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
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
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
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
Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Ri Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcester-shire entituled Aphorisms of Justification TOGETHER WITH A vindication of Justification by meer Grace from all the Popish and Arminian Sophisms by which that Author labours to ground it upon Mans Works and Righteousness By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hant-shire Ipse fecit nos non ipsi nos Ipsi nos justos salvos fecit non ipsi nos August de verbis Apostoli Serm. 11. God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. Imprimatur Joseph Caryl Jan 3. 1654. LONDON Printed by M. S. and are to be sold by T Brewster at the three Bibles in Pauls Church-yard And L Chapman at the Crowne in Popes-head Alley 1654. ALthough it be matter of a very sorrowfull resentment to see Theologicall warres renewed among Brethren yet it is a duty to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints And although I heartily wish that in these contentions all personal reflections were layd aside and opinions onely dealt with which latter consideration How-ever this Author I doubt not hath satisfied his owne Conscience and labours much to satisfie his Readers about it hath a little checkt my thoughts in giving an explicite testimony to the worke yet the doctrinal poynts therein maintained and vindicated The present freedome of beleevers from the Curse of the Law and their free justification by Faith without workes yea without Faith as it is a work through the alone satisfaction of Jesus Christ are of such moment and so fundamental in religion for the comfort of poore soules that I cannot but judge any essay tending to the clearing of them much more this large and elaborate discourse profitable for the Church of God and worthy of the publick View The 3d of the 11th month 1653. Joseph Caryl The Printer to the Reader Courteous Reader BY Reason of sickness and many infirmities of Body disâ—bling the Author oft from Revising the Sheets as they came from the Press during the whole time that the Book was in printing The work comes not to thy view without many mistakes in Printing The most considerable of them I have here collected to be amended with thy Pen before thou beginnest to read The rest confisting mostly in mis-pointing and mis-spelling I leave to thy judgement candor to Rectifie in Reading the Tractate M. S. Errata Preface PAge 4. line 1. it is not distinguished by the Italick Character which are Mr. Brs and which the Authors words the quoted place of Mr. Br. will shew it Pag. 10. line 26. for Catalogus read Catalogus p. 14. l. 7. for Tenet r. Tenets p. 17. l. 19. r. intrinseâ—al p. 20. l. 8. r. Communing p. 33. l. 38. to the word Logick add and the Metaphysicks p. 35. l. 2. r. puritate and l. 11 r. Doctrinae p. 36. l. 39. r. for Part 1. 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P. 7. l. 19. for make r. made p. 8. l. 2. for the r. this l. 24. for spitted r. spittled l. 34. for him r. the Reader p. 5. l. ult for latter r. letter p. 11. l. 26. dele not p. 18. l. 26. add them p. 39. l. 32. r. scripture p. 49. l. 26. for as r. or l. 30. dele to p. 51. r. operation p. 54. l. 37. dele the. p. 76. l. 27. for so to r. to so p. 81. l. 9. for heare r. here l. 36. for affection r. affectation p. 87. for in r. upon p. 97. for Mortuum r. mortuam p. 139. l. 2. for is r. is not p. 140. l. 33. for controvertibly r. convertibly p. 203. l. ult to Protestants add that use the word Condition in Justification salvation p. 206. l. 8. for given r. giveth p. 313. for and r. the. p. 240. l. 9. dele there l. 32. for if r. of p. 241. l. 22. for their r. them p. 244. l. 17. for have r. have made p. 212. l. 10. dele end p. 313. l. 12. for and r. he p. 361. l. 6. r. Restriction p. 381. l. 28. for O r. so p. 395. l. 35. for Gratia r. Gratiae ibid for paraeum r. parum p. 382. l. 32. dele and. TO THE REVEREND THE FAITHFULL AND Pious MINISTERS of the Lord Christ within this Nation Much honoured and highly Beloved IT might be Construed self-arrogance that so despicable a person in parts newly broken out of the black Cloud of Obscurity should not onely publish to the world but withall tender so rough-hewen a work to the speciall view scrutiny of them whom Christ hath made and named the Lights of the world But this imputation will appear undeserved to as many as shall consider that what is here presented to so great a fulgor of judgement and learning comes with a request not of Patronage alone but of Correction also Of Patronage where it defends the Truth in the Truth of Correction where it halteth into the defence of error in steed of the Truth or of the Truth but not in the Truth The work it self will sufficiently speak me out not fit to be registred inter Doctos yet hath it been still my study not to commit any thing by which I should deserve to be pronounced indocilis untractable to learn where the Lord holds forth a faithfull Teacher It is the height of my ambition and patheticall heartiness of my humble request not so much to all of you Collectively which is unattainable as to every of you divisively who in these slippery times Honored Worthies stand fast in the truth of Christ to be recalled by you into the way from which you shall finde me any where straying but so that by the Authority of the Word you lead me into it that I may gladly be a follower of such a leader As to the Book to which this answereth whatsoever Fate this shall have in mens judgements surely that must have a stinch with all the judicious and orthodox Neither could it so long have stood unshaken had he not cunningly prepossessed the minds of his
is against them this his work mainly levelleth when contrariwise under this name and mask his War is against all the Orthodox Churches and Divines that are or have been since the Reformation These all with him are Antinomians as himselfe sometimes when they stand in his way and stirr his passion doth somewhat inconsiderately speak out telling us that he meanes that Antinomianism whereof Dr. Twiss and Mr. Pemble bear up the pillars pag. 73. and consequently whereof Luther Calvin and the rest Divines and Martyrs employ'd in the Reformation have re-edified the walls yea Paul and Christ himself have laid the foundation But this craft he learn'd as the rest from his Masters the Monks and Jesuits who when they set themselves to batter the truth of Christ cry out in their Pulpits and Writings against the Huguenots Lutherans Hereticks laying such slanders on the truth and them which teach or hold it that they may stirr an Odium in the people among whom there are some so ignorant that dwelling at a distance from the Protestants and having never seen any of them they think them not to be men having heard so much evill of them but some Monsters and Devils flown lately out of the bottomles pit to trouble and deceive the world Therefore are filled with such prejudice against their Doctrine that if they were told these Hereticks say Christ is the Son of God and Saviour of the world they would in hatred of the supposed Hereticks be ready to reject both Christ and salvation lest they should seem to hold with them Mr. Baxter needs not the incitation of any spurr to follow having such Leaders and the opportunity also served to his ends He hath taken full notice that in these last yeares among the greatest i. e. the vulgar part of our Ministers the name of Antinomianism hath been the worst abhomination and that they have so inveigled their credulous congregations with the feare and hatred of it that any Pharisaicall Monkish or Jesuiticall spirits that would but cry aloud and lift up their voyce against Antinomians found welcome not only to their persons but to the whole galley-maufry of formalities moralities wood hay and stubble that they scattered among the people When contrariwise if any should but often name Christ and Grace in his Sermon all were shie of him turned their heels in stead of their faces towards him and his Doctrine though never so pretious and wholsome fearing some tincture therein of Antinomianism This advantage therefore hath hee taken to batter the Doctrine of the Gospel under the name of Antinomism knowing that if Christ himself should again descend from heaven to preach it in his own person he should under this vizard finde contempt of himself and his Doctrine among the vulgar I acknowledg every divine truth to be so sacred and pretious that we ought to defend and redeem it from oppression with our very blood Whatsoever therefore of errours against the truth the Antinomians truly so called have broached wee ought with all our strength to resist and reject And hereof I shall have occasion to speak more fully afterward In the interim I may lay down safely and truly these two assertions 1. That Mr. Baxters principall aime is by this odious term to fright weak and inconsiderate persons from the truth of Christ 2. That all that catalogue of errors which Sleidan in his Commentaries ascribeth to the Antinomians of Germany about 100. years sithence and aâ—l the tenents of those that among us are or have bin Antinomians indeed as farr as in my acquaintance with them I could ever gather from them contein not a mole-hill in comparison of that mountain of evill and mischief that by this Treatise Mr. Baxter would hurl upon us A second thing which ministers occasion to us to doubt of this mans spirituall conscientiousnesse is his prophaning and vilifying of holy things We find him oft in this prostâ—ating religion conscience and the word of God it selfe to the censure and sentence of reason yea of naturall and carnall reason and that those very things which reason cannot comprehend even things which eye hath not seene nor eare heard neither hath it entred into the heart but are revealed onely by the word and spirit 1 Cor. 2. 9 c. These are the mysteries of the Gospel Justification Adoption c. when Mr. Baxter at some times cannot possibly evade such Scriptures as discover his errours with what vehemency doth he forth-with lay hold on them to sacrifice them to sense and reason yea to that which is worse then sense and reason Flectere si nequeat superos Acheronta movebit when heaven is against him he appeals to hell to speak for him summoning together not only the Jesuites but the very Ghosts of the most cursed Hereticks by their authority to settle his conscience and subject the word to it Iâ— not here wanting that trembling at Gods word which is required and found in the Saints He doth rarely indeed mention the Authors whom he followeth as his Masters but that is of craft that he might not cast an Odium upon his Doctrine he thinks it more fit to offer it as some sacred thing spun out of his own brain that there might be the lesse suspicion of it But that it is drawn out of those channels which I have mentioned I shall be ready to shew in particulars if any doubting shall demand it of me Neither let it offend that in gross and course terms I speak the truth of the Author It is wholly against the bent of my disposition so to do were it not that it is the very foundation of all our hopes that is by him battered and that the profuse commendation which some have given of the man to draw Disciples to him did not force me to speak unsparingly while truly to undeceive some of my friends that through credulity either are or might be seduced Thus far of the man as he hath been represented by others I shal say something of him also as he renders himself to us by this Treatise I cannot I will not think him one that is wilfully apostatiz'd But finding him a man of excellent both naturall and acquired parts of a very rationall brain delighted more in depths than in shallows in the logicall deep and serious than in the lighter and superficiary parts of learning I conceive him to have been carryed out by his own Genius to the reading of the deepest Scholastick writers with the purpose that Virgil once applyed himself to the reading of Ennius though not with the same successe The purpose of both probably was to fetch out ê stercore gemmam a jewel out of the dunghill But this man meeting with learning perfectly agreeing with his naturall Genius became impotent to obtaine his purpose for being delighted with the dunghil he hath made it his sphere and element the depth of rationality which he found in his Authors hath drawn and captivated him to their most
Baxter if he think it safe with sophisticall subtleties to dispute himself into heaven Neverthelesse the position stands firm even in the fall of the credit of the assertor That such humane learning is of no force to decide judg and conclude any thing in questions meerly Evangelicall such as is Justification and all other Gospel-graces and priviledges This may be with much facility evidenced to as many as have not their eyes blinded by the God of this world as yet and that by these following reasons 1. All the Doctrines of the Gospel are transcendent high and above the reach of the most sublimated reason Eye hath not seen nor eare heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to know them 1 Cor. 2. 9. The natural man receiveth not cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned ibid. Vers 14. They are mysteries hid in God from the beginning of the world from ages and generations but at last made known by the Spirit in the preaching of the Gospel not only to the Saints on earth but also to the Principalities and powers in heavenly places i. e. to the Ministring Angels and Spirits before God in heaven Ephes 13. 9 10. Col. 3. 26 27. So that at the revelation thereof by Christ and his Apostles the very Angels desired to looke into them as learners of that sacred Doctrine which before they had not attained 1 Pet. 1. 12. But all this humane learning whereof we speak is naturall flowing originally from naturall and heathen men who in their either most profound or most sublime speculations could not see a span above Nature no nor to the top of Nature by many fathoms Therefore is there a totall invalidity in it to discern one ray of Evangelical and spiritual things To produce any thing therefore out of this humane literature to discern and judg of Gospel-doctrines is no lesse folly than to make a blind man judg of colours or a deaf man of sounds or to set a dead man to running of a race Yea to hold forth any thing hence to cleer up and evidence spiritual things is but to hold a candle nay a dark Lanthorn to the Sun for the cleering of its beams that we may see it If any object that Spiritual and Evangelical Doctrines are by none brought as Spiritual and Evangelical under the Tryall of this humane learning but as they fall under some Topicks of this or that Art or Science as Eâ—s Substantia Accidens Actio Relatio c. and so farr only they are disputed of by and according to the Maximes and Canons of those places I answer that even this is to subject supernatural Doctrines to the judgment and censure of Natural Reason It will not be denyed that the first Founders of these Arts and the precepts thereof were meerely Naturall and Morall men and neither did nor could accommodate their precepts and rules to any other but natural and Moral things were so farr unable to reach them to things supenatural that they left them in many things unperfect as to things natural so that after all the amendments of all their followers not a few of their Canons remain disputable and controverted as to Natural and Moral things still Therefore to prostrate spiritual things to the judgment of this Natural learning is to subject the Authority of Christ to the Authority of men the wisdome of the Spirit to the wisdome of the Flesh and that which is infallible to that which is both fallible and fallacious Nay all the doctrines and precepts of Philosophers are to be tryed by the word but in no wise are the dictates of the Spirit and doctrines of the word of grace to be tryed by the precepts of Men. I forbeare to speak here that otherwise not Christ but Aristotle must in matters of salvation be made our Ipse Dixit or that none but Schollars can have any stable setlednesse of faith the unlearned in humane literature remaining uncapable thereof because they cannot prove the truth of what they believe as well by the rules of Art as by the Testimony of the word of Christ I only say when Christ by his word hath said and determined here not to subject and rest satisfied but to consult with flesh and blood with the rules of humane Art for my fuller resolution is no lesse indignity to Christ than to set mans wisedom in the Chair and to prostrate Christ to be his Footstool 2. If it have any power and efficacy to this end it must be either from some naturall and intrinsicall vertue of its own or else by Gods ordination and infusion Not by any naturall vertue of its own as appeareth by what was last said and by this that none ever by such secular learning attained one least spark of Gospel-knowledg nor yet by Gods ordination and inspiring strength into it to operate for such an end For let it be declared in what Scripture God instituted or owned it as an in-strument usefull and effectualized for such a work And if neither of these ways it be powerful or in a capacity either to declare or confirm Gospel-matters then hath it no power at all to such a purpose If any thing be excepted against in this Argument it must be the latter disjunctive particle thereof in the Assumption which denieth the humane learning before mentioned to be ordained of God or qualified by him as instrumental and effectual to determine any thing in Evangelical and Spiritual Doctrines But this may be cleered and confirmed by the Reasons following 1. Because neither the Lord Christ nor any of his Apostles or Prophets have made use of it to this end Not his Prophets under the Old Testament For when they spâ—ke any thing of the Mystery of Christ and his Gospel that were afterward more fully to be revealed they did it by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3. 16. and the revelation of the spirit of Christ which was in them 1 Pet. 1. 11. not as having dipped the same from the broken Cisterns of humane inventions and learning And when they will add a confirmation to such Doctrines the only authority which they produce is divine Thus saith the Lord The Lord of Hosts hath said it the holy the lofty the mighty one of Isroel hath spoken it without any Philosophical or Metaphysical Arguments to prove it No lesse is to be said of Christ himself our own and only Mr. when he descended from Heaven to reveal his Gospel in its fulness and glory affirming his doctrine to be onely and wholly that which his Father taught him Joh. 8. 28. which he had seene with his father Joh. 8. 38. as he had commandement from his father Joh. 10. 18. even as the father said unto him Joh. 12. 50. as he heard from his father Joh. 15. 15. Lo all from heaven from the Father nothing from earth from men in revealing the Gospel No nor to the confirmation of it being
revealed save his own and his Fathers testimonie Joh. 8. 18. Joh. 5. 31 37. Let there be but an iota produced of this kind of literature whereof I treat that our Saviour any where used for the confirmation of the Gospel-doctrines which hee delivered Nay hee denies all ability and possibility that any man by naturall or acquired parts should see or shew forth untill he hath received divine revelation one ray of Gospel-light Therefore when Peter had made but a course and confused or obscure confession of Christ he answers Blessed be thou Simon Barjonah for Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in heaven Mat. 16. 16 17. Insinuating that the very threshold of Gospel-knowledg is transcendent and above all the reach of humane Arts and fleshly or naturall wisdome to find it out for themselves or make it out to others Hence are the universal conclusions and assertions which hee layeth down to this purpose No man can come to me except the Father draw him It is written they shall be all taught of God Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh to me Joh. 6. 44 45. No one knoweth the Sonn but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father but the Sonn and he to whom the sonn will reveal him What he speaketh of knowing the Son and the Father he meaneth of knowing the minde and will of God touching the Gospel-way in which he hath purposed to bring sinners to salvation This is a wisdome not borrowed of but hidden from most of the wise and prudent in secular learning and revealed to babes Mat. 11. 25-27 And the Scripture giveth reasons why there is no power in the wisdome and learning of men to dive into the Mystery of the Gospel and Evangelical knowledg of God No man hath seene God at any time The only begotten sonne which is in Joh. 1. 18. the bosome of the Father hath declared him Joh. 1. 18. No man hath ascended to heaven but he that came down from heaven even the sonne of man which is in heaven Joh. 3. 13. What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. What is here spoken of the knowledg of God is to be understood as in the former Texts the knowing of Gods will and mysterious way of bringing many sons ere while enemies to glory The scope of the Argumentation in these Scriptures runs thus None but such as have seen God seen into him have been in heaven with him nay have been in his very heart and bosom can possibly know the mind and purpose of God hidden in himself touching the justification and salvation of men But Christ only the Spirit of Christ have been and are still in heaven have seen God and are in the bosom of God reading and knowing all the purposes of his mind Therefore none but Christ and his Spirit alone know and can reveale this mind of God to us The Scripture here speaketh of Teachers none hath been in heaven to come thence as a Teacher into the world of what he hath seen in the bosom of God but the Son and the Spirit And the teaching or revealing of which it speaketh is meant original teaching and revealing None can reveal the mind of God but the Son and the Spirit or they to whom the Son hy his Doctrine and Spirit hath first revealed it What weight then can there be in the Testimony or learning of the Heathen Philosophers or of the Angelical and Seraphical Doctors of the Romish Church who never ascended the Heavens to look into Gods bosom and are as void of Christ and his Spirit as those Heathens themselves that any thing of Gospel-wisdome should be grounded upon their authority From Christ discend we to the Apostles and first he that chose them to goe forth into the world to bring forth fruit Joh. 15. 16. i. e. by the preaching of the Gospel to bring home many souls to God to furnish them with abilities for so great end noble a work promiseth to send unto them the Spirit and to what end but to lead them into all truth Joh. 16. 13. into the cleer and full knowledg of the mysterious truths of the Gospel bidding them not to go to Athens to learn from the Philosophers in their Schools any thing that might further their illumination herein but to tarry at Hierusalem untill they were endued with this power from on high Luk. 24. 49. And if we look to the accomplishment of the promise Acts 2. 1 c. we shall finde that the Holy Ghost discending in a glorious manner upon them wrought on them if not only yet principally these three effects as abundantly sufficient to enable them for the Apostleship and Ministry of the New Testament as the Apostle terms his Office 2 Cor. 3. 6. 1. A sudden and wonderfull irradiation of them with all the depths of Gospel-knowledg that without communion with flesh and blood they had the sacred secrets of the Gospel made out in an instant to them by the revelation of Jesus Christ as afterwards Paul manifesteth the Lord Jesus to have dealt with him in like manner Gal. 1. 12. 16. And thus they that were but mechanick and illiterate men were filled suddenly with light and knowledg enough to enlighten the whole world then in darknesse 2. The gift of tongus by which they were enabled to spread abroad unto all men of all nations in their severall Languages the wonderfull things of God i. e. the glorious and untill then hidden ways of salvation Act. 2. 11. 3. A magnanimous and celestiall boldness to hold forth defend and maintain those sacred and saving truths revealed to them in despight of all the powers of Earth and Hell banding against them Act. 4. 13. Here as there is none that will deny the Apostles to have been sufficiently yea abundantly gifted for the execution of their function so I do not so much as suspect there will be any found that supposeth them to have received among the Abundance of their Revelations any inspiration of the before-mentioned humane learning as usefull and needfull to plant the knowledg of the Gospel in the hearts of men or to confirm it after it was planted And 2ly with that learning and power so received they went on in the execution of their Ministry so far from using as that they purposely rejected the use of humane reason and wisdome holding fast to the word alone as the mind of God therein was revealed to them by the Spirit for their rule in preaching and authority in confirming the truth of the Gospel which they taught In stead of all attend we to Paul that laboured more abundandantly then they all Rom. 15. 19. When he had fully preached the Gospel from Hierusalem in the regions round about even to Illyricum he gives this account
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
judgment nor to admit any thing what another hath introduced of his will and judgment Apostolos Domini habemus auctores qui nec ipse quicquam ex suo Tertul. l. de prescript advers Haereticos Arbitrio quod inducerunt elegerunt sed acceptam a Christo disciplinam fideliter nationibus adsignaverunt i. e. We have the Apostles of the Lord herein our authors or patterns who neither made choise of any thing from their owne invention to impose upon Christians but faithfully delivered to the Nations the discipline which they had received from Christ So that if an Angel from heaven shall preach any other doctrine let him be accursed And having mentioned some doctrines not of Christs prescribing pronounceth of all such Hae sunt doctrinae hominum Daemoniorum prurientibus auribus natae de ingenio sapientiae saeculi c. i. e. These are Doctrines of men and Devills sprung forth from itching ears of the nature of the wisdome of the world which the Lord calling foolishnesse hath chosen the foolish things of the world even to the confusion of Philosophy it self Ea est n. Materia sapientiae saecularis c. For this Philosophy is the matter of worldly wisdome a rash interpreter of the nature and dispensations of God from it Heresies are suborned And having particularizâ—d what severall heresies have been foysted into the Church from the severall sects of Philosophers and what from all conjoyned and inveighed against Aristotles Logick as an enemie to Christian Religion he thus breaks forth Quid ergo Athenis Hierosolymis Quid Academiae Ecclesiae Quid haereticis Christianis Nostra institutio de particu Solomonis est c. Viderint qui Stoicum platonicum Dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt c. i. e. what then hath Athens to do with Jerusalem the Academy with the Church Hereticks with Christians Our Institution in Religion is out of the porch of Solomon c. Let them look to it that have hatched out a Stoicall Platonicall and Logicall Christianity to us We have no need of curiosity after Christ nor of inquisitivenesse after the Gospel When we believe viz. Christ and his Gospel wee desire nothing beyond believing For this we believe first that there is not viz. in Philosophy or other Arts any thing that we ought to believe unto salvation beyond the Gospel of Christ And a little after he that is not satiâ—fied with the Scripture but seekes further authority from reason and Philosophy his curious inquisitivenesse argues him either not to believe or else to be vain-glorious in seeking after the praise of worldly wisdom therefore annexeth this counsell Cedat curiositas fidei cedat gloria saluti i. e. let curiosity give place to faith and vain-glory stoop to salvation So much and much more not unworthy the reading hath Tertullian in this Book And none will easily affirm that Tertullian condemns that learning which himselfe wanted to hide his own nakedness All his polemicall works or controversall writings declare the contrary specially his book against Hermogenes where having to deale with one that little regarded the Scriptures sets upon him in his own fortresse and assails him with his own weapons and philosophically convinceth the Philosophaster and dialectically the Sophister in his own arts and element confuting and confounding him But some may object that seeing he holds the use of these arts unnecessary and hurtfull to Christian Religion why doth himself make use of them Himself both moves and answers the question else-where and thus puts the question Whether ohere be not some Tertul. de Anima lib. truths to be found in philosophy and 2ly whether a Christian may not in some case make use of it in his disputations His answer is somewhat large the summ and brief of it runs in this tenor That it is not to be denyed but there are some truths delivered by Philosophers in the more common and open things of Divinity i. e. as I granted before in naturall and morall things and those we are to take up not for the authority of the Phylosophers who by the groping light of Nature have by a kind of blind happinesse found out and delivered the same but for the authority of God who by his undeceiving word hath manefested it to us and further that in our disputes with such to whom the prescripts of philosophy are more authoritative and authentick than the oracles of the word when it may be done without prejudice to the word we may retort upon the adversarie his own arguments and stop his mouth with testimonies of Philosophers which to him are most authentick Nevertheless it is the safest and most pious way when wee treat with Hereticks that professe Christians to hold them close to the Scriptures Aufer Haereticis quae cum Ethnicis Tertul. lib. de Resur carnis sapiunt saith he ut de solis scripturis questiones suas sistant stare non potuerint i. e. Take from the Heretieks those arguments which they draw from heathen learning that they may state their questions from the Scriptures alone and they will not be able to stand With Tertullian consented the judgment of the sound and orthodox Fathers which lived after him during the first six hundred years in the Christian Church and my purpose was to demonstrate it from the very words of such of them as I have read but finding the Preface swelling above its measure already and the little or no use which they make of these pieces of learning in their works enough declaring their judgments that they held the same useless and superflouâ— at least in all their writings holding thewselves fast to the word not medling with prophane arts to help or back the Gospel of Christ saving when they were necessitated to disabuse the people in discovering the fallacies of the Manichees Arrians and other sophistical Hereticks I think it more pertinent to ease my self of this burthen By the way only noting that as Julian when he gave his mind once inordinately to the study of philosophy and coveted to be a learned and philosophical Christian did quickly declare himself to be an Apostat and no Christian So the like apostacy no doubt by the like means befell many others though not openly declared And this must needs follow in part upon all such as make not the word to be the whole foundation of their faith but so farr only as it hath reason and philosophy consenting with it But the word of the Gospel is transcendâ—nt above the reach of Philosophy and natural reason they cannot comprehend it to give testimony to it so that to make reason the touch-stone of Gospel-doctrines and truths is the ready way to apostatize from Christ and his Gospel although the self-deceivers declare not their apostacy but profess Christianity still To be a Christian only so far as the very extracts and spirits of natural reason suggest cause so to be is to be a Christian only
reference to the times past the other to the time present and to come Palam est saith Amesius Patres ex Philosophia introduxisse in Ecclesiam Ames Bellar Enero Tom. 4. Lib. 6. Cap. 1. p. 136. varios modos loquendi precipuè de meritis humanis de Justitia Evangelij qui in scripturis non comparent inde occasionem datam arreptam Scholasticis fuisse perniciosos errores fabricandi i. e. It is apparent that the Fathers have out of Philosophy brought into the Church various ways of speaking especially of mans merits and of Gospel-righteousness which do not appear in Scriptures And that occasion hath been thereby given to and caught or raught by the School-Doctors to frame many Errors And Bullinger seeing this way of disputation beginning to peep and shew it self in its time within the reformed Churches having before described them that give their minds over-much to the study of Philosophy and Logick that they became such as are unuseful for the edification of the Church and in stead thereof Disputatores rixosi fiunt censores superbissimi nihil aliud quà m disputationes rixas spirantes omnia aliorum c. arrogantissimè consentes arrodentes maligne cavillantes Scholarum Ecclesiarum pestes ex quibus venenum altercationum simultatum c. effunditur in Ecclesiam i. e. become brawling disputers proud censurers breathing nothing but disputes and janglings most arrogantly censuring snarling and malignly cavilling at other mens labours nisi quod eorum capitibus gravidis admodulatum sit prescriptisque regulis congruant if they be not tuned to their heads great with Child and congruent with their rules and precepts of Art The very plagues of Schools and Churches out of which the poyson of brawlings divisions and distractions is powred out into the Church Having thus described them hee thus concludes in reference to the times past Equidem feliciter nunquam cessit Ecclesiae quando homines docti studiosi deserta simplicitate puritati verbi dei aliò converterunt oculos neque hos unicè in solum verbum Dei collimârunt i. e. Verily it hath never thrived well in the Church when learned Bulling Ser. Decad. 5. Serm. 10. and studious men forsaking the simplicity and purity of Gods word have glanced their eyes on some other thing and not fixed them only upon Gods word And thus in reference to the times to come and present Si hodiè quoque pergamus scripturis sanctis maâ—è copulare philosophiam illas superstitiosè ad disputationes revocare ac sub regulas cogere humanas vel Artium corrumpemus ipsi in scholis grandi cum Ecclesiae detrimento sinceritatem doctrinem Apostolicae i. e. If in our times also we proceed evilly to couple together the Scriptures and Philosophy and to call the Scriptures but outsidely or in a shew to our disputations reducing them to the rules of men and of the Arts we also shall to the great disadvantage of the Church corrupt the sincerity of Apostolical doctrine in the Schools So much said Bullinger a Classical Divine of his time neither without eminent learning nor an enemie to it for more than a 100 years sithence in the last of those decads of Sermons which he set forth in print Anno 1549. how long before the Edition thereof it was preached is uncertain Yeâ— gives after all this to humane literature its due praise Interim certum est saith he bonas Artes vel literas plurimum facere ad per spicuitatem evidentiam sed moderate cum judicio religiose adhibitas ut imperium relinquatur sacris literis serviant autem omnes Artes exoticae i. e. Mean while it must be granted that good Arts and Learning contribute much to the cleering and evidencing of things so that they be moderately judiciously and religiously made use of and the Scripture be still left as Empress and all extraneous Arts as handmaids not to justle it aside or sit in Chair with it but to do service to it In some things in many things I grant the rules of these Arts when agreeing with Scripture to be usefull to make out the absurdity or rationality of a mans reasoning about divine things But except they could be proved universally and in all parts perfect and indeficient it is neither safe nor warrantable to yeeld up our faith and judgment in Gospel-matters to their determination This ingenuity therefore is to be attributed to M. Baxter that he doth though not professedly yet actually to this end come armed a Cap ad Pe with this kind of learning to destroy not to maintain that sacred and fundamentall point of the Gospel Justification of meer grace Yet to shew how much more confidence he hath in his Sophistry than in his Divinity and to tell out aloud that he hath deserved to have the title of Subtilissimus Doctor which Scotus hitherto hath worn hee hath affixed to the end of his Aporisms a Table of Distinctions to speâ—k out himself to all that will not otherwise see it that he is whatsoever he is Sophistry it self that distinctions flow from him as thick as Bees from the Hive Only this one thing seems wanting in him that he sets not so much as an Asterisk upon any of these distinctions to tell us that either it is grounded upon the Scripture or that it distinguisheth him from a sworn enemy to the Doctrine of Grace I do not expect to be free from censure for so much length in my discourse upon this last subject to shew the impotency and impropriety of secular learning to bear any authority in spiritual things But I have to answer against such censures 1. That I have written therein nothing but words of soberness and truth and I had rather with tediousness make cleer a truth than to drop errors with concisenesâ— 2. That it was not against my purpose to be so large nor yet beside the mark aimed at For should I here put a period Mr. Baxters falsities are more than half answered because that more than half of his Book consisteth of meerly sophistical questions definitions arguments evasions equivocations distinctions and fallacies In all which if there be no force to prove or refute in Gospel-matters and that God is so farr from commanding or allowing such slights in handling Gospel-truths as that he explodes hates curseth the same as hath been manifested then the greater part of his work is hereby manifested to be vain As for the residue of the Book wherein he seems to confine himself to plain Scripture he seldom and little meddles this way but in confidence of his Sophistry that he hath at hand in ambush to succenturiate and help him at a dead lift else all the fat will quickly be in the fire his Scripturall reasons for the most part cutting the throat of his own causâ— and stoutly defending the truth which he oppugneth as we shall find when I come to examine them One
himself in the Title of the book their unworthy Teacher not one of their Teachers so that his purpose is to deliver a general rule for all Churches His congragation to take upon trust from him and other Congregations from their Teachers what they themselves cannot reach to see in its own evidence i. e. such doctrines as they themselves by their own light and knowledg cannot tell whether they be white or black true or false from Heaven or from Hell And to do this is lesse absurd and more necessary then many imagin Mr. Baxter is scarce yet beginning to discover himself therefore we have yet Bona Verba from him we hear him speaking modestly afterward vires acquirit eundo we shall when once he is hot in his discourse hear him speak in the full of the mouth here only he saith less absurd and more necessary than some imagin But who knows not his meaning to be that for the people thus to pin their Faith to the sleeves of their Teachers specially to such profound Teachers as Mr. Baxter is so far from being absurd as that it is necessary I suppose he meaneth to salvation though some imbegin otherwise Here I would demand not of Mr. Baxter for I desire not familiarity with him while such an Aphorist but of any knowing man indulgent to him when he saith less absurd and more necessary than some imagine whom can he mean by those some but the Protestant Churches and Divines who at all times with one consent have cryed out against the absurdity of this doctrine in their disputations against the Papists And if so what doth he less therein than pronounce the Popish Doctrine herein necessary and the doctrine of all the Protestants in opposition to it a meer imagination But it may be objected that the Papists lay down this doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing upon the authority of the Church or their Teachers for a continual rule to the people But Mr. Baxter proposeth it but as a temporary rule useful only for a season Therefore the difference between him and them is considerable For so much may be gathered from Mr. Baxters words to take upon trust from your Teachers what you cannot Yet reach to see in its own Evidence It is but while they are yet weak while they cannot yet reach c. But when once they are strengthened and have attained to see truths in their own evidence thenceforth they are to take up such doctrines upon their own evidence not upon trust from their Teachers any longer I answer This difference is but supposed not reall For if we compare his words here with that which he hath written in the next Section of this Epistle before and with the whole frame and current of of his disputes throughout his whole book we shal find that he doth equally with the Papists labour to settle the people in an implicit faith to believe as the Church believeth still For in the former Sect he that knoweth best his own congregation acknowledgeth it to be in the number of those the greatest part whereof is uncapable af understanding such controverted points as are treated of in his book He saith not only that they understand them not but also denyeth them to be in a capacity to be brought to the understanding of them viz. in their own evidence therefore they must still hold them upon trust from their Teachers Besides if we look to the frame of his Disputes in this Treatise we shall find him concurring with the Papists in his indeavours to keep the people in a perpetuall incapacity to understand such Doctrines in their own evidence For what else can he mean by seeing a point of divine doctrine in its own evidence but one of these two things to see it in the evidence and cleer testimony of the word by which God hath set it forth or to see it in the evidence of Sophistical learning and disputes by which Mr. Baxter and the Sophisters whom he followeth pretend themselves to set it forth But by neither of these will Mr. Baxter or the Popish Sophisters if they can hinder it suffer the vulgar people to know any Evangelicall truth in its own evidence Not by the evidence of the Scriptures by which God hath cleered up and so plainly revealed the fundamental truths of salvation that even babes and sucklings may in good measure comprehend them Mat. 11. 25. 1 Cor. 1. 26. For here with his Masters the Romish Sophisters hee raiseth vain and distracting questions making difficulties where the wisedom of God hath left none and so puzling weak and tender consciences that even what before they had attained by the pure and simple light of the word seeing now such a thick fogg of doubts interposed they think themselves to have lost what light once they had and so sink into sadness and despair concluding it utterly unattainable What zeal Mr. Baxter hath thus not only to match but also to exceed all the locusts of Rome in darkning such truths as Christ hath in Scripture left cleer and open to all shining in the very Sun-beams of the Gospel we shall find in examining the following parts of his Treatise So that in this respect he hinders as much as in him lyeth his Kederminsterians from seeing the truth of Christ in its own evidence Nor by the latter Mr. Baxters sophistical way of quenching under a pretence of confirming Gospel-truth can the vulgar ever attain to know them in their own evidences not only because this humane Learning hath no power to search into them but also because it is not to be expected that illiterate men should ever attain any depth in this learning For if it be true what is generally held by Mr. Baxter and his side that without great acquaintance with school-learning the marrow of Divinity can never be effectually pierced into and what a great Scholler once told Erasmus that one of these School-Doctors John Scotus can in no wise be understood under nine years study at the least and what a 3d affirmeth that a man must have Aristotles Metaphysicks ad unguem before he can be capable of understanding one sentence of Scotus Farewell then all hope of saving knowledg ever to be attained by unscotified miserable idiots in its own evidence or by the Ministeriall help of such Teachers as have crept here below upon the Doctrine of Christ his Prophets and Apostles and not had so much time and patience as Mr. Baxter hath bestowed in the sublimated study of Aristotle Scotus and their fellows But what if Mr. Baxter herein speak the same things may some say with the Church of Rome and the same in opposition to the judgment of all the Reformed Churches yet this doth not certainly prove that it is savouring of error which he here delivereth except it be manifested that he speaketh against the Scriptures Doth the word any where forbid us to take up points of Faith on the credit of our Teachers though we
the whole Law Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace From these words must needs be deduced these Conclusions 1 That to be under the Law and to be under Grace are contraries and do exclude either the other so that it is impossible for the same person at the same time to be under both together If but circumcised if at all under the Law ye have saith the Apostle made Christ of none effect to you ye are fallen from grace and consequently if at all in Christ yee are not in the least part under the Law but free from the domination and Curse thereof 2 That whosoever yieldeth himself to be under the Law as a Covenant of Works in the least part hath his justification or damnation depending upon his perfect or unperfect keeping of the whole Law so saith th'Apostle if but circumcised c. ye are debtors to keep the whole Law How debtors viz. If ever ye will be justified and saved to keep it perfectly if ye fail but once to be damned for ever 3 That whosoever affirmeth whether he be a Bellarmine or a Baxter believers to be under the Law as a Covenant of Works the same by necessary consequence denyeth all actuall efficacy of Christs death that ever any soul was or shal be saved by his mediation and affirmeth all the Saints that have been are or shal be to be damned for ever For if at all under the Law then not at all under grace or in Christ but they must stand or fall according as they do or not do the whole Law which none doth ergo all must perish The same also may be gathered from Gal. 3. 10. but I have touched upon it before A noble Aphorist ye will acknowledg declaring a greater desire to bring the Saints under the Curse and damnation then there is force in his Disputes to prove them to be under it These Scriptures might suffice to satisfie every judgment that believers are not under the Law Yet I shall mention some few more to shew the copiousnes of the word in this point that there might be no doubting in this point Rom 7. 1-6 the Holy Ghost doth make out this truth as clear as the light The Law saith he hath dominion over a man onely during life as the husband hath power over his wife Let either the husband or wife dye the law or power which the husband had over the wife dyeth also If the wife dye he hath no power over the soul or ashes of his dead wife to exact under any penalty obedience from them If the wife be survivor she is no more bound to the dead ashes of her husband to fear either command or wrath thence but is wholly at liberty So also stands the relation between the Law and believers The Law in the height of its authority had power to inflict death but once upon man this death have believers suffered in Christ therefore are dead to the Law by the body of Christ have done their Law and suffered all that the Law had to inflict upon sinners in the body or humane nature of Christ suffering for them so that they are dead to the Law so far without the lists of further punishment or terrour of the Law as the Felon or Murtherer that is condemned hanged dead and buried is free from further punishment by the Law of the Land Yea the Law also is dead to them having spent it's sting and strength and life also on the naturall body of Christ and is thereby disabled for ever to re-assume the same against the mysticall body or any member thereof So that they are fully delivered from the Law All this doth th'Apostle speak out at the full in that place and no lesse in Gal. 3. 24 25. The Law was our School-master unto or untill Christ c. But after that faith is come we are no longer under a Schoolmaster This also he illustrateth Gal. 4. 1 c. by a similitude likening the Church before Christs coming to an Heir in his Minority by his fathers will put under Tutors and Governors so that though he be Lord of all yet differs nothing from a servant but is under his Tutors ferule and rod also to be constrained with fear when love becomes ineffectuall to move him to his duty such was the condition of the Church while in its minority and feeblenes of spiritual knowledge the Sun of righteousnes not being yet risen fully to enlighten them with the understanding of their liberty and glorious prerogatives During this time though they were Lords of all yet because of the weaknes of their knowledg they were kept Servant-like under hard Masters under the Commands and threats of the Law but resembling the Church under the Gospel to the same heir in his maturity of age now entred into the possession of his heritage and become rather Lord of his Tutors and Governours then any way subject or servile to their authority gently and generously accepting their wholsom Counsels but disdaining so to subject to their authority as to be brought under the rod of their power any more So also Gal. 5. 13 18 23. speaking of them that had been called to the liberty of the Gospel believing in Christ walking in the Spirit and bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit concludeth of them that they are not under the Law that against such there is no Law And 2 Cor. 3. 11. cals the Law as a Covenant of works that which was done away as he doth the Gospel as a Covenant of Grace that which remaineth Yea that the case might be so plain that no Jesuiticall distinctions might pervert it the Holy Ghost at once concludeth both negatively that believers are not under the terrours of the Law at all and affirmatively that they are wholly and onely under the sweet dispensation of grace Heb. 12. 18-24 Ye are not come to the Mount c. burning with fire nor unto blacknes and darknesse and tempest nor to the words and Covenants which could not be heard and born and to the terrible voyce which made Moses himself exceedingly to fear and quake These are the things done away in reference to believers But ye are come to Mount Sion to the City of the living God the heavenly Hierusalem c. to all the prerogatives and privileges of the Kingdome of Grace So also in the Epistle to the Galathians There are two Covenants saith the Holy Ghost the one from Mount Sinai where the Law was given which gendereth to Bondage the other from Hierusalem which is above and is free the mother of us all and concludes at last of all believers negatively that they are not the children of the Bond-woman i. e. under the Covenant of works and affiâ—matively But of the free i. e. under the Covenant of Grace Gal. 4. 24 26 31. Hence is that bold triumphant challenge of the Apostle Rom. 8. 33 34.
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
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
put a difference betwixt mid-day and mid-night It is plain by what light by what argument It is the thing in question and none untill Mr. Br. ever held forth this assertion in these his expressions Yet it must be plain viz. because he hath said it so plain as a New world created in Mr. Br. fist he that can see what is not may see it We deny both the righteousnes which is by Christ to be a legall righteousnes and our own qualifications to be the terms and grounds upon which he is made to us Righteousnes And let the world judg whether he shew himself a Christian Teacher or an Antichristian Imposter who having promised a confirmation of his strange and before unheard of doctrine brings nothing but flourishes of words to charm fools not one argument or Scripture to satisfie the wise and conscientious Himself seeth the grosnes and palpablenes of his delusions and left his Reader should stay in his meditations upon it to see it also he hasteth to annex a fourth Conclusion very plausible to them whom he hopes to beguile wherupon as on a Cross he naileth the picture of an Antinomian to crucifie him that with this pleasant spectacle he may divert his Readers eyes from the nakednes and nothingnes of what went before to the beholding of a new object set before him To affirm therefore that our Evangelicall or New Covenant Righteousnes is in Christ and not in our selves or performed by Christ and not by our selves is such a monstrous piece of Antinomian Doctrine that no man c. ut supra Which is as much as if he had said to his Reader if upon the bare authority of my words when I have no one good Argument to prove them thou wilt not become a rank Papist I will register thee for an Antinomian and make thee out to the world such a Monster that all shall abhor thee as unsufferable With this Thunder-bolt he knows he shall shake into an Ague all those that Nicodemus-like are Disciples of Christ but secretly for fear of the Jewes Should they be suspected of the least tang of Antinomianism they should never more have a good look from the Scribes and Pharisees But he is not forth with an Antinomian whom Mr. B. so termeth If Pythagoras his transmigration of souls into new bodies were Canonicall I should conclude that the ghost of one of those ghostly Fathers of the Councell of Constance had crept into Mr. B. body They to make John Huss odious painted an ugly Devill in paper and crowned John Huss therewith when they carried him to the stake to be burned at the view whereof the people exulted in his death as if they had seen some Witch or rather young Devill burned So deals Mr. B. here with them which are truly Evangelical inures upon them the black brand of Antinomianism so to make truth in their mouth hatefull as well as the persons But is it decreed that they are all Antinomians that hold and that it is a monstrous piece of Antinomianism to hold that our Evangelicall or New Covenant righteousnes is in Christ not in our selves performed by Christ and not by our selves If so I much question whether there will be found any one save Mr. B. alone in all the Reformed Churches that are or have been but must bear the imputation of a monstrous Antinomian I will not be over confident of Socinus Arminius Grotius and their followers because I take them not for members but troublers of the Reformed Churches For my part I know no difference about this point between the Orthodâ—x and Antinomians Both consent 1 That our Gospel-righteousnes which worketh effectually to our Justification is in Christ not in our selves save by imputation 2 That our Gospel or New Covenanâ— righteousnes in reference to our sanctification is in Christ radically but in us by derivation and influence actually to sanctifie us 3 That our faith repentance obedience holines good works though flowing from Christ himself into us are the Gospel or New Covenant Righteousnes not by which we are justified but by which we are sanctified And let Mr. B. or any of his Disciples produce that Orthodox man that ever called this doctrine Antinomianism or that hath not shunned the contrary doctrine as Popish and Antichristian Yet Mr. B. finding himself bound by promise to prove many things as was said before that his fallacious dealing might not be too notorious and shamefull he chooseth one of the many leaving the rest untouched to speak something to it as he had said though not to prove it And in that which he saith there is nothing to confirm his own assertion but a meer reviling abusing abasing of them that assert the contrary under the false imputation of Antinomianism And here he comes upon the stage like Hercules Furens who in a Phrensie taking his Wife and Children to be a Lioness and her Whelps falls upon them fiercly with his Clubb and envenomed Arrows untill he had utterly destroyed them So Mr. B. in somewhat a like fit not finding reall Antinomians but making in his fancy imaginary Bug-bears and phantasms of them curseth them with Bell Book and Candle for saying that Christ hath fulfilled the conditions of the New as well as of the Old Covenant and that our Evangelical righteousnes is not in our selves but in Christ At the supposition of such assertions which none ever laid down in these terms the man is in a rage beats the wind and flings dust in the Aire cryeth Blasphemy heresie impiety and enumerates Absurdities upon absurdities arising from such doctrine all which I am not at leizure to transcribe it being all superfluous and not to the purpose but may be read at large pag. 111 112 113 of his Tractate More proper shall it be for me here to make out Mr. B. either willing or unwilling mistake herein and then all his absurdities will â—ither vanish into winde or return upon himself First then as we deny not Faith in the Lord Christ to be instrumentall to apprehend to our selves Christ for our justification and a declarative evidence to our own souls that we are actually justified by him as before hath been granted so we affirm it to be hereticall and popish doctrine which Mr. B. doth here pag. 111 deliver in asserting repentance obedience submission c. and afterward all other vertues and good works to be conditions of the New Covenant viz. by which as by our Gospel righteousnes we are and without which preceding we cannot be justified For all these in Mr. B. sense as Austin from the tenor of the Gospel saith Non precedunt justificandum sed sequuntur justificatum are not the precedents but fruits of justification 2 We affirm Repentance Obedience Charity c. and all good works which the Gospel requireth to be originally and materially the works and duties of the Law Nature and naturall conscience it self suggesting to every of us both the rest and withall in
of these his subtilty layes down not as positions here first asseâ—ted and consequently here to be proved But as assertions before proved and granted upon which he is now ready to build his other geere and tâ—ash which he hath in readiness to jâ—yne to these as a superstructure Whereas our sincere subjection and obedience to Christ saith he is part of the condition of the New Covenant And where again When the New Covenant saith Thou shalt obey sincerely putting there this voice of the New Covenant in opposition to the voice of the Old Covenant which as he tells us saith Thou shalt obey perfectly Here is a pretty slight to broach errors a creeping into men to perswade them in despight of their teeth that he and they are of one mind That he proved and they granted it yesternight when they were all fast a sleep and none of them spake or heard any thing Which shall we think this man to have more studied Machiavil or Mâ—ldonate If Bellarmine were alive hee would even shake off his red Cap with laughter to see a son of his so much more witty and crafty then his Father But to the matter it self First concerning obedience to the Morall Law that it is part of the condition of the New Covenant 1. I demand where it was before proved yea where in direct words asserted that it is here taken up as a point granted Hee gave cause enough indeed to bee suspected of it throughout the foregoing part of this Tractate but not evidence enough to be impleaded for it This is Magisterially to command Faith as one that speaketh by the authority of an infallible spirit and not Ministerially to teach as one that subjecteth himself and his Doctrine to the tryal of Gods Word 2. I demand whether he means not by the condition of the New Covenant the condition upon which and for which God will justifie the performer Yea that condition which he had before termed a righteousnesse perfect and meritorious in its own worthyness to Justification If this be not his meaning then Master Baxter eats up again to day what he spit out yesterday But this can in no wise befall the animosity of his spirit If it be his meaning then doth he pronounce even our legal righteousnes which consists in the fulfilling of the Morall duties of the Moral Law as well as our Evangelicall righteousnesse as he termes the personall righteousnesse which is conformed to the rule of the Gospel to bee meritorious to Justification And not any one of the Popes themselves have spoken higher language then this to deifie man in his own righteousnesse 3. I would be informed if the performance of the duties of the Morall Law in obedience to Christ doth justifie why the same performance in obedience to God doth not justifie also Is not obedience due as well to the Father as to the Son or is not Justification as much from the Father as from the Sonne The same honour is due to both and the same work of grace effected by both Neither can I see any more worth in Morall Righteousnesse Morally performed for I finde not Mr. Baxter as yet speaking further of it in obedience to the Son then in the same done to the Father by way of obedience to him But of this point we shall have a more proper place and occasion to speak more fully afterward 2. Concerning the second that the Gospel doth require but sincere not perfect obedience I might also enquire 1. Why Mr. Baxter doth here take it up pro concesso for granted He had indeed put it in the question to which he is answering but had said nothing for the solution of it except peradventure by the art of Ventriloquie he spake something under the Table that he might not bee heard when hee said in his first answer to it That the Morall Law is continued by Christ in the sense before expressed meaning by those words the expressions used in the said question that under the New Covenant the Morall Law commandeth not perfect obedience but onely sincere or at least the Gospel having the Morall Law for its preceptive part doth so If I knew that to be his meaning I have somewhat to say to it In mean while be it or be it not his meaning is every thing that Mr. Baxter hath once imagined in his brain or spoken under a bushel by and by to be taken up for a granted principle in Religion upon which he may make a superstructure of what he pleaseth 2. Why doth he not alledge those Testimonies of the New Testament which assert onely a sincere and not a perfect obedience Why doth hee suffer us poor soules to continue in darknesse for lack of his light communicated to us Is it in the outside or the inside of his Testament that this mystical doctrine is contained I acknowledge the promises of Gods free grace are made â—ut in the riches thereof to them that are in Christ that God for Christs sake will accept their sincere volitions and performances according to the ability which they have and not reject them for want of the ability which they have not That not onely the infirmities of their obedience but their very sins and disobedience is blotted out and shall be no more imputed to them c. But this in no wise denyeth perfect obedience to be their duty still Yea much more their duty under the Gospel then under the Law because there is a greater obligation of greater and more benefits upon them under thâ— Gospel then under the Law binding them to yeeld back perfect love and obedience to their Benefactor 3. What shall we think of those Texts in the New Testament which require of us to be perfect 2 Cor. 13. 11. Jam. 1. 4. Yea perfect as God is perfect Mat. 5. 48. reproving weakness and infirmity and commanding a going on to perfection Heb. 6. 1. as compared with the precedent Chapter in the latter part thereof Yea if perfection were not the duty of a Christian and unperfectness and infirmity his sin why doth the Apostle so much groan and grieve under the remainder of his naturall infirmities and presse on to perfection Rom. 7. 14 to the 24. Phi. 3. 12-14 Or is such unperfectness a sinne onely in reference to the rule of the Law and not the rule of the Gospel for that the Law doth but the Gospel doth not call for perfection This is both contrary to the Scriptures alleaged and doth withall make the Gospel to allow imperfections And to use Mr. Baxters own expressions which calleth the Gospel a Law what the Law forbids not we take the same to be approved by that Law If any should say that the Gospel doth not require perfect but sincere obedience ad aliquid in relation to this or that particular end it might in some case be a truth But Mr. Baxter layes it down positively in it self that the Gospel requires not perfection And this can
1 If we look strictly to the words Mr. Baxter must hence argue only that our confession is a condition of Gods faithfulnesse as if God either cannot or will not be faithfull except we confesse But let us give Mr. Baxter the largest advantage that he can claim in the meaning of the words that God is positively and not hypothetically or conditionally faithfull and that of his faithfulnesse he will forgive and cleanse if we confesse In this sense then whereas the Apostle speaketh affirmatively not negatively if we confesse he will forgive not if we confesse not he will not forgive I do 2 Demand whether confession be so a condition of forgivenesse that whosoever confesseth shall be forgiven This Mr. Baxter will not affirme without his caeteris paribus whereof the Text speaks not a word expresly or implicitely for him and if he conclude negatively he concludes not from the Text but his own fancie Obj. But if you deny forgivenesse upon confession made you deny what the Text affirmeth and so fight against the word it self denying what it clearly affirmeth Answ True if we deny it to them to whom the Text grants and promiseth it But the Apostle speaks here not to the unjustifyed and unforgiven but to the Sants forgiven and justifyed already and the Emphasis of the proposition or promise is in the word we if we that are in Christ confesse God will hold faithfull in keeping Covenant with us and forgive So that this is a consolation to the Saints against all their dayly infirmities They have a priviledge above all the world besides If they sin they have an advocate with the Father c. through whom when they confesse and bewail their sins the grace of God will by his Spirit testifie and seal to their consciences the forgivenesse of them 3 To descend without the Text to Mr. Baxters conditio sine qua non there must be more then a grain of salt to make his assertion savory that without confession there is no forgivenesse For if by it he mean that of the Apostle Confession with the mouth he shall exclude many thousands from justification whom the Scripture excludeth not 4 I grant to Mr. Baxter that some of our Divines have affirmed though I fear somewhat rawly and inconsiderately that confession is a condition sine qua non of forgivenesse yet far from Mr. Baxters sense viz. with these three limitations whereof Mr. Baxter will not endure the test 1 Of the forgivenesse which is by the new Covenant or as it is declared and sealed up to our consciences Not of the forgivenesse which was laid up in the hands as laid up in the hands of Christ and ours in him before we beleeved or confessed 2 Such a condition as is not in the same relation with faith as Mr. Baxter makes it the very naming whereof they detest as absolutely contradicting the nature and authority of the Gospell 3 Such a condition as explodes the caeteris paribus sensu composito of Mr. Baxter so that though they speak somewhat of Mr. Baxters words yet they are at a defiance against his sense and meaning How and in what sense they will have it a condition is no place here to treat It hath been a digression to say any thing of it because it is utterly besides the Text to which alone here I was to speak B. Act. 8. 22. Repent of this thy wickednesse and pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee This Scripture I passed by in the former heap of his quotations as possibly a mistake in the quotation but finding it here again and afterward in a third place I see the man means as he quoteth and cannot enough marvell what he can fish from this Scripture to prove any thing of mans works a condition of justification If the word If here make or argue a condition it must be on Gods not on mans part that man must repent and pray upon condition that God will forgive else not if forgivenesse be not the causa sine qua non of repentance and prayer But this is nonsense to have God upon terms if he will have any duty from us He must therefore mean on the other side God will forgive upon condition of prayer and repentance But how he will perswade this Scripture to say it is past my capacity to comprehend Here is no promise himself grants there is but an half-promise of forgiving on Gods part Append. pag. 79. and nothing mentioned as a condition on mans part But contrariwise duties of naturall righteousnesse commanded or counselled to a naturall man upon such cold encouragement as the Scripture affords to the carnall devotions of carnall men carnally performed If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven If Mr. Baxters Assertions be but so sound as his Arguments neither will serve for good Bell-mettall B. Act. 3. 19 Repent and be converted that your sinns may be blotted out c. How far repentance is a condition hath been discoursed of and discussed already B. Act. 22. 16. Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord. Is then Baptism a condition so necessary that without it there is no washing away of sin And must the Popish Tenent be found writren in Mr. Baxters Calender with red letters Sacramenta opere operato conferunt gratiam or doth Baptism prove ineffectuall to all that do not cannot call upon the name of the Lord Then whether Mr. Baxter be more against himself or against the Protestant Churches who can decide More modestly speaks even Bellarmine which makes the desire of receiving the Sacraments a condition of justification expelling from forgivenesse them that desire them not this man rigorously and cruelly shakes into condemnation those that do not because they have not opportunity to receive them though their desire be unfeigned or if he doth not so this Scripture proves not Baptism to be the condition sine qua non As for calling upon the name of the Lord I have before spoken to B. 1 Pet. 4. 18. If the righteous be scarce saved where shall the wicked and ungodly appear I should be in a Labyrinth of doubts how he would argue hence for himself were it not that elsewhere he explaineth himself in his book thus If the righteous be scarce saved by all their strivings how shall they be saved that strive not at all We deny not the duty of striving in holy things yea of striving for salvation though in Mr. Baxters sense we deny it Yet the meaning of this Text as appears by its dependence upon the verse precedent is If the corruptions and unbelief of heart be so great in the very Saints and beleevers that they must passe through the purifying fire of Gods judgments more and more to perfect them before they be made vessels of honour in the Kingdome of glory or that they need the scourge of Gods correction to whip them back
Such as these have exhibited or do still exhibit Christ to us for redemption or justification such is our faith still to receive him But these all have exhibited and do exhibit Christ not as a Law-giver but as an offering or sacrifice for our sins therefore under this notion our faith is to receive him to justification So all the sacrifices circumcision paschal Lamb c. under the old Testament directed the faith of men to Christs sacrifice to the bloud and wounds of Christ for purging c. Or if any will say as he may truly say that circumcision typified also the renovation of the heart by the Spirit of Christ himself may answer himself that this was to sanctification and not to justification 2 The whole stream of the Gospell leads our faith to Christ crucifyed or dying for justification As the serpent was lifted up in the wildernesse so shall the Son of man be lifted up viz. upon the crosse that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 14 15. I determined to know i. e. to preach among you for your knowledg nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed 1 Cor. 2. 2. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me signifying what death he should die Joh. 12. 32 33. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud c. Joh. 6. 47 58. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud Rom. 4. 25. Being justified by his bloud Rom. 5. 9. The bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. The Lambe of God sacrificed that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. Having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse Col. 1. 20. And reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death Ver. 21 22. Having redemption through his bloud even the sorgivenesse of sin Col 1. 14. He hath purchased his Church with his bloud Act. 20. 28. Having boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the bloud of Jesus by the new and living way which he hath consecrated through the veil of his flesh Heb. 10. 19 20. He was wounded for our sins and bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed Isa 53. 5. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. I might even weary the Reader with allegations of Scriptures every way as pertinently and properly making Christ dying for us the object of faith as justifying And I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his admirers to produce one Scripture proving Christ as a Law-giver to be the object of our faith to justification If they cannot do it let it be acknowledged as an audacious and daring presumption in Mr. Baxter from his own authority without and against the Word to lay it down here as a position and principle of Religion 3 If the death and sufferings alone of Christ and not his giving of Lawes and commanding duties of righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction which he hath given to the justice of God for us then Christ in his death and not at all in his Laws and Commands of such duties is to be made the object of our faith for justification But the former is true therefore the latter also Both the consequent and consequence of the Proposition must needs be granted by all Protestants though not by Remonstrants and Socinians which hold the imputation of the obedience of Christ to us by which he hath satisfyed Gods justice that he for us and we in and by him have done our law that his satisfying obedience is by imputation so fully made ours to justification as if we had done it our selves which is the doctrine of all Protestant Churches But Mr. Baxter hateth this phrase of imputation of Christs obedience will not cannot admit it for then he destroyes and pronounceth all at the best to be erroneous whatsoever he hath spowted out for sacred doctrine he grants the imputation of nothing else but our own faith and works to justification so that after his principles the consequence is not so clear Let us see therefore whether also after and upon his own grounds it may stand firm and undenyable 1 Then Mr. Baxter Thes 18. affirmes our Legall righteousnesse as he cals it i. e. that righteousnesse by which the Law is satisfyed for our breaches of it to be in Christ and in calling this Legall righteousnesse ours and the satisfaction therein made ours he doth imply that the satisfaction of Christ is the thing that being made ours is that which justifyeth us This he speaks out yet more plainly pa. 218. telling us that Christs satisfaction must be made ours else we cannot be justifyed that so far as by imputation no more is understood then the bestowing of Christs satisfaction on us so that we shall have the justice and benefits thereof as truely as if we had satisfyed our selves in this sense he granteth the imputation of Christs satisfactory righteousnesse and thus according to his principles that act or those acts of Christ by which he made satisfaction for us or rather Christ in these acts is to be made the object of our faith as justifying According to this rule pa. 54. he makes the Active righteousnesse of Christ considered as such part of the satisfaction together with the Passive and to lay a ground for that which he here inferreth pa. 57 he affirms that among other parts of Christs righteousnesse or Active obedience his assuming of the humane nature his establishing and sealing the Covenant his working miracles his sending his Disciples to convert and save the world his overcoming death and rising again c. which were all works most proper to his kingly office to have been meritorious and satisfactory And all this to lay a foundation for what here and Thes 72. he buildeth viz. Christ as a Law-giver as well as a Redeemer is the object of justifying faith as such and that obedience to his Laws as well as faith in his sufferings hath to do in our justification We finde then Mr. Baxter making Christ in his Legislative righteousnesse upon this ground alone to be the object of justifying faith as therein he in part satisfyed for our disobedience Therefore hoc nomine and in this respect must the consequence of the proposition stand firm with him viz. If only the death and sufferings of Christ and not at all his Legislative righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction c. then Christ in his death onely and not c. is to be made the object of faith as justifying For in that righteousnesse alone by which Christ satisfyed is faith to apprehend him to justification by his own rules The Assumption then remaines alone needfull to be proved viz. that Christs death and suffering alone is the entire satisfaction This is clear to them which will not wilfully retain beams in their eyes from these Scriptures which affirm the
be further opposed Now let us hear what Mr. Baxter hath to say against us or for the proof of his Assumption B. Pa. 255. That Christ as a Saviour only or in respect of his Priestly office only is not the object of justifying faith But that faith doth as really and immediately receive him as King and in so doing justifie this I prove thus If he mean otherwise then I have before declared to be the judgment of Protestants and as he terms them godly and learned Divines of singular esteem in the Church of God pa. 53. and one of them to be of more authority then many writers and readers Appen pa. 12. he feigneth an Adversary and beats the winde But against our Assertion as I have explained it or for his Assertion setting up the commands of duty by Christ together with the sacrifice of Christs death to be the object of faith as justifying if he say any thing we are to examine it As for the rest which he speaks besides the purpose we shall look on it and neglect it B. 1. The Gospell doth not reveal Christs offices as separated but as they are revealed so they must be beleeved This makes not against us but against himself We make Christ in his offering himself for us our Melchisedek King Priest and Prophet he divides in restraining the Kingly office only to giving of Lawes c. and not at all acting mediatorily in his death B. 2. Neither doth it offer Christ in his Pristly office only as separated form his Kingly though it may sometimes presse the acceptance of him in one respect and sometimes in another but as he is offered so he must be received We grant him all but what hence will result to his use B. 3. Scripture no where tyeth justification to the receipt of him as our Priest only therefore we must not do so Scripture every where affirmeth Gods justice to be satisfyed by the blood of Christ and sends our faith to that fountain alone for purging therefore we must do so B. 4. How commonly doth Scripture joyn his offices together calling him our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Hath Mr. Baxter in a dream met with any bug-bear that doth otherwise B. 5. If we receive him not as King we receive him not as entire Saviour for he saveth us not only by dying for us but also by reducing us really into communion with God and guiding us by his Lawes and protecting and perfecting us by his government and subduing our enemies 1 The husband is in some sense said sometimes to save the wife and the wife to save the husband and the Ministers to save themselves and others 1 Cor. 7. 16. 1 Tim. 4. 16. Must therefore the husband or wife or Minister be made the object of saving or justifying faith as such â— The question is not here how many acts of Christ of men of our selves are instrumentall to our salvation but what act of Christ hath satisfyed for our sinnes by the application whereof we are constituted actually righteous are pardoned and justifyed before God This we maintain to be Christs offering himselfe to God for us and let Mr. Baxter disapprove it 3 We deny not that Christ hath other operations by which to perfect and sustain the justifyed to eternall life yea to prevent our faith infusing it and directing it to himself crucifyed and satisfying for us and to follow it by supporting it and holding us fixed by faith to himself thus satisfying for us and to stabish his Kingdome within us in peace righteousnesse and joy in the holy Ghost yea that in these Christ must be made the object of our faith for our confirmation dependence and comfort But as justifying and fetching from him the matter of justification or rather the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed it must know nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed as before hath been proved and we wait to hear from Mr. Baxter or any of his disciples one Scripture to confute it B. 6. His Kingly office is a true part of his entire office of Mediatourship Now the sincerity of acts in Morall respects lyeth in their true suitablenesse to the nature of their objects As God is not truly loved except he be loved entirely so neither is Christ truely received except you receive him entirely It is a lame partiall faith and no true faith that taketh Christ only in the notion of a deliverer from guilt and punishment without any accepting of him as our Lord and Governour though I beleeve that the hope of being pardoned and saved is the first thing that moveth men to receive Christ yet doe they being so moved receive him as their Lord also or else they do not receive him sincerely Sound without substance no more to his purpose then if he had said nothing What one Protestant ever held it a sincere faith that apprehends Christ to justification and not for illumination and sanctification also will it then follow that illumination and sanctification are justification or that faith as these wayes acting doth justifie Then also my hand in feeding clothes me and in clothing feeds me B. 7. The exalting of his Kingly office is as principall an end of his dying and becoming Mediator as is the saving of us and exalting of his Priestly office see the 2. Psalme Rom. 14. 9. To this end he both dyed rose again and revived that he might be the Lord both of the dead and the living and therefore the receiving of him as Priest alone is not like to be the condition of our justification An invincible argument he that will not be swayed by it let him continue in his wits still As if whatsoever thing God had an end to exalt by Christs death must be the object of faith as justifying God intended by it to exalt his elect are the elect therefore the object of justifying faith Besides we say not that the receiving of Christ as Priest alone justifyeth B. So that if Christ put both into the condition we must not separate what he hath joyned Himself as I have shewed separateth we joyn them together in Christs passion and in the rest of his acts and benefits B. But the main ground of their errour who think otherwise is this They think acceptance of the mercy offered doth make it ours immediately in a naturall way as the accepting of a thing from men and so as if he that accepteth pardon should have it and he that accepteth sanctity should have it c. But Christ as I have shewed establisheth his office and authority before he bestoweth his mercies and though accepting be the proper condition yet doth it not confer the title to us as it is an accepting primarily but as it is the Covenants condition If we we should take possession when we have no title in Law God would quickly challenge us for our bold usurpation and deal with us as with him that intruded without the wedding garment There
all hearts witnesse for him that no good will to Popery in generall provoked him to trouble the Church with his doctrine I will not judge But if good will to this part of Popery that consists in justification by works unto which if all the rest garbage of Popery be compared it is insufficient to counterpoise it in mischief did not provoke let him shew what hath provoked him to it Is it in hatred to the Papists that he hath laboured so stoutly to maintain their Kingdome Is not this the pillar of all Popery and if this be demolished what is there of all their heresies but will fall after 3. As to his sincerity in this businesse in following conscientiously his judgment I know I finde in my self the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately evill who can finde it out I search only my own not anothers heart that is out of my orb and beyond my fathom But I should give the more credence to Mr. Baxter speaking of his own sincerity in this businesse did I not see him forsaking the fountain and digging to himself cisterns deriving from every puddle of Papists Arminians Socinians and Atheists both his tenents and all fallacious Sophistry to maintain them leaving the pure word of God and tossing it either from him or for himself at his pleasure 4. As for his prayer if presented to God after his own principles as an Act helping to justifie him and no further through the mediation of Christ then as the same mediation take efficacy as to him from his own works and worth no marvell if the justice of God flung it back as dirt in his face and left him to that de luding spirit which worketh by those false Apostles whom he had studied so many years having spent but a few days upon the Scriptures as himself confesseth So the Pharisee after his praying departed from the presence of God unjustifyed unregarded Such devout Protestations may possibly take impression upon the weak and ignorant But Satan in the vizzard of an Angell of light and Satan in his own ghastly visage is to them that are strong in the faith the same Satan and alike shunned Besides when men rest not satisfyed with the sacred truth of the Word but will as it were rake the very dung of Gods enemies for quaintifies of knowledge which the Word hath not if they are blacked no marvell for their delight is to dwell with Colliers And God hath threatned to send them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie c. 2 Thes 2. 10 11 12. Yeelding them up to waxe worse deceiving others being themselves deceived or self-deceivers 2 Tim. 3. 13. He promiseth some proofs of what he saith and one argument he puts in this explication thus B. If faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant and obedience be also part of the condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved An Herculean Argument as soon may a man wrest the Club out of Hercules his hand as make void the conclusion which is inserred by this Argument If my eye discerneth colours upon condition it look diligently upon them and my hand doth inrich me upon condition that it stretcheth forth it self to receive a Princes beneficence and my heel be put into the same condition with my eye and my hand then my heel doth discerne colours in the same way with my eye and enrich me in the same way with my hand But both parts of the Antecedent are as firmly proved before as the both parts of Mr. Baxters antecedent Ergo the conclusion is as very a blank as Mr. Baxters If Mr. Baxters oft saying of the same thing doth prove the thing to be true then this cannot be denyed to be a truth For who can number the times that he hath kissed and spit in the mouth of this Ashteroth Condition setting it up cheek-mate with Christ himself in justifying us For Thes 56. he yoaks together Christ and faith in the same way of causality to justification and here and every where faith and obedience or works so that Christ faith and works are collaterals in justifying how as they meet together in this one Great Colossus condition or causa sine qua non Christ is the condition even in his satisfaction and faith is the condition and works is the condition so that Condition it seems by him justifyeth more then works or faith or Christ for neither works alone nor faith alone nor Christ alone doth justifie But this mouth-almighty Condition when like Bel and the Dragon she hath eaten up and swallowed into her bowels Christ faith and works doth of and by her self alone justifie such a Justifyer and such a Justification I should speak more seriously if Mr. Baxter had ministred to me more serious matter whereof to treat Chaffe is wont to be exposed to the winde when the Wheat as more substantiall is allotted to a more substantiall handling The rest of his Arguments which he brings in other Theses I shall examine by themselves CHAP. VI. The fift Argument answered and the dispute of St. James Cap. 2. opened and the Reasons drawn thence to prove justification by works refuted THe former was Mr. Baxters great Argument the fift in number is like to it yet not so much hugged and honoured by him as the former because that was his own born of his own brain This he takes up as fully formed by the Papists to his hand and use so that he is not to have the entire honour of it but every petty Monk and Sacrificer will challenge his part therein This is indeed their great and sole Argument against the Protestants The rest they bring is unworthy the hearing This therefore Mr. Baxter here that the Popish cause may stand and ours fall Atlas-like puts his shoulder and whole strength under to support B. Thes 75. pa. 292. The plain expression of St. James should terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21 24 25. c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justifyed by works and not by faith only Eusebius Hierom. I mean not here to seek an evasion by pleading that this Epistle in the primitive times of the Church before the controversie about justification by faith or by works and faith was in agitation was questioned by some and denyed by others to be of divine authority Or that * Erasmus Luther Musculus Cajetan a Cardinall of the Romish some great Divines of these latter times have not received it into the Canon or that among those that embrace it as Canonicall it is much disputed what James is the Authour of it For besides the Syriac interpreter that weakly attributes it to James the brother of John who in the cradle of the Church was slain with the sword by Herod Act. 12.
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