black to their eye whatsoever John knew in case they had been called in and heard some could have said somewhat against these Publicanes and harlots and yet even these were admitted As to that which followes Then Sir though you know the same abominations afterwards and your members testifie it witnesses come in you must not cast him out unlesse he will professe it Though he is pleased to say that this argument will cost me more then two lines before it be answered yet a few words will shew that it is a meer non sequitur If a man make it his request upon the fame that he hath heard and the good that he hath seen in Mr. Firmins Family to be admitted to serve him in it confessing his wayes to have been bad but now professes that he is resolved upon a new way and in order to it desires to be received into such a Society where godlinesse may be learnt may not he now admit him and may he not afterwards upon breach of this engagement dismisse him I will averre my similitude to be fit yet I confesse it is not full for when Mr. Firmin hath dismissed this servant and put him out of doores he hath now no more relation to him But when a man upon profession to be for God is once in Covenant though his wickednesse deserves that the priviledges of the family should be denyed yet he is still in Covenant though under breach of Covenant and stands related to the Church of God in title otherwise upon his repentance he must have a new admission by Baptisme The Church I say may receive a man upon engagement of amendment which must be done in baptisme to be baptized and upon his return to wickednesse Excommunicate him His profession gives him right to Baptisme and his sin deserves excommunication He tells us Though we read not that Philip required repentance yet others did But did they so require it as in reality to precede baptisme Or were they satisfied with a profession of it If they so required it as in reality to precede they then must give a day over to give evidence of it and whether this was the manner in Johns baptisme in Philips or the Apostles let adversaries be Judges I cannot tell what should move Mr. F. when he had given me thanks pag. 54. for my courteous handling of him without scorn to adde in the next page Sir I thought Christianity had taken in the heart and outward conversation as well as the head a real Christian is one united to Christ sound in the doctrine concerning Christ and walking as Christ did we suppose an old Adam Let him who is a nominal Christian appear like one though he be not real And I do think that it is little below a scorn to bear the world in hand that I think otherwise what have I said for him to Sir me in this particular perhaps because I somewhere speak of a profession of faith not mentioning repentance so he may challenge Philip to be defective who when the Eunuch demanded What doth hinder me to be baptized answered If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest Act. 8.37 And Paul and Silas likewise who when the Jaylour ask'd What shall I do to be saved answered as we know Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved and thine houshold Nay will not the same charge fall upon the head of our Saviour himself who in his Commission to the Apostles saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved None of these mention repentance what can be said for them will excuse me I am so far from being against repentance in a Christian that I expect some will think that I have said too much for the necessity of it and put too high an honour upon it He proceeds farther and saith Let us view the Scripture in administration of Baptisme Mar. 4. Baptisme of Repentance that is more then Faith More explicitely but no more implicitely Faith takes Christ to give repentance as well as a Saviour to give remission of sins They confessed their sins saith he 1. Some will have it to imply no verbal confession but virtual coming for baptisme for remission of sins it was an acknowledgment that they were guilty which glosse carries strong probability with it in regard of the multitude that in so short a space were baptized 2. I require more an engagement to leave sin which their taking upon them the Name of Christ doth imply 2 Tim. 2.19 Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity He goes on Acts 2.37 38. First Jewes so had knowledge not so ignorant as ours I believe The Reader may believe the contrary till he see some proof Secondly having a legal work by the power of the Word They that had crucified Christ as a blasphemer deceiver must needs have some work upon them before they would take him professedly for a Saviour Thirdly Receiving the Word That implies no more then giving credit to what the Apostle spake that Jesus whom they had crucified was Lord and Christ Fourthly Repenting they are baptized this is more still And more then is exprest in the Text. Baptisme in his Name doth indeed imply that now they repented that they had crucified him otherwise we read not of their repentance Acts 8. saith he though there is not mention made of the Samaritans repentance who were apostatized from the Jewes but laid claim to the Patriarchs Joh. 4.20 expected Christ verse 25. worshipped God Ezra 4.2 yet that Philip should know them to be so abominable in conversation and yet baptize them that is to be proved since that others required repentance He may adde to these Elogies of the Samaritanes that they worshipped they knew not what Joh 4.22 and that they bore that good will to the people of the Jewes that when they perceived Christ with his Disciples to be for Hierusalem at the time of the Passeover they would not let them have meat for money Luk. 9.51 52. And I confesse as much of repentance in them as was required in any to the acceptation of Baptisme namely a renuntiation of their false way and a professed acceptation of the tender of the Gospel There yet followes If this be not a giving of holy things to dogs which Tertullian and Austin give warning of even in baptizing I know not what is Let a man be a notorious Ranter Sodomite Scoffer at godlinesse drunkard no matter what this is known and proved yet a Christian nomine tenus therefore you must baptize him Where I pray do I speak of baptizing any that is nomine tenus a Christian My opinion is that such that have the name Christian are baptized already I hope such contradictions seldom come from my pen. That these are no words of mine my adversary will acknowledge and that any such consequence can be gathered from any thing that I have said that I must baptize persons of this quality already
and the bruised reed broke There have not been a few hungry sad souls that I have known that have born the terror of the Lord separate themselves for this reason But it will be replyed by those that give this warning that they mean not these they are not at all intended in their speech these they would tender and with all endeared affection of love encourage as those that have most need and are most fit to receive food for their strength But all of this helps not when this Proposition is laid down That no man in whom justifying faith and a new life by the Spirit is not wrought may dare otherwise then on the peril of his soul to draw nigh hither will not such a soul necessarily assume A new life through the Spirit is not wrought in my soul I am conscious to my self that I am carnal whatsoever endeavours I have used to believe yet how far am I from faith in strength and truth I find my self all over doubts and fears and plunged in unbelief And though I have made it my businesse to keep off from sin yet how far am I from a true change by repentance I find my heart hard obdurate even as an adamant yea the poor deserted soul will take to it self the state of Cain the condition of Judas If there be any other high in wickednesse they have matched yea they have exceeded them They are to put it to the question whether they are in grace or no whether they have a new life wrought or as yet are short of it This they must either determine in the affirmative that they are in grace at least there are those hopeful signs in present that they cannot but conclude it and then they safely may come upon sight of this they may with cheerfulnesse make their addresse or else they must carrie it in the negative all that is yet wrought is not life is not grace is not faith in its power is not repentance in truth as they can do no other that walk in darknesse and see no light that say God hath forgotten to be gracious and so they must keep off from the Ordinance and debar themselves from those cordials those apples those flagons that are there tendered and sick of love yet dare not intermeddle with the Lords tokens that are tendered to them or in the third place suspend and so sit down in doubtful fears whether they have grace or no and then that of the Apostle Rom. 14.23 He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sin will soon come into their thoughts and so all that are short of fulnesse of assurance must in dreadful horror separate themselves Secondly This Sacrament in that it is a Sacrament hath the name and nature of a seal as we see in the text and God willing shall be shewn a visible seal intrusted in the hands of man and therefore must needs be of a more different latitude and large extent then that seal which God reserves in his own keeping the seal of the Spirit The Lord knowes them that are his 2 Tim. 2.19 But man is to seek who are the Lords God knowes how to put to his seal to his own man who hath not this knowledg must needs be here allowed a greater latitude either men entrusted with it must have the knowledge of God as to this particular who they are in whom a new life is and grace wrought or else they must be allowed a greater latitude to take in men that make profession of God and as members in Church-Communion may be edified by it I know this argument is carried another way and that we conclude the contrary upon a double account 1. These seales of God outward and inward should answer each to other Those that have the outward seal they are to have the inward those that take into their hand the seal of the Sacrament should have the impresse of the Spirit on their soules To which I answer That the writing of the Word with Inke and Paper in the Bible and the writing in the heart by the Spirit should answer each the other that is every Christian should make it his businesse to hide that Word in his heart that by the Ministery sounds in his ears and yet Christians are not warned not to take a Bible into their hands till the impresse of that which is there is put on their hearts The Word is delivered in a greater latitude and so also must the Sacrament 2. Some say this Sacrament seales Gospel-promises onely they therefore that can claime the promise and have their interest in it can claime the seal otherwise the seal is put to a blank there is a seal where there is no Covenant-promise 1. I answer this argument thus carried speaks sadly to the hearts of all dispensers of the Sacraments they must see there is a Covenant-promise or else they must not dare to put to a seal To put any mans seal to a blank paper where nothing is written is a vain use of that seal It stands there as a cypher Now to put Gods seal to a blank where nothing is written doubtlesse is as vain and an high taking of Gods Name in vain according to these the Covenant is written in non-legible and invisible characters This inward work is that white stone with a new name written which no man knoweth save he that receives it Revel 2.17 and so the dispensers too often against convictions of conscience allwayes at hap-hazard must deliver them any thing written or not written whether a blank or filled up they cannot tells but are all at uncertainties 2. I answer as is the seal so is the Covenant both of them external and one must answer to the other Now these in question as hath been demonstrated at large are in Covenant An outward Covenant is by few questioned and so the seal is put to no blank but given to one interested in Covenant It seals the grace of the Covenant and mercy tendred in the promise on Gods termes and propositions So that the different latitude of the seal of the Spirit and of the seal of the Sacrament do conclude that men of no more then visible Church-interest may partake of it 3. The Church de facto hath injoyed it in this latitude not to instance in some ages following the times of the Apostles in which the Pastors called all their people to daily Sacraments and the use of it in Austins time when wicked ones in the Church were so numerous that they durst not deal with Church-censures but look into the Scripture though we are kept much in the dark concerning their practice little mention being made of the administration after the institution yet we know that this Sacrament was the priviledge of visible members then in being and it is clear enough how far many even then were short of sincerity If that of 1 Cor. 11. be
heart so in the Sacrament he preacheth to the eye and by the eye conveyeth himself into the heart And therefore it is well called a visible Sermon What can be more plain then this to set the out the power of the Sacrament to soul contrition true humiliation and mortification Too many that professe Faith have their hearts lift up and live not by faith Here is a way to bring them down when they see sin to be of such a provoking nature that onely the sufferings of the Sonne of God are able to satisfie that their demerit doth put him upon a necessity of all these woes These are certainly heart melting considerations If it be yet objected that the Provincial Assembly at London speak to their own communicants whom they suppose to be in grace To this I reply that in case that should fail and some at least should have their predominant lusts lurking and treachery against the Covenant as in Judas against Christ harboured it can be of no danger to say that here is a means to work them on to humiliation and brokennesse of spirit 2. If any yet say that their thoughts are otherwise of this Sacrament I answer their words best speak their thoughts and we see what they say The very breaking of the bread say they understandingly looked upon is a forcible Argument to break your hearts and the breaking of the bread may be looked upon understandingly by an unsanctified man if there be truth in their Propositions as I doubt not but they are most true then my Conclusion is true likewise We may make up if you please this part of the Argument thus A sin aggravating ordinance is an heart breaking and soul humbling ordinance But the Sacrament of the Lords supper is a sinne aggravating ordinance Therefore it is an heart breaking and soul humbling ordinance For the other branch of the Assumption that this ordinance is the holding out of the pardon of sin needs no proof This is my blood in the New Testament shed for you and for many for the remission of sinne Matth. 26. Fifthly That which is annext to the Word to second it in that very thing which works the soul unto conversion to good may bring the person of Covenant interest up to the termes of the Covenant may work one of profession of faith onely unto faith saving and justifying This none can deny being added to the Word as it 's second in such a work it well may have an hand in the working of it But the Sacrament is annext to the Word to second it in that very thing which works the soul unto conversion to God The Assumption is manifest If we consider what the Word does for conversion and the whole in which the energy and power of it as an Ordinance is exercised then we shall soon see that this Sacrament is added as a second in that work The Word converts in holding out sin in its defilements and danger in the discovery of the loathsome nature of it and the cursed effects that follow upon it together with Christ in the promises to save from it I know no other way that the Word hath to bring a soul in sin to God but in setting forth the lost and undone condition of it and so to bring to conviction compunction and enquiry what to do and then to make tender of Christ In this method souls as we find on record have been brought home to God of which there might be frequent instances Now that this Sacrament is added to the Word for further discovery of sin in the defilement and danger to hold out Christ in his death taking away sin need not to be proved It is true that the first detection of sin is by the rule of the Law and therefore the Apostle sayes By the Law is the knowledge of sin In case the question be put whether this or that act be sin then neither the tender of Christ in the Gospel nor yet the Sacrament can have any hand in the determination of it but they both serve for the aggravation of sin to lay it open in the dimensions and danger of it Sin is no where so seen in its height as in the sorrowes and sufferings of Christ as is by all affirmed and these sufferings we know the Word holds out for conversion from sin And the visible Word of the Sacrament seconds the Word in this very thing to set out Christs death to lay before our eyes Christ broken for us both for the aggravation of sin and for the pardon of it Thus if you please you may put the argument If the Sacrament doth the same thing as the Word doth in conversion then the Sacrament cannot be denyed to have an hand in conversion But the Sacrament as we see does the same thing as the Word it serves to the heightning of sin and the setting out of the pardon of sin Therefore it followes that the Sacrament may have an hand in conversion Sixthly That which by frequent experience we see the Sacrament works toward and for ought we are able to judge works unto that we may well conclude it is designed and appointed of God to work This cannot fairly be denyed yet if any think that this of it self is not of full strength seeing our experience may deceive us we may conceive what is not Let these then joyn to it what hath been already said This experience added to so much evidence of reason I doubt not but will be found to have strength in it And I put it for their sakes that say Let any give instance of any man or woman that hath at any time been converted by the Sacrament And that there are frequent experiences of the Sacraments working towards this thing is plain How frequent is it with men to have affrightings soul-shakings tremblings strong present resolutions against sin upon their approach to this Ordinance being convinced of it to be a duty that they ought to go to it How mightily are their spirits often affected in it If we make that an argument of the power of the Word towards wicked men in the affrighting and astonishment of them in the terrifying and amazement stopping for present their full swinge in sin and wickednesse as we know it is ordinarily with those that set out the power of the Word see Dr. Reynolds on Psal 110. pag. 150. why then should we not make the same effects that we see ordinarily produced by the Sacrament to be evidences of the like power in the Sacrament And as we read of an Ahab a Felix a Zedekiah an Herod thus startled by the Word so we may see and know such as these alike startled and affected at the Sacrament Superstition perhaps works it in some But we find the work in others in whom such superstition hath no place It can be no other then the Majestie of the Ordinance the high aggravation of sin and the glory of Christ set out in it All this
of further operation Instruments of meer reception and further operation distinguished that which is objected holds of instruments wholly operative not of those that are meerly receptive A man receives a gift with his hand as the lame man was ready to do when he expected something from Peter and John Act. 3.5 and he earnes his living with his hand as Paul did when in some exigents his hands ministred to his necessities Act. 20.34 In the former mans hand concurres to his enriching but he enriches not himself as in the later The denomination is from the fountaine whence all flowes not from the hand that accepts or the cistern that doth receive There is added In my judgement this doctrine should not be made part of our Religion nor much stresse laid on it if it were true because it is so obscure It seems then that not I but our Religion is the author of this so high a contradiction so that I cannot defend Religion but I am put upon it to assert such contradictions and who layes greatest stresse upon that which is not obscure and dark I leave to the Reader of Mr. Baxters Aphorismes and Apology to determine It followes That man concurres as a ready agent who doubts but doth that prove him or his faith the efficient cause of his own pardon and justification Do I or doth our Religion make man or faith the efficient cause of his own pardon and justification Quote some words of mine or some Article of faith in any of the Protestant Confessions that affirmes it were some others in my stead they would highly rhetoricate and tell the world what would be said when they are dead But this is my comfort when I am dead Religion will stand up for its own defence that the concurrence of a ready agent hath somewhat of efficiency in it I think none can deny and that such concurrence that I have mentioned can rise to be the efficient I think Faith is the instrument both of God and man in the work of justification very few will affirm And to bring my self into that which he before hand charges to be so absurd I said And because it is the instrument of man in a work of this nature it is also the instrument of God As some have observed a communication of titles between Christ and his Church the Church being called by his name so there is a communication of actions in these relative works Christ dwells in our hearts by faith Ephes 3.17 We believe and not Christ and yet faith there is Christs instrument whereby he takes up his abode God purifies the hearts of the Gentiles by faith Act. 15.17 They believed and not God yet faith is Gods instrument in the work of their purification So on the other side the Spirit is Gods work yet we by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the flesh Rom. 8.13 Here Mr. Baxter first takes in hand the thing that I assert and when he hath done falls upon the proof which is first to quarrel with the conclusion and then to take the premises into consideration 1. It is said If this be indeed true God and man are not coordinate causes in Justification that it is mans instrument of justification and Gods both then both God and man are causae principales partiales by coordination making up one principall cause This he thinks I will not affirm and this indeed I do deny upon the reasons afore laid down it is mans instrument for concurrence in it but not of principall efficiency to produce it In case I had affirmed he gives in his reason of denyal of it in a Similitude of an absolute donor in which I grant the conclusion and therefore shall not trouble the Reader with it As to the proof that I bring he first excepts against that which I say others have observed and say This communication of titles 1. is very rare 2. uncertain whether ever and goeth about to take off that text 1. Cor. 12.12 But this being Heterogeneous to the work in hand I shall let his exceptions alone only pointing him out one another text with which if he please he may take like pains Jer. 23.6 Jer. 33.16 Compared After much ado to find out my meaning he resolves But it is like you intended to have said that there is a common or mutuall attribution of each others actions or one is intitled to the actions of the other and so mean only a communication of the name quoad modum producendi and not of the actions themselves And who but he that would seek a knot in a Bul-rush could have thought of any other but as the titles of one are observed by some to be attributed to another so the actions proper to one are attributed to the other Then a Dilemma is brought against me either this is in an improper figurative way of speech or it is proper and grounded in the nature of the thing and either of both is excepted against I say the action of one is said interpretative to be the action of the other because he makes use of it to do his own work or bring about his own purpose To the instance that I gave that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith he saies there is not a word to prove that there is a relative indwelling But Mr. Br. very well knowes that I did not oppose relative in this place to reall as intending to hold forth any effect wrought by Christs indwelling but the opposition is so absolute as I exprest my self I do not say that justification is directly spoke to in that place yet there is a proof I think sufficient that Christ makes use of our act to effect his own work which is as much as I intended elsewhere Mr. Br. is so free as to yield that faith is an instrument to receive Christ How Christ is said to dwell in us by faith but here he stickles hard to deny it but let us take notice of his concessions Christ saith he is said to dwell in us by faith 1. Formaliter Faith being the principal part of that grace which dwelleth in us And so we might say he dwells by Love Hope Meeknesse Patience which I think no Scripture or Orthodox Writer sayes 2. Conditionaliter Faith being a condition of our right to the Spirit abode But it is so a condition as it is withall an instrumentall condition It is not barely said if you believe I will give you my Spirit which might imply barely a condition as it is said turn at my reproof and I will pour out my Spirit upon you but it is said we receive the promise of the Spirit by faith 3. Efficienter As the act of faith doth directly cause the encrease and so the abode of the habit And is it may we think a principal or is it an instrumental efficient If an instrumental I have what I desire and I am sure he will not say it is
put in their lives about their health their estates the nature of their grounds or how to carry on their Trades besides those multiplyed ones of meer vanity and inconsiderable concernment they never had it in their thoughts to move a question of any concernment to their soules The young mans question the Jaylours question Peters hearers question never came into their heads I have seen little evidence of good in these and I see little ground to believe any thing of faith in their soules You may speak of some of these as of men of good dispositions of a fair nature and harmlesse life and course these may grow up in nature moralized and regulated when yet faith is far from them they may grow up high in profession but growing in the blade or leaf onely and not in the root they may justly be suspected Every tree that bears a fair leaf doth not bear good fruit and every apple of a fair colour is not to be desired for food Such fruit as this may take where faith will not grow The Prophets words then should be heeded Break up your fallow ground and sowe not amongst thornes this way must be taken for soul-humbling that men may be brought to believing The nature of faith wherein it consists A necessary prerequisite in faith 2. The next way of discovery is to take notice of the proper and true kind the genuine nature of this grace And here I hope the Christian Reader may reape a double advantage First to understand what faith is and the requisites in it Secondly helps for proof of themselves whether they be in the faith And here we may observe First a necessary prerequisite of faith Secondly the essential parts of it The prerequisite to it is knowledge which some indeed make a part of faith but faith I suppose rather presupposeth it then is made up of it The essential parts are either in the understanding or in the will or affections for faith is an act of the soul and the whole soul is implyed in it First then of that which I make a prerequisite Knowledge is in that way required to the making up of faith that is often put for faith as Isai 53.11 And when God works to faith he is said to open the eyes or to work to knowledge or light Heb. 10.32 Act. 26.18 We come to faith by hearing we must therefore hear and know before we can believe Knowledge is the first act or work of the soul that conducerh towards faith in the heart Now knowledge is threefold First of sense we know what we see Thomas knew Christ that is the person of Christ when he had seen his wounds and put his finger into them This knowledg is not necessarily required in faith Christ there saith Blessed is he that seeth not and believeth John 20.23 And the Apostle saith that faith is the evidence of things not seen Secondly of reason we know those things which our reason is able to reach This knowledge runs through all sciences in which we attain knowledge by discourse and the clearer head the better Artist and the more of knowledge This we do not require to the being of faith though faith be not alwaies against yet it is oft above all our reasonings yea our reasonings and hammering out conclusions are oftentimes against faith The word of faith beats down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and brings into captivity every thought 2. Cor. 10.5 Our Notionalists are indeed men of sublimated understandings in case they can alwaies reach unto that which according to the Gospell they are to believe Thirdly of authority we judge our selves to know a thing which men worthy of credit do make known and if we receive the witnesse of men saith the Apostle the witnesse of God is greater 1. John 5.9 The testimony of man gives a morall certainty and such that we will not question The multiplication of witnesses renders our knowledge grounded on such authority more firm and therefore the proverb in a well qualified sense is at least near to truth Vox populi vox Dei The voice of the peopâ—â— unanimously witnessing is as the voice of God We do no mâ—re doubt that there was a massacre of Protestants in Ireland about the year 41. then we do that there was one resolved upon at Shushan in the reign of Ahashuerus Esth 3. The testimony of God is alwaies of infallible truth as to the substance so to every circumstance of it many passages about that massacre we may justly question so we must not any thing which divine verity hath made known This knowledge we require in faith and know it to be necessary to the being of faith we must know that God hath revealed in his Word a Trinity of Persons or else we shall believe no such thing as three distinct subsistences in God that the holy Ghost is God that Christ is God and man in one person or else we shall believe no such doctrine We must know the creation from the Scriptures or else we shall not believe a creation but run into that opinion that all things have ever been as they are We must know the offices of Christ or else we shall not believe that any such office was undertaken by him The same we may say of every doctrine of faith perhaps without Scripture we might have known somewhat confusedly of some of them as that there is a God and that the world had a beginning but we should have known nothing at all of many of them and nothing distinctly of any of them These we must know and from the Scriptures of God know or else we cannot believe we may as easily see where nothing is to be seen as believe where that is not known which is to be believed Ignorant persons therefore that know not the right hand from the left in religion and are to seek in the very first principles of the Oracles of God in the very beginnings of the doctrine of Christ that either come not to hear that they may learn or that learn nothing at all by hearing ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth are in an incapacity of faith Men weak in knowledg can hardly make proof of their faith they do not well know the nature or lively workings of it so want the comfort but not the thing Men without knowledge are without faith have not gone the first step towards it The essential parts of faith The essentiall parts of it are as we have said in the understanding will and affections In the understanding there is an assent to that which is revealed upon the authority of him that doth reveal it 1. In the understanding An assent When we believe any thing upon that account that we suppose we see a reason of it as that the middle region of the ayr is coldest or that the Sun is in many degrees
we derive our being from Parents not onely in our essentials and integrals but in a great measure in our temperature of body and mind Who sees not vertues and defects of body and mind to be hereditary and that from either sex Children do patrizare follow their Parents inclination without any imitation now the heavens were not in the same posture Mars Jupiter c. were not in the same ascendent in their birth as in ours A begger is delivered under the same posture of the heavens with a Noble-woman shall the children of both be of the same trade and way Secondly If the Stars and their influences were universal causes of what is done in and shall befall our persons yet these men profess acquaintance onely with some few and those almost onely the Planets The Stars of an unfixt motion Those innumerable Stars which we call fixt and have been said to be in the eighth which we call the starry sphere are not observed nor known in their various postures what some may incline to others will thwart and destroy For a third rule Natural signs when causes unlesse an extraordiâ—a y power inteâ—vâ—ne wâ—rk unâ—voydably those signs which fairly may be looked upon as causes in nature have their effects and produce the thing signified unavoydable irresistible so that is a labour in vain to use any wayes a tempting of God to make any addresses to him for prevention who ever prayed that the day and night should not be of an equal length at such a day in the Spring and Autumne which are known to us by the name of the aequinoctial or that the Sun shall not be eclipsed at such a time when it is known that the body of the Moon will interpose it self in that season If the heavens are alike causes of mans vicious wayes of the ruine and bane of Nations endeavours for prevention will be equally vain whether it be by prayer or repentance He that cannot make the Sun to stand still or to return backwards by prayer let him not think to stand in the gap for a land or turn away Gods fiery indignation seeing the course of nature appointed of God brings it about above resistance I have heard of some Rabbins that pray every night that the Sun may rise again and the earth enjoy a new morning as though it were no otherwise in nature by the God of nature ordered and setled but it lay in them to hinder it but Christians have learned better then to think by their prayers to impose a new course on the way of nature And knowing that prayer and repentance are wayes appointed of God and by experience succesfull for reversal of judgements and prevention of National desolations they know that Stars in a way of nature cannot effect it nor yet the sons or disciples of nature foresee or foretell it Secondly There are prodigious signes 2. Prodigious signe such that are either miraculous exceeding all power of nature or else wounds and monsters in nature And I know not the reason why Chamier lib. 1. Cap. 11. de Sacramentis in genere should exclude them from the number of signes certainly the return of the Sun in Hezekiahs time was to him a sign of his recovery from sicknesse and of his deliverance from the Assyrian Isay 3 S. 4 5 6 7 8. Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father I have heard thy prayer I have seen thy tears behold I will adde unto thy daies fifteen yeares And I will deliver thee and this City out of the hand of the king of Assyria and I will defend this City And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken Behold I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sun-dyal of Ahaz ten degrees backward The like may be said of Gideons fleece that had dew on it when all the earth was dry besides and again the fleece dry when upon all the ground else it was dew This was to signifie that the Lord would deliver Israel by his hand Those eclipses of the lights of heaven to the Egyptians when there was light in Goshen to the Israelites Exod. 10.21 22. and at Christs death when from the sixth houre there was darknesse over all the earth unto the ninth houre Matth. 27.45 was no other I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darknesse and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord Joel 2.30 31. There shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the earth distresse of Nations and perplexity the sea and the waves roaring mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken which Zanchius understands of those Comets which as wonders in nature in severall ages have appeared He that pleases may consult the Author himself treating de Cometarum prognosticis lib. 3. de operibus Dei Cap. 2. Thes 12. Signes by Instition Thirdly There are signes by institution not so in nature or by way of prodigy but as they are designed to signify These are 1. Of man some by imposition man putting at pleasure such a signification upon them words in this sense are signes no other reason of primitive names of things can be given but his pleasure that gave them Some by custome as an Ivy bush is a sign of wine Sometimes by covenant or agreement so the arrowes that Jonathan shot with the words that he agreed to utter were a sign to David that there was peace or that there was harm intended to him 1 Sam. 20.20 c. So the Scarlet thred was a sign between Rahab and the spies Joshua 2.18 A Souldiers Colours or the word that is given on his guard or in fight is such a sign 2. There are signes by institution from God such was the rainebowe It may be a naturall sign of showers but it is by institution that it signifies that there shall not be any more a flood to destroy the earth Gen. 9.11 These instituted signes whether of God or man admit of other distinctions which will be touched upon in the next place in opening the nature and shewing the properties of Sacramentall signes There are signes of a fourth sort which might have been spoken to namely those that are Diabolicall or superstitious But I shall not trouble my self or the Reader with them SECT II. The properties of Sacramental signes FIrst Sacramental signes are externall and sensible Sacramentall signes are 1. Exteâ—nal and sâ—nsible such that do not immediately but by the help of the senses affect the understanding There are indeed such signes that immediately offer themselves to the mind which some call mentall or intellectuall Signes These are either notions framed in
happinesse and that he ought to take Christ for his Lord and Saviour c. and that this may be done truly not onely as to reality of assent but as to reality of purpose to make this choyce so far as the man knowes his own heart or the mind of God in this work though there be not that integrity to yield up himself wholly which yet by the power of Ordinances through the Spirit in Gods time may be done and through grace perfected Lastly God setting up a visible Church upon earth in order to that Propos 6 which is invisible will have those admitted that give assent to Scripture-doctrine and accordingly make profession And this of it self in foro Dei brings them into Covenant-right and visible Church-membership And therefore according to the mind of God and as Apollonius speaks jure Dei in this estate are to be received Though they shall hit or misse of the mercy of the Covenant accordingly as by grace they come up to or by sin fall short of the Propositions contained in it A Scholar saâ—th Mr. Hudson that is admitted into a School is not admitted because he is doctus but ut sit doctus and if he will submit to the rules of the School and apply himself to learn it is enough for his admission The like may be said of the Church visible which is Christs School Vindicat. p. 248. To which Mr. Baxter himself if I understand him hath given his assent in his Treatise of everlasting rest Part 4. Sect. 3. The door of the visible Church is incomparably wider then the door of heaven and Christ is so tender so bountiful and forward to convey his grace and the Gospel so free an offer and invitation to all that surely Christ will keep no man off if they will come quite over in spirit to Christ they shall be welcome if they will come but onely to a visible profession he will not deny them admittance This seems to speak the mind of Jesus Christ for their admittance and that in foro Dei as well as in foro Ecclesiae they stand in Covenant-relation and have title to Church-membership Thus Mr. Baxter and the Reader may see my thoughts in this thing and though I doubt not but that he will question much that I have said yet now at last I hope both he and others may know my meaning Argument 2. vindicated Argument vindicated 2 My second Argument is All the obsurdities following the restraint of the Covenant to the Elect or men of a saving Faith follow upon this restraint of interest in baptism Mr. Baxter answers What absurdities follow such restraint of it to sound believers as I have asserted I should be willing to know though with some labour I have searched for it Bear with me therefore whilest I examine what you referre me to It is pag. 109. where you charge those absurdities I wonder that all this labour for search should need when as he saies he hath a reference and the Reader I think may see enough from Mr. Baxters own hand in the places already mentioned one part of the first absurdity which I have pressed Mr. Baxter is pleased to repeat This restriction of the Covenant to shut out all the non-regenerate makes an utter confusion betwixt the Covenant it self and the conditions of it The restriction of the Covenant to the regenerate confounds the Covenant and conditions together or if the expression do not please the Covenant it self and the duties required in it between our entrance into covenant and our observation of it or walking up in faithfulnesse to it All know that a bargain for a Summe of money and the payment of that Summe the covenant with a servant for labour and the labour according to this covenant are different things Faithfull men that make a bargain keep it enter covenant and stand to it But the making and keeping the entring and observing are not the same and according to this opinion Regeneration is our entrance into Covenant and regeneration is our keeping of Covenant before regeneration we make no Covenant after regeneration we break no Covenant there is no such thing as Covenant-breaking All this makes an utter confusion in the Covenant After a charge big enough he saies I cannot give my judgement of the intolerablenesse and great danger of your mistake here manifested without unmannerlinesse I will therefore say but this It is in a very weighty point near the foundation wherein to erre cannot be safe To which I onely say I wish he had spoken fully out that the intolerablenesse and supposed great danger of my mistake might have been seen and I earnestly desire all my friends that in case I erre in this manner as I stand charged that they would afford me their help to discover my error but I trust I shall make it good that my error at the highest is but equivocal He addes In my Aphorisms pag. 265. I gave my reasons for the contrary we must therefore see first what is said there where he thus bespeakes his Reader Here let me mind you of one useful observation more The Covenanting on our parts is a principal part of the conditions of the Covenant though this may seem strange that a covenanting and performing conditions should be almost all one And indeed I think all intelligent Readers will judge it to be farre more strange than true though we are to hear of that which is more strange presently we are told of reasons in this page but I find no piece of a reason in it but onely I say instead of a reason And I know not where any thing towards a proof of this position may be found unlesse it be in the Poets Hyperbole Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet He that hath well begun hath half done yet half is not almost all He goes on It is a truth so farre beyond all doubt that our own Covenanting is a principal part of the condition of the Covenant of grace as that it is in other terms a great part of the substance of the Gospel Here are mysterious words Is our covenanting a part of the condition or is the condition a part of the Covenant The condition is here made the integrum and our Covenanting one part of the condition This is above my reason And for the other part I say if our covenanting be a great part of the substance of the Gospel then the Jew outwardly did make a better progresse in Gospel-waies then we are yet aware of or the Apostle understood when he spake so much as we read Rom. 2. concerning him for he was in Covenant otherwise he had been no Jew at all but a Pagan or Heathen Having told us I cannot guesse to what end that the same act is called our conditions as the performers and Gods conditions as the imposer and promiser giving his blessings onely on these imposed conditions he addes Most properly they are called the
it never came into the heart of any that is either grave A position by the Author disavowed and detested or godly to utter it and that there is scarce any so witlesse or gracelesse as to beleeve it and so Mr. Brs. volume of 31. Reasons five pag. 84 85 86. Twenty six pag. 94 to 107. are almost at one breath answered Few of them tending to oppose any thing that I hold but in the farre greatest part brought against his own conceit and no assertion or opinion of mine I suppose I could easily furnish him with a large addition of reasons to deny this fancy Faith is commanded in the morall Law Reasons evincing that a man unbaptized is bound to beleeve in Jesus Christ to justification as I have asserted Treat of the Covenant pag. 18. and I think no man believes that Baptisme doth first put a man under such obligation Some Papists do charge upon us that we maintain that Baptism delivers us from the morall Law and therefore the Councel of Trent anathematizeth those that hold it but never any I think were charged to say that Baptisme is our first obligation to it 2. An unbaptized man is bound to endeavour to avoid damnation but he that believeth not shall be damned 3. He is bound to endeavour to obtain Salvation but we must believe with the heart and confesse with the mouth to Salvation 4. Baptisme presupposeth the Covenant but the Covenant as I have often said engages to believing 5. None can be exempted from believing but they are withall exempted from repentance but unbaptised persons are to repent Act. 17.30 6. Faith in Christ hath been actually required of the unbaptized Act. 16.30 And therefore it is marvell that when Mr. Br. judgeth me to be overtaken in this folly he would spend so much time with me or so many words upon me transgressing the wise mans advice Prov. 26.4 Answer not a fool according to his folly When he thought I had no more wit than to think that no man is bound to accept Christ for justification before he be baptized I marvel that he would set his wit to mine But what is it that I have said to induce him to think that I am in that opinion I have said The great condition to which Baptisme engages is not a prerequisite in Baptisme and can any man imagine that I meant any more than that it is not required to the being of Baptisme Can any man think that I ever meant that it is not required of the person that is for Baptisme till after he be baptized and have I not in the next page cleared mine own meaning where I say that there is no necessity that justifying faith go before but a necessity that it must follow after Baptisme further explaining my self It is true that in men of years justifying faith sometimes goes before Baptisme as in Abraham it went before Circumcision but it is not of necessity required to interest us into a rite either of baptisme or Circumcision and doubtlesse I never thought that either Abraham or any other was justified by that work that was never required at their hand I say justifying faith or grace in the truth of it is no prerequisite in marriage and I further say that a Minister in times past might and a Magistrate at this time may lawfully marry persons void of justifying faith or grace and yet he is no better than a gracelesse man that thinks that persons unmarried are not tyed to faith and godlinesse Grace is no prerequisite to buying and selling A bargain of sail stands firm though there be no grace in them that make the bargain Men without grace may go to Kidderminster to buy hangings and curtains and those of that place may lawfully trade with them and yet both parties are before hand bound to grace and godlinesse But though my assertion is clear enough yet some may say my similitude darkens it I say No servant is tyed to do his work before he hath received his earnest no Souldier to fight before he be listed The Authors meaning in some mistaken expressions cleared or hath given in his name To this I say If my expressions which I thought were clear well knowing my own meaning yet to others seemed dark no candid man would draw them further then the proposition which my argument was brought to confirm which is That a faith dogmaticall or as I explain it a faith short of justifying entitles to Baptisme In my similitude I looked at the resemblance that is between a Souldiers listing a servants entertainment into his Masters service and a Christians Baptisme And as a Souldier is not bound in order to listing first to fight nor a servant in order to his entertainment first to work so a Christian is not bound in order to Baptisme first to believe to justification And thus I fully explained my self in the next page but one That faith which is the condition of the promise is not the condition in foro Dei of title to the seal an acknowledgement of the necessity of such faith with engagement to it is sufficient for a title to the seales and the performance of the condition of like necessity to attain the thing sealed To promise service and fidelity in warre is enough to get listed as to do service is of necessity to be rewarded So that any Reader I think might clearly have seen and I hope now will more fully understand my meaning Having taken notice of Mr. Baxters great mistake and upon it his injurious charge I think it most meet in this place to take notice of another though under another head that so at once I may vindicate my self from things of this nature I say in my Treatise of the Covenant chap. 16. pag. 111. Sincerity is said to be the new rule or the rule of the New Covenant To this Mr. Baxter is pleased to reply When I first read these words which you write in a different character and father on me I was ashamed of my nonsense for they are no better but it came not into my thoughts once to suspect a forgery in your charge Farre was I from imagining that so reverend pious and dear a friend would tell the world in print that I said that which never came into my thoughts and confute that soberly and deliberately as mine that I never wrote After many other words added If when we are dead men should read Mr. Bl. book that never read mine and there see it written that I said sincerity is the new rule or the rule of the New Covenant can any man blame them to believe it and report of me as from him and say what shall I not believe such and such a man that reports it in expresse words Can any man now think but that I father this upon him Mr. Baxter not injured by the Author as he is injuriously charged and that I report it to the world in print in
down a ladder at the same instant he is climbing up it When I bring this similitude for illustration of the point in hand that a promised service and fidelity in war is enough to get listed and to do service is of necessity to be rewarded I am told that this runs upon the great mistake which I have been so often told of and am further informed that the formal reason and denomination of a condition is from the donors constitution or imposition giving this benefit onely on the terms by him assigned and not upon our promise to perform them If I have been told of it often it is well if I can be convinced of it now I utterly deny that the denomination of conditions of a Covenant in actual being is from the one and not from the other that is exclusively to the other I well know the donour is to prescribe and the receiver is to accept without putting in Exceptions But if there be no acceptance of terms there is no Covenant and there being no Covenant there can be no Covenant conditions as is plain by the usual definition of Covenants where the Gospel is preached and no entertainment at all given there is no Covenant people of God they stand bound by Law precepts but are under no obligations to Covenant conditions Argument 4. reviewed The next Argument in which I am concerned and the last which in this thing is produced is That the Eunuch must first believe and then be baptized upon his desire of Baptisme Philip saith If thou believest with all thy heart thou maiest This I have confest carries more colour then all the former and indeed I never met with any thing either in Scripture or reason produced that carries with me so much as any colour for it this excepted Yet this is not unanswerable One difficult text does not use to take us off our hold of many plain ones I answer 1. Philip may call for that de bene esse when the Eunuch was to be admitted which was not yet essential to his admittance Those that preach preparatory Sermons for the Lords Supper call for allthat may give the highest comforts and not barely for that which is the Minimum quod sic to give admission 2. As I have said so I say still that dogmatical faith is a true faith and to prevent needlesse Criticisms it is truly a divine faith so that none can say that Jesus is the Christ can believingly subscribe that Article but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 And whosoever sayes with assent of judgment and understanding that Jesus the Son of Mary is Christ the Son of the living God speaks more then flesh and blood can suggest and is not attainable but by Divine revelation And whereas it is objected that it is a false faith when it pretends to be that which Scripture calls faith in Christ and denominateth believors I answer 1. I have shewed before that our prosession qualifying for Baptisme is not a profession that we have such faith which cannot be done without an eminence of faith to assurance but a profession of the necessity of it to salvation and an engagement to it 2. It denominates believers in the ordinary and common language of Scriptures and wheresoever believer is put in opposition to unbeliever or infidel faith of this nature is still understood In that famous text 1 Cor. 7.14 every man and woman is a believer that was removed from heathenish Idolatry to the profession of Christianity or as Paulinus whom Jerom so much magnifies speaks was a baptized person Otherwise the case there put about the validity of marriage and lawfulness of marriage society were not between an infidel and a professour of Christianity but between a regenerate man whom this language onely makes a believer and one unregenerate which in this language are infidels which were a case never yet put to question When mention is made through the History of the Acts of so many thousands that upon the Apostles preaching believed it can denote no more then the embracing of the way of Christianity in opposition to Judaisme or Heathenisme If it imply a through Regeneration of the soul there could be no unregenerate ones among them which is wholly against the nature of visible Churches and all experience as hath been abundantly manifested As for that distinction which seems to be hinted between believing Christ and believing in Christ Mr. Ball in his Treatise of Faith pag. 5. hath sufficiently shewed the groundlesnesse of it pointing out Scriptures where a preposition is added to the word believe when nothing but assent of mind is signified And where it is put without a preposition when trust and confidence is implyed Abraham believed God Rom. 4.3 where no preposition is added and it was counted to him for righteousnesse And on the contrary the Rulers believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or on Christ and loved the praise of men more then the praise of God Joh. 12.42 43. It followes I think if a man say This is the Son the Heir Come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours we will not have this man reign over us that these are not true believers nor have right to Baptisme though their belief that he was the heir be a dogmaticall faith true in its kind I am sorry that such things should be mentioned where inquiry after truth is contended and contention not studied It is well known that I speak to a faith of profession which is theirs that take to that party which is for Christ and not with those that professedly go in a full opposition against him and are in a high rode any such conviction of spirit supposed of sin against the Holy Ghost I know not why Dr. Ames should be brought in telling us that in those places where saving faith is spoke to trust in the Messiah is ever included seeing we are speaking of a faith that is short of saving nor yet that I should be told that words of knowledge and assent do in Scripture oft imply affection and consent unlesse that it be to let me know that it doth not generally hold which in case I were in a strait and at want for a present answer would well help me out And whereas I am demanded whether I do not know how ordinarily saving faith it self is denominated from the Intellectual act alone I answer that I do know it and if I were ignorant of it before Mr. Burgesse hath taught me the same thing with the same reason of it in his Spiritual Refining page 170 171. Pos 8. And I know also that it hath its denomination often from the act of the will alone But will it follow that the understanding is never fully perswaded for assent but the will is also not alone somewhat moved but throughly inclined for consent and acceptance If the understanding at any time be brought to a reall assent whilest the will is swayed by lusts
and takes to other objects that is to me sufficient Or will it follow that either the Eunuch did or must necessarily be presumed to understand upon that little acquaintance that it seems he yet had in the Gospel the whole of those choyce observations or can it be any way certainly collected that such a Confession that he made was accompanied with a present saving work But Mr. Baxter hath singularly engaged me to him quoting those Texts John 11.25 26 27. John 1.49 50. 1 Joh. 4.15 he addes Here is more then right to Baptisme Then a man may have right to Baptisme that is short of those great priviledges of dwelling in God and being born of God and I scarce know what to say more for my own opinion It further followes If you think as you seem by your answer to do that a man may assent to the truth of the Gospel with all his heart and yet be void of justifying faith you do not lightly erre It followes not I think from any thing that I have said that I am in any such opinion That Expression is in Philips words and I have told you he might require de bene esse that which is not necessary to the esse of Baptisme But in case I be in any so heavy an Error I am thus holpen out of it Though an unregenerate man may believe as many truths as the regenerate yet not with all his heart Christ saith Matth. 13. The Word hath not rooting in him It is then granted that he may believe all truths and that which is added to prove that he cannot believe them with his whole heart is not with me convincing The Word had not root not because they did not intirely from the heart assent to it But because they received it not in the love of it They received the light to inform their judgments not any thorow heat for the warmth of their affections There followes Doubtlesse whether or no the practical understanding do unavoidably determine the will yet God doth not sanctifie the understanding truly and leave the will unsanctified which must be said if the dogmatical faith that is the Intellectual assent of a wicked man be as strong as that of a true believer Here is suggested that I say that the Intellectual assent of a wicked man is as strong as that of a true believer I know not where I have said it or any thing that implies it It may be a true assent though not of that strength But if I had said it will it thence follow that God doth sanctifie the understanding truly and leave the will unsanctified I trow not Is every strong Intellectual assent sanctified is every Intellectual assent which is of equal strength with that in the regenerate truly sanctified Clearnesse of light commands assent to truths when corruption of affections will not suffer that at least pro hic nunc that the goodnesse or bestnesse if I may so say should be believed I believe it is as strong in the Devils as in any Regenerate man in the world I know not how it fares with some whom God may exercise more gently respective to temptations and Satans Buffettings I am sure that there are those that would sometimes freely give up all that is dear to them in the world to be as clear in some fundamental truths as Satan himself he doubtlesse injects Scruples where himself is without scruple I know some question whether there be any such thing as faith in divels notwithstanding James saith The Devils believe and tremble But certain it is there is an Intellectual assent to Divine truth in the Devils as we may see Matth. 8.29 Mark 3.11 Luk. 4.41 Acts 19.15 and yet there is no sanctification wrought And therefore though the wicked match the regenerate in assent in their understanding it will not follow that their understandings therefore are truly sanctified I am further referr'd to Dr. Downam against Mr. Pemble which is not in my hands and whether my answer be equal to silence as is in the close affirmed I must leave to the Reader to determine Advertisements given to Mr. Baxter touching his undertaking for Mr. Firmin IN a distinct Section Mr. Baxter lets us know how good a mind he had to have appeared in this cause for Mr. Firmin which wonderful change in him may well be my admiration All know that have looked into my Birth-priviledge that I delivered the same things there as in my Treatise of the Covenant I have asserted against Mr. Firmin and that past with Mr. Baxter if reports have not deceived me with good approbation I communicated to him a considerable part of my defence of it against Mr. T. his letter in Manuscripts and I blush not to tell the Reader that he applauded it And besides what I have produced already out of him I have a witnesse of reverend esteem that he hath said that I had given him in discourse full satisfaction of the title of unregenerate men or some phrase parâ—llell to Sacraments But in case upon change of judgment he will appear for Mr. Firmin in this particular and that meerly as he sayes in love of the truth least the reputation of man should cloud it and in love to the Church and the lustre of the Christian name lest this fearful gap should let in that pollution that may make Christianity seem no better then the other Religions of the world Further explaining himself For I fear this loose doctrine so he is pleased to call it of Baptisme will do more to the pollution of the Church then others loose doctrine of the Lords Supper or as much If upon these specious pretences he hath still a mind to it I shall crave leave to offer some words by way of advice to him First To reconcile himself to Mr. F. they being as yet so far from agreement either in judgment or in practice both of them are gone out of the road of the Reformed Churches but Mr. Baxters friend for whom he is about to undertake as to his judgment is yet in the lower form when he is in the upper Mr. F. requires not truth of grace to make a visible Church-member but declares himself very largely against it he requires not truth of grace in a parent to entitle his child in the right of Baptisme It is enough with him that he be a man of knowledge and free from scandal which he well knowes to be the case of many in unregeneration And though Mr. Baxter is thus gone beyond him in judgment yet he sits down far short of him in practice and sayes that we are bound to baptize all those that make an outward profession and consequently their children when Mr. F. upon tender conscienciously refuses many of them Mr. F. and I are as I suppose upon neerer terms of accord then Mr. F. and Mr. Baxter both of us agreeing that unregenerate men have their title and a faith that is short of justifying may
but then it would have been as arrogant Sixthly That he make some provision for tender and scrupulous consciences that shall admit his principles 1. In taking in of members into Church-fellowship as it is called A man without grace in a visible Church according to him is as a wooden leg in the body how great a deformity this is and how great a trouble to have such instead of those that are of flesh and bone it is easy to judge and yet how many of these necessarily will and must be received 2. In baptisme of Infants To baptize an Infant is with him not onely to espouse but to solemnize a full and actual marriage with Christ Jesus and that in words not de futuro but de praesenti and what further glory then they may expect from his hand I scarce can tell An illustrious Prince will have none but of noble and Royal blood and Christ will have none to be thus in marriage relation given to him but the seed of regenerate and graciously qualified persons How shall I get intelligence that this or that infant is descended of such a race where shall I learn his or her pedigree that I may thus give to Christ Iesus And in case probabilities must lead us we have need of further help then yet we see to judge of such probability Must we find those qualifications in the man who himself is for Baptisme or his child that may move us to conclude that in all reason and possible apparance here is a child of God or an Infant of a regenerate person Or will it serve our turn and satisfie our consciences that we cannot certainly conclude the contrary If the first be required it will put all the Ministers of Christ hard to it and prove such a snare that I know not how they will extricate themselves If the latter be that which we must receive here is then a loose rule for to lead in so high proceedings For men will be so laxe in their own marriage choice as for to take any into that society if they be not able to conclude her a strumpet or desperately wicked we have hitherto believed that Jesus Christ is pleased to receive in a greater latitude into visible relation Seventhly I desire Mr. Baxter to tell us how he hath mended the matter and provided for the honour and lustre of the Christian name or made up at all that gappe of which he speaks He saies the Church is bound to baptize as largely as I say men have right to Baptisme I think here he will find little or no difference and when he refuses none that I receive and where I say they have right he saies we are bound to baptize without right how will this make Christianity to look with any better face how much will Worcestershire Congregations where this is received exceed other Congregations where unanimously it is denyed I would have him to reflect on his 18th Argument and see whether the force of it be not evidently as much against hinself as it is against me against whom it is brought It is thus framed That doctrine which makes it the regular way in Baptisme for all men to promise that which they can neither sincerely promise nor perform is unsound But such is Mr. Blakes Ergo. And after much work to explain himself it comes to this that unregenerate men cannot resolve or sincerely promise to love believe or obey and therefore upon that account are without right to baptisme Let it be taken into consideration that when I say these men that in their present state are thus unable to love believe and obey have notwithstanding right to Baptisme and he saies that this inability notwithstanding they ought to be baptized how is the matter mended If my Doctrine upon this account be unsound his doctrine and practice will be found unsound likwise Mr. Baxter saith Vocation which is effectual onely to bring men to an outward profession of faith is larger then election and makes men such whom we are bound to baptize Eighthly I shall desire some Scripture text or cogent reason to make it appear that we are bound to baptize those that in the sight of God have no right to Baptisme the command given will argue with me their right unlesse I hear an injunction from heaven that notwithstanding their want of right we are to baptize them Peter argues the right of those Acts 10.47 for their admission to Baptisme which had been more then needed in case without any such right the water in Baptisme might have been applied unto them and I marvel that Mr. Baxter should so tenaciously hold to Philips speech to the Eunuch If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest seeing he believes as well as I that faith short of this which he saies these words necessarily imply might have admitted him and put a necessity on Philip to have baptized him though it would not have given him right to Baptisme His actual admission and not his right is there put to the question If these things be well considered Mr. Baxter may see cause to begin with a confutation of Mr. F. before he undertakes a defence and I suppose the Reader will see that he had small cause to censure my Arguments to be so dilute unlesse he himself had brought some of greater strength Lastly I would have Mr. Baxter seriously consider whether that which we have observed already out of him and might yet further be gathered may not make up a forcible Argument and conclusive of this title to Baptisme in those who yet rise not up to the Faith that is justifying when they are separate from Paganisme into fellowship with the visible Church as he asserts Saints Rest Part 4. Sect. 3. pag. 105. and with them their issue as he hath concluded from 1 Cor. 7.14 when they attain to graces real and true as we have seen from him I am sure the Apostle as hath been said Act. 10.47 argues from such qualifications to an interest in Baptisme when they have their interest in the Covenant of grace as a fruit of Christs death as he saith doubtlesse reprobates have Treatise of Infant-Baptisme pag. 224. when their Baptisme hath all that is essential to Gods sealing as he asserts it hath pag. 222. All of this laid together with more that may be taken up will in all indifferent Readers eyes conclude a title And further whether he have not spoken as much in plain words terminis terminantibus for the interest of unregenerate men or men of a meer visible profession in Baptisme let his words be considered Saints Rest Part 4. Sect. 3. pag. 104 105. Where giving holy and seasonable advice to beware the company of sensual and ungodly men he limits it with Cautions least it should be thought that he perswades as he rightly stiles it unto an ungodly separation he addes As I never found one word in Scripture where either Christ or his Apostles denyed admittance to
men of his interest should be received then Christ would not at any hand have knowingly gone against it and given him admission to it And what he did according to the mind of God as a Minister by a Minister may be done And to pronounce him at that time that he received it such that had no right for admission yet to admit him were such a precedent as Christ would not have given Christ would not trust himself with some upon that account that the knew what was in them Joh. 2.23 24. and he would not have trusted the Sacrament with such a one in case he had not known that it had been the mind of God that men of that standing should partake of it If it be objected that Christ knew that Judas was not in a capacity to improve the Sacrament for sanctification and salvation being a reprobate I answer respective to his gifts wherewith he was endowed he was in capacity of improvement The Sacrament is of use to those that were his inferiours and an eye is had to the tendency of the work according to Gods revealed will and not to that which is in Gods secret purpose Let us summe up the argument briefly into this form Ministers must give the Sacrament so as it may be to edification and not certainly to destruction But they must give it to some not yet throughly sanctified Therefore some not throughly sanctified may receive it to edification and not to destruction Thirdly the Law and Gospel in their joynt strength applyed in power to the understanding may work men of Covenant interest up to the terms conditions and propositions of the Covenant may work men of profession of faith to faith saving and justifying may work a man that is onely in name the Lords to be truely and savingly his This none can deny if Law and Gospel cannot do it in the way of instruments and ordinances appointed of God there is no way on earth in which it can be done But in the Lords Supper there is Law and Gospel the epitome and summe the strength and vigour of Law and Gospel applyed in power to the understanding Therefore the conclusion followes that the Lords Supper may work men of Covenant interest up to the terms of the Covenant men of profession of Faith to Faith saving and justified The Assumption is clear that in the Lords Supper there is Law and Gospel the epitome and summe the strength and vigour both of Law and Gospell There we have the curse of the Law in the highest degree held out Christ made a curse and bearing all that the Law denounces against sin even all that which sinne according to the Law did demerit There are sins bruises transgressions wounds There we have the summe and substance of the Gospel held out Christs death for remission of sinne laid open There we have Christ a curse which is that which the law inflicts upon transgression There we have Christ a sacrifice which is that which the Gospel doth promise all brought home and applyed to the understanding of the communicant Fourthly That which is high in the aggravating of sinne to the conscience and clear in holding out the pardon of sinne may work a man of Covenant interest up to the terms and conditions of the Covenant may work men of profession of Faith to a Faith saving and justifying This is clear which way else are men brought up to faith and sanctification but upon the sight of sinne in its aggravations and Gospel tenders for the removal of it The Assumption that sin is in this ordinance in the highest way aggravated and the removal of it held out is also clear and may easily per partes be proved 1. The highest aggravation of sin to the breaking of the heart and the melting of the soul is the looking upon him whom our sins have pierced Zach. 12.10 They shall look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his onely sonne and shall be in bitternesse for him as one that is in bitternesse for his first-born and that we thus look upon him in the Sacrament I shall choose to set it out in the words of the Ministers and Elders met in the Provinciall Assembly of London in their Vindication where speaking to those that joyn with them at the Lords Table pag. 104. You must so remember Christ as to find power coming out of Christ Sacramental to break your hearts for all the sins you have committed against him Christ is presented in the Sacrament as a broken Christ his body broken and his blood poured out And the very breaking of the bread understandingly looked upon is a forcible Argument to break your hearts Was Jesus Christ rent and torn in pieces for you and shall it not break your hearts that you should sin against him Was he crucified for you and will you crucify him by your sins And besides the breaking of the bread is not onely ordained to be a motive unto brokennesse of heart for sin but also in the right use to effect that which it doth move unto And pag. 105. You must so remember Christ Sacramentall as to find power comming out of Christ to subdue all your sins and iniquities as the diseased woman felt vertue coming out of Christ to cure her bloody issue so there is power in an applicative and fiducial remembrance of Christ at the Sacrament to heal all the sinful issues of our soules there is no sin so strong but it is conquerable by a power derived from Christ crucified And pag. 106. You must continue in remembring Christ in the Sacrament till your hearts be wrought up to a through contempt of the world and all worldly things Christ instituted the Sacrament when he was going out of the world and when he was crucifying the whole world was in darknesse and obscurity and he is propounded in the Sacrament as a persecuted broken crucified Christ despising and being despised of the World And if you do practically remember the Sacrament of his death you will find vertue coming out thereof to make you dead to the world and all worldly things And pag. 107. Cease not remembring Christ till you be made partakers of the rare grace of humility Of all the graces that were in Christ in which he would have Christians to imitate him in humility is one of the chiefest Matth. 11.29 Learn of me for I am humble And Christ in the Sacrament is presented as humbling himself to the death of the crosse for our sakes And what a shame is it to remember an humble Christ with a proud heart The practical remembrance of the humility of Christ Sacramental when sanctified is mighty in operation to tame the pride of our hearts And pag. 110. To endeavour that your eyes may affect your hearts when you are at the Sacrament For as Christ in the Ministery of his Word preacheth to the ear and by the ear conveyeth himself into the
and how great an odium lyes upon that opinion what those be that maintain it and what interest they drive is very well known To this I answer The expression of a Converting Ordinance may be taken two wayes First As having power of it self In what sense and with what limit the Lords Supper may be called a converting Ordinance as a single instrument in the hand of God in his ordinary way to work a change in the heart or life In this sense the converting power of it is to be denyed Secondly As having some influence for that work as seconding and working with the Word so I doubt not but that it may safely be owned and easily justified I shall lay down my whole thoughts of it in some Propositions Explicatory Propositions Affirmat First In the Affirmative First This Sacrament carries the soul on towards conversion in doing the same thing as the Word does for conversion in holding forth Christ crucified in holding him out as our sin and as our Saviour made a curse for us and delivering us from the curse Secondly In further engaging the soul or the soul upon receiving the Sacrament engaging it self to that which the Word requires and calls for If Covenants in Israel entred by reforming Princes were judged to be of that force for obligation of the soul to a change in their wayes putting stronger tyes on their slippery hearts much more may we believe that the Sacraments in a due order received may have this efficacious power They serve saith Mr. Hooker as bonds of obedience to God strict obligations to the mutual exercise of Christian charity provocations to godlinesse preservations from sin memorials of the principal benefits of Christ Thirdly The Sacrament doth this in an ordinary way according to the revealed will of God in his Word as the proper intention of the work and not as any thing extraordinary Fourthly The Sacrament it self doth it in that relation in which it stands to the Word in its being and operation and not the Sacramentals onely as they have been called as the Word preached and prayer which yet have a mighty influence on the Sacraments for this work Fifthly It works as a second to the Word for habitual conversion as well as actual In the way that the Word doth work for the infusion of the first grace and not barely for the exciting and stirring up of grace in the soul Their way of working I shall God willing in due place further enquire into Negat Secondly In the Negative First The Sacrament converts none by the bare work done There is no such power by receiving to change the soul as Papists believe there is by consecration to change the elements There is neither reason for it nor promise of it I cannot believe for I see no proof of it any regenerating power in the water in Infants Baptisme much lesse can I have reason to believe such a converting power of grown persons in the Lords Supper He shall be alone for me that will appear in such Paradoxes Secondly The command given to take and eat of the bread to drink of the cup hath no such power to convert None can see the reason of the change of their wayes in any such injunction Conversion were an easie work in case this could do it Thirdly The Sacrament of the Lords Supper must by no means be parallelled with the Word in the work of conversion but the Word many wayes must have the preeminence 1. The Word may work to conversion without the Lords Supper There are many in saving grace that did never partake of this Ordinance Gods engagement by word and oath holds up the faith and is the ground of strong consolation to those that never enjoyed this seal But the Sacrament cannot convert or do any thing towards it without the Word A Covenant may convey an interest without a seal when a seal can never do it without a Covenant 2. The Sacrament does nothing of its own strength but by vertue from the Word It hath its dependance on the Word for being as a seal on a Covenant and also for the operation The Word may go alone in the work of conversion yet may have assistance from the Sacrament the Sacrament can never work alone without the Word but as an assistant to it 3. The Word must qualifie the soul for the Sacrament in laying open the nature and use of it and the soul must attend what the Sacrament holds out otherwise there can be no improvement of it for any spiritual benefit And these things being premised I wonder how any that seem to appear most on the contrary part can justly be offended that I affirm and as I think with so good reason prove that the Lords Supper may be assistant towards conversion in some and may work with the Word to carry the soul professing Christ up to it especially when it shall appear that I would have the door of admission to stand at least little more wide then they themselves And perhaps not so wide as according to the practice of many of their judgment it stands already Most of these acknowledge that knowing persons free from grosse errors and scandals may be admitted others say none but they that in the judgment of charity appear to be indeed in Christ may be received in which they yet confesse that men may be easily deceived Either of these confesse that many unconverted partake with them even when rules of admission according to their own mind are most tenaciously held And in case it appear that these may receive benefit by the Sacrament and their conversion possibly holpen on especially if well followed on by the Word why should they be troubled I confesse it is to me no small trouble to see godly Ministers of the opposite way so much ensnared in their own principles and necessitated to let in such where most of order is held and discipline exercised that of necessity further their damnation and are in impossibility according to their tenents to improve it towards salvation Thirdly It is yet further objected That in this doctrine we oppose the unanimous judgment of Protestant Divines who generally teach that the Sacraments are appointed of God and delivered to the Church as sealing Ordinances not to give but to testifie what is given not to make but confirm Saints simply denying the instrumentality of Sacraments that they are appointed of God for working or giving grace where it is not And that we concur with Papists who hold that the Sacraments are instruments to confer give or work grace ex opere operato But how unjust this charge is in both the parts of it might easily be made manifest In this we Symbolize not with Papists First For that charge of joyning with the Papists let any judge who comes nearest to their doctrine of the efficacy of this Sacrament Not to mention the opus operatum which is alike detested of both
farre as I could learn that it did succeed and spread as little as almost any error that ever I knew spring up in the Church Plain Scripture proof of Infants c. pag. 294. so inconsiderable was the party that stood for it And Vorstius speaking in the name of Protestant Divines in general saith b Id potissimum quaeritur an Sacramenta sint signa tantum sigilla foederis gratiae sive externa symbola signacula foederi gratiae appensa divinitus ad hoc institura ut gratiam Dei salutarem in foedere promissam nobis significent atque ita fidem nostram suo modo confirment simul publice testaram reddant quae quidem communis est Evangelicorum sententia an vero preaterea sint causae efficientes hujus salutaris justificantis gratiae sive an sint effectiva gratiae ejusdem organa nempe ad hoc divinitus institura ut gratiam istam realiter instar vasorum in se contineant omnibus illa percipientibus candem vi sua imprimant reipsa conferant quae Bellarmini Pontificiorum omnium opinio est It is disputed whether Sacraments are onely signes and seales of the Covenant of grace or outward signes annext the Covenant and appointed for this of God that they should signify saving grace of God promised in the Covenant and signifying seal and after their manner confirm our faith and give publick testimony of it which saith he is the common opinion of Protestants or whether they be further efficient causes of this saving and justifying grace or whether they be effective instruments of this grace appointed of God for this thing that they should indeed containe it in them and convey it which is the opinion of all Papists Vorstius Anti. Bellar. ad Contro 1 Gen. And our men further judge that opinion of the opus operatum or of the outward Sacramental action as though without the faith and pious motion of those that use it it could justifie any to be evidently false and pernicious And they teach that all Sacraments by the ordination of God himself have onely a power to signifie and seal and not to conferre the grace of the Gospel it self And whereas several passages in the Liturgy of this Church did seem to favour the opposite opinion affixing adoption membership of Christ and inheritance of the Kingdom of heaven and regeneration to Baptisme we know how great offence it gave to many eminently Learned and pious putting them upon omission of those passages And also what Interpretation as with a grain of salt others put upon them that they were onely Sacramentally such And doubtlesse these either hit upon the meaning of the Church which was held to these phrases in imitation of many hyperbolical speeches in the Fathers or else the Church had mist the meaning of Scriptures so loth were the sons of the Church to be quarrelling with their mother and yet more loth with her to run into errors The Observation it self if heeded hath a caution or limit in it Affirming that Sacraments work no otherwise then as signs and seals and that they conferre no inward graces or priviledges further then they work upon the understanding and faith of those that receive them it implyes that they do conferre what an outward symbole or sign is apt to and of powder to convey and that outward priviledges in Sacraments are either conferred of infallibly evidenced This is clear the Apostle having so far undervalued Circumcision in the flesh as to make it Parallell with uncircumcision so that a circumcised Jew and an uncircumcised Gentile differed nothing as to their Spiritual state and condition inferres by way of objection What advantage then hath the Jew and what profit is there of circumcision And answers not that outward circumcision is altogether unprofitable but that it hath much profit and instances in one eminent one To them are committed the Oracles of God This is the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob Deut. 33.4 as Moses speaks and carrying with it this great priviledge it conveyes with it all other inferiour Church-priviledges right to the Passeover upon this account was theirs Exod. 12.48 and not otherwise So it is with Baptisme men are taken into the Church at this door according to the Commission given to the Apostles Disciple all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father c. Whatsoever they were and whomsoever they professedly served before they are this way taken in as the consecrate servants of the whole Trinity and added to the Church Act 2.47 When they had by the Covenant a precedent title in Baptisme they have a solemn inauguration By one Spirit we are all Baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12.13 It is the Spirits work to shape the heart of unbelieving Corinthians to enter into one visible Church-body as that work of Gods power whereby he did perswade Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem Gen. 9.27 And therefore when c Durandus docet characterem esse ens rationis id est respectum advenientem ex deputatione ad certum officium qualis est relatio in Doctoribus Praetoribus c. Quae sententia vix distinguitur ab haeresi hujus temporis Durand denyed that the Character which the Church of Rome speaks of was any quality in the soul but meerly a relation comming as by way of deputation to an office or duty exemplifying it by the relation that is seen in Doctors Praetors c Bellar. lib. 2. de Sacramen effectu cap. 14. saith That this opinion can scarcely be distinguished from the Heresie of this time d Haeretici non negant neque negare possunt quin sit aliqua relatio rationis in Ministris quae non est in aliis qui non sunt deputati ad ministrandum And further saith That Heretiques do not deny nor can deny but that there is some relation in Ministers which is not in others who are not deputed to the Ministery We do confesse indeed that there is that relation in Christians to Christ by the work done in the Sacrament of Baptisme which is not in Heathens And though we deny Orders to be any Sacrament yet we confesse there is that relation in Ministers to Christ by vertue of their Ordination that is not in those that are not called to the work of the Ministery There are those indeed that do deny it But those that Bellarmine had to deal with and that he charges for Heretiques as Luther Melancthon Calvin Beza Peter Martyr Chemnitius willingly yeeld it And in case this were all the character that they talke of to be imprinted in Baptisme yea in Ordination we should never contend about it And as these priviledges are conferred as to actual interest in the initiatory Sacacraments both of Baptisme and Circumcision so the same priviledges in the following Sacraments are infallibly evidenced as appears in that text 1 Cor. 10.17 The Apostle there making it
afterwards perish through unbelief and impenitence Therefore faith charity and other Spiritual qualities wrought by the Spirit in the regenerate are sometimes lost And having delivered himself thus in the negative that Baptisme works not these graces or habits in infants His first proposition in the affirmative tending to shew what Baptisme does work is w Omnes infantes baptizati ab Originalis peccati reatu absolvuntur That all baptized infants are acquitted from the guilt of original sin for which opinion many Fathers and Schoolmen are quoted by him as they were for the former So that I think the first part of my position is fully made good that the most eminent that ever have appeared for this power of Sacraments to conferre grace on the receivers either utterly deny or else doubtfully hold that Baptisme works any real change in infants but onely that which is relative and that it conferres not habits but onely priviledges on Infants baptized For the other part of the position that the Scriptures which these bring for proof of this power of Baptisme almost all speak of such a change that is real not relative of habits and not of priviledges The proof is easy What those Scriptures are which by them are produced in this Controversy may be seen in the former position and that almost all of them speak of a real change not barely that which is relative is evident The alone Old Testament text that I can find is Deut. 30.6 with Jer. 9.25 where circumcision of the heart is mentioned which texts as they can hardly be interpreted to speak at all of the Sacrament of Circumcision in the outward rite so it is certain that a real change is spoken to by Moses in Deuteronomy and by the Prophet also complained of to be wanting Reverend Dr. Ward yields that Spiritual Circumcision of the heart is there meant but he saith that by this Spiritual Circumcision the remission of original guilt is understood To which x Cordis circumcisione peccatorum remissionem denotari ut credam nihil adhuc quod suadeat video quod cogat multo minus Certe si quis verba illa Deut. 10.16 Circumcidite ergo praeputium cordis vestri aut illâ—d etiam Jer. 44. Circumcidimini sive circumcidite vos Jehovae exposuerit Remittite vobis peccata vestra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Gataker replies that he sees nothing that can perswade much lesse force him to believe any such thing Adding that If any should expound Deut. 10.16 Circumcise the forskin of your heart or Jer. 44. Circumcise your selves to the Lord to be as much as forgive your own sins it would be thought strange Disceptatio pag. 147. yea he makes the contrary plainly to appear As for those texts Titus 3.5 1 Corinthians 6.11 Ephesians 5.25 26. they speak all to the same thing In every one of them a real habitual change is mentioned Acts 2.38 Remission of sinnes is indeed mentioned and very probably Acts. 22.16 But in what sense to be understood I have shewed in the last place so that I think there is so much yielded and so little proved by the eminent advocates in this cause that according to Scripture there is any such causality in Baptisme for the pardon of sinne in every Infant that is presented to that ordinance and received that even upon this account it is justly to be susspected Besides that the blood of Christ and his Spirit are not onely distinguished by them but divided The vertue of his blood is ascribed to those that have no portion in his Spirit as though that Christ came both by water and blood unto some and by blood onely unto others SECT III. Objections against the former doctrine Obj. 1 HEre it is objected Where the blood of Christ on Gods part is offered and applyed for pardon of the guilt of sin and no impediment put on his part that receives it there the guilt of sin is remitted But in the Baptism of Infants the blood of Christ on Gods part is offered and applyed and no impediment put by him that receives it Ergo in the Baptisme of Infants the guilt of sin is remitted Answ 1 Answ 1. This Argument will hold with equal strength for proof of that which these deny as for that which they would assert Where the Spirit of Christ is offered on Gods part and applyed for regeneration and true sanctification and no impediment put by him that doth receive it there regeneration sanctification and all other gracious habits are wrought But in the Baptisme of Infants the Spirit of Christ is thus offered and applyed and no impediment is put Ergo. The Major in this syllogisme can be no more denyed then in the former The Spirit of Christ is as efficacious for regeneration as his blood for pardon It were over-much boldnesse to put any difference between them And for the Assumption none can deny but the Spirit is as well applyed in Baptisme as blood either then both must hold or both must be denyed 2. I utterly deny that the blood and Spirit of Christ that either Answ 2 blood or Spirit are thus applyed in Baptisme In case of such application they would produce their effects above and against all resistance there is no vain application of either of these to any person If the Spirit of Christ had been in Baptisme applyed to Simon Magus it would so have seazed upon him and wrought in him that Peter would not have addressed himself to him in that language which he heard from him and so I may say of the blood of Christ such an application of it to his soul would have had that effect that Peter would have said to him in the words of the Seraphim to Isaiah when he had applyed the coal from the Altar to his mouth Thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin is purged and not as he did that thou art in the gall of bitternesse and the bond of iniquity The blood of Christ upon the soul of an Infant or man of years must needs be as efficacious as a coal from the Altar on Isaiah's lips Universal redemption we know is asserted by these Authors though it be with such limits as not to close with Arminians but to remain their opposite If now there be not onely impetration of the merit of Christ but also application in that latitude as Baptisme is administred I know nothing that can stand in the way of salvation of all those that are baptized He that would see the consent of modern Writers of the most eminent note in the denyal of this proposition let him consult learned Mr. Gataker Discep pap 6 c. whereby his industrious pains after his manner many are multiplied Danaeus leads the way He is deceived saith he that thinks that Christ and his benefits are applyed by the sign of water which is onely the seal of such application 3. According to these principles laid by these
a principal efficient Mr. Baxter is I am sure as zealous as I can be to assert a conditionate Covenant and if an adversary be as streight-laced to him and me in that as he is to me in this he will hardly prove a condition either in the Covenant of works or grace I will as soon find the word instrument in Scripture applyed to justification as he shall find the word condition applyed to either Covenant And he can name I think no word implying a condition that is alwayes put for a condition and the context wheresoever we are said to be justified by faith or that Christ is a propitiation through faith is in all indifferent Readers eyes as clear for an instrument in justification as those which he and I can bring which yet are clear enough for a conditionate Covenant And that doctrine hath farre more adversaries then this though there is little cause that any man should be an adversary in either He sayes the same answer serves to Act. 15.9 and then the same reply may serve There followes To what you say from Rom. 8.13 I reply 1. An adjutor or concause is ill called an instrument must the Spirit needs be our instrument because it is by the Spirit as if by signified onely an instrument Mr. Baxters head was doubtlesse on somewhat else either when he read these passage of mine or when he framed his answer I never had it in my thoughts that justification is expressely spoken to in any of these texts nor was it my businesse to find out any instrument in them though I doubt not but that faith is spoken to instrument in two of them and as a condition non-instrumental in none of them neither did I dream of making the Spirit an instrument All that I intended was to prove The acts of God are entitled to man and the acts of man to God in Scripture that the acts of man were intitled to God and so the acts of God to man not considering as the businesse in hand let not to it about what these acts are exercised if they prove that It is to me sufficient whether it be in Justification Sanctification Mortification or any other work There is added 2. All this is nothing to the businesse of justification nothing directly immediately but much by way of Analogy It is enough to prove That to be the instrument of man and the instrument of God are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if he desire a proof more punctually applyed to justification let him consult Rom 3.30 It is one God that shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith and Gal. 3.8 The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through faith Faith for justification is usually ascribed to man being properly his act and therefore that text of the Prophet Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith is by the Apostle more then once applyed to justification And in the text now quoted this act of faith is ascribed to God for that work I explained my self man neither justifies nor sanctifies himself yet by faith he is raised to close with God in both c. To this is answered If man justifie not himself and yet faith be his instrument of justifying then farewell old Logick Mr. Baxter is the first great Logitian that I ever heard talk so much of his Logick in the last Section but one we had it and now we have it in the same thing again there I shewed that old Logick may stand and yet his consequence not yeelded 2. It is said If man sanctifie not himself under God as to the progresse and acts of sanctification then farewell old Theology And if man may be said to sanctifie himself further then hath been said or so as to be a principal efficient which will follow from Mr. Baxters reasonings then welcome the newest Divinity It will not be denyed that a sanctified man differs from one that is unsanctified and then in case it may be allowed to say I sanctifie my self he may say I make my self to differ which I never heard that any in direct termes would say against the Apostle but Grevenchovius as I find him cited by Dr. Featly and yet it seems it is my great error that I will not say so I lift man up in that height in justification as to pardon his own sin in holding that it is of faith that it may be of grace not of works lest any should boast And I raise him not high enough in sanctification If I say no more then that by faith he receives power from God by the Spirit for it that text 1 Pet. 1.22 would farre better have served my purpose if I had first hit upon it The Spirit of God and not man is to have the denomination in sanctification Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit They that have done any thing in purifying their hearts through the Spirit will rather entitle the Spirit of God then themselves to it and will judge that he rather then they should be denominated a sanctifier And for other texts that are hinted and one mentioned 2 Cor. 7.1 To argue from the Command to the power is that old Theologie that I am ready to bid farewell to As God requires it so he doth often undertake it and declares that it is his work to do it Ezek. 36.25 26. Deut. 30.6 I think few will say that they make their own hearts new There is added 3. To close with God in pardoning me signifieth not that I pardon my self or that I or any act of mine is an efficient cause of pardon This is for me therefore I am contented it should be said over again and my faith is the instrument wherewith I close with God In case it be the instrument wherewith I receive Christ as Mr. Baxter hath sometimes yeelded There followes 4. When you say that faith as an instrument receiveth righteousnesse to justification you speak exactly the conceptions of most Divines that I have met with or read that go your way and therefore these words deserve a little further consideration and after some enquiry into their meaning There is added but these things must be more accurately considered I think Here it is confessed that I tread in the beaten road and that I do appear in the common cause and comparing what is here said with that which in his conclusion he delivers The Author is confest to appear in the common cause in behalf of Protestants It appears that the Divines of this corner of the world for 1300. years past have all taken this way which is all that go under the name Protestant whether Calvinist or Lutheran as they are wont to be distinguished I shall therefore expect that some of those that by grace have obtained to be as of the first three among Davids worthies will step in with their Auxiliary helps in case the
one many are made righteous 5. That way that Christ took to bring us to God our faith must eye and follow But Christ by death the sacrifice of himself brings us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 6. As Christ frees us from the curse so he justifies us and in that notion our faith must look unto him for justification This is plain Justification being no other but our acquittall from the curse which is the sentence of the Law of Moses Acts 13.38 But Christ frees us from the curse in suffering as a sacrifice not ruling as a Lord Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree I said in my Treatise of the Covenants there are severall acts of justifying saith Heb. 11. but those are not acts of justification It is not Abrahams obedience Moses self-denyal Gideons or Sampsons valour that was their justification but his blood that did enable them in those duties by his Spirit Paul went in these duties as high as they and I doubt not but he overtopt them yet he was not thereby justified Here are many exceptions taken 1. At the phrase an act of justification with much ado made to know my meaning when I had thought all had well enough understood it You would fancy that I mean that justification it self acts speaking of it not as an object but an efficient but I must acquaint you that it implies that justification acts when I speak of the acts of justification as it doth that harvest works when I speak of harvest-work I mean acts tending to justifie or exercis'd in or about justification 2. It is demanded Who knows whether you mean that none of those acts Heb. 11. are acts of justification The proper importance of your words say you is for the former but that say you is a dangerous untruth giving in v. 13. as an exception against it Answ I intended the generality of those acts there ascribed to faith in that indefinite speech of mine which you cannot make necessarily to be universall You have justly made exception of one vers 13. which in my ministeriall way preaching on those words I have interpreted as you say our Divines do It seeâ—s by you that I have our Divines in the rest siding with me 3. You tell me you should not in my judgement have called Abrahams obedience Moses self-deniall Gideons valour acts of justifying faith Are these acts of faith If you mean say you that these acts are fruits of faith it is true or if you mean that an act of faith did excite the soul c. Answ And should the Apostle have then said that they were done by faith Is not this his error as the former is mine I pray you what was that work of faith that the Apostle mentions 1 Thes 1.3 Faith wrought and acted somewhat 4. You demand what mean you to say obedience and valour was not their justification Answ If no act of faith sano sensu by an ordinary Metonymy may be said to be justification make then a comment upon the Apostles words Rom. 4.3 where to overthrow justification by works and to establish justification by faith he sayes Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness which is as much as it was his justification That which is a prevalent plea in any Court to obtain justification is not unfitly called justification Faith in Christs blood is such a plea and therefore not unfitly called our justification Your fifth and sixth need not to have been put into two Then how come you to say next say you that it is Christ's blood The blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of our justification c. But I thought the contest in your dispute had been which is the justifying act of faith and which not And therefore when you denyed those in Heb. 11. to be acts of justification which I am forced to interpret justifying acts I expected to find the true act asserted but in stead of that I find the opposite number is The blood of Christ Is this indeed the controversie Whether it be accepting Christ as Lord or the blood of Christ that justifieth Never was such a question debated by me in the way here intimated I am wholly for you if this be the doubt Hâ—re you meet with the greatest advantage that I think in my Treatise you any where find when I say these acts were not their justification and put in opposition but his blood who did enable them to duties by his Spirit it should have been faith in his blood who did enable them to these duties but each one may see and some have said that before we read this objection of yours that it is plain that I meant it Sâ—venthly you tell me It would prove an hard task to make good that there are several acts of justifying faith by which we are not justified without flying to great impropriety of speech Answ I believe you think that justifying faith includes in it all those kinds of faith that Scripture mentions as Faith Dogmatical or Historical and in all that had the gift of miracles Faith-miraculous They had not one faith whereby they had their interest in Christ and another whereby they gave assent to Divine truths and a third whereby they wrought miracles And to say that we are justified by such assent or they by such miracles I think were a speech more then improper You say further That by justifying faith I must mean the act habit or renewed faculty And I wonder you could have it in your thoughts that I should mean the last Then you would willingly engage me in a dispute whether that the acts and habits of mans soul are of so distinct a nature that where the acts are specifically distinct by the great distance and variety of objects yet the habit producing all these is one and the same To which I say no more for answer but that I shall take it for granted till I see as yet I do not convincing reason against it Eighthly you tell me that 1 Cor. 4.4 is nothing to our business Paul was not his own justifier Though he knew not matter of condemnation sensu Evangelio for no doubt he knew himself to be a sinner yet that did not Justifie him because it is God only that is his Judge Answ I believe that you give a right comment on the Apostles words as to the first branch He was one whose heart as John speaks condemn'd him not but your reason why he was not therby justified is very strange Because say you that it is God onely that is his Judge And thus then the Apostle argues God onely is Judge to justifie But my innocency or integrity is not God Therefore it doth not justifie It seemes that Abrahams works
to tell him that the Religion of the Calvinists was most near to that of Mahomet And having ended his request the said Bashaw answered I see that you Calvinists and we are like to be shortly one Save only that leaving the drinking of water to us you willl keep your selves to wine and be drunk with it Charges of this nature Lutherans and Calvinists were wont still to hear but divine providence through grace hath so ordered that these Calumnies as with a beam of the Sun have been dispelled The holy lives of those that appeared for this doctrine hath been an abundant reall comfutation Not to look beyond the seas where we might be furnished with severall instances let Jewel Grindall Pilkington Raynolds Fulk Whitaker Perkins Fox Greenewood Dod Hilderson Pemble Ball and many others with their Followers witnesse In so much that by degrees shame hath caused them to forbear this Language And as for those who of latter times have receded from this doctrine of this supposed danger as Mountague and his followers as may be seen in his Gagg and Appeal whether their lives and zeal for the Gospel did at all outstrip those already mentioned whose supposed errors in doctrine they went about to correct I leave to all of impartiall judgement to witness How great a trouble is it then to have this by a man of your name and reputation now revived For that experience of yours of which we have already heard and you further enlarge The assertion that faith in Christ's blood is the only justifying act acquit from danger in your affirming that you never met with the most rebellious wretch except now and then one under terrors but when they have sinn'd their worst they still think to be saved because they believe and what is their believing why they believe that Christ died for them and therefore God will forgive them and they trust for pardon and salvation from Christ's death and Gods mercy To this I answer Though I do not in any other thing appear in competition with you yet here I may say my experience hath been of a longer standing then yours yet I can say it answers not that which you here mention When I have to deal with such that you name if they look out of themselves at all it is usually to Gods mercy He is say they a mercifull God and at what time soever a sinner repenteth from the bottom of his heart he is ready to receive and so relying on Gods mercy they will take their time for their return Which is answered also as is evident in the experience of others Read Practical Treatises and publish'd Sermons and see whether this plea be not commonly spoken to Ordinarily their answer is that their good doings their Prayers and Repentance must save them Few comparatively will have Christ in their mouths till he be put into their heads And if they hit upon faith as sometimes they will they yet know not how to terminate it on Christ's blood It is only a good belief that God will not deal so with them Such a faith the Plain mans path-way to heaven out of much experience of such mens answers doth notably decipher It is a rare thing to meet with one that will argue as you would put it into their mouths viz. He that hath the only justifying act of faith is justified But that have I For I accept of Christ to forgive and justifie me by his blood Therefore I am justified But in case any shall thus reason you say you are not able to answer and I shall not presume to be your teacher But me thinks you might deign to learn of Mr. Gataker and tell such a disputant that it is not every thing that bears the name of faith that is an acceptation of Christ to justification You may acquaint him that there is a true and sincere faith and that there is a false and counterfeit faith and that it is not enough for justification to say that a man hath faith but soundly and sincerely to believe If he say that his faith is not dissembled but sincere put him upon that which Mr. Gataker sayes is Saint James his way of tryall If he will have faith to justifie his person let works then justifie his faith There is life in that faith that takes Christ's blood for justification and that faith that hath life to take hath life also to work Where a receiving or taking faith is there Christ is and where Christ is the soul can do all things through Christ that strengthens So thaâ— if the man be such as you speak his faith is cast at the first sight and evidenced to be no better then counterfeit and is no medium to justification He may talk that Christ is his but it is clear that it is on a crackt title and his faith being no better then you say had he all the Logick in the world here he must be non pluss'd And here I would willingly learn how you will convince such a man of whom you here speak upon your own principles If he shall argue He that hath the onely justifying act of faith is justified but that have I for I take Christ as my Saviour and Soveraign Lord Ergo. Seeing there are many that profess to take Christ for a Lord as well as a Saviour that must never enter into the kingdome of heaven Mat. 7.21 If they do not spit at Christ and defie him they perswade themselves that they serve him A service of Jesus Christ with their own most favourable and easie comment upon it they doubt not will save them And I know no viler persons in the world then those that say that they love and serve Christ with all their heart and that their good works and serving of God must keep them from hell and damnation As I once heard a man stark drunk on a Lords-day profess that fall back fall edge he would never leave serving God whilst he lived These if they may be believed have as good an heart to God as he that is most precise in all the world And if they be wanting in that acuteness of Logick that you before mention they may be wel holpen out of your principles which they may find anon thus to reason He that fals short of the precepts of the Law and requisites in the Gospel may yet be justified and saved if he answers to the conditions of the Gospel-covenant But thus do I although I come not is to the precepts of the Law not to what is required in the Gospel yet I answer to the conditions of it for according to you these come short both of the commands of the Law and the precepts of the Gospell Though they do not all that is commanded them neither in Law nor Gospell yet they hope they do that which will save them They have their faults they confess and who say they is free Few dayes pass over their heads but they say God
with your distinction that we engage to renounce them not as duty but as a condition to obtaine Salvation This privative part of duty holding out the terminus à quo in our Christian motion implyes a positive work which also was expressed in our English Leiturgie constantly to believe Gods holy word and obediently keep his commands and confirmed by the Apostle to be our duty Ro. 6.4 Buried with him by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newnesse of liâ—e This we vow and I desire to know what more in any Gospel-precept is required 6. I said then the distinction between those that enter Covenant and break it as Jer. 31.32 33. and those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts to observe it fallâ— all standing equally guilty of the breach of it no help of grace being of power to enable to keep Covenant To this you answer When sincere obedience The precept and the condition in the Covenant of Grace are one and perfect obedience are all one and when the precept and the condition of the Covenant are proved to be of equall extent then there will be ground for the charging of this consequence I marvail how the first part of the answer came into your thoughts That Text of Jeremiah speaks to sincerity and not to perfection For the second sincerity is the precept and sinceâ—ity is the condition sincerity is one and the same and therefore precept and condision are one and the same That which we are to renounce and that to which we engage is our condition But that which we renounce and that to which we engage is thâ— Gospel or Covenant-precept The precept and condition are therefore the same Faith and new obedience are the precept Faith and new obedience are the condition The precept and condition are therefore one and the same So that your distinction falling as I doubt not but it do's all my arguments after the first to the last eo nomine stand You go about to evade them all with this one distinction which I leave to the judicious Reader to determine whether it be not without a difference But before I undertake your next I have to thank you for that which you have transcribed out of Robert Baronius pag. 401. of your Confession Treating in an Appendix of the possibility of fulfilling the Law of God considered according to Gospel lenity you tell us what his second assertion is pag. 122. which I desire the Reader to peruse either in your book or in the Author himself Where he may see 1. That the Gospel is below the Law as to the degree that it requireth As to the one there is a possibility of fulfilling according to him and not so to the other 2. That the obligation of the Law yet remains so that all failings are transgressions 3. That it stands as a Rule for us to affect and with our best strength to endeavour after 4. That the Gospel requires a certain measure of obedience on pain of eternal damnation This doubtless is that which is the condition of it 5. That this obedience thus required is necessarily to be as high as grace enables to reach In which we see in the first place their distinction opposed that say That the Gospel requires perfection and accepts sincerity The Gospel according to him requires no more then it accepts and for which grace enables And in the next place your distinction of duty and condition is by him utterly overthrown according to him all comes within the condition which is matter of duty My last argument was Then it follows that sincerity is never called for as a duty or required as a grace but only dispens'd with as a failing and indulged as a want It is not so much a Christian's honour or Character as his blemish rather his defect then praise But we find the contrary in Noah Job c. To this you reply I will not say it is past the wit of man to find the ground of this charge i. e. to see how this should follow but I dare say it is past my wit If it had been said The Covenant commandeth perfection and not sincerity or the Covenant accepteth sincerity but not commandeth it there would have been some reason for this charge But do you think that sincerity is no part of perfection c Answ My wit is so low that I know not where the cloud lies I do not take sincerity to be properly a part of perfection but a degree towards it as Calor ad unum is a degree towards rather then a part of Calor ad octo So the lower degâ—ee of heat would remain when a higher is introduc'd and not be swallowed up in it And if the command looks no lower then perfection in degree the imperfect degree is not directly commanded though according to these it is in dulged It is said Matth. 12.20 that Christ will not break the bruised Reed nor quench the smoaking Flax. Is that feeble strength and remiss heat there look'd upon as a duty or rather is it not look'd upon as a defect or want Is it not Christ's indulgence rather then the obedience of his command that is there noted or pointed out My answer to the single argument so far as I have read or heard against that which I here delivered follows But seeing that your reply so far as I can judge is rather with me then against me as to the Position it self and your endeavour rather to excuse then defend those of the contrary opinion which very well pleaseth me for I wish that more were said for their honour so that the truth do not suffer I am well content to pass it by having a greater desire to defend you where you speak for truth then my self where not truth but my reputation is impugned And shall make it my business to look into that which Mr. Crandon hath against you in it Concerning the second that the Gospel doth require but sincere Mr. Crandons arguments answered not perfect obedience which is both your assertion and mine he saith What shall we think of those Texts in the new Testament which require us to be perfect 2 Cor. 13.11 Jam. 1.4 Yea perfect as God is perfect Matt. 5.48 reproving weakness and infirmity and commanding a going on to perfection Answ We are to think of them as Protestant Divines ordinarily do in their commenting upon them We deny saith Rivet that the perfection of which Scripture speaks either when it commands us to be perfect or gives testimony of perfection or integrity to some consists in a freedome from sin Exercit. 52. in Genes pag. 267. The Text quoted out of James serves well to explain the rest Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing whence we may argue 1. That perfection
and so both seales are of equall latitude which yet is more plainly exprest in his following words But if you speak onely of Covenant-right to Baptisme coram Deo by his gift of Covenant then I make them of the same extent and I cannot tell what other Covenant-right to speak of but that in which God avoucheth a people to be his and himself to be their God and I dare not have a thought of any thing but reality in his words For his distinction which he hints here and plainly delivers elsewhere of right in foro Dei and in foro Ecclesiae both to Covenant and Baptisme I suppose considerate men will pause upon it before they receive it especially in the sense which he puts upon it 1. They may presse him with his own rule Vbi lex non distinguit â—ibi non est distinguendum Such a right to visible Ordinances before men never granted of God I would learn 2. They may demand whether it be the Will of God that any upon the latter right coram Ecclesia should be baptized by the Church If it be then they have right coram Deo If it be not his will then they have no right coram Ecclesia I know no Court that God keeps respective to visible Church-priviledges but his Church 3. They may tell him of the necessity that is put upon Ministers to profane this Divine Ordinance in putting this seal ordinarily and unavoidably to meer blank paper which is a most contumelious abuse of it Of many that are called few are chosen and yet all that are visibly called are thus sealed when in Gods sight all title is wanting 4. They may tell him that poor soules are thus miserably cheated in bearing them in hand that this great priviledge and consequently all further Church-priviledges are theirs when the conveyance is more fraudulent that casts it upon them 5. They may yet tell him that a door is here opened to Anabaptisme or multiplication of Baptisme A new door of which either nothing or very little hath ever been spoken When discovery shall be made as according to these principles it may be often made that the title when Baptisme was administred was barely seeming then all was null ab initio in such proceedings and as such persons alwayes were in the eye of God so now in the eye of men they are unbaptized persons And in case God ever vouchsafe the grace of conversion to this man he is now by Divine appointment to seek baptisme In case Simon Magus who after baptisme did discover himself to be in the gall of bitternesse by Gods grace should ever attain repentance and forgivenesse which Peter did not judge to be desperate he must then upon conversion afresh offer himself to Baptisme If Titius be admitted into possessions presumed to be his true inheritance and afterwards it be made to appear that it never appertained to him but to Sempronius when this appears all is to be judged invalid And if Titius ever gain due right he must again procure possession and is not to hold on his former crackt and seeming title So that whensoever a Minister converts a baptized man he must look upon former proceedings as null and upon his conversion baptize him Neither let Anabaptists here triumph as they may baptize whom we have baptized when they see them converted so we may baptize whom they have baptized too many of both parties manifesting over-evident signs of their unconversion 6. They may tell you that that Scripture-distinction of circumcision in the flesh and circumcision in the heart is hereby overthrown seeing circumcision in the flesh where circumcision in the heart is wanting is uncircumcision which the Apostle grants respective to true happinesse Rom. 2. ult but denyes respective to Church-priviledges Rom. 3.1 7. They may tell him that this principle standing all persons dying unregenerate dye unbaptized yea all that were baptized in infancy and after converted remain still unbaptized 8. That it is much to be feared if not certainly to be concluded that the major part by far of Worcestershire combination consists of unbaptized persons there being I doubt no good evidence of true conversion in the most considerable part of them subscription to the confession there and consent to membership being all that is required and whether it be enough for a good satisfying evidence that a man or woman is in grace that he or she hath subscribed or put to their mark let any judge I am sure it is voyc'd that the most prophane where the Minister carries any authority are as forward for subscription as any If all marriages were null where grace were not in truth in the parties I fear that through the Christian world there would be more adulterous then marriage-copulations And in case where there is no grace there is no subject for Baptisme there are as many unbaptized persons Argument 4. vindicated My fourth Argument is The great condition to which Baptisme engages is not a prerequisite to the being of Baptisme The great condition to which baptisme engages is not a prerequisite in Baptisme This is plain no man is bound to make good his condition before engagement to conditions no servant is tyed to do his work before he hath received earnest no Souldier to fight before he is listed or hath given in his name But faith that is justifying to accept Christ is the condition to which Baptisme engageth To this Mr. Baxter answers What is the conclusion Therefore justifying faith is not a prerequisite in baptisme or according to the Simile no man is bound to accept Christ to justification before he is baptized And then begins highly to Rhetoricate I confesse the reading of such passages in Grave Learned Godly Divines and that with such confidence uttered as undoubted truth and that in zeal to save the Church from the errors of us that are contrary minded doth very much convince me of humane frailty and that the best of men do know but in part and in a little part too If Mr. Baxter seek an instance of humane frailty he hath made no mischoice in casting his eyes upon me he cannot see so many in me as I know but I am sorry that he must put his wit upon the device of one or at least take hold on the most handsome seeming opportunity to cry up one and so to give too much evidence as one said upon the first sight of it of his own weaknesse As to the conclusion that justifying faith is no prerequisite in Baptisme in the sense that every Reader may see I have given of it I shall maintain and as Mr. Br. hath heard I have the strength of the reformed Churches for my confirmation in it but for the other which serves onely to blind the Reader and to bring me under a charge that no man is bound to accent of Christi before he be justified I look upon it as an assertion both senselesse and gracelesse I believe