and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office of Iustifying So that although they be all present together in him that is justified yet they justifie not all together So that no man must expect this great Blessing of Justification unless together with Faith he have Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God which supposes that a man must be a true Penitent and a true Lover of God before he is justified Though Repentance and Hope c. have no actual influence upon our Justification yet they are causae sine quibus non such causes without which the effect will never follow which necessarily intitles them to the nature of Conditions for a Condition which hath no natural or meritorious Efficiency is only a causa sine quâ non and though it is true that the accidental presence of one thing with another which produces any Effect will not entitle it to any degree of Efficiency yet where there is such a natural Union between two things that neither of them can act alone though the effect may more immediately belong to one than to the other yet they both concur to it though the hand does immediately apprehend any thing or lay hold on it yet the Shoulder and the Arm is naturally necessary to produce this action because the Hand cannot move of it self And if they will allow us this similitude which they themselves sometimes use that Good VVorks be the Shoulder and Arm that upholds Faith we will allow Faith to be the Hand And thus it is in Moral Causes where the presence of two things of Faith suppose and Works is necessarily required in order to the same Effect there must be a concurrence of both though it may be in different manners When our Church asserts the necessary presence of some internal Graces and Vertues together with Faith in him who is to be justified she plainly acknowledges that we shall never be justified without them though not for them which is all that any one desires who denies and rejects the Merits of Good Works And as these internal Acts of Repentance Hope c. are antecedently necessary to Justification so Good Works must necessarily follow as we are taught in the same place Nor the Faith also doth not shut out the Iustice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards of Duty towards God for we are most bounden to serve God in doing Good Deeds commanded by him in his holy Scripture all the days of our Life but it excludeth them so that we may not do them to this intent to be made good by doing of them that is to be justified by them And this we are taught is so necessary that unless these Good Works follow as the necessary Fruits of Faith we shall loose our Justification again as you heard above In what sense then does our Church reject good Works and attribute our Justification to Faith alone And that we are told over and over in the most plain and express words that it is only to take away the Merit of Good Works and to attribute our Justification to the free Mercy of God and Merits of Christ not to our own Works and Deservings Hence it is that Justification by Works is so often opposed to our Justification by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ which are inconsistent in no other sense but that of Merit for though Good Works be supposed the necessary Conditions of Justification yet if they be acknowledged so imperfect as not to merit we shall still need the Merits of Christ to expiate our sins and the Mercy of God to pardon them and to accept of our imperfect Services But the words of the Homily are very express where after alledging the concurrent Testimonies of the ancient Fathers for Justification without Works by Faith alone we have this Explication given of them Nevertheless this Sentence that we be justified by Faith only is not so meant of them that the said Justifying Faith is alone in man without true Repentance Hope Charity Dread and Fear of God at any time and season nor when they say we be justified freely they mean not that we should or might afterward be idle and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward neither they mean not so to be justified without Good Works that we should do no Good Works at all But this saying that we be justified by Faith only freely and without Works is spoken for to take away clearly all Merit of our Works as being unable to deserve our Justification at Gods hands and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of Man and the goodness of God the great infirmity of our selves and the might and power of God the imperfectness of our own Works and the most abundant Grace of our Saviour Christ and therefore wholly to ascribe the Merit and Deserving of our Justification to Christ only and his most precious blood-shedding Hence for a man to be justified by his own Works is expounded as if we should affirm That a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself That is when they reject Justification by Works they understand by it a meritorious Justification Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we are expresly taught That the true meaning of this Proposition or Saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue or Good Works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the Cause meritorious thereof This is so expresly the Doctrine of the Homilies that I need not multiply Testimonies for the proof of it from whence it is evident that our Church owns the necessity of Good Works to all intents and purposes excepting Merit and in this sense they reject Faith too as it is our own Work But now because our Church and all the Reformed Churches expresly reject Works in the matter of Justification under the notion of Merit and Deserving in which sense alone they are injurious to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ from whence we argue that they own the necessity of Works upon all other Accounts and reject only the Merit of them Some tell us that we should rather argue that they put no difference between Works and the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification but equally reject them both But pray why so Truly for no Reason that I know but that it best serves their Hypothesis They acknowledge that there is a difference between Works and the Merit of Works but will by no means own that
would be a greater blemish to the VVisdom and Justice of God than the necessity of Holiness to our Justification can be to the freeness of his Grace Having explained in what sense our Church rejects Good VVorks from the Office of Justifying viz. That nothing which we can do is so perfect as to merit and deserve Justification it is time to consider what our Church attributes to Faith in the Justification of a Sinner and upon what account she affirms That Faith only justifies And I cannot better explain this than in the words of the Homily it self which are these Truth it is that our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of Iustification that is to say our Works do not merit or deserve remission of our sins and make us of unjust just before God But God of his own Mercy through the only Merits Deservings of his Son Iesus Christ doth justifie us Nevertheless because Faith doth directly send us to Christ for remission of our sins and that by Faith given us of God we embrace the Promise of Gods Mercy and of the remission of our sins which thing none other of our Vertues or Works properly doth therefore Scripture useth to say That Faith without VVorks doth justifie and forasmuch that it is all one Sentence in effect to say Faith without Works and only Faith doth justifie us therefore the old ancient Fathers of the Church from time to time have uttered our Iustification with this speech Only Faith justifieth us meaning none other thing than St. Paul meant when he said Faith without works justifieth us And because all this is brought to pass through the only Merits and Deservings of our Saviour Christ and not through our Merits or through the merit of any Vertue that we have within us or of any Work that cometh from us therefore in that respect of Merit and Deserving we forsake as it were altogether again Faith Works and all other Vertues For our own imperfection is so great through the corruption of original sin that all is unperfect that is within 〈◊〉 Faith Charity Hope Dread Thoughts Words and Works and therefore not apt to merit or deserve any part of our Iustification for us And this form of speaking use we in humbling of our selves to God and to give all the Glory to our Saviour Christ which is best worthy to have it These words are so plain that they need no comment and there are three things contained in them which do evidently declare the sense of our Church in this matter First That our Church does not attribute our Justification to Faith upon account of any Merit or Desert in Faith above other Vertues and Graces for in respect of Merit and Deserving we are taught to forsake again Faith it self as well as Works and all other Vertues As our Works do not merit or deserve remission of our sins no more does Faith Secondly That the reason why our Church attributes our Justification to Faith only is to declare that we owe our Justification wholly to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ That God of his own Mercy through the only Merits and Deservings of his Son Iesus Christ doth justifie us And thus immediately before we are told That the meaning of this Proposition or saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this we put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue or good VVorks of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the Cause meritorious thereof So that whoever attributes the Justification of a Sinner wholly to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ without any other intervening Merit or Desert though he may differ in the phrase and manner of expression yet does acknowledge all that our Church means by being justified by Faith only and cannot justly be charged with deserting or opposing the Doctrin of our Church And therefore Thirdly the true Reason why our Church attributes our Justification to Faith only and not to Justice or Charity or the Love of God or any other Grace or Virtue is this because Faith only connects the necessity of Obedience and a Holy Life with the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ and thereby both secures and enforces our Duty and attributes the glory of all to Free Grace which is the great design of our Church For Justifying Faith according to the sense of our Church as abundantly appears from what I have discoursed above includes in its own nature Repentance and the Love of God and the sincere purposes of a new Life which as opportunity serves must actually produce all the Fruits of Righteousness for without this we cannot embrace the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness which is made upon the condition of Repentance and a new Life But then it is the proper office of Faith when we have done our best to depend upon the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ to pardon our many sins and defects and to accept and reward our imperfect services which attributes the glory of all not to our Merits and Deserts but to the Grace and Mercy of God Thus our Church tells us that the reason why Faith only is said to justifie is because Faith doth directly send us to Christ for Remission of our Sins and that by Faith given us of God we embrace the Promise of Gods Mercy and of the Remission of our Sins which thing none other of our Virtues or Works properly doth That is Justice or Charity or any other Virtue doth not in its own nature include a dependence on the Grace and Mercy of God for its Acceptance and Reward and therefore should we be justified by these Virtues considered as distinct from Faith which alone embraces the Promise of Mercy we must be justified by their proper Merit and Desert not by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ. But now Faith is not only an active and vigorous Principle of a new Life but in its own nature includes a necessary dependence on the Promise of Pardon it sends to Christ for the Remission of our sins not immediately for this is not the first act of Faith but when we have done our best it teaches us to renounce the Merit of our own Works and to trust in the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ for our Pardon and Reward which ascribes the Praise of all to the Mercy of God Upon the same account our Church tells us that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Love Dread and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but yet it shutteth them out from the office of Iustifying so that though they be all present in
him that is justified yet they justifie not all together Where by these good Works being joyned with Faith and being present in him that is justified is meant that they are essential to a Justifying Faith and must be present as antecedent qualifications or conditions without which God will not justifie us as appears from what I have discourst above concerning the nature of Justifying Faith which includes Repentance and the Love of God c. as antecedently necessary to our embracing the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness which is not the first but the last and completing act of Faith For if these good Works be not one way or other necessary to our Justification no reason can be assigned why they should be present in him that is justified for Faith might then justifie alone without the Presence as well as without the Merit and Efficacy of our good Works And therefore when Faith is said to shut out these good Works from the office of Iustifying that though they be all present yet they do not justifie all together the design is not to deny the Necessity but the Merit of good Works This is plain from the Reason which is immediately assigned why these good Works cannot justifie because all the good Works we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our Iustification which is the constant Doctrin of the Homilies For our Church by Justification perpetually understands a meritorious and not a conditional Justification and therefore whatever justifies in this sense must by its own Virtue or Merit expiate our sins which is the reason alledged why no man can make himself righteous that is justifie himself by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest Presumption in Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself SO that is by the Merit and Virtue of his own Works And Faith it self considered as our own Act hath no greater privilege upon this account than any other Grace or Virtue for in respect of Merit and Deserving we forsake altogether again Faith Works and all other Virtues Faith does not justifie as our own Act that is it does not merit our Justification as it must do if it justifie as our own Act which in the sense of our Church signifies that we do something so meritorious as to deserve Justification at Gods hands But now Iustification is the office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him that is we can offer him nothing of our own to merit our Justification but which we receive from him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Iustifier and Saviour Iesus Christ. But for this reason Faith only is said to justifie and to shut out our own Works and itself also considered as our own Act from the office of justifying because though it strongly enforce the Necessity of good Works yet in its own nature it excludes all opinion of Merit and Desert For Faith has a necessary respect to the Promise of Mercy and Forgiveness and whoever acknowledges that he ows his Justification to the Mercy of God who for the sake of Christ pardons his Sins and rewards his Imperfect Services as all those must do who hope to be saved by Faith in the notion of our Church does plainly confess that his Works are imperfect and cannot deserve his Justification which takes away all opinion of Merit from our selves and attributes the glory of all to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ. I shall only observe three things from this Discourse which are very material to our present purpose First that our Church was not acquainted with that Distinction in the modern sense of it that we are justified fide solâ but not solitariâ by Faith alone but not by that Faith which is alone the meaning of which according to some Modern Divines is this That we are justified only by that particular Act of Faith which apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and relies and rolls itself on Christ for Salvation and applies his Merits and Righteousness to the Soul without any regard to Repentance and the Love of God or any other Grace or Virtue That though at the same time God infuse the habits of all Graces and Virtues into a justified person yet in the Act of justifying he hath no regard at all to Repentance or any other Grace but we are justified in order of nature before these are infused into us and without any respect to them And some men would willingly affix this Notion as absurd as it is to our Church because she only requires the presence of these Graces and Virtues in the justified person but shuts them out from the office of Justifying But I have made it appear that these words admit a better sense and that Justification by Faith only in the modern Notion of it so as to exclude the antecedent Necessity of Repentance or any other internal Grace or Virtue is contrary to the constant doctrin of our Church which requires the presence of these Graces as antecedent conditions or qualifications though it shut them out from being the meritorious Causes of Justification And to confirm this I observe secondly that our Church doth not attribute our Justification to any particular Act of Faith She frequently indeed inculcates the embracing of the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness as essential to a justifying Faith but the reason of that is not because that particular Act justifies us but to attribute our Justification not to the Merit of our own works but to the Mercy of God But she expresly affirms that Faith doth not justifie as our own Act that Justification is not the office of Man but of God and if we be not justified by Faith as our own Act much less can any particular Act of Faith which if it be considered as an Act must be considered as our own Act justifie which overthrows that Instrumentality of Faith in Justification which these men talk of but the plain meaning of our being justified by Faith only is this that God will pardon our sins and reward us with eternal life if we repent of our sins and believe and obey the Gospel of his Son trusting wholly in the Mercies of God and in the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ as it is exprest at large in the Homily That the true understanding and meaning of our being justified by Faith without Works or by Faith in Christ only is this that although we hear Gods Word and believe it although we have Faith Hope Charity and do never so many good Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all the said Virtues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Virtues and good deeds which
we either have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Iustification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Iesus Christ the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of our Original Sin in Baptism as of all actual Sins committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and unfeignedly turn to him All this is called being justified by Faith only which includes a renouncing the Merits and Deserts of our own Works but first requires that we should do good Works before we renounce the Merit of them and an affiance in the Mercy of God for Pardon and Forgiveness upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life This is all I contend for which is the Antient Catholick Doctrin of our Church against those modern notions of Reliance and Recumbency or the virtue of any particular Act of Faith in the Justification of a Sinner Thirdly I observe that should any man affirm in express words that we are justified by Works as well as by Faith meaning no more by it than that good Works are the necessary Conditions not the meritorious Causes of our Justification though he would differ in the manner of expression yet he would agree with our Church in the true notion of Justification whereas those who use the same phrase of being justified by Faith only and by Faith without Works thereby excluding the antecedent necessity of Repentance and Holiness to our Justification though they retain the same form of words yet renounce the constant Doctrin of our Church and are the only Apostates and Innovators Which may satisfie any man how unjustly I am charged with corrupting the Doctrin of our Church when I have only expressed the true sense and meaning of it in such words as are less liable to be mistaken and how vainly my Adversaries pretend to be such Obedient Sons of the Church of England when under an Orthodox Form of Words they have introduced such Doctrins as are diametrically opposite to the declared sense of this Church After this large and particular Account of the Doctrin of the Church of England concerning the Justification of a Sinner it is time in the second place to consider how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and how those men whom I oppose have corrupted the Doctrin as well as rejected the Authority of our Church And though I have already given sufficient Intimations of this yet it may be of great use more particularly to shew how directly opposite these new and fantastick Notions are to the establisht Doctrin contained in our Articles and Homilies which though it would admit of a very large Discourse I shall comprize in as few words as may be And first whereas our Church expresly asserts that in the Justification of a Sinner on Gods part is required Mercy and Grace Justification consisting in the free Pardon of all our sins Mr. Ferguson very agreeably indeed to his own Principles expresly asserts that Justification does not consist in the Pardon of sin nor is it the result of Mercy but the off-spring of Justice Remission as he acknowledges is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising Favour but Iustification is the off spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity This Notion I have examined already and shall add nothing further for the Confutation of it It is directly contrary to the Doctrin of our Homilies and I hope that is Argument enough with these men who pretend such a mighty veneration for the Antient and Catholick Doctrin of our Church But then if any man should wonder as well he may how a Sinner should be justified in this Law-notion according to the strict Rules of Justice that is that a Sinner is justified not by being pardoned but by being acquitted and absolved as an innocent man who has never offended the account of this will farther discover what Friends they are to the Doctrin of our Church For secondly whereas the Church of England requires no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the Price of our Redemption which makes him the meritorious Cause of our Iustification that God for Christs sake forgives the sins of true Penitents these men place our Justification in the Imputation of Christs personal Righteousness to us They tell us that Christ as our Surety and Mediator hath fulfilled all Righteousness for us and in our stead and that by being clothed with his perfect Righteousness we are accounted perfectly righteous and so are justified not as Malefactors when they are pardoned but as righteous and innocent men who are acquitted and absolved And I have already informed Mr. Ferguson how effectually this Notion undermines the necessity of an inherent Righteousness To be justified by the Merits of Christ signifies no more than to be justified by the gracious Terms and Conditions of the Gospel which is founded on the Merits of Christ which was purchased and sealed with his meritorious Bloud For the Merits of Christ do not immediately justifie any man but whereas strict Justice will not admit of Repentance nor accept of an imperfect though sincere Obedience God has for the sake of Christ who hath expiated our sins by his Death entered into a Covenant of Grace and Mercy wherein he promises Pardon to true Penitents and this necessarily requires an inherent Holiness not to merit but to qualifie us for the Grace of God But if we be made righteous by a perfect Righteousness imputed to us if this will answer all the demands of Law and Justice what need is there of an imperfect Righteousness of our own The Righteousness of Christ imputed to us makes us righteous as Christ is and what need is there then of any Righteousness of our own which would be according to the Proverb to burn day and to light up Candles in the Sun Dr. Owen takes notice of this Objection and pretends to give an Answer to it which must be a little considered for a little will serve the turn And first he observes that here is a great difference if it were no more than that this Righteousness was inherent in Christ and properly his own it is only reckoned and imputed to us or freely bestowed on us But does not this Imputation make it ours How then can we answer the demands of the Law with it Is any thing the less ours because it is not originally ours but so by Gift And the Doctor was sensible that this Answer would not do and therefore secondly he tells us the Truth is that Christ was not righteous with that Righteousness for himself but for us How plain are things when men will speak out So that now
Does it not as much belong to a supreme and unaccountable Judge to pardon as to absolve And is not Pardon as properly opposed to Condemnation as Absolution is But to let all this pass it is worth considering how our Author in his way can explain Justification in a proper sense He tells us that the proper notion of Justification is to acquit and absolve the Innocent suppose this to be true though it may admit of some dispute whether this forensick use of the word be its proper sense I would willingly learn of our Author how a Sinner can be justified in this proper sense that is how he who hath broken the Laws of God can be acquitted and absolved as innocent how God who cannot lie can declare that that man hath never broken his Laws nor done any thing amiss who is a Sinner Yes says our Author this may be done very well by the imputation of the perfect Righteousness of Christ to Sinners which makes them perfectly innocent suppose this to be true yet is this the proper notion of Justification that a Sinner is innocent and righteous by Imputation Is there no difference then between an imputed and an inherent and personal Righteousness Justification in a proper sense requires a Personal Righteousness and Innocency and I doubt it will require some good lusty tropes to make an imputed Righteousness the matter of our Justification in this Law-notion So that for ought I can see the imputation of Righteousness in his gross notion is as metaphorical a Justification as the Pardon of sin though not half so good sense But I have not thus done with our Author There are three things more which I would desire him to consider at his leisure and to answer when he is able The first is this That Pardon of Sin whether it be a proper or metaphorical Justification is the true Scripture-notion of the Justification of a Sinner Justification indeed in its full extent and latitude signifies the acceptation of our Persons and the restoring us to a state of Grace and Favour with God which is somewhat more than bare Remission but the first Act of Justification on Gods part and that which draws all the rest after it is the Pardon of our Sins this is a Sinners Righteousness wherewith he must appear before God This is the Commission which Christ gave to his Disciples To preach Remission of Sins in his Name this is the great Priviledge of the Gospel that now by Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. xiii 39. That is that now Christ hath made a tonement and expiation for those sins for which the Law of Moses did appoint no Sacrifice Where to be justified signifies to be delivered from the guilt and condemnation of Sin that is to be pardoned But not to heap up many Testimonies I shall principally insist on the Fourth Chapter to the Romans as being the proper Seat of this Controversie There St. Paul enquires by what means our Father Abraham was justified before God And in answer to it he tells us that Abraham was not justified by Works but by Faith Where by Works the Apostle does not mean only the Works of the Mosaical Law an External and Ceremonial Righteousness for he proceeds to that in the tenth verse but he seems principally to intend a perfect and unsinning Righteousness Let us then examine what the Apostle means by Justification by Faith what this Righteousness of Faith is as it is opposed to a Righteousness of Works and there are four expressions whereby this Righteousness is described which signifie one and the same thing That it is an imputed Righteousness vers 3 6. that it is a Righteousness without Works that it is a Justification of the ungodly vers 5. that it consists in the Pardon of Sin vers 7 8. I shall begin with the last because this is Mr. Ferguson's grand Charge against me That I place Iustification in the forgiveness of Sin but so does our Apostle and alledges the Authority of the Prophet David for it Even as David also deseribeth the blessedness of that man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin vers 6 7 8. This is the Justification of Faith in opposition to Justification by Works that those who heartily believe in God as Abraham did though they have been formerly guilty of many sins and are still subject to many infirmities and defects yet God for Christs sake will forgive their past sins and their present imperfections and will reward them above the Deserts and Merits of their Works A Righteousness of Works consists in Innocency and Perfection but a Righteousness of Faith in Sincerity and Pardon Upon this account it is called an imputed Righteousness Faith was accounted and reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness and blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth Righteousness Which signifies that this is matter of Grace not of Debt for to him that worketh is the reward reckoned not of Grace but of Debt When a man is justified by Works he is absolved because he is innocent and rewarded because he hath merited a Reward which is the Justification for which Mr. Ferguson pleads in a direct opposition to St. Paul but Justification by Faith requires the favour and acceptance of God because though it includes an honest and sincere mind and a readiness to do our best to please God yet it is consistent with a great many infirmities and miscarriages and defects which cannot pass the trial of strict Justice and this is imputed Righteousness when God accepts of that for our Righteousness and Justification which in a strict sense is not Righteousness Whatever is imputed to us for Righteousness must be good but imperfect If it be not good it is no part of Righteousness and therefore cannot be imputed instead of the whole and if it be perfect there is no need of this gracious acceptation it is then a strict and proper not an imputed Righteousness Upon the same account it is called a Righteousness without Works vers 6. Which must not be understood in such a loose sense as if God would justifie a man who does nothing which is good as if he would account that man righteous who does no Righteousness which is expresly contrary to the Doctrine of St. Iohn 1 Epist. iii. 7. But the meaning is either that God sometimes accepts of great and generous Acts of Faith instead of Works when there is no occasion or opportunity of Action which was the case of Abraham when he believed in hope against hope that he should have a Son in his old Age to which the Apostle principally refers in the 5th verse when he tells us That to him that worketh not but believeth his Faith is counted for Righteousness Or
else a Righteousness without Works signifies a Righteousness without the Perfection of Works and therefore the Apostle makes a Righteousness without Works the same with an imputed Righteousness and both of them to consist in forgiveness of sins even as David also describeth the blessedness of that man to whom the Lord imputeth Righteousness without Works saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered So that forgiveness of sins which supposeth an imperfect and defective Righteousness if we will believe our Apostle is a description of Righteousness without Works Upon the same account it is called Justifying the Ungodly vers 5. which can by no means signifie that God will justifie a wicked man while he continues wicked for this is a plain contradiction to the whole Gospel but it signifies that God will justifie those who though they have been wicked which was the case of Abraham and the Gentile-World yet return to him by a hearty Repentance and a true lively Faith Justification by Works requires a perpetual Innocency and Blamelesness of Life for a man who ever was a Sinner can never be justified by Works in this sense because he can never be innocent again it being impossible that that should never have been which has been But now the Righteousness of Faith which consists in the forgiveness of sins makes him Righteous who has been a Sinner and is still an imperfect Saint not that such a man never was a Sinner but that God doth not impute his sins to him This is the Apostles account of Evangelical Righteousness and Justification that it is an imputed Righteousness a Righteousness without Works a Justifying the Ungodly or which is the sum of all that it consists in the Pardon of Sin And now let our Author tell the Apostle That this is to turn plain Scripture into Metaphors and that it is inconsistent with the Immutability and Essential Holiness of God But secondly I have something more to say to Mr. Ferguson which I suppose will be of some weight with him viz. That all the Reformed Churches are for that Metaphorical Justification which he rejects that is they place our Justification in the forgiveness of sin Thus the French Church declares in her Confession which Beza presented to Charles IX in the Name of that Church Credimus totam nostram justitiam positam esse in peccatorum nostrorum remissione quae sit etiam ut testatur David unica nosâ—â—a a selicitas i. e. We believe that our WHOLE RIGHTEOUSNESS consists in the pardon of our sins which also as David witnesseth is our ONLY Blessedness In sola Iesu Christi obedientia prorsus acquiescimus quae quidem nobis imputatur tum ut tegantur omnia nostra peccata tum etiam ut gratiam coram Deo naniscamur And we rest wholly in the Obedience of Jesus Christ which is imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may obtain grace and favour with God By which last words we learn what they and other Protestant Churches mean by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness and resting on the Obedience and Righteousness of Christ not that his Righteousness is so imputed to us as to make us formally righteous and to answer the demands of the Law which exacts an unsinning Obedience but it is so imputed to us that for the sake of Christ God forgives our sins and receives us into favour Thus the Helvetian Confession tells us Iustificare significat Apostolo in disputatione de Iustificatione peccata remittere à culpa poena absolvere in gratiam recipere justum pronunciare To justifie according to the Apostles sense of it in his dispute of Justification signifies to forgive sins to absolve from guilt punishment to receive into a state of favour and to pronounce such a person just and righteous that is not just as an innocent but as a pardon'd man Nor is the Scotch-Confession more Orthodox in this point For giving an account of those benefits we receive by the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ it sums them up in this Deus Pater nos in corpore Iesu Christi Filii sui intuetur imperfectam nostram obedientiam quasi perfectam acceptat omniaque opera nostra quae in se multis maculis foedantur perfecta justitia filii sui tegit i. e. God the Father beholds us as Members of Christs Body accepts our imperfect Obedience as if it were perfect and covers all our works which in themselves are defiled with many spots and blemishes with the perfect Righteousness of his Son So that according to the sense of this Church to which our Author ought to pay some Reverence we are not acquitted and absolved as innocent Persons by the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness but for Christs sake God accepts our imperfect Obedience as if it were perfect and covers all the imperfections and defects of our Works with the perfect Righteousness of his Son that is pardons all our sins for the sake of Christs perfect Righteousness The Augustan Confession is very express in this matter and so is their Apology Consequi remissionem peccatorum est justificari juxta illud beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates To obtain the pardon of sin is to be justified according to that saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven Thus the Churches of Bohemia declare their sense Per Christum homines gratis fide in Christum per misericordiam justificari salutem remissionem peccatorum consequi That to be justified is to obtain the pardon of sin and salvation freely by Christ. Thus we read in the Dutch Confession Credimus omnem felicitatem nostram sitam esse in peccatorum nostrorum remissione quae est in Christo Iesu eaque unica totam nostram justitiam coram Deo contineri We believe that our whole Happiness consists in the forgiveness of sins which is by Jesus Christ and that in this alone consists our WHOLE Righteousness before God And to conclude with our own Church in the Homily of Salvation we are taught that our Iustification consists in the forgiveness of sin and that this Iustification and Righteousness which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification I do not urge the Consent of Reformed Churches as if I thought their Authority sufficient to determine us in this matter they had no Authority but Reason and Scripture nor did they pretend to any other which is the true Principle of the Protestant Reformation There are but three sorts of Authority of any moment in Religion viz. The Authority of Divine Inspiration the Authority of Testimony and the Authority of Discipline and Order The Authority of Divine Inspiration is peculiar to Christ and his Apostles who spoke by an Infallible Spirit and is now confined to the holy Scriptures which are the only Infallible Rule of
most precious Iewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully paid the Law fulfilled and his Iustice satisfied There is no Controversie between us about this matter that it was an expression of the undeserved Goodness of God to send Christ into the World to save Sinners And secondly The Mercy of God is seen in the very Act of Justifying us in accepting this Atonement and in forgiving our sins Thus we are informed in the second part of that Sermon of Salvation Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so Justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ. Bywhich words it is very plain what is understood by Justification being Gods Act and not Mans that is that it is an Act of Favour and Grace not of Merit and Desert Though God may be said to Justifie an Innocent Man when he pronounces him Just and Righteous according to Law which is the proper office of a Judge i. e. to acquit an Innocent Man when he is arraigned yet in this case an Innocent Man may be said to Justifie himself because he is Justified by his own Actions and God only like a Just and Righteous Judge pronounces the Sentence of Justification that is acquits and absolves him as his actions deserve which strict Justice requires But in the Justification of a Sinner who dares not stand the trial of strict Justice but appeals to the Grace and Mercy of God Justification is properly Gods Act and not Mans is owing to the Divine Grace and Mercy not to Mans Merit and Desert Upon the same account we are told in the same place that not our own Act to believe in Christ or that this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth not justifie us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves Which I confess sounds very like what some men say That Faith doth not justifie us as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and applies it to us by which Righteousness thus apprehended by Faith we are justified but there is nothing less meant in this place as will appear from considering the whole Sentence which is this So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear Gods Word and believe it and do never so many Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all our said Vertues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds which we have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve Remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again The meaning of which is plain that we are not justified by Faith as our own act as we are not justified by Hope and Charity as our own acts that is that they cannot merit our Justification or the Forgiveness of our sins When we have done the best we can we must still fly to the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ that distinction of Faiths justifying not as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and cloaths us with the perfect Robes of his Righteousness for which God accounts us perfectly Righteous is of a later date than these Homilies and very inconsistent with the Doctrine contained in them Thus you see what Gods part is in the Justification of a Sinner viz. To provide a Ransom and to forgive sins in vertue of that Ransom that is to justifie those who according to the strictness and rigor of the Law are not Just and Righteous Persons Thus to conclude this in the words of the Homily You have heard the Office of God in our Iustification and how we receive it of him freely by his Mercy without our Deserts Let us now consider what is Christs part in our Justification and that is expressed by Iustice that is the satisfaction of Iustice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and shedding of his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly The plain meaning of which is that we are justified for the sake of Christs Merits that his Obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God in dying for our sins and in fulfilling the Law is the meritorious cause of our Justification that is did deserve at Gods hands that for Christs sake he should pardon all humble penitent and believing Sinners This is all the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which our Church acknowledges that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious Cause of our Justification Thus we are told That Infants being baptized and dying in their Infancy are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins brought to Gods favour and made his Children and Inheritors of his Kingdom of Heaven And they which in act or deed do sin after their Baptism when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice from their sins in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation Which is to the same sense with that of St. Iohn that if we walk in the light as he is in the light if we are holy as God is we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Iohn i. 7. And to this sense our Church expounds those Texts Rom. iii. All have offended and have need of the Glory of God but are justified freely by his Grace by Redemption which is in Iesus Christ whom God hath set forth to us for a Reconciler and Peace-maker through
faith in his Blood to shew his Righteousness And in the Tenth Chapter Christ is the end of the Law unto Righteousness to every man that believeth And in the Eighth Chapter That which was impossible by the Law in as much as it was weak by the flesh God sending his own Son in the similitude of sinful flesh by sin damned sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us which walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Which Texts are alledged by our Modern Divines to prove the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us as the formal cause of our Justification but our Church expresly tells us that she understands these Texts to signifie no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice. And whereas these new Divines make such a difference between the Active and Passive Righteousness of Christ that by his Death and Sufferings he expiated our Sins and by his Active Obedience makes us righteous Our Church knows no difference in this matter but assures us that they both concur to the same effect to make satisfaction for our sins He made satisfaction to Gods Iustice by the offering of his Body and shedding his Blood with fulfilling the Law perfectly and throughly Which account I expresly gave of it in my former Discourse p. 330. Edit 2. p. 231. In this sense we are taught that Christ is now the Righteousness of all them that truly believe in him he for them paid their Ransom by his Death he for them fulfilled the Law in his Life So that now in him and by him every true Christian Man may be called a fulfiller of the Law for asmuch as that which their infirmity lacked Christs Iustice hath supplied Which last clause the Looking-Glass-Maker thought fit to leave out for he had so much wit in his anger as to see that it did not make to his purpose for the meaning of it is this that Christs active and passive Righteousness is imputed to us to procure the pardon of our sins thereby to supply the defects of our Righteousness not to make us formally righteous though our Righteousness be imperfect and defective yet Christ by his Righteousness having obtained the pardon of our sins we may be said in him to fulfil the Law in as much as that which our Infirmity lacked Christs Iustice his Merit and Satisfaction as it is before explained hath supplied And once for all our Church tells us what she means by being justified by Christ only We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue and good works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do to deserve the same Christ himself being the only cause meritorious thereof So that the plain sense of our Church is that Christs part in our Justification is only to be the meritorious cause of it to merit Pardon and Justification for all those who heartily believe in him And who-ever of our Communion have affirmed any more they have in so doing plainly deserted the Doctrine of our Church And therefore Doctor Prideaux himself does expresly disown the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ in any other sense than that of Merit Iustificamur per justitiam Christi non personae quâ ipse vestitus est sed meriti quâ suos vestit nobis imputatam that is We are justified by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us not by his Personal Righteousness as Dr. Owen affirms with which he is cloathed himself but with the Righteousness of Merit with which he cloaths those who belong to him And in answer to a passage out of Bellarmine he adds Quis unquam è nostris nos per justitiam Christi imputatam formaliter justificari asseruit that is Who among us ever affirmed that we were formally justified by the imputed Righteousness of Christ. And as the learned Forbs observes it sounds very like a contradiction to assert that the Righteousness of Christ is both the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification Nequit enim fieri ut eadem res simul fit causa efficiens ad quam meritum reducitur formalis ejusdem effecti quia sic simul de essentia effecti foret non foret cùm causa formalis interna sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 efficiens autem externa tantum ut constat that is It cannot be that the same thing should be both the efficient as Merit is and the formal cause of the same effect for so it must both be of the essence and not of the essence of the effect for a formal cause is internal and belongs to the nature and essence of the thing but an efficient is an external cause as every one knows And therefore when the Learned Bishop Davenant asserts the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us to be the formal cause of our Justification and explains it by our being justified ex intuitu meritorum Christi propter Christum with respect to the Merits of Christ and for Christs sake though he uses a different phrase which too many since have abused to bad purposes yet he seems to mean no more by it than we do who say that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification for that must be explained by the same phrases of being justified for Christs sake and with respect to the Merits of Christ and indeed the only difference the Bishop makes between the Righteousness of Christ being the meritorious and the formal cause of our Justification is no more but this that in the first case he considers the Merits of Christ absolutely as the price of our Redemption in the second he considers those same Merits of Christ applied to particular persons for the pardon of their particular sins which still makes it no more than a meritorious cause His words are these Eadem unica justitia Christi in se suo valore considerata est meritoria causa humanae justificationis considerata autem quatenus imputatur donatur applicatur tanquam sua singulis credentibus in Christum insitis subit vicem causae formalis And that he intends no more by a formal cause than what others express by a meritorious cause is plain in this that he acknowledges the imputation even of Christs active Righteousness only in the sense of Merit He expresses his agreement with Vasques in this matter who acknowledges the imputation of the Merit of Christs active Obedience Cùm dicimus Merita Christi nobis imputari idem de justitia sanctitate illius existimamus nam cùm Merita Christi ex sanctitate ejus dignitatem accipiant eodem sensu quo Merita nobis dicuntur imputari ipsa etiam Iustitia Christi imputari dicitur that is When we say that
Scripture which is not as the foresaid Faith idle unfruitful and dead but worketh by Charity as St. Paul declareth Gal. v. which as the other vain Faith is called a dead Faith so this may be called a quick or lively Faith This is the true lively and unfeigned Christian Faith and is not in the mouth and outward Profession only but it liveth and stirreth inwardly in the heart And this Faith is not without hope and trust in God nor without the love of God and of our Neighbours nor without the fear of God nor without the desire to hear Gods Word and to follow the same in eschewing evil and doing gladly all good works This Faith as St. Paul describes it is the sure ground and foundation of the benefits which we ought to look for and trust â—o receive of God a certificate and sure looking for them although they yet sensibly appear not unto us c. This I think is as plain as words can make it that the only Foundation of our Hope and Trust in God and of our expectation of all temporal and spiritual good things from him is a lively and working Faith and upon these terms I will dispute with no man I never asserted more my self nor desire any other man should But to make it more evident what the sense of our Church is concerning the necessity of Good Works we are taught in these Homilies three things concerning Faith First That it is essential to true Faith to be fruitful in good Works when it hath the Opportunities of Action This Faith doth not lie dead in the heart but is lively and fruitful in bringing forth good Works That as the Light cannot be hid but will shew forth it self at one place or other so a true Faith cannot be kept secret but when occasion is offered it will break out and shew it self by Good Works And as the living Body of a Man ever exerciseth such things as belong to a natural and living Body for nourishment and preservation of the same as it hath need opportunity and occasion even so the Soul that hath a lively Faith in it will be doing alway some good Work which shall declare that it is living and will not be unoccupied Therefore when men hear in the Scriptures so high commendation of Faith that it maketh us to please God to live with God and to be the Children of God If then they phantasie that they be set at liberty from doing all good Works and may live as they lust they trifle with God and deceive themselves and it is a manifest token that they be far from having the true lively Faith also far from knowledge what true Faith meaneth And then follows that excellent Description of Faith which I have transcribed above From this it is very plain that our Church accounts a holy Life as essential to a true Faith as Action is to Life and that true Faith is discovered by a holy Life just as an inward Principle of Life is discovered by external and visible Actions This is farther proved in the Homily from the examples of all good men in former Ages whose Faith was fruitful in good Works such as Abel Noah Abraham Isaac Iacob c. and from the Testimony of the holy Scripture especially of the 1 Epist. of S. Iohn where there are so many express testimonies to this Truth and by refuting the several pretences of those men who fancy that they believe in God and love him though they either live in sin or neglect to obey his Laws the conclusion of all is in these words So they that be Christians and have received the knowledge of God and of Christs Merits and yet of a set purpose do live idly without good works thinking the name of a naked faith to be either sufficient for them or else setting their minds upon vain pleasures of this World do live in sin without repentance not uttering the Fruits that do belong to such an high Profession upon such presumptuous Persons and wilful Sinners must needs remain the great vengeance of God and eternal punishment in Hell prepared for the unjust and wicked Livers The second thing which we are taught of Faith is That Faith is the only Principle of Good Works acceptable and pleasing to God that without it can no good Work be done accepted and pleasant unto God for as a Branch cannot bear Fruit of it self saith our Saviour Christ except it abide in the Vine so cannot you except you abide in me And without Faith it is impossible to please God And whatever work is done without Faith is sin Faith giveth life to the Soul and they be as much dead to God who lack Faith as they be to the World whose Bodies lack Souls This is a true account why no Works though they may appear never so good can be acceptable to God without Faith because Faith is the only Principle of a new and spiritual Life which makes us alive to God which gives us such a sense of God and reverence for his Authority as makes us careful in all things to please him which is the very life and soul of Religion and all Vertue and as it is observed in that Homily from St. Chrysostom As men that be very men indeed first have life and after be nourished so must our Faith in Christ go before and after be nourished with good Works A Life may be without Nourishment that is for some short time but Nourishment cannot be without Life A man must needs be nourished by good Works but first he must have Faith He that doth good Deeds yet without Faith he hath no Life Much to the same purpose it is observed from St. Augustine That the intent maketh the Works good but Faith must guide and order the intent of Man So that he which doth not his good Works with a godly intent a true Faith that worketh by Love the whole Body besides that is to say all the whole number of his Works is dark and hath no light in them for good Deeds be not measured by the facts themselves and so discerned from Vices but by the ends and intents for which they were done The meaning then of our Church is no more but this That whereas without Faith no man can love and reverence God or design to please him in all things whatever materially Good Works such men may do yet they are not properly Acts of Religion as not being referred to God and therefore cannot be acceptable to God as such nor avail any man to eternal Life Upon this account it is that God so much prizes Faith because it is the Seed and Principle of Universal Obedience that when there is such a sincere Principle in us and wants an opportunity of exerting it self it is accepted by God without Works as is observed in the same place from St. Chrysostom I can shew a man that by Faith without Works
lived and came to Heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him though as Bishop Davenant observes his Faith produced a great many good Works in a very short time but then it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again but this is the effect that I say that Faith by it self saved him but Works by themselves never justified any man Where he prefers Faith above Works because Faith being a Universal Principle of Obedience is accepted by God without Works when there wants time or opportunity to act them though in no other case but no Works can be pleasing and acceptable to God unless they proceed from a true and hearty Faith Neither Faith is without Works having opportunity thereto nor Works can avail to everlasting Life without Faith The third thing noted of Faith is What manner of Good Works Faith produces and the Good Works of Faith are not some external Acts of Hypocrisie or some worthless and flattering Devotions not some Arbitrary Superstitions c. but are the substantial Duties of Religion which consist in the love of God and of Men which make us like to God and useful to the World as is excellently discoursed in the Second and Third parts of the Homily of Good Works So that according to the sense of our Church Justifying Faith is not an idle and unactive Principle but is fruitful in Good Works and no other Faith can justifie us but such a lively Faith as abounds in all the Fruits of Righteousness according as it hath occasion and opportunity of doing good But to make this still more evident I observe farther that whereas our Church seems to lay the greatest stress upon one particular Act of Faith in the matter of Justification viz. our trust in the Mercy of God and our apprehending the Promise of Forgiveness through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ she also makes a good Life or at least a firm and stedfast Resolution of a good Life antecedently necessary to this Justifying Act of Faith or to our Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord and Saviour This is evident from that Reason which is assigned why no wicked men can have a sure Trust and Confidence in Gods Mercy For how can any man have this true Faith this sure confidence in God that by the Merits of Christ his sins be forgiven and be reconciled to the favour of God and to be partaker of the Kingdom of Heaven by Christ when he liveth ungodly and denieth Christ in his Deeds Surely no such ungodly man can have this Faith and trust in God For as they know Christ to be the only Saviour of the World so they know also that wicked men shall not enjoy the Kingdom of God They know that God hateth Unrighteousness that he will destroy all those that speak untruly that those who have done good Works which cannot be done without a lively Faith in Christ shall come forth into the Resurrection of Life and those that have done evil shall come unto the Resurrection of Iudgment Very well they know also that to them that be contentious and to them that will not be obedient unto the Truth but will obey Unrighteousness shall come indignation wrath and affliction c. The plain meaning of which words is this that no wicked man can have a true Faith in Gods Mercy because the Promise of forgiveness is made upon the Conditions of Repentance and a New Life whereas God hath threatned eternal damnation against all wicked Livers and therefore for any man while he lives in wickedness to hope to be pardoned by God for Christs sake is an express contradiction to the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel and surely no man shall be justified for believing a lie Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Faith the design of which is to prove that a true lively justifying Faith is fruitful in Good Works we are expresly taught That he that believeth that all that is spoken of God in the Bible is true and yet liveth so ungodly that he cannot look to enjoy the Promises and Benefits of God although it may be said that such a man hath a Faith and Belief to the Words of God yet it is not properly said that he believeth in God or hath such a Faith and Trust in God whereby he may surely look for Grace Mercy and everlasting Life at Gods hands but rather for indignation and punishment according to the merits of his wicked Life This contains the very same Doctrine which was expressed in the former Paragraph farther gives us an account what distinction our Church makes between Credere Deo Credere in Deum to believe God and to believe in God the first signifies to believe whatever is contained in the Word of God to be true the second is to yield such Obedience to the Revelations of the Divine Will as may encourage us to trust in God for the Accomplishment of all those gracious Promises of Pardon and Eternal Life This is all the fiducial Reliance which our Church teacheth to trust to the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ for Pardon and Eternal Life upon our faithful discharge of all Gospel-Obedience The same Doctrine is more expresly taught if it be possible in the Second Part of the Sermon of Faith Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth in me hath everlasting Life Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ hath everlasting Life it must needs consequently follow that he that hath this Faith must have also Good Works and be studious to observe Gods Commandments obediently For to them that have evil Works and lead their Life in Disobedience and Transgression or breaking Gods Commandments without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith They that do well shall go into Life eternal but they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire c. What can be more expresly said to prove the inseparable Union of Good Works with Faith in the Act of Justification In the Homily of Repentance this Doctrine is so plainly taught that there can be no possible evasion We are there told That the true Preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the glad and joyful tidings of Salvation have always in their godly Sermons and Preachings unto the People joyned these two together Repentance and Forgiveness of sins even as our Saviour Jesus Christ did appoint himself saying So it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day and that Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations Forgiveness of sins as I observed before is Evangelical Justification and the necessary condition of Forgiveness is Repentance This is proved in that
Homily by many Scripture-Promises and Examples and therefore we must consider what our Church means by Repentance and the explication of this is reduced to four principal Points From what we must return to whom we must return by whom we may be able to convert and the manner how to turn to God First From whence or from what things we must return and that is From all our sins not only grosser vices but the filthy lusts and inward concupiscences of the Flesh. All these things must they forsake that will truly turn unto the Lord and repent aright For sith for such things the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience no end of punishment ought to be look'd for as long as we continue in such things But this must be done by Faith for sith that God is a Spirit he can by no other means be apprehended and taken hold upon That is God being a Spirit we cannot see him with bodily Eyes nor go to him on our Legs nor take hold of him with an Arm of Flesh and therefore this Metaphor of returning to God and going to him and taking hold of him must be expounded to a spiritual sense is the work of Faith which discovers him who is invisible and unites our Souls and Spirits to him And We have need of a Mediator for to bring and reconcile us unto him who for our sins is angry with us the same is Jesus Christ who being true and natural God c. took our nature upon him that so he might be a Mediator between God and us and pacifie his wrath In the second part of the Homily we have this general Description of Repentance That it is a true Returning unto God whereby men forsaking utterly their Idolatry and Wickedness do with a lively Faith embrace love and worship the true living GOD only and give themselves to all manner of good Works which by Gods Word they know to be acceptable unto him And we are there informed That there are four Parts of Repentance the first is Contrition of the Heart For we must be earnestly sorry for our sins and unfeignedly lament and bewail that we have by them so grievously offended our most bounteous and merciful God c. The second is an unfeigned Confession and acknowledging of our sins to God The third is Faith whereby we do apprehend and take hold upon the Promises of God touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins which Promises are sealed up unto us with the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Reason of this is because Contrition and Confession will avail us nothing unless we stedfastly believe and be fully perswaded that God for his Son Jesus Christs sake will forgive us all our sins for though we be never so earnestly sorry for our sins and acknowledge and confess them yet all these things shall be but means to bring us to utter desparation except we do stedfastly believe that God our heavenly Father will for his Son Jesus Christs sake pardon and forgive us our Offences and Trespasses and utterly put them out of remembrance in his sight therefore they that teach Repentance without Christ and a lively Faith in the Mercy of God do only teach Cains or Iudas Repentance That is they teach men to be sorry for their sins without any hopes of Pardon and Forgiveness which is only to be obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ. The fourth part of Repentance is an amendment of Life in bringing forth fruits worthy of Repentance for they that do truly repent must be clean alter'd and changed they must become New Creatures they must be no more the same that they were before As appears from Iohn the Baptists Exhortation to the Scribes and Pharisees whereby we do learn that if we will have the wrath of God to be pacified we must in no wise dissemble but turn unto him again with a true and sound Repentance which may be known and declared by good Fruits as by most sure and infallible signs thereof This I think is as plain as words can make it that Repentance which consists in a hearty sorrow for all our sins and in a humble Confession of them to Almighty God and in a sincere Faith and Trust in the Mercies of God through our Lord Jesus Christ together with an actual amendment of our lives is according to the sense of our Church absolutely necessary to obtain the pardon of our sins that is Iustification by the free Grace of God This has often made me wonder that any one should affix such a Doctrine as this to the Church of England That Repentance it self is not antecedently necessary to our Iustification I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant was of another mind in this point for he expresly asserts that there are some Works sine quibus Iustificatio nunquam fuit ab ullo mortalium obtenta nunquam obtinebitur without which Justification never was and never shall be obtained by any mortal man among which he reckons true Repentance and Faith and the love of God and of our Neighbour Haec hujusmodi opera cordis interna sunt omnibus justificatis necessaria non quod contineant in se efficaciam seu meritum Iustificationis sed quod juxta ordinationem divinam vel requiruntur ut conditiones praeviae seu concurrentes sicuti poenitere credere vel ut effecta à fide justificante necessario manantia ut amare Deum c. i. e. These and such-like internal Works of the Heart are necessary to all that are justified not that they are meritorious Causes of Justification but because according to the Divine Appointment they are required either as previous or concurring conditions such as Repentance and Faith or as effects which necessarily flow from a justifying Faith such as to love God c. Where this Learned Prelate doth expresly assert that Repentance as well as Faith is a previous Condition of our Justification and I fear will hereafter be accounted one of our Innovators And that distinction which the Bishop makes between those Works which are required as previous Conditions of Justification as to repent and believe and those Works which are necessary Effects of justifying Faith which must always be present in the justified Person as to love God c. gives a plain and easie answer to the grand Exception against the antecedent necessity of Repentance to our Justification viz. Because then it must precede Faith it self I suppose because every true Believer is actually justified in the first instant of his being a true Believer whereas all good Works and therefore Repentance and Contrition which are certainly good Works are the Effects and Fruits of Faith and so consequently must follow our Justification by Faith unless we will place the Effects before their Cause But this is absolutely false that all good Works are the effects and fruits of justifying Faith for there are some good Works which
are essential to justifying Faith and it is not justifying Faith without them such as Repentance and Contrition without which no Faith is a true justifying Faith and therefore we may observe in our Homilies that sometimes Faith is made an essential part of Repentance sometimes Repentance is made essential to a justifying Faith as appears from what I have discoursed above The reason of the mistake is this That these men do not distinguish between the general notion of Faith and Iustifying Faith Faith in general as it signifies a belief of the Being and Providence of God and the Truth of the Scriptures c. is necessary to produce any good Actions for without Faith it is impossible to please God but this bare Assent of the Understanding is not justifying Faith till it excite in us a hearty sorrow for our sins and sincere purposes of a New Life and a great Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ So that Repentance and the Purpose of a New Life are at least essential to justifying Faith and not the fruits and effects of it but the actual performance of these Vows and Promises and the faithful discharge of our Duty to God and Men in a holy and blameless Life may be called the effects of justifying Faith not that they are not as necessary to a justifying Faith as Repentance is but because our Justification is begun without them God in infinite Grace and Mercy receiving us into favour upon our first return to him though these good Works must necessarily follow to compleat and perfect our Justification as it is expresly observed from St. Chrysostom in the Homily of Good Works concerning the Thief upon the Cross that if he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again And in this sense we are told in the Homily of Salvation That Faith doth not shut out the justice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards that is after our Justification of Duty towards God And upon the same account our Church in her XII Article teaches us That Good Works are the Fruits of Faith and follow those who are Iustified And this gives an easie and plain account of the XIII Article of our Church which rejects those Works which are done before Justification that is before a Iustifying Faith as is plain from the Article Works done before the Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Iesus Christ neither do they make men meet to receive Grace or as the School-Authors say deserve Grace of Congruity yea rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done we doubt not but that they have the nature of Sin The plain meaning of which is this That Works done before Justifying Faith are not pleasing to God that is whatever Works we do before we repent of our sins and purpose to live a New Life and trust in the Mercy of God and Merits of our Saviour for Pardon and Acceptance cannot please God because such are not Good Works for when we reject Works done before Justification we must not reject Justifying Faith it self nor any thing which is necessary and essential to it for then we run our selves into such a Labyrinth out of which we shall never find a way And indeed I find that some men are very sensible what weight our Church lays upon the necessity of Repentance in order to our Justification and use some little Arts to avoid it for that Description of Faith which is given us in the first part of the Sermon of Faith concluding thus We do trust that our offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart stedfastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin Which maks Repentance of our sins and a sincere and stedfast purpose of a new life antecedently necessary to the justfying Act of Faith they use this evasion that the Homily adds Whensoever we repenting return to him either with respect to future sins to the forgiveness of which we all acknowledge Repentance to be necessary or else to distinguish a saving from a counterfeit and sudden Faith not as if true Evangelical Repentance had any influence upon the very Act of Iustification as Faith has The first account is the strangest that ever I met with for there can be no imaginable reason assigned why Repentance should be necessary to obtain the Pardon of those sins which we commit after Justification and not necessary to our first Justification I am sure neither the Scripture nor the Articles and Homilies of our Church nor the Confessions of any Reformed Churches which I ever yet saw ever made such a distinction The Commission which our Saviour gave to his Apostles was to preach Repentance and Forgiveness of sins in his Name to the unconverted and unjustified Jews and Heathens and both the Homilies of our Church and the Augustan-Confession do in express words found the Doctrine of Repentance upon that first Commission given to the Apostles and do thence conclude the necessity of Repentance in order to Forgiveness for since Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins a repeated Forgiveness is but a repeated Justification of a Sinner and why that should be necessary to the after-acts of Justification which was not necessary to the first is beyond my Understanding The second account is much better that it is to distinguish between a saving and a counterfeit Faith but then this very distinction confirms the antecedent necessity of Repentance to Justification for the difference between a saving and counterfeit Faith according to this Account is that a saving Faith supposes Repentance or includes it in its very nature but a counterfeit Faith does not as for what they add that Evangelical Repentance hath not such an influence upon our Justification as Faith has is none of our present dispute if it be but acknowledged to be antecedently necessary we will consider the rest hereafter And now it is time to proceed to the last thing I proposed to consider what our Church attributes to Faith in the matter of our Justification And to state this matter plainly I shall first enquire in what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And secondly what the Office of Faith is in the Justification of a Sinner First In what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And it is easily observed that our Church acknowledges the antecedent necessity of some Works to our Justification as we are expresly taught in the first part of the Sermon of Salvation And yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread
St. Paul or any of the Reformed Churches made any which is not very honourably said of them that they should make no difference where there is one which argues either a great deal of ignorance or meer Sophistry But pray why do they think so Why because St. Paul always opposes our Justification by Works whatever they are to Justification by Grace and therefore by Works he must understand the Merit of Works because only Merit is opposed to Grace So we say too but what follows from hence That the Apostle rejects all Works though they are separated from the notion of Merit This is to make the Apostle argue very absurdly that because he rejects Works when they are inconsistent with Grace therefore he should reject Works when they are not inconsistent with Grace as by this Argument they are not when they are separated from the notion and opinion of Merit And what they add That it is plain that the Apostle excludes all sorts of Works of what kind soever from our Justification is very true but then they are all sorts of Meritorious Works that is such a perfect legal unsinning Righteousness as needs not the Grace and Mercy of God not such an Evangelical Righteousness as ows its acceptance to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ. The only Argument they have to prove that the Church of England and all the Reformed Churches make no difference between Works and the Merit of Works is because where-ever they reject Justification by Works they expresly mention their Merit and Deserving which is the best Argument that can be that they do make a difference otherwise there had been no need of that Explication especially when they assert the necessity of Good Works upon all other accounts as our Church expresly doth In the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we find these words Truth it is that our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of our Iustification that is to say our Works do not merit or deserve Remission of our sins and make us of unjust just before God What need had there been of this Explication to speak properly of Iustification that is to say to merit and deserve if our Church had apprehended no difference between Works and Merit between a proper and improper Justification by Works I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant makes a great difference between the necessity of Works and the Merit of Works in the Justification of a Sinner for in answer to that Question Utrum bona Opera dici possint ad Iustificationem vel Salutem necessaria Whether Good Works may be said to be necessary to Justification or Salvation In his first Conclusion he tells us that in dispute with the Papists it is not safe to say so because they always by necessary understand necessary as Causes vera propria sua dignitate meritorias humanae salutis which by their own proper worth and dignity merit Salvation What need had there been of this Caution if the necessity of Good Works to Justification and the Merit of Works had been the same In the fourth Conclusion he tells us That no Good Works are necessary to Justification if by necessary we understand sub ratione causae meritoriae necessariae as necessary meritorious Causes And in the fifth Conclusion he expresly tells us Bona quaedam Opera sunt necessaria ad Iustificationem ut conditiones concurrentes vel praecursoriae licet non sint necessaria ut causae efficientes aut meritoriae That some Good Works are necessary to Justification as previous or concurring Causes though not as efficient or meritorious So that it seems that this distinction between the Necessity and Merit of Works was known and defended by the great Patrons of our Church and we have no reason to think that when our Church does so expresly reject Works only under the notion of Merit she understood no difference between Necessity and Merit And I find in an ancient Book intitled Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum which was composed by Archbishop Cranmer and Peter Martyr and some other Bishops and Learned Men of this Church by the Authority of King Edward the Sixth that where they give an account of those Heresies which ought to be suppressed all they say about Justification is no more but this Deinde nec illi sunt audiendi quorum impietas salutarem in sacris Scripturis fundatam Iustificationis nostrae doctrinam oppugnant in qua tenendum est non operum momentis Iustitiam hominum collocari i. e. Neither must we hearken to them who impiously oppose that saving Doctrine of Justification which is founded on the Scriptures concerning which we must believe that the Righteousness or Justification of Men does not depend on the Merits of their Works So that they only reject the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification The Confessions of Foreign Reformed Churches are as plain and express in this matter as the Homilies of our Church In the Apology for the Augustan-Confession we are told That good Works are not pretium nec propitiatio propter quam detur remissio peccatorum They are not the price nor the propitiation for our sins And the reason they assign why they oppose Justification by Works is because it detracts from the Glory of Christ and sets up our Works in competition with Christ utrum fiducia collocanda sit in Christum an in opera nostra Whether we should put our trust in Christ or in our own Works which can be understood only in that sense of the Merit of Works and is no Argument against Works when they are subordinate to the Merit and Grace of Christ. But not to trouble my Readers with many quotations I shall add but one more which is their Answer to that Objection from St. Iames who expresly says That we are justified by Works and not by Faith only Si non assuant adversarii suas opiniones de meritis operum Iacobi verba nihil habent incommodi c. If our Adversaries would not annex their own opinions concerning Merit of Works there is no inconvenience in St. Iames his words So that they were not shy of this expression of being justified by Works so men would not imagine that their Justification were owing to the Merit of Works which is no less than a demonstration that they made a distinction between VVorks and Merit in the matter of Justification But there is one very surprizing Argument to prove that there can be no difference between Works and Merit in the matter of Justification and it is this That if we be justified by Works without respect to their Merit then we may as well be justified by Works of an indifferent nature which have no intrinsick worth and goodness in them as by the most real and substantial Righteousness for take away Merit and it is all one what the nature of the Work be Now the only difficulty of framing an Answer
to this Argument is to find what there is to be answered To be justified by Works without Merit if any men phrase it so can signifie no more but this that God for Christs sake forgives the sins and accepts the Persons of those who though they be guilty of many Infirmites yet do heartily and sincerely endeavour to please him and by the practise of a real Righteousness do every day aspire after a greater likeness to him now the question is Why since these men do not merit such favours should God prefer them before those who busie themselves in some external Rites and Ceremonies or Judaical Observances which have no real Goodness in them And I can give no other account of it but that it is for the same reason for which God prefers an Evangelical before a Ceremonial Righteousness and if there be no reason for this excepting Merit I confess the Argument is unanswerable Is there no reason why God should prefer the internal Habits of Grace and Vertue which are a participation of his own Nature and the beginnings though but weak and imperfect of a new and spiritual Life and the best qualifications for future Glory and Happiness before some external Rites and Usages which have no real worth Is there no reason why God should prefer the substantial Acts of Piety and Charity which are useful to Men and an imitation of the bounty and goodness of God before picking up straws and such useless and ludicrous Employments Is there no difference between Works which are imperfectly good and Works which have no goodness in them But I think it is a Work of Supererogation though not very meritorious to answer such an Argument But now in requital of this Argument against the distinction between Works and Merit I shall give another for it and that is That our Church makes nothing more necessary on our part to our Salvation than to our Justification and therefore when she rejects Good Works from the Office of Justifying if she intends to deny the Necessity as well as the Merit of Good Works she must be understood to deny the necessity of Good Works to our Salvation also which is an express Contradiction to her declared Doctrine There is no such distinction as this between Justification and Salvation to be found in any of the Articles or Homilies of our Church which is a good Argument that our Church knew no such distinction for if she had we cannot but think that she would have made use of it in express terms at one time or other there being the same occasion for it then that there is now The Sermon or Homily of Justification is called the Sermon of Salvation and these words Iustification and Salvation are promiscuously used in the Homily it self Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we have these words at the beginning It hath been manifestly declared unto you that no man can fulfil the Law of God and therefore by the Law all men are condemned whereupon it followeth necessarily that some other thing should be required for our SALVATION than the Law and that is a true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Where Salvation must of necessity signifie what at other times is called Justification for our Church tells us that we cannot be saved by the Works of the Law because we cannot fulfil the Law which is the reason at other times assigned why we cannot be Iustified by the Law Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God Which are the very first words of the Sermon of Salvation And what is here required for our Salvation is the very same which in other places our Church requires to our Justification viz. A true and lively Faith in Christ bringing forth Good Works and a Life according to Gods Commandments Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Good Works our Church cites those words of S. Chrysostom I can shew a man that by Faith without Works lived came to heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him this is an Example of living and going to Heaven by Faith without Works that the Thief was justified by Faith only so that to be justified by Faith and to live and go to Heaven by Faith it seems are equivalent expressions as appears also from what follows And because no man shall say again that he lacked time to do good VVorks for else he would have done them Truth it is and I will not contend therein but this I will surely affirm that Faith only SAVED him So that to be justified and to be saved by Faith still signifies the same thing and in the same sense wherein our Church affirms that we may be justified by Faith only she affirms that we may be saved by Faith only which therefore must not exclude the Necessity but the Merit of Good Works and whenever Faith only will not justifie it will not save neither as it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again That is his Justification as appears from the whole Discourse The Learned Bishop Davenant certainly was not acquainted with this distinction when he proposed that Question Utrum bona Opera sint necessaria ad Iustificationem vel Salutem Whether Good Works be necessary to Justification or Salvation and answers it without making any difference between their necessity to Justification and to Salvation which is not very reconcileable with our Modern Divinity in which good Works are so far from being owned necessary that they are judged dangerous and hurtful in reference to Justification though they may be necessary to our Salvation And indeed this distinction between Justification and Salvation was on purpose invented to mollifie some harsh expressions of later Divines who rejected good Works and a holy Life from having any thing to do in the Justification of a Sinner This gave birth to the Antinomian Heresie which wholly rejects the Law and good VVorks and under a pretence of advancing the freeness of Gods Grace delivers Believers from all the necessary Obligations of Duty and Obedience to prevent the infection of this Doctrine they invented this distinction between Justification and Salvation and asserted that though Good VVorks are not necessary to our Justification yet they are to our Salvation which is as much as to say that though our sins shall be pardoned and our persons accepted and accounted perfectly righteous and have an actual Right and Title to future Glory without Holiness and Obedience yet we shall never have an actual Possession of Glory but upon the condition of an holy Life which were it true
he pretends to he had been so far from justifying the Nonconformists that he had given a fatal blow to those ridiculous People who declaim against the Use of Reason But for ought I see they may talk at their old rate still for all Mr. Ferguson Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè But to wave this only wishing that some young Sophister and there are many of them that are equal Matches for this Fanatick Professor would undertake to correct his insolent humour and teach him to treat Des-Cartes with greater Reverence I shall only inform him at present against he writes next what he should write about for I find he has abundance to say when it is nothing to the purpose but either does not or will not understand what he should oppose nor what he should vindicate I was not so silly as to oppose a sober use of Metaphors no not in matters of Religion as Mr. Ferguson would fain insinuate nor did I concern my self about their slovenly and Kitchin-Metaphors though it is a great prophanation of sacred things to make such gross and fulsom representations of them as must needs disgust more refined and spiritual minds and expose Religion to the Scoffs and Drollery of Atheistical Wits But my Quarrel with them is that they confound and darken the most plain and material notions in Religion by metaphorical Descriptions and turn the Scriptures themselves into an Allegory or Romance and of this they are guilty several ways First By thrusting Metaphors into Definitions this Mr. Ferguson himself does in express words condemn and therefore I would desire him in behalf of himself and his Friends to give me a Definition of Justifying Faith agreeable to their Principles without a Metaphor in it Could I once see this I doubt not but all our Disputes about Faith and Justification would be at an end and yet this he is bound to do if he will be true to his own Rules for he acknowledges that every thing spoken metaphorically is spoken obscurely with respect to expressing the nature of things And accordingly in assigning the definitions of things metaphorical terms are to be avoided because as Aristotle says as Mr. Ferguson might learn from many Modern Authors without ever seeing Aristotle though he should be so ingenuous as to own his Masters they do not declare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what a thing is but only what it is like to when any thing is manifested by a Metaphor the thing it self is not fully expressed but only some similitude betwixt it and another And what he adds is so great and useful a Truth that it is sufficient to expiate all the Fooleries of his Book because it will confute them all That there is not any thing relating to Doctrine or Manners delivered in the Scripture metaphorically which is not somewhere or other either explicitly or implicitly expressed in terms that are proper one place being a Key to the unlocking another And yet after all this I never could yet hear any thing but Metaphors from these men in their Definitions or Descriptions of Justifying Faith Justifying Faith is either a coming to Christ or receiving Christ or embracing Christ or a looking fiducially on Christ or leaning and resting and rolling on Christ and his Righteousness for Salvation Now what are all these but Metaphors taken from material and sensible things Which can never give us any intelligible notion of Faith though they may serve for illustration when we first understand its nature And yet as if this were not sufficiently obscure already most of them make each of these distinct acts of Faith which in order of nature precede each other We must first come to Christ and then we must receive him and then we must look fiducially on him and then we must lean and rest and roll our Souls on him and then we must lay him in our Bosoms and embrace him in our Arms and when we have done all this we shall be very understanding Believers if we have but a good Fancy to distinguish between the Legs and Hands and Arms and Eyes and Bosom of Faith I do not speak this in Mirth and Drollery but with a just Indignation to see the Religion of our Saviour transformed into a Work of Fancy and with a hearty pity for those deluded People who are fed with such thin and airy Notions The plain notion of Justifying Faith stript of all Metaphors and Figures can be no other than this Such a firm and sted fast Assent to all the Revelations of the Gospel as governs our Hearts and Lives by the Laws of it Or to give a larger Explication of it It is such an Assent to whatever Christ hath revealed concerning the Nature and Will of God or his own Nature Offices and Mediation the Rules of Life and Practice and the Rewards and Punishments of the next Life as does effectually determine our Wills to the Obedience of his Holy Laws To receive Christ in all his Offices when it is explained comes to the very same sense To believe all the Revelations of Christ as he is our Prophet to acknowledge the Vertue and Merit of his Sacrifice and Intercession as he is our Priest and to expect our acceptance with God for his sake upon condition of our obeying his Laws and submitting to his Government as he is our King But these men could never be perswaded to talk without Metaphors which would spoil all the Shiboleths of their Party and make them look like dull Moralists and yet I shall once more challenge Mr. Ferguson in compliance with his own Rules to give me a Definition of Justifying Faith agreeable to his notions of Justification without a Metaphor and if he cannot do this as he will be a wonderful man if he can I would desire him to consider how dangerous it is to transcribe good Rules out of good Books without understanding the Consequences of them Secondly Another fault which they are guilty of in the use of Metaphors is that they expound one Metaphor by another this Mr. Ferguson very justly condemns For Metaphors properly signifying one thing and being applied to signifie another only because of some resemblance we are therefore in our sensing of Metaphors to remove the metaphorical term and to substitute in its room that word which properly signifies the thing whereof we conceive the former to have been only a figure To paraphrase Metaphors in metaphorick terms is instead of making them intelligible to continue them dark and mysterious Now if this be a fault as I perfectly agree with Mr. Ferguson that it is he would do well to correct those men which might be taken more kindly from him who do not only explain one Metaphor by another but pursue a single Metaphor till they have forc'd it into an Allegory I gave one short instance of this in my former Discourse with respect to the Marriage between Christ and Believers And whereas our Author justifies such
put to it when they are forc'd to take Sanctuary in the Authority of that Church which they so much reproach and vilifie when they dare not trust to any other Weapon to defend their Cause but the despised name of the Church of England Those I am sure must be very blind who cannot see through so transparent a Cheat. The meaning then of all this noise about the Church of England is no more but this They are conscious to themselves of a bad Cause which they can no longer defend by plain Scripture and Reason and therefore shelter themselves in the Authority of the Church and would fain perswade the Bishops and the Church of England to defend them since they cannot defend themselves and having little else to say they make long Harangues about Articles and Homilies and pretend a mighty Zeal for the True Ancient and Catholick Doctrine of the Church of England And now methinks the Church of England and the Reverend Bishops are very much beholden to me for they have not had so many good words from these men in many years before and must never expect the like again but upon such another occasion and I hope the People will begin to consider what a Church they have forsaken whose Authority is much greater than all other Arguments with their own Teachers But I see it is very dangerous to be too much in love with any thing for this great zeal and passion for the Doctrine of the Church of England has betrayed the Doctor and his good Friend the Author of the Speculum to some hasty Sayings of which it may be they may see cause to repent when they are better advised They are great Friends you must know to Liberty and Indulgence and take it very ill if they may not only think and act as they please in matters of Religion but make Parties and Factions too and controul the Commands of Secular Powers and yet these very men who so much extol and magnifie an Indulgence and so much need it give plain intimations how far they would be from granting that Liberty to others which they challenge to themselves The Doctor tells me There is great reason to pity the People committed to my Charge what regard soever ought to be had unto my self i. e. though I should starve for want of my Rectorship as he expresses himself elsewhere Had this man in their days treated this Doctrine with his present scoffing petulancy he had scarce been Rector of St. George Buttolph-Lane c. Nor should I be so now could he hinder it But what becomes of Liberty and Indulgence then in matters of Religion Must the Conscience be set free in matters of External Order and Government but tied up in Doctrines and Opinions This indeed is the Doctors avowed Principle as great a Friend as he is to Liberty He would be excused himself from subscribing Three of the XXXIX Articles but as for the other XXXVI he would have no man suffered to live in England who will not subscribe them and the Doctor can remember when he proposed this very unseasonably The Author of the Speculum desires his Friend to bid me consider whether if the Parliament should meet they might not find leisure enough to censure my Discourse as they did Mr. Mountague ' s who in vain pleaded for himself that he had writ against the Puritans and was left alone to suffer though others had instigated him to write The Commons of England will scarce endure to find the Doctrine of the Church of England struck at though it be through the sides of Dr. Owen and Dr. Jacomb But now suppose the Commons of England should think it as reasonable to secure the Government and Discipline as the Doctrine of the Church what would become then of Indulgence Would not our Author then change his Note and repent of such Intimations as these Or if the Commons of England should happen to have other thoughts of that Discourse than our Author has and should think it necessary to prevent the Debauching of Mens Minds by such corrupt Doctrines as are there opposed what would become of most of the Conventicles in England Could he with any Confidence then cry out of Persecution when he himself hath sounded the Alarm to it This it is to fence with a two-edged Sword which cuts both ways and may wound a Friend as soon as an Enemy This is sufficient in answer to my Adversaries who are well skill'd at drawing up a Charge but have no faculty at proving it But I think my self upon this occasion concerned to vindicate the Doctrine of the Church of England from the mis-representations of these men as if it favoured such uncouth and absurd notions as besides the ill consequences of them have no foundation in Scripture or Reason which I doubt may represent the best Church in the World to great disadvantage with many I mean with all wife and considering men The principal thing which these Men object against me is the Doctrine of Justification as it is explained in the Articles and Homilies of our Church And I am contented the Controversie should be put upon this issue whether they or I speak most consonantly to the Doctrine of the Church of England in this matter The Doctrine of Justification is contained in Article XI which is this We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Merits and Deservings Wherefore that we are Iustified by Faith only is a most wholsom Doctrine and very full of comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Iustification The Article is plain and expressed in a few words without any Scholastical Subtilties we are not clogged here with the several Modes of Causality with the Efficient Formal Material Instrumental Causes of Justification which fill up every Page in the Books of Modern Divines All that our Church requires us to profess is only this that we are accounted Righteous before God only by Faith and for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that neither Faith nor Works are the Meritorious Cause of our Justification but that all the Merit of it is to be attributed to Christ who died for our sins and fulfilled the Law so that whoever acknowledges the Merits of Christ and denies the Merits of Good Works answers the end and design of this Article For this was the great Controversie of those days between the Papists and Protestants whether we were Justified freely by the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ or by the Merits of our own Works and the principal design of this Article was to oppose the Popish Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works But we are referred to the Homily of Justification for a larger Account of this Doctrine and thither I willingly appeal And to proceed with all possible ingenuity I readily acknowledge that there are several Expressions in
that Homily which seem to favour that notion of our Justification by the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness though that phrase of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness is nowhere used throughout the whole Homily but if we will take that Explication which the Homily it self gives of them it will evidently appear that there was no such thing intended by them I shall produce these expressions in their proper places and in the management of this Argument shall First explain the sense of our Church concerning the Doctrine of Justification out of the Homilies of Salvation Faith Good Works and Repentance And Secondly Show you how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and what a just reason this is for a more particular explication of those Expressions which occasioned the corruption of the wholsom Doctrine of our Church First I shall enquire what is the true sense of the Church of England concerning the Doctrine of Justification And first I observe that our Church places the nature and essence of Justification in the forgiveness of sins This is evident from the very first words of the Homily Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law Commandments therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another Righteousness or Iustification to be received at Gods own hands that is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended And this Iustification or Righteousness the forgiveness of sins which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification So that our full and perfect Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins whereby God over-looking what we have done amiss deals with us as with Righteous Persons that is bestows Eternal Life on us The Homily takes notice of two ways of Justification The first is by our own Works when we live so innocently and vertuously as to be acquitted and absolved by God according to the strict Rules of Law and Justice But in this way no Sinner can be justified for the Law justifies no man who is a Transgressor of the Law and therefore since we are all Sinners and can neither expiate our past sins nor perfectly keep the Law for the future it is impossible that we should be justified by our own Acts and Deeds It remains therefore that no Sinner can be justified or accounted Just and Righteous before God without the pardon and forgiveness of his Sins this is the Justification and Righteousness of a Sinner that God forgives his wilful sins and covers all the defects of his good Actions for when the sin is pardoned and covered the man is innocent and righteous Now this Account I am sure cannot please Dr. Owen and his Friends who look upon the forgiveness of sin but as one part of our Justification and that the most inconsiderable too which only makes us innocent and delivers us from the condemnation of the Law but cannot entitle us to future Happiness besides Innocency as they tell us there is required a perfect Righteousness the first is owing to the Death of Christ which expiates our sins the second to the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness to us which makes us perfectly just and righteous this is a down-right contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church which teaches us that God accepts and allows of this forgiveness of sin for our full and perfect Iustification And indeed forgiveness of sins is a true Evangelical way of Justification in opposition to a Legal Justification which consists in perfect and unsinning Obedience the first our Church requires but the Doctor and his Friends exact the latter a perfect Righteousness of Works for as the Doctor observes Life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety All the difference the Doctor knows between the Law and the Gospel is only this that the Law required a perfect Righteousness from every man in his own Person the Gospel accepts of a perfect Righteousness in the Person of our Mediator but still we are justified by a Legal not Evangelical Righteousness that is by a Righteousness of Works not by pardon and forgiveness And it has been before observed by some learned men that to place our Justification in the forgiveness of our sins as our Church doth and in the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us as others do are not very consistent For by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are Legally Righteous or have a perfect Righteousness of Works and Forgiveness of sins and a perfect Righteousness destroy each other for if we are perfectly Righteous whether in our own Persons or by Imputation we need no Forgiveness and if we need Forgiveness it is plain that God does not so much as impute a perfect Righteousness to us So that when our Church places the whole nature of our Justification in the Forgiveness of sins it is a good Argument that she never thought of a Legal Righteousness of Works of the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness and Obedience to make us righteous before God But for a fuller Explication of this Doctrine of Justification we are taught in that Homily that there are especially three things which must go together in our Iustification upon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace upon Christs part Iustice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and sheddidg his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us This is a much more intelligible way of explaining the Doctrine of Justification than by the Material Formal Efficient Instrumental Causes and such-like terms of Art which need more explication than the Doctrine it self and therefore I shall follow this method and reduce the Doctrine of the Homilies under these three Heads What is Gods part what is Christs part and what is required on Mans part in the business of Justification First Let us consider what is Gods part in the Justification of a Sinner and that is the Mercy and Grace of God which expresses it self first in providing a Ransom for us as it is expressed in the Homily That our Iustification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God and of so great and free mercy that whereas all the World was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their Ransom it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy without any our Desert or Deserving to prepare for us the
the Merits of Christ are imputed to us we understand the same thing of his Holiness and active Righteousness for since his Purity and Holiness gave worth and dignity to his Merits in the same sense wherein his Merits are said to be imputed to us his active Righteousness and Obedience is imputed also So that the Bishop never thought that the Obedience and Righteousness of Christ is so made ours that we are accounted by God to have done the same things to have performed all that Righteousness which Christ performed which is the modern notion of Imputation but it is so imputed to us that upon account of the Merits of Christs Life and Death God forgives the Sins and accepts the Persons of those who heartily believe in him as the same Learned and Reverend Person excellently explains it soon after Where he tells us that we are delivered from the Law by Faith in Christ Whosoever believes in him shall not perish and shall not come into condemnation or into Iudgment as he reads it Iohn v. 24. and adds What Iudgment is this from which Believers are delivered by Christ Proculdubio strictum illud ubi juxta normam legis aliquis examinatur prout deprehenditur huic norme respondere justus aut injustus pronunciatur c. No doubt that strict Judgment where men are examined according to the Rule of the Law and are pronounced just or unjust as they are found to agree with that Rule Iustificatio igitur salus credentium non ex eo dependet quod habent in se qualitatem nova justitiae quam audent legali examini stricto Dei judicio subjicere sed quod per propter Merita Redemptoris non subituri sunt tale judicium sed perinde cum illis agetur ac si haberent in seipsis exactam justitiam legalem Therefore the Justification and Salvation of Believers does not depend on this that they have such an internal Righteousness as they dare submit to a legal Tryal and to the strict and rigorous Judgment of God but that by and for the Merits of their Redeemer hey shall never undergo such a Judgment but shall be dealt with as if they had an exact legal Righteousness of their own And this he tells us hemeans by the Merits of Christ being the formal cause of our Iustification and in this sense I heartily own it though the abuse of that Phrase is a sufficient Reason to alter it Let us now consider in the third place what is required on our part in order to our Justification by Gods Mercy and by Christs Merits and that is plainly expressed in the Homily And upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us That we may the better understand this we must enquire What is meant by this Faith in the Merits of Christ And what is meant by a true and lively Faith in Christs Merits And what our Church attributes to this Faith in the Work of Justification First What is meant by Faith in the Merits of Christ Now the general Notion of Faith is that it is a perswasion and belief in mans heart whereby he knoweth that there is a God and agreeth unto all Truth of Gods most holy Word contained in the holy Scripture This is such a Faith as Devils and wicked Men may have But then a Faith in Christs Merits or a true justifying Faith such as no wicked men can have is not only the common belief of the Articles of Faith but it is also a true trust and confidence of the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a sted fast hope of all good things to be received at Gods hand and that although we through infirmity or temptation of our ghostly Enemy do fall from him by sin yet if we return again to him by true Repentance that he will forgive and forget our offences for his Sons sake our Saviour Jesus Christ and will make us Inheritors with him of his everlasting Kingdom and that in the mean time till that Kingdom come he will be our Protector and Defender in all perils and dangers whatsoever do chance and that though sometimes he doth send us sharp adversity yet that evermore he will be a loving Father unto us if we trust in him and commit our selves wholly unto him hang only upon him and call upon him ready to obey and serve him That is a Faith in the Merits of Christ is a sure Hope and Confidence in God a certain Expectation of all temporal and spiritual good things from God for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the condition of Repentance and a new Life or as it is excellently expressed a little after in the same Homily For the very sure and lively Christian Faith is not only to believe all things of God contained in holy Scripture but also is an earnest trust and confidence in God that he doth regard us and that he is careful over us as the Father is over the Child whom he doth love and that he will be merciful to us for his only Sons sake and that we have our Saviour Christ our perpetual Advocate and Priest in whose only Merits Oblation and Suffering we do trust that our Offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart sted fastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin So that Justifying Faith according to the sense of our Church is not a perswasion that our sins are actually pardoned or that God for Christs sake will forgive our sins without requiring any more of us than to believe that he will forgive them But it is a firm perswasion that God will forgive our sins for Christs sake if we repent of our sins and forsake them and determine through his gracious assistance never to return to them again But we shall understand this the better if we consider secondly what is meant by a true lively Faith in Christs Merits for our Church distinguishes between a dead and a lively Faith A dead Faith is by the holy Apostle St. James compared to the faith of Devils which believe God to be true and just and tremble for fear yet they do nothing well but all evil And such a manner of Faith have the wicked and naughty Christian People which confess God as St. Paul saith in their mouth but deny him in their deeds being abominable and without the right faith and to all good works reprovable And Forasmuch as Faith without Works is dead it is not now Faith as a dead Man is not a Man This dead Faith therefore is not the sure and substantial Faith which saveth Sinners Let us now consider what a lively Faith is and the description of that follows in these words Another Faith there is in
Sinner himself or some other in his stead the Sinner cannot suffer the just desert of sin without being Eternally miserable and none else could expiate our sins but only the Son of God incarnate who by being Man was capable of suffering and by being God gave an infinite value to his sufferings answerable to the infinite demerit of sin So that if God be as necessarily Good as he is Just his Goodness did as necessarily determine him to provide a ransom for sinners as his Justice did to punish sin and there being no other possible way of doing this but by the Incarnation and Sufferings of his own Son the Death of Christ is as necessary an effect of the Justice and Goodness of the Divine Nature as Light is of the Sun Thus though Christ died for our sins yet we cannot meerly from the Death of Christ certainly conclude that he died for all or only for some that he died for us absolutely or conditionally for the extent and efficacy of Christ's Death as well as his Death it self depends upon the Will and Counsel of God and therefore cannot be known without a Revelation Christ fulfilled all Righteousness but we cannot hence conclude that he fulfilled all Righteousness for us and that we are accounted righteous for the sake of his perfect Righteousness imputed to us for he might fulfil Righteousness for a great many other reasons and this is the most unlikely reason of all The same may be said of those choice Conclusions from Christ's being our Head and Husband our Surety and Mediator our Physician and Shepherd and Rock and Life c. Whatever Conclusions we draw from these which are not revealed in the Scripture are at best very uncertain and lubricous because all these Revelations and Offices of our Saviour with their extent and vertue and manner of their execution depend upon the free Counsel of God and therefore can be known only by Revelation Indeed those who argue and reason from an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ seem to be aware of this and therefore they endeavour to reduce the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ to necessary causes that God could not do otherwise and that Mankind could not be saved in any other way which is enough to prejudice all wise men against the whole Systeme of their Divinity and yet they can take no other course to uphold their cause for if it be once supposed that this may be otherwise all their Arguments will be found weak and unconcluding Thus for instance if we suppose that God may forgive true Penitents without exacting satisfaction this destroys their Notion of a natural Vindictive Justice and their wild conceit about the nature of Christ's satisfaction which is built on it as if it were only to gratifie an inexorable revenge If it be supposed that God may forgive our sins and accept and reward our sincere though imperfect services for the sake of Christ's Death and Sufferings and Righteousness without accounting us perfectly innocent and perfectly righteous with the Righteousness of Christ if God may for Christ's sake dispense with the rigour and severity of the Law and accept of sincerity instead of perfection than all their Arguments for the necessity of imputation in their notion of it fall to the ground If Christ may be our Surety and Mediator and yet not be obliged to fulfil all Righteousness in our stead if Christ may fulfil all Righteousness and yet this Righteousness not be imputed to us if the antecedent necessity of Repentance and a new Life may be reconciled with the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ than to be sure it is not necessary it should be otherwise and then all their Arguments are weak and fallacious for if they do not conclude necessarily then the contrary may be true And is it not strange presumption for any men to say that there is no other possible way for God to save Sinners than what they have described in their ill-digested Systemes and yet all their Arguments from an acquaintance with Christ's Person proceed upon this and can never be made good without it For if they be not necessarily true they may be false And if they may be false they are no good foundation for our Faith We have an excellent instance of this in Mr. Ferguson's way of proving the Mystery of the Trinity from its necessary connexion with the Doctrine of Original Sin For the Mystery of the Trinity hath a necessary Connexion with the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of an infinite Person hath the like Connexion with the necessity of satisfying Divine Iustice in order to dispensing of Pardon to repenting Offenders and the necessity of satisfying Iustice for the end aforesaid hath a necessary Connexion with the Doctrine of the corruption of Mankind and the corruption of Humane Nature is both fully confessed and may be demonstrated by reason And thus the Mystery of the Trinity is at last demonstrated by reason that is from the wickedness and degeneracy of Mankind And thus they reason in other cases they prove the necessity of a Vindictive Justice and the necessity of Satisfaction and the necessity of the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God and the necessity of his fulfilling Righteousness and the necessity of Imputation nay a necessity of the Divine Decrees themselves For the Arguments which they commonly alleadge in these cases if they have any force in them must prove all this to be necessary and without this can prove nothing else When we discourse of the free Counsels and Purposes of the Divine Will we must learn from Revelation what God has done and what he will do not argue what he must do Or we may confirm our Faith by considering how fit and becoming it is and how agreeable to the Divine Nature and Perfections or at most may argue probably from some collateral Circumstances to prove the thing likely and probable an instance of which I gave at large in my former discourse but we must pretend to know no more of matters of pure Revelation than what is revealed unless we can either comprehend the infinite Methods of the Divine Wisdom or discover a necessity of Nature in God that he could do no other than what we fancy or can pretend to a Spirit of Prophesie and Revelation to discover those hidden Mysteries to us which are either concealed or obscurely hinted in the External Revelation of the Letter And indeed sometimes they talk at this rate as if every particular man must have an immediate Revelation from Christ to enable him to expound the External Revelation which is but a dead Letter without it and I know no other secure refuge they have but to take Sanctuary in Enthusiasms and pretended Inspirations CHAP. V. Concerning the Union of Believers to Christ and the imputation of Pelagianism IT is time
and stead of particular persons then those for whom he acted are absolved and justified by the undertaking or actual performance of Christ either from Eternity or from the first moment of their being I might add several other Consequences which necessarily result from this Doctrine and are the peculiar Principles of Antinomianism as that we must not pray for the forgiveness of sins because they are long since removed by the death of Christ but only for the sense of this forgiveness that God sees no sin in his people because their sins are laid on Christ and that therefore we must not lay sin upon our own Consciences neither unless we will make our Conscience a Christ But this is enough to shew how fruitful this Principle is of absurdities and what reason I have to reject our Union to the Person of Christ considered as one who hath done all for us in our name and stead And now I need not insist long on the second thing proposed viz. our immediate Union to the Person of Christ For though all Christians are in some sense immediately united to Christ as I have shewn above yet in the Antinomian sense of an immediate Union I do utterly reject it whereby they understand an Union to the Person of Christ without any intervening Conditions on our part And this they must necessarily do according to their notion of the Person of Christ. They explain this as I observed in my former Discourse by a Conjugal Relation and a Legal Union As for a Conjugal Relation which consists in such a Union of Persons as is between a Man and his Wife which intitles us to all the personal excellencies and perfections Beauty Comeliness Riches and Righteousness of Christ as Marriage intitles a Woman to her Husbands Estate and secures us from the Wrath of God and the Accusations of the Law as a woman under Covert is not liable to any Action or Arrest I perceive Mr. Ferguson gives it over as indefensible for among all the sorts of Unions which he reckons up he takes no notice of this which is the most charming and inviting Union and most acceptable to the Sisterhood the best Friends to Conventicles of any other But I suppose Mr. Vincent will not give it over so and therefore I observe that this must be an immediate Union which requires nothing else but an embracing and clasping Faith which unites their persons to each other This Faith is no condition of Union but only such a consent to have Christ as is necessary to make the Match or rather like joyning hands which is the Ceremony of Marriage Though indeed the Marriage was made before as they say all Marriages are in Heaven Eternal Election marries them to Christ and this consenting Faith gives them only a comfortable sense of their Matrimonial Union as will appear by considering the nature of Legal Union whereby we are united to Christ as to our Surety and Mediator who does all for us in our name and stead Now it is a plain demonstration that this Union to Christ as to our Surety and Mediator is immediate for it is entirely Gods act in electing some particular persons and giving them to Christ to do all for them in their name and stead And therefore Dr. Crisp truly argues that it is God and only God that can lay our sins upon Christ that our Repentance and Faith and new Obedience cannot do it For this work of laying sin on Christ in making him our Surety to do all for us was done long since and is not to be done now Christ hath already died for all that he will die for and if he did not die for us nothing that we can do now can lay our sins upon him For as the Doctor reasons if we could a fresh by our Repentance and Faith lay our sins on Christ as our Surety how should he get rid of them again For there is no getting rid of sin but by dying for it and Christ hath already done that and is not to die again If Christ's Suretiship consists in his dying and performing all righteousness for particular persons elected and chosen by God our Union to Christ as to our Surety must be from Eternity or at least from the time of his appearing in the world for if he did not act as our Surety then he cannot do so since unless we should suppose that he must come into the world again to act over the same part in the name and stead of those who were left out of the first Roll of Election and therefore I do not wonder that these men are so much blundered and talk backward and forward in those directions they give to their hearers how to get into Christ for the truth is if we are not in Christ already there is no getting into Christ now according to their Principles Election alone and Gods giving us to Christ unites us to him not any act of our own neither Faith Repentance or new Obedience these at best can only give us a comfortable sense of our Union to Christ but can contribute nothing at all to our Union it self And therefore Dr. Owen does roundly acknowledge that Christ is reckoned to us in order of nature before we believe and by Gods reckoning Christ to us he means the imputing of Christ unto ungodly unbelieving sinners for whom he died so far as to account him theirs to bestow Faith and Grace upon them for his sake And if God reckon Christ to men before Faith he must reckon him theirs from the time of his giving them to Christ for there can be no other reason of his reckoning Christ to them at all And to shew how free and absolute this gift of Christ is he tells us That there is no condition at all in this stipulation That God should engage upon the death of Christ to make out Grace and Glory Liberty and Beauty unto those for whom he died upon condition they do so or so leaves no proper place for the merit of Christ and is very improperly ascribed unto God And therefore though the Covenant of Grace seem to run conditionally that if we repent and believe we shall be saved yet the Covenant is indeed absolute because these very conditions are part of Christ's Purchase and are promised without any condition and though God will bring us to Heaven in such a way and method as he has thought fit to prescribe to himself for the Glory of the Trinity yet all this in all the parts of it is no less fully procured for us nor less freely bestowed on us for Christ's sake and on his account as part of his Purchase and Merits than if all of us immediately upon his death had been translated into heaven From all this it appears what they mean by an immediate Union to the Person of Christ such an Union to Christ as our Mediator and Surety as is founded only on Electing Grace without any
patientem It becomes no man to be tame and gentle when he is charged with Heresie and therefore I did not think fit wholly to pass over this charge in silence nor yet shall I insist long on it since there is no other foundation for it but unchristian spight and malice I suppose it will signifie no great matter to vindicate my self nor those who suffer with me under the same Imputation by a publick abrenunciation of Socinianism for if this would do it our Subscription to the Articles of our Church our constant use of the Liturgy especially the Litany and Gloria Patri the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds the old and allowed Tests of Orthodox Christians which no Socinian will allow and is the true cause why they renounce our Communion would be a sufficient justification both of my self and them But they who have made such a familiar practice of it to dispense with the most Sacred Oaths and Promises are apt to suspect all men to be as faithless as they have proved themselves But however because the clamours of these men have abused some innocent persons and betrayed them to very unjust apprehensions of my self and many others I do heartily declare that I am no Socinian and that I do not know any Divine of the Church of England who can reasonably be suspected of that Heresie though it is notoriously evident that those Sectaries who are so ready to charge us with Socinianism have derived the greatest strength of their cause from Socinian Writers especially in the case of Anabaptism Liberty of Conscience and unlimited Toleration and rejecting the Authority of Civil Magistrates in the External Conduct of Religious Affairs as they have borrowed their other Principles of Rebellion and deposing Princes from the worst of Papists The reason why Socinus has so ill a Character in the Christian Church is his denial of the Eternal Godhead and satisfaction of our Saviour but both these I own and make them the foundation of my Religion I expresly call him the Eternal Son of God that Eternal Son of God by whom the worlds were made I acknowledge that Christ died as a Sacrifice and Expiation for sin that by his Death he made Atonement for sin That he purchased and procured and scaled the Covenant of Grace in his own bloud That Christ by his Death expiated our sins and confirmed an Everlasting Covenant and being ascended up into Heaven he there appears in the presence of God for us and perpetually intercedes in the vertue of his bloud once offered which is of infinite more value than the repeated Sacrifices of the Law At this rate I discoursed not once or twice but as often as occasion served and if this be Socinianism I acknowledge my self to be a Socinian and if it be not let others judge what my Adversaries are But let us consider what pretences they have for charging me with Socinianism And first Dr. Owen affirms that I maintain the Socinian Notion of Iustification And now I am very well contented to be a Socinian for I have very good company in it even the Church of England her self as I have made appear above For my notion of Justification is no other than what the Church of England does own and assert But what is this Socinian Notion of Justification That we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. This indeed the Socinians do assert and so do I and yet there is a vast difference between us because they reject the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of our Justification which I own Upon the same account Ravenspergerus such another zealous Bigot as my Adversaries charged Grotius with Socinianism even when he writ against Socinus at a better rate than these men are acquainted with because he attributed our Justification and pardon of sin to Faith in Christ and repentance from dead works as Socinus does and the answer which Vossius gives to him may serve my Adversaries Socinus â—t ipse censor agnoscit nullo alio medio interveniente hanc fidel attribuit securitatem id est liberationem a poena Grotius vero aliud statuit medium intervenire nempe perpessiones Christi habentes rationem poenae propter quas Deus nos à poenis velit liberare Grotio igitur prius est medium satisfactionis quam fidei at Socino solum medium est fides non satisfactio i. e. Socinus attributes our security from the wrath of God or our deliverance from punishment only to Faith without any other medium i. e. Without the intervention of the Death and Sacrifice of Christ But Grotius asserts another medium of our Pardon and Iustification viz. the sufferings of Christ under the notion of punishments for which God was pleased to deliver us from punishment And therefore Grotius first attributes our Iustification to the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of it and then to Faith as the Condition But Socinus acknowledges Faith but rejects Satisfaction And therefore Dr. Owen himself when he formerly charged Mr. Baxter with Socinianism upon the very same score and drew a parallel between that account which Mr. Baxter gave of justification and what is given by Slitchtingius and some other Socinians was so modest then as to confess that he was a Socinian in this point as far as any one could be who acknowledges satisfaction which is as much as to say that he was no Socinian Thus to proceed they almost every where charge me with transcribing my interpretations of Scripture out of the Socinian Expositors and therefore I must be a Socinian Now suppose this were true that I did make use of those Expositions which the Socinians give of many places of Scripture what hurt is there in it if there be no Socinianism in them For I have heard men who understand very well what belongs to expounding Scripture acknowledge the Socinians to be excellent Expositors where their own peculiar Notions are not concerned though no men play more tricks with Scripture where they are I do very often make use of Mr. Calvin's Expositions and why do not they hence conclude me to be a Calvinist And indeed in most of those places where they charge me with transcribing out of the Socinians they might as justly have charged me with transcribing out of Calvin and had they known all with greater reason too For Calvin I did consult upon all occasions but the Socinians I never did I have already taken notice of and vindicated most of those Expositions which my Adversaries charge with Socinianism as I have occasionally met with them but Mr. Ferguson has put together some Texts which he thinks I have so expounded as to destroy their evidence for the Godhead of Christ. I would not says our Author be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his glosses of Col. 1. 19. Col. 2. 3 8. Joh. 14. 20. Joh. 1. 14. which are
but commends that divine power and vertue which appeared in him and accounts this the best answer to the Arrians objection from these words That Christ was God participatione tantum gratiâ only by participation and by Grace On Ioh. 17. 21. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Mr. Calvin observes Tenendum est quoties unum se cum patre esse in hoc capite pronunciat Christus sermonem non habere simplicitèr de divinà ejus essentiâ sed unum vocari in personâ mediatoris quatenùs caput nostrum est That is we must acknowledge and own that as often as Christ calls himself one with the Father in this Chapter it does not simply and primarily refer to the unity of the Divine Essence but he is one with the Father considered as Mediator and head of the Church That is as he acts in Gods name and authority and does his will And he adds That many of the Fathers expound these words of Christs being one with the Father as he was Eternal God but this they were forced to by their contention with the Arrians longè autem aliud Christi consilium fuit quà m ad nudam arcanae suae divinit at is speculationem nos evehere But Christ had a quite different design in these words than to raise them to a naked contemplation of his secret and unsearchable divinity And now if Mr. Ferguson will be a just and impartial Judge he must accost Mr. Calvin as he has done me I would not be thought to impeach Mr. Calvin of opposing the Godhead of Christ but this I affirm that if his glosses of Col. 1. 19. Col. 2. 3. and 2. 8. Joh. 14. 20. Joh. 1. 14. and add Joh. 17. 21. which are as much the same as Mr. Sherlock's with those the Socinians impose upon those places be admitted we have some of the main proofs of it wrested out of our hands But to proceed Dr. Owen hath given in his charge against me very fully and emphatically He that shall consider what reflexions are cast in this discourse on the necessity of satisfaction to be made unto divine Iustice and from whom they are borrowed the miserable weak attempt that is made therein to reduce all Christ's mediatory actings to his Kingly Office and in particular his Intercession the faint mention that is made of the satisfaction of Christ clogged with the addition of ignorance of the Philosophy of it as it is called well enough complying with them who grant that the Lord Christ did what God was satisfied withal with sundry other things of the like nature will not be to seek whence these things come nor whither they are going nor to whom our Author is beholden for most of his rare notions which it is an easie thing at any time to acquaint him withal The Doctors chief skill lies in scandalous insinuations but he is just like other men when he comes to reason As for that attempt to reduce all Christ's Mediatory actings to his Kingly Office I have given a sufficient account of that in answer to Mr. Ferguson and suppose I shall hear no more of it As for my faint mention of the satisfaction of Christ clogged with an ignorance of the Philosophy of it what he calls a faint mention I cannot tell but I did more than once expresly assert it and that very heartily but I must beg his pardon that I dare not pretend to understand the strict Philosophy of that Atonement made by Christ so long as I assert that every Christian may easily learn all that is useful and necessary for him to know We may all know whatever the Scripture has revealed about it that Christ died for our sins that he died for us that he is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son that his bloud is the bloud of the Covenant that he has redeemed his Church with his own bloud and hath purchased and ratified the New Testament with his bloud which gives us the greatest assurance of the pardon of our sins and the promises of eternal life upon the conditions of a lively active faith which is made perfect by works But then there are some enquiries concerning this matter of a nicer speculation as wherein the proper nature of atonement and expiation consists in what sense the death of Christ may be said to satisfie the justice of God whether Christ died as the Surety of particular Persons or as the Surety of the Covenant whether Christ suffered the Idem or the tantundem what is the immediate effect of Christs death whether to give an actual right to those for whom he died to pardon and life or to seal the Covenant of grace with mankind and to put all men into a possibility of salvation I presume the Doctor knows that these and a great many more such questions are hotly disputed among those very men who do not use to make a very faint mention neither of the satisfaction of Christ and methinks the Doctor should for once have commended the young mans modesty that he would not peremptorily determine these matters rather than blame me for professing my ignorance And as for what the Doctor adds that this favours of a compliance with them who grant that the Lord Christ did what God was satisfied withal If I mistake not this is the utmost of what he himself can bring it to whether right or wrong I shall not now determine for he expresly affirms that Christ could not merit of God with that kind of merit which ariseth from an absolute proportion of things and gives this wise reason for it because Christ in respect of his humane nature though united to the Deity is a Creature and so could not absolutely satisfie nor merit any thing at the hand of God This merit from an absolute proportion can be found only among Creatures and the advancement of Christs humanity takes it not out of that number neither in this sense can any satisfaction be made to God for sin And therefore he founds the merit and satisfaction of Christ upon Gods constitution and determination predestinating Christ unto that work and appointing the work by him to be accomplished to be satisfactory equalling by that constitution the end and the means Which at most signifies no more but this that what Christ did was not in its own nature satisfactory but was only what God was satisfied with upon account of his own constitution and determination And therefore all the merit the Doctor ascribes to Christ is the accomplishment of that condition which God required to make way that the Obligation which he had freely put upon himself might be in actual force Which he says is no more than what Mr. Baxter assigns to our own works By which we may learn what a lame and conditional merit
all wickedness By no means for this does not prove that God must necessarily punish the sinner but that he will certainly either destroy sin or the sinner that he can never be reconciled to any wicked man while he continues wicked and that he will certainly express his displeasure against all obstinate and incorrigible sinners the difference is just as much as between such a Justice as punishes the penitent and that which punishes the incorrigible the first is such Severity at best as becomes not a good Man and a wise Governour the second is justified and applauded by the universal consent of Mankind But the Doctor would retort all these ill consequences which I cast upon his Notion upon my self He presumes I own the Satisfaction of Christ and this is the first time he hath ghessed right but what then Therefore also I own that God would not pardon any Sin but upon a supposition of a previous Satisfaction made by Iesus Christ very right still when he had decreed that he would not Here then lies all the difference between us that he says God could not pardon Sin without Satisfaction and I say that although he might have done so without the least diminution of his glory yet he would not and this is a good wide difference between could not and would not The first represents Satisfaction to be the effect of a private Revenge the second to be the effect of Wisdom and Counsel in choosing the most convenient way to dispense his Pardon God we presume had more ways than one to secure the Authority of his Laws the Glory of his Government and to vindicate the Holiness of his Nature but he chose this as the best and fittest It had not been consistent with the Wisdom of God as Governour of the world to have pardoned sin in such a way as would have reflected any disparagement on his Holiness or loosened the Reins of Government and therefore if he had not chose this way he would certainly have chose some other and then he might have rejected this but could not wisely reject all Christ according to these Principles did not die for sinners because God could not forgive sin without such a penal satisfaction but because he preferred this way before all other as the most effectual to attain its end And now I presume my Readers may be as glad as my self to see a Conclusion of this long Dispute Some possibly will think I have said too much and some too little I have taken notice of every thing which was material in my Adversaries and of too many things which were not and though I have not particularly taken notice of Mr. POLHILL and ANTISOZZO it was because there was no need of it Whatever is considerable in them is answered in these Papers and as for ANTISOZZO I had no mind to play the Buffoon as he does and I know no other way of answering him And I hope the world will be sufficiently convinced what a desperate case Fanaticism is reduced to when they are forced upon all occasions to take Sanctuary in Buffoonry but others may do as they please as for my part I am resolved this Controversie shall never end in a Trial of Wit FINIS Vind. p. 5. Vin. p. 119 Chap. 2 Discourse of the Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Chap. 4. Chap. 4. Sect. â— Vind. p. 5. P. 7. Speculum p. 55. Speculum p. 53. Epistle to Historia quinque Articularis exarticulata Speculum p. 65. The Interest of Rea son in Religion p. 457. Vind. p. 143. Preface to Historia quinque Articularis exarticulata Speculum p. 2. Ibid. p. â— Ibid. p. 14 Spec. p. 3. P. 457. Ibid. p. 7. Ibid. p. 8 Speculum p. 40. Iustificatio Paulâ—na p. 112. Spec ibid. The Interest of Reason in Religion p. 388. P. 392. P. 395. P. 393. P. 391. Speculum P. 31. P. 36. Vind. P. 1. P. 376. The Interest of Rea son in Religion P. 311. * Ibid. P. 384. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Sect. 4. P. 100. Ib. p. 381. Knowledg of Christ p. 108. * Interest of Reason c. p. 278. Ib p. 383. Ib. p. 285. Knowledg of Christ p. 32. Vide Calvin in locum Beza in locum The Interest of Reason in Religion p. â—â—7 Ib. p. 399. Ib. p. 403. Ib. p. 406. * The Design of Christianity P. 409. Ib. p. 41â— Ib. p. 411. Knowledg of Christ p. â—88 Edit 2. p. 201. Davenant de gratia habituali Cap. 27. P. 413. P. 416. Chap. â— P. 135. Confess Helvet Scoticana Confess Apol. pro Confess August Bohaemica Confell Belgica Confess Homily of Salvation Part 1. P. 417. Knowledg of Christ p. 235 c. p. 279. Edit 2. p. 164. 195. Interest of Reason c p. 416. Ibid. P. 55â— Knowledg of Christ p. 296. Edit 2. p. 2â—7 P. 62. P. 320. P. 344. Knowledg of Christ Chap. 4 Sect. 3. p. 279. Edit 2. p. 195. Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Ibid. p. 68. Edit 2. P. 48. Vindicat p. 208. P. 209. Commun P. 184. Knowledg of Christ P. 297. Edit 2. P. 207. Vindicat P. 211. Vindicat P. â—12 Knowledg of Christ P. 298. Edit Edit 2. P. 2â—9 Vind. P. 217. Ibid. Commun p. 18â— P. 220. * P. 18â— * P. â—10 Edit 2. p. 217. Vindicat. p. 223. Knowledg of Christ p. 311. Edit 2. p. 218. Commun p. 182. Knowledg of Christ p. 315. Edit 2. p. 220. Vind p. 9 p. â— Spec. p. 30. Vindicat. p. 82. P. 117. Spec. p. 68. Commun P. 193. Knowledg of Christ p. 314. Edit 2. p. 220. Sermon of Salvation part 3. Sermon of Salvation part 1. Serm of Salvation part 3. Lect. 5. de Justificatione Considerationes modestae p. 52. De Justitia habituali actuali P. 16. Homily of Faith part 1. Homily of Faith part 1. Heb. 12. Ibid. P. 76. Sermon of Faith part 2. Part 3. Sermon of Good Works part 1. Serm. of Salvation part 3. De Justit Habit. act cap. 29. August-Confess Art XX. Homily of Repentance Sermon of Salvation part 2. De Justit Habit. act cap. 31. De dilectione impletione legis Responsio ad argum adversar Sermon of Salvation part 3. Sermon of Salvation part 1. Sermon of Salvation part 2. Serm. of Salvation part 2. Vide supra p. 152. c. Sup. p. 156 Commun p. 187. Vindicat. p. 232. Ibid. P. 151. Knowledg of Christ p. 201. Edit 2. p. 140. Interest of Reason c p. 475. Knowledg of Christ p. 2 4. Edit 2. p. 143. Vindicat. p. 153. D. Crisp's Christs Preemin p. 89 Ibid. Knowledg of Christ p. 115. Edit 2. P. 77. Christ alone exalted Serm. 1. Ibid. p. 7. P. 10. p. 13. Knowledg of Christ p. 64 65 66 c. p. 24. 129. Edit 2. p. 45 51 9â— Ibid p. 49 Ibid. p. 60 p. 84. Knowledge of Christ. p. 422. Edit 2. p. 295. Knowledge of Christ p. 126. c. Edit 2. p. 88. * p. 100. Knowledg of Christ p. 127. Edit â—â— p. 88. Vindicat. p. 120. Communion p. 187. Ibid. p. 185. Vindicat. p. 120. Knowledge of Christ p. 129. Edit 2. P. 90. Vindiâ—â—â— p. 12â— Knowledg of Christ p. 363 c Edit 2. p. 224. Communion p. 113. Ibid. Christ alone exalted p. 18. Ibid Knowledge of Christ. p. â—5 Edit 2. p. 38. Vindicat. p. 70. Communion p. 119. Vindicat. p. 125. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 51. Vindicat. p. 101. Ibid. p. 193. p. 207. Ibid. p. 208. c. Ibid. p. 193. Vindicat. p. 104. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 70. Ibid. p. 210. Ibid. p. 70. Ibid. p. 193. p. 7â— P. 217. Ibid. p. 69. p. 30 Ibid. p. 2â— p. 69. Ibid. P. 30. Ibid. p. 215. Knowledge of Christ p. 413 c Edit 2. p. 295. p. 26. Ibid. p. 27. p. 41â— Edit 2. p. 29. p. 36. Of the excellency of Christ. p. 93. Ibid. Vindicat. P. 33 34 P. 206. P. 170. p. 272. p. 209. Vindicat. p. 177. Vindicat. p. 183. p. 210. Vindicat. p. 187. Vide supra p. 171. c Interest of Reason c. p. 164. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason P. 35. Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason in Religion P. 443 c Knowledge of Christ p. 349. Ibid. p. â—45 Ibid. p. 447 c Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 4. Sect. 4. Interest of Reason p. 440 441. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Interest of Reason P. 597. Ibid. P. 611. Vindicat. p. 15. Knowledge of Christ. p. 145 c Interest of Reason c. p. 459. Ibid. p. 461. 499. Knowledge of Christ p. 162. Interest of Reason c. p. 59â— Cyâ—r Conc. Carthag Knowledge of Christ. p. 165 c Separation yet no Schism P. 9. p. 469. p. 615. p. 619. P. 626. Knowledge of Christ. P. 200. Interest of Reason c. P. 499. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Interest of Reason c. p. 540. Knowledge of Christ. p. â—â—â— Crisp. Christ alone exalted Vol. 2. p. 88 89. Ibid. p. 90 91. Ibid. p. 244. p. 248. p. 254. p. 256. p. 265. p. 259. p. 272. Communion p. 205. Ibid Interest of Reason c. p. 549. Knowledge of Christ Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Christ alone exalted Vol. 2. p. 186 c Of the death of Christ. p. 77. Ibid. p. 65. Communion p. 206. Knowledge of Christ. Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Interest of Reason c. p. 623. Interest of Reason c. p. 441. Ibid. p. 646. Ibid. p. 645. Ibid. p. 655. Ibid. p. 628. Of the Death of Christ in answer to M. Baxter p. 77 c. Christ alone exalted Vol. 1. p. 160. c Knowledge of Christ. p. 81 82. Edit 2. p. 56 Ibid. p. 330. 328. Edit 2. p. 229. c. Vindicat. p. 227. Vossâ—i resp ad Iudic. Ravensp p. 283. Interest of Reason c. p. 475. Knowledge of Christ. p. 216. c. Edit 2. p. 151. Calvin in 〈◊〉 Vindicat. p. 131. Of the death of Christ in answer to M. Baxter P. 52. Ibid. P. 66. Ibid. P. 50. Resp ad Iudic. Ravensp P. 336. Knowledge of Christ P. 45 47. Edit 2. P. 31 33. Vind. p. 43 Diatriba de Justit p. 160.