out of their Churches which should be the Porch of Heaven is the way to be shut out themselves of the heavenly Jerusalem If those that have long reproached me as unfit to be in their Church and said ex uno disce omnes with their Leader find any unsound or unprofitable Doctrine here I shall take it for a great favour to be confuted even for the good of others excluded with me when I am dead Jan. 21. 1691. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS Chap. 1. HOW to conceive of GOD. Pag. i. Chap. 2. How to conceive of the Trinity in Unity p. vii Chap. 3. How to conceive of the Hypostatical Union and Incarnation p. xxiii Chap. 4. How to conceive of the Diversity of God's Transient Operations p. xxx Chap. 5. Whether any point of Faith be above 〈◊〉 contrary to Reason p. xxxii Chap. I. Prefatory Who must be the Iudge of Controversies The true Causes of the Divisions of Christians about Religion p. 1◠Chap. 2. The Doctrines enumerated about which they chiefly disagree p. 22 Chap. III. Of God's Will and Decrees in general Th. Terms and several Cases opened p. 2◠Chap. IV. Of God's Knowledge and the Differenc◠about it p. 4◠Chap. V. Of Election and the Order of Intentio◠and Execution p. 3◠Chap. VI. Of Reprobation or the Decree of Damnation the Objects and their Order p. 4◠An Answer to Mr. Polhill of Futurition p. 4◠Chap. VII Of God's Providence and predetermining Premotion Of Durandus's way p. 7◠Chap. VIII Of the Cause of Sin What God doth and doth not about it p. 82 Chap. IX Of Natural Power and Free-will p. 89 Chap. X. Of Original Sin as from Adam and nearer Parents p. 94 Chap. XI Of our Redemption by Christ what it doth how necessary p. 89 Chap. XII Of the several Laws and Covenants of God p. 99 Sect. 1. Of the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam Divers Cases p. 113 Sect. 2. Of the Law of Mediation or Covenant with Christ When and what it was p. 121 Sect. 3. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the first edition What it was p. 126 Sect. 4. Of the same Law with Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Iewish Law of Works p. 132 Sect. 5. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last edition the Gospel Divers Cases about it opened p. 138 Chap. XIII Of the universality and sufficiency of Grace What Grace is How far universal and sufficient p. 154 Chap. XIV Of Man's Power and Free-will since the Fall Adrian's Saying That an unjustified man may love or chuse God's Being before his own What to ascribe to Grace and what to Free-will in good p. 173 Chap. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it Doubts resolved p. 181 Chap. XVI Of the state of Heathens and such others as have not the Gospel What Law the Heathen World is under and to be judged by Whether any of them are justified or saved The Heathens were the Corrupters of the old Religion and the Jews of the Reformed Church Mal. 1. 14 15. and Sodom's Case c. considered p. 188 Chap. XVII Of the necessity of Holiness and of Moral Virtue p. 203 Chap. XVIII Of the necessity of Faith in Christ where the Gospel is made known p. 212 Chap. XIX Of the state of Infants as to Salvation and Church-membership p. 216 Chap. XX. Of the nature of Saving-Faith its Description and Causes p. 226 Chap. XXI Of justifying Righteousness Iustification and Pardon The several sences of the words and several sorts of them Our common Agreement about them p. 238 Chap. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness Christ's righteousness in what sence ours and imputed and in what sence not p. 256 Chap. XXIII How Faith justifieth and how it is imputed for Righteousness Several questions about it Repentance c. resolved p. 267 Chap. XXIV Of Assurance of our Iustification and of Hope What Assurance is desirable What attainable What Assurance we actually have Who have it The nature and grounds of it Whether it be Divine Faith p. 279 Chap. XXV Of Good works and Merit And whether we may trust to any thing of our own 1. What are Good Works 2. Whether they are necessary to our Iustification or Salvation 3. Whether they are rewardable or meritorious 4. What is their place use and necessity 5. Whether to be trusted to p. 282 Chap. XXVI Of Confirmation Perseverance and danger of falling away 1. Whether all Grace given by Christ be such as is never lost 2. Whether that degree be ever lost which to Infants or Adult giveth but the posse credere 3. Whether any lose actual justifying Faith 4. Or the Habit of Divine Love and Holiness 5. Whether some degree of this may be lost 6. If Holiness be not actually lost is the loss possible 7. Whether there be a state of Confirmation above the lowest Holiness which secureth Perseverance 8. Or doth Perseverance depend only on Election and God's Will 9. Whether all most or many Christians are themselves certain of their Perseverance 10. I◠such Certainty fit for all the justified 11. Is it unfit for all and doubting a more safe condition 12. Doth the Comfort of most Christians rest upon the Doctrine of Certainty to persevere 13. Doth the Doctrine of eventual Apostasie inferr Mutability in God 14. Why God hath left the point so dark 15. What was the Iudgment of the ancient Churches herein 16. Is it of such weight as to be necessary to our Church-Communion Love and Concord p. 300 Chap. XXVII Of Repentance late Repentance the time of Grace and the unpardonable sin p. 314 BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Iohn Salusbury at the Rising Sun in Cornhil A Rational Defence of Nonconformity wherein the Practice of Nonconformists is vindicated from promoting Popery and ruining the Church imputed to them by Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop of Worcester in his Unreasonableness of Separation Also his Arguments from the Principles and Way of the Reformers and first Dissenters are answered And the case of the present Separation truly stated and the blame of it laid where it ought to be and the way to Union among Protestants is pointed at By Gilbert Rule D. D. The Christian Laver Being two Sermons on John 13. 8. opening the nature of Participation with and demonstrating the necessity of Purification by Christ. By T. Cruso Six Sermons on various occasions By T. Cruso in 4◠The Conformists Sayings or the Opinion and Arguments of Kings Bishops and several Divines assembled in Convocation A new Survey of the Book of Common-Prayer An END of Doctrinal Controversies c. CHAP. 1. How we may and must conceive of GOD. § 1. A True Knowledge of God is necessary to the Being of Religion and to Holiness and Glory No man can love obey trust or hope beyond his knowledge Nothing is so certainly known as God and yet nothing so defectively known Like our Knowledge of the Sun of which no man doubteth
true difference of God's Laws and Covenants let him tell me more and I suppose we shall agree de re though not de ratione nominis And let it now suffice to tell you how I would be understood my self Though the word Law be some time taken more narrowly and the word Covenant oft for Mutual Contract which is but a Law consented to yet being to speak of each term as signifying that Regulating Frame by which God Ruleth us and will Judge us and by which he giveth us his Gifts and Rewards I mean the same thing in several respects called by the several names The absolute Antecedent Gifts of our Great Benefactor being supposed inclusively in both SECT I. Of the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam § 1. I Shall in this order Treat briefly of the Divine Laws I. Of the Law of Innocency to Adam II. Of the Law of Mediation to Christ. III. Of the Law of Grace to fallen Man And there 1. As in the first Edition to Adam and Noah 2. As in the same Edition joined with the Jewish Law of Peculiarily to Abraham and of Works by Moses to Abraham's Seed 3. Of the Law of Graces as in the second Edition by Christ § 2. 1. The Law of Innocency contained a Precept and Prohibition and a Retributive part to which Adam was bound to be a Voluntary Subject and therefore to Consent which will allow it the name of a Covenant But here the brief Narrative in the Scripture calleth to us to distinguish of things certain and things uncertain whoever assert them § 3. 1. The Preceptive part was revealed by Nature or Supernaturally by Voice or Inspiration or Vision c. The former being Lex natura integrae the Law of Intire Nature though the Chief is least spoken of in Gen. because it is supposed legible in Nature it self § 4. The Law of Nature properly so called is in esse Objectivo that signification of God's Will concerning Man's Duty which was discernible in the Universa rerum Natura in all God's Works but principally in Mans own Nature as related to God and all Persons and Things about him § 5. But Improperly or Metonymically so called the Law of Nature is in esse subjectivo the Communes notitiae which Man had and was to have from the said Objective Law of Nature But properly this is rather the Knowledge of the Law than the Law it self being not perfect in Adam himself at first but was to be perfected as he came to know more and more of the Works of God and varying much now in several Persons Yet may it well be called God's Law written in the Heart when we have the Knowledge and Love of his primary proper Law § 6. This Law of Nature bound Adam to perfect Devotedness to God as his Owner and perfect gratitude to God as his Antecedent Benefactor and to perfect Obedience to God as his Ruler and to perfect Love to God as his ultimate most amiable End And this perfect Obedience was to be perpetual § 7. It was Adam personally that the Law bound to this perfect perpetual Obedience and not another for him or that he should obey by a Representative or a Delegate a Servant or by any other § 8. Nature even in its depraved state now telleth us that all Sin against God deserveth Punishment Therefore the Law of Nature had a Penal part § 9. It is a great doubt with many Divines whether the Law of Nature had any premiant part or promise and so was a Covenant because say they Duty obligeth not God to reward us But it seemeth to me as far past doubt as the penal part For the question is not what our Duty performed obligheth God to much less in point of Commutative Iustice where no Creature can Merit of God Iob 35. 6 7 8. If thou be Righteous what givest thou him c. But it is presupposed that God first became Man's Benefactor and his Ruler and his Law is the Instrument of his Government and his Promise is but the signification of his Will what he will give and on what Terms And God in Nature signified his Will to bless the Obedient and love those that love him For as a Ruler he is Iust and if he differenced not the Righteous from the Sinner what were his Justice Were there no other Reward but the Continuance of the Paradise-Blessing freely given him which Sin would forfeit it would have been a great Reward And if God equally take away his Gifts from Good and Bad it is not Governing Iustice though as the Act of a Proprietor it be neither Iust nor Unjust so that the very essence of Undertaken Government containeth a discovery of God's Rewarding Will which is the promissory or premiant part of the Law of Nature § 10. The Degree and Kind of the Natural Reward must be gathered 1. From the state that Man was in 2. From the nature of his Duty 3. From the state of Perfection which his Nature was made inclined to desire and seek § 11. 1. Man being freely placed in the state of Innocency and God's Favour in the Earthly Pleasures of Eden as a Sanctified state of Communion with God seeing Sin was to be punished with the privation of these we may gather that the Innocent should not have been deprived of them § 12. 2. Man's great Duty being to Love God perfectly according to his present Ability and to please him and delight herein we may gather that the Innocent should have the felicity which is herein contained even in the Delights of loving and pleasing God § 13. 3. Man's Nature being not made in its utmost perfection but in via with a desire of knowing God loving him pleasing him and delighting in him yet more according to his Capacity we may gather That obedient Man should have attained that Perfection For God maketh not the capacities dispositions and desires of Nature in vain § 14. But whether all this should have been given on Earth or in Heaven is not so clear in Nature or Scripture But 1. The Translation of Henoch and Elias maketh it probable that so Man should have been translated 2. And so doth the Glory purchased by the Redeemer 3. And the matter is the less because where-ever the place be the same state of Enjoyment would make it a Heaven to such a person § 15. Neither doth Nature now tell us How long Man must have obeyed before he had merited the full Reward of his Perfection But only that he must conquer all the Temptations that God would try him with and must persevere till God should please to translate him not appointing him any determinate time Nature and Scripture favour this § 16. There are some who considently conclude without either natural or Scripture-proof That had Adam performed but one Act of Obedience to God before his Sin he had been confirmed is the Angels as his Reward And what a Sinner do they make Adam before
themselves to him as their Owner to obey him as their Ruler and to love and seek him as their ultimate End and to believe that his Mercy will not let us be losers in so doing nor to do it in vain § 14. But the Supernatural Revelation telleth us much more than all this Of the promised Seed the means of our Salvation and of our Duty in believing them and of the Certainty and Nature of the Pardon Deliverance and Blessedness which we shall attain § 15. The â—receptive part at first was not to Believe as much of Christ as is necessary since his Ascension but to Believe what God promised and revealed of him to the Church at that time § 16. Even under the Old Testament God increased his Revelation of the Messiah gradually The Prophets spake plainlier of him than any thing written before Therefore a more extensive and distinct belief was needful in one Age than in a former § 17. Yet even the Apostles were in a state of Salvation before they understood and believed that Christ must Dâ—â— for Sin rise again Ascend and Intercede in Heaven for his Elect. § 18. Yet all this was partly revealed before by the Prophets and plainly foretold them by Christ himself Therefore it was not of absolute necessity to Salvation then to believe all of Christ which had been before Revealed though it was a duty to them that knew it § 19. Therefore under the Covenant of Grace the Condition of our right is narrower than the Duty which we are commanded to perform § â—â— The Promised Benefits presupposing the Common Antecedent Mercies were Summarily Christ and Life in him That is that for the sake of Christ's future Merits we should have Pardon Justification Reconciliation with God Adoption Sanctification and Glory and all necessary Helps and Means thereunto § 20. The Penalty was 1. The Pâ—ivation of Recovery 2. and a far sorer punishment for Ingratitude and contempt of Christ and Mercy § 21. This Law or Covenant in this first Edition was made with Adam as the Father of all Mankind and so with all Mankind in him as truly and as much as the Covenant of Innocency was For 1. God's Word maketh no difference 2. Adam was as much after the Common Father of Mankind and all we as much in him as before the Fall And he that will say that God arbitrarily Judgeth otherwise of us must prove it if he can 3. The express Word of God in many places proveth it joyning Children with their Parents in such Blessings and therefore including the Children of Adam § 22. The same Covenant with some positive Additions it pleased God to renew to and with Noah because he was as a second Head and Father to the generality of all Mankind all coming from his Loins as they did from Adam's § 23. As all Mankind was made the Subjects of God under this Law of Grace so by it they were all to be Governed and Judged allowing a diversity of Degrees in the Promulgation Mercies and Penalties thereof SECT IV. Of the same Law with Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Iewish Law of Works § 1. ABraham being a subject to this same Law of Grace did so faithfully Believe and Obey it that it pleased God to reward him extraordinarily by 1. Renewing the Covenant by special Application to him and by the promises of Peculiar Privileges to him and his seed § 2. Not that his Infant seed was the first that was taken into Covenant For the Covenant of Grace had from the beginning been made with the Faithful and their Seed as well as the Covenant of Innocency was § 3. The Peculiarities of this Covenant were Initially promulgate to Abraham Isaac and Iacob and more fully to the Iews as a Politick Body by Moses in the Law with some particular Sub-additions by David and the Prophets § 4. 1st The Promise to Abraham was besides the Common Covenant of Grace renewed 1. A promise of peculiar Favour to his Seed increased to a political Society in Canaan and differenced by special Mercies from all the People of the Earth 2. A promise that the Messiah should be of his Seed § 5. This Covenant did not Discovenant the rest that the World nor put them into any worse Condition than they were before § 6. The peculiar Precept of that Covenant was That by Circumcision as a Seal and Symbol and by peculiar Gratitude and Obedience and relinquishing the Sins of the Degenerate World about them they should difference themselves from others as God's peculiar People § 7. As the Covenant of Peculiarity was not a separated state but an additional Privilege and Reward to Abraham as faithful to the Common Covenant of Grace so Circumcision was the Symbol neither of Abraham as under the Law of Grace alone nor as under the Covenant of Peculiarity alone for that was never alone but as of One under both even under the latter as a Reward for his special Fidelity in the former And so it was â— Seal of the Righteousness of the Faith in the Common Covenant of Grace which he had being yet Uncircumcised though a Symbol also of his after Peculiarities Rom. 4. 1 2 c. § 8. Infants interest in the very Covenant of Peculiarity and Iewish Church-state was not infeparable from Circumcision As Infants were ever Members in the Common Church and Covenant of Grace with their Parents before Circumcision so they were also without it Members of the Iewish Church when as all the Females were Members and all the Males in the Wilderness who for Forty Years were Uncircumcised Yet is it called The Church in the Wilderness when except very few at last it was an Uncircumcised Church Acts 7. 38. § 9. Much less did God lay such a necessity on the outward Sacramental Act as to deny Salvation to the Uncircumcised aforesaid as some would have us think that even under the Gospel he doth by Sacraments The Covenant was still necessary as consented to by the Adult for themselves and their Infant seed but not alway the outward sacrament or symbole § 10. The gathering of Israel into a Policy by Moses as a Theocracy and their receiving a Law from God himself as a Political Body was but the full Establishment of the Covenant of Peculiarity in performance of what God had promised to Abraham and in Circumcision had begun § 11. This Law of Moses therefore must be Considered as an Affix or Appendix to the Common Law of Grace and so either as related to it or as considered simply and distinctly in it self without that relation And as it was a Divine Political Law for the Government of a Republick as such § 12. The Common Covenant of Grace was the Soul as it were of this Political Jewish Law and therefore was really expressed in it in the Decalogue and other parts As it was the Soul of their state of Peculiarity which was the Reward of Abraham's Faithfulness in the
Common Covenant And their peculiar Promise to Abraham's Seed as the Nations Blessing with their Types and Prophecies all led them to Christ more plainly than he was revealed to others § 13. The Law as such an Appendix contained Preceptively the Decalegue as the Summary and stamina and the particular Determinations under it as belonging to the First and Second Table For all those not accurately distinguished as Moral Political and Ceremonial are but the particular Determinations of the things only Generally expressed in the Decalogue according to which they are fitlier distributed § 14. It pleased God to make the particular Precepts about Worship and Political Converse so many and the Sacrifices so Costly and the Penalties so Severe as that it became a very operous Employment to do the External Acts of it which the People made a Snare of to themselves For 1. Thereby they were so taken up with the outward Work that they neglected the inward spiritual exercises of the Soul without which all the rest are dead and carnal things 2. And they hereby grew into so high a conceit with the Letter of the Law it self and these External Duties as that they thought the very doing of them was enough to make them just and acceptable to God and forgot the true Doctrine of the Promised Messiah and Righteousness by him 3. And hereby they grew Proud as if they had for these Externals been so much better than all other People that all the World was Abominable save they 4. And they were so intent on the present Political Punishments to be escaped or suffered and Rewards to be won or lost that they much overlook'd the everlasting Punishments and Rewards And this Corruption increased till Christ came to Cure it who found the Sâ—ducees not believing a Life to come and the Phariseâ—s deceived by their External Legal Works and Righteousness and most of the People too ignorant of the true Spiritual Righteousness required by the Law it self § 15. It may seem to some a difficult Question whether God by such a Law made them Happier or Worse than the rest of the World And whether Christ's Abrogation of it was not a returning them to the common easier and better Condition of Mankind Ans. 1. You must know that though God made a common Covenant of Grace with Mankind the rest of the Nations about them were fall'n into Ignorance and Idolatry and the Jewish Law much tended to cure both and to make them better know God and the meaning of the Covenant of Grace and to return to him from Idols and worship him aright So that the Jews were happier than other Nations 2. The abuse of their Law was through their fault and folly and the Law by the faithful among them was better understood and used 3. Christ after setting up a better Covenant in its stead did bring the Church into a better state than the Jews were But the Unbelievers and idolatrous World that had not Christ's better Covenant were still left in a worse state than the Jews were before Christ's Incarnation § 16. And God by this operous Law would humble the Jews that by their peculiarity were apt to be puffed up with Pride And as all his works grow to Perfection by degrees even the Works of Grace in particular Souls so did his Means of Grace and the welfare of his Church which was to begin at their Rudiments and grow up to better means and knowledge yet so that all were to be judged according to the Law that they were under § 17. It is this operous Law of Moses which Paul meaneth usually by the Law of Works and the old or former Covenant and neither the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam nor yet as if this Law of Moses were of the same Tenor or Conditions and so called a Covenant of Works as making Innocency its Condition But this Law which was an Appendix to the Law of Grace and was a peculiar Law of Grace it self is called The Law of Works because of the great and burdensome and costly Externals before mentioned and because as a political Law it so much insisteth comparatively on those Externals and the Doctrine of Grace is comparatively more obscure in it than in the Gospel and because the Jews had by their abusive Interpretation overvalued the Externals and operous Ceremonies and Sacrifices of it § 18. The mistake of Paul's meaning in this Phrase the Law of Works or old Covenant hath led some men to a new frame of Theology in a great part and engaged others in Errors and fruitless Contentions § 19. By the words He that doth these things shall live by them as distinguished from believing Paul meant not that the Condition of the Jewish Covenant of Peculiarity or Law was the same perfect Innocency as was required in the first Law of Adam for when Man was actually guilty it was impossible that he should ever become one that had not sinned And we must not put such a scorn on the infinitely wise and righteous Governour of the World as to suppose him to have such a Law or Covenant as this If you that are sinners are not sinners you shall be saved much less to make this a Covenant of peculiar favour § 20. Nor doth Paul mean That the Laws Condition was If you will never sin more I will pardon all that 's past For God never made such a Law with man not to sin being morally impossible to them and Pardon never offered on such terms § 21. To put all out of doubt 1. God before hand proclaimed the Name of that God from whom they received their Law Exod. 34. 6 7. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgrâ—ssion and sin though he will by no means clear the guilty That is He will not judge a Sinner to be no Sinner nor the Wicked to be Godly nor pardon and save any contrary to the established terms of his Covenant 2. And the Law it self hath many express means of forgiveness of Sin appointed as sacrificing confessing c. which sheweth that it was a Law of Grace § 22. By the Law Paul usually meaneth the written Law of Moses as contained in the very words now in our Bibles As by the Word of God we usually mean the Scripture Therefore though it contain much of the Law of Nature yet as a written Law and part of a Law of Peculiarity and Policy of that Nation even the Decalogue may be said to be done away though as the Law of Nature and of Christ it still remain § 23. By the Works of the Law then which Paul mostly disputeth of and by He that doth these things shall live in them is meant That this Law besides the sweet and easie Precepts of faith and Love did as part of the Matter of the Jews Obedience require abundance of burdensome Externals and he that
would not do all those must die for Obedience even to those commanded Tasks was then made necessary by God And as to temporal death it was not by that Law to be escaped but on the strict terms thereby required So that doing these things was necessary to life temporal and to eternal in sincerity And the driving on the People by temporal punishments to these externals was that Body of the Law which the mistaking Jews had separated from the Soul of it § 24. And he saith None could be justified by the Works of the Law because this written political Law and its externals were in this Dispute put in opposition to Christ and the Law taken for the meer Body of Moses's Law separated from the Law of Grace which was its Soul and no doubt 1. It is Faith in the Redeemer and Covenant of Grace which is the Condition of constituting Men Iust which they must have before any Obedience to their particular Laws could be sincere and acceptable and the faithful keeping of the Law of Grace which is made the Condition of salvation 2. And to dream that legal Strictness Ceremonies Sacrifices or other legal Works would justifie them without Christ and Faith in him or any otherwise than as Acts of Obedience to their Redeemer by which their fidelity to the Covenant of Grace was to be expressed while that Law was in force was contrary to the true meaning of their Law it self § 25. The rest of the World were not in the Covenant nor under the Law of Peculiarity or Jewish Policy And as such as is said it is now all abrogated even the Decalogue it self though its Matter be still in force as aforesaid SECT V. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last Edition or the Gospel § 1. VVHether the Covenant of Grace in the first edition to Adam and this of the second edition by Christ shall be called One or Two the same or diveâ—s and the old Church and the Gospel-Church the same or not the same in specie are but needless questions about the bare Name of Oneness as long as we agree wherein they differ and wherein they differ not In some respects they may be called the same and in some not the same § 2. The Parties in the first Covenant of Grace were really but two GOD and Man unless you could prove that Christ had then such a superangelical Nature in which he mediated as some before mentioned hold But the Parties in the new Covenant of Grace are really Three viz. GOD as the absolutely Supreme who gave us a Mediator and Christ the Mediator as the supreme Subadministrator to whom all Power is given and Man the Subject to both § 3. The Benefits of the first Edition respected a future Saviour and his future Righteousness Sacrifice and Mâ—rits But the Benefits of the second Edition respect an existent Mediator and his merits and sacrifice already performed and accepted of God § 4. The revelation of life eternal and Man's spiritual felicity and duty is far clearer in the second Edition than in the first § 5. As there is more done for us so there are more full and excellent means provided for Man's information conversion sanctification and salvation in Apostles Scriptures Miracles spiritual Ordinances than under the first § 6. As the means excel so the Spirit is given in a greater measure answerable to the greater Revelation and means And is specially Christ's Witness and Agent in the World and the mark of his peculiar ones § 7. And as more is done for us so more is now to be believed by us Many necessary Articles are added to our Faith That this Iesus is the Messiah that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under P. Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hades rose again the third day ascended to Heaven is there glorified in our Nature Head of all c. are all new Articles of our Faith which before were not required because not revealed or the matter extant § 8. This second Edition is both the Covenant of Grace and a Covenant of Peculiarity far excelling the Iewish Covenant of Peculiarity Believers are a holy Nation a royal Priesthood a peculiar People c. § 9. This Covenant supposeth the antecedent gifts of a Saviour to be incarnate and do his meritorious and sacrificing part and all such Preparatories and of Life Gospel and Opportunities given to the Sinner § 10. The parts of the Covenant are 1. The Conditional Gifts or Benefits 2. The Condition or Terms of Right 3. The Rule of Duty 4. The Penalty for violation or neglect of the Covenant § 11. 1. The Gifts are God the Father Son and Holy Ghost in their Covâ—nâ—nâ—-Relation to us and the love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy spirit Or as it is briefly expressed in 1 Ioh. 5. 10 11. Christ and life in him that is Pardon Iustification the Spirit Adoption and Glory at first in right and after in possession and all means and mercies which God seeth meet to bring us to it § 12. 2. The Condition of our first Right is 1. That of natural necessity viz. Repentance and Return to God 2. Of natural and instituted necessity Belief and Confidence in Christ and Covenant-Consent § 13. The Condition of our continued and consummate Right and full Possession is the former Faith and Consent continued Repentance renewed when we knowingly sin and sincere Obedience and Perseverance § 14. 3. Seeing sincere Obedience supposeth a Law we must know that more is in the Precept than in the Condition Therefore we distinguish of necessitas praecepâ—i medii The Precept requireth perfect Obedience as due But Sincerity is the Condition and will save without Perfection § 14. The Precepts or Law of Christ now contain 1. The Law of Nature for all Things and Iudgment are given up to him 2. The new peculiar Laws of Grace containing our special Faith in Christ and his special Institutions of Church-Order Ministery Worship c. § 15. The Penaelty of the Law of Grace in this Edition is as in the first 1. A Privation of its Benefits to Nonconsenters or Insidels with a greater dâ—gree of punishment for Ingratitude 2. And withdrawings of the Spirits help for our quenching and resisting it and abusing Mercy 3. And temporal castigatory Punishments to Believers for their saults § 16. The Sum of all essential to this Covenant is in Baptism and the Lords Supper which are therefore Sacraments and Symbols of it and Baptism was appointed by Christ himself to be the solemn Initiation Badge and Character of his Disciples and Church-Members § 17. The History of Christ's Life and Sufferings and of his Apostles Life and Preaching and all the â—est of holy Scripture is God's Word and his Doctrine belonging to the Gospel-Covenant But it is the Covenant it self or Law of Grace which all that are under it must
Faith as to the Objects extensively which was required of Jewish Believers before Christ's Incarnation as is now of us nor the same degree that was required of all the rest of the World as of the Jews 2. But such a Faith in God our Redeemer as that Law which men are under maketh necessary to Salvation is necessary to Holiness And to ask what God will do with a man that is holy without Faith is to talk of a non-existent Subject There is no such man for without Faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him notwithstanding original and actual Sin and the Law of Innocency condemning us and therefore that he is under a pardoning and rewarding Law of Grace Heb. 11. 6. No man can be sanctified without the Merit Doctrine and Spirit of Christ nor without that degree of Faith which the Covenant which he is under requireth § 20. Quest. What if a man that was sanctified by believing should retain his Holiness or Love and Obedience and lose his Faith in Christ Answ. It is a thing that never was nor will be and not to be disputed of § 21. Moral Virtue in the proper sence of the word is the same thing as Holiness taken comprehensively as containing our Love and Duty to God and to man for God's sake But as Holiness is taken narrowly for our Love and Duty to God as distinct from our Love and Duty to Man so Moral Virtue is the genus and Holiness the chief species of it And thus we take Moral Virtue and Moral Action and so all Morality as contradistinct from Physicks or things meerly natural not falling under the genus moris And so Virtue and Vice or Sin are all that is Moral that is Moral Good and Moral Evil And this is the first and most notable sence of the word But some of late have used Moral as contradistinct from Holiness or Grace or from infused Habits or from Faith and Christianity and some tell us confidently but falsly That this is the most fit and famous sence and the word so to be taken when not otherwise explained It 's the sad case of Mankind that we have no words but what are liable to ambiguity And it 's the unhappiness of the Church that hath so many Teachers that will dispute write and wrangle about words unexplained and in the end shew that under divers terms they mean the same matter in which they are agreed and know not their Agreement § 22. As Holiness is sometimes taken so largely as to comprehend all that God commandeth and sometimes for the natural part of our Duty Love and Obedience as distinct from Faith in Christ which is the mediate Grace and of supernatural revelation so is Morality or moral Virtue distinguished § 23. They that take moral Virtue so narrowly and improperly as to mean no other moral Virtue than Heathens had or than is taught in Aristotle's Ethicks should first tell us That this is their sence and then they may boldly declaim against those Preachers that take this for sufficient or that preach no other For Scripture and Christianity were to little purpose if they taught us no more than the Writings of Philosophers do § 24. And no doubt but it is a pitiful sign and an odious Crime in a Minister of Christ to say little to the People of the Mysteries of Man's Redemption the Person and Offices and Works of Christ the Covenant of Grace and the special Blessings given by it our Union with Christ Justification Adoption and the special Works of the Spirit on Mens Souls and all the Duties and Pleasures of a Heavenly Conversation in the love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit and all this under pretence of magnitying and preaching up the Love of our Brethren and Charity to the Poor and Iustice and Temperance as if Man were our God and to wrong man were the only Sin and to wrong God were none or God could be no otherwaies wronged § 25. But Covetousness and Pride contradicteth their own Doctrine For among their good works those of Piety are first extolled and those are the enriching of the Church and that is themselves and why them more than the poorer People about us Because they are sacred persons and belong to God and serve at his Altars Very good And is Piety to a sacred person and such as they so great a Duty and yet our Piety as immediately to God himself an indifferent thing in comparison of our Duty to Man Yea some usually make that part of their Piety which consisteth in the observance of their own Traditions and unnecessary Injunctions to seem of great weight while the holy observance of God's own Laws is perhaps accused as too much preciseness or hypocrisâ—s when indeed the Hypocrite is he that instead of the life and serious practice of true Christian-Holiness sets up and resteth in the Image of Holiness and certain formalities that are lifeless to deceive himself and others § 26. Where there is no Faith and Love to God nor Duty done in obedience to God there is no true moral Virtue but somewhat equivocally so called whatever good such may do to the Common-wealth or to their Neighbors for it wanteth the principle end and object that should inform it § 27. An Hypocrite may be said to have moral Virtue as he may be said to have Holiness that is only secundum quid yea but analogically yea but equivocally in that he hath no other sort of Faith and Love and Obedience § 28. An Infidel's moral Virtue and all unsanctified Heathens or other persons is of the same sort only with this described of the Hypocrite And they err not that say They have no true moral Virtue but analogical § 29. Yet Nature and common Grace do give men that which is truly good and not only minus malum and may do much good to others and some to themselves and is truly laudable and amiable considered without the mixture simply in it self But because the contrary evil is still the predominant part in all the unsanctified it will not properly denominate them good men nor the whole action a good action save equivocally analogically or secundum quid because the form denominateth which is here wanting § 30. But if any one think otherwise that the name of moral Virtue yea or Holiness is due to the best actions or habits of Heathens Hypocrites or any unsanctified men it is but a Controversie de nomine and no otherwise to be regarded while we agree of the things signified by that name § 31. It is certain that now there is no moral good in any man on Earth that is not the effect of some Grace of God common or special for even Nature now as reprieved and maintained is an effect of common Grace much more further
rather calleth it than a Habit at first even in the Adult And Calvin saith That some men semen fidei qualecunque perdunt Adam had such a Holiness as might be lost And why may we not say that Infants first Grace is of such a sort or degree 2. And yet that none are saved without more but that upon this first degree they have a right to Salvation and that their further Holiness shall be given them whom God will as part of their Salvation to which they have right At furthest at death in the same time and manner as perfect Holiness and Mortification of Sin is given to Believers that are till death imperfect A loseable degree of Holiness like Adam's may be the way to more in all that so die § 23. Divines use to mention three degrees of Grace in order to Faith it self 1. So much Grace as maketh a man able to believe which they call Sufficient Grace 2. So much more as efficiently determineth him to the Act of Believing This they call effectual special Grace and Protestants call it our Vocation effectual 3. So much more as giveth him a fixed habit of Faith Love and all Holiness together This Papists call Iustification and Protestants Sanctification Vid. Amesii Medull de voc sanct Rolloc de vocat Bishop Downame against Pemble Append. to his Treatise of Perseverance c. § 24. Now some hold all these loseable some hold only the last not loseable and almost all hold the first loseable Now 1. What if we think that Infant 's first Holiness besides relative Pardon and jus ad impunitatem regnum is but of the first degree Though a meer moral Power to believe be not enough to the Adult because the Act is necessary to them yet say Protestants The Habit is not necessary to their first Covenant-Right but is given by the Spirit in sanctification as a Covenant-Benefit And why may not Infants be in a pardoned state that at first have but that Grace which giveth a moral Power to believe when they come to age Consider of the matter § 25. I have so fully elsewhere proved That Infants Church-membership was instituted both in the Covenant of Innocency in the first edition of the Covenant of Grace in the Covenant of Peculiarity with Abraham and in the last edition of the Covenant of Grace by Christ and also that God never had a Church on Earth of which Infants were not Members if the adult Members had Infants that I will now supersede that Work CHAP. XX. Of the Nature of Saving-Faith § 1. SO much of this came in before on the by as will excuse my brevity here I have before shewed That the Faith now in question is not meerly our general Belief and Trust in God as a part of our Holiness but the mediate Belief and Trust in God our Redeemer and our Saviour which is made the Condition of the Covenant the means of our sanctification And also that as the editions of the Covenant vary and promulgation of it so it is not the same degree or acts of Faith as to the particular credenda or Articles to be believed that was and is necessary to all persons in all times § 2. Though the word Belief in English and Assent in Latin signifie strictly only the act of the Understanding and Saving Faith is oft named from one act yet really that Faith which in Scripture is made the Condition of Pardon and Salvation doth essentially contain the Acts of every Faculty even Assent Consent and Affiance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and fides do properly signifie Trust even a consenting or voluntary Trust upon believing as is afore said § 3. We do very aptly call both the Act and Object by the same name fides in Latin and Faith in English oft-times For Faith is a trusting on another's Faith Fidelity or Trustiness and so the fides asserentis seu promittentis fides credentis are related § 4. The Faith that hath the promise of our Justification is not to be called one only Physical act in specie much less in numero That were but prophanely to jest with holy things but it is a moral act or work of the Soul containing many physical acts Otherwise we should be all confounded not knowing how to distinguish of all our physical acts of Faith secundum speciem and then to know which of them is the right And it would be but some very little of the true Objects of Faith that justifying Faith must be constituted by In a word the Absurdities are so numerous that would follow that I will not be so tedious as to name them § 5. Saving Faith is such a moral work as we use to express by the names Believing Trusting Consenting Taking Accepting Receiving in Contracts personal with men If we say You shall Trust such a Physician or take such a man for your Physician all men understand us and none is so logically mad as to think that by Taking or Trusting we mean only some one physical act of the smallest distribution If we say I take this man for my King my Master my Commander or Captain or this woman to be my Wife c. every one knoweth here what Taking meaneth viz. our Consent to that Relation according to the nature and ends of it § 6. Therefore though we use divers names for this Faith and also on several occasions give several half-descriptions of it we mean still the same thing and suppose what we omit to make the description entire § 7. When we call Faith a Believing or Assent we mean such an Assent as prevaileth with the Will to accept Christ with his Grace as offered in the Gospel and consent to the Baptismal Covenant and this indeed as a fruit of the assenting act but as essential to justifying Faith § 8. When we call it Consent or Acceptance or Receiving Christ we mean that as Man's Soul hath an Intellect and Will and a true actus humanus vel moralis is the act of both but of the Intellect as directive and of the Will as more perfective or as the Faculty primarily moral so the same Faith which is initially in the intellect's Assent is perfectlier in the will's Consent And it is the Receiving of a Saviour believed or the Consent to a believed Covenant We suppose Assent when we name it Consent § 9. And when we name it Affiance or Trust we include both the former and mean a resolved practical Trust and dedition of our selves accordingly to one that covenanteth to bring us from Sin and Misery to GOD and Glory where Belief and Consent to that Covenant are supposed § 10. And the Terminus a quo and the renunciation of Competitors and Opposites is connoted if not essentially included in Saving Faith And therefore Christ doth so often tell us of forsaking all if we will be his Disciples § 11. I use to express it by this similitude A Prince redeemeth a
extend to the Justification must extend to if perfect § 41. But no man is perfectly and absolutely just or justifiable For instance 1. If we be accused to have sinned we cannot be justified directly against this Accusation but must plead guilty by Confession For factum non potest fieri infectum and that Fact will for ever be culpable Adam did sin will for ever be a true assertion The Guilt of fact or fault is never done away in it self that it was really a fault and that we really did it will be an everlasting Truth Of which more afterward § 41. 2. If the Accusation be That in Adam we deserved Death it must be confessed Yea temporal Death and correcting Punishments are not only deserved but inflicted and not pardoned nor we justifiable herein § 42. 3. If the Accusation be that we deserved to have Abatements of Grace With-holdings of the Spirit and abatement of what Glory we might else have had all this must be confessed § 43. 4. Yea if it be said That our Sin primo instanti deserved Hell it must be confessed and against all this there is no direct Justification § 44. But against these Accusations we must be justified 1. If it be said that we are of Right to be damned or have no Right to Heaven but to Hell this must be denied And we must be justified by these several Causes 1. Because God's Iustice and the Ends of the violated Law are satisfied by Christ and by his Righteousness a free Gift of Pardon and Life are merited for us 2. And this free donation is the Law that we are to be judged by which giveth us Christ to be our Head and Pardon and Life with him § 45. 2. If it be said That we are Unbelievers impenitent or unholy and did not fulfill the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace we must deny it and be justified against this by our Faith Repentance and Holiness it self or else we must be condemned and perish for nothing else will do it § 46. And seeing it will be the work of the day to judge men as performers or non-performers of the said Conditions of the Law of Grace therefore it is that the Scripture speaketh so much of inherent or performed Righteousness and of Christ's judging men according to their works that is their works which are the performance of that Condition § 47. To be judged according to our Works is to be justified or condemned according to our Works For to be judged is the genus and to be justified or condemned are the species Iudging is justifying or condemning § 48. While all are agreed that all men shall be justified or condemned according to their Works it is unreasonable to quarrel at that height that many do about the syllable BY whether men be justified and condemned by their works as if according to them and by them had a different sence when as to judicial justification the sence is the very same though as to the making of men just the sence may differ § 49. We are commonly agreed that no man is justified by Works in any of these following sences 1. No man is justified either constitutively or judiciarily by his Works done according to the Law of Innocency that is by perfect personal Obedience and Love because we have it not 2. No man is justified constitutively or judiciarily by his Works done according to the Mosaical Iewish Law as such 3. Much less by any Works of his own or other mens invention which he accounteth good and are not so 4. No man is justified by any Works set in opposition to or competition or co-ordination with Christ but only in subordination to him and his Righteousness by which we are redeemed and for which we are all first conditionally pardoned and justified by the Law of Grace 5. No man could be justified by his Gospel-Obedience or his Faith if he were to be judged by the Law of Innocency as not redeemed 6. No man's Faith or Obedience will justifie him in Judgment against this accusation Thou art a Sinner or this Thy sin deserved Death Nor as one that hath fulfilled all the preceptive part of the law of Christ. 7. No Works do justifie us as meriting Life of God in proper commutative Justice 8. No man is justified by Tasks of working as contradistinct from believing and trusting on Free Grace or by external works without Christ's Spirit and spiritual Evangelical Duties 9. No good Work or Act of Man was a Condition of God's giving us a Redeemer or giving us a conditional justifying Law of Grace 10. Man's true Faith and Repentance is not before the Grace which worketh it and therefore is no Condition of that Grace 11. Man's antecedent common Works while he is impenitent merit not properly the special Grace which causeth Faith and Repentance 12. We have no Works that are acceptable to God but what are the fruits of his Spirit and Grace § 50. And on the other side we are agreed 1. That we are justified by the Works of Christ as the Meritorious Cause of our Justification 2. That the Justification purchased and given us by Christ is given us by a Law or Covenant of Grace which giveth as God's Instrument Right to Impunity and to Life to all true penitent Believers And therefore he that is justified according to this Law of Grace from the charge of Impenitence and Unbelief must be justified by his Repentance and Faith materially as being the Righteousness in question as is aforesaid 3. That without Holiness none shall see God And if any be accused as unholy and on that account no Member of Christ or Child of God or Heir of Heaven his Holiness must be the matter of his Justification 4. That though our Faith Repentance and Holiness be no universal absolute Righteousness yet they are that on which the judiciary Scrutiny must pass and which will be the question of the great day on which our Life or Death will depend as on the Condition or moral Qualification of the Receiver 5. That in this sence all men shall be judged by Justification or Condemnation according to their Works or what they have done that is as they have performed or not performed the Conditions of that Law of Grace which they were under as aforesaid 6. That therefore they that will be justified at last must trust in Christ that redeemed them and be careful to perform the Conditions of his Law of Grace and both must concurr 7. That that which is the Righteousness which must justifie us in Judgment is the same that must now constitute us just 8. That when our Right to Salvation is the thing in question to be judged that which justifieth our Right to Salvation justifieth the Person as to that Right and so far the same thing is the Condition of our Right to Salvation and to our Justification 9. And if any with Augustine will mean by Iustification God 's making us such
as the Iudge will justifie by Sentence and Execution then our Conversion is part of that Justification 10. That Scripture sometimes taketh Justification in that sence and most frequently by Righteousness meaneth that which consisteth in our Acts and Habits In all this there is no place for Controversie or Disagreement § 51. They that say That we must have inherent and performed Righteousness but that no man is at all justified by it must take justifying in some particular limitted sence which therefore they should explain by distinction or else they speak gross contradiction For it is no Righteousness if it constitute not the owner righteous so far or in that point nor yet if the owner may not be justified by it in Iudgment against the accusation of being in that point or so far unrighteous If he that doth Righteousness is righteous that Righteousness will materially justifie him against the false accusation of the contrary § 52. Yea while they make Faith Repentance and Holiness but Signs and Evidences of our right to Life-eternal they thereby allow it some place in Justification For Evidence hath its place in Judgment And they are moral Evidences and not physical only § 53. If men understood how atheological and perilous it is to conceit that either Faith or any thing of ours no though we were innocent is any proper efficient Cause of God's own internal acts in our Justification and would understand that all can be no more than dispositio receptiva which Dr. Twisse calls causa dispositiva a meer receptive Aptitude which is but the Qualification causae materialis that is of the Subject to be justified it would presently lead them out of their vain Contention about Faith and Gospel-Obedience herein and shew them how each in several respects and instances qualifie Man for the beginning or continuance of Justification or for Right to Glory § 54. It seemeth strange to some to find the whole Old Testament and all Christ's Sermons and all the other Apostles inculcating inherent and performed Righteousness as that which Men must be judged about to Life or Death and yet to find Paul so oft pleading against Justification by Works But if we will take the Scripture together and not by incoherent scraps the reconciliation is evident Man is now sinful and condemned by the first Law and is now under a Law of Grace that freely giveth Pardon and Life through a Redeemer to those that believingly accept the Gift according to its nature and consent by Repentance to turn to God and live a holy life in sincerity Now God doth through all the Scripture tell us That no one shall pass with God for a just man or be saved that will not do this but shall be condemned further for refusing it And thus he that doth Righteousness is righteous and all shall be judged according to their works thus required by the Law of Grace To deny this is to deny the scope of the whole Scripture and the Government of God But Paul disputed against those that taught that the Gentiles must be proselyted and keep the Law of Moses or else they could not be accounted just men nor be saved And he proveth that the Gentiles being under the Law of Grace may pass with God for just men and be saved if they Believingly accept the Gift of Grace according to its nature and consent by Repentance to turn to God and live a holy life in sincerity though they keep not the Jewish Law Yea further that though the Jewish Fathers were obliged to keep that Law it was as it belonged to the Covenant of Grace and of Faith and that before that Law was given Abraham and others were just and saved by Faith according to the universal Law of Grace and that the Task of Works according to the Mosaical Law will of it self make no man just or savable and consequently no other Task of Works which would make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt and is opposed to or separated from Redemption and the free condonation and donation of the Covenant of Grace This is the plain drift of Paul § 55. Works of Evangelical gratitude love and obedience according to the Law of Grace subordinate to and supposing Redemption and the free gift of Pardon and Life to penitent believing Accepters are those that Christ and Iames and all the Scripture make necessary to Salvation and our Consent and Covenant so to obey is necessary to our first or initial Iustification and our actual Obedience to the Continuance and Confirmation of it But a Task of Works either of Moses's Law or any other set against Redemption and free Grace or not as aforesaid duly subordinate to them is disclaimed by Paul and all Christians as that which can constitute no man just in God's account nor such a one as hath right to Salvation § 56. I verily think that were their verbal and notional differences discussed and men understood themselves and one another it will prove that this aforesaid is the true meaning of almost all Christians and that they agree in this sence while they mischievously contend about ill or unexplained words § 57. What I have said of Justification is mostly true of Pardon of Sin Pardon is threefold 1. Constitutive which is God's giving us a Right to Impunity This is God's act by the pardoning Covenant or Law of Grace 2. By Sentence judging us so pardoned 3. Executive taking off or not inflicting Punishment deserved § 58. God's non punire and nolle punire not-punishing and his will not to punish are true pardon when the Sinner and Sin and Guilt are pre-existent But they are no pardon before because not capable of such a relation and denomination for want of a real terminus Therefore God's eternal will to pardon or his not punishing man from Eternity before Man was Man or sinful must have no such name which afterward it may have without any change in God but in man only § 59. Some worthy men say that Pardon is not Justification nor to be pardoned is to be righteous and that Righteousness is never taken in Scripture for Pardon but many score or hundred times for our performance of our Duty according to the Law of Grace Therefore they would have Righteousness and Pardon still distinguished § 60. But I have plainly before proved that Righteousness hath many parts and the word many sences and though Pardon be not that Righteousness which consisteth in a Conformity to the Precept and so is not our universal Righteousness yet Pardon is passive that Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity both as to the punishment of Loss and Sence And Pardon with Adoption or the Gift of Life is that Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Life eternal § 61. 1. All mens sins are pardoned potentially and conditionally in the Law of Grace 2. No mens sins are pardoned actually as to a right of Impunity till they are penitent
solve the difficulty that hath stalled the School-Doctors That if the Creature have no Entity distinct from God's it is either part of God or nothing But it is not nothing or no Substance though some call it a shadow And it is not a part of God for to be pars is to be imperfect and so to be no God And if it have a real Entity distinct from God's Entity then there would be more Entity in God and the Creature than GOD alone For two is numerally more than one and two Entia have more Entity than one how small soever the lesser be And then God should be put part of Universal Entity which is Imperfection To say that the Creature hath part of Created Entity but not of Divine Entity seemeth to yield that God is but part of Universal Entity To avoid which many Philosophers take up the Opinion that the whole being of all Worlds is GOD the material Part being his Body and the eternal Spirit the Soul What shall we say to this To silence it will not silence the Objectors And sure we must not grant them That the World is God or that it is part of God or that God is but a part of Real Substance or Entity or that to be so is no Imperfection Is there no other sounder way Though Divines say that Dei non sunt accidentiae and it 's true That God is all Essence and per essentiam operatur yet I dread to assert but humbly ask Whether rather than fall into any of the former Opinions it be not less dangerous to say That as God hath made his Works in his likeness and no Substance is without all Accidents so the World be not quasi accidens Dei And if so it is no Part of Him essential or integral And as its Substance is not univocally such as God's so such as it is it is so totally caused by and dependent on God's continual Creatingwill and Emanation that its Substance and Being is more GOD's though not GOD than its own and so is no Addition of Being to God's Being but contained in him and flowing from him A man's actual thought words or sensation is no Addition to a man's substance as such and yet they are not nothing A man's Hair and Nails that have no life but vegetative are substantial Accidents and yet no part of the man And yet are so wholly his own caused by his Soul as heat and moisture that we use not to call them any addition to the man's being § 5. Q. But wherein then lieth the Hypostatical Union if God be equally near to all things Ans. He doth not equally operate on all As the God of Nature he sustaineth and operateth on all his Creatures As the God of Grace he worketh Holiness on Believers Souls As the God of Glory he is present demonstratively and gloriously to the Blessed But he worketh on none as he did on the humane nature of Christ These three differences I conceive make this proper sort of Union 1. Some Works God doth though by essential Proximity yet not without the use and operation of second Causes But Christ's assuming the humane nature by the divine was by Conception by the Holy Ghost as the immediate Efficient without the Causality of Man or Angel the Mother affording Matter and Aliment to the foetus 2. Divine Operations being various the Divine Nature did that on the Humane Nature of Christ which it did not on any other Creature He having such Work to do as no other Creature was to do the divine nature fitted the humane for its part No Angel was to be Mediator between God and Man and to work Miracles as he did and in our nature to fulfill all Righteousness and be a Sacrifice for Sin and to rise from the Dead and to send down the Spirit and ascend to Glory and there to reign and to judge the World Therefore he was qualified for all this work 3. And so there is also a relative difference in that the Divine Nature by a fixed Decree and Will united it self for this work to this one humane nature even for all futurity It may be some that are wiser can better tell wherein the Hypostatical Union consisteth § 6. As to the Question Whether the divine and humane nature be two or one it is to ask Whether the nature of God and his Creatures be two or one They may be called one as we are one with Christ as conjunct related and consenting But not one and the same essential nature § 7. But the great difficulty is whether the two natures constitute one Person or two Nestorius is accused Derodon saith falsly citing his own plain words to have held That Christ was two Persons divine and humane But what is to be held the School-Doctors make a difficult question that is whether the humane nature be either a Person or any part of the Person of Christ. 1. They say that Christ was a divine Person from Eternity and therefore began not to be such at his Incarnation 2. That the divine nature cannot be pars personae for that would be to be imperfect and not divine Therefore that the humane nature is no part but an adjunct to the Person of Christ. And if the humane nature be an Accident to the divine in Christ why must we deny Creatures to be Accidents of God But most plain Christians would be starâ—lâ—d to hear a Preacher say that the Humanity is no part of the Person of Christ. § 8. I have no answer to the difficulty unless I may distinguish of the sence of the word PERSON and say that in the sence as it signifieth a Person in the Essence of God the humane nature is no part of it But as to a Relative Personality as a King a Priest a Prophet c. as a Husband a Father c. are Persons so there is one Mediator between GOD and Man the Man Christ Jesus And the humane is not here excluded But is the Divine a part of the Person of a Mediator I handle such things with fear The Lord pardon our weakness But we are called to handle them by men's Presumptions 1. As God is not a part of the World or universal Substance and yet is eminenter more than a part what if it be so answered here 2. But if as great Doctors now maintain Relations may be ascribed to God without any Composition because they have no proper reality but a meer objective comparability why may not the divine nature have a relative part in the Relation of Mediator as assuming and advancing the humane and operating in it without composition And as according to this ambiguity Christ may have two persons not univocally divine and mediatorial so the divine and humane may make one Mediator And in the one Person of a Mediator are contained many Relative Persons of Christ as King Priest Prophet Son of Mary c. The Lord pardon what is amiss in these
of Rome that have managed them against each other And so are some of the Church of England and of foreign Protestants But I must testifie that the most that I hear or read inveighing reproachfully against others about them are men that tell me they talk after their Leaders of things that they never understood I am ashamed to hear of 't in the Pulpits one Party rendring the Doctrine of Predestination as odious Blasphemy and another Party crying down Universal Redemption and Free-will and Arminianism as an Enemy to God's Grace and neither of them know what they speak against One Davenant or Camero or Le Blank sheweth more insight into the Controversies which they reconcile than forty of these zealous Railers do § 10. I meddle not in this Book with the Controversies about Church-Government or Worship A settled worldly Interest and the various mental dispositions of the Contenders convince me that I can there do little for reconciliation God must do it if he have not forsaken this world But meer Doctrinal Controversies though of great moment methinks should not be so linked to a worldly Interest but that men should be willing to know the Truth or to endure others to know it That which I have attempted is by meer and clear explication without much argumentation to end such Controversies And to make men understand one another and the things which they dispute about and by abbreviating my Catholick Theology to make the Conciliation fitter for all Students And the Success of that Book giveth me great encouragement which hath been unanswered to this day when I looked that it should have brought the Contentious of both sides about my ears And I rejoice in the Success of Le Blank 's Theses which I publish'd he sent them to me to publish and I gave them to my Bookseller to print and he sold his Copy to another For all the dismal effects that the History of the low Countries and Dr. Heylin in Archbishop Laud's Life mention of these Controversies I rejoice that these many years last past they have made in England less noise than ever and are talked of with more peace and moderation And that I have a special share in the Comfort of this effect And what Names soever Peace-haters and Man-haters and Saint-haters call men by Christ saith Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God CHAP. II. The Doctrines about which they chiefly disagree enumerated § 1. THE forementioned causes of Divisions in general do operate among Christians 1. About Church-Government 2. About God's Worship and 3. About Christian Doctrine in particular All which are turned into the matters of our Discord The two first I intend not to meddle with in this Discourse And as to the third the Controversies about Doctrine which most trouble the Churches are 1. About God's Decrees and His Will in general 2. About his Foreknowledge 3. About Election in particular 4. About Reprobation 5. About his Providence and Predetermination of all actions in general 6. About his causing or not causing Sin 7. About Natural Power and Freewill 8. About original Sin 9. About Redemption by Christ. 10. About the Laws and Covenants of Innocency Works and Grace 11. About Universality and Sufficiency of Grace 12. About Man's Power and Free-will since the Fall to obey the Gospel 13. About effectual Grace and how God giveth it 14. About the state of Heathens that have not the Gospel 15. About the necessity of Holiness and the state of moral Virtue 16. About the necessity of Faith in Christ where the Gospel is made known 17. About the state of Infants as to Salvation 18. About the nature of Saving Faith 19. About the nature of Pardon and Justification 20. About the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to Believers 21. About the manner how Faith justifieth us and how Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness 22. Of Assurance of Justification and Salvation and of Hope 23. Of Good works and Merits and how far we may trust to any thing in our selves 24. Of Confirmation Perseverance and of danger and falling away 25. Of Repentance late Repentance and the Day of Grace and the unpardonable Sin 26. Of our Communion with Christ's Glorified Humanity and with Angels and glorified Souls 27. Of the state of separated Souls 28. Of the Resurrection and Everlasting Life Of each of these I shall shew the pacifick Truth which must unite us and shew how far all the Reformed Churches are therein agreed and whether the Papists are or will be agreed with us I shall referr to their own consideration CHAP. III. Of God's Will and Decrees in general § 1. THE Will of God signifieth either I. His own Essence and that 1. under the notion of a Power or Virtue analogically to the Faculty in Man or 2. under the notion of an Act as it is considered only ex parte agentis without the effect II. Or the said Essence as related to the Effects or Objects and thence denominated III. Or the Extrinsick Objects and Effects themselves called his Will because willed by him § 2. These later are I. His Works of eminent Power with Wisdom and Goodness viz. Creation Preservation and Natural Motion by God as sons naturae II. His Works of Eminent Wisdom with Power and Goodness viz. ORDER and specially Moral Government the parts of which are 1. Legislation Antecedent to man's actions 2. Retribution by Judgment and Execution consequent to them especially by the Redeemer in the way of Grace III. His Works of Eminent Love or Goodness with Power and Wisdom especially Glory begun and perfected § 3. By God 's Decrees is meant his Volitions of what shall be which are but his Will considered as in such acts Now concerning all these sences of God's Will § 4. I. God's Will in it self considered is his Essence and not any Accident in God § 5. II. Yet esse Velle are not Conceptions of the same sence or importance but are distinct inadequate Conceptions of the same God And so is also Intelligere § 6. III. As Posse Agere are not really two things in God so his Will as a Power Faculty or Virtue and his Will as an Act or Volition in himself are not two things but two inadequate Conceptions of that which is simple Unity in God for Man's narrow mind can no otherwise know him § 7. IV. God doth operate or effect immediately by his Essence and not by any Action of his which is between his Essence and the Effect Whether you call it his Agere Intelligere or Velle or all conjunct by which he effecteth it is nothing besides his Essence which is so called For there is nothing in rerum natura but God and the Creature and the Creature 's Actions And Aâ—râ—olâ—s that stiffly argueth that God's Creating Action is neither God nor the Creature but a middle thing doth satisfie no mans Understanding and is commonly rejected and he can mean with sence
Christ yet the Promise and Notification of the Mediator and his merits and sacrifice as the reason of this Pardon did then exist and was the cause of that Pardon which Christ was afterward to merit § 19. It is therefore no absurdity that the existence of Man's Faith and Repentance should be necessary when the Mediator's Existence and his Merits was not necessary For it was not then an existent Mediator and Sacrifice c. that was the Object of Faith but only a Promised Mediator § 20. And whereas it is a doubt seeing the Head is essential to the Church and the Divine Nature only was Head of the Church before the Incarnation and the Divine and Humane united was afterward the Head whether it follow not the Church before the Incarnation and after and so Faith and Religion were divers in specie and not the same I answer That while we agree all de re that so much difference there is it is not worth our trouble to strive about the Name or Logical Notion of Sameness of Species § 21. When God hath chosen to save Man by way of a Mediator and by his Sacrifice and Merits as that way in which his Wisdom Love Holiness Mercy and Justice are eminently glorified it seemeth to me too bold Presumption to dispute Whether he could not have saved us otherwise and pardoned Sin without a Saviour as it would be to dispute Whether he could not illuminate the Earth without the Sun He wanteth not Power to do whatsoever is meet for God to do but all the question is Whether it be meet supposing Man's Nature and Sin to be what they are § 22. God did illuminate the World without the Sun till the Sun was made But it was the imperfect World and before the perfecting of his Work And so God did save Man without an Existent Mediator unless God may be called a Mediator between himself and us which is a harsh Phrase But it was before the Work of our Salvation was brought to maturity for the Cure of Man is perfectest at last § 23. We must take great heed that in considering of the parts of our Redemption by Christ we look not all at one and over-look the rest nor set not those Works of Christ in opposition which must be taken in conjunction But his Incarnation Obedience Contempt of the World Victory over Satan Suffering Resurrection Ascension Glory Intercession Reign Raising the Dead Judgment glorifying his Church must be all conjoined though not confounded § 24 The Benefits of Redemption or recovering Mercies are not all given in the same way We must carefully distinguish of those that God giveth absolutely and antecedently that is before any Condition or Duty on Man's part and those that he giveth consequently upon Man's Duty performed as the means of Reception § 25. Antecedent Mercies are some common to all men and some proper to some Countries Ages and Persons as the free Benefactor pleaseth § 26. Of the former sort is the Sustentation of Nature reprival from deserved miseries the Law of Grace as to the tenor and some degree of promulgation with all the common Mercies Means Duties which tend to Recovery Of the later sort are the greater degrees of such mercies and means which God freely giveth to some more than others § 27. Therefore we must not say that Infidels or wicked men have no Mercies or no Right to what they do possess as from God as being no Consenters to the Covenant or Performers of it Because there are Antecedent Mercies given before such Consent or Performance not as to Covenanters but as to miserable men invited to enter Covenant with God in Christ. Though these are so forfeited by their refusal that they have no assurance of their continuance but God may soon take them all away § 28. The consequent Mercies are Pardon Iustification Adoption the Spirit a secured filia◠Right to all outward Mercies that are good and suitable to us and final Glory and whatever God hath promised on Conditions by us to be performed § 29. The question of universal Redemption and special I shall pretermit till I speak of universal Grace § 30. Seeing Life Health Food Hope and all that is truly good were forfeited by Sin and none of them can be due to us by the Law of Innocency it followeth that wherever they are given it is upon other terms which can be no other than those of the Law of Grace as fruits of our Redeemer's Mercy antecedently or consequently And where the Fruits are apparent we may know the Cause § 31. The Fruits of Redemption are one entire frame consisting of various and unequal parts to divers persons yet mutually related And therefore it will not follow that nothing but what certainly inferreth the person's Salvation is any such effect of Man's Redemption CHAP. XII Of the several Laws or Covenants of God § 1. THough the order of the matter require that I should have spoken of the Law of Innocency before I had spoken of Sin and Redemption yet thinking that the sort of Readers for whom I now especially write will best understand things if I treat of all God's Laws together I will at this time fetch my method from their intended benefit § 2. The nature of a Law in general and of God's Laws in special I have elsewhere so oft and largely spoken of pretending somewhat to clear up that Doctrine from several mistakes that I must here pretermit it § 3. Though the word Law do principally signifie the regulating Imposition of our Duty and the word Covenant doth principally signifie a mutual Contract yet it is the same Divine Instrument which is meant oft and usually in Scripture by both these Names Of which see Grotius at large in his Preface to his Annotations in Nov. Testamentum It is called a Law in one respect and a Covenant in another but the thing is the same As a Law the parts of it are 1. The Precept and Prohibition constituting our Duty 2. The Retribution Premiant and Penal constituting the Dueness of Rewards and Punishments as the duty is performed or neglected As it is a Covenant it containeth 1. The Benefit which is the Reward freely given yet on condition of a due and suitable Reception and use of prescribed Means 2. The Condition described and Means prescribed in the said Preceptive part 3. And the Threatning in case of Ingratitude Refusal and Disobedience Which are the same things as in the Law of Grace considering the Covenant but as Instituted and Offered For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth usually but the Resolved declared terms of Life and Death or the Divine Ordination by which he will Rule and Judge us And so it is oft called a Covenant before Consent by Man which maketh it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mutual Contract And even a Law as Received by a voluntary subject is Consented to and becometh a Contract If any think that I give not the
mistaken ones so seduce that one Error in the Order leads to many § 28. Yet even Catechumens and young Christians should learn what they learn in method And that is first the said Baptismal Covenant and our Relation to the Trinity thereby and all that is added to their Knowledge daily be it never so little should be methodically added For a weak head may perceive the true method of the few Essentials being great and plain though the strongest cannot follow the due Distribution of innumerable Integrals and Consequent Truths As the first partitions of the Tree into its greater Boughs are easily perceived though not the innumerable sprigs thence arising § 29. Accordingly a wise Teacher will proceed with Infidels in proving the Christian Religion yea and with himself and will first prove the Truth of the Essentials which are delivered us both in Scripture and other infallible Tradition before he undertake to prove all the Scriptures to be the Word of God For he that will begin here 1. Must shew the Book which he will so prove and when he cannot vindicate it from variety of Lections and the Errors of Scribes and Printers to say nothing of the greater of Translators it will stop him in his Designs 2. And when he hath so many thousand Words to prove to be Divine and so many Integrals and Accidentals to make good he maketh his Work difficult by allowing his Scholar to doubt as much of the Essentials of Religion as he shall doubt of the Truth of any particular Book or Text History Genealogy c. in the whole Scripture A blind Zeal for Scripture hath led some to this dangerous way but the ancient Churches did otherwise and so will all that well understand what they do And really on supposition it could be proved as it cannot that any Penman of the Scripture erred in a Ciâ—ation a Genealogy the Circumstance of a bye-History c. it would not follow that we must be therefore uncertain of all our Religion even the Essentials and they ignorantly betray their Faith that say It would so follow § 30. So far is it from being true that the Scripture is too narrow as to the matter of Divine Faith and Duty without the additional matter of Tradition that indeed as the compleat Body of a Man hath more than his Essentials yea or Inteâ—rals even Hair and Nails as Accidents so hath the Holy Scripture as to the matter of Divine Faith and Duty There is more than is absolutely necessary to Salvation but not less § 31. They that in peevish opposition to others tell us That Christ made no Law and that the Gospel is not a Law if they strive not about equivocal Words but mean that Christ is not a Legislator nor hath a Law and Covenant by which he will govern and judge the World do deny all our Christianity at once For Christ is not Christ if he be not the King of the Church nor is he King if he be not a Lawgiver nor doth he Rule and Iudge if he have no Law which is so far from Truth that there is now no Law of God that we are under but what is truly the Law of Christ For he is Lord of all and Head over all things to his Church and all power in Heaven and Earth is given to him and the Father alone or meerly as Creator by the Law of Innocency judgeth no man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son as Redeemer and Universal Administrator The lapsed World and the Law which they are under as rational Creatures are now delivered up to the Redeemer whose Law as is aforesaid hath two parts 1. The Law of lapsed Nature commonly called the Moral Law 2. The Remedying Law of Faith of which before § 32. But it is not to be supposed that the very preceptive part of the Law of Innocency is now in force to us as it was to Adam For it bound him to be perfectly innocent in Act and Dispositions But to a Man that hath lost his Innocency and is already in Act and Habit sinful it is not to be supposed that the Law saith Thou shalt be innocent For that were to command not only a Moral but a Physical absolute impossibility as saying Thou shalt not have sinned § 33. Obj. God changeth not his Law when man changeth his capacity Therefore the Law may be the same as in Innocency both as to the Precept Threatning and Promise God may still say 1. Sin not or be innocent 2. And if thou be perfect thou shalt live 3. Else thou shalt die And if man will make himself uncapable it 's his own change § 34. Answ. I spake to this before and now further add God's Law is not to be taken for a meer script of Words considered as standing in a Book not obliterated or as written on stone and not broken or cast away The signum materially may stand and the Law be changed and the signification cease As a repealed Statute may be still in the Books and Records God's Law is signum voluntatis divinae debitum constituentis Therefore if it signifie not God's Will as constituting what shall be due from us and to us it is no Law And that it may so signifie his Will and constitute Dueness Debitum or Ius or as they use to say oblige and give the Subject must be in a natural capacity For where there is no Subject to be obliged there is no Law And where natural capacity ceaseth as in a dead corps there is no Subject to be governed And the Law is Instrumentum regiminis So that if you do not only say This was God's Law but This is God's Law you must mean Thus he nâ—w obligeth man and This he threatneth now and This he conditionally giveth him So that if it be an unchanged Law to us just as it was in Innocency you must make this the sence of precept threat and promise 1. Preserve thine Innocency and sin not in act or habit but be thou a peâ—fect Obeyer of my Laws and this to one that hath sinned already and is habitually inclined to more q. d. Let not that be which is or quod factum est infectum fiat 2. If thou sin thou shalt be an Heir of Death When we are Sinners and Heirs of Death already 3. If thou be and continue sinless and perfect thou shalt not die but live When we are Sinners and dead before In which Case all Law and Reason saith That the Law doth transire in sententiam vel rem judicatam § 35. So that as was before-said the Covenant of Works is ceased yea the Law or Precept bindeth not now as it is a Law of Innocency made to innocent Nature for its preservation for Nature is not innocent But the Law of Nature is now the Law of lapsed redeemed Nature and not of innocent Nature And it obligeth us for the future to as much perfection of Duty as we are naturally
sufficiently taught to understand the Essentials of the Christian Religion which they nominally profess and therefore are really much in the case of common Heathens § 4. 2. They consider their impossibility of being saved For it is not only morally by Vice but naturally impossible to believe that which was never heard read or understood So that their Damnation seemeth unavoidable especially to such as live in the vast Countries of America and much of Africa and Asia that are quite out of the reach of any Instructions for the Christian Faith § 5. 3. And lastly they consider the goodness and mercifulness of God declared in his Word and in his great and manifold mercies to all the World and that he would have a righteous man to be merciful even to his Beast much more to the Bodies of Men and most of all to their Souls and that our Rule and Motive is Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful § 6. And they think that the contrary-minded by over-doing are the greatest Hinderers of the Christian Faith and Promoters of Infidelity while they make it seem so contrary to God's own Attributes and to humane Interest and to be a Doctrine not of glad but of saddest tydings to Mankind viz. That none shall be saved that hear not the Gospel when it is few comparatively that ever heard it or can hear it § 7. On the other side it is thought a dangerous undermining of Christianity to say that it is not absolutely necessary to Salvation and that any besides Christians may be saved And it seemeth to them to be contrary to Christ's words that He that believeth not shall be damned and that He is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him And how shall they call on him on whom they have not believed c. No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him c. And it seemeth to confound the Church and the World to say That any are saved out of the Church § 8. In this great Controversie that which must satisfie us is to agree in so much as is certain and to leave that which is uncertain and unknown undetermined For we shall know it never the more for a confident pretending that we know it when we do not § 9. And here the first thing to be enquired after is What Law of God the World that heareth not of Christ is now under as the Rule of Duty and of Judgment And then 2. to enquire Whether they so keep that Law as to be saved by it We can say nothing to the second without the first § 10. And we have here nothing to doubt of but 1. Whether they are under any Law or none 2. If any Whether it be the Law of Innocency as made to Adam or the Law of Grace 3. And if the Law of Grace whether of the first or second Edition It must be one of these § 11. And 1st It is certain That they are under a Law and not only under a Physical Government as a Ship at Sea or Brutes are For else God were not their Ruler and they his Subjects so much as by Right and Obligation and then they were bound to no Duty nor in hope of any Reward nor in Danger of any Punishment for Disobedience For where there is no Law there is no Transgression § 12. It is certain That they are not under the Rule of the Covenant of Innocency made to Adam or the Law of Innocency as containing the Precept premiant and penal parts which is the same with the Covenant as offered This I proved before Though I was long ignorant how far that Covenant was repealed till Mr. Lawson's Papers which I laboured to confute did begin to enlighten me God now saith to no man I give thee life on condition thou be personally innocent and perfectly obedient Nor doth he say I command thee to be perfectly innocent sinless and obedient that thou maâ—st live For no man is a Subject capable of such a Command or Promise being already a Sinner § 13. If any should think that they are under the bare preceptive part of the Law of Innocency with the penal part without any Promise or premiant part or hope of life this is certainly a mistake Because 1. God hath no such Law nor never had which hath no Promise or premiant part and is not in a Covenant-form what he doth by the Devils belongeth not to our Question but as to Men they must be under a Covenant of Works or of Grace And it were a hard Conceit to think that the far greatest part of Mankind had never any means to use for their Salvation nor any thing to do for it but were under a meer Sentence of Despair and Damnation as the Devils are without any offer of Help or Hope and consequently that none of them all are guilty of refusing any such Mercy or neglecting any such Means and Duty 2. The very nature of Law and Government tell us That if God command any Duty it is that the Subject may be the better for it and he never saith to any obey me perfectly and thou shalt be never the better for it § 14. Besides the very Precept is not in force in that sence as it stood in the Law of Innocency for so it bound only innocent Man to keep his Innocency But God saith not Keep that which thou hast lost § 15. Obj. God is not bound to change his Law if man sin Ans. I answered this before That God is not the Changer But the Law will not continue to be a Law but by continuing to signifie God's governing Will And it cannot so signifie his governing Will when there is no Subject to be a capable terminus So that it ceased cessante capacitate subditi vel cessante termino To say That the Law still signifieth what God would have had man do while he was capable is true but that saith no more but that It was once a Law and now is none For so it may do by the dead yea were they annihilated even tell others what God would have had them do but this is not a ruling Act but Lex transit in sententiam And to say That at least the Law bindeth a Sinner to perfect Obedience for the time to come is to say That it binds not as the Law of Innocency but as some other Law of which we are enquiring § 16. And it is a clear Truth before proved That God brought all Mankind in Adam under a Law and Covenant of Grace founded in the Promise of the Victory of the Woman's Seed And his dealing with all men ever since doth fully confirm it And this Law made to Mankind in Adam and Noah was never repealed to the World but perfected by a perfecter Edition to those that have the Gospel Therefore we have two Questions here to consider 1. What Law the World
to it For Hope may be exercised upon probabilities and most usually it is so § 12. Strong Probability with little reason of doubting may cause such strong Hopes as may cause us to live and die with comfort If doubting be small and Hope be great the Peace and Ioy will be greater than the fear and trouble § 13. Bellarmin's Moral Certainty is more than most Christians attain to and his and other mens Concession thereof tell us That in this Point our difference is less than those have thought who have said it was sufficient Cause of our Separation from Rome § 14. While we are certain that this World is fading Vanity and that there is no hope of Felicity on Earth and that therefore Godliness can cost us the loss of nothing but Vanity a Faith short of Certainty and mixt with doubting about the very Truth of the Promise it self and Life Eternal may engage a man savingly in a holy Life and the forsaking of all for the hopes of Glory And such doubting even of the Life to come or of the Gospel as keepeth not men from trusting to it for their Felicity and seeking it above all and forsaking all for it will keep no man from Salvation though it be his sin and the cause of other sins Much more may this be done when men doubt not of God's Word or the State of Glory but only of their own Sincerity Justification and Salvation CHAP. XXV Of good Works and Merit and trusting to any thing of our own § 1. HEre are several Controversies that trouble our Peace but few of them that are so great as they are commonly imagined As 1. What are good Works which indeed is of great weight and the chief in which we really differ about Works 2. Whether they are necessary to Justification or Salvation 3. Whether they are meritorious or rewardable 4. What place they have and what is their use and necessity 5. Whether we may trust to them § 2. I. It is one of the Devil 's chief Policies in the World to cast out Christ's Interest by its Counterfeits To expugn true Wisdom by counterfeit Wisdom and true Faith by counterfeit Faith and true Zeal and Piety by counterfeit Zeal and Piety and true Unity and Concord and Peace by their Counterfeits and true Worship Ministry Discipline by their Counterfeits and true Comfort by counterfeit Comfort and so also it is by counterfeit good Works that good Works are oft cast off § 3. The measure of all created Goodness is the Will of the Creator who is the prime essential Good and no Work of Man is morally good but what is made so by the Will of God that is 1. Efficiently by his operative Will 2. Directively by his commanding Will And 3. Finally and Objectively by his pleased or fulfilled Will. Man's Wit Will or Interest cannot serve to make any action morally good § 4. He that intendeth God's Honour and the pleasing of his Will and the good of his own or others Souls or the safety of Religion or the Church or State and useth means hereto not commanded or any way appointed him of God much more if directly forbidden doth not a Work that is truly good but only secundum quid § 5. Could we be sure that such a Work would save Souls or save Church or State or our Neighbours lives it would not make it morally a good Work but only make the Effect to be physically good to others that are benefited by it § 6. Therefore to build Churches or Hospitals to feed and cloath the Poor to save Mens Lives to preach the Gospel are all such as finally do a physical good and they are the matter of moral good but forma denominat Those Actions are not morally good unless 1. done in obedience to God's commanding or ruling Will 2. And finally to please his Will § 7. Those Priests therefore that set carnal ungodly Sinners Fornicators Murderers Gluttons Drunkards Lyers Perjured c. on expiating their Sins by good Works without teaching and perswading them to that internal repentance and Conversion of their Wills and holy devotedness to God by which their Works must have a right Principle End and Form do but delude men and cheat them by flattery into perdition § 8. Much more pernicious is it to take Sin Folly and Superstition for good Works and look to be saved by that which deserveth Damnation and to expiate sin by sin such are the Works of Persecuters that think they serve God by unjust killing or imprisoning his Servants or causeless silencing his faithful Ministers such were the Wars of the Croâ—sadâ—'s against the Waldenses and Albigenses and such are the Works of the Inquisition and their persecuting Executioners such are Rebellions that have fair Pretences as were those against the German Emperors Fredericks Henry c. and of many of such Agents oft against the Kings of England such hath been the zealous killing of Kings and burning of honest desirable Dissenters and such is the alienating Mens Estates from better Uses to maintain a supernumerous sinful vicious idle Monastery or their prelatical needless Pomp and Pride or to buy Pardons or Masses for departed Souls or to build useless Structures to the Honour of some Saint or Angel or to set up useless Formalities and Shadows as Candles by day-light and abundance such And such are long Pilgrimages to the Shrines of such as the Pope hath Canonized and to visit Relicks and the carrying about of Relicks with an ungrounded carnal considence in them with many such like § 9. So wosully hath the Papal Party and not they only but in too great a measure the Greeks Moscovites Armenians Syrians Coptics Abassines and most of the Churches corrupted the Christian Religion by their useless or seducing Fopperies called good Works that they have among them defiled its Purity rejected its Primitive Simplicity obscured and dishonoured its Glory and made it seem contemptible to Mahometans and Heathens and made it less fit to destroy sin and frustrate Satan and to please God and to sanctifie and save mens Souls § 10. II. Were all Sects and Parties of Christians well agreed what Works are truly good it would be a shame to us should we not agree in the main how far they are necessary when the Case is so plain throughout the Scripture I think we are commonly agreed as followeth § 11. 1. Perfect Obedience is not of absolute necessity to Salvation because we are under a Covenant that hath easier terms § 12. 2. The Works of the Mosaical Jewish Law are neither necessary necessitate praecepti vel medii that Law not binding us as such § 13. 3. Obedience to Man's Laws is not necessary when the matter is forbidden us by God's Laws or when they are Laws without power that is such as men have no Authority to make § 14. 4. No Works of special Grace are antecedently necessary to our reception of that Grace oâ— of its necessary means
whether he should take a Potion or a Draught a bit or a morsel or take Ambar or Electrum or Succinum or Carâ—be § 54. And the partial Teachers are the Cause of all this while instead of opening the Doctrine truly to the People in what sence we have or have not any Worthiness or Merit they without distinction cry down Merit and reproach those that do otherwise And if they do but say Such a Man or such a Book speaketh for Merit and Free-will they have sufficiently rendered him odious or much suspected with their followers when yet all sober Christians in all Ages have been for Merit and Free-will in a sound sence And is not this to be Incendiaries and Adversaries to Truth and Love and Peace § 55. I have formerly thought that though we agree in the thing it is best omit the name because the Papists have abused it And I think so still as in such Companies and Cases where the use of it not understood will scandalize men and do more harm than good For why should I use words against mens edification But in other cases I now think it better to keep the word 1. lest we seem to the ignorant to be of another Religion than all the ancient Churches were 2. Lest we harden Papists Greeks and others by denying sound Doctrine in terms which they will think we deny in sence 3. Because our â—enury of Words is such as for my part I remember no other word so fit to substitute instead of Merit or Desert or Worthiness The word Rewardable is long and oft harsh And what other have we And it is nothing else that we mean § 56. Some Papists are against the very word Merit also Some own the word but differ not from the Protestants about the Doctrine some of them ignorantly drive the poor People by ill preaching into carnal Conceits of their own Works and to trust an hundred Fopperies for Salvation But he that readeth most of their School-Doctors must either confess that they differ from us about the meritoriousness of true Gospel-obedience rather in words than in deed and that we really mean the same thing or else he must see with better or worser Eyes than I do I speak not this of them all § 57. And Romaeus who prateth of Merit in point of commutative Iustice disclaimed by the rest and some such other ignorant Scriblers are not to be taken for the Index of their Doctrine nor yet their superstitious abusive Application no more than our Deniers of all Merit are the Index of ours nor the prophane ones abuse of it who are ready when we perswade them to a holy Life to tell us That God saveth not Men for their Holiness or Works and that ours deserve no more than theirs but he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and it is not of him that willeth or runneth § 58. Not only Waldensis Contarenus Ariminensis and many others expresly say as much against Merits as we But Medina and many of the Thâ—mists say the same in Sence and the Scotists and many others say That Merit â—riseth but ex pacto from God's Promise and to be meritorious is no more than to be a Work which God hath promised a Reward to And do any of us deny this § 59. Object But others say That Merit is ex dignitate operum from the worthiness of our Works Ans. Is it the Name Worthiness or the meaning that displeaseth you If the Name read Luke 20. 35. and 21. 36. Acts 5. 41. 2 Thess. 1. 5 11. Râ—v 3. 4. Matth. 8. 10 11 13 37 38. and 22. 8. 1 Cor. 11. 27 29. Eph. 4. 1. Col. 1. 10. 1 Thess. 2. 12. and see whether God use not the same Phrase And as to the Sence one Writer understands what he saith better and another worse and several men may have several Sences but they mostly seem to mean That holy Obedience is in the very nature of it so pleasing to the most holy God as rendereth it apt to be the matter of that Condition on which his Covenant promiseth to reward us the Imperfection being pardoned and we and our Works accepted upon the Redemption wrought by the Merits of Christ and upon his Intercession and presenting them to God And is this to be denied by any Christian Doubtless there is something in the very Nature of Divine Faith Love and Obedience which maketh it fitter to be accepted and rewarded than Infidelity Hatred of God and Sin or Rebellion Speak Christians is it not so And yet it is from God's Promise and meer Bounty only that our Right to the Reward resulteth though the material Aptitude be in the qualification to which that promise is made All this is plain and sure § 60. Obj. But some talk of a Proportion between the Work and the Reward Ans. We commonly hold degrees of Glory according to the degrees of Holiness and if any abusive Doctor mean any more that 's nothing to the rest And it 's pity that Men that are agreed should hate or revile each other as differing § 61. Vasquez the Jesuit is one that is supposed to say most for Merit who saith so much against it as I dare not say For he tells us That God doth not reward us at all as an Act of Justice either Commutative or Distributive Commutative Iustice he easily disapproveth and in that we all agree But the generality of Christians Papists Protestants Greeks c. hold That God rewardeth us in governing-paternal-distributive Iustice as a Father giveth Benefits to a thankful Child that humbly taketh them and not to the contemptuous or rebellious that spit in his Face But Vasquez saith That God hath not so much as Distributive Justice in our Rewards And yet I think he differeth but in words and really meaneth as we all do And he that dare for Words revile Consenters is bolder than I would have any good Man be And yet I doubt not but I and this Writing shall be so reviled by many that differ not from me when they think they do through Faction and Prejudice when I am dead even for these words § 62. IV. The fourth Point is so far dispatched in the second that I need here but to say 1. That our Obedience to God is a Duty resulting from our very natural Being and cannot but be so while we are Men 1. As it is God's due 2. As it is part of the right Order of the Universe and coâ—ducible to common Good 3. As it is our own Order Rectitude and Health 2. That Christ is the Saviour and Physician to give us this Health which is the end of his medicinal Grace 3. That the Soul cannot be complacentially amiable to God nor fit for Communion with him here or in Heaven without it Resignation to God our Owner Obedience to God our Ruler and Love and Praise to God our Father and the infinite Good make up that Holiness which is our