look upon Christ our Mediatour who is the End or chief aim of the Law Rom. 10. 4. for it was given with a Design to drive us to him Gal. 3. 24. and is a Yoak which we nor our Fathers were able to bear Acts 15. 10. and in Contemplation of that Righteousness he performed in our Nature for us by vertue of the Covenant of Grace deal with us and our Works so as the Imperfections which we acknowledge and bewail in them shall never come in sight Well-fare those men if they can for the Condignity of their Services It is enough for us under the sense of the Skars and Blemishes in our too often lame Obedience to look up to the Hills from whence cometh our Help and to shelter our selves under his Feathers who hath Healing in his Wings We will now hear what the old Fathers of the New I mean the Primitive Church will say to this business But let us take along with us the Advice of Vincentius Lirinensis who highly commends this way of confuting Errors yet with this Caveat Neither all ways nor all kinds are to be impugned after this manner but such only as are new and lately sprung whilst by the straitness of time they be hindred from falsifying the Rules of the ancient Faith and before their poyson spreading farther they attempt to corrupt the Writings of the Elders c. Which I mention not because I am diffident of their Testimony but to give you an hint that the Policy of Rome has been notorious in Curtaling Expunging Depraving the Fathers yea and foysting in new Matter to many of their Works Note again in what sence the word Merit often indeed occurring in their Writings before ever that Acception the Jesuits now have it in was dream'd of was used by them It Ordinarily imports no more when they say Merita than if they had said Opera and to merit no more than simply to attain unto or procure without any Relation at all to the Dignity either of the Person or the Work Thus St. Augustin saith Paul for his Persecutions and Blasphemies Merited to be made a vessel of Election and Cyprian Misericordiam merui I obtained Mercy So Gregory Paul when he went about to extinguish the name of our Redeemer upon Earth Merited to hear his Words from Heaven and lest you have a Conceit that he means of Paul's Works fore-seen See the same manner of Rhetorick concerning Adam's Sin O happy Sin that Merited to have such and so great a Redeemer meaning that gave the occasion of his Coming And now I am to acquaint you with a Secret has been hid from your Eyes by the Cunningness of those you build your Belief upon St. Chrysostome Cyprian Augustin and the rest will I think in my Conscience prove as arrant Hereticks as we For the first peremptorily affirms against Vasquez That no man can shew such a Conversation of life as may be worthy of the Kingdom but this Kingdom is wholly the Gift of God and in another place Although we did die a Thousand Deaths and perform all Vertuous Actions yet we should come far short of rendring any thing worthy of those honours which are conferr'd on us by God Take one more of his That one destitute of Works should be justified by Faith might perhaps seem well to be but that one adorned with Vertues and good Works should yet not be Justified by them but only by Faith is admirable Who would have thought good old Chrysostom had so much dissented from the reverend Society at Rhemes who teach us another Lesson That good Works are Meritorious and the very cause of Salvation so far as God should be unjust if he rendred not Heaven for them Take the next Testimony out of Gregory in the Original because there 's one word whose just force and Emphasis as it stands here our English can I think but hardly reach Justus noster Advocatus nos defendet in Judicio quia nosmetipsos cognoscimus accusamus Injustos Non ergo in fletibus non in actionibus nostris sed in Advocati nostri Allegatione confidamus When the day of Judgment or our Death shall come saith Hierom all hands shall fail because no work shall be found worthy of the Justice of God That is a known place of Augustin He viz. Christ is Sin as we are Justice not our own but God's not in our selves but in him as he is Sin not in himself but in us And remarkable that of Athanasius Impossibile est puritatem innocentiam in humana Natura exhiberi nisi Deus credatur in Carne fuisse qui Justitiam omni ex parte liberam in mundum introduxit Cujus quia participes sumus vivemus salvabimur Illud enim Non est justus in terra c. in Commune ad omnes pertinet Unde ex Coelo descendit qui immaculatam Justitiam ex se daturus erat No less this of Gregory Nyssenus in his Oration upon Beati qui esuriunt Justitiam It seems to me saith that Father That our Lord by mentioning Justice doth propose to the appetite of his hearers his own self who is made unto us Wisdom from God Justice Sanctification c. That Proverb Bernardus non videt omnia may perhaps be true yet in this Omne tulit punctum he has hit the right Nail on the Head and rivetted it in so strongly as not even the Teeth of Time shall be able to pull it out We find in him these words fit to be writ in Letters of Gold I will make mention of thy Righteousness only for even that is mine too to wit thou art made unto me Justice I need not fear but it will serve us both It is not a short Cloak that will not cover two c. We will here take lieve of these Stars of the first Magnitude and come to those of later Note in the Church's Constellation that lived after the light of this Doctrine had been clouded and set themselves to enquire how it came so and to deliver their opinions more distinctly and apposite to the present Question than the ancient Doctors could do who had finished their Course before the Corruption was discoverable or the Controversie started But take in as we pass another Instance or two out of the last named Doctor It 's necessary first of all to Believe That we cannot have remission of sins but by the Mercy or Condonation of God 2. Then That we cannot at all have any whit of good works unless he give it Lastly That by no good works we can merit Life Eternal Nisi gratis deâ—ur illa In another place thuâ— If we must speak properly of that which we call Merits they are certain Seminaries of Hope Incitements of Love Signs of secret Predestination the way to the Kingdom not the Cause of Reigning Dangerous is the way and dwelling of those that trust in
habits and acts of righteousness which thou seemest to relye upon even thine own conscience will tell thee have been imperfect unconstant partial yea sometimes none at all but thy soul hath frequently been inslaved to contrary vices therefore thou must have something of more integrity a more immaculate and spotless obedience to present me withal and make out thy interest therein too before thy claim be just Now let us see what answer the Protestant Principles will put into our mouths and let the safer the truer the modester carry it Thus then Lord I know thy Law is holy just and good 't is likewise eternal by the righteousness of this Law Justification is to be had even yet as well as in the Covenant of works made with Adam before his fall onely here is the difference It 's now accepted in the hands of a Mediator The Lord our Righteousness who as surety of a better Covenant and as Head of his Body the Church hath fulfill'd the Law in its utmost Demands My faith my obedience my charity are all weak poor inconsiderable things Eternal life and the whole of my salvation from the one end to the other is purely a free gift Though I have had some Graces of thy Spirit in such a measure as have been a comfortable evidence that my heart was set aright to serve thee for without a conformity to thy Son in holiness begun in the life below no flesh may hope with joy to see thy face above yet I dare not I ought not to present these unto thee as the matter of my justification I have through thy mercy been sincere but it is in Christ only that I am compleat We do know That we ought to have in honour the Saints departed and not to think meanly of the Angels those ministring Spirits But we do not acknowledge that we ought to invocate them or direct our prayers or vows unto them much less place confidence in the wearing their Reliques or Pictures to prevent lightning sudden death c. 5. We do know That an high and profound reverence is due to Fathers Councils voice of the Church But we acknowledge not That any particular place or succession of men is exempt from all possibility of Error Nor that Rome keeps her first Principles 6. We do know That men of ungodly unstable contentious dispositions do not look upon the Bible without danger to their own souls and pervert many things therein to their destruction But we acknowledge not That therefore the sincere milk of the Word is to be lock'd up from those that might grow thereby Nor that meat is to be kept from the children because it is sometimes abused to excess and riot by dissolute and licentious men LETTER IX THat Person to me yet unknown whom you did some years since substitute to shape me an answer unto a few Lines I then hastily offered to your view cut his Work into a very uncourtly Mode and takes it for granted that I have not so much understanding as to know they would be understood to place the Condignity of Merit in works done by Grace not by Nature nor so much Learning as to English Opus Operatum For the first I would have both him and you to know that we oppose as to Justifying before God all Works both of Nature and Grace For certainly if we consider the Testimony alledged Rom. 4. by Paul out of Genesis 15. to prove that Abraham was not then Justified by Works it will appear he was long before that Regenerate and had sundry Works of Faith It was a Work of Faith that he followed God's call out of his Countrey Compare Gen. 12. 4. with Heb. 11. 8. Other Works of Piety and Love see recorded Gen. 12. 8. and 13. 8 9. and 14. 16 20. Yet none of these but after them all Gen. 15. Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness and he obtained the Promise that is saw Christ afar off and had his share in him not by Working but Believing And if Works merely Natural had been in Question why comes in the Example of Abraham rather than of Abimelech Socrates or the like That St. James meant not to reach beyond Justification in Foro Humano by that which he attributes to Works is evident from what he subjoyns ver 18. Shew me thy Faith by thy Works He denies a saving power only to such a Faith as is not Operative and to such a one neither do we ascribe any thing at all The two Apostles both instancing in him to confirm their seeming contrary assertions makes it evident they are to be referred to the several Tribunals of God and of Conscience But if he will give me lieve to mind him that the Franciscans in the Council of Trent were of opinion that Works done before Faith were truly meritorious in the sight of God and how Sir Kenelme Digby doubts not to say The old Philosophers without Christ for so we all know they were if any of them followed the Dictates of right Reason no Grace is there mentioned might attain Heaven it may abate his anger at the Expression I there used I have set my self to School again that I might improve my knowledge in the Romane as well as the Latine Tongue and have learnt from those Doctors at Trent That there are some actions which cause Grace not by the devotion of him that worketh or of him that does receive the work but by virtue of the work it self And That Prayers in absolution are only laudable not necessarily added to I absolve thee So making the Efficacie to flow ab Opere Operato Thus I conceive is to be understood what I have more than once read in their Books That to the merit of Prayer it suffices that the words be repeated but if a man have a particular request to put up it 's necessary the heart and affections accompany them in that desire I think now there 's no great difficulty in construing Opus operatum nor was I much out of the way when I applied it to their practice in their Sacraments I do not conclude that all those who delight to be styled Roman Catholicks making light of the latter appellation if not ushered in by the former are guilty of all this high Treason against God's Truth nor of Misprision of that Treason neither for I am confident very few of the Laity amongst them are privy to such bold Positions as are maintained by Vasquez with the now predominant Faction of the Jesuits and their adherents yet it were well they would consider whereunto their implicite credulity would lead them I once had from the mouth of a Romanist whose memory has all the reason in the world to be ever dear to me an expression wherewith I was much taken as neighbouring very near unto Truth and far from the malignity of some I have before cited When I insisted upon the Righteousness of Christ as our justification it was
their Merits dangerous because ruinous Thomas Waldensis our Compatriot and the others Contemporary professes his utter dislike of that saying That a man may by Merits be worthy of Heaven or this Grace or that Glory however loe here their rise certain Schoolmen had invented the Terms of Condignity and Congruity I do repute him adds he the more faithful Catholick and more sound Christian more consonant to the holy Scripture who doth simply deny such Merit and confesseth That no man Merits Heaven but by the Grace of God or will of the Giver As all the former Saints and whole Church until the late Schoolmen have written Here 's even enough to end withal yet wee 'l have one Instance more of our Truth but Romes falshood and departure from the Faith of her fore-fathers We will bring it thus Our Libraries were ordinarily stored with certain old Instructions and Consolations to be used to departing sick Persons out of which the Spanish Inquisitors thought fit to expunge these dangerous Interrogations Dost thou believe to come to Glory not by thine own Merits but by the Vertue and Merit of the Passion of our Lord Dost thou believe that our Lord Jesus Christ did die for our Salvation and that none can be saved by his own Merits or by any other Means but by the Merit of his Passion Uincentius his Rule now appears prudent when we have to deal with a sort of men that care not how they deal with old Records and endeavour all they can to make the Tongue of An. tiquity to have a Tangue of their Novelties and can frame new Decrees fathering them on old Councils as both hath and may be proved I shall shut up all with the result of two Assemblies and the astipulations of two Eminent Persons The Canons of Colen in a set meeting establish the Imputed Righteousness of Christ as the formal Cause of Justification We are Justified say they two ways The one and first of which is that absolute Righteousness of Christ not as it is clearly without us in him but as when it is whilst apprehended by Faith Imputed to us for Righteousness this very same so imputed is the chief and great Cause of our Justification This was much considering the time they lived in but better explained in that Colloquy of Ratisbon whose words are Though he who is Justified does receive inherent Justice yet a faithful Soul rests not upon that but only upon the Justice of Christ given to us without which there can clearly be no Justice at all I mention these being soon after the Reformation begun not as entirely Reformed but as such unto whom in this great point the light of Truth even to a good Degree could not be hid The next is a remarkable passage concerning Ernestus Arch-Bishop of Magdeburge witnessed by his own Chaplain Clement Schaw who was present at his Death about five years before Luther A Friar Minor offered him Consolation thus Take good heart most worthy Prince We do Communicate to your Excellence all the good works not only of our selves but of our whole Order and therefore doubt not but receiving them you shall appear before the Tribunal of God blessed and righteous He replied I do not desire your Works to any thing The Works of my Lord Christ must wholly do it On these I relie And Bellarmine himself who spent so much Time and Sweat in oppugning Imputed and propugning Inherent Grace under the Notion of Condign Merit was at last brought to say Propter incertitudinem c. For the uncertainty of our Works it is the safest to put all our Confidence in the sole Mercy and Bounty of God and relie upon Christ. Which totally unravels again the thinn wrought Covering he had before with other Jesuits patch'd up Thus have we followed this pure stream of living water through the Meanders of many Ages of several Constitutions even to the confines of our own Wherein if you look at the present outward face of things we may almost say the Enemy has got the upper hand Yet praise be to God We are not without many Eminent and Faithful Labourers in his Harvest who I hope will leave it upon Record that the Truth is not left without Witnesses And thus too if you take it as we say at the right End I have given you a Testimony that I am c. LETTER III. ARising from depending on and subservient to the Doctrine of Meritorious inherent Justice are all those Opinions of Free-will Satisfactions here and in Purgatory Prayer and Sacrifices for the Dead Indulgences and Vendable Pardons from the Extreme grossness whereof when he saw those goodly Advantages made the Wager in a Game at Dice Luther first took occasion to discountenance them We think they are but as super-structures reared with untempered Mortar which we are sure will all as Wood Hay Stubble perish and be consumed by that Fire the Spirit of Burning mentioned Isa. 4. 4. Matth. 3. 11. 1 Cor. 3. 13. And therefore waving them the next Point wherein I shall endeavour if it may so please God to rectifie your Judgment is that much Controverted business of the Sacraments Which are visible Signs of invisible Grace given and conferred unto us Instituted by Christ himself and ordained to be a means to Receive and a Seal to Confirm the same Let us review this Definition and draw from it some Observations in the words of a Learned Author Many things do here occurr which require a deep and serious Consideration by those who desire throughly to understand the Nature and Essential parts of Sacraments For first there must be a Conferrence of Grace of which the Sacraments are termed Seals yet this Conferrence of Grace is not causatively but instrumentally not Physically but Metaphysically in them Therefore those are not properly Sacraments which relate to any thing but matters of Religion By this Argument is Matrimony excluded from the List as not being in it self considered a Religious Work neither is any Grace at all conferred or exhibited thereby So that though Marriage doth Legitimate many one may say it self is but a Bastard Sacrament 2. Next these Signs of Grace ought to be subject to the Senses For so it seemed good to God by sensible and external things to lead by the hand as it were us who for the most part live by sense towards Intelligible Internal and Spiritual matters They must farther be visible and subject to the Eyes Hence Absolution and Ordination cannot fall within the number of Sacraments not having any visible Element or Material Sign Thirdly They are said to be ordained and instituted by Christ Signs they are by the Institution of him and not of their own nature He only who created the Elements can by his word make of them Sacraments nor is it from the choice of Men that the Signs become Sacraments but by the Ordinance of
suprà and by Davenant de Justitia habituali actuali Paul declares his whole Justification both in his first Conversion and in the time of his writing and at the Resurrection to be wholly absolved in Faith Phil. 3. 9. Disp. 222. cap. 3. If the Works of Righteousness which we have done must be our Justification though Grace received from above be conceived to enable us thereto yet are we under the Covenant of Do this wholly purely constantly and live Which if any man say he deceives himself 1 Jo. 1. 8 9 10. Bernard de Verbo Esa. Serm. 4. Disp. 204. cap. 2. The Phariseo himself by thanking God that he was not as other men may seem to acknowledge his works to have been from Grace infused yet we know how he was dismist Cap. 3. Primate of Ireland's Answer to the Jesuite In Tim. 1. 13. It is not said He has made us wise just and holy but He is made unto us Wisdom c. which is as if he had said He hath given himself unto us So Chrysost. on 1 Cor. 1. 30. Homil. 2. on Colof De Compunct Tom. 6. In Rom. 4. Hom. 8. * Viz. Abraham Annotat on Heb. 6. In Isa. lib. 17. Enchirid. cap. 41. Math. 5. 6. and 1 Cor. 1. 30. Expounded by Gregor Nyssen Serm. 61. in Cantic Quoted by the incomparable Davenant de Justitia habituali actuali cap. 28. fol. 369. Why must Jacob stand before his Father in the Garments of his elder Brother before he could have the blessing but to typifie the necessity of our being covered with Christ's righteousness who is the first born of his Father Serm. 1. de Annunciatione Tom. 3. de Sacra cap. 7. Primate of Ireland ut suprá Johannes Piâ—us the Bishop Interpreter of Mareus the Eremite rendring Not by the Proportion of works of Nature where the Original is Not by the Proportion of works of Faith is a gross falsifier Primate of Ireland pag. 502. Simpson of the Church Cent. 5. So Zosimus pretended a Decree of the Council of Nice which could never be found Davenant de Justit habituali cap. 29. Noted by Bellarmine himself lib. â—2 de Justifie cap. 1 2. pag. 124. Idem ut suprá Dr. Twisse his Resolutions of Conscience c. De Meritis bonorum operum Leofwin a Noble man gave two Towns in Essex to the Church of Ely to Expiate and make Satisfaction for the Murther of his own Mother Cambden fol. 440. The large English Impression So Alfrida the Relict of King Edgar built a Nunnery near Ambursbury haveing murthered Edward Cambden ut suprá fol. 254. The. Trent Faith is That Sacraments cause Grace not by the Devotion of him that worketh nor of him that receives the work but by virtue of the work it self Hist. of that Council fol. 230. Matrimony Absolution and Ordination Confirmation and Extreme Unction no Sacraments Primate of Ireland's answer to the Jesuit And since we find our Saviour himself Joh. 6. 63. affirming that the flesh profiteth nothing I shall not at all fear to say We ought to be satisfied with a spiritual Manducation Idem ibidem Qui discordat à Christo nec Carnem ejus manducat nec Sanguinem bibit c. Prosper ex Aug. Sent. 341. Tract 26. This must needs be a figurative speech why then not the other Epist. 23. Quaest. 37. in Levit Upon Matth. 15. Primate of Ireland pag. 67 68 69 70 In the time of Innocent 3. who made Otho Emperour and put by Frederick left to his Care by Henry his Father Simpson's Hist. fol. 371. Fol. 44. c. Davenant in Col. â—â— naturâ amore nobis conjunctior Tome 3. câ—nra Hâ—lvidium Origen bids us not to doubt but when we commit our selves to him who is God over all through Jesus Christ and desire of him the help and protection of those ministring Spirits that do his pleasure they shall all be propitious unto us In Col. 2. 18. Recorded by Famianus Strada de Bello Belgico Strada de Bello Belgico Letter 1. Psalt Bonavent Edict Paris 1596. Tom 5. in Rom. 1. See many more and very pregnant proofs in the Primate of Ireland p. 377. c. In Josue Hom. 16. Idem ibidem pag. 239. St. Hierom assures that the power of Miracles may be permitted to them that profess not the truth of the Gospel In Epist. ad Galat. Tom. 9. Tertullian in Praescriptionibus cap. 24. Du Moulin in his accomplishment of the Prophecies De cura pro mortuis cap. 10. De Lazaro conc pag. 235 236. Primate of Ireland pag. 396. How common is the conceipt now that departed souls do appear Basil. Seleuc. de miraculis Theclae cap. 10. Idem cap. 21. Idem cap. 24. all quoted by the Primate of Ireland in his Answer to the Jesuit pag. 397. Chapt. 9. pag. 337. Answer to the Jesuit's Challenge pag. 504. Loc. Theol. lib. 5. cap. 4. prope finem Epist. ad Johan de Hierusalym Tom. 1. Oper. Hieronym Epist 60. He had sure been instructed out of such Catechisms who refused to shoot at Buts on May day because it was he said a dear holy day and yet I found him the next Lords day with others at Slide-Groat Upon Tho. in his 3d. part quoted by the Primate pag. 499. De Bello Belgico lib. 5. Allen's Antidote pag. 13. Lib. 4. Cap. 26. Lib. 6. cap 24. In his Prefaces before the Kings and Proverbs De Civitate Dei In his Scholastical Hist. c. Epist. to the Reader Chrysost. upon 2 Cor. Homil. 13. Sin is not a Being but rather a defect of what should Be and hath for its efficient Cause nothing but a deficient Will Preston of Converting Grace pag. 15. If our Saviour knew that Sodom and Gomorrah had they enjoyed the same means as Chorazin and Bethsaida would have repented what can be said but their Final impenitencie was according to God's Will The Fall of Adam was not praeter Voluntatem Dei that were to make a lame Providence nor contra that were to make a weak Omnipotence but it was juxta and that leaves all the Attributes of God wrapt up by his Wisdom in their full power Augustin John 5. 21. That is the Will of the Creature failing in Obedience Mr. Case in a Sermon on Rom. 8. 28. And this is it which frees our Doctrine from all danger of working in men a secure or careless Presumption as it is no less ignorantly than maliciously aspersed by some since our evidence doth so much consist in the sincerity tho not in the perfection of Obedience Election may at length come to be known and thence assurance but Reprobation never Mr. Sheffeild Primate of Ireland in an Epistle publisht by Dr. Bernard Mr. Birkbeck in his Protestants Evidence Man is not active but passive in regeneration In repentance man is the doer complies with God in it and turns himself Ephes. 2. 1. Phil. 2. 13. That power of God which subjects a man to Christ comes not by moral perswasion only or violent impulses but is tempered to the disposition of the Will Lib. de gratia libero arbitr cap. 27. Mr. Gurnal's Christian in Compleat Armour part 2. pag. 526 527. 530. De Praedest Sanctorum Cyrus who was Christus Domini and therein but a shadow of Christus Dominus in this manner published his Proclamation Who is amongst you of all his people the Lord his God be with him let him go up Ezra 1. 3. Now they alone did follow this Call whose Spirits God had raised to go up But could those that stay'd still behind plead any thing but their love of slavery and idleness why they also went not up Vers. 5. This instance is by the Primate of Ireland brought in and applyed to our purpose in a Letter published by Doctor Bernard Jer. 32. 40. Rom. 8. 15 16. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Gal. 4. 6. Ephes. 1. 14. 1 John 2. 19. 2 Pet. 1. 5. 1 Joh. 5. 10. Rom. 8. 15. Jude vers 1. A late Treatise published by Mr. Calamy Doctor Sibbs at Grays Inn Chappel Vasquez Disput. Sasbout upon the place confesseth it 's meant of Abraham's second Justification that is of his Works done in Faith See Selater pag. 29. Or the Eyes and Judgments of others History of that Council fol. 197. In his Observations upon Religio Medici History of that Council fol. 237. Fol. 349. Faith does not consist in a belief that we do believe but in an affiance bottomed upon such Trials as Scripture holds out Progeny of Catholicks and Hereticks lib. 2. cap. 21. pag. 80. For we will expect from them proofs both full and legitimate beyond those usually brought Ambrose on Rom. 1.