suspicion of Antinomianism which he had brought upon himself But we are really perswaded better things of our Authour though we thus write upon a supposition which we hope he will never admit but rather than admit such a supposition with its necessary consequence he will join with us and say that Luther and Mr. Hamilton meant no more but that evil works do not first make a Man evil because ever since the first Sin of Adam and Eve all meer Men besides them two are evil by Original sin before they commit any Actual Sin Thus much shall suffice to have said of the Occasion and Design of the Letter CHAP. II. Of the Authours Errours in Doctrine against the Purity of our Christian Faith SECTION I. Of his First Errour That there is no New Law of Grace THE First Error against our Christian Faith which we find in the Letter is that there is no new Law of Grace according to which the Lord dispenseth unto his People the Benefits and Blessings of Justification and Eternal Savlation That we do not wrong him in charging him with this erroneous Opinion is evident from his Letter pag. 9 18 29. and pag. 30 31. Where he saith that Justification upon the terms of the new Law of Grace doth not agree with the sound Words of the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster and that the new Law of Grace is a new word but of an old and ill meaning Thus he And this the people must believe upon his bare word without any proof Now to refute this we need do no more but refer them that desire to know who is in the right as to this matter unto Mr. Williams defence of Gospel truth from pag. 18 to 34. where it is sufficiently proved by Scripture by reason grounded on Scripture and by the Testimony of Divines of the Reformed Churches That there is a new Law of Grace that the Gospel is that Law of Grace and that it is a new Law of Grace in the same sense that the Covenant of the Gospel is a new Covenant of Grace This Error then that there is no new Law of Grace being refuted to our hand we might well pass it and proceed to another Yet because the Authour discovers so much ignorance and boldness in what he says to the People upon this point we judge it expedient to insisâ— a little upon it both to instruct and also to rebuke him And because he would make the people believe whether he believe it of us himself God and his own Conscience know that we consider God only as a Rector ruling by a prescribed Law in all his Purposes concerning and Dealings with the Children of Men That he may not go on deceiving and being deceived We declare to the World that we never thought spoke or wrote any such thing as he would fasten upon us that he may the better misrepresent us to the people pag. 9. at the beginning to wit that God is only to be considered under the notion of a Rector and Judge as aforesaid Where by the way we cannot but take notice how honestly he deals by our Reverend Brother Mr. Williams in drawing this inference from a pretended Scheme of his Doctrine Thus saith our Authour they antedate the Last Day and hold forth Christ as a Judge rather than a Saviour Here the World sees what Doctrine he fixes upon Mr. Williams Next Let them turn to pag. 56. of Gospel Truth stated c. and there they will find these express words of Mr. Williams He Christ treats with men as his Subjects whom he will now Rule and hereafter Judge Now cannot Christ be our Saviour but by ceasing to be our Ruler and cannot we be saved by him but by ceasing to be subject to him Where is that Man's Brains who cannot see if he will that these two things do very well consist that Christ is both our Saviour and Ruler at the same time But this only on the by We declare therefore again that we never thought spoke or wrote that God is to be considered only under the notion of a Rector or Judge in all his Purposes concerning and Dealings with the Race of Man-kind On the contrary we believe that First God as an absolute Soveraign Lord of his own most Free and Gracious Will and Pleasure purposed to give and accordingly gave his only begotten Son to be the Redeemer and Saviour of sinful Men but not of fallen Angels Secondly That God as an absolute Soveraign Lord of his own good pleasure and according to the Counsel of his own will did before the foundation of the World choose some and not others of the lapsed and lost Race of Man-kind unto the participation of Special Effectual Victorious Grace and Eternal Glory through Christ Jesus Thirdly That in the first making of the Covenant and enacting of the Law of Grace with us through Christ Jesus God did not act as a Governour Ruling us according to an external Law which he had before made for us but as a Soveraign and gracious Lord who had freely purposed to save us in such a way by Jesus Christ Fourthly That in giving the foresaid Special Effectual Victorious Grace to the Elect rather than to others God doth not act as a Rector or Governour according to a stated Law prescribed to us and known by us but according to the counsel of his own Will and his hidden Purposes and Transactions with Christ concerning us Fifthly But yet in good consistency with what we have said we do firmly believe that God hath enacted and constituted a Law of Grace for bestowing upon us the subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant such as Justification and Glorification This Law God hath revealed to us in the Scriptures of Truth by this Law he both obliges and encourages us to certain Duties and also by the promises of it obliges himself to Justifie and glorifie us for Christs sake if we perform the Duties prescribed and comply with the Terms injoined It is with respect to those subsequent Blessings and Benefits of the Covenant that we say the Lord deals with us as a Rector and Governour Ruling us by a Law of Grace This Law is expressed in Holy Scripture in several Forms of Words as that See also Ps 103.17 18. Pr. 28.13 Isa 1.16 17 18. 55.7 Jer. 36.3 Acts 2.38 â— 19 16.31 26.18 Heb. 5.9 12.14 Revel 2.10 3.21 22.14 John 8.51 Ho who believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 And If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 Whosoever believeth in Christ shall receive Remission of Sins Acts 10.43 Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.5 This is that which we mean by the Law of Grace and our meaning is so plain that any Man endued with
his trust shall be as a Spiders Web. He shall lean upon it but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure Job 8.13 14 15. Our Author instanceth in that Bloody Persecutor Stephen Gardiner and in another Papist whom he commends as an Ingenious Balaamite who confessed that it is best for men at their Doath to renounce their own Merits and to trust then to be saved only by the Merits of Christ But what is that to the purpose Doth that make any thing against us or our Doctrine for doth not our Author know well enough that our Doctrine is that always both in Life and at Death men should abhor all Thoughts of Meriting any good at the Hands of God by their own Works and that they should trust throughout their whole Life to be saved by the alone Merits of Christ as much as at their Death was it not then wisâ—ly done of our Author to Object against us and our Doctrine the Example of Gardiner and such Papists who after they have publickly professed as a main Point of their Religion to trust to their own Merits and after they have led a wicked Life all their Days at last when they come to die think it best to renounce all Confidence in their own Merits and flatter themselves with the Hopes of being pardoned without a particular practical Repentance and of being saved without Reformation by trusting only to the Merits of Christ can 〈◊〉 Author shew from the Terms of the New Covenant that such self-condemned hypocrites have any sure ground of obtaining the Pardon of their Sins and Salvation of their Souls meerly because they do presumptuo 〈…〉 that God will pardon and save them for the Merits of Christ Is there any place in Scripture that gives us the least Intimation that ever God ordained that Christs Merits should be a Sanctuary for Rogues and Hypocrites whilest they remain such and that if they flee into it by a Presumptuous Confidence they shall be pardoned before they repent and be saved from Gods Sin-revenging Justice before there be any real Holy Change wrought in them It seems by some Passages in our Authors Letter that this is the thing which he drives at and that this is his way of Preaching the Gospel But alas most People need not Ministers to teach them this Doctrine for the Devil and their own deceitful wicked Hearts will teach them this lesson and they are but too apt of themselves to learn it For as Mr. Book of Martyrs Vol. 2. p. 192. Col. 1. Fox saith Commonly it is seen that worldly Epicures and secure Mammonists to whom the Doctrine of the Law doth properly appertain do receive and apply to themselves most principally the sweet Promises of the Gospel whereby it comes to pass that many do rejoice where they should mourn Let our Author look to it that he be not found guilty of hardning such People in their presumptuous way of living and dying by telling the World that Men are justified by the Merits of Christ without any previous Condition required of them and that they are pardoned before they sincerely repent and are accepted as Righteous through the Righteousness of Christ imputed to them before any real change or Holy Qualification be wrought in them And if he be wise let him no more say that we teach People to expect to be justified from their Sins by and for their own Righteousness which is a thing that as we will not stand to at Death so we do not stand for it but against it in our Life and now declare to the World that it is a notorious falshood and an abominable Calumny Fifth Calumny HIS Fifth Calumny is that there are many Ministers who in compliance with natural Men patch up and frame a Gospel that is more suited to and taking with and more easily understood by them than the true Gospel of Christ is And again that Divines plead that same Cause that we daily find the Devil pleading in the Hearts of all natural Men. This is to be seen in the 20th and 32. Pages of the Letter Whom our Author means by those many Ministers and Divines who do this abominable thing we do not certainly know but this we know that if he means us as he seems to do almost throughout the whole Letter what he saith is most false and injurious and deserves no other Answer than such as Michael the Archangel gave the Devil when Contending and Disputing with him about the Body of Moses he said The Lord rebuke thee Yet we do not desire that the Lord should rebuke this false Accuser as he rebukes the Devil in purely vindictive Wrath but as he rebukes his disobedient Children in Corrective Justice tempered with Fatherly Love Sixth Calumny HIS Sixth Calumny is to be seen in Page the 23d of the Letter where it is implied that we say 1. That the Sanction of the Holy Law of God is repealed so that no Man is now under it either to be condemned for breaking it or to be saved by keeping it 2. Thâ—t it doth not now require perfect Holiness 3. That we have much kindness for true Antinomians in Practice Some late Writers of our Authors way have expresly charged us with some of these things but our Author is here somewhat more modest and wary and only implies and insinuates that we say and do these things But however wary he be in the manner of expressing his Thoughts yet that will not excuse him from the Sin of Calumny if he means us as he plainly seems to do and if the things he charges upon us be manifestly false as they certainly are And our Author might have known it for a leading Man amongst those who are said to be for the Middle-way did many Years ago expresly refute the two foresaid Opinions which are now falsely charged upon us as is to be seen in Mr. Trumans Endeavour to rectifie some prevailing Opinions contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England Pag. 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13. Be it known then unto all men That 1. we do not say nor ever did say that the Sanction of the Moral Law is repealed so that no man is now under it either to be condemned for breaking it or to be saved by keeping it 2. We do not say nor ever did say that the Moral Law doth not now require perfect holiness On the contrary we confess with our mouths and declare to the World what we have ever believed and do still believe with our hearts 1. That the Moral Law doth now require of all men most perfect holiness and sinless obedience 2. That all Unconverted Impenitent Unbelievers whilst they continue such are under the penal Sanction of the Moral Law they are under its Curse and Condemnation John 3.18 He that believeth not is condemned already He is already condemned in Law though the Laws condemnatory Sentence is not yet executed upon him But as many
the whole World which we do most abhor Jerome who was contemporary with Pelagius writing against the Pelagians saith Hierom. Epist ad Ctesiphontèm propè medium Asserunt se per arbitrii libertatem nequaquà m ultrà necessarium habere Deum c. Quid rursum te ingeris ut nihil pòssim facere nisi tu in me tua dona compleveris That they assert by reason of the free Will which God hath once given them they stand no more in need of God For saith the Pelagian unto God Thou hast once given me free Will that I may do what I will Wherefore dost thou intrude thy self again so that I can do nothing unless thou perfect thy gifts in me Which Jerome thus confutes They are ignorant of what is written 1 Cor. 4.7 What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it And It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth Mercy Rom. 9.16 It is my part to will and to run Velle currere meum est sed ipjum meum sine dei semper auxilio non crit meum but without the continual help of God that very thing which is mine will not be mine That is it will never be done by me but will come to nothing For the same Apostle saith It is God who worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2.13 God is always bestowing always giving That which God hath once given me Non sufficit nihi quod semel donavit nisi semper donaverit c. is not sufficient for me unless he shall still continually give me I ask that I may receive and when I have received I ask again I am covetous to receive the gifts of God neither is he wanting in giving nor am I satiated in receiving By how much the more I drink in the Grace of God by so much the more do I thirst after it This which Jerome wrote Twelve hundred years ago against the Pelagians with his Pen we subscribe to it with heart and hand In like manner we subscribe to that of Coelestin in his Epistle to the Gauls in behalf of Prosper and Hilary Coelestini de gratiâ dei Epist cap. 9. Ita deus in cordibus hominum c. God so works in the hearts of Men and on Free Will it self that a Holy Thought Pious Counsel and every good motion of the Will is from God for it is by him that we can do any good without whom we can do no good And to the Seventh Canon of the second Council of Orange If any shall affirm that Man by the strength of Nature Si quis dixerit per naturae vigorem c. without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit can think or choose aright any good that pertains to the happiness of Eternal Life or that he can savingly consent to the Evangelical preaching He is deceived by an Heretical Spirit not understanding the voice of God saying in the Gospel John 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing And that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God All this we firmly believe and heartily embrace And therefore whosoever saith that we are Pelagians or Semipelagians either he knows us not and ignorantly defames us or if he know us and our Principles he knowingly belyes us which we hope our Accuser would not do And as we our selves are not Pelagians no nor Semipelagians so we do not plead for any that are such but are ready to plead for the Truth against them as the Lord shall call us and enable us thereunto As for the Brethren that are accused a number of them hath approved our Apology and we plead only for them who do or shall approve it But if there should be any of the Subscribers whom we have not consulted with who unknown to us are of a Judgment different from us in these matters we leave them to plead for themselves Yet though we thus write we doubt not but they will all agree to the Sum and Substance of what we have said and proved in this our Apology As 1. That the Gospel is a new Law of Grace in the Sense we have affirmed and proved it so to be by the Word of God and by the Testimonies of Antient Fathers and Modern Divines 2. That this Law of Grace or Gospel-Covenant is conditional as we have stated the conditionality of it that is It is conditional with respect to the subsequent Blessings and Benefits of it such as Justification and Glorification 3. That Evangelical Repentance is a Condition Dispositive of the Subject Man necessary in order to his being justified as we have proved by Scripture and Reason and by many Testimonies of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines And that a lively effectual Faith is the Condition receptive and applicative of the Object Christ and his Righteousness by and for which only Man is justified Finally That sincere Evangelical Obedience proceeding from a Principle of true Faith is a condition necessary on Mans part unto his obtaining possession of Eternal Salvation in Heaven for the alone merits of Christ 4. That in effectual calling by the Word and Spirit of Christ there is a real change and holy qualifications wrought in the Soul of Man in order of Nature before he be justified and pardoned 5. That the Common distinction is true as we have explained it and Calvin and the Synod of Dort approved it That Christ dyed for all men sufficiently but for the Elect only efficaciously This is the summ of what we believe and here contend for and we doubt not but all the Subscribers even those of them whom we never saw do and will agree to these things which are the commonly received Doctrines of the Reformed Churches And it is for such Persons that we make an Apology and for no others In pleading for these things aforesaid we are perswaded in our own Conscience and we think upon good and solid grounds that we plead for the Truth and Purity of the Gospel the defence whereof to the Glory of God is the principal thing that we propose to our selves in this present Apology And next to God's Glory in the defence of his Truth we design the Edification and Common Good of Christ's Church and the defence of our selves only in subserviency to those higher ends That the Father of Lights the God of Truth and Love and Peace would pour out upon us all of all perswasions a Spirit of Light and Love Purity and Peace that we may all see the Truth with our minds believe and love it with our hearts and profess and practice it purely and peaceably in our lives to the Glory of God in Christ to the Honour of Religion and to the Spiritual and Eternal good of our own and others
thing meant by Condition as really as if it were expressed For saith the Apostle If thou shalt confess with thy Mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy Hâ—â—rt that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved This Evangelical Pronsise and Proposition is as Conditional as is that Legal one Rom. 10.5 The man that doth those things shall live by them But that Legal Promise and Proposition is Conditional and confessed so to be therefore is this conditional also If it be said that the Condition is not the same nor doth it serve to the same end and purpose we grant that For we never said nor thought that the Conditions are the same and for the same Ends and Purposes for the one is a Legal Condition the other is Evangelical and so they differ specisically and in kind But what then Therefore they are not both Conditions We deny the Consequence For though they differ in the specisical yet they agree in the generical nature of Conditions And Faith is as properly a Condition in genere conditionis Evangelicae as personal perfect sinless Obedience is a Condition in genere conditionis legalis that is Faith is as properly an Evangelical Condition as perfect sinless Obedience is properly a Legal Condition We remember that the Pelagians of old objected against the Orthodox that either our Faith is not wrought in us by the Special Grace of God or else it cannot be a Duty and so it cannot be a Condition But we know also how St. Augustin answered their Objection Lib. de praedestin Sanct. cap. 11. Their Objection was this Cum dicitur si credideris salvus eris c. When it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved The one of these to wit Faith is required of us by a Command the other to wit Salvation is offered us by Promise then that which is required is in Man's Power as that which is promised is in God's Power To this Pelagian Objection Augustin answers thus Sic dicitur si credideris salvus eris Quemadmodum dicitur si Spiritu c. That is So it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved as it is said if you through the Spirit do mortifie the Deeds of the Body you shall live Rom. 8.13 For here also the one of these two is required and the other is promised as then although it be the Gist of God to mortifie the Deeds of the Flesh yet it is required of us with an offer of the Reward of Life for our encour agement thereunto Just so Faith is also the Gift of God although it be required of us with an offer of the Reward of Salvation for our encouragement to believe when it is said if thou believest thou shalt be saved For those things are therefore both commanded us and also shewed to be the Gists of God that it may be known that both we do them and also that God causeth us to do them Thus Augustin We find the like Objection with the like Answer to it in Bradwardin De Causâ Dei lib. 2. cap. 28. p. 567 569. The Objection Si Deus necessario requiratur ad agendum c. If it be necessary that God concur to the proper production of every Act of the Creatures Will since God's concurring or acting is not in the power of the Creature then no act of the Creature would be in its own power The Answer is In rerum temporalium spiritualium administratione videmus c. In the administration both of temporal and spiritual things we see that there are more Powers and Dominions over the same thing subordinate to one another as Inferior and Superior wherefore no Man ought to doubt but that though the Will of the Creature have Power and Dominion over its own Act yet thereby is not excluded a Superior Power and Lord to wit God himself from a Superior Power Dominion and Efficiency in respect of the same Act. And a little after he says out of Thomas Aquinas The Will is said to have Dominion over its own Act not by excluding the first cause but the first cause doth not so act on the Will as to determine it necessarily to one thing as he determines Nature or natural Agents and therefore the determination of the Act is lest in the power of the Vnderstanding and Will We mention both these Objections with Answers to them out of St. Augustin and Bradwardin to shew that though we cannot believe without but do believe by the Grace of God yet that no ways hinders our Faith from being a duty required of us and also a Condition of the Covenant to be performed by us and we know our Authour cannot bring any appearance of an Argument against this but that which was brought by the Pelagians in the time of St. Augustin and which he answered As for the place of Scripture we are arguing from we have Calvin on our side acknowledging that it contains a Conditional Promise of the Gospel-Covenant a Promise of Righteousness and Salvation to all that sincerely believe in Christ with their Hearts and confess him with their Mouths For thus he writes Instit Lib. 2. cap. 5. Sect. 12. speaking of this very place of Scripture to wit Rom. 10.5 8 9. id reputans Paulus c. i. e. Paul considering this that Salvation is offered in the Gospel not upon that hard difficult impossible condition which the Law requires of us to wit that they only shall obtain Salvation who have fully kept all the Commandments but upon a condition that is easie ready and soon attained unto to wit the Condition of Faith he confirms it with this testimony To wit the Testimony of Moses which Paul quotes out of Deuteronomy chap. 30. ver 11 12 13 14. and interprets it of the Doctrine of Faith in the Gospel Let any read and compare Rom. 10.6 7 8. with Deut. 30.11 12 13 14. And they will see that Calvin did rightly conclude from those places that in the Judgment of St. Paul Salvation is promised us here in the Gospel upon a much easier Condition than it was in and by the Law This conditionality of the Covenant of Grace is clearly proved also by all those places of Scripture which assure us 1. That all who believe shall be justified and saved John 3.16 18 36. John 6.40 John 20.31 Mark 16.16 Acts 10.43 and 13.39 Rom. 4.24 Gal. 2.16 and 3.9 11. 2. That they who believe not whilst they continue in Unbelief shall not be justified and saved John 3.18.36 and 8.24 Mark 16.16 Revel 21.8 These Scriptures plainly shew that Faith is a Condition of the Covenant because the definition and nature of a Condition agrees to it For 1. Faith is a Duty which God requires of us for obtaining the promised benefit of Justification and Salvation 1 John 3.23 Rom. 10.9 2. God hath suspended his giving us the promised benefit of Justification and Salvation upon our performing the required Duty of
truth that Repentance is before Justification at least in order of Nature They object further if Repentance be before Justification then it is either before or after Faith but it cannot be before Faith for it is impossible that a man should sincerely repent before he believe Nor can it be after Faith if it be before Justification for a man is justified by Faith and that assoon as he believes We answer That men needed not to be deluded by such a silly sophism if they would distinguish 1. Between the Abiding Seed and Principle and the Transient Act of Faith 2. Between the Assenting Act of Faith and it s fiducially consenting act For though Faith in the Principle of it be but one single Grace yet in the Exercise of it it hath several acts successively following one another and yet not so closely neither but that the Act of Repentance may come between them Now to apply these distinctions we say that from Repentance's being before Justification it doth by no means follow that it is altogether and in all respects before Faith For 1. The Seed and Principle of Faith is before the Act of Repentance 2. The assenting Act of Faith is also before the Act of Repentance And thus from a principle of Faith and by the help of an Act of Faith the Soul sincerely repents in order to Justification and pardon of sin then after the said Act of Repentance there comes another Act of Faith to wit the Act of Fiducial consent to receive Christ as he is offered in the Gospel whereupon the penitent believing Soul is immediately justified and pardoned This we learn of Calvin who in his Institutions lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 19. writes thus Sic Christus suas conciones auspicatus est c. So also Christ began his Sermons Mark 1.15 The Kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the Gospel First he declares that the treasures of God's mercy were opened in him Then 2. He requires Repentance And 3. and lastly He requires a trust or relyance on the promises of God Here we have the Lords order of things judiciously set forth 1. He declares that the Treasures of God's Mercy are opened in him This Declaration of God's Infinite Mercy in Christ held forth to lost Sinners of Mankind is the object of our Faith of assent and we are bound to assent to it as an infallible Truth and to be firmly perswaded of it 2. He requires our Repentance he requires that assenting to the Truth of the Gospel and being firmly perswaded that God is upon terms of Mercy with us through him we should repent and be heartily sorry that by our sins we have offended so merciful a God and resolve in God's strength to do so no more 3. And lastly That supposing we so repent from a principle of Faith assenting to the Revelation of God's great Mercy in Christ to lost Sinners indefinitely he requires that we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises that according to his promises he will for Christ's sake be merciful to us in pardoning us all our sins When we are through Grace arrived at this Act of Faith whereby we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises then we are instantly pardoned accepted as Righteous and get a right to Life for the alone satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of our Lord Redeemer But we could never attain to this Act of Faith and thereby to pardon of sin for Christ's sake if we did not first believe with the Faith of assent that God through Christ is upon terms of Mercy and Peace with us That is the first Act of Faith and when it is of the right kind and proceeds from the right Principle the super-natural Seed of Faith put into the heart it is through the influence of the Holy Spirit of mighty force and efficacy 1. To make us repent to make us through Grace heartily sorry for having displeased and dishonoured so good and Merciful a God by our sins and to make us resolve through Grace to do so no more 2. It is of as great force and efficacy to make us trust and rely on Gods promises and on Christ revealed in the promises that God according to his promises will for Christ's sake justifie and pardon us Thus we have answered that frivolous Objection and clearly shewed how true Repentance is in order before Justification and pardon of sin and yet not altogether and in all respects before Faith but partly after and partly before Faith after the principle and assenting Act of Faith but before the fiducially consenting and trusting Act of Faith And what though no Man could give a clear account of the exact order observed by our Souls in the acting of their several Graces yet that should hinder no Christian from believing that true Repentance is in order before pardon of sin because God who cannot he hath plainly told us in the Scripture of Truth that it is in order before pardon as hath been proved If then we have any Faith in God and his Word We should say Let God be True who ever proves a Lyar. Certainly it is very unreasonable foolish and dangerous too to deny or doubt of that which is clear because we cannot throughly understand that which is obscure to wit the precise order of the Souls acting its Graces This may suffice at present to prove that the Gospel-promise of Justification and pardon of sin is conditional and that Faith and Repentance are the Condition of it 2. In the second and last place we shall briefly prove by Scripture that the Gospel-promise of Glorification and Eternal Salvation is conditional and that sincere obedience is the Condition of it For the better understanding of our meaning in this matter we premise a few things As 1. That this is to be understood upon supposition that a man lives some considerable time after that he is effectually called and justified and pardoned upon his first believing and repenting and that he hath space and opportunity to perform his Covenant Engagement unto the Lord and to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance If the Man dye presently after his Justification and pardon there is no more required on his part the Spirit perfects his begun Sanctification and God through Christ consummates his Salvation without requiring any more of him than what he is inabled to do as he is a dying But if God give him time and opportunity and he live It is required that proportionably to his Talents and time he serve the Lord in Faith and Holy Obedience that he renew his Faith and Repentance for pardon as often as he finds that he has fallen into sin and that he return to his Duty again serving the Lord all his days in Faith Hope Love Fear Patience Meekness Humility and Heavenly-mindedness c. 2. The Obedience that is required as aforesaid must
may be observed and remembred that when we say sincere Obedience is indispensably necessary to Salvation we do not mean that it is required as absolutely and indispensably necessary to our Salvation that our sincere Obedience be never at all interrupted by any Acts of disobedience but that if it happen that our Obedience be at any time notably interrupted by Acts of wilful presumptuous Sin it is indispensably necessary to our Salvation that we renew our Faith and Repentance and return to our Obedience again and that we dye in Faith and Obedience to the revealed Will of God As for them who are called at the last Hour who are first converted and justified a little before their Death Actual Faith and Repentance is required of them in their own Persons and as much more sincere Obedience as they have time and strength to performe As we see in the penitent Thief he performed a great deal of Obedience in a little time he not onely believed in Christ with his Heart but confessed him with his Mouth pleaded for him and vindicated him from the blasphemous Aspersions that were cast upon him He likewise took shame to himself and gave Glory to God by confessing his own Sins and withal he expressed his Love to his Fellow-Thief by rebuking and admonishing him Lastly He trusted in and prayed unto Christ as a Lord and King who had a Kingdome in another World and who could help and save him after this Life Luke 22.40 41 42. This that penitent Malefactor did at his Death and truly this was a great deal for him to do at such a time and when Christ his Lord and Saviour was before his Face in so low and miserable a Condition to the Eye of Sense and Reason The Obedience which that poor penitent Believer yeilded to the Lord in such Circumstances may well be esteemed equivalent to all that sincere Obedience which in the space of many Years others in better Circumstances perform unto the Lord. Thus we have at large prosecuted and cleared this Argument for the indispensable necessity of sincere Obedience to the obtaining of Eternal Life and Salvation and consequently for the Conditionality of the Covenant-promise of Eternal Life and Salvation And the Argument seems to us so clear and cogent that we do not see any thing of weight that can be objected against it If any should say that sincere Evangelical Obedience is not only necessary to Salvation as the condition to be performed on our parts but upon other accounts also We heartily acknowledge that it is so It is necessary to express our Love and Thankfulness to God and Christ for their wonderful Goodness and Grace Mercy and Love to us As also it is necessary in order to the pleasing and Glorifying our God Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and that thereby we may profit and edifie our Neighbours But this doth by no means hinder its being likewise indispensably necessary to our own Salvation nay all this is a part of that Obedience which is so necessary to our Salvation If yet any should further object and say that besides Faith sincere Obedience may be indispensably necessary to Salvation and yet not be a Condition of obtaining Salvation We answer that we do not love to contend with any about the use of the word condition if they will grant us the thing signified by the Word Now by the Word condition in this matter of Obedience we mean no more but that sincere Obedience is so necessary to Salvation that God by his Promise hath suspended our obtaining of Salvation consummate Salvation in Heavenly Glory till we have performed sincere Obedience unto him assuring us that if through Grace we perform sincere Obedience unto him we shall certainly be saved but if not we shall not be saved This is all we mean by sincere Obedience its being the Condition of the Covenant-promise of Salvation If our Brethren agree to this they yeild us the thing that we contend for and there remains no more difference as to this matter but about the use of the word condition and if they do not think fit to use that Word we leave them to their Liberty not to use it as we desire they would leave us to our Liberty to use it as we have occasion For though the Word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by the Word is manifestly there as we have proved It is also a Word of Antient usage in the Christian Church even in the best Reformed Churches before ever we were born why then should we forbear the use of the Word condition or why should any be offended at our using of it Indeed we cannot forbear the using of it for the Reason given us by some well-meaning Men because it is not a Scriptural-word For if that Reason prove any thing it will prove too much to wit that we should not use the Words Trinity Incarnation Satisfaction Merit of Christ Sacrament Infant-baptism c. and which is more that we should wholly give over Preaching the Gospel and hereafter only Read the Holy Scripture without Expounding it for we are sure that no Man doth or can Preach one Sermon without using some Word or Words that are not expresly in the Scripture And as our sincere Obedience may be and really is a Condition of obtaining Eternal Salvation though it be not expresly called by that Name in Scripture so may it be and really it is a Condition though it be performed by the help of God's Grace We know this is the main Reason why our Brethren think that neither our Faith nor Obedience can be a Condition of the Covenant because they are wrought in us by the special and effectual Grace of God but we know also that this is a very weak Reason For 1. We do not say that that is the Condition of the Covenant which is the Work and Effect of Gods Grace alone Such is effectual Calling on God's part and the infusion of the Seminal abiding principle of supernatural Spiritual Life It is God only who calls us effectually and who infuses the said Principle of Grace and Life into our Souls and we are merely passive in the reception of it We never said nor thought that it is required of us by way of Duty or Condition that we should effectually call our selves and infuse a supernatural Principle of Grace and Life into our selves This indeed would be very absurd Therefore we hold that our being effectually called and our having an abiding principle of Grace and Life given in unto us is quid prae-requisitum something pre-required to our right performing the condition but not the condition it self That which is required of us by way of Duty and Condition on which God promiseth us the subsequent blessings of the Covenant It is that we do not resist his Spirit and that by the grace of his Spirit we do actually believe and obey and persevere to the end Now the Grace of God whereby
to the end And then he proceeds saying This is the way Beloved wherein we find Jesus Christ our saving health the High Priest of our Offerings the Guardian and Helper of our weakness Lastly In Page 102 105 106. He that hath Love in Christ let him keep the Commandments of Christ c. Blessed are we Beloved if we have done the Commandments of God in the Concord of Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that through Love our Sins may be forgiven us For it is written Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin neither is there guile in his mouth This Blessedness hath been unto those who were chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen Thus Clement who was Paul's Fellow-Labourer Phil. 4.3 and who may well be presumed to know his Mind as to these Matters and we see evidently by his Words that he held as we do that Faith and Repentance are both antecedently necessary to Justification and pardon of sin and further that sincere Obedience to Christ's Commandments in a course of holy living is indispensably necessary to the obtaining of Eternal Life and Glory in the Everlasting Kingdome of our most Glorious God and Saviour But some may possibly say what did Clement mean by writing as he doth that our sins are forgiven us through Love Is that an Orthodox Expression We Answer What did our Saviour mean by saying Mat. 6.14 15. If ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses And again what did our Saviour mean by saying Mark 11.25 When ye stand praying forgive if ye have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses Were these Orthodox Expressions If they were Orthodox as doubtless they were and it were Blasphemy to think otherwise then so is the expression of Clement Orthodox for the Expressions are alike upon the matter and the meaning is the same Clement by saying that our sins are forgiven through Love meant no more but that our forgiving our Neighbour his Trespasses against us which is an Act of Love is a Means of God's appointment whereby we obtain the forgiveness of our sins from God through Christ We do not doubt but this was Clement's meaning and we are sure it was our Saviours When he said Mark 11.25 If ye have ought against any forgive that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you Our blessed Lord who is the faithful Witness makes God's forgiving us to be the End and our forgiving our Neighbour to be a Means indispensably necessary to be used by us for obtaining that End So that we obtain the forgiveness of our sins through Love in a very sound and Orthodox sense even as sound and Orthodox as Christ's Gospel is In the second place we bring the foresaid Testimony of Origen to prove that the real change which is wrought in the Soul by a sincere Repentance is antecedently necessary to dispose and prepare us for obtaining the promised Blessing of Pardon of sin which is an essential part of Justification It is in his Third Book against Celsus of the Cambridge Edition pag. 154. The Passage in Origen begins thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Which we will give the sense of in English for the use of our Authour After these things viz. which had been objected and answered before he Celsus takes upon him to charge us with that which is not granted by the more rational judicious Believers though perhaps it may be thought so by some foolish or ignorant Christians that as some Men are overcome by and under the Dominion of a tender compassionate natural frame and temper of Mind so God being overcome by and under the power of a merciful compassionate nature towards them that are in misery he relieves and pardons miserable Men though they be wicked if withal they be of a pitiful merciful nature◠But though they be otherwise good men yet God rejects them if they be not of such a pitiful compassionate Nature Which is most unjust For according to our Faith God doth not relieve so as to pardon and receive into his Favour any wicked Man unless he be first turned unto virtue that is converted like as he doth not reject any that is now become a good Man But neither doth he relieve or shew mercy unto any Man of a merciful Nature meerly because he is of a merciful Nature taking the word Mercy in the sense that the vulgar or common People use it in but those that greatly condemn themselves for their sins so as thereupon to mourn and bewail themselves as lost and undone by reason of the evil they have done and withal give evidence of a signal change such as becomes true Penitents God grants to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grace of Repentance that is the Gracious Fruit and Benefit promised to Repentance even to them who have changed their most wicked course For unto such is given as by Act of Oblivion a pardon of their past sins through the vertue that comes to dwell in their Souls and casts out the vice and corruption that possessed them before Or if at first they attain not unto a confirmed habit of vertue yet there is a notable change in the Soul which proceeds so far as that it is sufficient according to the proportion of it to purge out and take away the great abundance of wickedness that was in it before so as it can hardly ever get into the Soul again Thus far Origen In which Testimony of his there are several things worthy of our observation 1. Origen did not write this meerly as a private Christian or Teacher of the Church declaring what was his own private Opinion but as the great and famous Apologist in his time for Christ the Christian Church and for the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Heatheus particularly against Celsus a very learned Heathen who had written learnedly and spitefully against Christ and against Christians and the Christian Religion 2. Whereas Celsus had charged Christians with an absurd impious Opinion as that they believed That God pardoneth wicked Mens sins and receives them into his Favour if they be of a good Nature of a soft pitiful compassionate Temper before there pass a real change upon them before they repent before they turn from sin and return unto God in Heart and Affection Origen deuyed the Charge and affirmed that no rational intelligent judicious Christian believed any such thing that if any Christian did at all believe that God justified and pardoned a wicked Man before he had repented of his sins and returned unto the Lord they must be some foolish simple ignorant People and yet he would not absolutely grant to his Adversary that there
Saints but they raise up the fallen again that they be not ruined For the promises also are expresly extended unto the Righteous sometimes fallen into sin Psal 37.24 and 89.30 31 32 33 34. The same Authour writing against the Papist upon the same subject saith Fides tune dicitur justificare cum actum proprium c. Faith is then said to justifie when it can exercise Pareus lib. 1. de amissione gratiae cap. 7. prope finem and doth exercise its proper act of Receiving Remission of sins but a Faith that is sick wounded oppressed with the filth of the flesh and as it were bound with the fetters of sin doth not exercise nor can it exercise this act and a little after But God doth not impute sin to the just that are fallen to wit when they repent but before they repent he doth indeed impute sin to them by inflicting temporal punishments and unless they repented he would impute sin to them by inflicting also eternal punishments And he thus concludes Tune igitur fides in lapsis habitualiter tantion manens propriè justificans dici aut eos justificare non potest Therefore Faith then remaining habitually only in the lapsed it cannot properly be said to be justifying or to justifie them Thus far Pareus Whereby we plainly see that he held the Covenant of Grace to be conditional as we do that Faith and Repentance are conditions of it especially Faith is the main condition by the acts whereof we are justified and receive Remission of sin not by the habit because it is the Act and not the Habit that receives Christ and Remission of sins through him 2. He held that after Justification sincere Obedience to the Lord in the avoiding of wilful presumptuous sins of Omission and Commission is a Condition so necessary to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation that without such Obedience either continued without intermission or after some notable intermission of its acts and weakning of its habit renewed again by new acts of Faith and Repentance Salvation cannot be obtained nor Damnation avoided 3. That though there be such conditions required of the Elect in order to Justification and of the justified in order to Salvation yet they are not uncertain as to the event but shall through special effectual Grace be infallibly performed and the Elect and Justified shall be eternally saved This was the Gospel that Pareus preached and the Synod of Dort approved And it is that and no other which we preach also Therefore it must needs be a great falsehood and slander that we preach a new Arminian Gospel We find likewise that the Divines of Geneva Deodat and Tronchin in the Synod of Doâ—t were for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace in the sense before explained for thus they write in their suffrage concerning the second Article Fides est revera conditio novi foederis respectu ordinis inviolabilis a Deo instituti Act. Synod Dondrect part 2. page 132. c. Faith is indeed the Condition of the new Covenant in respect of the inviolable order instituted by God but it is also a promised gift of the new Covenant and an effect of our ingrafting into Christ In these words 1. We observe That in the Judgment of those Divines approved by the Synod of Dort God by his absolute Will hath instituted a conditional order between the antecedent and subsequent blessings of the new Covenant 2. That Faith is the Condition ordained by God for obtaining the subsequent blessings of the Covenant such as Justification Pardon of sin c. 3. That it is not habitual Faith or the first habitual seminal permanent principle of Faith but it is actual Faith because they say that it is the effect of our ingrafting into Christ but the first seminal permanent principle of Faith is not the effect of our ingrafting into Christ otherwise we should be ingrafted into Christ before we have so much as the least seminal principle of Faith since the cause must be before the effect Therefore to avoid that absurdity we think they meant that our ingrafting into Christ begins in the Spirits working in us the seminal principle of Faith which concurs to the producing of the Act of Faith which being our formal vital Act though produced by the Vertue of the Seminal Principle and the effectual influence of the Spirit is the Condition of the Covenant performed by us and withal is the effect of our initial ingrafting into Christ The same Doctrine is believed and professed at Geneva at this day Witness what was lately Taught and Published by Turretin Professor of Divinity there In Page 196. of that Book he saith that Christ requires Faith in God's Promises and Obedience to his Commandments Turrotin Institut Theologiae Eleâ—ct Part. 2. Edit Genev. 1688. as the Duties and Conditions of the Covenant And in the same Page he saith that The form of Words wherein the new Covenant is expressed I will be your God and you shall be my People comprehends both the Benefits promised on God's part and the Duties required on our part And first he explains at large what promised Benefits on God's part are implied in the Words I will be your God Secondly he shews what Duties required on our parts are implied in the Words you shall be my People After he had in general opened the meaning of the foresaid Form of the Covenant he comes to particulars and in the 29. Paragraph he sayes The Principal Duties required of us are Faith and Repentance Faith which embraces the Promises and Repentance which fulfils the Commandments Faith answers to the Promise of Grace believe and thou shalt be saved Repentance is commanded Lege Evangelicâ by the Evangelical Law walk before me and be thou perfect Gon. 17.1 For as on God's part there are two principal Benefits of the Covenant Remission of sins and the writing of the Law in the Heart so on Man's part two Duties ought to answer unto them to wit Faith which applies unto us the Remission of sins and Repentance or the study and endeavour of Sanctification which reduces into practice the Law written in the Heart by walking in God's Statutes which Christ meant when he said Mark 1.25 Repent and believe the Gospel In Page 202. he puts the Question Whether the Covenant of Grace be conditional and what are the Conditions of it And in Answer to it he distinguishes between several sorts of Conditions and as we have done shews that in some sense it is not Conditional and then he concludes that in another sense it it Conditional and Page 203. he proves it by three Arguments 1. Because it is proposed with a Condition expressed John 3.16 36. Bom. 10.9 Acts 8.37 Mark 16.16 And frequently in other places 2. Because if it were not conditional there would be no place for Threatnings in the Gospel which cannot be denounced but against those who neglect to performe the Condition prescribed For the
the Condition of it It is clear also that he held as we do that God by his Special Grace purchased for us by Christ and given to us for Christ's sake enables us and all the Elect to perform the Condition of Faith and Repentance and that effectually and infallibly As for the Non-Elect who do not perform the Condition he says the reason the culpable reason of that is because they will not and though it be true also that they cannot yet that is not a meer Physical but a moral cannot which ariseth from the evil disposition of their minds and affections whereby they will not That this was Dr. Twiss his Judgment is evident by these following Testimonies of his quoted out of the same Book Observe we farther how this Authour confounds impotency moral Ibid. p. 155 156. which consisteth in the corruption of mans powers natural and impotency natural which consisteth in bereaving him of power natural The Lord tells us by his Prophet Jeremiah cap. 13.23 That like as a Blackamore cannot change his skin nor a Leopard his spots no more can they do good that are accustomed unto evil Now if a man taken in stealth shall plead thus before a Judge My Lord I beseech you have compassion upon me for I have so long time inured my hands to pilfering that now I cannot forbear it will this be accepted as a good plea to save him from the Gallows As for Faith It is well known that Divines distinguish between fides acquisita and sides infusa acquired and infused Faith That we may call a Faith naturally acquired which is found in carnal Persons whether Prophane or Hypoâ—ritical And this to wit the infused is a Faith inspired by God's Spirit The object of each is all one and a Man may suffer Martyrdom for the one as well as for the other which manifesseth the pertinacious adherence thereunto And it appears that all Professions have had their Martyrs Albeit it be not in the power of Nature to believe side infusa with an inspired Faith yet it is in the power of nature to believe the Gospel side acquisitâ with an acquired Faith which depends partly upon a mans Education and partly upon reason considering the credibility of the Christian way by light of natural observations above all other ways in the World And when men refuse to embrace the Gospel not so much because of the incredibility of it but because it is not congruous to their natural affections as our Saviour tells the Jews light came into the World and men loved darkness Father than light because their deeds are evil John 3.19 Is there any reason why their condemnation should be any whit the easier for this Neither have I ever read or heard it taught by any that 〈◊〉 shall be damned for not believing with an infused Faith which is as much as to say because Goâ—d hath not regenerated them but either because they have refused to believe or else if they have embraced the Gospel for not living answerable thereunto which also is in their power quoad exteriorem vitae emendationem As to the outward Reformation of their Life though it be not in their power to regenerate their wills and change their hearts any more than it is to illuminate their minds Yet I never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more encreased for not performing these acts Again The Man bereaved of his eyes hath a will to read and consequently it is no fault for not reading For all sin is in the Will But it is not so in not obeying either Law or Gospel Ibid. page 170. If a Man had a will to obey and believe but he could not in such a case it were unreasonable he should be punished But in the case of disobedience unto God we speak of all the fault is in the will voluntarily and wilfully they neither will obey the one nor the other Like as they that have accustomed themselves to do evil cannot do good as a Blackamoor cannot change his skin yet with this difference that man is never a whit the more excusable or less punishable for not doing that which is good not so the Blackamoor for not changing his skin But such is the shameful issue of them that confound Impotency Moral with Impotency Natural as if there were no difference c. Again To the Rule of Law objected by Mr. Hoard That contractus sub conditione impraestabili nullus aestimatur a Contract or Promise made upon a condition not performable by the Party Ibid. p. 185 186. is esteemed none at all Twiss answers thus Conditio impraestabilis a Condition not performable is there such as cannot be performed by reason of Impotency Natural but the Impotency we speak of in the case between God and Man is merely Impotency Moral to wit therefore they cannot because they will not were it not for the Corruption of their Will no Power were wanting in Man to Believe and Repent Again Dost thou complain thou hast no power to believe but I pray thee tell me hast thou any will to believe If thou neither hast nor ever hadst any will to believe Ibid. p. 219 220. what a shamesul and unreasonable thing is it to complain that thou hast no power to believe St. Paul had a most gratious will but he sound in himself no power to do what he would but what is the issue of this complaint To sly in the face of God Nothing less But to confess his own wretchedness and flee unto God in this manner who shall deliver me from the body of this death And receiving a Gracious Answer concerning this concludes with thanks I thank God through my Lord Jesus Christ If I have a will to believe to repent I have no cause to complain but to run rather unto God with thanks for this and pray him to give that power which I find wanting in me And indeed this impotency of believing and infidelity the fruit of Natural Corruption common to all is merely a moral impotency and the very ground of it is the Corruption of the Will Therefore men cannot believe cannot repent cannot do any thing pleasing unto God because they will not they have no delight therein but all their delight is Carnal Sensual and because they are in the flesh they cannot please God and because of the hardness of their hearts they cannot repent Sin is unto them as a sweet Mirsel unto an Epicure which he rolleth under his Tongue This and much more to this purpose hath Twiss in his Book against Hoard And that this was his setled Judgment is evident by what he writes in his defence of the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort It is true that it is not in the power of man to add unto the word the efficacy of God's Spirit page 122 123. and it is as true that a carnal man hath no desire that God would add the efficacy of his Spirit
the very act of believing He doth not disclaim his Unbelief for that is sin nor doth he disclaim the conceit of meriting Justification by his Faith for that is a sinful conceit But he disclaims his Faith it self unless his Faith be either sinfulness or misery for he disclaims all things in himself but sinfulness and misery These two to wit Sinfulness and misery are the only things which he doth not disclaim Whence it follows necessarily that he disclaims his belief it self in the very act of believing and so by this means he is enabled to believe as an Unbeliever This is it may be one of our Authours deep Mysteries for which his Proselytes admire him and hug his Letter And we confess there is no such deep Mystery as the Mystery of contradictious Non-sense But if every one who believes doth believe as the chief of Sinners and so believes as an Unbeliever and as one that disclaims all true and saving Faith we would know how it comes to pass that all the Unbelievers in the World do not believe one would think that they might all easily believe with such a Faith as is acted by a Man under that reduplicating quatenus as an Unbeliever and which in the very act of believing renounceth all saving belief even every thing but Sin and Misery Of old no Man was received into the Christian Church and accounted a Christian unless he first disclaimed and renounced his sins but now it seems there is a great alteration in the state of Christianity for a man cannot at this day be a Christian unless he disclaim or which is all one renounce his Christian Faith and that too with an exception of not disclaiming his sins If this be the only way to be a Christian one would think that all the Jews Turks and Heathens in the World might easily be Christians for they can easily believe with a Faith that in the very act of it renounces and disclaims Faith but not sin But if our Authour say that every true Christian must believe in Christ with a sincere and saving Faith which Unbelievers have not and yet at the same time he must act his Faith as an Unbeliover and in the very act of Faith he must disclaim his Faith but not his Sin of Unbelief and that there must be no real change in him from Unbelief to Faith till he have Faith and have acted his Faith as aforesaid and be justified by such an Act of Faith and then a real change passes upon him in order of Nature after his Justification but not before We answer That this is contradictious Non-sense and at this rate no man can be a Christian till he hath made both ends of a contradiction meet and hath verified both parts of a contradiction in his own Person no man can be a Christian that is really changed from being an Unbeliever to be a Believer no he cannot be a Christian till he be both an Unbeliever and Believer in predominant degrees at the same time without any real change from what he was by Nature The plain English of this is that according to the Principles of our Authour laid down in his Letter no Man can ever be a good Christian at all for the thing is impossible because it implies a manifest contradiction Yet we must be so charitable as to think that our Authour hath indeed greatly mistaken in the expressing of his mind in his Letter but that really he doth not believe those things himself We hope he is of a more Orthodox Faith and are willing to impute it to some inadvertency and inconsiderateness in the hasty writing of his Letter We think he would or should have said that every one who believes on Jesus Christ acts that Faith as one who thinks himself to have been formerly before his Conversion and Faith a chief of Sinners or one of the first rank of great Sinners But doth not think himself to be still in the same state of Unregeneracy and Unbelief for if he think so of himself after that is converted and is actually believing on Christ most certainly he thinks amiss whatever our Authour say to the contrary for he thinks falsly of himself and sins in so thinking Our Authour talks confidently of that which he doth not know to wit the experience of every Believer for certainly he was never acquainted with the experiences of the thousandth part of Believers that are in the Christian Church at this day Can he then say in Faith that it is the experience of every Believer that he acts his Faith as one who in former times hath been as great a Sinner and hath done as much dishonour to God and as much mischief to the Church and to the World as the present King of France But whatever he say or think of Believers we are perswaded that true Believers are taught of God as to be humble so to be wise in acting their Faith wiser we are confident than that every one of them should think himself to be so great a Sinner as that he hath done as much dishonour to God and mischief to the Church of Christ as Lewis the Fourteenth has done and still continues to do Again when he says that a Believer and accepter of Christ in the very act of believing and accepting expresly disclaims all things in himself but Sin and Misery we think he should have said that he either expresly or implicitly formally or virtually in the very act of Believing disclaims all things in himself as being of and from himself but Sin and Misery which are indeed of and from himself and he takes the shame and blame thereof upon himself but as for his Faith or any good disposition or qualification that is in him he ascribes it all to the free Grace of God and gives God all the Glory of it And after the same manner in the very act of believing in order of Nature before he be justified he virtually acknowledges to God's Glory that by his Grace he hath wrought a real Holy Change in his Soul and of a blind proud Unbeliever hath made him an understanding humble Believer according to that 1 John 5.20 We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true Reason 5. Fifthly and lastly The Seminal vital principle of justifying Faith is seated in the heart and the first vital act of it comes from the heart Rom. 10.10 With the heart man believes unto Righteousness We demand then concerning the first vital act of justifying Faith either it comes from a renewed Heart or an unrenewed Heart a Regenerate Heart of an â—â—â—regenerate Heart a Heart of Flesh or an Heart of Stone or if it come not from either of these then it must come from a third that is from a Heart that is neither renewed nor unrenewed neither regenerate nor unregenerate neither of Flesh nor of Stone But now 1. The first vital act of
per suos Ministros c. When the Voice of God by his Ministers so founds outwardly in the Ears of the Body that together with it the Spirit of God inwardly fits or prepares the Mind of the Hearer that it may be able to understand and Efficaciously disposes the Will to Assent or rather Consent Then they proceed to the next Tertium est fides vera c. The third is true Faith to wit when from Effectual Calling there arifeth the Knowledge of Salvation understood and again Assent follows that Knowledge and that such an Assent as applies the Promise of the Gospel to the Believers own Conscience c. Lastly They say that the fourth and fifth means are the Effects of true Faith in the Elect and they are Justification and after that Sanctification and Perseverance to the end From this Testimony of the Embdane Divines it is as evident that in their Judgment there are some Holy saving Preparations and Dispositions in the Souls of Gods select People before they be justified as it is evident that the second is before the fourth for Effectual Vocation whereby those Holy Dispositions are wrought in the Soul is the second and Justification is the fourth between which actual Faith comes in as the Third So that if we can but reckon two three four and can understand that if the second be before the third it must be also before the fourth then may we see that there are some Holy Dispositions and Qualifications in the Soul arising from Effectual Calling before Justification This was read in and approved by the Synod and therefore here we have again the Testimony of the whole Synod of Dort for Holy Dispositions and Qualifications in the Soul before Justification It would be almost endless to run over all the Suffrages of the several Colledges of Divines and to quote what they have said to this purpose therefore we shall pass that as superfluous and conclude with the Testimony of our own Brittish Divines which is to be seen in their Collegiate Suffrage translated into English and Printed in the year 1629. Their Words are God doth regenerate by a certain â—inward and wonderful Operation The Suffrage of the Divines of Great Brittain Art 3.4 pag. 70.80 81. the Souls of the Elect being stirred up and prepared by the foresaid Acts of his Grace and doth as it were create them anew by infusing his quickning Spirit and seasoning all the Faculties of the Soul with new qualities Here by Regeneration we understand not every Act of the Holy Spirit which goes before or tends to Regeneration but that Act which assoon as it is there we conclude presently or as the Original hath it it may presently be rightly affirmed This man is now born of God This Spiritual Birth presupposes a Mind moved by the Spirit using the Instrument of Gods Word whence also we are said to be born again by the incorruptible Seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1.23 Which must be observed lest any one should idlely and slothfully expect an Enthusiastical Regeneration that is to say wrought by a sudden Rapture without any foregoing Action either of God the Word or Himself Furthermore we conclude that the Spirit regenerating us doth convey it self into the most inward Closet of the Heart and frame the Mind anew by curing the sinful Inclinations thereof and by giving it strength and a formal Principle In the Original it is Principium formale Or Active Power to produce spiritual and saving Actions Ephes 2.10 We are his Workman-ship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Ezek. 36.26 I will take away the stony Heart and give you an Heart of Flesh From this Work of God cometh our Ability to perform spiritual Actions leading to Salvation as the act of Believing 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God Of Loving 1 John 4.7 Every one that loveth is born of God Lastly all works of Piety John 15.5 Without mere can do nothing Again Upon the former habitual Conversion Pag. 83.84 followeth our actual Conversion wherein out of our reformed or changed Will for the Original is ex mutata Voluntate God himself draweth forth the very act of our Believing and Converting and this our Will being first moved by God doth it self also work by turning unto God convertendo se ad Deum and Believing that is by executing eliciendo producing withal it s own proper lively Act. We say that God doth not only work that habitual Conversion or Change for the Word in the Original is Mutationem whereby a man gets new Spiritual Ability to Believe and Convert but also that God doth by a certain wonderful Efficacy of his secret Operation Pag. 85. extract out of our regenerated Sanatâ cured Will the very Act of Believing and Converting So the Scripture speaketh in divers places John 6.65 The Father giveth us Power to come unto the Son that is to Believe Phil. 1.29 To you it is given to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Act of Believing 2 Tim. 2.25 God giveth Repentance This Action of God in producing Faith doth not hinder Pag. 86. but rather is the cause that the Will doth work together with God and produce its own Act and therefore this Act of Believing howsoever it is sent or given from God yet because it is performed by Man is Attributed to Man himself Rom. 10.10 With the Heart man believeth unto Righteousness 2 Cor. 4.13 I believed therefore have I spoken Again This Action of God doth not hurt the freedom of the Will but strengthen it Pag. 87.88 Here we deny that by the Divine Operation there is any wrong offered to the Will or any hurt done to it for it is in the Original negamus loesionem voluntatis for God doth so work in Nature even when he raiseth and advanceth it above its proper Sphere that he doth not destroy the particular Nature of any thing but leaves to every thing it s own Way and Motion in actione producenda in producing its Action When therefore God worketh in the Wills of Men by his Spirit of Grace he makes them move in their own natural way or course that is freely and then they do the work the more freely by how much they are the more effectually stirred up by the Spirit of God John 8.36 If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed 2 Cor. 3.17 Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty Verily it seemeth incredible to us that God who made our Wills and gifted them with Liberty should not be able to work on them or in them after such a manner as that he may produce any good Action by them without hurting their Nature that is freely Ut quamlibet bonam actionem per easdem illaesâ earum naturâ hoc est liberé eliciat By these passages quoted out of the Suffrage of our Divines in the Synod of Dort it is most evident that
Church or Rome and is in it and held by some of its Bishops at this day And we know the Possibility or impossibility of the thing hath been matter of not disputes amongst their Schoolmen Witness Vasque◠in 1◠2dae Dispur 206 207. Suarez l. 2. degratiâ Cap. 22 23. Becan in Summâ Theolog. partis 2dae part 1. Tract 4. de justificat Cathol Cap. 3. q. 5. § 26. Bezant Duval Meratius if our Authour please to Consult those Popish Schoolmen he may find some Arguments that may be of some use to him and may help him to perswade the People to believe that God may forgive them their Sins before there be any saving change of their Hearts and any Holy Seed or Principle or Grace put into them or any Gracious Disposition or Qualification wrought in them by the Spirit of Christ And the People may if they please go on to drink in that Pelagian Popish and Arminian Doctrine taking it upon our Authors Word to be a part of the pure Christian Religion and of the Doctrine of Justification by free Grace without good Works and Holy Qualifications or any thing that looks like them But for our parts we declare that we are for the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort in the Point of a real Holy Change and Holy Qualifications before Justification and cannot but prefer it before that Pelagian Opinion which some People are so fond of and they must not expect that ever we will humour them in that matter unless our Authour will solidly answen our Arguments and give us better Arguments for his Opinion than we have here given for ours As for what he saith to that purpose in his Letter we can therein find nothing of any weight as r. in Page 9. We say not quoth he that there is an actual partaking of Christs fulness of Grace till we be in him by Faith though this Faith is also given us on Christs behalf Phil. 1.29 And we believe through Grace Acts 18.27 Thus he Argues to prove that all the Grace we receive from Christ comes from our being united to him by Faith and so that we cannot actually partake of the Grace of Christ before our Union with Christ by Faith Now if this be so we demand of him concerning this being in Christ by Faith or which is the same thing this union with Christ by Faith either it is effected by the Grace of Christ or without the Grace of Christ by the meer Power of Nature Not the Second to wit without the Grace of Christ by the meer Power of Nature For 1. That is rank Pelagianism or Semipelagianism at least 2. It is contrary to what he says in the same place that the Faith by which we come to be in Christ is given us on Christs behalf and that we believe through Grace The First then is that which he doth and must choose to say to wit that our Union with Christ by Faith is effected by the Grace of Christ And then it is self-evident that that Grace of Christ which Effects Faith in us and the Union with Christ by Faith is before Faith and the Union by Faith because the Cause always is and must be in Order of Nature before the Effect And further if the Grace of Christ by which we believe first in him and are united to him be before that Faith and Union by Faith then we receive that Grace from Christ before we be in Christ by Faith and we receive it to this end that our faculties may be fitted and prepared yea and powerfully helped actually to believe and by believing to be actually united unto Christ thus our Author is caught in a Net of his own making he blows hot and cold out of the same Mouth and contradicts himself most foully in saying that we do not actually partake of Christs fulness till we be in him by Faith and yet that we have that Faith and Union by Faith from the Grace of Christ as the cause thereof for certainly that Grace is a part of Christs fulness and if he give it us and we receive it from him for the producing of Faith and Union with him by Faith then we actually partake of his fulness before we be in him by Faith That People therefore may no more be puzzled with such self-confounding and contradictious Stuff we desire them to consider 1. That all our Supernatural Grace is from Christ by his Spirit this we are all agreed in 2. That yet all Supernatural Grace is not from Christ after the same Way and Manner for there is some Grace from Christ before Union and in Order to Union and some Grace is from Christ united from Christ now in actual Union with our Souls by Faith of the first sort is the first preventing Grace the Grace by which we are Effectually Called the Grace by which we are disposed and prepared to believe and by which we do actually believe and by so believing answer the Call receive Christ into our Hearts and come to be actually united unto him This Grace being the cause of Faith and of the Union by Faith is before Union with Christ and so cannot possibly be from Christ considered as united to us by Faith Though then all our Grace be from Christ yet it is notoriously false that it is all from him as ours already by Faith for preventing Grace which is before Faith is not drawn from Christ by Faith as also Faith it self we mean the first Principle and first Act of Faith is not drawn from Christ as already ours by Faith for then Faith would be both before and after it self which is contradictious non-sense and impossible Of the Second sort is all subsequent Grace the Grace of Justification of Progressive Sanctification and Perseverance yea all that Grace whereby Gods Select People being once called according to his Purpose are fitted for and brought unto Glory is from Christ united from Christ in actual Union with our Souls by Faith Augustin writing against the Pelagians above 12 hundred years ago Angust Epist 105. hath cleared up this matter in few Words writing thus to Sixtus Ita sine Spiritu sidei non est rectê quispiam crediturus nec sine spiritu orationis salubriter oraturus non quia tot sint spiritus sed omnia haec operatur unus atque idem spiritus dividens propria unicuique prout vult quia Spiritus ubi vult spirat sed quod fatendum est aliter adjuvat nondum inhabitans aliter inhabitans nam nondum inhabitans adjuvat ut sint fideles inhabitans adjuvat jam fideles That is So without the Spirit of Faith no man will ever believe aright nor without the Spirit of Prayer will any man ever pray in a saving manner not that there are so many Spirits but one and the same Spirit doth all these things dividing unto every man that which is proper to him as he will for the Spirit breaths where he will
good man that is a good man initially or make him begin to be a good Man But now this makes against our Author himself and clearly proves that no Man can believe with a saving justifying Faith till Gospel Grace renew him and make him first a good Man this Consequence from his own Words he can never avoid unless he will say that a saving justifying Faith is no good thing for if it be not an evil but a good thing no Man can do it till Gospel Grace have renewed him and make him first a good Man So then we have found by his own Confession that a Man is first good through Grace and then he believes in Christ to Justification And if a Man be thus good initially good before he actually believe with a saving justifying Faith then is he Holy also initially Holy before he do so believe for that Initial Goodness and this Initial Holiness is one and the same thing And further if a man may be and must be thus initially Good and Holy before he actually believe then he may be qualified before he actually believe for he cannot be Good and Holy as aforesaid without Gods putting some good qualities into him This the Synod of Dort hath determined in their 11. Canon on the 3d and 4th Articles as was shewed before and it is hoped our Author will not oppose the Determination of that Synod Now whenever God by his Spirit puts good qualities into a Man he thereby qualifies him for the very formal effect of good qualities is to qualifie the Man to whom God gives them Pag. 11. But saith our Author Whence should a Man have any good Qualification before he be in Christ by Faith since a Sinner out of Christ hath no Qualification for Christ but Sin and Misery We Answer that before a Man be in Christ by Faith he hath some good Qualification from Christ by his Spirit preparing him for and bringing him unto Union with himself by actual Faith As to what he saith that a Sinner out of Christ hath no Qualification for Christ but Sin and Misery We Answer by distinguishing thus he hath no Qualification but Sin and Misery of and from himself It is true But that he hath no Qualification of and from Christ by his Holy Spirit but Sin and Misery it is utterly false and the contrary is true to wit that a Man who hath no Qualification of and from himself but the evil Qualification of Sin and Misery yet of and from Christ by his Spirit and Word he hath the good Qualification of a Heart in part changed and renewed and of a Holy Seed and Prineiple of Grace put into his Heart Though a Man cannot qualifie himself for Christ yet nothing hinders but that Christ by his Spirit and Word can qualifie a man for Union with himself and for Justification by his Meritorious Righteousness Yes saith our Author something doth hinder for I boldly assert that such a man who were so qualified would not Let. p. 11. nor could ever believe on Christ We are not willing here to apply the Proverb That none is so bold as blind Bayard But this we must say that we cannot see that this Man hath any probable ground for such Confidence Sure we are it will be a very difficult task to prove that a man cannot possibly believe in Christ because Christ by his Word and Spirit hath fitted and qualified him for Believing But it seems nothing is difficult to this bold man and therefore he will prove it by an Argument taken from the Nature of Faith thus Faith saith he is a lost helpless condemned Sinners casting himself on Christ for Salvation But the qualified Man is no such Person And then the Conclusion if rightly inferred from the Premisses is this ergo The qualified Man is not Faith c. A goodly Argument indeed and a Foundation fit for this Man to ground his Confidence upon If he say that his Argument doth not so conclude but rather thus Faith is a Gracious Act whereby a lost helpless condemned Sinner casts himself on Christ for Salvation but the qualified Man is not a lost helpless condemned Sinner casting himself on Christ for Salvation therefore the qualified man is not what is he not why he is not a lost helpless condemned Sinner casting himself on Christ for Salvation Is this now his Argument And doth it thus conclude then his Argument is as Ridiculous as his Confidence Let him keep to his Premisses laid down in his Letter and if he can let him regularly inferr from them another Conclusion than one of these But let what will become of the form of his Argument We answer by distinguishing both Propositions And 1. For the first we say that a Person who by true Faith casts himself on Christ for Salvation is indeed a Sinnor lost and helpless in and of himself and he is condemned by the Law but tho that be true yet in Order of Nature before he believes and in the very Act of Believing he is found and helped by the Lord and hath a Pardon offered him by the Gospel and by Faith he receives it Acts 10.43 Then for the second Proposition we distinguish it also thus The qualified Man is not such a Person is not a lost helpless condemned Sinner that is the Man that is 1. Qualified with a Satisfactory Meritorious Qualification 2. That is so qualified by himself he is not such a Person It is true and we grant it But with all we say that indeed it is impossible for any Man so to qualifie himself Yet we maintain that a Man who is qualified by the Holy Spirit and free Effectual Grace of Christ is such a Person and doth by Faith â—ast himself on Christ for Salvation our being qualified by the Holy Spirit and free Effectual Grace of Christ is so far from hindring our believing as our Author boldly but ignorantly affirms that in Truth it doth very much further our believing it lets us see and causes us to feel that we are lost and helpless in and of our selves and condemned by the Law and that we are found and helped by the Lord and can be pardoned only by the Gospel Whereupon it inclines and moves us to flee unto Christ for refuge and to cast our selves on him for Justification and Salvation Thirdly In the same Page Let. p. 11. we have another of his Objections against the Truth we have been proving by Scripture Reason and Testimony of Protestant Divines Shall we saith he warn People that they should not believe on Christ too soon Either this Interrogation is altogether impertinent or there is this Argument implied in it if there be a real change and a holy gracious Principle wrought in Peoples Hearts before they do or can believe with a saving justifying Faith then it will follow that Ministers should warn people not to believe on Christ too soon but so to do is absurd and contrary to
Scripture We Answer by denying the Consequence of the first Proposition as false for it doth not follow that we should warn People not to believe on Christ too soon And we have nothing Offered to prove that such an absurdity follows from our Doctrine but this mans bare Word which we have found to be so often false in matter of Fact that we can give no credit to it in other things And he is so unhappy here and elsewhere throughout his Letter that he makes his own Tongue or Pen to fall upon himself for he confesses that it is no good Argument that if People cannot be truly Holy before the Tree be changed Matth. 12.33 34 35. and before they have a new Heart Ezek. 36.26 27. as he grants they cannot then Ministers should warn People not to be Holy too soon For to give them any such warning he grants to be absur'd Let him then consider Let. p. 11 12. whether the same or the like Answer he can give to this Argument which would prove that Ministers should warn People not to be Holy too soon may not be given to the other silly Argument whereby he would prove that upon our Principle Ministers should warn People not to believe on Christ too soon for it is as certainly true that People cannot actually believe on Christ with a saving justifying Faith before the Tree be changed and the Heart be in part renewed as it is that they cannot be truely Holy before the Tree be changed and the Heart be renewed When we are to deal with Unbelievers our Lord hath given us other Work to do than to warn them not to believe too soon and let our Author try when he pleases he will find enough to do to convince them that their present Indisposition and disability to believe doth not free them from the Obligation which the Lord by his Word hath laid upon them to believe and to direct them unto the right means in the use whereof they may obtain from the Lord both the necessary Disposition unto Faith and also the Principle and Act of Faith it self Our Author we perceive has been at this Work and before we have done with him we shall see what a rare Specimen of his skill this way he hath given the World Fourthly But he farther Objects We hold forth that God justifieth the Ungodly Pag. 25. Rom. 4.5 Neither by making him Godly before he justifie him nor leaving him Ungodly after be hath justified him but that the same Grace that justifies him doth immediately sanctifie him We Answer this is the Text that our Antinomians much insist upon and think it sufficient to make all Men Antinomians And we are glad to find that it hath not that full effect upon him for tho he be one with them with respect to any Holy change in Order before Justification and denies it as they do yet he separates himself from them with respect to what follows after Justification and saith that we are sanctified immediately after Justification and so he joins himself to us now there may be good worldly Policy in this to hold with both sides as much as he can But if he do not agree with himself what ground can others have to trust him that ever he will heartily agree with them and that he doth not agree with himself we think is apparent from what he writes Pag. 16. A Man saith he is to believe that he may be justified Gal. 2.16 Again Pag. 32. No Words or Warnings repeated nor plainest Instructions can beat into Mens Heads and Hearts that the first coming to Christ by Faith or Believing on him is not a Believing we shall be saved by him but a Believing on him that we may be saved by him And again Pag. 7. The direct Act is properly justifying saving Faith by which the lost Sinner comes to Christ and relies upon him for Salvation Yet when we do press Sinners to come to Christ by a direct Act of Faith consisting in an humble reliance on him for Mercy and Pardon they will understand us whether we will or not of a reflex Act of Faith by which a Man knows and believes that his Sins are pardoned and that Christ is his when they might easily know that we mean no such thing These three Passages show clearly that he holds saving Faith to be both before Justification and before Assurance of Justification We confess that we do very well understand this to be the meaning of these Words now quoted ouâ— of his Letter for we think they are not capable of any other sense but though we understand the Words of the Letter yet we do not understand the Author of them and we much doubt whether he understands himself and that because he immediately adds Page 7. that Mr. Marshal in his excellent Book lately Published hath largely opened this and the true Controversie of this Day And Pag. 35. Marshals Book saith he is a deep practical well jointed Discourse and if it be singly used I look upon it as one of the most useful Books the World hath seen for many Years I fear not but it will stand firm as a Rock against all Opposition and will prove good Seed and Food and Light and Life to many hereafter Who that reads this can doubt but that our Author has read Marshaâ—s Book and that he approves it and believes every thing at least that is material in it and yet there is one thing very material in it and it is one of the main joints in it That justifying Faith is a Believing that we are now justified and shall be Eternally saved and that the Assurance of this that we are now justified and shall be saved is essential to the direct Act of Faith This Marshal with all his might strives to prove and it seems he hath done it to the Conviction of our Author who believes that that Opinion can never be disproved again Yea he seems so Confident of the Truth of Marshals Opinion that he spares not to reflect on the Westminster Assembly of Divines for denying it as they do in their Confession of Faith Chap. 18. Art 3. In these Words This infallible Assurance doth not so belong to the Essence of Faith but that a true Believer may mait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it Thus the Assombly But doth he reflect on them for this why if he doth not let him tell us what he means by these following Words Was not the Holiness of the first Protestants eminent and shining Let. p. 22. and yet they generally put Assurance in the Definition of their Faith We cannot say that Gospel Holiness has prospered much by the Correction or Mitigation of that harsh-like Definition If these Words of his whatever might be his Intention do not reflect upon the Assembly we do not understand plain English and moreover we cannot but think also that they imply his owning of Marshals
Covenant he is found to be a Godly Man through Grace to be Evangelically Godly because he is just such a Man as the Lord by the New Covenant and Evangelical Law requires him to be that he may be first justified by Christs Righteousness imputed to him that is he is found to be a Man whom God hath blessed with a new Heart and who is a true Penitent Believer and that is a Man Evangelically Godly Now there is no Contradiction at all in this for the same Man at the same time to be legally ungodly and Evangelically Godly because it is with respect to different Laws and Covenants that such contrary things are affirmed of him Let our Author if he please consult Turretine and he will find that that Learned Calvinist saith expresly Turret Instit part 2. loc 16. pag. 714. That a true Believer when he is justified by Faith in Christ is impius partim antecedenter partim respectivè ad Justificationem non autem concomitanter Ungodly partly antecedently and that is because he was altogether ungodly in former times partly with râ—spect to Justification because he hath nothing in himself that can be the matter and cause of his Justification but he is not concomitantly ungodly that is he doth not remain Ungodly when God is justifying him and till immediafely after he be justified If our Author upon this should say to us what he saith to his poor awakened Sinner That it is Non-sense Ignorance and Pride Let. p. 31.32 to maintain that a Man must be in some measure Godly in Disposition and Principle before he be Godly in Act and that he must actually believe with a Godly Faith in Order of Nature before he he justified for this is as much as to say that a Man must be pretty well recovered before he make use of the Physician c. We should reply 1. That as for his Poor awakened Sinner he makes a poor Fool of him he puts what Words he pleases in his Mouth and makes him say in effect that if he first had Faith before he first had Faith then he would first believe before he had first believed which we think no Man ever thought or said nor is capable of saying unless it be some poor Creature that is awakened out of his right Wits or else it be such an one as our Author who hath the Art of Believing or Writing Contradictions 2. That he had need to take heed that he do not blaspheme our Saviour who hath said that the Tree must be good before the Fruit can be good Matth. 7.16 17 18. and 12. v. 33. And that is as much as if he had said what we hold that there must be some Renovation of the Inward Disposition of the Heart before a Man do actually believe with a saving justifying Faith 3. That if our Author will not believe us let him believe his own beloved self for he says Pag. 16. That a Man is to believe that be may be justified And that necessarily implies that he must bring forth some good Fruit in order of Nature before he be justified and in Pag. 12. He himself quotes Matth. 12.33 To prove that the Tree must be good before the Fruit be good 4. We believe that our Heavenly Physician comes first to us ordinarily in the Ministry of the Word by his preventing Grace and doth indeed recover us in part by curing the deadness and indisposedness of our Hearts before we go to him by an actual saving justifying Faith and thereby imploy him for our Justification Christ comes first to us by his Word and Spirit and begins to cure us of our Spiritual deadness to any thing that is savingly good before we go to him by actual justifying Faith and be by him delivered from our Legal Death in Justification by Faith in his Blood 5. If our Author will yet go on to tell the People that we teach them not to employ the Physician of Souls till they have first pretty well cured themselves we take Heaven and Earth to witness that he belies us and abuses the Simplicity of the People for we believe in our Hearts and confess with our Mouths to the Glory of Christ the Physician of Souls that it is he who by his Word Spirit and Grace both begins carries on and perfects the cure of all his select People and that he doth it in the way and order set forth in his Word of which we have here given the World an account according to that measure of Light which it hath pleased him of his rich Mercy and free Grace to bestow upon us 6. And lastly We desire it may be considered whether our Authors saying that to tell the People they must begin to be Godly through Grace by being Penitent Believers in order to their being justified is all one as to tell them that they must be pretty well recovered and must cure themselves before they employ Christ the Physician of Souls we say it is our desire People would consider whether this be not a piece of Antinomian Cant for it is certain that this is the Language of Saltmarsh one of the grossest of that Sect in England That the Promises belong to Sinners as Sinners not as repenting or humbled Sinners as is to be seen in Gatakers Shadows without Substance Pag. 53. And again saith Saltmarsh like our Author in this Do you look that Men should be first whole for the Physician or Righteous for Pardon of Sin or justified for Christ Ibid. Pag. 54. or rather Sinners Unrighteous Ungodly And Gataker there Confutes this precious Stuff in Pag. 54 55 56 57 58. Again You Saltmarsh say that every one who receives Christ receives him in a sinful Condition and consequently in an impenitent one Ibid. p. 73. And again saith Saltmarsh as our Author doth in Pag. 11. of his Letter Can any Man believe too soon Gatakers shadows without substance p. 75. To which Question Gataker Answers No more than he can repent too soon Thus we have at large answered every thing which we can find in the Letter that looks like an Objection or Argument against the Truth which we believe according to the Scriptures But after all it may be some will seriously put this Question Is it likely that God will give us any Grace to sanctifie us in any Kind or Degree before he so love us as to justifie us To which we answer that it is not only likely to be but it certainly is so that God loves us so far as to make Conditional Promises to every one of his People and so far as to give them for Christs sake Grace to begin to perform the Condition before he so far love them as actually to justifie them for Christs sake and that we say is a giving of Grace to sanctifie us Initially or to begin a Holy change in us before we be actually justified and our Sins be forgiven us This we have so clearly proved by
unwilling to believe of so great and good a man But we cannot be so confident of the sincerity of our Author as we are of Calvins and therefore we commend to his serious Consideration a passage of the Reverend and Learned Pitcarne in his Evangelical Harmony of the Apostles Paul and James in the Doctrine of Justification Art 1. Pag. 10. Tantum addo quod c. I only add says he that in the Scriptures the word Faith is also used for the Conscience or perswasion of the will of God approving our Fact or that which we are to do Whatsoever is not of faith is sin That is It is sin whatsoever it be that is done with a Conscience that is doubting and uncertain of the will of God I was not a little grieved when I read Suarez accusing our Divines that they acted the part of Sophisters when to prove Justification by Faith alone they alledge without making a right choice or putting a difference between one and another any places of Scriprure where faith is mentioned although in them there is not the least tittle to be found of Faith related to Christ and the promises of the Gospel or that hath respect unto absolution from the guilt of sin This should teach us all to take great care how we quote and apply Scripture to prove our opinions least by misapplying Texts we wrest the Scripture grieve Gods Spirit and harden our Adversaries in their Erroneous opinions 4th Obj. Fourthly He Objects against us The Seventh Canon of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent which Anathematizeth all those who say that all works done before Justification howsoever they be done are truly sins We answer that this objection is impertinent and makes against himself as well as against us Let. p. 16.32 For 1. He says that Faith is in order of nature before Justification as we have proved from several passages in his Letter 2. He saith Pag. 11. That Faith is a work that it is a great work that it is a work of God yea a work of God which we do and cannot do too soon Now we hope he will not say that this great work of God which through Grace we do before Justification and cannot do too soon is an evil work and is truly sin And if it be not an evil work and truly sin then it must be a good work and truly Gracious And thus we have himself holding with the Council of Trent as well as we do that before Justification there is a good work which is not truly sin but truly good and Gracious If he say that Faith doth not justifie as a work that is nothing to the purpose for the Question now is not whether Faith justifie as a work or as an instrument but whether Faith really be a work an internal work of the Soul which it may well be and yet not justifie as a work And he himself hath expresly confessed that it is a work and a great work too and likewise that it is a great work which not only God doth but which we do through the Grace of God enabling us But after all if he be so resolved that he will have nothing common with the Council of Trent but differ from them in all things true or false right or wrong and therefore because they hold that justifying Faith is a good work before Justification that is not truly sin he will hold the contrary that tho justifying Faith be before Justification yet it is not a good work but an evil work and is truly sin we can say nothing to it he hath his free choice for any thing that we can do to the contrary yet we should advise him to be wiser and not to reject any Truth of the Gospel because an adversary holds and believes it And that it is a Gospel-truth that justifying saving Faith is a good work tho it be in order before Justification we doubt not but his own Conscience knows it and is convinced of it Sure we are that our Conscience is fully perswaded of it And tho' we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that justifying Faith in the best of us is too too little and weak and that the gradual defect of it is truly sin and deserves the hatred of God yet are we infallibly sure that the Grace and gracious Act it self of justifying saving Faith so far as we have any of it is truly good and cannot be truly evil and sin This we are sure is a truth and we believe it and are resolved through Grace so to do and never to like it the worse because the Papists believe it and curse all those who disbelieve it We join with them in believing the truth so far as they do believe it but we utterly abhor their cursing of Dissenters If our Author think fit to Dissent from us in this matter we shall be so far from cursing him that we shall pray God to bless him with a better understanding of this and all other things wherein he may be mistaken As for the other passage which our Author quotes out of the 11th Canon and calls the bellowing of the Beast We might pass it over for it doth not at all concern us nor the Controversie that is between the Author of the Letter and us Yet this we will say that he seems not to understand the Language of that Beast of Trent for they confess with us That the Grace whereby we are justified is the favour of God as plainly appears from what they say before the Canons in the 7th Chapter but they curse all those who say that the Grace whereby we are justified is only the favour of God For they hold that we are justified by a two-fold Grace the one External without us and it is the mercy and favour of God which is that that principally moves him to justifie us the other Internal within us the effect of the first and it is the habit of Grace or Charity infused into us by the holy Spirit to make us formally just by something Inherent in our selves Now we do not say any more than they do that we are justified by the favour of God only and exclusively of all other things for we maintain that we are justified by the Grace and Favour of God and also by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us according to Rom. 3.24 And this is the ground of the Quarrel this is it for which they Curse our Author and us both because we both believe that we are justified by Christs Righteousness imputed to us and not by Gods Grace infused into us and inherent in us And yet we believe this too to wit that Gods Grace is infused into us and inherent in us only we do not call this Justification but give it another name and call it Sanctification Those Trent Fathers therefore had no reason to be so angry with us and in their Beastly wrath to fall a cursing of us
34. It is said They understood none of these things And this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken If Christs own Apostles remained ignorant of those great Truths concerning himself which he had newly told them with as great plainness as human Speech is capable of we may well suppose that Christs Enemies at least many of them understood nothing at all of the things that were reported concerning Jesus his being the Christ and Saviour of the World and concerning believing on him as such 4. He may reply That suppose it were true which can never be proved That all Christs Enemies knew the common report concerning Faith in him so as some way to understand the notion of Faith Yet that is wholly impertinent for there is a wrong way of understanding a thing as well as a right way so that they might some way understand it and yet that some way might be the wrong way Now what is that to the purpose when one asks you this Question What is it to believe on Jesus Christ To tell him that all Men do some way understand what it is for some to wit Christs Friends understand it the right way and others to wit his Enemies understand it the wrong way If our Author should say that he meant not so that all men did understand it some way that is either the right or the wrong way he would make himself yet more ridiculous For the Unbeliever would in all probability desire him to name and shew any one way of understanding a thing which is neither the right way nor the wrong way of understanding it And all men of sense would laugh at him if he should in earnest go about to convince an Unbeliever that there is a way of understanding what Faith is which is neither the right way nor the wrong way If lastly our Author should tell the Unbeliever That in saying all men did some way understand what Faith in Christ is his meaning is that all men understood it the right way The Unbeliever would reply upon him that if that was his meaning then his meaning must needs be false because he himself in the 20th Page of his Letter affirmeth that All the ignorant people amongst Christians and amongst Christians too of the Reformed Churches in England have no knowledg of Faith in Christ except by Faith you understand a dream of being saved by Jesus Christ though they know nothing of him or of his way of saving Men nor of the way of being saved by him Now if all the Ignorant People amongst us know nothing of Faith in Christ in the right way unless the dreaming way be the right way how can our Author prove that all the Unbelievers amongst the Jews and Heathens amongst whom Christ and his Apostles preached whereof many were grosly ignorant did understand aright what Faith in Christ is Do our ignorant people know nothing of Christ nor of his way of saving men and did not the ignorant Jews and Heathens know as little Especially if it be considered that the notion which the Unbelieving Jews in general had of the Messias was that he should be a great and glorious Temporal Prince and Earthly King who by the material Sword should Conquer and Destroy the Romans and all their other visible Enemies on Earth and should save their Nation with a Temporal Salvation But as for Spiritual and Eternal Salvation in another World many of them to wit the whole Sect of the Sadducees looked upon it as a Dream of Fancyful men but for their parts they expected no such thing either from the Messias or from God himself Acts 23.8 No man in his right senses who considers these things can deliberately and seriously think that all the Unbelieving Jews who heard the common report concerning Jesus of Nazareth had any righter and better understanding concerning Faith in him and Salvation by him than the generality of ignorant People amongst us have Christ and his Apostles have put this matter past all doubt and controversie with all that do themselves truly believe in Christ For thus Christ prayed for many of them Luke 23.34 Father forgive them for they know not what they do Peter also confesseth to themselves that it was through ignorance that they Crncified Christ Acts 3.17 And Paul writing to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2.7 8. saith That had they known the hidden Wisdom of God in a mistery they would not have Crucified the Lord of Glory Whence it is evident that either they had no notion of Faith in Christ and of Salvation by him or if they had any at all it was a wrong and false notion And to tell a Man who asks us what it is to believe in Jesus Christ That even the Enemies of Christ some way understood what it is because they had some wrong and false notion of it is both impertinent and ridiculous and is such an answer as is more apt to make an Unbeliever laugh at Christs Ministers and harden and confirm him in his Unbelief than to move him unto seriousness and to perswade him to believe So much for the Unbelievers first pertinent Question and our Authors impertinent Answer to it We pass on to the other questions and answers as he hath set them down in the 16 and 17th pages of his Letter Quest 2. Unbeliever What is a Man to believe to wit at first Ministers Answer He is not called to believe that he is in Chaist and that his sins are pardoned and he a justified man but he is to believe Gods Record concerning Christ 1 John 5.10 11 12. And this Record is that God giveth that is offereth to us eternal life in his Son Jesus Christ and that all who with the heart believe this Report and rest their Souls on these glad tidings shall be saved Rom. 10.9 10 11. And thus he is to believe that he may be justified Gal. 2.16 This Answer is in it self true and good but in and from the mouth of our Author it hath no force at all to satisfie the Conscience of an Unbeliever who seriously seeks Information and Satisfaction as to what he is at first to believe because if he attentively read and consider our Authors Letter he will see cause to doubt whether in this matter he really believes himself Because in his Appendix pag. 35. He most highly commends and approves Mr. Marshals late Book and in the 7th page of his Letter he saith expesly that Mr. Walter Marshal in his Excellent Book lately published hath largely opened this matter and the true controverfie of this day Now it is true Mr. Marshal throughout his 10th Direction from page 168 to page 193 insists much upon the opening of this matter but he doth it so that quite contrary to the answer which our Author hath now given to the Unbelievers Question he maintians That assurance that Christ is ours that our sins are now forgiven and we are now justified Men is
if you do not believe it why do you commend his Book to me as that which will give me best Direction in this matter and preserve my Soul from being poysoned with the new Divinity But if you do believe him why do you contradict him he telling me one thing and you telling me the quite contrary yea the contradictory thereof Why do you also join with the new Divines against him or his Book and go about to poyson my Soul with the new Divinity in the great Point of Assurance it s not being essential to the direct Act of justifying Faith whereas the contrary Opinion of Marshal which you deny was the great Engine wherewith our first Reformers battered down the Walls of Rome Thus our Author by his way of Writing is more like to hinder men from believing and to harden them in their unbelief than to be instrumental in Converting them from unbelief to Faith in Jesus Christ Thirdly Unbeliever This believing is hard Minister This is a good doubt but easily resolved Here again the Minister makes himself ridiculous and exposes himself to the scorn and contempt of the Unbeliever for the Unbeliever makes no doubt of the matter but positively afferts that this believing is hard as being firmly perswaded in his Mind without the least Hesitation or Doubt that this believing is hard indeed and when the Minister has heard him say yea has put the Words in his Mouth and made him to say positively without doubting that this believing is hard then he answers him and says this is a good doubt and easily resolved and the plain English of that is that no doubt but a Positive Affirmation is a good doubt But supposing for once with the Minister that no doubt is a doubt yet how doth he make it appear that it is a good doubt for there are bad doubts as well as good doubts and why may not this be a bad doubt rather than a good doubt Yes saith the Minister I prove it and make it appear thus that it is not a bad but a good doubt because it bespeaks a man deeply humbled Rarâ—ly proved But why may it not as well bespeak a man to be deeply hardened in unbelief and highly listed up in pride For were not the Capernaites deeply hardned in unbelief and yet when they heard Christ himself with his own Blessed mouth preaching to them of the great necessity and usefulness of believing on him under the Figurative expressions of Eating his Flesh and Drinking his Blood they both doubted and dishelieved and thus expressed their doubts and unbelief John 6.42 How is it that he saith I came down from Heaven And V. 52. How can this man give us his Flesh to eat And V. 60. This is an hard saying who can hear it Likewise those Jews and Heathens of whom Paul writes 1 Cor. 1.23 That Christ Crucified was unto the one sort of them a stumbling block and unto the other foolishness could doubt and say this believing in a Crucified Christ is hard and in effect they did say it and so they doubted if that be to doubt for they said it was an unreasonable foolish thing to believe to be saved by a crucified Man and that was in effect to say that it was hard to believe in Christ For it is certainly hard for a reasonable man to believe that which in his heart he judges to be unreasonable and foolish But now did this bespeak those unbelieving Jews and Heathens to be deeply humbled no sure it was so far from it that it bespoke the quite contrary it bespoke them deeply hardned in unbelief and highly lifted up in pride and self conceit Our Author has another Argument to prove it to be a good doubt because says he Any body may see his own impotency to obey the Law of God fully but few find the difficulty of believing Well be it so that few find the difficulty of believing and that few doubt whether it be difficult or not doth that prove that this particular unbeliever doubts because he finds believing to be so difficult that he is past all doubt of its being difficult and thereupon positively affirms that it is difficult and hard to believe He must have lost his reason that can deliberately think that a Man who is fully convinced of the difficulty of believing and thereupon affirms that it is hard to believe hath a good doubt whether it be difficult or not because the generality of other Men seldom think of believing or endeavour to believe and so find not the difficulty of it But 2. suppose this particular Unbeliever do not find it so difficult to believe as to be past all doubt that it is difficult only his mind is brought to an aequilibrium even ballance and hangs in suspence between these two whether it be difficult or whether it be easse to believe This supposition being true will prove indeed that the man hath a doubt in his mind concerning the difficulty of believing but it doth not at all prove that it is a good doubt The Truth is such a doubt is evil and cannot be good for the man ought to be fully perswaded in his mind that to believe in Christ crucified with a saving Faith it is really difficult and hard yea impossible to Unregenerate Nature and without the Grace of God but that to Regenerate Nature it is easie through the affistance of Gods special Grace And so here can be no room at all for the Unbelievers good doubt Next our Author falls upon the resolving of the Unbelievers pretended good doubt And in order thereunto he asks him What it is which he finds doth make believing difficult to him 1. Our Author asks the Unbeliever Whether he finds it difficult to believe because he is unwilling to be justified and saved And this saith he the Unbeliever will deny And he may well deny it and further tell our Author Sir You are very impertinent to ask me such a Question for you knew well enough without asking that that could not be the reason wherefore I think it difficult to believe for no man in his right wits was ever unwilling to be justified and saved that is unwilling to be happy for it is naturally necessary unto all men to desire happinness and therefore if the Justification and Salvation which you talk of be necessary to make me happy and if my happiness partly consist therein you know I cannot be unwilling to be justified and saved because I cannot be unwilling to be happy 2. He asks the Unbeliever Whether he finds it difficult to believe because he is unwilling to be so saved by Jesus Christ to the praise of Gods Grace in him and to the avoiding of all boasting in himself And he saith The Unbeliever will surely deny this also To which the Unbeliever may be supposed to answer Sir I thank you for your good opinion of me by this I perceive you take me to be deeply humbled indeed but
how you should come to be sure of that I cannot understand for I am not sure my self that I am so deeply humbled It is true I confess and I am sure of it that I am willing to be saved that is to be happy But I am not yet sure that I am willing to be so saved in that way of deep humiliation I find by your Letter that those whom you confess to be already true Believers find it diffioult to be throughly willing to be so saved by Jesus Christ as to give all the glory of their Salvation to Gods Grace and to take nothing of it to themselves how then is it possible for you to be sure that I who am an Unbeliever will not confess that I find a great unwillingness in my nature to be saved in such a way of self-denial and deep humiliation and that that very unwillingness makes it very difficult for me to believe in a Crucified Christ you cannot be sure but I may be such an unbeliever as will not deny what I really find to be the natural frame and temper of my heart And you who are a Believer and a Minister should not teach me to deny it against my natural Conscience nor blame me for confessing it And when you have heard my ingenuous confession if you think my heart is in a very ill frame and that I am a very wretched creature you should give me what help you can towards the getting of my nature changed and my heart deeply humbled but you think I am deeply humbled already because I said this believing is hard whereas for any thing you know to the contrary the true reason of my so saying might be because I am not yet deeply humbled Yet however it be I thank you for your good opinion of me 3. He asks the Unbeliever Whether he finds it difficult to believe because he distrusts the Truth of the Gospel Record and then adds that he dare not own this To which again the Unbeliever may reasonably enough Answer Sir What mean you by this do you mean that I dare not own it because of you or because of mine own natural Conscience If you mean that I dare not own it because of you then it seems you threaten me that if I confess my self to you and tell you what distrust I find in my own heart you will persecute me or do me some mischief This better becomes a Minister of the Inquisition than a Minister of the Reformed Church Or if you mean that I dare not own it because of my natural Conscience as if it were against my natural Conscience to distrust the Truth of the Gospel record how do you know that You are indeed a man of Confidence enough but you may be mistaken for all that And I tell you that in this you are mistaken for it is an ordinary thing with us Unbelievers to distrust the Truth of the Gospel Record and I find that same distrust often within my self I cannot conceal it from God who made and Governs the World and knows all things in the World as natural Religion teacheth us and many of us believe this though we do not believe your Supernatural positive Religion and since I cannot conceal it from God why should I be afraid to confess it to Man especially to the Ministers of Supernatural Positive Religion a part of whose Office it is to maintain the Credibility and Truth of the Gofpel Record against Unbelievers and to do what they can by good and solid Arguments to prove the Credibility and Truth of the Gospel and thereby to Convince and Convert Unbelievers to the Faith of it and to Faith in Christ acording to it Sir If you believe that Record your self and can give a reason of the Faith and Hope that is in you as ye are bound to do you should not discourage Unbelievers from confessing the true Grounds of their not believing in Christ but should rather desire and intreat them to tell you their grounds ingenuously what ever they be that when you know them you may answer them and shew there is no solidity in them by this means you may be instrumental to bring Men off from their unbelief and then by laying before them the solid Grounds and Reasons you have for the Credibility and Truth of the Gospel-Record you may through the Blessing of God Convince and Convert such Unbelievers as I am to the Faith of the Gospel and to Faith in Christ according to the Gospel 4 He asks the Unbeliever whether he finds it difficult to believe Because he doubts of Christs ability or goodwill to save And then he saith that this is to contradict the Testimony of God in the Gospel To this the Unbeliever may readily reply Sir What do you mean by Christs Ability or Goodwill to save Whether do you mean it of his Ability or Good-will to save others to wit all the Elect in general or of his ability or good-will to save me in particular If you mean it of his Ability or Good-will tosave others to wit all the Elect in General then I tell you that so far as I do Historically and Dogmatically believe the Scripture to be the Word of God I do not at all doubt of Christs ability and good-will to save all the Elect in General for I find that God hath clearly testified so much in the Gospel and I firmly believe his testimony and do not in the least contradict it But if you mean it of his ability or willingness to save me in particular I desire you to name the Chapter and Verse in the Gospel where God hath testified that Christ is willing to save me in particular so that I cannot doubt of his willingness to save me without contradicting that Testimony You cannot positively say that I am one of the Elect whom Christ is certainly willing to save because I am yet an Unbeliever and so long as I am an Unbeliever neither you nor I can possibly know without an immediate Revelation whether I be one of the Elect or not I may be or I may not be one of them But neither you nor I can say determinately that I am certainly the one of them and not the other If you shall say and you have nothing else to say That whether I be one of the Elect or not I must believe without doubting that Christ is able and willing to save me otherwise I contradict the Testimony of God in the Gospel Then indeed you will say something to the purpose But We have not yet done for I must now ask you whether you would have me believe without doubting that whether I be Elect or Non-Elect Christ is willing to save me absolutely or conditionally And if 1. Christ be willing to save me an Unbeliever absolutely and that whether I be Elect or not then it will follow by necessary consequence that one Unbeliever shall be infallibly saved even tho he be a Reprobate and if one
and it is most certain and evident that Faith is an inward Act of the Heart for Believers as you do confess find by Spiritual Sense and feeling that Faith is an inward Act of the Heart Let. p. 7. and the Scripture saith expresly that with the Heart Man believeth unto Righteousness Rom. 10.9 10. And therefore Faith is an inward Work of the Heart consequently it is manifestly false which you say that Faith is no Work 5. Whereas you say that Faith is no Work but a resting on Jesus Christ I reply 1. That if Faith be no Work either outward or inward because it is a resting then Faith is no inward Act for an inward Act is an inward Work and if Faith be an inward Act it is also an inward Work but you your self Page 7th of your Letter expresly say that Faith is an inward Act and I have proved it by Scripture to be an inward Act therefore it is utterly false which you say that Faith is no Work at all no not an inward Work because it is a resting on Christ. 2. Faith is both an inward Work and a resting on Christ Resting on Christ is a Figurative Expression and Faith is called by that Name it is said to be a resting on Christ because the effect or consequent of the Act of Faith in Christ is the rest of the Soul the satisfaction and quiet of the Mind the ease of the Heart and the Peace of the Conscience 3. If this sense of the form of Speech Resting on Christ by which the Act of Faith is expressed as it is a means of causing and as it connotes the foresaid effects if I say this do not please you but you will have resting on Christ to signifie a total Cessation from any inward Act Then I reply 1. That you seem to be shifting about from one Sect to another and for a time to have taken up your rest among the Quietists the Disciples of Molino's at Rome or of Madamoiselle de Bourignon in France For it is said to be their Principle that a man should cease from all Action outward and inward and when the Soul is in a State of Non-Action and perfect rest from all Labour whatsoever then a Man is most Religious and best disposed for converse with and enjoyment of God 2. If Faith be no inward Act but a resting on Christ in such a sense as that it is a Cessation from and a Negation of all Act and Action then you need no more to endeavour the Conversion of me or of any other Unbeliever for if that be true Faith then a meer nothing is true Faith and I will assure you I have that nothing as much as ever I can have it You your self in your Letter call me an Unbeliever and that signifies one that wants Faith now if I want the Act of Faith I must needs have the Negation of the Act of Faith in such a way as a Negation can be had and this Negation is a perfect Cessation and resting from any Act of Faith and further this Negation Cessation and Resting is Faith it self according to you Therefore it follows by clear and necessary Consequence that by wanting the Act of Faith I have Faith and by being an Unbeliever I am as good a Believer as your self Therefore you need no more labour to convert me than I need to convert you but let us both rest together among the new Quietists if you please 6. And now Sir I would be content to rest if you would let me alone but are not you like to disturb my rest by clamouring against me that I am unreasonable in pretending that it is hard and difficult for an Unbeliever to believe in Christ without the powerful Assistance of Gods Grace And to prove that I am unreasonable in this you boldly affirm it upon your Word as your manner is and with appearance of much Gravity you illustrate it by a similitude taken from a weary Traveller who is so tired with his journey that he can neither stand still nor yet go one step further but must of necessity lye down and rest Now say you if this Man in these circumstances should say Oh I find it difficult to lye down for I am so tired that I am not able to lie down though indeed I can neither stand nor go would it not be accounted very unreasonable And just so it is unreasonable for you an Unbeliever to pretend That it is so difficult for you to believe that you cannot do it without the powerful Grace of God for believing is resting it is ceasing from all Action and consequently it is so far from being difficult that it is one of the easiest things in the World it is of that Nature that you cannot avoid the doing of it no mâ—re than a weary Traveller can avoid lying down when he is so tired that indeed he can neither stand nor go This is the force of your Reasoning in the 17th Page of your Letter line 7 8 9 10 11. whereby you would prove me to be unreasonable in saying that it is difficult for an Unbeliever to believe on Christ without the Grace of God I have considered this your profound Reasoning for the Easiness of Believing on Christ without the Grace of God and now that I understand it my fear of being disturbed by it is over and gone yea I am beholding to you for it and I thank you Sir For this which I was afraid would have been a disturbance to me is like to be a means of bringing us both to rest I have told you before what I thought now according to my Promise I will tell you what I see Why in short by the Light of this your Illustration I see that I an Unbeliever am as good a Believer as you are and that it must be so and cannot be otherwise for as the weary Traveller that cannot possibly either stand or go must lie down and cannot but lie down unless he be hindred by force or Miracle So you and I cannot but believe unless we be hindered by Miracle But there is no fear of that God hath wrought many Miracles heretofore to perswade men to believe but he never did nor will work a Miracle to hinder us from believing I will never more Object the difficulty of Believing for want of the powerful Grace of God to enable me thereunto for if this Doctrine be true there needs no Grace to enable us to believe for believing is resting and doing nothing and that we can do as well without as with the help of Grace nay we cannot but do it unless we be hindred from resting and doing nothing and be irresistibly stirred up to Work and Act by Miracle But as I said there is no fear of that since Working and Acting would hinder us from Believing And to hinder us from Believing is contrary to the true use and end of Miracles And Sir as I will never complain more
wherewith this man either maliciously or ignorantly asperses us especially when they may clearly see that his Calumnies do not hang together but are inconsistent and contradict one another which is a sure mark whereby to know a Calumniator and false witness Mark 14.56 We do not positively say that he doth thus calumniate us out of meer malice but we are sure it is and must be either out of malice or ignorance and we willingly incline to the more charitable which is the safer side that he doth it rather out of pure ignorance and blind zeal than out of meer malice and Cain-like hatred of his Brethren But whatever moved him to it the thing it self is unwarrantable and injurious for which he must give an account to that God who is an infinitely more judicious Observer than he or any of his party and who as he observes all our opinions and practices so he judges always aright according to the true merits of every cause and in this cause we can with a good conscience lift up our face to the Lord our God and say Lord thou whose understanding is infinite and from whom nothing can be hid and who hast infinite power and right to punish us with everlasting destruction if we now lye to thee and dissemble with thee thou knowest that our cause is not Coincident with the cause of Pelagius and that this man doth Calumniate us in saying that judicious Observers cannot but perceive that they are coincident To thee O God we appeal from this false Accuser of the Brethren and unto thee we referr our cause to judge between us and this man whether it be coincident or the same with that of Pelagius But it may be our Author will object and say That if our cause be not coincident with that of Pelagius yet it is at least coincident with that of Arminius We answer that neither is that true For 1. Our Author and those of his way commonly say that the cause of Arminius and Pelagius is all one and therefore if they say true in that and do not calumniate Arminius our cause cannot possibly be coincident with the cause of Arminius unless it be also coincident with that of Pelagius they being both one and the same 2. Our Author saith That we are for the middle-way between the Arminians and the Orthodox as he calls them If that be true our cause must lye in the mid-way between the two extremes and then it is impossible to be Coincident with the cause of Arminius for that is one of the extremes and it is evident by ocular demonstration that the middle cannot be the same with either of the sides and so cannot be coincident with either of the extremes If our Author say that we are come off from the middle-way and are come over to Arminius and so are now on the other extreme and wrong side in opposition to the Orthodox who are on the extreme right side We Answer 1. If that be true and he know it then he is guilty of a gross lye in saying that our cause is coincident with that of Arminius and so that we are Arminians and yet that we are for a middle-way between the Arminians and the Orthodox If he will have us to be Arminians he must not if he be a true honest man say that we are for a middle-way between the Arminians and the Orthodox 2. If we be come over from the middle-way unto the Arminian extreme we desire our Author to tell us when it was and how long it is since and how he knows that we are come over to the Arminian extreme for we profess sincerely that we know none of these things We neither know when it was nor how long it is since nor do we know that we are yet come over or ever shall come over to the Arminian extreme Indeed we dare not pretend to any certain Knowledge of Future Contingents that are not revealed to us yet we trust in our God through Jesus Christ that by the Grace of his Spirit he will keep us so firm and fixed in the Truth of his Word that we shall never go over to the Arminian extream And since we know certainly what we are for the present as to this matter we can safely and with a good Conscience call Heaven and Earth to Record this day against this standerer that we are not Arminians and that he doth very sinfully reproach and calumniate us in saying that we corrupt Christs pure Gospel and obtrude on People a new Arminian Gospel to the certain Peril of their Souls and that our Cause is Coincident with that of Arminius But 3. Though according to the Light which God hath given us by his Word and Spirit we believe that the Arminians erre from the Truth in many things and we do from our Hearts dissent from their Errours yet we hold our selves bound in Conscience as we must answer to God at Death and Judgment not to calumniate them nor any other Erroneous Brethren and therefore we cannot in Conscience say that whilest the Arminians keep within the compass of the five Articles wherein they differed from our Divines at the Synod of Dort their cause is coincident with the cause of Pelagius We do indeed think that something and too much of Pelagianism or Semipelagianism is implied in and by consequence follows from their Principles but that doth not make their cause to be Coincident with the cause of Pelagius Therefore our most Judicious and Consciencious Divines do not scruple to declare Pelagianism to be a Heresie against the very Foundation of Christian Religion But as for Arminianism keeping within the Compass of the five Articles their Consciences will not suffer them to say that it is one or more Fundamental Errors or Heresies this might be sufficiently proved by many Testimonies of our Divines but instead of all that might be alledged we shall Content our selves at present with the Testimony of that famous General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which in the Year 1638. at Glasgow deposed all their Bishops though that Assembly had accused many of their Bishops of Arminianism yet did they not say that Arminianism was as bad as and Coincident with Pelagianism and that it was a Fundamental Heresie They were so far from saying so that in the seventh Session November 28. the Moderator Mr. Henderson in the Face and with the Approbation of the Assembly gave this Moderate Answer unto a Politick Objection of Dr. Balcanquel who appeared there for the Bishops Controversias omnes c. That all the Controversies especially if they exceed not the limits of the five controverted Articles between the Arminians and Anti-Arminians or Calvinists neither were nor are about Fundamental Doctrines that indeed the Arminians erred grievously but that he and the Synod were not yet perswaded that all Heterodoxies that is that all Erroneous Doctrines Hist motuum in regno Scotiae Dantisci An. 1641. p. 100 101. are
of Practice is that we have much kindness for true Antinomians in practice This being matter of Fact and insinuating into the People that we do not walk according to the Rules of the Gospel it should have been proved by sufficient evidence before it had been thus charged publickly on Ministers or People But that is not our Authors way to bring evidence for the proof of his accusations but boldly to accuse without proof Whether the matter be true or false it seems is all one to him for he is well acquainted with that Calumniare audacter aliquid adhaerebit throw abundance of dirt and in all probability some of it will stick Well but what is become of Conscience in the mean time It seems little of that is to be expected from some men As for our having much kindness for true Antinomians in practice if he mean that we have much unlawful kindness for them it is more than we know of our selves and how he should know that of us which we do not know of our selves we cannot understand But there being many of us who are thus accused we freely acknowledge that it may be some of us have some Acquaintance and Hearers who are in some respect Antinomians in practice and that for such sinful Persons we have much civil kindness and Christian Compassion and by a kind and compassionate behaviour towards them we desire and endeavour to gain them to Christ and to Convert them from their sinful practices where is the evil of this what rule of the Gospel do we transgress by this We think we are obliged both by the Law of Nature and by the Law of God thus to be kind to them so long as there is any hope of gaining them But if our Author mean that we have much kindness for their Antinomian and Sinfull practices or that we encourage them in such practices and do not endeavour to turn them from them it is utterly false And the Lord knows that the contrary is true and that it is to some of us matter of much grief and sorrow of heart that they take such courses as are both dispeasing and dishonourable to God and destructive to their own Souls that we use means to reclaim them that we most frequently and earnestly seek God for them and as it were travel in Birth untill Christ be formed in them This is the greatest kindness that we shew unto any who are true Antinomians in practice And now let all who fear God Judge and even let our Authors own Conscience Judge whether for this we deserve to be thus reflected upon and Calumniated Seventh Calumny HIS Seventh Calumny is to be seen in page 27th of the Letter where he chages the younger Ministers with being for the new Rational Method of Divinity and with being despisers or neglecters of Luther Calvin Zanchy Twiss Ames and Perkins And to make the simple People believe that by this means they subvert the very ground and foundation of the Christian Religion he saith two things 1. That to be Rational is no fit commendation of a Minister but rather it is the commendation of a Philosopher 2. That to be Rational is yet more unfitly applyed to Divinity because first Divinity hath a higher and nobler Original than reason to wit Divine Revelation Secondly Because Divinity cannot be rightly learned without an higher principle than Reason to wit the Teaching of the Holy Ghost In which our Author manifestly insinuates That 1. We are for a new sort of Divinity and despise or neglect the old 2. That our new Divinity is not grounded upon Divine Revelation but upon our own reason or the invention of our own brains 3. That we pretend Divinity may be rightly learned by our own reason or natural understanding without the supernatural Teaching and assistance of the Holy Ghost Of which things not one is true but they are all abominably false 1. It is not true but false that the Brethren are for a new sort of Divinity and despise or neglect the Old The falshood of this hath been already fully and clearly demonstrated 2. As it is utterly false that our Divinity is new so it is as false that it is not grounded upon Divine Relation but upan our own reason or the invention of our own Brains On the contrary we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that the whole of our Divinity or Religion is grounded upon Divine Revelation And as Divinity or Religion is either natural or supernatural so Divine Revelation is either natural or supernatural and then as natural Religion is grounded upon Divine Revelation natural so supernatural Religion is grounded upon Divine Revelation supernatural That there is such a thing as Natural Religion and that it is grounded upon that Divine Revelation which God hath made of it by the Law and Light of nature within us and by his works of Creation and Common Providence without us we hope our Author is not so ignorant as not to know nor so perverse as to deny what in his Conscience he knows to be true and then for supernatural Divinity and Religion our Christian Religion considered as Christian and as Contradistinguished from all other Religion is of that kind it is properly supernatural and could never have been known unless it had been supernaturally revealed Therefore our Christian Religion as such hath its Original from supernatural Revelation and is grounded upon the same supernatural Revelation from which it had its Original We do not learn it per viam humanae inventionis sed duntaxat per viam coelest is disciplinae by the way of human invention but only by the way of heavenly discipline and instruction for saith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10.14 17. The Word of God is the means by which God hath supernaturally revealed to us our Christian Divinity and Religion And that Word of God is fully and clearly contained in the Holy Scriptures of truth So that we own no Christian Divinity and Religion but what is revealed by and grounded upon the written Word of the Old and New Testament which is to us the entire compleat Rule of faith and holiness Therefore it is false that our Divinity or Religion is new and not grounded upon Divine Revelation 3dly It is false that we pretend Divinity may be rightly learned by our own reason or natural understanding without the supernatural teaching and assistance of the Holy Spirit We say the quite contrary to wit that Divinity can never be rightly learned that is it can never be learned in a Spiritual and saving manner without the Supernatural teaching and assistance of the Holy Spirit For the Holy Spirit is the Efficient cause of all right Knowledge that is of all Spirituaâ— saving knowledge of God and Christ and of the Spiritual things of God and Christ Yet we must add that as our Christian Religion cannot be rightly that is Spiritually and savingly learned known and