understand not the points which they teach much less can produce any Scriptures surely and soundly to confirm them I answer that the Scriptures are very full and punctuall against taking upon trust of meer men any doctrine to be believed to salvation Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Mat. 23. 10. q. d. Dare not any of you to suffer any to take up matters in Religion upon your trust or authority For there is but one unerring Mr. whose authority is authentick Christ Jesus If Paul or an Angell from heaven preach any other Gospel to you c. let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. therefore not trusted Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5. 21. Believe not every Spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God For many false Prophets are gone forth into the world 1 Joh. 4. 1. When the Holy Ghost saith Prove all Try all he implyedly forbids to take up any thing on trust from men My sheep hear my voyce the voyce of a stranger they will not hear for they know not i. e. own not the voyce of strangers Joh. 10. 4 5 27. They know and own the voyce of Christ alone If any preach with another voyce another doctrine than that which is originally from Christ they fly from him explode him Here is nothing taken upon trust but from Christ himself They are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. A more noble foundation than the trust and authority of men I might annex many like testimonies of divine Scripture to the same purpose but to what purpose They are Deceivers such as the Apostle numbreth among grievous wolves speakers of perverse things i. e. perverters of the Gospel of Christ that seeke to draw Disciples after them i. e. to settle men in a Faith upon the authority of their learning wisedom and holiness Acts 20. 29 30. But Mr Baxter and his peers are necessitated thus to do if in teaching such doctrines they will draw after them Disciples For being destitute of the authority of God and his word if they should not urge men to a credulity upon the authority of men their doctrine would be hissed at as having no authority To conclude then the doctrine which Mr. Baxter here more than obscurely holds forth is 1 Against Christ and all the Reformed Churches which condemn it borrowed of and owned by the apostatized Synagoue of Rome only 2 Against the Scripture as hath been manifested 3 It is a doctrine that brings with it an unsetledness and instability in Faith and Religion Whosoever takes it up from Mr. Baxters credit must be always learning and never know be whirled hither and thither with doubts and uncertainties without any firm station never attaining rest For he that taketh upon trust from his Teachers what to believe and do to be saved will one day be of Paul another of Apollo and a third of Cephas as his fancy tels him this or that Teacher is most worthy to be trusted In great probability Mr. Baxters predecessor taught not the same Justification with Mr. Baxter and he that shall succeed him will hold out the same grounds and way of justification with Christ and his Apostles which Mr. Baxter declineth And I know not but either of them may be as worthy of Trust as himself In what a maze must that people then be led by what turnings and returnings must they be dragged forward and backward who are taught to take up doctrines on the trust of their Teachers what joy in believing can they ever have whose rule in believing is to be never setled in their faith but to be still wavering His Disciples must needs be meer weather-cocks tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning crafâ—inesse whereby they lay in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. 4 It is a doctrine that makes way for all Heresie Blasphemy and Impiety into the hearts of the people For when Religion is taken upon trust from the Teachers Satan will transform himself into an Angel of light and his Ministers themselves into Ministers of Righteousness to gain credit and opinion of wisdom and holiness above others among the people that upon their trust at last the people may swallow all falshoods under the name of Truth whatsoever they shall commend to them 2 Cor. 11. 13-15 See whither the Galathians were carryed by taking upon trust from their seemingly Angelical Teachers doctrines of faith Christ is become of no effect to you ye are faln from grace saith the Apostle to them Gal. 5. 4. Surely the doctrine of Mr. Baxter is the same in generall and substance with theirs that corrupted and seduced Galatia The Lord avert the like success from Kederminster 5 It is a Doctrine pernicious in it self and brings a curse upon them that receive it in the very receiving of it For cursed is man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm whose heart departeth from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. If so in earthly much more in spirituall things So much of this point in which having found what Mr. Baxter is before his entrance upon the bulk of his work we may easily conjecture what a one we shall find him being entred CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters Sophisticall way and Method of dispute to obscure and not to cleer the truths of the Gospel discovered And that therein he imitates the Papists IN the former Chapter we have found Mr. Baxter before his entrance upon his Treatise somewhat discovering with whom he joyns in opinion so far that we may discern and guess ex ungue leonem by one little piece of the man what he is in his whole bulk and frame It contents him not to be one and the same with the Papists in his judgment but that he will next also discover himself to be the same with them in their slights and artifice to bring all others into the same judgment and opinion with them That generation of the Popish Schoolmen are fitly likened by Sir Francis Bacon in his Advancement of learning to Spiders which spin out their webbs out of their own bowels So these spinn all their doctrines in religion out of their own brains their own reason naming Christ sometimes therein but rather hiding and darkning the authority of his word than following it as their leading threed in all their doctrines All their writings about Evangelicall and saving points of knowledg are but as so many webs of their fancy to catch and carry away from the purity of Christs Gospel not so many well-ordered threeds of sacred Scriptures to guide and bring us to him Who is there of all that have but cursorily read their works that finds them not consisting of large heaps of needless and superfluous questions to obscure the light of the word and to bring all to the tryall of reason yea sophisticall and sophisticated
what Scriptures our Divines bring to prove justification to be only by faith and to deny all cooperation of works therein And herein I shall put limits to my self not letting out all that they produce for so should I offend with immoderate length but some particulars that the weakest reader may see what Mr. Baxter would not give him to see that our Churches are not destitute of strong grounds for the bearing up of their faith and assertions And when this is done I shall descend to examine the force of those Scriptures quoted by Mr. Baxter to see whether they make for him and against us I shall begin from the reasoning of the Apostle Rom. 3. 20. c. having before proved both the Jews by and under the Law and the Gentiles without the Law to be guilty before God he concludes Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justifyed c. and ver 21. The righteousnesse of God viz. to justification is manifested without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets to wit a righteousnesse which the Law is ignorant of the righteousnesse or life which is by faith From this righteousnesse the tenour of the Law or legall Covenant turns aside telling us he that doeth them shall live in them Gal. 3. 11 12. ver 22. Even the righteousnesse of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve Lo here it is denyed to be by the most righteous works which the most perfect Law of God himself prescribeth and attained by faith only ver 24. Being justifyed freely by his grace through the redemption which is by Jesus Christ what can be said more fully It shall not be impertinent to annote briefly out of Zanchy what he hath upon Hier. zanch De natura Dei Lib. 4. Cap. 2. Th. 2. this verse more largly when the Apostle saith we are justifyed by his grace Per Gratiam intelligit gratuitum Dei favorem omnibus nostris exclusis sive naturalibus sive supernaturalibus dignitatibus saith he i. e. by Grace the Apostle meaneth the free love or favour of God excluding all parts and pieces of our worth both naturall and supernaturall and addeth that the Apostle still opposeth grace to all our works and to all our inward vertues wrought in us by the holy Ghost himself as well as to our legall and morall righteousnesse yea to faith it selfe as it is a work as is manifest to every one that hath with any consideration read this Epistle Therefore saith he he excludeth all works that he may conclude our Justification to be by grace alone Yea more the Apostle saith he not contented to say we are justifyed by grace addeth thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace that is by the grace which is in God not by any gift of grace infused by him into ourselves that it might be wholly of God and not of our selves at all in the least part Yea not contented with all this he addeth freely to notifie that there is not required any work or qualification on our part to put us into the possession thereof for so it should not be wholly by the free and naked favour of God as he tearms it And lastly he addeth by the redemption which is by Jesus Christ by this work of Christ excluding all ours hitherto that profound Zanchius Neither cannot it be freely by the redemption of Christ if our qualifications and conditions be brought to interesse us to it for so should we be in some kinde purchasers and not receive it freely The Apostle proceeds ver 25. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins c. The whole thing of Gods ordination to make the redemption propitiation and remission of sinnes which is by Christ actually ours to our comfort is here assigned to be saith in his blood and not any foregoing concomitant or subsequent vertue or duty of ours annexed to it and all to declare his righteousnesse Ver. 26. His righteousnesse he saith again that he may be just and the justifyer of him that beleeveth in Jesus If Mr. Baxters fancy stand of the Legall righteousnesse in Christ and the Evangelicall righteousnesse in us the Apostles assignation of the end of Gods justifying us by Christ should be maimed For he should have said To declare to declare I say his righteousnesse and our righteousnesse that he might be just and a justifyer and we might be just and justifyers of our selves And then we are to expunge the next verse Where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith For boasting should not be at all excluded if our works should bear a part with faith in justifying so should we have matter of glorying in our selves still How full is the Apostle here in the confirmation of Justification by faith without works had he seen what the Papists and Mr. Baxter over their shoulders would have objected against it he could not have spoken more punctually Yet as I know what the Papists say for themselves so I am not ignorant what Mr. Baxter will except for himself But I reserve the Examination thereof for another place where he goeth about to purge his doctrine from all contrariety that it hath to the doctrine of the Apostle and from any derogation from the Grace of God A second Testimonie or authority from Scripture we may draw from Rom. 4. 1 c. I shall be short in it The Apostle here denies 1 Our father Abraham the father of the faithfull himself to have been justifyed by works for then he should have whereof to glory ver 2 3. But as Abraham was so all the faithfull are justifyed by faith without works or to render the words of the Text By faith and not by works Here Mr. Baxter hath no evasion as in the former Chapter viz. that the works of the Law only are denyed for Abraham was under the promise not under the Law nether was the Law then given and the promise under which he was was without all condition of works so that the Apostle here excludeth works indefinitely I mean not good and evill works for no man ever brought evill works as evill to be thereby justifyed But good works whether Legall or Evangelicall all acts and deeds both of naturall and infused righteousnesse and holinesse 2 In affirming of him that worketh i. e. that seeketh justification by works that the reward is reckoned of debt to him that he requires it as due and shall not receive it if it be not found due in Justice but to him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is imputed to righteousnesse i. e. as hath been already evinced Christ by faith apprehended is of the free grace of God made righteousnesse to him When Mr. Baxter therefore claps his bundle of works upon
after and not above carnall and worldly Reason with the Scripture in measuring out to themselves the saving Gospel and take not it up after Christ simply and unmixedly as Christ hath taught it and put the impresse of his authority upon it Coloss 2. 8. The other that for prevention of corruption by this secular learning the Converts of Ephesus while the Apostle was yet resident among them and consequently consenting with them burnt their bookes of curious Arts which though some will have to be understood of conjuring books yet I cannot assent to them because this cursed rather then curious Art was proper and almost peculiar to the more Eastern people Jewes Samaritans Aegyptians and Babylonians the Greeks very little or not at all studying it but placing all their wisdom in the Arts whereof I have been hitherto discoursing and these were Greeks that burnt the bookes of those curious Arts which they studied Act. 19. 19. If then any conclude that the H Ghost at any time doth so much abase and deface an Ordinance of God Let him also conclude this kind of learning and disputation to be ordained of God for the confirming and promoting of the Gospel A third Reason to prove that God hath not ordained this Sophisticall or Philosophicall learning to be instrumentall for the promoting of the Gospel may be drawn from experience it self That which we never find to be blessed but still blasted of God to the hurt both of the Churches that have been admirers and followers of Sophisticall teachers of the Gospel and of such teachers also cannot be the Ordinance of God for he alway accompanieth and breaths his blessing in greater or lesser degrees upon the due execution of his own Ordinances But God hath never blessed but still so blasted and brought to nought naught c. the use of this philosophicall and philosophastrous learning Ergo It is not of Gods ordination I mean to be intermingled with spirituall and Evangelicall Doctrines For hence alone we banish it not denying it to be usefull in naturall and morall things as I have before granted That it hath been so blasted as intermingled with Gospel-doctrines experience it self evidenceth Trace we down from the very primitive age of the Gospel Church untill our times Gods operations in the Gospels and Churches wâ—xings and wainings and we shall find his blessing to have been upon the pure preaching of the Gospel his curse upon the mixings and medleys of mâ—ns wisedom with it Begin we with the Apostles times when theâ—e went forth acting only by the authority of Christs mission and according to the rule of his Commission the very Devills became subject to them and Satan fell as lightning before them at the sound of the Gospel which they had charge to preach alone and ground upon the authority of the Scripture alone while this charge was faithfully put in execution whole Nations either after the other yea the whole world almost came to be discipled to Christ God working mightily with them by many signes and wonders to make their Ministry succesfull But when anon there entred into the Churches rightly grounded and stablished false Apostles of the Jewes that preached a legall and naturall righteousnesse that reason and naturall con-conscience could suggest if the Law of Moses had been silent as necessary to be joyned with the Gospel-righteousnesse of Faith to Justification And on the other side there arose out of the Churches of the Gentiles some of themselves that spake perverse things seeking to introduce the like naturall righteousnesse out of the Ethicks of the Philosophers and to maintain their Doctrines mainly if not wholly by Aristotles dialectick subtleties And both these began to be favoured by wanton wits within the Churches Now the Lord turned his hinder parts to them on whom erewhile the light of his countenance shined the glory of the Gospel became more and more clouded the Churches rended and torn in pieces abounding more with Apostates than with Christians indeed as may be largely manifested from the New Testament if there were need From the Apostles time discend we to the next ages or age after the Apostles and I find not among the Writers of note any one much studious of Philosophy much lesse spoyled with it Clemens Alexandrinus only excepted and he enough moderate in the use of it But shortly after him sprung up Origen a great and copious Writer in his youth beyond his age hopefull but in his maturity carryed with full sails to the study of secular Arts and with such successe that Hierom in his Catalogue of Ecclesiasticall Writers renders him in such learning unmatchable by any going before or following him as one thorowly seen in all the differing opinions of all the severall sects of Philosophers a notable Logician and Disputer and fully read in all the Liberall Arts and as remarkable for the practical part as the Theory of all Now from a man so accomplisht in so many perfections as some term them would possibly be expected a greater successe of his preaching and writing than ever Paul attained because so much more learned then Paul But the case proved contrary Out of his brain thus filled issued errors and heresies as thick as hail-stones from the Clouds Nothing of Scripture Law or Gospel could escape his depravation and a Religion he set forth like Mahomets Alcaron a meer galleymaufry of Heterogeneous fancies some Jewish some Heathenish and some in shew at least Christian compounded and confounded one with the other so that there could not be a fouler abhomination then such a Religion Why because he had attained so much secular learning not so but because he wrought with untempered morter mixing Philosophy and Christianity together which close as sweetly as light and darknesse Hence was it that all the Churches at length exploded him for an Heretick and his writings as Pseudo-Christian and Hierom so wounded his reputation among the learned and godly for writing somewhat in the praise of him that with all his palliating and recanting hee could not fully repayr it to his dying day Yea the stinch of him hath offended all the godly Divines of our Reformed Churches notwithstanding his antiquity that they reject him From the pen of one Beza we may know the mind of the rest who calls him hominem impuram sometimes and sometimes hominum impurissimum an impure or a prophane man yea the prophanest of men for prophaning Scriptures Gospel Religion and all other sacred things that he medled with At no long distance after Origen lived Tertullian who finding the Church by the evill Artifice of Origen and other Philosophicall Christians like him over spread with heresies applies himselfe to seek the cure thereof And a principall means he prescribeth hereunto is a fast adhering to the doctrine of Christ all other authority in divine things being rejected It is not lawfull for us saith he to bring in any thing of faith or worship out of our own will or
cannot deny but this opinion was first broached by Socinus and afterward promoted by Arminius But because Mr. Baxter hath taken it up from them end speaks it out in this his Tractate more in the full of the mouth than Mr. Goodwin had done as wee may see afterward Therefore to prevent the like imputation of Socinian and Arminian heresie to himself by his chafe against Mr Walker he affrights all from charging him therewith And yet howsoever he seemeth to decline such an imputation who seeth not that he will yea doth more readily take up a cursed Heresie from any of these learned Sophisters then a blessed truth from such ignorant and unstudied Ministers that glory in nothing but the foolishnes of Christs Cross and dare not to be wise unto salvation beyond the rule of the Gospel Hence he passeth to his third opinion which is wholly one with Page 54. the first in substance and a little dâ—fference onely made in the sound of words for the Question was thus propounded Whether we are justified by Christs passive Righteousnesse onely or also by his active The Assertors both of the first and of the third opinion answer both with one consent we are justified by both Onely Mr Baxter that he may shew his wit and force of his Sophistry that he can at his pleasure exauctorate any Tenet in Divinity laying it all defiled and dead in the dust to be trampled under foot and then give it a resurrection with a new body to shew it self as an eminent and orient Pearl to adorne Christian Religion doth annihilate and vilifie it in one sound of words and after Cannonize it in another And what is the difference betwixt the opinion which he spewes out as filth and garbage and that which he sucks and swallowes as the bread of life and food from heaven Forsooth this only that the one opinion makes the active righteousnes of Christ together with his passive to be imputed to us for righteousnes the other makes the active together with the passive righteousnes of Christ satisfactory to Gods justice to put us into the participation of Righteousnes or Justification A vast difference in sense no less then that was between Doctor Martin and Doctor Luther or that which one put betwixt the operation and working of Pepper that it was hot in the one but cold in the other Mr Baxter knowes that the most judicious Assertors of the first opinion urge no further then to have it granted that the active as well as the passive obedience of Christ is meritorious to our redemption and justification That they are but the more inconsiderate sort that will have it so imputed that we should be accounted before God as those that have fulfilled all the righteousnes and duties of the Law in and by Christ fulfilliing the same Therefore his taking up this opinion as a third opinion under the name of truth is but a taking up again as holy and savory that which before he had rejected as the embryon of ignorant and unstudied brains full of the greatest absurdities But he tels us pag. 55. that for ten years together he held the passive righteousnes onely effectual to justification but since that he hath been converted Should I demand how it came to passe that so Eagle-eyed a man so long doted upon a cloud in stead of Juno and by what means his eyes were at last opened that he saw the delusion and shunned it Himself gives us a hint what to answer and I hope he will not be too angry if we guess so far that our conjecture hath his own conscience if awaked giving consent 1 Then to speak nothing of Mr. Bradshaw whom either by face or writings I never had acquaintance with that great wit Grotius with his deep and sublimated speculationâ— over-poised him in his late reading of him And how hard a thing is it for Mr. Baxter so great an admirer and adorer of humane wit and learning to meet with a brave Sophister indeed and not to close in judgement with him though a Papist an Apostate and more then a Semi-Atheist so far do acute and fine-spun distinctions prevail with him more then the honourable Authority of the plain word of God 2 It is most probable that during these ten years Mr. Baxter held Justification by Faith onely according to the Scriptures and judgement of the Orthodox Churches therefore stuck so long to the Doctrine of Justification by Christs sole passive obedience as cohering very harmoniously therewith But since he hath cast himself into the Channels of Popish Writers and thence derived Justification by works it concern'd him to cast off his former Opinion for the sole passive righteousnes as being much repugnant to Justification by works and to take up this as authentick and somewhat conducing and helpfull to his Cause For if Christs active obedience should not be held meritorious and satisfactory to God with what face could Mr. Baxter attribute a prevalency and power herein to our best works and actions I purpose not to trifle away time and labour to refel this Doctrine or to shew the weaknesse of his fine and plausible Exceptions which he maketh against the Objections that he thinks will be made against it himself knoweth that some of his fore-mentioned Questions being granted and cited Opinions which he neither denyeth nor opposeth would turn his Grotian distinction of idem and tantundem into winde and smoake As for the rest which he speaketh we may grant there is some plausibility but if it were searched to the bottome there would be little of solidity found therein But my purpose is as I have said onely or chiefly to except against his apparently Popish Doctrines and with these he so much aboundeth that I shall not want matter to take up more time and labour then my other Employments can well afford CHAP. IV. What the immediate effects of Christs sufferings are which redound to the Redeemed Whether Believers are under the Curse And whether their Afflictions in this life be a part of the Curs and have the wrath of God in them With Mr. Baxter's Arguments to prove them such IN this ninth Thesis and its Explication Mr. Baxter hewes out crooked timber enough for many of the discreetest Divines to employ their time and labour therein until they are tired and yet they shall not be able at last to straighten it It is like Pandera's box which being opened let out all miseries and mischiefs into the world as the Poets feign Whatsoever the Papists teach of the deficiency and maimednes of Christs and of the necessary supplies of mans satisfaction to be made unto God of Purgatory of the uncertainty of Salvation and many other errors depending upon these are all couched and compassed here within a very narrow circuit some expressed and some implyed But so that while he hasteth to bind together suddenly that he may not be seen so much dreggish Popery in one fardle in his greatest
our selves which he teacheth to tend only to selfe-ruining B. 3. Thankefulnesse for what we have received either in possession title or promise must be a singular spur to duty But I pray you tell me Have you received all the life and mercy you doe expect Are you in Heaven already Have you all the Grace that you need or desire in degree If not why may you not labouâ— for what you have not as well as be thankefull for what you have Or have you as full a certainty of â—â— heerafter as you desire If not why may you not labour for it Al this is also totally besides the QuestioÌ„ which is not whether we may but how we are to labour whether with that most excellent and Gospel-frame of spirit consisting in love and thankfulnesse or mercenarily by works and whether in the way of Faith which the Gospel or of naturall Righteousness which the Law teacheth Many shall seeke to enter and shall not bee able faith the Master Wee through the spirit wait for the hope of Righteousness by Faith saith the Apostle Not so but by and for our Works not at all by Faith but as it is an act or worke saith Mr. Baxter let him shew his light and Authority to be greater than Pauls before hee looke that wee should run after him I shall put one question to him arising from the last of his Interrogatories which will be harder for him to resolve than a thousand such as he hath here wil be to us When hee tels us we must labour for the full certainty of Heaven hereafter is there any such certaintainty in this world attainable according to his principle of but â— conditionall justification and salvation untill the day of Judgementâ— or how is it to be obtained Let him make it out to us If he doth it I shall conclude that he can also turne Heaven into Earth and Earth into Heaven and nothing to bee unpossible to him if not let his Reader judge whether his indeavour be to delude or else to teach In the next Chapter or Section if wee attend onely to the sound and roare of words Mr. Baxter appeares more formidable from pag. 83. to the 98. of his Appendix in which hee presents us with thirteen Considerations to shew the vanity and intolerable damnable wickednesse of this supposed doctrine which he opposeth But the whole sloud of his wit wrath and eloquence heere poured out together runs into the dead Sea by a desart and desolate way in which it meets with no mortall crearure to wet or hurt it For who is there of all mankinde that hath said wee ought not to act for life in the sense which this man suborneth or otherwise than I have before oft expressed Much lesse is there any professed Christian that hath asserted as hee insinuateth That wee must not come to Christ that we may have life nor strive to enter in at the straite gate nor lay violant hands on the Kingdome of Heaven nor lay up for our selves a Treasure in Heaven nor seeke the Kingdome of God and the Righteousnesse the reof nor presse on for the attainment of the Resurrection c. Let him be named by Mr. Baxter that he may be brought forth and stoned which thus blasphemeth I shall not hinder it That which they teach is that Workes are not to be performed to this end that as works or doing as opposed to believing by and for their owne or our owne Righteousnesse in doing them they should put us into the possession of the life of justification and blessednesse If Mr. Baxter have any thing to say against this assertion or against that which I before laid as the state of the question it wil be taken into examination till then I shall leave him to fight with his owne shaddow having no loose time to spend in gazing upon the activity of such a Combatant CHAP. X. Arg. The Authour of the Booke intituled The Marrow of Moderne Divinity vindicated from the Aspersions wherewith Mr. Baxter defameth him and his Doctrine HEere because I am to follow and my taske is not to leave Mr. Baxter untill I have examined all that hee saith to prove Justification by works I am necessitated to fall into that which will be judged a Digression After hee hath enacted by a Law that to say wee must not worke for life is a Blasphemy or at least an intolerable errour and to hold it practically a necessarily damning Doctrine that whosoever doth it must be everlastingly damned for it All which wee acknowledge to bee in some sense true after the sound of the words though after the meaning of the Authour they can never be saved which practically hold the contrary as possibly I shall afterwards shew Now he proceeds to indite and arraigne to condemnation one Authour as guilty of this damning Doctrine viz. The Authour of the Book called The Marrow of Moderne Divinity and many his Accessaries viz. all those Divines that have annexed their approbatory subscriptions to the usefullnesse of it so finde we the man expressing himselfe Aphorism pag 330. B. When such a Book as that stiled the Marrow of Modern Divinity can have so many applauding epistles of such Divines when the doctrine of it is that we must not Act for justification and Salvation but onely in thankfulnesse for it This he speaketh onely in generall we shall finde his particulars following To this therefore I answer onely in generall 1 That it were to bee desired that Mr Baxter had inured no more dishonour upon thosâ— Divines to whom he dedicates his book by such his dedication than those forementioned Divines have attracted to themselves by their applauding epistles 2 And that those Divines with Mr. Baxter himselfe could mention so many sound parts in his booke both in the matter and ends of the Author as hee hath picked out imaginary errours in the other 3 As to the doctrine of that booke which he so accuseth I shall there examine in particulars where Mr. Baxter particularly drawes it into accusation and judgement Onely by the way let me thus far excuse my selfe 1 I never knew who was the Author of that worke 2. Neither have I read it otherwise than here and there a fragment as I found it lying in my friends houses so that I could no otherwise judge of it but ex ungue Leonem what the whole was but by that which my slender judgement told me the part which I read was not onely orthodox but singularly usefull 3 That I never knew there was a second part of it much lesse saw it until Mr Baxter by his quotation therof so told me But that since I have gotten both parts yet by meanes of other imployments have not had time any further to read it but where Mr. Baxter accuseth it of error 4. That if I knew the Author to be yet living I should have wholly left the defence of himselfe to himselfe It was not so much the
To the 2 d. That it hath had a great hand in turning many learned men from the Protestant Religion to Popery 1 I demand whether there be not a contradiction in the Quere How were they ever escaped from the dreggs of Popery that yet held Justification by works which is the very root out of which all other Popish errors almost spring and by it self alone is worse than all the rest Or how can such persons be said to have turned from the Protestant Religion that joyned not with the Protestants in the very Foundation Let all the Confessions of all the Protestant Churches be read and but one produced that hath not with all defiance râ—jâ—cted justification by works as a foul abhomination They must needs be very learned men that had learned this mysticall Art of turning in Religion from them to whom they were not joyned unto them from whom they were never severed 2 If any have so turned they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would without doubt have continued with us But they went out from us that they might be made manifest that they were not of us 1 Joh. 2. 19. 3 Nevertheless they that are truly learned i. e. which have the mysterie of Christ revealed to them not by flesh and blood but by their Father which is in heaven that have learned as the truth is in Christ Jesus that have been taught of God and have so heard and learned of the Father that by his teaching they come to Christ being drawn and given to Christ by the effectuall teaching of God these shall never turn back again They are built upon the Rock and all the gates of Hell shall not prevail against them It is the will of the Father that of all those which are thus given to Christ he should lose nothing but raise it again at the last day Mat. 16. 18. Eph. 4. 21. Jo. 6. 45. 39. 4 By the vanity levity changes and whirlings of these learned ones in humane literature the Lord is pleased to publish to the world how vain and of no power such learning is while unsaâ—ctified to true blessedness I thank thee O father c. that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Mat. 11. 25. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent saith the Lord. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 1. 19 20. Professing themselves wise they became fools because they became vain in their imaginations Rom. 1. 21 22. So vain that they bring the transcendent mysteries of divine things to be tryed in the scales of humane reason and that which the Apostle saith is falsly called Science i. e. philosophicall learning A due stroke of Gods judgment upon them that will be wise without Christ and against him that while they will dispute and in their disputations subject the doctrines of Faith which can have no other foundation but the authority of the word to the rules and principles of secular Arts they shall with all their Art and Learning dispute themselves out of Christ out of Happiness 5 No more hath befaln them herein than God had before threatned should be the doom of such Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved For this Cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they might all be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 10. 12. 6 And most justly for pride goeth before destruction And what higher degree of pride than that an impure worm should swell with such an opinion of his own righteousness that he will refuse the life and salvation which are by Christ except his own righteousness be valued at so high a rate by the eternall God as to constitute him worthy of it Yet such is the high spirit of these self-righteous workers that they will enter heaven triumphing in their own strength and righteousness or els refuse to enter Magis honorificum est habere aliquid ex merito saith Bellarmine speaking of Merit quam ex sola donatione ideo deus ut filios suos magis honoraret c. It is more honourable to have something of merit than of meer gift Therefore God that he might the more honour his Children hath made a way that they should get to themselves eternall life by their own merits To the same purpose is that of another of the same nest Absit ut justi vitam eternam expectent ut pauper Tapper in Art Lovan Tom 2. art 9. Eleemosynam multo enim gloriosius est ipsos quasi victores triumphatores eam possidere tanquam palmam suis sudoribus debitam i. e. Far be it that the righteous should expect eternall life as a poor man doth an Alms. For it is much more glorious that they should possess it as conquerours and triumphers do the Crown due to their labors When this arrogant conceit once possesseth M. Brs. learned men to make themselves glorious by their ecclypsing of the glory of Gods grace no marvail if we see them not so much turning as turned out among the dogs and swine How can ye believe which seek honour one of another and not the honour which is of God only John 5. 44. 7 Yet for one that Mr. Br. can mention who in hatred of this Doctrine hath made a defection from I dare to undertake to produce hundreds that by the sweetnesse of it and demonstration of the Spirit in preaching it have been drawn to the profession of the Protestant Religion It is a conclusion of Luther lamenting the schisms and Controversies stirred in the Churches about lighter and lesser things That if these had been layd aside and this one Article of Justification by Faith alone had been by the counited labors of all the Churches most of all though not only preached and continued to be preached to this day saith he the whole Kingdom of the Pope had by this time laid wholly shivered How adversatively do the spirits of Luther and Mr. Br. fight either against the other Yea of the many learned that Mr. Br. speaks of we can find him particularizing but one his St. Grotius pag. 331. thus B. This Doctrine was one that helped to turn off Grotius to Cassandrian Popery See Grotij votum 21 22 23. 115. Is Grotius so turned off most likely is it sure that Mr. Br. will follow him and truly we may add if not this doctrine surely that which is worse hath turned off Mr. Br. to Tridenâ—ine and Jesuitized Popery See Mr. Brs. Aphorisms not in four pages only but almost in all the passages of that Book and its Appendix And thus Grotius and he make up if not many yet a number of
of his labors that he had beleeved nothing nor witnessed or taught any thing save what is written in the law of Moses and the Prophets Acts 24. 14. 26. 22. That whatsoever Churches he had planted were built by him upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. Nothing here of Aristotle and Plato but of the Prophets and Apostles i. e. the Doctrine which Christ had revealed to them and by them laid to support the Churches in the Faith of Christ That he had utterly exploded all humane wisdom Arts and inventions as incompetent with the Gospel of Christ That whether he laid in the hearts of men the principles and beginnings of Christ having to deale with such as were but yet in converting or else but babes in Christ he totally abstained from the words of mans wisdome from intermingling any of the artificiall disputes of the Philosophers that their faith might not stand in the wisdome of men but in the power of God or whether he treated with them that were perfect i. e. grown to a high stature in the knowledg and faith of Christ even when he spake wisedom delivered doctrines of the greatest depth and misteriousness to them yet was it not the wisedome of this world i. e. neither was the matter thereof the doctrine of the profound Philosophers and Disputers that were held the Princes of the world for wisdome but the mysterie of Christ Neither for the confirmation thereof did he use the words which mans wisedom teacheth i. e. that way of philosophicall and dialectical disputation whereof the Philosophers give their precepts but in the words which the holy Ghost teacheth c. 1 Cor. 2. 1. 13. Now if neither Christ nor his truly inspired Ministers ever used or would use this kind of learning in Gospel-matters the conclusion will necessarily follow that it was never of Gods ordination For Christ was faithfull in his house the Church Heb. 3. 2 6. and finished the worke which his Father had given him to do Joh. 17. 4. And the like may be truly affirmed and confirmed of the faithfulnesse of all those truly inspired Ministers of Christ according to their measure that with Paul they were stewards of God and studied so earnestly to be found faithfull that they knew nothing by themselves to accuse themselves of falshood or neglect 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 4. That they kept back Act. 20. 20. 26 27. nothing which was profitable to the people but declared to them the whole Counsell of God therefore were pure from the blood of all men so that it must follow that either the use of the aforesaid humane learning in Gospel-matters is no ordinance of God and at the best unprofitable or else that Christ and his Apostles not using it yea rejecting the use of it were not faithfull But all will deny the latter therefore must grant the former A second Reason to prove it not to be an ordinance of God c. I may draw from the slighting abasing and invective terms which the Holy Ghost in Scripture useth against it The wisedom of the Holy Ghost doth in no wise slight any ordinance of God qualified and blessed by him to Gospel-ends But the use of those humane pieces of learning whereof I am speaking is much slighted and abaâ—ed by the H G as impotent and unusefull to Gospel-work and ends Ergo c. That the H G doth thus slight it in Scripture to omit what the Lord Christ speaks against the traditionary learning of the Jewish Rabbies Mat. 15. 1. 9. 23. 13 c. 11. 25 26. Joh. 9. 29-41 I shall mention only how contemptuously the H G by the Apostles pointing directly to this Gentilizing learning speaks of it They became vain in their imaginations saith he and their Rom. 1. 21-23 foolish heart was darkened Professing themselves wise they became fools and changed the glory of God into a corruptible image c. What more to the abasing of their learning he calls it at the best the very froth of light fancies and imaginations the darknesse of foolish hearts a profession of such wisedom as made them grosse fools that as it acted about religion and the way to happinesse it made both it and them a very abhomination to the Lord. Again The preaching of the Crosse is to them that perish foolishnesse As it is written I will destroy the wisedom of the wise bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world hath not God made foolish the wisedom of this world For after that in the wisedom of God the world by wisedom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that believe c. 1 Cor. 1. 18-21 c. How differing is the spirit of our Sophisters from the Spirit which wrought in the Apostle He pronounceth this Sophisticall learning to be so far from being a furtherance to the only true which is the Gospel-way of salvation as that it is an enemie to it rejects it as foolishnesse 2. Them that follow it as their rule and authority what to believe and do that they may be saved to be in a perishing condition in the ready way to damnation They that perish account the simplicity of the Gospel without the fulture or rather tainture of their Arts foolishnesse 3. He affirms God to be an enemy to it to detest any patronage from it to his mysterious Doctrine of the Gospel He hath left it upon record to curb wanton wits that he will destroy the wisedome c. 4. That according to his threat he hath executed and will still fulfill therefore challengeth the Sophisters to give answer from their own experience at last whether God hath not doth not alway so curse this wisedom of theirs that it turns to ruine and foolishnesse Where is the Scribe where the Disputer c. Hath not God c. 5. That it is a knowledg by which men know not God which while they pursue they lose utterly the saving knowledg of God 6. That in contempt of this secular learning God will by the simplicity and foolishnesse of Gospel-preaching save them that believe leaving the Disputers to reason themselves into Hell It pleased God c. Unto this I shal add but two Testimonies more the one when the Apostle hath to do with a company of Christians dwelling among the Philosophers in great jealousie fear of them he cryes out Beware ye be not spoiled with Philosophy Col 2. 7. vain decit He speaks of no possibility of any good that there should accrew unto them by the help of Philosophy but of great danger to be spoyled and corrupted by it and when is there such hazard of being corrupted by it he answers when men intermingle this learning which is but of humane invention and tradition after the Rudiments of the world
Religion in so short a time so mightily grew and prevailed that so great a part of the world from so small and even despicable a beginning became so fully and so quickly seasoned with it It were a full answer I acknowledg to say It was the Lords time and he would so have it But because the Lords operations are all done in wisdom truth and righteousness an inferiour subordinate cause visible to our eies may be also alledged when the Lord had purposed to do this great work he ordained and fitted instruments for it The Ministers which he employed the first threescore years and upward about the work of Reformation were such as clave only and wholly to the word both in preaching and defending the sacred truth of the Gospel minding only Christ Jesus not seeking their own things their own greatness glory and praise but the things of Christ Denyed all other authority save Christs knew no other admitted no other Master to define and determine any thing in matters of Religion but Christ alone Therefore whether they provoked the Adversaries or were provoked by them to disputation their challenge or receiving the challenge was stil upon this condition that the Word alone must be umpire in all things Thus they had Disputes before the Emperour Charls the 5. so they offered themselves to be disputers in the Councel of Trent But still refused the authority of Aristotle and his genuine sons Thom Aquinas John Duns Scotus and the whole rabble of their followers and all the testimonies and learning of such as incompetent Judges of heavenly things Thus these holy men ploughed the Lords field with his own Heyfers and sowed it with his own seed therefore he gave so large an encrease They preached as they had commandment and commission from him only his Gospel and all and only whatsoever he had commanded them therefore according to his promise he was with them giving a blessing But if it be further demanded how it came to pass at last that there was a stop to the glorious proceedings of the success of the Ministry of the Gospel these last sixty years that we see not any further propagation of the truth but Antichrist rather regaining strength than losing and the kingdom of Christ rather declining than increasing I answer that as about that time the new sect of Loyalla the Jesuits came to some maturity who being spes ultima Romae ruentis the last subsidiary help of the Romish nodding and falling power perceived that they might seek but not find any fulture from the Scriptures to their fainting cause therefore applied themselves to the study of Aristotle the Pagan and the Schoolmen the Semi-pagans drinking into themselves their sophistry and refining it into som-what a purer Language though most of them retain a scholastical style still And being thus furnished they provoke our Divines to a dispute objecting against them that through their ignorance and illiterate sottishness they dared not to dispute scholastically therefore still cryed Scripture Scripture to hide their want of Schollarship from the eyes of men As about that time I say there were in such an operation a new kind of Antagonists against the power of the Gospel So on our part in many Churches there succeeded the former Worthies about the same time Pastors in their own eyes possibly of a more noble but in spiritual eyes of a baser mettall who to evade that scandal laid upon us by the Adversaries that we destroyed good works by our Doctrine of free Grace through Christ preached some mens inventions superstitions and traditions others meer moralities legalities or duties after the tenor of the Law scarce touching upon the strings of the Gospel to tune up the Justification Life Liberty Peace Joy and other priviledges which are by Christ And to gain to themselves an applause and opinion among men of their universal Learning assented to the forenamed Challengers to discend to them in their own Field and to traverse their Disputes about heavenly things after the rules of worldly wisedom thus basely prostituting the cause and doctrine of the Lord Christ to the censure and arbitration of Heathen Philosophers and of John Duns and other enemies to the purity of the Gospel For in trying all by their learning by the light of Reason which they have dazled and sophisticated with their rules and precepts is to make them judges of Christ and his Gospel how farr they shall stand or fall Who can deny but in stead of the former Eagles which the Church had that stil beheld the Sun of righteousnes to fetch their light from his beams we had now Owls that looked downward and pitched upon the elements and rudiments of the world and worldly learning as the Apostle terms them Col. 2. 8. to fetch light authority thence in pretence to maintain the truth but in deed and successe to betray it No marvell if in this case Christ hath with-drawn himself and his blessing from such Apologists for his Cause which plead for him with such a kind of argumentation as is worse then totall silence For what of Christ is there in such disputes when the first syllogism or its prossyllogism or a distinction diverts the question from all the lists of Divinity into Philosophy or Metaphysicks c. and not the least parcell or particle of Scripture is any more heard of through the whole disputation It is but as it falls ouâ— sometimes between two Apes that having a heap of shels cast before them which they take for nuts inconsiderately break out into a skirmish rending in pieces either the others jackets and then with tooth and nail wound either the others hides untill the weaker yeeld the victory to the stronger and the Conquerour by his victory gets nothing but shels to break his teeth not a kernell to stay his hunger So when a question in Divinity once translated and removed into Logick in this element to be tryed there is notable jangling untill one of the Antagonists that hath the stronger front and more subtle brain and clamorous voyce hath put the other to silence and then one is as wise and as great a gainer as the other For the question is adhuc sub judice where it was it was above all logicall and metaphysical notions to decâ—de it I acknowledg that in such disputes it hath much delighted me sometimes to find the sophistical fallacies of an adversary detected and shamed in a logicall way by some of our Divines Yet this in no wise either doth or should satisfie me as touching the question untill I find the true assertion confirmed â—y Scripture it self One testimony from above in this case is of more worth and weight than a thousand volumes of Arguments drawn out of worldly wisedom which is from beneath And lest I should be taken as singular in this peece of prattle as Mr. Baxter will term it I shall mention in stead of many two famous modern Writers the one speaking with
thing yet remaineth which I promised to premise viz. what my intention is in excepting against Mr. Baxters book This is not either to oppose him in all things which he hath written therein For sometimes he looks out thorow truths casement that we might take him so a sonn of truth and the less suspect him when he vends his false wares In this case I will not jangle with him whether he speaks truth of envy and subtlety or of good will and sincerity Or 2. in all that shal seem to my judgment Heterodox in his Treatise but only or mainly in those things wherein he joyneth with the Romish Synagogue to maintain their damning doctrine against the truth which is and hath been professed in all the Reformed Churches about Faith and Justification Or 3. in every particular passage wherein he discovers himself in this point to be for Antichrist against Christ for sometimes he delivers himself with such ambiguities and aequivocations like Apollo of old in his Oracles that in pretence of another sense of his words than the more Grammaticall and usuall he may leave a way of issue to himself in case he cannot maintain his words in that sense wherein he would be understood that he may deceive Let it not therefore be thought all granted that shall not be here excepted against and that I approve all whatsoever I do not oppugn For method I desire no other may be expected from me than to follow Master Baxter in order as he hath written and to take up his Paradoxes and most profound and learned mistakes as they fall from him examining them not by the rules of Sophistry but by the touch-stone of the sacred Word These things thus premised we are now to begin to examine the unsavory particulars occurring in the Book it self Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. Arg. In which Mr. Baxters Popish Doctrine of Implicit Faith is examined and whether the people may admit Doctrine upon trust from their Teachers THE first passage wherein he sheweth himself to smel of Popery in the point of Faith and Justification is before the work it self in the farewell of his Epistle to the Reader pag. antepenult of the Epistle where he doth not obscurely manifest himself to like well enough the Papists doctrine of Implicit Faith and to wish it more favoured and taken up at home among us His words are these speaking to his Congregation Bax. Who I hope do understand that to take upon trust from your teachers what you cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary than many do imagine A very proper insinuation to a people whom he would have to swallow such Doctrines as in the following Treatise he offers to them to be swallowed As far as he prevails or prevails not with this insinuation so far he hath or hath not men his Disciples This is the very foundation of Antichrists kingdom the authority of men as the foundation of Christs kingdom is the authority of the Scriptures If Mr. Baxter can perswade men to admit and suck in this Doctrine his whole business is finished and all his ends attained If they take upon trust even fundamentall doctrines from their teachers Let Mr. Baxter bring what doctrines he will with him of men and Devils nothing shall be refused all shall be taken upon his Credit By this slight he knew the Pope had gathered and many hundred years held under his vassallage in blind obedience many nations of the earth therefore will not Mr. Baxter baulk it when hee goes about to propagate the Popes doctrine among us But let us see what the Popish implicit faith is and then compare Mr. Baxter with the Papists to see whether there be not in both one mind and spirit The Papists distinguish betwixt Faith and Faith telling us there is an Explicit and there is an Implicit Faith By the Explicit Faith they mean a cleer and distinct knowledg apprehension and believeng of all the Articles and Doctrines of faith which the holy Mother Church of Rome hath prescribed to be received to salvation and that not in a bunch only but in particulars also This Faith they hold needful and expedient in the Clergy as they term their Prelats and Priests who are to rule over more than to teach the people By the Implicite Faith they mean a generall and confused apprehension and believing of all that the Church hath commanded to be taught and believed that it is all good and true though they that so believe know not in particular what the Church hath commanded otherwise than they take it upon trust of their Priests which tell them such and such things are commanded by the Church to be believed This Faith they hold sufficient for the Laity to salvation to believe what the Church believeth and enjoyneth to be true though they neither know what it is nor are acquainted with one least parcell of the word by which they may know it to be true which they have so taken upon trust to believe By the Church they mean the Pope and his Clergy by the Laity the people So that by their Doctrine if the Popes decree things in religion successively never so contrary and contradictory either to other and the titular Clergy follow them and go to Hell for it yet the people have this one supereminent priviledg that their Implicit and Colliers faith saves them as being still the same and unchanged that they believe as the Church believeth though they know not either with the Church or what believing is or what the things are which the Church believeth Compare we now Mr. Baxters words with this popish doctrine and see we if there be any difference I hope saith he you understand When Mr. Baxter saith I hope we are not to doubt but a man of such rare parts hath good grounds for his hope He knew there was means used to make them understand else would he not say I hope you understand and what means but teaching and who should teach them but Mr. Baxter their Teacher But what is it he hopes they understand it followeth That to take upon the trust of your Teachers what you cannot yet see in its own evidence is not c. Here is the Implicit Faith not to ground their opinions and belief in matters of salvation upon the known word of God but upon trust from the Teachers to believe because their Teachers say they belive it And what are the Teachers but what in Popish phrase is termed the Church the Clergy which is in their account at least the Church representative And Mr. Baxter to decline envy useth the plurall number Teachers not as I conceive that the people of Kederminster have more Teachers in ordinary besides himself for he names
who not acknowledging the riches of Gods Wisedome and Grace in that course of our redemption which God hath followed would accuse God of indiscretion for making much aâ— do about nothing and teach him to go a more compendious and easie way to work then his wisdom hath chosen These Criticisms upon Gods glorious wonderfull proceedings in his administrations we leave to Socinus and Arminius with their followers It is our part sapere ad sobrietatem and to understand what God hath not to tell him what he might or should have done To the Eighth Because he knoweth his assertion false he therefore saith something but conceals from us what it is tells us that all the Scriptures and reasons which are brought against his opinion do not hit it nor hurt it but will not let us to know one particular of all those Scriptures and Reasons that he hath heard or read urged against him lest that some one answering might manifest the falshood of the assertion This is safe disputing to speak so as â—o leave no footing for an answer Such baites may catch Froggs possibly but never a Fish And as he affirmeth neither Scriptures not Reasons prove more then this That our afflictions are not the rigorous execution of the Law what Scripture or Reason can be given why that believers shall not be damned in hell together with unbelievers For what is the rigor of the Law but the infliction of the Curse in its utmost extent and extremity But if the Saints be beaten with few stripes when the rebells are beaten with many and be damned but to the uppermost when the other are cast into the nethermost hell then is not the Curse of the Law executed upon them in its utmost rigor If this be not to abase the merits of Christ that hath purchased and abuse the grace of God that promiseth and abate if not to destroy the hope and comfort of believers that shall receive according to Mr. Baxter no better priviledges then this surely then nothing can do it As for that which he addeth of a mixture of love and hatred in God when he curseth the wicked and of love and anger when he curseth the godly This is a meer Chimaera of his own brain a making of God to be in a commotion against himself to carry fire in the one hand and water in the other to fight with the right against the left and with the left hand against the right sometimes the one and sometimes the other overcoming but of which side soever the Victory resteth still must the poor believer be cursed and when most under the curse we must believe Mr. Baxter telling us a strange wonder he is not at all under the hatred of God An excellent disputer to have stood alway at Marcions elbow prompting him with argument to prove this God to have been a malignant and envious God the author of all evill to mankinde what less doth Mr. Baxter affirm when he tells us that he curseth his very Friends those that trust in him those whom he hateth not yea those whom he loveth But doth he bring no Scripture to prove all that he hath said Yes one in steed of all and that as pertinent and proper to his purpose as a Pearl to a Swines snout Death hath lost his sting 1 Cor. 15. 55 56. There is no unpardoned sin in it Yet when God hath pardoned every of their sins he will neverthelesse powre upon them the Curse when they are without if not also because they are without sin ipse dixit and I must be silent To the Ninth It greeves me lesse when I finde Mr. Baxter leaving the pure fountain of Scripture stirring in his own element the puddle of humane art and wisedom then when he meddles with the word becaus he seldom toucheth it but with a defiled and defiling hand to pervert maim or add to it and so to prophane it So that his sin is greater in this than in the other The place which he quotes here 1 Cor. 15. 26. saith not that as he untruly alleageth Death is not yet overcome but onely saith The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death it is overcome already though not destroyed Yet not to strive about words Death is overcome and it is not overcome but in different respects It is overcome 1 In relation to Christ himself and his naturall body that it cannot reach or seize on him Els is not Christ risen from death and then our faith is vain But he is risen in the power of the Godhead having loosed or dissolved the pains and Chains too of Death it being unpossible he should be held by it Acts 2. 24. For how should a power finite over-power the power of God which is infinite Neither will any say that Christ escaped from the bonds of death by Treaty but by Conquest He ascended on high leading captivity captive Eph. 4. 8. Having spoyled principalities and powers he made open shew of them triumphing over them Col. 2. 15. By his death he hath destroyed not onely death it self but him also that had the power of death i. e. the Devill Heb. 2. 14. 2 In relation to the mysticall body of Christ the believers it is so overcome that it hath in it no curse to vomit out upon them That was carried away in Christs naturall body that this his mysticall body might be freed from it He took to himself saith the Apostle part of our flesh and blood that by death he might destroy him that hath the power of death i. e. the Devill and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. What was that in death that the Saints so feared under the Law before the Gospel had fully cleered to them their liberty but the Curse The Law threatned them with death as with the Curse and vengeance of God This made them to live all their life-time in a sad bondage for fear of death of the curse and vengeance in death at the last But Christ hath by his death delivered us from the Curse that was in death so that now we live not in fear and bondage in expectation of death It is but a sweet dormitory to the Saints in which they put off their corruptible and dreggish that at last they may put on immortall and spirituall bodies in them to meet with Christ in the day of Judgement and be for ever with him 1 Cor. 15. 44. 1 Thes 4. 17. In these respects death is overcome But it is not so overcome but that it hath its being yea full dominion with its curse over the wicked and in this respect it is said The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is death as will appear by reading the former vers with this Christ must reign till he hath brought all his enemies under his feet The last enemy c. The Apostle here from the Authority of that Prophecy Psal 110. 1.
whatsoever notions of naturall righteousnes and holines of God of good and evill of truth and falshood there are in naturall men without the word the same not to be ingraven into them by nature or remainders of any Law written in mans heart at his first Creation but of Gods immediate infusion by a generall and common operation of the Spirit in time distributed to some in a greater to some in a lesser measure to some scarce at all as his infinite wisedom shall see it to make most for his glory And from these Mr. Baxter seems elswhere not to dissent And how then can that be nulled and repealed or what new super-addition can there be made to that whith was never in being much less can a Covenant stand firm which was never existent If the second then contrary to his Assertion the Old Covenant in respect of our personall Obligation to it and of the dependence of our life and death upon it according to our personall obedience or disobedience to it is nulled there being now no accessible Paradise nor tree of knowledg of good and evill about which our obedience may be exercised or disobedience manifested If the third Mr. Baxter speaketh point-blank in contrariety to the Apostle in saying that the Covenant of Grace was added to the Law or Covenant of works For the Apostle giveth the priority to the Promise or Covenant of Grace and affirmeth expresly that the Law or Covenant of works was many hundred years after added to it Gal. 3. 17 19. So that we know not where to meet with Mr. Baxter to understand much less to answer him 4 He hath a mentall reservation also when he affirmeth that the Covenant of Grace was super-added as the onely possible way of life Who knows whether he pronounceth it the onely possible way to life as it hath fulture and supportance from the Law and Covenant of Works to which it is super-added and so Moses and Christ meeting together in the Mount do save a poor sinner and what the Law could not do of it self being weak through the flesh that could not fulfill it Rom. 8. 3. Now by the super-added help of Grace it doth perform Or as it is operative in it self and by it self saving by its own soveraign power without any help from the works of the Law Why doth not Mr. Baxter speak out Veritas non quaerit angulos Truth loveth to shew its face in the cleer light not hiding it self in the clouds I do no wrong to Mâ— Baxter in pressing upon him for his meaning herein every man may see in the sequell of his Tractate that grace and faith have with him very little power to justifie or save but what they borrow and fetch home in a Cardinals Hat or Monks Cowl from good works 5 And he leaves us in the dark and doubtfull what he means by the word hereby when he saith Christ doth not null the Covenant hereby it is a relative word and must have its meaning from that which is antecedent in the tenth Aphorism viz. Christs prescribing of a new Law and tendering of a new Covenant The old Covenant is not nulled hereby saith Mr. Baxter Doth he mean by the tendering of the New Covenant Or the offer of Grace This makes nothing to the end he drives at None conceiving that the offer or tendering of Grace to a sinner doth forth with free him from the Curse of the Law untill he accepts the tender Or doth he mean that the effectualizing of the Covenant of Grace to a sinner or the taking of him effectually into the Covenant of Grace doth not make void the Law to him as a Covenant of works This is indeed like himself and agreeable to his purpose He is not consistent with himself nor with the most subtle and sophisticall of the Papists whom he loves as dearly as himself if he do not so mean Nevertheles because he is willing here to pass under a vizzard I will not trouble my self to unmask him Himself will openly enough discover himself to us when the humour takes him At present let him be sullen 6 The same might I say of that which followeth The former i. e. The Covenant of works or the Law still continueth to command prohibite promise and threaten A wide dominion and large authority but who the subjects servants are over whom it is exercised he leaves as all the rest in an ambiguity is not disposed to tell us except the next words do it So that the sins even of the justified are still breaches of that Law and c. 7 But here also he determineth to passe away in the dark tells us onely what power the Law hath against the sins not against the persons of the justified that it threatens and curseth their transgressions but whether onely upon the person of Christ satisfying for them or els in their own persons also after Christ hath so satisfied is a secret that at this time and in this place we must not know from him though if he had not let it out before he would have been in pangs of travell with it untill he were delivered of it Thus have we found M. Baxter in this Aphorism fighting against the fore-mentioned Conclusion and the Scriptures that confirmed it with his sword in the scabbard How terrible the skirmish was they that felt either the point or edge of his weapon can tell you Suppose he should now unsheath it who could stand before his drawn sword This he is about to do by his Explication Mr. B. I acknowledge that this assertion is disputable and difficult and many places of Scripture are usually produced which seem to contradict it I know also that it is the judgement of learned and godly men that the Law as it is a Covenant of works is quite null and repealed in regard of the sins of believers Yea many do believe that the Covenant of works is repealed to all the the world and onely the Covenant of grace in force Against both these I maintain this assertion by the Arguments which you find under the following Position 13. And I hope notwithstanding that I extoll free grace as much and preach the Law as little in a forbidden sense as though I held the contrary opinion First he acknowledgeth his Assertion to be disputable and difficult We have found it not onely to be so but to be so of his own making by means of his clothing it with the darknes of such and so many ambiguities equivocations c. Against it he saith there is a two-fold authority usually produced the one Divine the othee humane The one he despiseth and blowes of as contemptible the other he falsifieth I am confident that he may have somewhat to say in answer to it 1 There is Divine authority or many Scriptures produced which seem to contradict his Assertion And here take we notice in how base esteem he hath the Holy Scriptures of those many Scriptures he
vouchsafeth not to answer one no nor to cite one why but that he thinks when the Scriptures and his own assertions do contradict either the other the authority of his own judgment not only to parallel but also to over-weigh the authority of the Scriptures What Papist what Enthusiast hath or can have the Scriptures in less esteem then this Aphorist shews himself here and elswhere to have What Scriptures are brought against him he disdaineth them an answer yea a glance of his eye to see them or tongue to read them to us But if he finds any Scripture whose point with much bowing and wresting he thinks he may turn about against us that have no more wit but to think their authority venerable and requiring our submission thereunto of these he makes use to befool yet more such fools as regard them If I fail in my censure the Lord forgive to me the mistake of my judgment and to Mr. Baxter his giving occasion yea cause of such a mistaking And as the authority of Scriptures is pufft from him with less then a piff or pish so do we find humane authority in all probability falsified by him I know saith he that learned and godly men are of this judgment that the Law as a Covenant of works is quite null and repealed in regard of the sins of beleevers I do not doubt but by these learned and godly he means some Protestant Divines whom somtimes he will flatter smooth and almost spit in their mouths to allure them to run after him Now if he do not falsify their assertions let him name but one of them that ever affirmed the Law to be so repealed I may possibly acknowledg him to be in the main learned and godly but I believe I shall never account him to have been considerate in laying down such an assertion For it directly contradicts the doctrine of our Saviour Think not saith he that I am come to destroy the Law c. I am not come to destroy but fulfill Verily verily Heaven and Earth shall pass but not one jot or tittle shall not pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Mat. 5. 17 18. Or to whom should it be repealed not to unbeleevers for it is consented in both sides that they are under the Law under the Curse Nor to beleevers for the Law hath pursued their sins unto death in the body of Christ and by Mr. Baxters acknowledgment hath inflicted upon him for them upon them in him the tantundem if not the idem which it ever threatned against sinners And how is the Law repealed in any of its power that doth or hath executed all its power upon all that have been transgressors Mr. B. very well knoweth what doctrine is taught in the Reformed Churches but will needs falsify it as he doth also the Holy Scriptures We affirm that the Law is still in force and shall be til the worlds end We preach not a repeal of any of its power or righteousness which it had from God at any time Neither on the other side do we attribute to it a power or unrighteousnes which God never gave it We grant it a power to take full vengeance upon every sinner for every sin committed during life But we deny that if any be raised to a second life after death as was Christ having born the whole wrath due to the sins of the former life that such a one comes under the power of the Law again the Law hath never more dominion over him But so stands the case with believers They have suffered in Christ done their Law in Christ are dead in Christ and in him they have satisfied the Justice of the Law for the sins of their whole life If now they are also risen with Christ and are dignified with a new life the life of grace so that though they live it is not so much they that live as that Christ liveth in them and the life which they live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God Gal. 2. 20. In this new life which they have by their union unto Christ now triumphant the Law can no more reach them then Christ himself triumphant So the Law is nulled to them but never repealed nulled because it hath inflicted upon them its whole penaâ—ty and after it hath so done it hath no more power over the very reprobates much lesse over the Saints So that the Law being null or of no force to believers hath received no diminution to its power holding it still firm and entire as ever no more then the Law of the Land is weakened for that when it hath inflicted death upon the Felon or Traytor it hath no further power to question him As before they had existence in Adam their not existing yet in him and under the Law by being in Adam argued no weaknes in the Law So when they have don their Law for the sins committed while under the Law and that by their new union unto and existence in Christ they cease to be under the Law that the Law hath no power over them argues no wound or weaknesse or detriment that the Law hath sustained any more then it doth because it is null in power to the Angels in Heaven over whom it had never power or null unto Christ now in Heaven over whom it had once power Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the penalty of the LAW is due to none but the transgressors of the Law to the unrighteous and withall affirms Thes 16. p. 96. and Explication page 98 99. That Satisfaction for disobedience is our Righteousnes makes a man so perfectly righteous as to the Law and further penalty thereof as if he had never disobeyed Yet we find him here fighting not onely against Heaven and Earth but against himself also to deny the nullity of the Law to them that have satisfied by CHRIST for their disobedience to the Law making it one and the same thing with the repealing of the Law This word repealing being here foisted in by himself partly to make way for his sophisticall and bombasticall distinctions which are no less deer to him then his life therefore in the Explication of the next Thesis comes in great ostentation no less trappled with them then a Cart-horse with his painted Collar bells and fethers partly to give occasion of his riding in state upon Grotius his shoulders to shew what new subtle and fine-spun learning he hath drawn from so noble and Apostaticall a Doctor no less fit to the Argument he hath in hand than the shoo iâ— for the hand or the glove for the foot But lastly and principally that having according to his wonted and inbred subtlety put on a false vizzard upon the doctrine of the reformed Churches he might in the 13 Thes and its explication dispute victoriously against the vizzard having nothing to say against the doctrine in its own nature and verity As for the other pretended opinion that the Covenant
of works is repealed to all the world and the Covenant of Grace alone in force Those that hold it most probably are some Eutopians that Mr. Baxter alone and no other either man or Angel besides him have had acquaintance with or the happines to know their opinion So that Mr. Baxter might have done well to have taken a second voyage into the land of Eutopia either to have joyned with them or disputed against them upon their own happy turf and not to have troubled our unhappy Coasts with this Controversie it hath the unhappines doubtles to be pestered with so many opinionists as any Nation in the world but among all hath not such bug-bears or phrenticks that I know who maintein such an assertion But it is one of Mr. Baxters subtleties to feign such ghosts and phantasmes of men to fight against thereby taking the advantage secretly and unespyed as he hopeth to erect more cursed and monstrous assertions than all such ghosts and phantasmes as he feigneth could have devised But we cannot stop him in his Career on he posteth and Against both these imaginary opinions saith he I maintein this Assertion i. e. his 11th Thesis which we have found to be a meer fardle of equivocations ambiguities c. for explication whereof we have sought where he promised it but have found nothing but fictions imaginations and new falshoods more to obscure it Yet this peece of darknes he promiseth to maintain under the 13 posiâ—ion where we shall wait on him But in the mean while he hath a 12th Thes and an explication to intersert which we must by the way take notice of as a most noble preparative to the sublime learning which in the 13th he will deliver As for that brag wherewith he shuts up all that he hath said in the titular explication of this his 11th position I hope that I extoll free Grace as much and preach the Law as little in a forbidden sense as though I held the contrary opinion unto it I say but this If his preaching be so much better and honester than his writing we could wish him henceforth to apply himself wholly to the Pulpit not at all to the Presse And notwithstanding his brags and all his equivocations windings and fallacious argumentation we will still keep in minde the state of the question from which he seeks to avert us viz. that the Law is not nulld to beleevers but even when they are beleevers they are still under the Law as a Covenant of works This he hath promised to maintain against Scriptures and Orthodox Writers whatsoever els he speaketh and not home to this point is besides the question Attend we therefore what he hath to make this good in the next position CHAP. IX Mr. Baxters Distinctionary preparative to the Confirmation of his Assertion that beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works examined and all that he haeh therein manifested to be in part impertinent to the question and pertinent onely to his vain-glory in the rest to be Popish and destructive to all hope of salvation Thesis 12. BAx Therefore we must not plead the repeal of the Law for our Justification but must refer it to our surety who by the value and efficacy of his once offering and merits doth continually satisfie We assent here to his words in substance but finde Cause in the placing of them to doubt of a fallacious meaning which he hath therein 1 We do not we will not plead the repeal of the Law for our Justification But Mr. Baxter as he makes it appear by what is antecedent and following in this dispute would have us to conceive that in the not repealing of the Law is included our being under the Law as a Covenant of works Such tame fools in the lofty opinion that he hath of himself doth he account us If in the following words of the position he meant fairly he would speak plainly We must not plead the repeal of the Law for Justification c. What then but we must refer it to our surety who by the value c. Why saith he not plainly we must not plead the lawes repeal for c. but our fullfilling of it in Christ or the satisfaction which he hath once made for all the breaches of the Law which we have or shall have committed why speaks he ambiguously we must refer it to our surety what whether or when we shall be justified or to him to plead for us neglecting to seek for any ablenes to plead and give account of our hope for our selves willingly remaining uncertain of salvation all our life time And when he saith by his once offering and merits he doth continually satisfie though in a good sense it be true and good yet hath he not already actually satisfied and are not beleevers by that satisfaction actually justified we shall finde anon there was a monster conteined in the womb of these equivocall locutions In the interim let us search whether in the place of explication there be any thing spoken to explain his meaning Explication Bax. I shall here explain to you in what sense and how far the Law is in force and how far not and then prâ—ve it in and under the next head Here now he brings in a quaternion of distinctions to undermine and blow up the authority of the sacred Tâ—inity expressed in the forecited Scriptures that proves beleevers not to be under the Law as a Covenant of works and foure against three is odds Bâ—x You must here distinguish betwixt 1 The repealing of the Law and the relaxing of it 2 between a dispensation absolute and respective 3 Between the alteration of the Law and the alteration of the subjects relation to it 4 Between a discharge conditionall with a suspension of execution and a discharge absolute Parturiunt Montes What follows upon all these polite and profound distinctions many notable Conclusions doubtles Mr. Baxters nose is as right in the middle of his face since as before his disburthening himself of these distinctions But most certainly we are dull and cannot piece deeply But Mr. Baxter is no less acute than deep let us see what work he can make of it Bax. And so I resolve the question thus 1 The law of works is not abrogate or repealed but dispensed with or relaxed A dispensation is as Grotius defineth it an act of a superiour whereby the obligation of a law in force is taken away as to certain persons and things 2 This dispensation therefore is not totall or absolute but respective For 1 Though it dispense with the rigorous execution yet not with every degree of execution 2 Though the law be dispensed with as it conteineth the proper subjects of the penalty viz. the parties offending and also the circumstances of duration c. yet in regard of the meer punishment abstracted from person and circumstances it is not dispensed with For to Christ it was not dispensed with His satisfaction
home into their apprehension and Conscience that their sinns are remitted For so run the words in that 10 of Act. v. 47. that Whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sins not denying that Christ had received it for them before but affirming only that now they should receive it from Christ Besides this promise is held forth there promiscuously to all both elect and reprobate and it is but an offer not the gift of pardon to distinguish betwixt them for whom Christ had and those for whom he had not effectually satisfied and received absolution from the Father by the ones beleeving and receiving by faith from the hand of Christ the pardon and the others refusall and manifesting thereby their abode under death and the Law still The surety had paid the penalty of the obligation taken up the bonds and acquittance or discharge of the debt Thenceforth the Creditor had no more plea against either principall or surety Nevertheles the principall knew it not therefore playeth least in sight is in continual fear of arrests thinks every bush hath a Sergeant or Bayliff under it but at length the surety gives and delivers into his hand both the acquittance the obligation Cancelled Now is his first receiving of a discharge now he first finds himself free from his Creditors obligation now hath he the first comfort of the benefit but he was discharged before though he knew it not so is it with the elect c. Therefore Mr. Baxters inference hence is unsound He addeth the Testimony of Paul Eph. 2. 3. That the redeemed were by nature the Children of wrath who denyeth it But this is nothing to the question It is not here enquired whether the redeemed drew not the seeds of sin and death by naturall propagation from their parents as much as others But whether by the satisfaction which Christ made for them according to the Covenant of grace they were not redeemed from that wrath before they yet beleeved It is true what Mephibosheth said of himself and his brethren to David We were all as dead men before my Lord the King c. 2 Sam. 19. 28. because they were the progeny of Saul that fought against David Nevertheles by means of the Covenant that intervened between David and Jonathan Mephibosheth had right to all the favour that King David could express As for those testimonies cited by way of Thesis and Antithesis out of Gal. 5. ver 3 4. ver 18 23. they make wholly against him nothing for him The 3 4 verses speak nothing to the question in hand but utterly destroy that to which in this whole dispute he driveth nothing to the question in hand The circumcised are bound or debtors to the whole Law and Christ is become of none effect to them He was to have proved that beleevers were before they beleeved under the Law This Text speaketh not of the elect before they beleeved but of professed beleevers returning to Circumcision and the Law to fetch thence help unto their justification after that they seemingly at least beleeved in Christ so here is nothing that makes for him because nothing to the present question But much against him in reference to the grand thing which he laboureth for to bring beleevers under the Law as a Covenant of works Whosoever doth so saith the Apostle in the least mite that contents not himself with Christ alone takes in but so poor a peice of the Law as Circumcision to help with Christ to Justification the same person hereby forfeiteth all his claim to Grace and Christ and must gain heaven by his perfect fullfilling of the Law or must be damned in hell for ever Into this state Mr. Baxter striveth to bring himself and his disciples I shall not wish them joy in it because I use not to wish impossibilities Touching the verses which he puts in opposition to these ver 18 23. But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law against such there is no law If he mean simply and sincerely what the Apostle here meaneth by being led by the Spirit viz. the seeking of righteousnes by Christ alone as the same Apostle more fully expresseth himself Gal. 3. 3. Phil. 3. 3. Then by granting that such are not under the Law there is no law against them he destroyeth and recanteth all that he hath before spoken to prove beleevers under the Law But if by being led by the Spirit his aim be to bring in works to justification under the name of the fruits of the Spirit we shall here forbear to answer him because it is besides the present question leaving it to its fit place where he openly explaineth himself And no less abhorrent from the question is his next proof Gal. 3. 22. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ may be given to them that beleeve What is this to the purpose in hand we deny not the promise of or the promised Justification and remission of sinns by faith in Jesus Christ to be given to them that beleeve into their hands and possession when they beleeve by affirming that Christ hath taken possession thereof for them before they beleeve that he may let it down into their hearts when they beleeve He ascended up on high and led captivity captive and gave gifts to men Eph. 4. 8. The Apostle fetcheth his authority from the word in Psal 68. 18. where it is said He received gifts for men viz. to give them in his time But the Apostle contents himself with the scope of the word not binding himself to the bare letter and sound thereof So Christ at his ascension received for us the gifts of Justification and remission and all other benefits of his passion They were then laid up for us in his Custody so that we had them in him before our actuall existence upon earth But he gives them to us into our sensible possession when we come to be to live and to beleeve That which he citeth from Gal. 4 5. is altogether besides the question also Himself acknowledgeth that it proveth us onely to be under the Law when Christ redeemed us or undertook to pay our ransom Not that we were under the Law after he had redeemed us by paying our ransom before we yet beleeved The words are these in the 4 5 verses God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law The scope of the Apostle here is one and the same with that to which he drives Gal. 2. 15 16. We who are Jewes by nature a holy seed within the Covenant and have all the privileges of the Law and not sinners of the Gentiles that are without the Covenant and the Law knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have beleeved that we might be justified by the faith of
was but a temporary additament to it to remain onely till the promised seed should come he means so to remain as to make the Covenant conditionall The Law therefore being in this respect done away the Covenant abides free and absolute In thee in thy seed all Nations shall be blessed Gal. 3. 8 16 17 18. This Covenant is free absolute laden with no such conditions as might make the hope of blessednes uncertain The evasions which Mr. B. useth to elude the authority of this Scripture are meerly Sophisticall having no footing upon other Scriptures and totally crossing the purpose of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture It conteineth not saith he the full tenor of the whole New Covenant Where then shall we find it if not where the Holy Ghost undertaketh professedly to declare both what this New Covenant is not and what it is This is the Covenant saith the Holy Ghost Nay it is but a peece or morsell of it saith Mr. Br. whom shall we beleeve him that speaketh from Heaven or him that at the best speaketh but from the earth But either so called saith Mr. Br. because it expresseth the nature of the benefits of the New Covenant as they are offered on Gods part without mentioning mans conditions that being not pertinent to the business the Prophet had in hand A most impudent fiction yea it was the whole or chief thing he had in hand was it not to shew the difference between these two under-covenants that under the Law and this under the Gospel But how doth it serve to this purpose to expresse the nature of the benefits of the New Covenant Did not the Elect under the Law partake of the same benefits in nature though not in measure with the Elect now Or is not this one of the differences which he makes betwixt the Covenants that the one was hedged about with hard conditions the other free Or els saith he it speaketh onely of what God will do for his Elect in giving them the first grace and enabling them to perform the New Covenant Ridiculous though right in the Monkes tone For did not God give the first and second Grace too to the Elect under the Law as well as to the Elect under the Gospel Where then is the difference hence to give a new name to the present Covenant But lastly saith he It is a production and belongs to the will of purpose not to his legislative will Now he hits the nail upon the head He makes a very Asse of this distinction and loads him with all sorts of trash It is to be doubted it will shortly get a gawld back and kick his Master in the leggs Predictions and Promises because they are not perteining to Gods legislative will must henceforth give neither fulture to our faith nor light to our judgments The rest that he hath upon this Thesis hath nothing of moment in it calling for an answer Thesis 15. B. p. 92. Though Christ hath sufficiently satisfied the Law yet is it not his will or the will of the Father that any man should be justified or saved thereby who hath not some ground in himself of personall and particular claim thereto Nor that any should be justified by the blood onely as shed or offered except it be also received and applyed so that no man by the meer satisfaction made is freed from the Law or Curse of the first violated Covenant absolutely but conditionally only I annex this Position because it is homogeneous with the many former and though Mr. Br. would seem in the Explication to distinguish the matter of it from that which the former Aphorisms conteined yet is it not onely of the same kinde but of the same substance also with it and what hath been said in answer to that which went before might suffice as an answer to this also Yet because it delights him to speak the same things in a variation of words let us see whether the words which he here useth have more â—fficacy in them to his purpose then the former We finde here as we did in some of the former Theses a fardle of ambiguities and phrases of a doubtfull sense which puts us into an uncapacity of answering his meaning because he so speaketh that he will be sure we shall not be able to prove what is his meaning First when he saith It is not the will of Christ or will of the Father he leaves us unresolved whether he mean the will of purpose or the will of precept that if we answer to the one he may evade by a pretence he meant the other If he will be understood of the former when was he rapt up into the third Heaven to search what secret purposes and decrees are hidden in the bosom of the Father or of the Son Or if he hath it by revelation why doth he not shew how and when it was given him and whether in an ordinary or extraordinary manner Or if he mean that will how shall he take it up to be the rule of his judgment which in the very last words to which I answered and so often elswhere he abandoneth from being the rule of other mens judgments If he mean the latter the will of precept why holds he us suspended in the expectation of alleaging the precept and arguing forth his Conclusions thence that if satisfactory we may submit to it if otherwise we may except against it Secondly when he tels us of Justification denying any living soul to have it only by Christs satisfaction without some ground in himself of particular right and claim thereto and except it be also received and applyed c. he leaves us doubtfull whether he meaneth Justification as compleated in Christ or as evidenced also to our own consciences If the former what will he then conclude of perishing or dying infants that they are all unjustified and in respect of the punishment of loss remedilesly damned and so with his brethren shut them up for ever in that dark prison which is termed by them Limbus infantum If the latter and that he will give us leave to take his words in Scripture-sense we will not quarrel with them but this in the Explication he seems to explode Thirdly when he tels us of some grounds of claim in our selves to Justification which in the following words he seems to determinate to consist in our receiving and applying thereof and in the Explication p. 93. he calls somwhat of man intervening to give him a legall right to it annexing that we are said to be justified by Faith in all this he mixeth together falshood and subtilty with his ambiguity putting himself into that posture wherein the Papists have painted and feigned Erasmus hovering between Heaven and Hell sometimes mounting on high sometimes sinking low again but pitching neither above nor beneath In such a motion we here find Mr. B. as he is in his gradation further making out the Mystery of Romish iniquity for a Law
pense Bax. p. 94. Not that it receives its efficacy from these nor that these do add any thing at all to its worth and value no more than the cabbinett to the jewell or the applying hand to the Medicine or the offenders acceptation to the pardon of his Prince Yet without this acceptation and application this bloud will not be effectuall to justifie us These words would seem to plead a good meaning in Mr. Br to them that neither are acquainted with the glozings of the Papists nor with that which followeth in this Treatise of Mr. Br. He might be thought by this his smoothing to attribute our Justification wholly to Christs sufferings and nothing to any thing in our selves save to faith only nor to Faith but as it is appointed of God to be instrumentall for the accepting and receiving into our bosoms Christs merits and the benefits thereof The like fine words we shall finde oft falling from the pen of Pelagius Papists Arminians c. But both of him and them I may say what the Lord once said of Israel This people hath well spoken in all that they have said O that there were in them such a heart c. Deut. 5. 28 29. He proceeds and opposeth to the Authority of our Apostle Paul the authority of his St Grotius at the hearing of whose sophisticall learning all the doctrine of Paul must fall broken and shivered to the earth no lesse than the Ark of God did before the great Dagon of the Philistims Bax. Cum unusquisque actui ex sua voluntate pendenti legempossit imponere c. as may be there read at large p. 94. The summe of all is this Because our justification is an act proceeding from the meer and free will of God and of Christ it was therefore in their power after payment made by Christ and accepted by the Father in our behalf to covenant and accomplish our discharge either forthwith or a long time after either simply or upon Conditions Therefore it is Covenanted between the Father and the Son that we shall be after satisfaction made not forthwith but in processe of time justified and then also not purely or absolutely but conditionally A mad Argumentation For A posse ad esse non valet Consequentia It is as if I should argue God could have supported Mr. Br and his Mr Grotius in the truth of the Gospel Ergo he hath preserved them in the truth What judicious man that hath considerately read their works would not hisse at such an argument But he adds the authority of Austin Bax. As Austin He that made us without us will not save us without us O that Mr. Br had stood as Austin pillar-like to beare up the Grace of God entire in the whole busines of our salvation against all the sophisms of Pelagius and his followers We should in no wise have excepted against Augustines words in Mr. Baxters mouth uttering them in Augustines sense We make not men stocks and stones nor deny the operation of their wills moved by Gods Spirit in the way to happines Yet the sentence it self alleaged out of Austin I doubt is perverted by Mr. Baxter as it hath been by some before him I have been told that in Austin it is read intorrogatively and bears the force of an affirmative thus He that made thee without thee will he not save thee without thee which is equivolent to this if it were said he will save thee without thee For the truth of it I have been directed to his Serm. 11. de verb. Apostoli where though I finde it not totidem verbis yet the full sense and substance thereof I finde The Father treating of those words of the Psalmist He made us without us or not we our selves improves them by the annexion of other Scriptures against Pelagius demonstrating that he also saves us when we were lost without us To this effect his sentences are full and manifold Perditos nos per nos reficit nos qui fecit nos Again Ipse fecit nos non ipsi nos ut simus populos ejus oves pascuae ejus Again Homines sumus ipse fecit nos fidelâ—s sumus jam justi ipse fecit nos non ipsi nos Again Ipse fecit nos antequà m essemus omninò ipse fecit nos factos lapsos ipse justos fecit nos non ipsi nos Nondum erat homo factus est offendit salvus factus Again Quis prior dedit ei retribuetur ei Si Dominus retribuere vellet nihil nisi paenam debitam retribuisset Nihil dederunt ut eis retribueretur pro nihilo salvos fecit illos In a word as all this is directly against Mr. Baxter so is there no one title in the whole Sermon for him but all proving not in Mr. Baxters sophisticall way but seriously and profoundly from cleer and invincible Scriptures our salvation to be onely Gods work not his and ours together If nothing else should be said that which Austin in this one Chapter hath said is enough to bury Mr. Baxters doctrine in the dirt for ever Bax. He never maketh a relative change where he doth not also make a reall True but whether the relative or the reall change hath the precedency in order is the question Whether our reconciliation or justification go before sanctification or follow it as the fruit thereof Bax. Gods decree gives no man a legal title to the benefit decreed him seeing purpose and promise are so different True but altogether besides the question Bax. A legall title we must have before we can be justified and there must be somewhat in our selves to prove that title or else all men should have equall right If he speak of our being justified in our selves or having our Justification evidenced to our selves or our brethren we consent with him If he mean otherwise in the sense often mentioned what he saith here is that which he hath often said but it remaineth yet to be proved There is somewhat else as hath been oft shewed besides Mr. Brs somewhat in us that differenceth man from man that all have not equall right And this is somewhat in Christ not somewhat in us CHAP. XIII Mr. Baxters doctrine of a twofold i. e. a legal and Evangelical Righteousnes equally necessary to salvation or Justification examined The terms and phrase which he useth discussed and how little he saith to prove either phrase or matter to be good manifested I Shall totally pretermit the 16th Aphorisme and its explication not but that there are some passages therein deserving examination but because that what is delivered in such passages is done very warily and may admit of a good as well as of a bad Construction and in the following part of his book Mr. Br speaketh it out fully and plainly that no man can doubt of his meaning Therefore is more properly to be answered there than in this place Neither shall
Law they understand sometimes the Decalogue or Law of the ten Commandments Sometimes the Law of Nature or naturall Righteousness imprinted in mans heart at his first creation Here taking it for granted that Mr. Baxter meaneth by the Morall Law the doctrine of the Law considered as a rule of Righteousness not as a Covenant of Works If 1. he mean by the Morall Law all Commandements both of naturall and positive right I deny the Morall Law so taken to be in the whole and in every part now in force If 2. he mean by it the Decalogue or Law of the tenne Commandements as it was given upon Mount Sinai in time so himself knoweth it to bee the judgement of many Divines that it bound the Nation of Israel alone was not at all given to the Gentiles doth not at all bind us that are not of the Naâ—ion of Israel otheâ—wise then it clears up to us the Law of Nature written in our hearts which dâ—th bind us or as the duties thereof are required of us in the New Testament by the Lord Christ whom we acknowledge to be our King See Zanchius Tom. 4. lib. 1. cap. 11. Thes 1. Where he fully handles and confirms this assertion adding moreover Sic etiam insignes Theologi omnes sentiunt i. e. All Divines of note aâ—e of this judgement Withall that there are some things contained in some of the ten Commandements not pertaining to the jus naturae save in their genus and that somewhat remote I know Mr. Baxter will not deny and if I thought any else would question it it were easie to be demonstrated But if he mean by the Morall Law the Law of Nature as aforesaid as it is written in the heart yea as it is further illustrated either by the book of the Creatures or by the Decalogue as it is epitomized in Tables of stone and explained and amplified in both Testaments so I grant the Moral Law to be still in force viz. as a directive of Moral obedience still What Mr. Baxter addeth viz. to what ends and in what sense the Gospel continueth that law and commandeth perfect obedience thereto is a question not very easie is to me a strange speech in many respects For 1. I cannot see how the question can be difficult to him that will not Nodum in scirpo quaerere make the plaine wayes of God rugged by filling them up with bryars and thorns To the same most honourable ends and in the same sense is it continued for and in which it was first given I mean to the same ends in general though not in every far remote particular First to make his glory elucent in this Microcosm this choice peece of his Workmanship Man is the glory of God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. 7. How but as he bears the image of God not onely in rule and dominion but also in wisdome holyness and righteousness to manage that authority and rule wherewith the grace of God hath invested him And this glory of God upon man is by so much the more conspicuous by how much the more perfectly he resembles God in wisdom righteousness and holyness Besides it was both given and continued to direct and enable man in some measure to render to God his Pepper-corn as Mr. Baxter terms it in testification of his homage and thankfulnesse both for the favours received and for the favours promised without the guidance of the Morall Law written without us yea within us also we should though our affections were never so sweetly sanctifyed for lack of sound illumination present God with wild grapes in stead of grapes with an abomination instead of due obedience and devotion And are not these ends as requisite in the state of mans Renovation as they were in the state of his innocency Yea further unpossible was it that Christ should not continue the Morall Law no lesse unpossible then it is for God to be unrighteous or not God He came to fulfill all righteousnesse not to destroy any one branch of naturall and essential righteousness The Morall Law is the image of God in which we may read the nature of God The rule and platform is in God himselfe originally this is but an extract from it and abstract of it Christ came to restore it not to quench it to set it up in man to perfection not to deface it by any diminution For so should he have abased the glory of his Father shining in his living image And lastly not to have commanded perfect but a maimed obedience thereto had been against the rule of righteousness which bids us to render to every one his due his whole due To God the things that pertain to God yea the whole that pertains to him All is but a Pepper-corn to a whole kingdome of Grace held and of glory expected from him and should not Christ require the payment of a Pepper-corn whole and entire without diminishing or dividing it But the truth is that the question is difficult to bee answered without crushing Mr. Baxters Gospel Justification by Works not in reference to Christs Gospel Justification by free Grace with it the Commandement of perfect obedience to the Morall Law sweetly cohereth The command of perfect obedience to the Morall Law as a condition of Justification leaves all men hopelesse of Justification sure to condemnation for ever Because none can perform the condition in this life But when we are justified freely by the blood of Christ and then by way of answering the grace of our Justifier with our reall thankfulness we are bidden to render our obedience more and more perfectly not slacking our endeavours untill we come to full perfection Though we attain it not in this present life yet our not attainment doth but encrease our self-abasement and make us feele that Christ is our all and we are nothing but doth in no wise destroy our Justification or lessen the joy of the Holy Ghost and peace of conscience which are bottomed only and wholly upon Christ and not upon our selves at all Now let us see how he will make the question difficult to us as it must be to him First saith he it is a question Whether Christ did first repeale that Law and then re-establish it to other ends So some think A meer windy question of such as delight to play with God in contempt as the Froggs with Jupiters Log. Where are those some thinkers No lesse rationally might they feign that the Lord Jesus pluckt down his Father Josephs house re-edified it to this other end that men might goe in and out no more at the doors but at the windows Mr. Baxter washeth his hands clean from having a finger in this pye Nay saith he I have proved already that it is not repealed at all even concerning the Covenant of Works it self i. e. That Christ is so farre from taking from us the perfect rule of righteousnesse that he however hee be called a Saviour yet hath left all
of Christ is opened and the power of his Spirit offered and we commanded to receive our fill and in the strength of what we receive to mount higher and higher untill we come to full perfection The reason that Master Baxter bringeth why he cannot bee yet convinced that Christ commands perfect obedience to the Moral Law were from another reasonless but from Master Baxter it is but a discovery of himselfe to be himselfe i. e. an admirer I had almost said adorer of his own wisdome Because saith he I know not to what end Christ should command us that obedience which he never doth enable any man in this life to performe What more lofty arrogance he must be admitted into Christs privie Councell and have communicated to him what ends Christ hath in giving his commands else will he cast be hinde him his precepts as void and vain He should have left to Socinus and his followers thus to have argued who make humane reason the rule and bound of their Religion Had he said he is not yet convinced because he yet meets not with any punctual testimony of Scripture that expressly affirms it this would have at the worst but implyed some inadvertency in his reading the Scriptures But not to deny that the Scripture saith it and yet not to be convinced because he seeth not to what ends Christ should doe what the Scripture saith he hath done this is no lesse than the advancing the authority of his reason above the authority of Gods Word and an attributing of power to his own blindnesse of silencing and frustrating the authority and truth of the Scriptures But who is more blinde than he that will not see Or what hinders Master Baxter from seeing what ends Christ had in commanding that perfection which we cannot attain in this life fully to performe Is it not because he terminateth and boundeth Christs ends in all that he did suffered or commanded to man as both the circumference and center of all and had no aim to his own glory and the glory of his father that sent him therein How many honourable ends of Christ in this case may there bee gathered from the Scriptures 1. That God might be herein glorified Herein is my father gloryfied that ye bear much fruit Jo. 15. 8. The more fruit wee bear and the more perfect the more is God glorified in us Therefore is the perfection of our fruit-bearing commanded that God may be still more and more glorified by our greater greater fruitfulnesse every one being forced to magnify the wonderfull operation of Gods grace in Christ that hath enabled that which was erewhile a dead stock to bring forth against nature so much and so good fruit Even as an â—xpert penman or Master in writing to get honour by the proficiency of his Schollers doth not bring down and lessen the perfection of his letters which he writes for their coppy to their feeblenesse and unablenesse in writing so should they continue unskilfull and unable still but sets before them a perfect coppy commanding and teaching them to follow it and by degrees even to match it and by this means the more perfectly they write the more honour comes to the Master 2. To hold us in a constant intercourse and communion with himselfe by faith Were we perfect or had we attained all that is required of us we should be wholly apt to settle our selves upon our own bottoms and worke either not at all or else in our strength But when we see our selves deficient in what we ought to be and nothing in our selves or any where else out of Christ to supply us that without or out of him we can doe nothing this keeps us in a diligent and constant union with him to abide in him as the branches in the vine to suck from him sap and life more abundantly for the producing of more abundant growth and fruitfulnesse in us and thus the communion beeween Christ and â—s is more and more peâ—fected and he more and more honoured when we fetch all our vertue and strength from him 3. To keep us in continual selfe-denyal and to dash to nothing Master Baxters idol of Justification by our own inherent righteousnesse which when we finde to come still short of the peâ—fection injoyned and sinfull in its defectivenesse we shall be forced to with-hold our confidence from it and with the Apostle to shake it off in reference to Justification as dung and losse that we may win Christ and be found in him c. So making Christ our All and our selves nothing to our own happinesse Phi. 3. 8. 9. 4. To awaken us out of our carnal slumberings and contentation in our poor beginings and slight pittances of knowledge and righteousnesse already attained and to stirre us on with a holy agility towards perfection in our motions It was this that wrought thus with the Apostle Paul Knowing perfection to be commanded and seeing himselfe yet in a station so short of it it makes him to cry out I have not yet attained I am not yet perfect therefore forgetting those things that are behind that are already done and attained and reaching forth to the things that are before not yet attained I presse toward the marke of perfection Phil. 3. 12 13 14. For these and many other ends that might bee added doth Christ command perfection though not fully attainable in this life Master Baxter expresses himselfe to be able to finde but one and that but a seeming end or reason in this case and that hee blowes off as insufficient If it were saith he to convince us of our disability and sinne that is the worke of the Law and the continuing of it upon the old termes as is before explained is sufficient to that Sundry failings are there in this passage of his making it insufficient to the end for which he useth it 1. That it makes the Law because it convinceth of sinne to be the onely means ordained of God to convince us of sinne When contrariwise the Lord Christ tells us that the Spirit of Grace shall under the Gospel also convince men of sinne Joh. 16. 8. and that with a more effectual conviction than ever the Law as the Law could work It shall so convince men of sinne that it shall convince them of righteousnesse also of damning sinne in themselves and of saving righteousnesse laid up for them in Christ This the Law could not do Therefore is as a Covenant of workes for so Master Baxter here takes the Law neither the onely nor the chiefe means ordained of God to convince of sinne 2. That it makes the Law upon it old terms to be ordained of God in a special and proper manner to convince of sinne This indeed was the office of the Law as given to Israel upon mount Sinai upon other and new termes But upon its old and first terms as it was given to Adam this could not be the next and proper end of
it so terme this 3. And of as little moment is that which he hath pag. 169. in the Explication of his Definition of Pardon calling iâ— a gracious Act where he blesseth and kisseth the image Tantundem set up by Grotius and polished by himselfe denying it to bee a pardon if it be not in some sort gratuitous or free and asserting that if Christ hath payd for us the idem or the proper debt then there is no place left for pardon and wee have nothing forgiven us For the Creditor saith he cannot refuse the proper debt nor deny an acquittance upon the receipt thereof c. A meer vanity of words without either ground or substance It doth not alway hold firm in trifling debts of money Suppose I have a sonne that having received his portion of my estate from me will forthwith come and pay it me for the debt of some bankrupt debtor that I have cast into prison if indeed it be so agreed upon between my self and my said Sonne and that to this end I gave him such a portion of my estate that he should so doe with it then it were not equity in me to refuse the payment so offered But yet Master Baxter wil not deny that this agreement or covenant between me and my sonne and my receiving of my own monyes in satisfaction for that Bankrupts debt though it be the same to the utmost farthing which hee owed is an act of grace or favour in mee to the said Debtor But in case â—here were no such covenant between me and my said sonne but that I gave him the said portion of my goods for other ends and uses and not to pay the Debts of Bankrupts I suppose then it is in my choice either to receive or refuse the full debt so offered me because he which offerrs it was not bound upon the Bond as Suretie or as Excecutor or Administrator to the Debtor nor is assigned by the Debtor to make payment in his stead What is there in this case binding me to receive the debt from such an hand or to give an acquittance to him that should pay it Much lesse will the case hold in point of Life and Death Suppose some Priest Jesuit or other Traytor were by the Law condemned to dye for Treason committed The day of Execution is at hand Master Baxter interposes and offereth to dye for him Is it not in the power of the chiefe Magistrates to refuse the accepting of the death of the Innocent for the Nocent Or if they doe accept the change is it not an Act of free grace to pardon the offendor accepting anothers sufferings for him Much more is it a gracious act in God to pardon us upon Christs suffering in our stead because hee sent his Sonne and gave him a body wherein to suffer for us Heb. 10. 5. And gives us acquittance having cast him into prison in our behalf untill he had payd the utmost farthing of our debts 4. What hee saith against the ignorant Antinomians in the end of page 169 and in page 170 hee hath sayd before and it hath been before examined and his pepper-corne being crushed hath been found too hot in smell and operation for a humble and selfe-denying Christian to meddle with in the point of Justification Therefore I conclude with him nor further to trouble the Reader with those sensless conceites which have onely a plausible shew of words but no footing in Scriptures or authority from Scriptures to establish them The rest of the Doctrine which hee delivereth in this page 170 and addeth page 171 and 172 I doe in part grant him and what I grant him not wee shall finde againe so involved in his dispute whether Justification bee an immanent or transient Act of God page 173 seq that it shall be more proper there then here to take it into examination In his 173 page Master Baxter enters upon a dispute of great moment whether Remission and Justification be immanent or transient Acts of God Before pag. 93 of this Tractate in a brave challenge of the Antinomians to produce one Scripture testifying Justification to be from eternity hee promised to shew or prove that Justification is not an immanent Act in God Here he addresseth himself to the accomplishment of what he there promised and in doing it he pretendedly draws the sword against the Antinomians as the sole assertors of the opinion which he here with much gallantry seeks to confute Two things then I conceive here to call for examination First how sound the reasons are which he brings to deny Pardon and Justification to be immanent and to prove them to bee meerly transient acts of God 2. What kind of Vermine these Antinomians are against whom Mr. Baxter hath already discharged so many Gun-shots before in this Treatise and findes them nevertheless yet alive and in a capacity to bear so many more shots from him in this and the following parts of this book Before my entrance upon either of these for an introduction to the former that the state of the question may the better appear I shall endeavour with as much fidelity and simplicity as in briefe I may to lay downe the judgements of our Protestant Divines whom he slanders here and every where almost with Antinomianism about this question before mentioned which Mr. Baxter here so much opposeth I mean such of these as hold not that all have taught it to be in some respect immanent in God 1. Then in their disputes against Bellarmine Arminius Socinus and their followers about remission of sinnes and justification they tell us that justification is taken sometimes actively for a judicial act of Gods grace sometimes passively or terminatively as it hath its termination upon beleevers In the former sense it is an act internal and immanent in God not transient upon an extraneous subject or in plain words it is secret abiding and hidden in God himselfe not declared or passing into the knowledg and conscience of man That it is of the same nature with the acts of election and reprobation having its complete being as these before the persons so elected justified and reprobated begin to have being life or faith in them or to doe good or evill But in its passive sense as it is terminated upon and made out to the conscience of a man so it is a transient act of God pronouncing and declaring home to the conscience of a man now living convinced of his sinnes and trembling at the sense and burthen thereof yet resting upon and cleaving to Christ by faith that his sinnes are forgiven for Christs sake and by this act and sentence of God in his conscience the poor sinner becomes sensible and apprehensive of his full discharge and absolution at Gods tribunal thorow Christs satisfaction made to justice for him 2. That justification as taken in the former sense is an Act of Gods supreme Lordship or dominion or else of his good pleasure to use
Princes Son pittieth and mediateth and by Mediation obtaines a pardon from the Prince and brings it under hand and seal puts it into his hand for life while standing at the Princes Law bar he was by Law condemned yea condemned himselfe The pardon thus freely given he cannot but gratefully embrace He questions not none can question that findes him guilty in Law from what bar the pardon came Hee was a dead man in Law It must therefore needs be from free Grace meer Mercy that the pardon came The receiver acknowledges it pleads onely the grace of the pardoner not any righteousnesse of his facts or innocency in the things whereof he is accused or deseâ—ts of former service or purposes of future loyalty for his life Such is the justification which the Gospell holds forth The multiplication of Barrs which Master Baxter maketh at which â—his New Covenant justification is transacted is a confection of fancied Beares Bulls and Bubbles to distract poor Soules from the plain way and sound Comfort of Justification B. Thesis 41. pa. 194. That saying of our Divines that justification is perfected at first and admits of no degrees must be understood thus That each of those Acts which we call justification are in their own kind perfect at once and that our Righteousnesse is perfect and admits of no degrees But yet as the former Acts called Justification do not fully and in all respects procure our freedom so they may be said to be imperfect and but degrees to our full and perfect Justification at the last judgement Here Master Baxter advanceth himselfe not so much as Doctor and Moderator as Popelike to command and impose a sense yea his sense upon that which the Divines in generall of all the Churches have said That saying that Iustification is perfected at first and admits not of degrees must be understood thus c. very Magisterially at the best for what if not all of them yea none of them meant so would be so understood This nothing hinders though they will not yet they must be thus understood What necessity or authority lieth upon them and their writings that they will they nill they must be understood or upon us that although we know them to mean otherwise yet we must so understand them No other power or reason from Heaven or Earth is here specified besides Master Baxters placitum his pleasure he so defineth so determineth How fair doth he bid for Peters Chair and Golden Pantofle Jupiter in caelis Caesar regit omnia terris What authority the Pope challengeth over all the Canonicall Scriptures and the penmen thereof the same doth Master Baxter over the Ecclesiasticall writings and the Authors thereof It is but one step higher to the Triple Crown But ipse dixit and we must be silent else Master Baxter will be angry and crown us with the fooles Cappe and put upon us the Ignoramus and Dulman Welâ— how must they then be understood viz. that each of those Acts saith he which We call Iustification are in their own kind perfect at once and that our Righteousnesse is perfect and admits not of degrees Hâ—re I crave leave of the Magister to put some few quâ—stions 1. Whom hee meanes by the word Wee when he saith which we call justification doth he not mean Chiefly yea onely himself if not let him name any of the Divines which deny against the Papists the Magis minùs or degrees of Justification but denies also against the same Papists the twofold justification and maintaines against their Sophisms justification to be but one one onely justification I acknowledge my selfe not to be that I am not ambitious to be Librorum helluo I have in sacred Doctrines but one Master Yet as many of our Divines as I have read disclaim and detest this twofold justification not onely as a Popish but also as a new and Jesuiticall invention devised for the perverting and subverting of that justification which is by grace That this man therefore takes upon him to affix his Index expurgatorius not to their words but to their meaning that they must be understood in another sense than they meant because he will so have it is not onely to usurp to himself a power above the Pope but above God himself also who doth not cannot make that which was not to have beene the meaning of any man in what he hath said 2. When he saith they must be thus understood I demand what the necessity is either simple and absolute or respective and secundum quid a Necessitas praecepti or Necessitas Medij If simple and the duty injoyned by some precept where is that precept of God or man to force the understanding to believe a lie if respective or in order to some end to which such a misunderstanding subserveth as a mean let us know what that end is whether good or evill if evill we must not do or think one evill understand falsely against understanding and Conscience for the promoting of another evill This is worse than devilish for he can say video Meliora Deteriora sequor Or if good their damnation is jâ—st that report saith the Apostle we say much more that would have us say let us do evill that good may come thereof Ro. 3. 8. Or must Master Baxters will or peremptory conclusion stand in stead of a Divine precept to necessitate and determinate our understandings to a false principle Get thee behind us Satan wee owne no such Masters 3. When he saith we must understand Each of those Acts i. e. Gods justifying us first in title of Law secondly in sentence of judgement are in their own kinde perfect not in the respect that either hath to other but that the latter addeth a perfection which was wanting in the formâ—r I might demand first who besides the Wee in Master Baxters mouth hath called the latter Justification But of this already 2 What new thing as an encrease or further degree of Justification doth the latter Act adde to the former He acknowledgeth that the former which is the sole New Covenant Justification doth acquit from Accusation and condemnation Thes 38. yea from all guilt and obligation to punishment pa. 189. and all this at once not by degrees as in this Thes 41. what new things or farther degree doth the latter feigned justification adde to this Himselfe attributeth no more to this which he calls justification in Sentence of Judgement This saith he acquitteth from Accusation and condemnation Thes 39. where now is the Magis here or the Minus there the most Eagle and Lâ—ncean eye cannot discern it in the substantialls we must therefore seek it in the circumstantialls of justification This he seemes to place in two things 1. The former only in Title of Law the latter in sentence of judgement at the bar 2. The former to be from the accusation and condemnation of the Law simply the latter from the same accusation and condemnation pleaded by Satan This
further to take his pastime in his Logicall and Metaphysicall learning which may possibly please him but never justifie or save him and partly by shewing the weaknesse of the objection to gull his unwary reader with an opinion of the weaknesse of their cause who are forced with such Egyptian reeds for lack of better pillars to sustain it It is one of the Jesuits principles to fetch armes indifferently either from heaven or hell to storm the Church and truth of Christ and to promote the holy mother harlot of Rome But I am weary following him while he brings nothing but the Socinians right reason to be judge of the Mysterious doctrines of Christ and fear whether it be answerable before God to spend time in answering his babble with babble again for the truth of Christ doth neither stand nor fall by what can be said for it or against it out of the principles or learning of abused Aristotle Let Mr. Baxter call to minde what he hath read as elsewhere so in his adored Schibler in the second book of his Metaph. Cap. 3. in his interserted oration a little before the end of that book pa. 211. of the book printed at Oxford concerning the sophister convinced by an unlearned Confessour after his almost victorious disputes against all the Doctors of the Nicene councell many dayes together If he take it for a truth it may help to convince him that God is more effectually present in disputations about Evangelicall matters when they are totally confined to the Word then when they are handled after the rule and in the Predicament of carnall reason It argues that he undertakes a businesse not for God but against him else would he not cast away spirituall and take up fleshly arms to maintain it But fith Mr. Baxter is Mr. Baxter we shall crave leave to speak the lesse to him henceforth where we find him to have little of the word and reserve our selves to speak more largely where the man for his recreation vouchsafeth to abase himself so low as to meddle with Scriptures B. Quest But though faith be not the instrument of justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ who justifyeth us Ans I do not so much stick at this speech as at the former yet is it no proper or fit exprâ—ssion neither For 1. The act of faith which is it that justifyeth is our actuall receiving of Christ and therefore cannot be the instrument of receiving To say our receiving is the instrument of our receiving is a hard saying 2. And the seed or habit of faith cannot fitly be called an instrument For 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument it being the soul it self and not any thing really distinct from the soul nor really distinct from each other as Scotus Dr. Orbellus Scaliger c. Dr. Jackson Mr. Pemble think and Mr. Ball questions 2. The holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument For 1. It is nothing but themselves rectifyed and not a being so distinct as may be called their instrument 2. Who ever calleth habits or dispositions the souls instruments The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument of it You may as well call a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ I have before expressed in what sense we make or at least hold faith to be mans instrument in applying Justification to himself And 2. have manifested the testimonies and authority of the Scripture herein so that Mr. Baxter if he list as it listeth him to cavill cavils not so much against all godly Protestant writers whom he opposeth as against the holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Christ himself and his Apostles whom thorow the loins of those he smites at It is not the first time that he hath accused Christ and the holy Ghost in this manner of impropriety and unfitnesse of expressions in Scriptures And why because they speak not enough logically and in all probability never read thorow Aristotles Metaphysicks But let us hear what he can say here to prove the unpropernesse of that language which calleth faith an instrument of receiving Christ and justification in and by him His reasons are above in his own words rendered To the first I answer Mr. Baxter makes and layes his own principles of Religion and from them as from an impregnable mount he battereth Christ and his doctrine Should we grant him that faith is the receiving of Christ yet 1. How shall it appear otherwise then by Mr. Baxters own Magisteriall dictates that justifying faith is nothing else but the receiving of Christ 2. Why else doth he make it simply and only a quality or act of the soul without the adjection of its originall from above but to ingenerate into the minds of men an opinion that it hath its emanancy and rise from nature from freewill that every man may have and act it if and when he will and that it is not infused of God to be instrumentall by his appointment for the producing of any spirituall effect 3. How doth he prove that onely the act of faith justifyeth Yet 4. If all these dubious things were granted to him his own words therein tend to the confirmation rather then the infirming of the main conclusion which he opposeth that faith is the instrument of justification For if the act of faith be the receiving then must faith it self so acting be the receptrix or that by which we receive Christ but that by which man receiveth Christ is instrumentall to his receiving of justification for Christ is made of God to us righteousnesse he that hath Christ hath life specially this will follow upon Mr. Baxters principle of Christ and justification given to all universally to none in particular he must be made ours therefore by receiving him and if faith doth receive how doth it receive but as an instrument or whereas the well is deep and we have nothing of our own to draw with what shall be the instrument of drawing and receiving if faith be not it 5. And in this lyeth Mr. Baxters Sophism that he puts the act of faith for faith actuated Though the act of faith were the receiving of Christ yet faith actuated and acting is that by which we receive Christ and to say that by which we receive is the instrument of our receiving is not a hard but a proper saying The act of Mr. Baxters hand was the writing of these lines To say that his writing was the instrument of his writing is a hard saying but to say his hand acted in writing was his instrument of writing it is not a hard saying To the second It is wholly Sophisticall For when he saith 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument because it is the soul it self what is this to the purpose
1 c. some name James the son of Alpheus the Brother of Christ and one of the 12 Apostles others James sirnamed Oblias or the Just of whom Jâ—sephus writeth the Author of it adhuc sub judice lis est Or that the matter method and if I may so speak spirit of this Epistle sounds not in one harmony with the rest parts or books of the new Testament but rather after the writings of the books under the old Covenant or after such as stuck still to the old Covenant as Philo Judaeus and others all which Mr. Baxter better knows to have been by many objected then I know how satisfactorily to answer it By these and other reasons some have expunged it from the Catalogue of Scriptures which are of divine inspiration and have reduced it into the kind and number of writings that are usually termed Ecclesiasticall in a good sense not disagreeing any where from the Canon yet not of that dignity as to be accepted as a part of the Canon it self I shall leave these things to be disputed by others and examine the testimonies which Mr. Baxter hence alleageth what and how far it makes for him as the authority of the holy Ghost himselfe Here it is remarkable that Mr. Baxter who followes the Jesuits every foot and inch in the interpreting of this and all other Scriptures from which he would with them set up justification by works like a man made all of zeal perks up to terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the text and from using apparent violence to it implying that all the Protestant Churches and Saints which have stood in the defence of the faith of Christ against the Papists now almost 200. years have dealt thus sacrilegiously in robbing this Text of its due sense And the Fryers and Jesuites alone good men have stood up as the fast friends of Christ to maintain this truth of Christ and the spirit and meaning of this Scripture against the violation of the sacrilegious hands of these hereticall Protestants And that himself is now at last stirred up by the Spirit that hath wrought so powerfully upon the Jesuits to vindicate and set forth the true meaning of this Text with the same fidelity and sincerity which they his Masters have used before him Therefore to excite all men to gaze on his ingenuity and sincerity and to admire him as the one alone man among Protestants raised up to undeceive all the Churches that have so long strayed from the holy mother Church he thus like wisedome it self uttereth his voice B. Pag. 297. I dare not teach the holy Ghost to speak nor force the Scripture nor raise an exposition so far from the plain importance of the words without apparent necessity but here is not the least necessity there being not the least inconvenience that I know of in affirming justification by works in the fore explained sense i. e. in the sense which Mr. Baxters sense and reason without any help of Scripture hath devised Men seldome are bold with Scripture in forcing it but they are first bold with conscience in forcing it as one M. Baxter who with onespell hath forced all the large and divine disputes of Paul about justification into a cherristone and hurld it at the feet of his St. Sense there to do homage or to be trampled into the dirt After this his protestation of his integrity zeal and tendernesse of conscience in interpreting Scriptures and the impression which he feels or feigns in his soul which the heretick Protestants have made by not expounding this Scripture in the same words which the Jesuits do Let us see with what tendernesse and fear himself in the next words speaketh of it B If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it must be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter in plain and frequent expressions no whit dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scriptuee say what it will to the contrary What is this but with the Papists to make the Scripture a nose of wax If St. James speak it so over and over that justification is by works and not by faith only I will see more cause before I deny it or say he means a working faith He that in all this can see one least spark of that professed sincerity which he protesteth in himself and requires in others worthier then himself let him make it out I can see nothing else but fraud doublenesse and falshood 1 When he sayeth that it is the very scope of a Chapter and not only some one phrase that here holds forth justification by works before God it is the same which he hath from Bellarmine Bel. lib. 1. de justif cap. 15. Scopus Jacobi saith he fuit demonstrare fidem veram atque Catholicam ad salutem sine operibus non sufficere c. i. e. The scope of James in his Chapter was to shew that a true and Catholick faith is not sufficient without works to salvation and with as much truth and fidelity doth this man speak it as did the other from whom he learned it This being no more the scope of this Chapter or of James in it then to deny the salvation which is by Christ and to set on men to seek it by the Law 2 That this phrase of justification by works in Mr. Baxters sense is no whit dissonant from any other Scripture whether he means difference in sound or difference in substance is as very a paradox as if he had said that contradictories are not dissonaÌ„t For if this doctrine after Mr. Baxters sense must stand as true doctrine and for the Gospell of Christ then must we cast away almost if not altogether all the other Scriptures of the new Testament as hereticall and limit our selves to this alone and to Mr. Baxters glosse in it to learn true righteousnesse and the way to life For how vain empty and audacious his annihilating of Pauls doctrine about justification with one breath is we shall see in its proper place and finde that he destroyes the genuine scope and meaning of that Apostle in many of his Epistles to sacrifice all to his imaginary scope of James in some few words here delivered 3 When he tels us of wresting and making a Creed c. he proclaims to the World that all the Protestant Churches which have constantly defended justification by faith without works i. e. by Christ Jesus apprehended by faith without concurrence of works c. have wrested and violated the Scripture set up a Creed of their own in despight of the Scriptures speaking to the contrary For what he cunningly and seemingly fastens upon one Mr. Pemble he layes to the charge of all the Protestant Churches there being not one
Quere It is his doctrine that teacheth a soul-cozening Faith a Faith made up of a fardle of works and rags of our own righteousness as in his larger definition of justifying Faith he hath described it CHAP. XIII Mr. Baxters calumnie that this doctrine doth harden the Papists in their Popery and give occasion to many learned Protestants to turn Papists answered HIS fifth Quere hath no shew of weight in it deserving an examination savouring more of the Spleen than of the judgment of the Author Nevertheless though it declares only the stomach and indignation of the man against the truth rather then any strength in his hand to hurt it yet because it is formed for the deceiving of the simple and unwary upon whom sounds oft times take no less impression than actuall strokes to prevent damage to such I shall examine whatsoever may seem materiall in it as I have the rest B. pa. 329. 5. Lastly Is not this excluding of sincere Obedience from Justification the great stumbling-block of Papists and that which hath had a great hand in turning many learned men from the true Protestant Religion to Popery That by obedience he meaneth all morall qualifications and works as they are vertues and works we have before learned from his own words so his meaning is that the Doctrine of Paul and the Churches which follow him viz. Justification by Faith and not by works is guilty of the damnable and pernicious evills which he here chargeth upon it These evills are two 1 It is the great stumbling-block of the Papists 2 It hath carried back many learned men from the Protestant Religion to Popery To both these I shall speak in order 1 Of its hardning the Papists in Popery Is it not the great stumbling-block to Papists saith Mr. Br. I answer 1 Was not Christ and that in this very point of justifying the ungodly by an imputed righteousness without any inherent righteousness of their own a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the Jewes as which they were so offended that to their eternall ruine they reject the Gospel and salvation of Christ unto this day Rom. 9. 32 33. 1 Cor. 1. 23. 1 Pet. 2. 8. What then must Christ be anathematized Nay but let the truth of Christ stand and man be the lyar the transgressor It is scandalum acceptum non datum an offence taken not given And blessed is he who soever shall not be offended in or at Christ Mat. 11. 6. Lu. 7. 23. But if any will be offended and dash the Lord Christ admonisheth him of the danger Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder Mat. 21. 44. 2 And as sound a reason is it that our doctrine of Justification hinders the Papists from turning Protestants as was that of some Statists that complained against the Church of Geneva that they hindered the conversion of Papists in those parts by forbidding dancing and the like grave consideration by some great Politicians in England that the forbearing of Bull and Bear-baiting and other sports on the Lords day hardned the Papists of Lancashire in their Popery When Religion is made a meer piece of policy and to have in it at the best no more than a dress of dreggish formality or morality no marvail if such dirty and unspirituall means are made use of to spread it 3 But how deep doth this effect lurk in its cause so that only this one mans sagacity can smell it out That the Papists in the least things will not turn Protestants except we in the worst turn Papists For this Article of Justification is the greatest of all the questions controverted between us and the Papists All the rest not ingredients of or meerly relating to this may the Papists continue in if not of malice or wilfulnesse with a possibility of salvation They are but wood hay and stubble built upon the foundation the very builders whereof may be saved but so as by fire saith the Apostle But a Trentified Papist by the coherent judgment of the best Divines cannot be saved because hee holdeth not the foundation sure and pure but mixeth mans works with the grace of God in Christ to Justification And their judgment is grounded upon the authority of the Apostle Yee are faln from grace Christ is become void or forfeyted to you whosoever are justified by works An ardent love to Romes shavelings out of doubt possesseth Mr. Br. that he doth not only wish himself as did the Apostle but would make himself and all us accursed that they might be not saved but damned with us For if they reject all other their errors and practically retain but this one by it they forfeyt all the salvation of the Gospel 4 Nay contrariwise as long as this Article of the Gospel was diligently preached and stoutly maintained in the Protestant Churches and that not with quiâ—ks and quidities of humane Art but by the nervous arguments of Scripture alone so long the Kingdom of Antichrist more and more decayed and they which were before marked up as slaves to that rivall of Christ brake the fetters and came in by thousands and ten thousands taking the Kingdom by a holy and violent force But since the time this Doctrine hath been less preached and patronized the Reformed Churches have been still in a languishing and the Antichristian Kingdom in a growing condition as Mr. Br. himself so great a Reader and so fully acquainted with the Ecclesiasticall Histories must necessarily grant And why hath this stop to the promoting of the Gospel befaln the Churches but that the Lord Christ doth herein declare his offence taken against us for not making him our all that hee also ceaseth so victoriously as in former times to vouchsafe his presence among us 5 But since Mr. Br. is leapt home to them and many foot beyond many of the more moderate sort of them in the point of justification by works and so hath removed the slumbling-block let him speak by experience how many of them are come in to him to be his Proselytes rejecting the Papacy and other their Popish errors Or whereas his Friends the Arminians have in this and many other of their Tenents so many decads of yeers closed fully with them where is the confluence of Papists to them seen that shaking off their former opinions and practices profess themselves Converts A Cardinals Hat perhaps hath been sent or a fat Bishopprick promised to some of the most deserving men among them in relation to the Romish Cause to allure them to further and higher deservings of this kind But the holy Mother Church I warrant you sticks where she was If shee should permit but one stone of her Fabrick to be loosed it might cause a crack in the whole This part of the Quere I shall therefore upon these Considerations leave as reasonless and examine the next whether there be any more reason in it