end of all St. Pauls Epistles to the Romans to the Colossians to the Galatians to the Hebrews especially not excluding the other where he most expresly and zealously urges Faith against works and he shall soon perceive that his intention and drift is not absolutely to oppose works of Faith to the doctrine or Grace of Faith but the works of the Law which infirmer Christians newly entred into the Faith of Christ had so venerable an opinion of that they imagined Christ could profit nothing without the works either Ceremonial or Moral of the Law of Moses For whereas they for instance depended absolutely on Circumcision for their Justification and thought that without so sacred and solemn a Rite they could not be profited by Christ himself St. Paul on the other side resolutely and positively determineth thus Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Gal. 5. 2. v. 4. Christ shall profit you nothing And presently after Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are Justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace Can any thing be more manifest then here it is that Grace is opposed to the Law And that to trust in that is to fall from Christ And when it followeth We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by Faith is it not v. 5. as plain as need be that Faith is here taken for that doctrine and not Act of Faith whereby men are instructed in Christ believe in Christ adhere to him relinquishing the imperfect and antiquated doctrine of the Law and its practises which by St. Paul are all called Flesh in opposition to the spiritual worship of the Gospel as to the Philippians For we are the Circumcision Phil. 3. 3. which worship God in the Spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Though I might also have confidence in the flesh c. 4. Rom. 3. 21. And to the Romans But now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested that is surely now is the doctrine of Righteousness published through Christ without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all 22. 20. 27. and upon all that believe And verse the twentieth By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified c. And verse the twenty seventh the Anti thesis or opposition doth most evidently declare the Apostles intention Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith The Law of Works then is the Law of Moses and the Law of Faith is the Law of Christ And to be Justified by Faith in Jesus of which immediately before is to be understood of the whole Covenant of Grace or Faith which is made to us in Christ Jesus and revealed in the Gospel as contradistinct to that Covenant of Works given by Moses and not of any special Grace or Act of Faith as Faith is sometimes distinguished from other Evangelical Graces It may be said that the works of the Law are excluded expresly and therefore no competition is to be made between them and Faith in the case of our Justification To which my answer is That though I grant that not only the works of the Law though moral do not Justifie but not the works of Faith of themselves yet I may confidently say None of these places commonly alleadged by the Exalters of Faith and Depressors of Good works to null the merits of works done even in Faith of Christ do according to the literal meaning really perform so much yet I rather choose to affirm That the works excluded by St. Paul are not works of the Law moral so much as Mosaical For the morality of the Old Law was not properly of Moses but the Ceremonial only and consequently the Law from these taking its denomination of Mosaical when works of the Law are mentioned in the New Testament we are to understand Mosaical Works rather than Moral but not at all works of Faith So that whatsoever is contended or pretended our being justified freely by Grace and justified again by Faith do Rom. 3. 24. Gal. 2. 16. not at all deny our Justification by works of Faith or that the efficiency of such a Faith is quite of another nature from that of works done in Faith But yet it is plain from the whole design of the Epistle of St. James the Quoniam haec opinio fuerit exerta sine operibus justificari hominem aliae Apostolicae Epistolae Petri Joannis Jacobi Judae contra eum maximâ— dirigunt intentionem ut vehementer astruant fidem sine operibus nihil prodesse c. Aug. de Fide Operibus c. 14. second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude that divers of Old did so mistake St. Paul as of late dayes he hath been understood which moved St. Austin to say directly that these Epistles were on purpose contrived and published to obviate such a misconstruction of the Blessed Apostle as if he had intended when he often sayes We are Justified by Faith only a separate notion of Faith from works and effects of Faith which was far from him from whence we have a very compendious solid and clear reconciliation of St. James his Epistle especially with those of St. Paul For as is shewed already certain it is that it being his principal end to oppose and void the pretensions of the Jews to Justification without believing in Christ or as a more moderate sort of them weak in the Faith of Christ admitting no sufficiency in Christ to justifie them without a dash as least of Moses's Law he declared freely for an absolute sufficiency in the Faith of Christ to justify and save such as believe in him This doctrine of St. Paul was quite mistaken by some who supposed that the act of believing simpâ—y taken or the Grace of Faith specially used was it whereby they were in a certain way of being justified leaving out the fruits and effects of that lively Faith and making it a dead Faith as St. James calleth it who thus argueth against such a fond and dangerous presumption What doth it profit my brethren though a James 2. 14. 17. man say he hath Faith and have not works can Faith save him Faith without works is dead For the use and end of knowledge and Faith being only obedience and a life according to Faith what a monstrous and ridiculous thing would it be to divide the Cause from the effects proper to it But it is usually replied No God forbid we should divide Faith from good Works Where there is true justifying Faith there will be there must be good works and that for several other reasons but not for our Justification This is most true whereever there is a Justifying Faith there will be good Works but what do they there in order to
that as the case now stands as they speak in Acts 4. 12. sensu composito God having determined that no other name under heaven be given whereby men must be saved that there is no salvation in any other but in Christ Jesus But secluding that Decree it doth not appear why God out of the Abyss of his Counsels and Immensness of his Wisdome and absoluteness of his Free Grace might not have compassed Mans salvation some other way My Reason besides those I find used by others is that now intimated If God could entertain such favourable thoughts towards Man as to decree his Salvation without intuition of Christ surely he might have effected it without Christ For 't is neither just nor reasonable to imagine that God could decree any thing absolutely and not absolutely bring it to pass for we cannot so judge of Gods Counsels as we do of Mans who alwayes determines with supposition of means and ability to bring to pass what he determined but all causes out of himself being without exception subject to his will nay his will needing no outward means to attain its purpose or resolution it is sufficient argument that such a thing may be that God without consideration of any means decrees it and at his liberty chooses those means he pleases Neither upon this supposition is the advantage such as the Socinian Heretick expects to his cause It is one of his pernicious heresies That Christ satisfied not by his Passion he expiated not the offense of Man thereby but left him many a good lesson to direct and instruct him in the way to heaven set him an excellent and fair example to follow Makes now at last being in heaven not before intercession and mediates for man but his death was no satisfaction for the wrath of God conceived against the sinner And to make way to this opinion he says that God might without any satisfaction have freely remitted mans offence and therefore it was not absolutely and indispensably requisite that Christ should dye If we should yield all this which is here taken for granted which yet if it be not granted is not so easie to be demonstrated there appears no great advantage to their cause For if it be assured unto us out of holy Writ that God hath determined that no salvation should be attained no recovery had without the mediation of Christ and his satisfaction what availeth it them that possibly it might have been otherwise I confess the advantage to the other side would have been much greater if it could be proved that Gods justice of absolute necessity must have been satisfied by fulfilling the penal part of the Law but however there remains evidence enough from the conditional will of God which according to Scriptures admits of no other way now For so saith St. Paul to the Colossians It pleased the Father that in Col. 1. 19 20. him should all fulness dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in heaven or things on earth And Christ himself in St. Luke saith Luke 24 46. Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed And what can be more plain than that of the Epistle to the Hebrews Without Heb. 9. 22 23. shedding of bloud is no remission And lest some may presume to restrain the Apostles words to the state of the Old Law it is added It was therefore necessary that the paterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these but the heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these And what doth the Apostle mean by the better Sacrifices but the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross St. John declares so much exprefly where he saith If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another 1 John 1. 7. and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin And in the fore-cited place of the Hebrews more fully and expresly making a comparison Hebr. 9. 14. between the expiations of the Law and Gospel sayes thus For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God If therefore God under the Mosaical Law might have passed over the errours and uncleanness of his people Israel but never would remit them without expiations and sacrifices to that end ordained how can it be imagined that the moral errours and impurities of the soul of Man by sin should be expiated or passed over without that Sacrifice and shedding of the bloud of Christ appointed to that purpose Surely therefore a sense there is wherein it is impossible God should remit sins without due punishment for the same inflicted and the least and lowest is that which we call conditional supposing that God hath so decreed that no sin should be expiated but that way A way which besides the excellent agreement it hath with the Justice of God and Mercy also is full of pregnant advices and instructions to the Offender partly informing of the foul and mortal nature of sin which cannot otherwise be pardoned than by such satisfaction of bloud partly by humbling him and moving him to cry God mercy bitterly and heartily and lastly by possesing his mind with a dread and terrour of the nature of sin so as to avoid the same for the time future CHAP. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a Being before he was Incarnate The Vnion of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this THUS far of the necessity and use of Mediation between God and Man for the reconciling them at this great distance Now it remains to speak more particularly of the Person or Mediatour himself whom Christian Faith acknowledges to be Christ Jesus who as the Scripture tells us came unto the world to save sinners and to save them by his Mediation 1 Tim. 1. 15. And that this is a faithful saying that is a truth to be embraced by true Faith without which there is no Salvation But of the Condition of this Mediatour we find no small differences amongst such who are called Christians
they do not believe contrary to the Faith of the Church It may be said that Baptism alone is sufficient to distinguish such implicit believers from Heathens which I grant as to the Essence or nature of Christianity but not to the Life and exercise of a Christian for that as St. Paul hath by his word and example certified us is by the Faith Col. 2. 20. of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us Therefore as I am so charitable to all well-disposed Christians to be perswaded there is no necessity for all to have either the like measure or manifestation of Faith in any one point of Faith our Saviour Christ requiring Faith but as a grain Math. 17. 20. of Mustard-seed sometimes so am I to all Churches as to be perswaded That they all require and that in all a some measure of Faith explicite as necessary to Salvation and that besides this Believing as the Church believes For in truth this is nopoint of Faith in the Actus Signatus or general notion though to believe the Church Catholick may be For who sees not a vast difference between believing the Church it self and believing what the Church believes And that may be compleated in believing the Being and Extent of it which is much short of the body of Faith which it receives and professes CHAP. XIV Of the Effects of True Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguished from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes THere is a great difference between Good works and Perfect works For the first hath respect unto the thing done and the other unto the manner of doing it agreeable to all due forms and Circumstances And every work that is good is not Perfect though every work that is perfect must of necessity be Good And to the doing of a Good work there seems to be no more absolutely Act. 17. 11. Rom. 10. 17. Si Fidelis fecerit opus bonum hic ei prodest liberans eum a malis in illo saeculo ad percipiendum regnum coelesto magis autem ibi quam hîc Si autem Infidelis fecerit bonum opus hîc ei prodest opus ipsius hîc ei reddit Deus pro opere su◠In illo autem saeculo nihil ei prodest opus ipsius Opus imperfectum in Math. Hom. 26. required than that a man should act according to well informed and regulated reason and true affection So that the works of natural men may be good though heathens such as are Visiting the sick and relieving the poor defending the Fatherless and widow oppressed and especially such outward moral Acts as may be done by natural men tending to their Conversion and Salvation as willing hearing and equal judging of the doctrine of Faith even before actual Faith conceived for which St. Paul esteemed the Bereans praise worthy* So that they are not absolutely Splendid Sins for were it so they were by no means to be done and no man did well who before his Conversion went to hear Christ preach or gave any attentive ear to what St. Paul wrote or taught for want of Faith whereas we are taught by common reason as well as by St. Paul that Faith it self cometh by hearing of the word of God For how can any man possibly believe what he never heard of So then some duties and Acts are laudable and acceptable to God without Faith though not arising to the perfection of Evangelical Goodness by which a man pleaseth God and is acceptable unto him even to his Justification and Salvation There may therefore be distinguished a fourfould goodness in Actions 1. Natural when a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man is said to walk well when he goes according to the nature of man and limps not nor halts and to write a good hand when his letters and words do answer exactly a Perfect Rule or Copie This Religion taketh no notice of at all 2. A man is said to do a Good Act when it is so morally and in its kind as tending to the honour of his Creator whose Instruments meer Moral men are in exercising his Paternal providence and to the benefit of others For it being the proper Character of God which is spoken of him by the Psalmist viz. Thou art Good and thou doest Good They whom God Psal 119. 68. chooseth and stirreth up to minister under him in good and useful things to the Communitie or any particular do that which is good however not absolute 3. There is a Religious or divine goodness in Actions which are done agreeable to the Revealed Will of God passing natures sagacitie or search And this is twofold Legal and Evangelical both exceeding the former but the one exceeded of the other viz. Legal of Evangelical Vere enim quando declinamus d malo facimus bonum quantum ad comparationem caeterorum hominum nolentium declinare à malo facere bonum dicuntur bona quae agimus quantum autem ad Veritatem secundum quod dic itur in hoc loco Quia unus est bonus bonum nostrum non est bonum Orig. Hom. 8. in Matthaeum For as Natural Acts are good done according to natures intention and institution by themselves but are not good compared with moral duty performed and moral Acts are Good in themselves but not so in respect of a Superiour Order and end of working instituted of God in his holy Law So are Legal Acts wrought according to Gods word given to the Israelites under that dispensation or Covenant as required of God and serving to those ends God propounded to himself and his people Wherefore it is that the Children of Israel revolting from God and forsaking that instituted worship of his Law are thus censured by the Prophet * Hos 8. 3. Hosea Israel hath cast off the thing that is good the enemie shall pursue him And St. Paul than whom no divine writer more opposes the Law occasion being offered yet giveth his suffrage †1 Tim. 1. 8. The Law is good if a man useth it Lawfully And the Gospel it self is not good unless used Lawfully Therefore were the works of the Law also good works within their bounds but not so compared with the Perfection of the Gospel but displeasing to God and pernicious to men who being delivered in the fulness of time by the coming of Christ from the Pedagogie and beggerly Elements of the Mosaical Law should presume to retain that vail which was done away in Christ and embrace those shadows the body Christ being present Hence it is that St. Paul as in many other places writing to the Corinthians speaketh thus at large The Letter killeth i. e. the Literal sense and observation of the 2 Cor. 3. 6. Old Law after the New became of force destroyeth rather than
and for ought doth appear accepted well the said Commemorations of his signal mercies and deliverances at the Jews hands until the coming of Christ when the case was wholly altered as that Service but not so as to all future For an invincible argument it is to the contrary that one day of the week is still continued to serve God in a peculiar manner notwithstanding after the strong attempts made especially of late and never before later days either by Eastern or Western Christians or by Reformed or Unreformed to make the Lords day a Sabbath and obliging Christians by vertue of the fourth Commandment in the Decalogue nothing to that end is effected Indeed if men will tenture and extend Gods word to that extream as thereby to draw every thing out of any thing they may reduce all moral duties unto the Ten Commandments according to the custom of expounding them viz. That where the Effect is commanded or forbidden there the Cause likewise and where the Outward act the Inward and where the Genus there the Species and where the Thing there the Circumstances and where one kind there all of like kinds are forbidden or commanded then were there some colour for what they say of all moral duties to be found in the Decalogue and sins interdicted But there is no more ground for the expounding of this so than any other part of Scriptures And if there were this would make Eight of the Ten Commandments superfluous all sins and all duties being reducible at this rate to those two our Saviour in the Gospel refers to viz. Love of God and Love of our Neighbours And surely most essential to all actions are the circumstances of time and place and nothing can be done by Man in Religion or out of it without them therefore it should seem superfluous expresly to enjoyn a time to serve God in and distinctly from the act which unavoidably implyes it And if it be said that not so much a time simply as a time precisely so determined viz. to a Seventh Day and that in such and such manner to be observed is instituted of God then do fall to the ground the supposed naturalness and morality of the time there commanded and that by natural light or law no more is commanded then time or at most a day but not a Seventh Day Now if we are being Christians under the Law no farther than in these two respects First as some of it is repeated and enforced by the Law of the Gospel given us by Christ Secondly as it is consonant to the Law of Reason or Nature And that a seventh part of our time should be dedicated constantly to God is no where so positively delivered in the New Testament as it was in the Old nor doth the light of Nations or Nature suggest any such determinate time for that only and not of time in general is all the question How can a Seventh Day be commanded of God It is not to be denyed but some of the ancient heathen Philosophers and Poets did talk of somewhat of sacredness in the Seventh Day But first whence had they such opinions from the thing it self No surely it was a superstitious and blind admiration of the number Seven of which we find so much in their writings and especially the consideration of the Seven Planets in the Heavens which made them think better of the Seventh Day or cause the week to consist of so many days and no more But what real opinion they had of that above other days doth appear in their practise Philo In Decalog pag. 585. Id. De Opificio Mundi pag. 15 16. 21. Genevae which no monuments declare to have been in more sacred or solemn esteem than any other And the reputed sacredness of the number seven is that which Philo Judaeus playeth upon so handsomly in his commendation of the Jewish seventh day as may be seen in his works And Chrysostome from thence takes a better argument to prove that a Seventh day is not moral from whence several have endeavoured to prove that it is and that in a more sacred manner than any other of the Commandments For to perswade to a precise observation of it these say that God hath set a Memento a Remember upon it such as upon no other Commandment Therefore there should be somewhat extraordinary in it And so there is indeed For saith Chrysostome whereas all other Commandments are very agreeable to the Reason of man and are in some degree known to him by natural light and so need not the like intimation and advice this of a Seventh Day to be kept holy to God cannot be discerned by Natures light at all and therefore needeth such a Memento and Remembrancer as this to bring that to his mind which is so apt to slip out 'T is granted moderner Jews in despight of Christ and Christians have asserted a naturalness and immutability of this Command and an extent of it to all Nations but this concludes not Christians knowing from whence such Antichristian Dogmes proceed Now here lyes the labour to infer a Seventh Day from the Law obliging Christians I say from the letter of the Law and not from the reasonableness of the thing it self to which they flee who find their other proofs too weak and here I will not contend much with them But all their Old Testament testimonies being more easily evaded and nulled then they are alledged by this one answer That they speak only of Jewish Sabbaths and so have no force at all upon us or the same in all respects that they have upon the Jews they must be constrained to repair only to Gospel for the Confirmation of any day separate from civil affairs and dedicate to God And here they are altogether to seek for any one direct or positive Precept not one in all the New Testament can be found for any either Seventh or First Day of the week Whereupon they are compelled to betake themselves to the uncertain way of arguing from Example to a Rule viz. That because they read several instances in the New Testament of things done on the first Day of the week in reference to Religion and the Service of God therefore that day ought specially and religiously to be observed they will perhaps say That the infinite blessing of our Redemption by Christ and his Resurrection is the ground of our observation as the Creation was of theirs This I grant to be a just and sufficient cause but it doth not from thence follow that therefore actually it was so constituted upon that ground We now are in quest of the Constitution it self and not of the Reason why it should be so ordained For many things that seem to us very reasonable are not certainly actually ordained And many things for which in the New Testament we may find presidents of the Apostles or Apostolical persons do not necessarily infer a Rule or Precept But in the New Testament there