by our Lexicons if the Doctors of that University will give it us under their hands that the word ORIGINAL is unaptly and dangerously applyed to that sinful Guilt and Pravity which is in us ab Origine Nostrae existentiae and is the internal Radix vel Origo of all our Actual Sin in part of Causality I will use that Epithete so no more 4. If all this will not serve if he himself will give me a fitter Epithete I will use it And now we over-agree in Doctrine a word shall not divide us unless he will be angry because we are agreed as Jonas was that the Ninivites were spared because it seemed to disgrace his Word § II. pag. 4 5 c. You invite me to a full entire retractation of my Doctrine of Justification you add By Works and the secondary Original Sin 1. Will you take it well if I retract that which you profess now to hold and know none that denyeth then there is no pleasing you If I must be thought to wrong you for seeming to differ from you and yet must retract all What yours and all Mens 2. Do you mean the words or the sense of Justification as you call it by Works For the words I take you for a subscriber to the 39 Articles and therefore that you reject not the Epistle of St. James And for the sense I confess it is a motion suitable to the Interest of your Treatise though not of the Truth He that cannot confute the Truth would more easily do his Work if he could perswade the Defenders of it to an Entire Retractation Hereupon pag. 5. you recite my words of the difficulty of bringing some Militant Divines to yield Your Admonition for Self-Application of them is useful and I thank you for it But is it not a streight that such as I am in between two contrary sorts of Accusers When Mr. Danvers and Multitudes on that side Reproach me daily for Retractations and you for want of them How natural is it now to Mankind to desire to be the Oracles of the World and that all should be Silenced or Retracted which is against their Minds How many call on me for Retractation Mr. Tombes and Mr. Danvers for what I have Written for Infants-Baptism The Papists for what I have Written against them And how many more And as to what I have Retracted One reproached me for it and another either knoweth not of it or perswadeth others that it is not done You say pag. 6. A great out-cry you have made of me as charging you with things you have Retracted And pag. 7. What 's the reason you have not hitherto directed us to the particulars of your Recantation what when where You direct one indeed to a small Book above Twenty years a-go retracted All I can pick up of any seeming Retractation is that you say that Works are necessary at least to the continuation of our Justification Answ Either this is Written by a Wilful or a Heedless mistaking of my words The first I will not suspect it must therefore be the second for I must not judg you Vnable to understand plain English And is it any wonder if you have many such Mistakes in your disputes of Justification when you are so heedless about a matter of Fact Where did I ever say that I had Recanted Or that I Retracted any of the Doctrine of Justification which I had laid down Cannot you distinguish between Suspending or Revoking or Retracting a particular Book for the sake of several Crude and Incongruous Expressions and Retracting or Recanting that Doctrine of Justification Or can you not understand words that plainly thus Distinguish Why talk you of what and when and where and conjecture at the words as if you would make the Reader believe that indeed it is some confessed Errors of mine which you Confuted and that I take it for an Injury because I Retracted them And so you think you salve your Confutation whatever you do by your Candour and Justice But you have not so much as Fig-leaves for either It was the Aphorisms or Book that I said was above Twenty years a go Revoked When in my Treatise of Infant-Baptism I had craved Animadversions on it and promised a better Edition if I Published it any more I forbad the Reprinting it till I had time to Correct it and when many called for it I still deny'd them And when the Cambridg Printer Printed it a second time he did it by Stealth pretending it was done beyond Sea In my Confession Twenty years ago I gave the Reasons Preface pag. 35. I find that there are some Incautelous Passages in my Aphorisms not fitted to their Reading that come to suck Poyson and seek for a Word to be Matter of Accusation and Food for their Censuring opinionative Zeal And pag. 42. If any Brother understand not any word in my Aphorisms which is here Interpreted or mistake my sense about the Matter of that Book which is here more fully opened I must expect that they interpret that by this And if any one have so little to do as to write against that Book which is not unlikely if he take the Sense contrary to what I have here and else-where since then Published I shall but neglect him as a Contentious Vain Wrangler if not a Calumniator I Wrote this sharply to forwarn the Contentious not knowing then that above Twenty years after Dr. Tully would be the Man Pag. 43. If any will needs take any thing in this Book to be rather a Retractation than an Explication of what I have before said though I should best know my own Meaning yet do such commend me while they seem to blame me I never look to write that which shall have no need of Correction And Cap. 1. pag. 2. Lest I should prove a further Offence to my Brethren and a Wrong to the Church I desired those who thought it worth their Labour to vouchsafe me their Animadversions which I have spent much of these Three last years in considering that I might Correct what-ever was discovered to be Erroneous and give them an account of my Reasons of the rest I have not only since SVPPRESSED that Book which did offend them but also laid by those Papers of Vniversal Redemption which I had written lest I should be further offensive c. In my Apologie else-where I have such-like Passages ever telling Men that It was the first Book I wrote in my Vnexperienced Youth that I take the Doctrines of it to be sound and needful save that in divers places they are unskilfully and incautelously worded As the Word Covenant is oft put for Law c. And that I wrote my Confession and Disputes of Justification as an Exposition of it and that I Retracted or Suspended or Revoked not
the Doctrine but the Book till I had Corrected it and did disown it as too unmeet an Expression of my Mind which I had more fully exprest in other Books And is not this plain English Doth this warrant a Wise and Righteous Man to intimate that I accuse him of writing against that Doctrine of Justification which I Recanted and to call for the What and Where and When Yea and tell me that I refer you to a small Book when instead of referring you to it I only blame you for referring to that alone when I had said as before When many Divines have published the first Edition of their Works imperfectly and greatly corrected and enlarged them in a Second as Beza his Annotations Polanus his Syntagma and many such all Men take it for an Injury for a Neighbour twenty years after to select the first Edition to confute as the Author's Judgment Much more might I when I published to the World that I Suspended the whole Book and have these twenty four years hindred the Printing of it professing that I have in many larger Books more intelligibly and fully opened the same things Yea you fear not pag. 23. to say That I tell you of about 60 Books of Retractations in part at least which I have Written when never such a word fell from me If I say That one that hath published his Suspension of a small Book written in Youth not for the Doctrine of it but some unfit Expressions and hath since in al-most thirty Years time written about sixty Books in many or most of which is somewhat of the same Subject and in some of them he fullier openeth his Mind should be dealt with by an Adversary according to some of his later and larger Explications and not according to the Mode and Wording of that one Suspended Book alone Shall such a Man as you say that I tel you of about sixty Books of Retractations Or will it not abate Mens reverence of your disputing Accurateness to find you so untrusty in the Recitation of a Man's words The truth is it is this great Defect of Heed and Accurateness by hasty Temerity which also spoileth your Disputations But pag. 7. the Aphorisms must be The most Schollar-like and Elaborate though Erroneous Book in Controversie you ever Composed Answ 1. Your Memory is faulty Why say you in the next that I appeal to my Disputation of Justification and some others but you cannot Trudg up and down to every place I would send you your Legs are too weak Either you had read all the sixty Books which you mention the Controversal at least or not If not How can you tell that the Aphorisms is the most Elaborate If yea Why do you excuse your Trudging and why would you select a Suspended Book and touch none that were Written at large on the same Subject 2. By this I suâ—pose to make your Nibble to seem a Triumph you tell your Reader again how to value your Judgment Is it like that any Dunce that is diligent should Write no more Schollar-like at Sixty years of Age than at Thirty And do you think you know better what of mine is Elaborate than I do Sure that Word might have been spared When I know that one printed Leaf of Paper hath cost me more Labour than all that Book and perhaps one Scheme of the Distinctions of Justification which you deride If indeed you are a competent Judg of your own Writings Experience assureth me that you are not so of mine And pag. 25. you say You desire not to be preferred before your Betters least of all when you are singular as here I think you are § III. Pag. 9. You are offended for being put in the Cub with divers mean and contemptible Malefactors Answ O for Justice 1. Was not Bellarmin or some of the Papists and the Socinians as great Malefactors with whom as you phrase it you put me in the Cub 2. Are they Malefactors so far as they agree with you in Doctrine and are you Innocent What is the Difference between your Treatise in the part that toucheth me and that of Mr. Eyres Mr. Crandon and some others such Dr. Owen and Dr. Kendale indeed differed from you the latter seeking by Bishop Vsher an amicable Closure and the former if I understand his Book on the Hebrews less differing from me in Doctrine than once he either did or seemed to do And if any of us all grow no Wiser in thirty years Study we may be ashamed But to give you your due Honour I will name you with your Equals as far as I can judg viz. Maccovius Cluto Coccejus and Cloppenburgius I mean but in the Point in Question it 's no Dishonour to you to give some of them Precedencie in other things It may be also Spanhemius was near you But if I may presume to liken my Betters no Men seem to me to have been so like you as Guilielmus Rivet not Andrew Mr. George Walker and Mr. Roborough I hope this Company is no Dishonour to you And very unlike you are Le Blank Camero Davenant Dr. Hammond Mr. Gataker Mr. Anthony Wotton and in Complexion Scotus and Ockam and such as they If yet I have not Chosen you pleasing Company I pray you choo se so your self But you say on Had you not in your Memory many Scores of greatest Eminence and Repute in the Christian World of the same Judgment with me Know you not I speak the same thing with all the Reformed Churches c. For shame let it be the Church of England with all the rest of the Reformed c. Answ 1. I know not what you hold even when I read what you write I must hope as well as I can that you know your self How then should I know who are of the same Judgment with you 2. Yet I am very confident that all they whom you mention are of the same in some thing or other and in particular that we are Justified by Faith and not by the Works of the Law or any Works in the sence denied by St. Paul c. 3. Do not I with as great Confidence as you lay Claim to the same Company and Concord And if one of us be mistaken must your bare Word determine which it is Which of us hath brought the fuller Proofs I subscribe to the Doctrine of the Church of England as well as you and my Condition these thirteen or fourteen years giveth as much Evidence that I am loth to subscribe to what I believe not as yours doth of you And you that know which of my Books is the most Elaborate sure know that in that Book which I Wrote to explain those Aphorisms called my Confession I cite the Words of above an Hundred Protestant Witnesses that give as much to Works as I do And that of this Hundred one is the Augustine Confession one the Westminster Synod one the Synod of Dort one the Church of England
those things now which many did at the rising of the Sect and if I could I would believe they never did them 2. This Book of Mr. Danvers with the rest of the same kind increase my hatred of the Disputing Contentious way of writing and my trouble that the Cause of the Church and Truth hath so oft put on me a necessity to write in a Disputing way against the Writings of so many Assailants 3. It increaseth my Grief for the Case of Mankind yea of well-meaning godly Christians who are unable to judg of many Controversies agitated otherwise than by some Glimpses of poor Probability and the esteem which they have of the Persons which do manage them and indeed take their Opinions upon trust from those whom they most reverence and value and yet can so hardly know whom to follow whilst the grossest Mistakes are set off with as great confidence and holy pretence as the greatest Truths O how much should Christians be pitied that must go through so great Temptations 4. It increaseth my Resolution had I longer to live to converse with Men that I would profit or profit by either as a Learner hearing what they have to say without importunate Contradiction or as a Teacher if they desire to Learn of me A School way may do something to increase Knowledg but drenching Men and striving with them doth but set them on a fiercer striving against the Truth And when they that have need of seven and seven years Schooling more under some clear well studied Teacher are made Teachers themselves and then turned loose into the World as Sampsons Foxes to militate for and with their Ignorance what must the Church suffer by such Contenders 5. It increaseth my dislike of that Sectarian dividing hurtful Zeal which is described James 3. and abateth my wonder at the rage of Persecutors For I see that the same Spirit maketh the same kind of Men even when they most cry out against Persecutors and separate furthest from them 6. It resolveth me more to enquire less after the Answers to Mens Books than I have done And I shall hereafter think never the worse of a Mans writings for hearing that they are answered For I see it is not only easie for a Talking Man to talk on and to say something for or against any thing but it is hard for them to do otherwise even to hold their Tongues or Pens or Peace And when I change this Mind I must give the greatest belief to Women that will talk most or to them that live longest and so are like to have the last word or to them that can train up militant Heirs and Successors to defend them when they are dead and so propagate the Contention If a sober Consideration of the first and second writing yea of positive Principles will not inform me I shall have little hope to be much the wiser for all the rest 7. I am fully satisfied that even good 〈◊〉 are here so far from Perfection that they must bear with odious faults and injuries in one another and be habituated to a ready and easie forbearing and forgiving one another I will not so much as describe or denominate Mr. Danvers Citations of Dr. Pierce to prove my Popery and Crimes nor his passages about the Wars and about my Changes Self-contradictions and Repentances lest I do that which savoureth not of Forgiveness O what need have we all of Divine Forgiveness 8. I shall yet less believe what any Mans Opinion yea or Practice is by his Adversaries Sayings Collections Citations or most vehement Asseverations than ever I have done though the Reporters pretend to never so much Truth and pious Zeal 9. I shall less trust a confounding ignorant Reader or Writer that hath not an accurate defining and distinguishing Understanding and hath not a mature exercised discerning Knowledg than ever I have done and especially if he be engaged in a Sect which alas how few parts of the Christian World escape For I here and in many others see that you have no way to seem Orthodox with such but to run quite into the contrary Extream And if I write against both Extreams I am taken by such Men as this but to be for both and against both and to contradict my self When I write against the Persecutors I am one of the Sectaries and when I write against the Sectaries I am of the Persecutors side If I belie not the Prelatists I am a Conformist If I belie not the Anabaptists Independants c. I am one of them If I belie not the â—â—pists I am a Papist if I belie not the Arminians I am an Arminian if I belie not the Calvinists I am with Pseudo-Tilenus and his Brother purus putus Puritanus and one Qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat which Joseph Allen too kindly interpreteth If I be for lawful Episcopacy and lawful Liturgies and Circumstances of Worship I am a temporizing Conformist If I be for no more I am an intollerable Non-Conformist at this time forced to part with House and Goods and Library and all save my Clothes and to possess nothing and yet my Death by six months Imprisonment in the Common Goal is sought after and continually expected If I be as very a Fool and as little understand my self and as much contradict my self as all these Confounders and Men of Violence would have the World believe it is much to my cost being hated by them all while I seek but for the common peace 10. But I have also further learned hence to take up my content in Gods Approbation and having done my duty and pitying their own and the Peoples snares to make but small account of all the Reproaches of all sorts of Sectaries what they will say against me living or dead I leave to themselves and God and shall not to please a Censorious Sect or any Men whatever be false to my Conscience and the Truth If the Cause I defend be not of God I desire it may fall If it be I leave it to God how far He will prosper it and what Men shall think or say of me And I will pray for Peace to him that will not hate and revile me for so doing Farewell Septemb. 4. 1675. FINIS 1 Not by imputing Faith it self part of Believing or any other Evangelical Obedience to them as their Righteousness 2 For their sole Righteousness Mark Virtually Not absolutely Mark by a Trope Mark how far