to salvation to become fools thereunto Are yee so foolish saith he having begun in the Spirit are yee now made perfect by the Flesh That by the Spirit and the Flesh is to be understood Faith and works in order to Justification cannot will not be denyed When therefore Mr. B. teacheth men to seek the beginning of Justification by faith and the perfecting thereof not by Faith onely but by works also he teacheth them to be foolish O foolish the worst fools to salvation and to be wise onely to condemnation This is to be wise according to Mr. B. wisedom in this Tractate that is wise after the Flesh not after the Spirit in seeking happiness in the way of works which the wisedom of the Flesh teacheth not in the way of Faith which the wisdom of the Spirit the wisedom of Christ his Gospel revealeth But all this together with a plain and full discovery of the vanity of this evasion hath been in its due place before held out which would be but a tyring of the Reader here again to be troubled with Onely the generall and chief thing which Mr. Br. both here and elswhere layeth as a foundation to his Justification by works it shall not be amisse briefly to examine here for the prevention of deceit to his Reader before I put a totall conclusion and period to what I have thought fit to except against this Work of his If it prove sandy and unsound his great Colossus of Justification by works falls all to shivers This is his quaint interpretation of faith in all such Scriptures as ascribe to Faith in opposition to works our justification That then by it we are to understand all Gospel duties all that Christ Commandeth not Faith in a distinct consideration from other qualifications and duties but Faith in a collective sense comprizing all morall duties and actions within it which is Faith and all its fruits yea more Faith and all that is reducible to it And thus according to Mr. Br. so oft as we are said to be justified by Faith not by works we must understand that the Holy Ghost meaneth that we are justified by Faith and works done after the tenor of the Gospel not by Faith and works done after the tenor of the Law Behold now the unfathomed depth of Mr. Brs wit and the unlimitted verge of his power His wit surpassing all the wisedom of all good and Orthodox men and Angels of whom no one had ever the reach since the world began to find with all his searching such a bugbear sense lurking in the plain Scripture Texts of the Apostle His power that with the stroking of this Mercuriall rod he makes fire and water life and death hell and heaven to lay down all their enmity each to other and sweetly to coll lodge and incorporate together Who would have thought that Paul who so seriously and sacredly professeth that he had rather in the Church to speak five words with his understanding so that he might teach and edifie others also than ten thousand in an unknown Tongue 1 Cor. 14. 17 19. And in preaching the Gospel discended to the unlearned and babes to feed them with milke to make all plain and easie to their understandings 1 Cor. 3. 2. should yet every where deliver the chief doctrine of the Gospel Justification by Christ in so dark Parables and riddles that none could find it out untill this Oedipus inspired from Socinus and Arminius rose up to unâ—iddle him For let there be named any one Protestant in any age till Mr. Br. held out his Candle to give light to the Sun that ever could dream of this Allegoricall sense after the principles of Origen lurking in Pauls words Or what hinders now but Faith may be turned into works and works into Faith Grace into strict justice and strict justice into free Grace the Law into Gospel and the Gospel into meer Law since Mr. Br. hath made a reconciliation and composure between Faith and Works in the point of Justification But whether this interpretation of Mr. B. be so firm as it is pretty and witty hath been before examined as elswhere so in the Examination of his third Argument for Justification by works drawn from his large definition of Faith which he giveth in his Thesis 70. Here onely I shall mention some phrases or names by which Justifying Faith is described in Scriptures and leave it to the judgment of every intelligent Reader to determine whether works can properly or in any tolerable sense be said to be comprized in faith as acting in the same kind of causality about such acts as those phrases or names imply 1 As Mr. Br. himself in his shorter definition defineth faith it is called our Receiving of Christ Jo. 1. 12. and that not in that wide sense which Mr. Br. fancieth but in that strict sense wherein Paul interprets it viz. the receiving of Christ to be our Righteousnes or receiving abundance of Grace and of the gift of righteousness by him Rom. 5. 16. 2 It is called the directing of the eye or looking to Christ yea to Christ lifted up upon the Cross for healing Io. 3. 14. 3 A coming to Christ for Life Jo. 6. 37. 5. 40. 4 The eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood to everlasting life Jo. 6. 53-56 5 A putting on of Christ as a Garment of Righteousness to cover our nakednesse and filthinesse Phil. 3. 9. Rev. 3. 18. I could add many the like phrases if it were needfull But these may suffice and who is there that sees not these to imply an instrumentality in faith to make Christ ours to Justification Yea and that in faith onely and not in works at all for how can Charity Chastity Mercy righteousnesse and the severall acts of these and other qualifications of which most have our Neighbour or Brother for their immediate Object about which in acting they are occupant be called the receiving intuition of and coming to Christ the eating of his flesh and drinking his blood or the putting on of him for righteousnesse It would seem strange to me that any man waking and not dreaming should conclude such works to be Antecedents and not the fruits of Justification and life by Christ Or that when faith is described by these denominating phrases works also as couched in faith should contrary to their nature be so denominated Nay Faith is thus diveâ—sly named in opposition to works yea to Gospel works For so doth our Saviour answer and determine the question put to him what to do under the Gospel that we might work the works of God i. e. what is to be done on our part that we may be justified and saved This is the work of God saith he that is this is in steed of all doings all workings that ye beleeve in him whom he hath sent Jo. 6. 28 29. which after he expresseth more fully to be a beleeving in him that came down from heaven and
of good and evill But the Love overcometh the Anger therefore the good is greater than the evill and so death hath lost its sting 1 Co. 15. 55 56. There is no unpardoned sin in it which shall procure further judgement and so no hatred though there be anger 9 The Scripture saith plainly that death is one of the enemies that is not yet overcome but shall be last conquered 1 Co. 15. 26. And of our corruption the case is plain 10 The whole stream of scripture maketh Christ to have now the disposing of us and our sufferings to have prevented the full execution of the Curse and to manage that which lyeth on us to our advantage and good but no where doth it affirm that he suddenly delivereth us We have here an Antiscripturall and an Antichristian Conclusion yea a conclusion that hath many Antichristian and Popish Conclusions involved therein Therefore Mr. Baxter being extremely ambitious that an assertion of that nature should stand hath pillared and propped it up with no less than ten Arguments delighted more as it seemes with number than with the waight and strength of them And that he may go orderly to work he forelaies such a stating of the question as may not disadvantage him leaving the question obscure and ambiguous still The Common judgment saith he i. e. The Consenting judgment of all the reformed Churches is that Christ hath taken away the whole Curse though not the sufferings by bearing it himself and now they are afflictions of love and not punishments Who can perswade the Serpent to be streight and ceas from Crookednes and winding in his motions He that mainteineth a good Caus needs no shifts simplicity ingenuity and plain dealing sufficeth him Shall we think that Mr. B minceth and maimeth the judgment of the Orthodox Divines but for the advantaging of the Popish Caus which he mainteins against them With a Counited Judgment they assert a totall freedome by Christ both from the Curs and the sufferings also as they have reference to the execution of the law yea from the law also as it threateneth and curseth them that are in Christ so that their sufferings are chastisements and tryalls flowing from the same grace love from which Christ himself and the redemption which we have by him have issued dispensed toward them by a gracious and reconciled father not inflicted upon them by an incensed and unreconciled Judge But Mr. B casteth a veil over their judgments and le ts but a corner thereof to appeare becaus if he had set forth their judgment at the full it would have marr'd most of his Arguments wherewith he fights against them CHAP. V. The question stated between Mr Baxter and the Papists and Arminians whom he followeth and the Protestants whom he opposeth Scriptures and Arguments from scripture produced by the Protestants to prove 1 That Beleevers are not subject to the Curse 2ly That their sufferings have not the wrath and hatred but the love of God in them are not vindicatory judgments but Chastigatory tryalls LEt us now a little more fully state the question by shewing wherein that which Mr. B calleth the Common judgment and that which is his own pretendedly at least private judgment do consent together and wherein they differ either from other and so we shall avoyd all impertinencies and strife about words which are besides the question It is agreed then on both sides 1 That the Curse is the penalty or the revenging Judgment or an effect of Gods revenging wrath by the execution whereof he taketh satisfaction to his justice upon Transgressors for the breach of his Law so Mr. B. makes it out p. 17. 2 That the justice of God is so fully satisfied by bearing this Curse or penalty as by a complete fulfilling of all the righteousness which the Law requireth p. 48 50. 3 That the Lord Christ hath undertaken and made full satisfaction to God for all the sinnes of beleevers bearing the curse due to them and paying if not the idem according to Mr. B. yet the tantundem that their debt did amount to 4 That God resteth as fully satisfied with this satisfaction of Christ as if it had been made personally by the beleevers themselves These two last Mr. B so frequently asserteth that there is no need to quote the places To which I may add 5 That Afflictions are incident to the beleevers as well as to the unbeleevers so that Love and hatred are not discernable to the lookers on by that which befalls men in this life Eccle. 9. 1. 6 That these afflictions have in them a smart and bitternes as they befall the very Saints so that oft-times in their apprehension the very wrath and curs of God seemes to be in them These two things we grant Mr. B so that hitherto the judgements consent Heb. 12. 11. The difference then betwixt him and us consists principally in these two things 1 Whether when Christ hath by doing their law paying their debt and bearing their curse satisfied the justice of God for the sinns of beleevers when God hath accepted the satisfaction given when the beleevers have by faith apprehended and laid hold on it They do yet remain liable to the curse of the Law in whole or in part to be inflicted upon them 2 Whether the afflictions which God inflicteth upon beleevers in this life are the effects of Gods revenging justice the Curse which the law threateneth and so consequently whether after that God hath taken ful satisfaction from Christ he doth in whole or in part require and take satisfaction from them also Mr. Baxter with the Papists and Arminians mainteins the affirmative of both these questions we the Negative He that 1 after Christ hath born the Curse of the law for beleevers they are liable to beare it in whole or in part themselves also And 2 that the afflictions which they suffer are from the revenging justice of God the effects and Curse of the Law vindictive punishments of sin full of the wrath of God as in this his answer to the 3 question he declares himself But we utterly deny both these propositions either that the beleever is any more after his union to Christ subject to the Curse or that the afflictions which he suffereth have the Curse of the law and revenging justice of God in them but proceed not from the wrath of an angry judge but from the tender grace and love of a most wise and indulgent Father Both these assertions we ground upon evident Testimonies of Scripture First that beleevers are no more liable to but wholly freed from the Curse we have the Holy Ghost affirming Gal. 3. 13 14. Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the law being made a Curse for us c. that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith What can be said more cleer and full to the Confirmation
case of offence committed against God or man to repent of it to sorrow for it and at our utmost to make satisfaction for the offence Yea even Faith in Christ is in generall required by the Old Law and Covenant We in no wise ascribe to the Gospel a creating of new points of righteousnes or injoining of new duties which the Law did not at least in generall bind us unto this opinion we leave as proper and peculiar to the Socinians But a modification spiritualizing and appropriating the righteousness and duties which the Law in generall commanded to the now present lapsed condition of man to Gods present offers of grace and our present necessities Yea herein we have Mr. B. consenting to us who Thes 30. and its Explication delivers his judgment herein to be fully one with the stream of Orthodox Divines So that if we should affirm that Christ hath beleeved repented sorrowed c. for us and in our steed it would not thence follow that we pronounce Christ to have performed the conditions of the New but onely of the Old Covenant for us 3 Yet are we far from affirming that Christ in the most strict and proper sense hath so beleeved repented c. for us that we should be taken to have beleeved repented c. not in our selves but in him and by him But the reason why we neither affirm nor hold it is not because that these are our Gospel righteousnes or New Covenant conditions of righteousness and life in the sense before oft mentioned for we have denyed and do still deny them to be such But 1 because it is in question whether the active righteousnes of Christ be imputable to us for justification And 2 if it were yet were it an unchristing of Christ to affirm him to have been ever in such a state and condition that he had need of repentance or faith to the remission of sins He took indeed our nature not the sinfulnes of our nature had our sin imputed to him or as the Scripture phrase expresly speaketh laid on him Isa 53. 6. to suffer and satisfie for it but had no sin of his own to repent of and mortifie then had there not been vertue in his Priesthood sacrifice to have expiated ours And to say that he actually repented sorrowed beleeved c. for the pardon of our sins we confes is a harsh unproper and Catachresticall locution Yet we still hold that the flawes and infirmities of our faith and repentance as well as our other iniquities were laid upon Christ that he hath satisfied divine justice for them by his sufferings and that therefore God imputeth them not to us being once in Christ Otherwise though they are parts of Gospel righteousnes to sanctification the sin and infirmity that is in them in not squaring fully with the Law their rule would bring upon us condemnation These things premissed all the absurdities which to make the assertion odious Mr. B. layeth upon us for affirming our New Covenant righteousnes to be in Christ in the sense mentioned and explained and denying our faith repentance obedience c. to be our New Covenant righteousnesse to Justification vanish into smoke For 1 It implyeth not as he saith it doth blasphemy against Christ as if he had sin to repent of for we utterly deny that Christ hath beleeved or repented for us otherwise then by satisfying justice for our not repenting beleeving c. home to the rule of the Law 2 Nor doth it imply that Jewes Pagans and every one shall be saved because Christ hath fulfilled the conditions of both Covenants for them so that they are culpable in neither For Christ hath not satisfied for the breach of much less fulfilled that which Mr B. called the conditions of the New Covenant as such conditions c. but as precepts of the old Covenant or Law of works Or should I say Christ hath satisfied onely for the Elect will M. B. contradict 3 If it should follow hence that the Elect then are righteous and justified viz. in Christ before they beleeve this would not sound as an absurdity to any other besides them to whom truth is an absurdity as hath been before shewed 4 Neither if it would follow hence that beleeving is needless to justification would it also follow that it is needless to any other use This cannot fall from any other but a prophane mouth and self-seeking man that will have nothing done out of love and obedience to God to glorifie him but all out of self-love for his own benefit onely But I have before proved faith to be needfull to justifie us to bring home into our own Consciences the benefit and evidence of our Justification even Faith acting in us therefore Faith so acting in us is also needful to this as well as to other uses though Christ hath satisfied for the infirmity of it in reference to the Law 5 It were no absurdity to confess the saved and the damned to be alike in themselves and by nature before Justification but that the difference is onely in election and Christs intention Untill then the Holy Ghost pronounceth both to be Children of wrath by nature Eph. 2. 3. both to be ungodly Rom. 4. 5. what then is the difference in themselves But their beleeving and Justification puts a difference in their relation first and then in their qualifications also the one becoming sanctified the other remaining unholy still The rest that is contained in this fifth place hath been objected before and before answered 6 What he saith in the sixth place proceeds from the heat of passion and height of self-confidence not from strength of reason or evidence of Scriptures Which of all the Lawes and precepts of Christ had Justification for its end save that of Faith Or who hath confounded Law and Gospel and overthrown all the Lawes and Precepts of Christ by removing Faith from operating in its office to this end Who hath contradicted the whole scope of Scriptures by denying Christ to be made under the Law to have fulfilled the Law to have born the curse of the Law or its imposing upon all the necessity of duty to perform our selves whatsoever the New Covenant requireth of us to Justification or Salvation But that all which Mr. B. would make conditions of Justification must be such because he will so have it notwithstanding all his bombasticall noise of woâ—ds his great Cry and little wooll will not be grâ—nted him When he brings us his large transcript of New Testament Scriptures I doubt upon due examination they will be found to make not for but against him What he instanceth p. 113 114 115. of Mr. Saltmarsh I cannot deny it neither will I defend it I remember that I did once read this passage in him and it was the same in substance as Mr. B. here transcribes him It is not a grain or two of salt that can make his Argumentation there enough savory unless he mean
men without saving any to be damned for their unrighteousness But what he hath proved before I suppose we have disapproved and that sufficiently before Yet saith he that Christ useth it i. e. the Morall Law without the separable adjunct of the Covenant of Works thereunto annexed to other ends I grant He grants that which none demands of him But what title he hath to make such a grant he shews not And I think it will cost him so much labour as will make him sweat under the saddle before he be able to shew to what other substantial and not meerly circumstantiall ends it now serveth besides those to which it served at the first creation thereof in mans innocency at least after his principles that holdeth the workes thereof now under the Gospel to tend to Justification But from this he passeth to a second question which he makes hence to arise B. Quest 2. Or whether he hath at all made the Morall Law to be the preceptive part of the New Covenant and so whether the New Covenant doth at all command us perfect obedience or only sincere To this he answereth B. 1. That the Morall Law as it is the preceptive part of the Covenant of Works is but delivered over into the hands of Christ and so continued in the sense before expressed seemes plain to me 2. That the Morall Law doth therefore so continue to command even beleivers and that the perfect obeying of it is therefore their duty and their not obeying their sinne deserving the death threatened in that Covenant 3. That Jesus Christ hath further mâ—de use of the same moral Law for a direction to his subjects whereby they may know his will That whereas our sincere subjection and obedience to Christ is part of the condition of the New Covenant that we may know what his will is which we must endeavour to obey what rule our actions must be sincerely fitted to guided by he hath therefore left us this moral Law as part of this direction having added a more particular enumeration of some duties in his Gospel That as when the Old Covenant said thou shalt perfectly obey the moral Law did partly tell them wherein they should obey So when the New Covenant saith thou shalt obey sincerely the moral Law doth perfectly tell us wherein or what we must endeavour to doe Before he pretended a purpose to speak of the Moral Law in it selfe and as considered without the Covenants but finding quickly that his Babel will not tower up out of simples he is forced either to let all fall or else himselfe must returne to his compoundings and confoundings again now mixing the moral law with the olde and by and by with the New Covenant as a part sometimes of the one and sometimes of the other as if it were a Noun Adjective which cannot stand by it selfe When contrariwise the moral Law is the rule of righteousnesse complete in it selfe the very image of Gods Nature and Will to which every reasonable creature is bound to conform that it may be like to God himselfe and so illustrate either to other the splendor of Gods glory invisible in himselfe but shining forth in their persons and performances But the Covenants are separable Adjuncts of the moral law when annexed to the moral law being free and voluntary Acts and Statutes of God which hee might pro imperio by the Soveraign authority which hee hath over his creatures either have or not have added to the moral law at his pleasure The Old Covenant making out to men the way of Salvation in strict yet equal and uncorrupt Justice The New Covenant his way of saving sinners and justifying the ungodly by free grace when in justice they were lost and unrecoverable The one of these is by the perfect fulfilling of the moral law the other without reference to the moral law at all freely by the redemption which is by Jesus Christ Here now if both Covenants were silenced and annihilated yet the moral law would abide firm still it would as well without Covenant as by Covenant speak out mans duty and obligation both unjustified and justified in his state either of integrity or infirmity to be wise holy and righteous as God made him and to act perfectly according to the perfect principles of acting first created in him even without life and heaven before him to allure him or death and hell behind him to enforce him And so the moral law is no part of either Covenant essentially that it cannot be separated from it without its nullifying Nay it was in God from all eternity and shall be in him still when all Covenants conditionall shall have their expiration Yet let us follow Master Baxter to see what businesse hee will make in the dark having thus obscured the clear light of this doctrine by his mixtures and confoundings Hee gives many answers to this 2 question 1. That the moral law as it is the preceptive part of the Covenant of workes is but delivered over into the hands of Christ and so continued in the sense before expressed seems plain to me How clear are this mans eyes I can see no plainness in the answer or any part thereof It is all intricate and almost incomprehensible to our dull understanding For 1. I see not how the moral Law is the preceptive part of the Covenant of works It contains in it I confesse the precepts of all good just and holy operations as it is the rule of all these But how it is the preceptive part of the Covenant being a distinct thing from it the Covenant being added to it and not it to the Covenant I see not 2. How it is delivered over into the hands of Christ and in what sense is hard for me to apprehend Is it taken out of God in whom it was originally and essentially so put into Christs hands that it is no more to be found in God or is that unperfect remainder of it which abode still in the Synteresis or minde and conscience of lapsed man taken thence and put into the hands of Christ that it is no more to be found in man but that after Satan had felled down the stemm and branches thereof Christ at last hath forced thence the very root thereof also that there may be no more sprouting even of an unperfect righteousnesse in any man saving by some light and mover from without him Or is it so put into Christs hand to dispose of its being and office that if he say the word that which was shall bee no more natural or moral righteousnesse much lesse the perfect rule thereof or that which was mans duty and his conformity with the nature of God if Christ will shall be so no more All these are such absurdities as cannot possibly drop from Master Baxters learned pen. Or is it delivered into the hands of Christ to bee the dispenser and disposer of it in relation to iâ—s end whether
with the constant use of the Scripture And so the Text is thus to be read Repent c. that your sins may be blotted out and that the times of refreshing may come c. upon you In this sense is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken Mat. 6. 5. Lu. 2. 35. Act. 15. 17. Rom. 34. In which soever of all these senses the words be taken this Scripture favours not at all Mr. Bax. neither hath his second justification or pardon in the day of judgement any patronage from it Yea the vanity of this distinction of pardon justification into that which is in Title of Law an◠that which is in sentence of judgement this declarative that constitutive is evident to as many as understand evidences For the whole tenor of scriptures which speakes of the last judgement tendeth to manifest it to be a pronouncing of eternall glory to the Saints because they were justified and before pardoned perfectly righteous in that sin was not imputed to them in this life not a pronouncing of pardon to them that they may be thereby received into glory Let there be any Scripture produced to evince the contrary Or why will Master Baxter have the sentence of the judge and Saviour in the last day called a declarative justification and pardon To whom shall this his sentence declare it to God He knoweth who are his and whom he hath justified and pardoned in himself and thorow Christ before the World was made therefore needs no such declaration To themselves They had in this life the word of the Gospel declaring the truth of Faith evidencing and the spirit of grace witnessing it to them and whether at the very instant they shall be affirmed to have come in spirit from the flames of Purgatory or from under the Altar in Heaven to reassume their bodies for Master Baxter keeps himself reserved in this treatise what he thinkes thereof yet their separation from the reprobates hath enough declared them to be justified so that they need no◠any further declaration to be made therein to themselves Or lastly to the World This might be somewhat usefull to the World and to themselves while they were in the World but is now utterly uselesse when they shall no more return to the World Neither is there need of a voice to declare it to the World where their instantaneous rapture up to Christ in the air to sit with Christ in judging the World shall fully enough demonstrate it And no more doth this Scripture uphold this Justification as in other termes he proposed it calling it Actuall as distinct from that which he terms virtuall All these are but windy notions to fill up the dictionary of his distinctions which have no footing in the word And when all these are fardled together they will quickly be consumed with the fire of Gods jealousie and little steed Master Baxter to dispute out his justification by works in the day of judgement No less vaporous is that which he hath Thes 40. and in its Explication where he distinguisheth most learnedly between a barre and the bar between a Wooden and an Iron Bar between a Bar and a Bar of judgement a primary and secondary bar a direct and a Consequential Bar and all with such sagacity and profoundnesse as passeth all the wisedom of the Holy Ghost in the scriptures to make out unto us pa. 190 191 192 193. B. Thes 40. When Scripture speaketh of Justification by Faith it is to be understood primarily and directly of justification in Law title and at the bar of Gods publick judgement and but secondarily and consequentially of Justification at the bar of Gods secret judgement or at the bar of Conscience or at the bar of the World And in the explication he disputeth about B. The Forum Dei and the Forum Conscientiae the Bar of God and the Bar of Conscience the Bar of God and the Bar of the World the Bar of Gods secret judgement and the Bar of his publick judgement the Bar in heaven before the Angels contradistinct I suppose to the Bar in hell before the Devills At last he gallantly gathers together all these dispersed bars justifying and unjustifying pardoning and condemning us in some sense at all the barrs and in severall senses at severall barrs according as his wit and Sophistry doth give him utterance And to what purpose is all this but to tickle witty wanton and sophistically phantasticall brains flattering them off from the simplicity plainnesse and soundnesse of the Gopsell into a disputative fangled and wordy formality of religion having the spirit and power of Conscience and the word that should regulate it enervate and evapored in to meer froth and bubbles by this questionary distinctionary and colorative shew of learning In the mean while all these barrs are by the subtlety of this Artificer made use of to bar out the poor and simple for whom Christ hath dyed from the due comfort of their justification obscuring to them the Doctrine of grace sending them from Bar to Bar for pardon and peace and leaving them unsetled and hovering to their very dying day yea till they come to the bar of Christ at the judgement day where if they be followers of this mans Doctrine they shall appear no lesse uncertainly and tremblingly before the great judge than the reprobate men and Devills For untill then all the former barrs according to Master Baxter minister no absolute pardon or acquittance to any soul so free from the Curse but that we are left under the curse acquit conditionally that is leave us fast bound to hell as it found us loose the finger to day that it may bind us up hand and foot to morrow Such and so pretiou◠Gospel doth this learned Scribe draw out of his Treasury among his Keder minsterians as by that we have already seen hath been in part manifested and by that which followes in this Treatise will more fully appear When contrary to all this Sophisticall winding circling and labyrinthicall Mazes the Scripture speaking of Justification and condemnation after the tenor of the Covenants makes onely two Barrs of judgment the Bar of justice according to the Law and the Bar of grace or Mercy-seat according to the Tenor of the Gospel or New Covenant affirming all that are judged at the one condemned and all at the other justified That as soon as we are convicted of death and vengeance onely due to us at the former we are carried out in the Spirit of Christ thorow the consecrated way of his purifying blood to seek remission of sinnes at the latter the Throne of grace the all gracious Father from the bar of grace pronounceth to our consciences peace and pardon and joy which shall never be taken from us This is the sole and all-sufficient Justification which the Scripture speakes of speaking properly of justification The subject hath heaped up Treasons against his Prince For this cause the Law apprehends and arraigns him The
the shoulders of faith to officiate with it to justification he teacheth us to reject the grace of God and to exact at Gods hands both the righteousnesse of Christ and the end of it our salvation as a debt and due in justice The Apostle puts no medium here either between faith and works or between grace and debt where workes peep up with faith to justifie in any degree faith is destroyed grace rejected works alone stand pleading for justification and salvation at the barre of Gods justice from thence alone God heareth the plea of works in vain is it to plead them at the throne of grace there nothing else but the plea of faith in Christ is heard and excepted ver 4 5. 3 In describing the righteousnesse of justification to be a righteousnesse without works a blessednesse consisting in the covering forgiving and not imputing of sin ver 6 7 8. so that to obtrude works with faith into the office of justifying is to subvert Gods justification and erect our own i. e. our own condemnation 4. Ver. 16. From all his precedent reasoning the Apostle concludeth Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace and left this should be taken for a justification peculiar to Abraham and not common to all beleevers he addeth that the promise might be sure to all the seed c. which is of the faith of Abraham as before he had said that he might be the father of all them that beleeve that righteousnesse might be imputed to them also even to them which walke in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham ver 11 12. And again afterwards ver 23. It was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we beleeve in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead ver 24. In all which places though faith and beleeving alone are named yet are they named in opposition to and with an exclusion of works as the attentive reader of that chapter will easily perceive Not to fill up the paper with any other series or body of disputation which the Scriptures plentifully afford for the confirmation of our doctrine I shall only annex some scattered testimonies thereof compleatly proving the same The whole stream of the Gospell runs this way We that are Jewes by nature in covenant with God and not sinners of the Gentiles Knowing that a man is not justifyed by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have beleeved in Jesus Christ that we might be justifyed by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law c. Gal. 2. 15 16. By the position of faith works are here deposed By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Ephes 2. 8 9. Not of works but of him that calleth Rom. 9. 11. Not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Rom. 9. 16. Not by works of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy Tit. 3. 5. This is the work of God that which is in stead of all works and effectual to justification without all works to beleeve in him whom he hath sent Joh. 6. 29. They which are of faith are the children of Abraham and blessed with our father Abraham for as many as are of the works of the Law are cursed Gal. 3. 7 9 10. Beleeve in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved Act. 16. 31. Not by the Law of works for it is written The just shall live by faith Gal. 3. 11. If by grace then it is no more of works else grace should be no more grace if of works then it is no more grace else should work be no more work Rom. 11. 6. Hence is the opposition which the holy Ghost every where maketh between Gods righteousnesse and our righteousnesse Rom. 10. 3. The righteousnesse of faith and the righteousnesse of works Rom. 9. 30 31 32. Phil. 3. 9 10. and the consenting harmony of Scriptures that so oppose Law and Gospell faith and works Gods grace and mans righteousnesse Moses and Christ the righteousnesse which is by promise and that which consists in doing Gods imputation and our qualifications so that if the one be admitted the other must be excluded from justification Unto which if I should add all of the the rest Testimonies and examples of Scripture together with the Arguments which our Divines bring thence I should to use Mr. Baxters phrase be necessitated to transcribe almost all the Scripture that relateth to the New Covenant The conclusion therefore of our Divines is not only that works have not but also that they connot have any place in or to our Justification because righteousnesse and life are meerly and wholly by promise even by the free and absolute promise made to Abraham which was without all conditions annexed Gal. 3. 8 16 17. 18. therefore without works freely conferred on the children of the promise That they are by inheritance therefore descend freely upon them that are sons by saith Gal. 3. 18. Heb. 9. 15. Rom. 4. 13 114 16. and not attained by works That in respect of the righteousnesse of works Paul knew nothing by himselfe wherein he was not perfectly sincere and sincerely perfect yet deems not himself to be thereby justifyed for the Lord is his judge and justifyer whose justifications are free 1 Cor. 4. 4. That if justification were in any part by works then had man somewhat at least whereof to glory before God but he hath nothing whereof to glory therefore c. Rom. 4. 2. That it is by imputation wholly therefore cannot be from any inherent good in our selves Rom. 4. 3 4. That if flowes wholly from faiths object or correlate not at all from any vertue of faith as a qualification inherent in us much lesse therefore from any other qualification or work of ours whatsoever To which I might add their many other reasons proving that works cannot justifie That it is by promise as I said which is still opposed to works Gal. 3. 17 18 22. even by that promise that was made to Abraham which was free absolute and without all condition of works that Gospel promise In thee all Nations of the earth shall be blessed A promise admitting only them that are of faith to blessednesse but rejecting them that are of works to the curse Gal. 3. 7 8 9 10. Yea by the same absolute and unconditionall promise or covenant oft renewed Jer. 31. 31 -34. 32. 40. That this promise is made Yea and Amen ratifyed and effectuallized in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 1 20. Not in works no nor in faith as the Papists work or Arminians act and deed or otherwise then as it is as Luther describes it Allegorically Luth. in Gal. Ca. 2. v. 16. the matter whereof Christ is the form
Such as these have exhibited or do still exhibit Christ to us for redemption or justification such is our faith still to receive him But these all have exhibited and do exhibit Christ not as a Law-giver but as an offering or sacrifice for our sins therefore under this notion our faith is to receive him to justification So all the sacrifices circumcision paschal Lamb c. under the old Testament directed the faith of men to Christs sacrifice to the bloud and wounds of Christ for purging c. Or if any will say as he may truly say that circumcision typified also the renovation of the heart by the Spirit of Christ himself may answer himself that this was to sanctification and not to justification 2 The whole stream of the Gospell leads our faith to Christ crucifyed or dying for justification As the serpent was lifted up in the wildernesse so shall the Son of man be lifted up viz. upon the crosse that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 14 15. I determined to know i. e. to preach among you for your knowledg nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed 1 Cor. 2. 2. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me signifying what death he should die Joh. 12. 32 33. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud c. Joh. 6. 47 58. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud Rom. 4. 25. Being justified by his bloud Rom. 5. 9. The bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. The Lambe of God sacrificed that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. Having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse Col. 1. 20. And reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death Ver. 21 22. Having redemption through his bloud even the sorgivenesse of sin Col 1. 14. He hath purchased his Church with his bloud Act. 20. 28. Having boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the bloud of Jesus by the new and living way which he hath consecrated through the veil of his flesh Heb. 10. 19 20. He was wounded for our sins and bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed Isa 53. 5. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. I might even weary the Reader with allegations of Scriptures every way as pertinently and properly making Christ dying for us the object of faith as justifying And I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his admirers to produce one Scripture proving Christ as a Law-giver to be the object of our faith to justification If they cannot do it let it be acknowledged as an audacious and daring presumption in Mr. Baxter from his own authority without and against the Word to lay it down here as a position and principle of Religion 3 If the death and sufferings alone of Christ and not his giving of Lawes and commanding duties of righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction which he hath given to the justice of God for us then Christ in his death and not at all in his Laws and Commands of such duties is to be made the object of our faith for justification But the former is true therefore the latter also Both the consequent and consequence of the Proposition must needs be granted by all Protestants though not by Remonstrants and Socinians which hold the imputation of the obedience of Christ to us by which he hath satisfyed Gods justice that he for us and we in and by him have done our law that his satisfying obedience is by imputation so fully made ours to justification as if we had done it our selves which is the doctrine of all Protestant Churches But Mr. Baxter hateth this phrase of imputation of Christs obedience will not cannot admit it for then he destroyes and pronounceth all at the best to be erroneous whatsoever he hath spowted out for sacred doctrine he grants the imputation of nothing else but our own faith and works to justification so that after his principles the consequence is not so clear Let us see therefore whether also after and upon his own grounds it may stand firm and undenyable 1 Then Mr. Baxter Thes 18. affirmes our Legall righteousnesse as he cals it i. e. that righteousnesse by which the Law is satisfyed for our breaches of it to be in Christ and in calling this Legall righteousnesse ours and the satisfaction therein made ours he doth imply that the satisfaction of Christ is the thing that being made ours is that which justifyeth us This he speaks out yet more plainly pa. 218. telling us that Christs satisfaction must be made ours else we cannot be justifyed that so far as by imputation no more is understood then the bestowing of Christs satisfaction on us so that we shall have the justice and benefits thereof as truely as if we had satisfyed our selves in this sense he granteth the imputation of Christs satisfactory righteousnesse and thus according to his principles that act or those acts of Christ by which he made satisfaction for us or rather Christ in these acts is to be made the object of our faith as justifying According to this rule pa. 54. he makes the Active righteousnesse of Christ considered as such part of the satisfaction together with the Passive and to lay a ground for that which he here inferreth pa. 57 he affirms that among other parts of Christs righteousnesse or Active obedience his assuming of the humane nature his establishing and sealing the Covenant his working miracles his sending his Disciples to convert and save the world his overcoming death and rising again c. which were all works most proper to his kingly office to have been meritorious and satisfactory And all this to lay a foundation for what here and Thes 72. he buildeth viz. Christ as a Law-giver as well as a Redeemer is the object of justifying faith as such and that obedience to his Laws as well as faith in his sufferings hath to do in our justification We finde then Mr. Baxter making Christ in his Legislative righteousnesse upon this ground alone to be the object of justifying faith as therein he in part satisfyed for our disobedience Therefore hoc nomine and in this respect must the consequence of the proposition stand firm with him viz. If only the death and sufferings of Christ and not at all his Legislative righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction c. then Christ in his death onely and not c. is to be made the object of faith as justifying For in that righteousnesse alone by which Christ satisfyed is faith to apprehend him to justification by his own rules The Assumption then remaines alone needfull to be proved viz. that Christs death and suffering alone is the entire satisfaction This is clear to them which will not wilfully retain beams in their eyes from these Scriptures which affirm the
life of Christ sacrificed for us to be the Ransom Mat. 20. 28. 1 Tim. 2. 6. The Price by which we are purchased and redeemed from thraldome 1 Cor. 6. 20. 7. 23. The propitiation for our sins through faith in his bloud Rom. 3. 25. 1 Joh. 4. 10. i. e. that one and only act of Christ by which our sinnes are expiated the justice of God satisfyed and his wrath appeased so that we finde him now a God propitious and gratious to us But if we will hear the Scriptures speaking at large and articulately confirming this position that the satisfaction made by Christ is begun continued and perfected meerly and wholly in and by Christs sufferings in steed of many Testimonies which the Scripture affordeth I shall pitch upon two disputes only of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews The former in cap 9. beginning at the 11 and 12 verses That Christ being become an high Priest c. by his own bloud entred once into the Holy place having obtained for us eternall Redemption I need not explain the words for the edification of any that hath but read the Scriptures and taken but overly into his consideration how that which was yearly under the Law figured in the act of the high Priest the type was at length effectually accomplished by Christ the Antitype Again ver 13 14. If the bloud of Buls c. sanctifyed to the purifying of the Flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ which by the eternall Spirit offered himselfe to God without spot purge your conscience from dead works c. An undeniable vertue and efficacy in the bloud of Christ alone without any further acts of Christ himself to purge the conscience e. i. to absolve and justifie is here affirmed And further ver 15. He is the Mâ—diatour of the new Covenant that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament they which are called may receive the promise of the eternall inheritance i. e. the eternall inheritance promised by means of Christs death and not by his Legislative righteousnesse And ver 26 Christ now once at the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself What sin All sin according to that of John The bloud of Christ purgeth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. And if from all sin what sin is there left for Christs giving of Lawes to put away or what of justification left out for it to perfect or of full satisfaction not made for it to compleat Lastly ver 28. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many How did he bear them but as the Apostle saith He hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and in bearing them on our behalfe he satisfyed justice on our behalf And this is affirmed to be by offering himself for us not by giving Laws to us or injoyning duties upon us His second dispute is chap. 10. where the Apostle having mentioned the feeblenesse of the sacrifices offered by the Law to take away sin brings in Christ offering himself to accomplish what these could not and declaring his ready obedience to fulfill that will of God written in the volume of Gods book to offer himself a sacrifice for sin with a Lo I come by this will of God saith he we are sanctifyed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all ver 5 10. He saith not we have our consecration to be holy by the commands of Christ c. but by the offering of his body And that by sanctification is to be here understood purification and justification I think it will not be denyed However ver 12. it is added that he having once offered sacrifice for sins for ever sat down at the right hand of God his sitting down and resting argues his work the work of our redemption and justification perfected in every degree and number His rest is as Gods rest was from the beginning then the work of Creation now of Redemption being made absolutely perfect the rest followed and where had this work its beginning progresse and perfection In his once offering of sacrifice for sins for ever Nothing here of Christs Law-giving and rule from the bottom to the top of the work of Redemption or Justification The sacrifice alone satisfyed so far all things of man are here excluded as that nothing else of Christ is required As it is more fully yet expressed ver 14. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctifyed His perfecting Mr. Baxter will not deny to be his making of perfect satisfaction for them and this is done by one offering of Christ Will Mr. Baxter be so audacious as to oppose the holy Ghost with his Nay telling that there must be somewhat else besides this offering viz. Christs Law-giving as part of the satisfaction made for us Lastly to put all out of doubt and besides the bounds of cavilling what the Apostle should mean here by sanctifying and perfecting this also is unfolded in plain words ver 17 18. viz. The taking away of their sinnes and iniquities And where the remission of these is there is no more offering c. satisfaction is made to the full and no need of any addition for the perfecting thereof I acknowledg there are many things required to condition Christ that he might be an effectuall offerer and offering else could not the redemption and justification which are by him have been completed or the satisfaction made for us been perfect Yea that after the work of satisfaction as formerly of Creation finished and a totall resting from any further addition to it yet the Father worketh and the Son worketh hitherto in the businesse of governing and preserving of what is so created and repayred yet this doth not at all hinder but that full satisfaction is made by the alone offering of Christ And here once more I call upon Mr. Baxter and all his adherents to bring forth any one testimony of Scripture to prove that either Christs Law-giving or any other act of Christ besides this one of offering himself a sacrifice for sin is by the Scripture in whole or in part affirmed satisfactory to God for our justification Let them not as Mr. Baxter before doth from pa. 54. to pa. 61. bring their peradventures and may bees and possibles and verisimilies for are the conjectures and results of a working and self-conceited brain to be laid as a foundation whereon to build an Article of our faith But let them bring the oracle of the Word testifying either that Christ hath done or God hath required of him or accepted from him such and such works in part of satisfaction Else our ears will be deaf to hear mans prattle being attentive in such matters only to the voice of the holy Ghost This shall suffice for the opening and confirming of ouâ— Tenet untill it shall
is as smooth as Esau's hands as free from Popery Socinianism from all injurie against the grace of God all-sufficiency of Christs merits consolation of the Saints yea from all error whatsoever as Lazarus was from sores or the poor Gadaren from Devills that had but a legion of them within him That it agrees so harmoniously with the doctrine of Paul as light with darkness Christ with Belial and the Temple of God with Idols That in these things the Covenant of Grace consisteth indeed therefore invites all at the consideration of the innocency and profundity of this his Gospel to follow him in seeking a sure salvation by their own righteousness in the Curse of the Law To insist no longer upon generals I shall examine the particular Apologies which he makes for this his Doctrine of Justification by works to cleer it from the false imputations which the ignorant Antinomians that is in his Construction Luther Calvin Twisse Pemble and their followers might charge it withall His first Task which he appoints to himself is to vindicate it from having any smack of Popery how so doth not both he and they maintain in the same words that we are justified by works this he cannot deny But forsooth there is a great difference in this whose pen it is that drops the assertion The Papists do it with a quill of a Capitoline Mr. Br. with a quill of a Kederminster goose This alters the case saith Ploydon makes the same Proposition to be Popery and no Popery But let us hear himself speaking and multiplying his reasons why it must not be taken for Popery Br. Aphor. p. 304 305. How this differeth from the Popish Doctrine I need not tell any Scholar that hath read their writings 1 They take justifying for sanctifying so do not I. 2 They quite overthrow and deny the most reall difference between the Old Covenant and the New and make them in a manner all one But I build this Exposition and Doctrine chiefly upon the clear differencing and opening of the Covenants 3 When they say we are justified by the works of the Gospell they mean only that we are sanctified by works that follow faith and are bestowed by grace they meriting our inherent justice at Gods hands In a word there is scarce any one Doctrine wherein even their most learned Schoolmen are most sottishly ignorant then in this of Justification So that when you have read them with profit and delight on some other subjects when they come to this you would pitty them and admire their ignorance 4 They take our works to be part of our legal Righteousnes I take them not to be the smallest portion of it but only a part of our Evangelicall righteousness or of the condition upon which Christs righteousnes shall be ours Suppose all these things were true and the difference between him and the Papists were so great and manifold as in these particulars he pretendeth yet all this nothing evinceth his Doctrine not to be Popish especially among Scholars to whom he appealeth For 1 All this would but excuse him a tanto non a toto that in these particulars he is not though in many other and greater he be Popish 2 Though he differed from them in the premisses yet he is one with them in the conelusion Bellarmine brings his arguments and Stapleton his to prove that works justifie Are they not both Papists because their arguments differ when their Conclusion is one Mr. Br thinks that in some particulars his curious wit hath prompted him with a finer and surer way of demonstration to stablish Justification by works than ever entered into the Cardinals Cap or Cranion Doth this deny him to be a Papist because he speaks more for them than they could for themselves 3 Though Bellarmins and Brs. way of arguing do in some particulars differ yet is the later as great an opposite to the truth of the Gospell in his way as the former in his Both oppugn with their utmost strength the doctrine of grace though they divide the battell between them the one scaling from the North the other from the South 2 But it cannot be truly sayd that there are truly those reall differences between Mr. Brs. and the Papists Doctrine which hee here particularizeth For 1 Though in some of these particulars he speaks not the idem yet he speaks the Tantundem with them 2 Where he speaks not the very idem hee speaks more grosly Pharisaically and adversatively to the truth then they For the manifesting hereof let us particularly examine those particulars in which he saith he differs from them 1 Saith he They take justifying for sanctifying so do not I. 1 This speaks out their Doctrine to be more tolerable then his For the Scripture denies not the increase of sanctification to be in part by works which is all that the Papists hold But accurseth them that shall attribute Justification either in its beginning or growth if there were any such thing to works 2 It is not true that the Papists make whole or all Justification to consist in Sanctification For in their many divisions and distinctions of Justification among the rest they have this There is a first and a second justification The former of Infants and new Converts conferred in baptism This consists in remission of sins meerly by the blood of Christ sprinkled by the Spirit in Baptism upon Infants that are not of age actually to believe and received also by Faith by believing Converts in their Baptism The later end indeed they make to consist in the infusion of the habit of grace and sanctification when the justified man ex justo justior fit is more and more justified This will afterward be manifested So that all Scholars must acknowledg Mr. Br. to have the Tantundem and almost in every apex the Idem of this Doctrine Yea worse is his doctrine in this particular than theirs For he makes Sanctification and good works a Collateral with the righteousness of Christ in justifying They abandon this doctrine teaching that they are but fruits of Gods grace and Christs merits Thus he sets up vain man as Cheek-mate with Christ they set him at his foot-stool or appoint him to follow and apprehend the hemm of his garment to draw vertue from him though indeed to other and prouder ends then he hath ordained Br. They quite overthrow and deny the most reall difference between the Old Covenant and the New and making them in a manner one I build upon the clear differencing and opening of the Covenants 1 All this is said not shewed and proved 2 If the Papists did wholly as he saith Mr. Br. to every particle of what he charges them with might tune up the Poets Epigram Jam sumus ergo pares Jam sumus ergo pares In all this we shake hands What fouler confounding of the Covenants can there be then what Mr. Br hath committed when he makes DO and LIVE to be the voyce of
both Covenants denying any usefulness to Faith it self in justifying but as it is a deed and morall work Let Babel it self be raked from end to end there will not be found more confusion The Papists say doing and works as works and doing cannot be our righteousness to justifie us But as they receive purification from the blood and grace of Christ so they obtain acceptance with God and becom our righteousnes to justifie us Christ say they hath merited that our fulfilling of the Law should justifie us Mr. Br. saith nay but our fulfilling the works which the Law requireth meriteth that we should receive Christ to Justification as we shall see by and by Let now any rationall man judg which party doth most confound the Covenants he that makes the works of the Law in and for themselves as they are simply done meritorious to Justification or they that ascribe nothing to works but what they have from Christ Both I acknowledg are to be abandoned but the deeper grain of self-extolling the more sensuall lusting after the flesh-pots of Aegypt is in Mr. Brs. Doctrine Let none object that Mr. Br. attributes it not to works as works of the Law but of the Gospel himself knoweth and hath learned that poor shift of the Papists and that they come off handsomer with it upon their then it is possible for him to do upon his principles Bax. 3. They are sottishly ignorant in the Doctrine of Justification so am not I. This I conceive he puts as a third difference between his and their doctrine For what he saith under this third particular that when they say justified they mean sanctified that he had made before the first difference If this be the difference then is he much more guilty than they I obtained mercie because I did it of ignorance saith the Apostle implying that they which did it maliciously against the light of their own understandings were excluded from mercy He that knoweth his fathers will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Yet I conceive Mr. Br. means here the Schoolmen of ancient times of Barbarism not the Jesuits Arminians Socinians and other Scholastick Phylosophick Theologasters of these later times For these are so knowing in Mr. Brs. account in the doctrine of Justification that hee hath borrowed all his knowledg and doctrine from them And why the former should be esteemed more sottishly ignorant in this than in other no lesse mysteriall doctrines of the Gospel I know not In thingt naturall and morall indeed they wrote as learned Philosophers so farr as refined reason could conduct them But in things purely Evangelicall saving about the persons and natures of Christ which they also handled more Metaphysically than Theologically besides some fragments gathered out of Augustine I could hardly ever meet with a sound piece in such of them as have come to my reading There may be a time when Mr. Br. may recant his profit and delight in dipping holy waters from the muddy streams contemning the pure fountain of the Gospel Or if he puts the difference in the former words Bax. 3 When they say we are justified by the works of the Gospel they mean onely that wee are sanctified by works that follow Faith and are bestowed by Grace they meriting our inherent Justice before God And in that which standeth as it were in a fourth place Bax. They take our works to be part our legall I take it only a part of our Evangelicall righteousnes or of the condition upon which Christs righteousness shall be ours Not to except here against his maimed alleadging of their opinions thereby feigning a distance from them that hee might allure his readers without suspition to joyn as neer with them as himself Let us take it for truth what he saith of them and then let the indifferent Reader judg 1 Whether is the most arrogant Doctrine the Papists that say works that follow and are the fruits of Faith and are done in the strength of grace supernaturally infused into the soul do merit or Mr. Br. that saith works as concauses with not fruits of Faith that flow from no other grace but Pelagius his morall Suasion without any Physicall renovation and change upon the will as for distinctions sake some of our Divines are wont to express themselves do so merit If Mr. Br. mean any thing els by grace he conceals it as a mysterie from us and will not throughout his whole book give one hint at it but makes man in his own naturall and morall qualifications the meriter of his own Justification by Christ 2 Or which ascribes most to works they that attribute to them inherent justice which is the lesser or hee that ascribes to them the meriting of Christs imputed righteousnes which is the greater Concerning legall and Evangelicall Righteousness I have spoken enough before And the phrase of the Papists and Mr. Br. is one and the same herein This might suffice to take off this delusion from his Readers that his Doctrine is not Popish But to manifest more fully in the sight of the Sun that every one may run reading it and read it running how grosly and in how many particulars his Doctrine is Papisticall I shall draw out in a parallel his Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Papists setting them side by side that whosoever will by comparing them may determine whether there be any worse Popery from Rome it self than from Kedderminster This I shall make the subject of the next Chapter CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of Mr. Baxter and of the most Trentified and Jesuitized Papists compared together in many particulars and found one and the same The Doctrine of the Papists and of Mr. Baxter compared together in many particulars in their Relation to Justification PAPISTS 1. THere is a two-fold Justification a first and a 2d. Justification the one inchoate unperfect more properly to be termed the beginning or root of and a disposition to justification or being justified than Justification it self or our being fully justified before God 2 The first justification is by the first grace given before all good works for the remission of sins for the meer merits of Christ to Infants by baptism to them that are of Age by Faith The second justification is by new obedience and good works by which the faithfull deserve increase of Righteousness to their fuller Justification 3 Good works are the condition of Justification without which Christs satisfaction is not applyed to us Of this opinion Bellarmine affirmeth some of his fellows to be and finds no fault with it or them onely himself takes up what seem'd to him more probable Himself also speaks to the same purpose The Gospel promising life upon condition of actuall working Righteousness which consists in keeping the Commandents 4 It is false therefore that we are justified by Faith onely the Scriptures no where affirm it let him be accursed that shall say it Many other graces vertues and
reason surmounting the reason and capacity of the people to comprehend And these questions which they spin and spit out by dozens yea hundreds thousands as they are mostly superfluous vain useless and many of them presumptuously and arrogantly proposed about things which the Lord hath kept secret in his own bosom not revealing them by his word so are they oft no less peremptorily and audaciously by these men answered and determined out of their Philosophicall and Metaphysicall fancies without one particle of the word to ground their determinations upon Thus by their questionary sophistry they have both obscured if not totally quenched all true Divinity i. e. the Doctrine of the Gospel and have foysted in a confused Chaos of titular Divinity that hath nothing of light or life in it such as the Scripture owns not from their own reason Compare we now Mr. Baxter with these to see whether as the Apostle calleth Timothy his own or his naturall son in the faith 1 Tim. 1. 2. because he walked directly after him in the steps of his faith So Mr. Baxter doth not also declare himself the own and naturall sonn of these sophisters by walking directly after them in the steps of their cunning and subtlety to destroy the Faith The Poets feigned that Minerva was begotten and born of Jupiters brain because she was all wisedom it self And I think Mr. Baxter would be offended if it should be denyed that all the quintissence of sophisticall learning that hath been in all the brains of all the Schoolmen and Jesuits were not so extracted from them as to have its residency now in his He was as far as I can understand born and brought up in the Protestant Church within this nation as Costor Pollux c. were in the house of Leda but by a new and strange generation or adoption of eggs layd by these Serpents he discovers himself now in a manner to be wholly theirs so fully doth he resemble yea parallel them that unum nôris omnes nôris you may read in him alone the Genius and the Craft of them all Attend we els to his own words in his explication of his 7th Thesis pag. 25 c. All that he hath written before I passe by without exception against it pag. 19. he layeth down his 7. Aphorism in these words Bax. Jesus Christ at the will of his Father and upon his own will being perfectly furnished for this work with a Divine power and personall Rigteousness first undertook and afterward discharged this debt viz. mans debt to God by suffering what the Law did threaten and the offender himself was unable to bear To this as to the rest he addeth that which he calleth an Explication i. e. an Exposition explainning or making plain of the Aphorism or point so laid Let us trace him how now he makes it plain beginning at the 25. p. before mentioned I should be too large to write all his words yet shall not wrong him by writing any save his own words or the very substance of them Bax. Here we are cast upon many and weighty and very difficult questions 1 Whether Christ did discharge this debt by way of solution or by way of satisfaction 2 Whether in his suffering and our escape the threatning of the Law was executed or dispensed with 3 And if dispensed with how it can stand with the truth and justice of God 4 And whether sinners may thence be encouraged to conceive some hope of a relaxation of the threatnings in the Gospell 5 And whether the faithfull may not fear lest God may relax a promise as well as a threatning 6 And whether if the Law be relaxable God might not have released his Sonn from the suffering rather then to have put him to so great torment and to have freely pardoned the offenders And p. 27. The resolving of the first question depends upon the resolving of two other questions both great and difficult 1 What it was which the Law did threaten 2 What it was that Christ did suffer Various are the judgments of * He means the Popish Doctors specially for they with him are the Divines Divines about the former c. 1 Whether Adams soule and body should have been annihilated and destroyed so as to become in sensible 2 Or whether his soule should have been immediately separated from his body as ours are by death and so be the only sufferer of the pain 3 Or if so whether there should have been any resurrection of the body after any space of time that so it might suffer as well as the soul 4 Or whether soul and body without separation should have gone down quick into hell ar into any place or state of torment short of hell 5 Or whether both should have lived a cursed life on earth through everlasting in exclusion from Paradise separation from Gods favâ—ur and gracious presence loss of his image c. 6 Or whether he should have lived such a miserable life for a season and then be annihilated or destroyed 7 And if so whether his misery on earth should have been more than men do now endure And the more importance are these questions of because of some others that depend upon them As 1. What death it was that Christ redeemed us from 2 And what death it is that perishing Infants dye or that our guilt in the first transgression doth procure For it being a sinn against the first covenant only will be punished with no other death than that which is threatned in that Covenant And pag. 31. Besides it is needfull to know what life was the reward of that Covenant that we might know what death was the penalty and this also comes into question about the reward whether if he had not fallen he should after a season have been translated into heaven without death as Enoch and Elijah or whether he should have lived for ever in this terrestriall Paradise without addition of further bliss to that which he had at his first Creation And as touching the death which Christ suffered whether it were the same that was threatned to Adam Pa. 33. If we take the threatning at its full extent as it expresseth not only the penalty but also its proper subject and its circumstances then it is undenyable that Christ did not suffer the same that was threatned For the Law threatned the death of the offender but Christ was not the offender Adam should have suffered for ever but so did not Christ Adam did dye spiritually by being forsaken of God in regard of holiness as well as in regard of comfort and so was deprived at least of the chief part of his image so was not Chrst Yet neither is this certain that Christs death was not the same c. for It is disputable whether these two last were directly contained in threatning or not whether the threatning were not fully executed in Adams death and the eternity of it were not accidentall even a
necessary consequent of Adams disability to overcome deaâ—h and deliver himself which God was not bound to do And whether the loss of Gods image were part of the death threatned or rather the effect of our sin only executed by our selves and not by God whether God did take away his image or man did thrust it away Admirable profoundness and learning but after all this stirr and such egregiously deep speculations as preparatories to the determining of the first question whether Christ did discharge our debt by way of solution or by way of satisfaction how doth he at length determine it Bax. P. 29 30. Much may be said this seemeth that is unlikely one thing probable another possible But for a finall conclusion p. 31. It is hard to conclude peremptorily any thing in so obscure a case And so he leaves us so wise as if he had slept and said nothing But afterwards recalling himself though he can conclude nothing as to the forementioned particular preparatories to the determination of the question yet p. 35. to the substance of it in generall he thus answereth Bax. I canclude then that in regard of the proper penalty Christ did suffer a pain and penalty of the same sort and of equall weight with that threatned but yet because it was not in all respects the same it was rather satisfaction than the payment of the proper debt being such a payment as God might have chosen to accept I list not to quarrel with him about the conclusion it being not a point mainly controverted between us and the Papists Only who sees not that he might as easily have thus concluded without medling with so many frivolous and arrogant questions leaving them where he found them as not giving the least fulture to such a conclusion And when he hath thus determined the question they that lock up to themselves his Conclusion as a treasure shall gaine so much by it as he that rejoyceth of a chip in his pottage Possibly it may do no hurt but certainly it will do no good to salvation But the answer to the second question comes without the help or push of a leaver to heave it after viz. whether the threatning was executed or relaxed and dispensed with B. The answer to this is plain in the Answer to the former p. 35. Both alike for were it worth the scanning we should find both either answered or unanswered and the things searched after no less plain to be seen and taken up than a needle in a bottle of hay And so much M. Baxter seeth for he comes after 1 with his distinction B. In regard of the meer weight of punishment considered as abstracted from person and duration it was executed and to avoid the mistake of the Printer I conceive it should be not relaxed Yet taking the threatning entirely as it was given out and we must say viz. if we say after Mr. Baxter it was dispensed with for mankind doth not suffer all that was threatned When I attain the meaning of the words I shall be able to judg of the strength of the reason therein contained And 2ly he brings in a doubt viz. B. If the death threatned did consist in our present miseries and temporall death only then the answer must be recanted c. And a little further Conference with these Diviners rather than Divines it seemeth would make him of their minds And so the answer to the question depends upon ifs if Mr. Baxter change his mind his answer must fall after him In the mean while the third question must depend upon the uncertain answer to the second B. If the threat be dispensed with how it can stand with the truth and justice of God so to dispense with it Lo the answer to the former question is stuck so deep in the mire that the best Team in Worcestershire cannot draw it out Nevertheless such an artizan is Mr. Baxter that with the spell of a few distinctions he doth it while a man would wipe his mouth thus B. Concerning the justice of God the question is not difficult and I shall say nothing to that See he is half out of the labyrinth already and never moves a finger for it O rare dexterity It costs a little more labour to get free from the other half and thus de doth it B. The question is how to reconcile this dispensation with Gods truth Here you must distinguish 1. Betwixt the letter of the Law and the sense 2. Betwixt the Law and the end of the Law 3. Between a threat with exception either expressed or reserved and that which hath no exception 4. Between a threatning which only expresseth the desert of the sinn and what punishment is due and so falleth under the will of precept and that which also intendeth the certain prediction of event and so falleth under the will of purpose also And now I Answer 1. The end of the Law is the Law and that being the manifestation of Gods justice and hatred of sin c. was fulfilled and therefore the Law was fulfilled a Let the Judg of assizes then chide and lay by the feet a murtherer for an hour declaring therby his justice and hatred of the offeÌ„ce M. Baxter must conclude him to be a just Judg to have fulfilled the Law if hereupon he forth-with discharge him 2. Most think that the threatning had this reserved exception Thou shalt dye i. e. by thy self or thy surety and though it be sinfull for man to speak with mentall reservations when he pretends to reveal his mind yet not in God because as he is subject to no law so he is not bound to reveal to us all his mind nor doth he indeed pretend any such thing 3. So that the sense of the same is fulfilled 4. But the special answer that I give is this when threatnings are meerly parts of the Law and not also predictions of the event and discoveries of Gods purpose thereabouts then they may be dispensed with without any breach of truth For as when God saith Thou shalt not eat of the tree c. the meaning is only It is thy duty not to eat and not eventually that he should not eat So when he saith Thou shalt dye the death the meaning is Death shall be the due reward of thy sin and so may be inflicted for it at my pleasure and not that he should certainly suffer it in the event b This Doctrine wipes off all feare from scandalous sinners having this plea put into their mouth by Mr. Baxter God hath said thou shalt not so offend but his meaning is not that I should eventually abstain and hath said Thou shalt be condemned not meaning eventually to execute it Ergo I may go on in sin without fear Read the rest he that loves it I have enough even to nauseousness What Jesuite reading this will not cry out O delicatum animulum a babe of the same mould with the Scholastick
of our assertion or refuting of Mr. Baxters The Holy Ghost saith not Christ hath purchased to us a liberty for the future that in time we may be delivered from the Curse but he hath redeemed us hath obteined a present freedome for us from the Curse of the Law And how being made a curse for us He hath made present payment that we might have present deliverance Even as a surety making full satisfaction to the Creditor for the principalls debt obteins thereby for him a present discharge from his obligation not that he shall be for a season liable to arrests and imprisonments and after much fear and sufferings in this kinde be at last discharged This were enough but the wisdome of the Holy Ghost proceeds yet further to evidence this truth and to stop every mouth that shall presume to open it self against it That the blessing of Abraham might come even upon the Gentiles beleeving viz. the promise of the Spirit or Spirit promised by faith All must acknowledg that the entrance of the blessing and removeall of the Curse by the vertue of Christs death are coaetanea of one time and standing But the blessing which is the receiving of the Spirit is actually and oft in the beleevers own spirituall feeling existent and working in him assoon as by faith he is united to Christ Therefore also assoon as he is united to Christ he is actually freed from the Curse of the Law Again Rom. 8. 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus It will not be denyed here that condemnation is either put for or includeth in it the punishment to which the offenders are adjudged or condemned and so the meaning of the words must be this that there is remaining no curse no vengeance to which they that are in Christ might be condemned nor any sentence to adjudge or condemn them to it viz. because Christ hath born both for them and in thier stead This is fully confirmed in the second verse but I forbear to annex it because it is capable of many interpretations which would be too long here to insert but all tending to the Confirmation of this truth laid down in the first verse And if there be no condemnation no vengeance no curse to which beleevers are subject than are they freed from the Curse as well in its parts as in the whole So Rom. 6. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace In what respects shall not Sin have dominion over beleevers It is expressed partly ver 12. It shall not so reign that they should obey it in the lusts thereof And more fully before cap. 5. 21. It shall not so reign as formerly it hath reigned unto death i. e. to expose them to the curse and wrath Why Because they are not under the law but under grace The law denounceth and Gods revenging justice inflicteth the Curse yet upon none besides them which are under the law But beleevers having done their law in and by Christ come no more under the dominion of the law to be cursed by it but ever after they are in Christ they are under Grace at the disposition and under the dispensation of Gods grace from which all blessings but no curse hath its derivation No less absurd therefore is it to say that beleevers are liable to the Curse than to affirm that the Curse is an effect of Gods grace and not of his revenging justice And is there any thing less to be gathered from thapostle affirming Col. 2. 14. That Christ hath blotted out that Hand-writing of ordinances which was against us and contrary to us and taken it away nailing it to his Cross What was there in that hand-writing of Gods lawes and ordinances more against us and contrary to us than the curse but this th'apostle affirms Christ to have blotted out cancelled crucified in respect of any further power that it can challenge over the Saints Or when the promise of God is thus gone forth I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sinns and their iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 8. 12. Who will give any other interpretation to these words but this that God will not be wanting in his grace to remember the iniquitie of beleevers to purg them from it yet he will never more so remember it as to inflict the curse and wrath upon them for it Not to heap up scriptures beyond measure to this purpose I shal conclude with that of the Apostle Rom. 8. 15. Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father When was their time of bondage and fear but when they were under the law or what did they fear but the curse death and wrath which the law threatned But now being in Christ freed from the law they have received together with a new Condition or relation a new Spirit a Spirit not of fear but of Confidence not of fear because they have a freedom from the law and curse which before held them all their life time in fear but of Confidence because that being in Christ they are adopted to be the children of God no more to fear the curse from him as a Judge but to dwell upon his mercies as the mercies of an indulgent Father Enough for the confirmation of the first assertion and in all that hath been said there is nothing of the fallacies and querks of mans wit and learning but the very demonstration of the Spirit by the word The proof of the second is included in this If true beleevers are not obnoxious and liable to the Curse and wrath of God it must follow by necessary Consequence that then the afflictions and sorrowes which befall them here are no parts of the Curse or effects of Gods vindicative justice upon them But further to manifest that they are fruits of Gods love and discending from the grace of God I shall annex some Scriptures that give their suffrage hereunto First that in Heb. 12. 5 -8 may stand in stead of all in which the Apostle doth so fully dispute and determine this question as if it had been in his dayes Controverted He will not have us to forget that exhortation which speaketh unto us as to children My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord neither faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what son is he whom he chasteneth not But if ye are without chastisement whereof all are partakers ye are bastards and no sonnes Three Arguments eminent above the rest we here receive from the hand of the Apostle full to our purpose 1 He calls the afflictions of the Saints Chastenings or Chastisements not punishments or judgements insinuating that the troubles which they suffer toto coelo
of avoyding tediousnes to leave the most precious truths hidden in corners and onely to leave a paint of plausibility and probability upon the Embryons and errors of his own brain in stead of bringing them openly to the tryall And this occasioned me to be the more in length to bring forth cleerly into the light the truth that he hath hidden and to take off the outside paint from his fancies that they might appear in their own nature and colors Partly also to discover the pernicious danger which lurketh in the doctrine which he hath here delivered against which too much cannot be spoken to prevent the taking of inconsiderate and over credulous Christians in his snares I shall shew my reasons why I call it pernicious doctrine and so leave the question 1 It is anti-scripturall and diametrically opposite to the word as is enough manifested by that which hath been already said in the examination thereof 2. It is Antichristian hath sundry Popish errors some more apertly others more hiddenly included in it So that when immediately before his arguments he professeth that it is not affectation of singularity that divides him in judgement from the reformed Churches we doubt not but he speaks truth herein For it is to follow the stream and Clowd of Popish Doctors whose sophistry hath more force upon his judgment than ever I could perceive the Word to have Those Popish errors then that are more openly conteined in his doctrine here are principally about Christs and mans satisfactions made to God for mans sinns in which as the Papists so Mr. Baxter will have man to bear a share with Christ that the glory may not be wholly the Lords And here in sundry points Mr. Baxter speaketh the very same things though not altogether in the same words with the Papists I shall in these severall points lay down briefly the doctrine of the Papists first and then compare Mr. Baxters with it that the Coherence betwixt them may be cleerly seen The Papists opinions I shall truly set forth to you though briefly as they themselves express themselves in the Councell of Trent Sess 6. Cap. 14. 16. Sess 14. Cap. 8 9. and Bellar in his two books de Purgatorio lib. 4. de Poenitentia and by sundry other of their own Writers 1 They hold that although Christ hath by his death and merits satisfied the Law and Justice of God for the fault of our sinns in offending Gods Justice and violating his holy Law so that God is no more at enmity with but reconciled to them which truly repent and beleeve hath fully pardoned their sinn and forgiven their offences for Christs sake yet hath neither Christ given nor God taken full satisfaction for the punishment but that after the fault is pardoned God may and will inflâ—ct punishment upon the offender In this and the rest points of satisfaction they give this generall rule that Christ hath undertaken for us onely that which we could not do for our selves and satisfied for us so far onely as it was unpossible for us to make satisfaction for our selves As for that which by doing or suffering was in our power to accomplish for our selves that he hath left to be without his preventing us accomplished by us But in this Case say they It was unpossible for man to undertake any work any suffering so noble worthy as might stand in equipoise with the offending of so infinite a Majestie and so to satisfie Gods Justice for the fault This therfore Christ hath done and God hath accepted from Christ in our behalf But it was possible for man to satisfie at least in part for the punishment which the justice and law of God exact for the offence committed This therefore is in part left to us to satisfie and after he hath forgiven the fault doth notwithstanding inflict upon us the punishment for the satisfying of his law and justice This they go about to prove by the example of Gods dealing with Moses and Aaron when they had sinned against him he forgave freely their fault and offence nevertheless called them exactly to a reckoning about the punishment was in perfect friendship with them again yet would not abate them an ace of the punishment which he had threatened to them they must dye in the Wildernes and never enter into the land that flowed with milk and hony The like they instance in David about his sin in reference to Bathsheba and Vriah The Lord forgave the offence The Lord hath put away thy sin saith the Prophet thou shalt not surely dye 2 Sam. 12 13. Nevertheles in reference to the punishment David shall smoke for it The child shall dye the sword shall never depart from his house c. so that David shall rue it to his very dying day Other Scriptures and reasons they bring which would be over tedious to insert Compare we now Mr. Baxters doctrine with theirs Thes 7. he tells us That Christ Jesus being fully furnished for this work of Mediation by his Fathers and his own will first undertook and afterward discharged mans debt by suffering what the Law did threaten and the offender was unable to bear And Thes 8. That the Father so fully accepted the satisfaction that by way of reward to Christ that gave it he hath delivered all things into his hands and given him all power in heaven and in earth and made him Lord both of the dead and living Yet Thes 9th addeth that It was not the intent of either the Father or the Son that by this satisfaction the offenders should be immediately delivered from the whole Curse of the Law and freed from the evill which they had brought upon themselves but some part must be executed upon soul and body c. And this he goes about by his ten Arguments which we have examined to prove of the beleevers themselves that they are liable to the punishment and Curse of the Law to bear it in part even to death it self and that though there be no unpardoned sin for which the curse as the curse Pag. 71. Arg. 8 is inflicted upon them Let any discreet man here judge if there be the least haires breadth betwixt Mr Baxter and a Papist according to the Councell of Trent i. e. the worst Papist The rule of both about satisfaction is the same Christ hath done and suffered for us what we could not do and suffer for our selves say the Papists Christ hath suffered for us what the Law did threaten and we were unable to bear saith Mr. Baxter implying that whatsoever we can bear must yet be inflicted upon us For this satisfaction the fault is forgiven saith Bellarmine By means of this satisfaction there remains no unpardoned Sin saith Mr. Baxter viz. upon beleevers Yet say both when the sin is forgiven the punishment curse and penalty of the Law must be suffered Here is noble mercy and forgivenes to pardon a man his fault and to pronounce with
vouchsafeth not to answer one no nor to cite one why but that he thinks when the Scriptures and his own assertions do contradict either the other the authority of his own judgment not only to parallel but also to over-weigh the authority of the Scriptures What Papist what Enthusiast hath or can have the Scriptures in less esteem then this Aphorist shews himself here and elswhere to have What Scriptures are brought against him he disdaineth them an answer yea a glance of his eye to see them or tongue to read them to us But if he finds any Scripture whose point with much bowing and wresting he thinks he may turn about against us that have no more wit but to think their authority venerable and requiring our submission thereunto of these he makes use to befool yet more such fools as regard them If I fail in my censure the Lord forgive to me the mistake of my judgment and to Mr. Baxter his giving occasion yea cause of such a mistaking And as the authority of Scriptures is pufft from him with less then a piff or pish so do we find humane authority in all probability falsified by him I know saith he that learned and godly men are of this judgment that the Law as a Covenant of works is quite null and repealed in regard of the sins of beleevers I do not doubt but by these learned and godly he means some Protestant Divines whom somtimes he will flatter smooth and almost spit in their mouths to allure them to run after him Now if he do not falsify their assertions let him name but one of them that ever affirmed the Law to be so repealed I may possibly acknowledg him to be in the main learned and godly but I believe I shall never account him to have been considerate in laying down such an assertion For it directly contradicts the doctrine of our Saviour Think not saith he that I am come to destroy the Law c. I am not come to destroy but fulfill Verily verily Heaven and Earth shall pass but not one jot or tittle shall not pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Mat. 5. 17 18. Or to whom should it be repealed not to unbeleevers for it is consented in both sides that they are under the Law under the Curse Nor to beleevers for the Law hath pursued their sins unto death in the body of Christ and by Mr. Baxters acknowledgment hath inflicted upon him for them upon them in him the tantundem if not the idem which it ever threatned against sinners And how is the Law repealed in any of its power that doth or hath executed all its power upon all that have been transgressors Mr. B. very well knoweth what doctrine is taught in the Reformed Churches but will needs falsify it as he doth also the Holy Scriptures We affirm that the Law is still in force and shall be til the worlds end We preach not a repeal of any of its power or righteousness which it had from God at any time Neither on the other side do we attribute to it a power or unrighteousnes which God never gave it We grant it a power to take full vengeance upon every sinner for every sin committed during life But we deny that if any be raised to a second life after death as was Christ having born the whole wrath due to the sins of the former life that such a one comes under the power of the Law again the Law hath never more dominion over him But so stands the case with believers They have suffered in Christ done their Law in Christ are dead in Christ and in him they have satisfied the Justice of the Law for the sins of their whole life If now they are also risen with Christ and are dignified with a new life the life of grace so that though they live it is not so much they that live as that Christ liveth in them and the life which they live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God Gal. 2. 20. In this new life which they have by their union unto Christ now triumphant the Law can no more reach them then Christ himself triumphant So the Law is nulled to them but never repealed nulled because it hath inflicted upon them its whole penaâ—ty and after it hath so done it hath no more power over the very reprobates much lesse over the Saints So that the Law being null or of no force to believers hath received no diminution to its power holding it still firm and entire as ever no more then the Law of the Land is weakened for that when it hath inflicted death upon the Felon or Traytor it hath no further power to question him As before they had existence in Adam their not existing yet in him and under the Law by being in Adam argued no weaknes in the Law So when they have don their Law for the sins committed while under the Law and that by their new union unto and existence in Christ they cease to be under the Law that the Law hath no power over them argues no wound or weaknesse or detriment that the Law hath sustained any more then it doth because it is null in power to the Angels in Heaven over whom it had never power or null unto Christ now in Heaven over whom it had once power Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the penalty of the LAW is due to none but the transgressors of the Law to the unrighteous and withall affirms Thes 16. p. 96. and Explication page 98 99. That Satisfaction for disobedience is our Righteousnes makes a man so perfectly righteous as to the Law and further penalty thereof as if he had never disobeyed Yet we find him here fighting not onely against Heaven and Earth but against himself also to deny the nullity of the Law to them that have satisfied by CHRIST for their disobedience to the Law making it one and the same thing with the repealing of the Law This word repealing being here foisted in by himself partly to make way for his sophisticall and bombasticall distinctions which are no less deer to him then his life therefore in the Explication of the next Thesis comes in great ostentation no less trappled with them then a Cart-horse with his painted Collar bells and fethers partly to give occasion of his riding in state upon Grotius his shoulders to shew what new subtle and fine-spun learning he hath drawn from so noble and Apostaticall a Doctor no less fit to the Argument he hath in hand than the shoo iâ— for the hand or the glove for the foot But lastly and principally that having according to his wonted and inbred subtlety put on a false vizzard upon the doctrine of the reformed Churches he might in the 13 Thes and its explication dispute victoriously against the vizzard having nothing to say against the doctrine in its own nature and verity As for the other pretended opinion that the Covenant
I know that the observance of the Law of Ceremonies and the seeking of Life by the works of the Law are both commonly called Legall Righteousnes and that Christs legall righteousness imputed to us is commonly called Evangelicall Righteousness he must needs mean primarily that these are so Called Commonly in holy Scriptures and but secondarily that they are so called by Ecclesiasticall Writers as they derive from the Scriptures a Chaste Scripture phrase wherein to expresse spirituall doctrines For so the Scripture mentioneth onely two kinds of Righteousness that ever Came or shall Come into Competition about our Justification the one a legall righteousnes or righteousness of the Law the other the Evangelicall righteousnes or righteousnes of the Gospel The legall Righteousness it affirms to be a righteousness of works which we have done i. e. of good qualifications within us and good operations flowing from us the Evangelicall righteousness to be of meer grace and mercy Tit. 3. 5. The latter it terms Gods Righteousness i. e. that which God giveth and imputeth the former our own righteousness i. e. which is wrought within our selves and acted by our selves Rom. 10. 3. Phil. 3. 9. That of the Law a Righteousnes of works this of the Gospel a Righteousness without works Rom. 4. 6. That a Righteousness in our selves inherent This a Righteousness in Christ imputed Eph. 2. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Or let Mr. Br shew any one Scripture that terms the Righteousness which is in and by Christ a legall or that which is inherent in our selves an Evangelicall Righteousness or that terms any gift or qualification in man or work and deed of man his righteousness any peece of his righteousness unto Justification So that his quarrell here is against the Holy Ghost for speaking so improperly and incongruously in Scriptures and Calling the Righteousness which is by Christ Evangelicall and the righteousness which is in our selves Legall Righteousness But how will he Confute the Holy Ghost and prove an absurdity and impropriety in the language of the Holy Ghost Forsooth by opposing himself his own authority and learning to the Holy Ghost and his wisdome and authority Himself he affirms to speak logically and by Consequence strictly and properly But the Holy Ghost is no scholar never read Aristotle therefore speaks rudely rustically like one of the Rural Animals not as an Artist out of the schools Himself gives scholar-like a denomination to these two Righteousnesses from that Covenant which is their Rule from the Formall Reason of the thing But the Holy Ghost for lack of school-learning gives names thereunto from more Alien Extrinsecall respects This is the summe of his reasoning And is it not possible to request from Mr. Br that he would take the Holy Ghost a while as a pupill into his Tuition to read unto him some Logicall Lectures by which he may be instructed to mould a new the Scriptures into another a Logical insteed of that spirituall and Celestiall phrase in which we now finde them Or if the Spirit of truth and wisdom should be the Teacher not the Schollar of Mr. Br then may we break out into Mr. Brs words against Mr. Br Moâ—strous Doctrine pride reasoning and that which every Christian should abhorr as unsufferable But if Mr. Br be not in more haste than good speed a word or two we shall request from him to be resolved in some few questions before we part upon that which he hath here written First Whether it hath not been the Common slight of all subtle heretikes to make new and unused phrases their harbingers to promote and make way for the vending of their new opinions and monstrous doctrines yea whether he himself had not first laid down a purpose within himself of broaching his doctrine of Justification by works and inherent righteousness and then after devised this new distinction of our legall righteousnes in Christ and Evangelicall righteousness in our selves both necessary to our justification or to what other end hath he coined this novelty of words and phrase in opposition to the language of the Gospel but to make it subservient to the novelty of his pernicious doctrine Contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel 2 Whether by this novelty of phrase he doth not attribute more excellency and efficacy as to justification to mans inherent than to Christs imputed righteousness For pag. 98. himself affiâ—meth that The primary most excellent and most proper righteousness lyeth in the conformity of our actions to the precept the secondary less excellent Righteousness yet fitly enough so called is when though we have broke the precepts yet we have satisfied for our breach either by our own sufferings or some other way Compare we with that which he there spake that which here he speaketh and we shall finde him attributing that which he calleth the primary most excellent and most proper righteousness to our selves viz. our Conformity to the precepts of the Gospel and that which he calleth the secondary less excellent righteousness to Christ in and by whom we have satisfied for the breach of the precepts of the Law If this be not the nullifying surely it is the abasing of Christ And he that would thus veil will be ready also to quench as much as in him lyeth the glory of Christs Righteousness 3 What shew of truth is there in that which he assigneth as the Cause of his departing from the usuall phrase of Scripture to a new expression of words Calling Christ our Legall and our own qualifications and works our Evangelicall Righteousness which no man since the very foundation of the world was laid I think ever so termed before him They so take name saith he from the Covenant which is their Rule c. and their Denomination from the formall Reason of the thing To the unveiling of this Mystery Davuâ— sum non Oedipus It must be some of Pythagoras his mysticall and not of Aristotles Dialectick learning that must so bring this about that we may finde and fathom it For first how is the Law of Nature or Covenant of works the rule of Christs Mediation or satisfaction made for us Whether we Consider it as it was fullfilled by Christ or as it is apprehended by us to righteousness is the Law or old Covenant made with mankinde a rule or direction to him or us Did this law at all either binde or direct the eternall Sonn of the eternall God to assume our Nature and in it to offer himself a sacrifice for our sinn and so make satisfaction to divine Justice Indeed as in Christs sufferings we see him onely a patient drawn and dragg'd to judgement and death for our iniquiâ—ies laid on him so was his passion the effect of the Law But if there were no more to be seen in his sufferings he should not have been our righteousnes either Legall or Evangelicall For what merit could there be in a suffering of Constraint and Compulsion But when in his sufferings he
was a voluntary agent Called and Consecrated by the Father to be our Priest Heb. 5. 5. No man taking his life from him but himself laying it down of himself for us and in our stead Joh. 10. 18. Thus he became the purchaser of righteousnes for us and is made of God Righteousnes to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. But all this he did not by the rule of the Law or Covenant of works but of the secret and sacred Covenant made between the Father and him Therefore having mentioned the voluntarines of his suffering in the fore quoted Joh 10. 18. He addeth This Commandment have I received of my Father implying that this his satisfactory obedience in dying for us had its regulating not by the old Covenant of works or any precept of the Law given to man but by the Covenant which had passed between the Father and the Son in reference to man and a speciall positive Commandment from the Father agreeing with the tenor of that Covenant As for our apprehending and pleading the righteousnes of Christ to Justification impudency it self will neither affirm it to be done by the rule of the Covenant of law and works nor deny it to be done in Conformity to the Covenant of grace and rule of the Gospel Or because Christ hath born the penalty of the Lawes breach shall he therefore be Called our legall righteousnes as from the formall reason of the thing Nay both that Christ suffered and the Father received and accepted his sufferings in full satisfaction for our transgressions That the Father sent him to satisfie the justice of his law for us and for his satisfactions sake he doth no more impute to us the breach of his Law All this is the fruit of his grace and in conformity to the Gospel and Covenant of grace not to the Law and Covenant of works Therefore if we give the denomination from the formall reason of the thing we must call it our Evangelicall not Legall righteousnes which is in Christ Touching the other opposite term that any thing inherent in man whether the gifts of grace Faith Repentance Charity c. or their fruits and works should be called our Gospel righteousnes I see no reason for it neither can devise in what other sense they may be so called but by a Catachresticall Ironia which names a thing and means the contrary As the Mounteins are called Montes quia minime movent Mounts or Movers because they do in no wise Move or as the Fames Auri is sometimes called sacra the inordinate desire of money is termed holy quia minime sacra sed prorsus execrabilis because it is in no case sacred but wholly accursed So in no other sense may this righteousnes in self be called Gospâ—l righteousnes in reference to Justification but because it is totally opposite to the doctrine and nature of the Gospel and because the Gospel doth wholly reject and abandon it Mr. Br. peradventure may and will bring other reasons and where he doth it we shall take pains to examine them 4 Why he calls beleeving or Faith to be our Gospel righteousnes and whether it be to any other end but with the Papists upon the same grounds to bring in good works to Justification also If he deny this the whole sequele of his Book will be an enditement of falshood against him CHAP. XIV That which Mr. Baxter brings to confirm the matter of this his Doctrine examined and found both fallacious and empty And what he addeth to mitigate the asperity viz. That we perform these conditions not by our own strength but by the grace of Christ evidenced to be a meer shift borrowed from the Papists Mr. Baxter after he hath thus made a flourish and nothing but a flourish to explain and defend his phrase and make odious the phrase of Scripture now proceedeth to confirm the matter of his doctrine Let us see whether there be any thing Logicall or Theologicall and not meerly sophisticall He hath confessed before p. 109. that some who are not Antinomians but Orthodox Divines have startled at the expressions of his 19 and 20 Positions as conteining in them some self-exalting horrid doctrine therefore will he say something thereto by way of explication and confirmation Now having said something as bad as nothing to take off contention about words what doth he add for the confirmation of the matter of his doctrine He was to have proved 1 That Gospel righteousnes or the righteousnes of the New Covenant consisteth not in the imputation of the righteousnes which is by Christ to us but in our own actuall and personall faith and obedience 2 That we must be righteous in our selves first and then after be made righteous by Christ 3 That the righteousnes of the New Covenant is not sufficient to justifie and save but onely to give us right to the righteousnes of the old Covenant which doth actually and immediately save and justifie 4 That those gifts of grace vertues and endowments that are required to our sanctification are not the fruits but the causes of our justification and conditions of our interest in Christ and consequently that our sanctification hath a priority and goes before justification These were the points in which he acknowledgeth himself to be down-right opposed by some and startled at by others What doth he now say for the silencing of these down-right opposers and startlers Just so much as he that would confute all that Bellarmine had written in three words viz. Bellarmine thou liest Or what brings he for the confirmation of those his assertions wherein he is so opposed Nothing but a fardle of sophisticall fallacies consisting of begged principles and homonymies of words First he clustereth together many Conclusions without either premisses or proofs The righteousnesse of the New Covenant then being the performance of its conditions this is his first Conclusion which by the word then bearing the force of therefore he would insinuate to lean upon some foregoing premisses when contrariwise there is not so much as a peble of four grains to sustein it not a word laid as the foundation thereof It is the thing in question we deny it he brings nothing to confirm it besides his bare affirmation which to us is no more then a pillar of straw to bear up a Castle And its conditions being our obeying the Gospel or believing This is his second Conclusion taken as granted when contrariwise his opposers utterly deny it And here he plaies also with an homonymy of words as if faith and obeying the Gospel which in the Apostles sense are so in his sense also were the same thing covering his poyson untill the feat be done by it It must needs be plain that on no other terms do we partake of the legall righteousnes of Christ I will not say that self-confidence hath made the man mad but rather that he thinks all the world mad and in such a sottish slumber that none can
by Christs repenting beleeving c. his satisfying of Gods justice by his expiatory sacrifice for the failings of our Faith and Repentance at they held not up to the Lawes perfection I dislike it no less then Mr. B. But can we conjecture that Mr. Saltmarsh himself was not the first that disliked it and all the rest both good and bad of what he wrote in that Tractate I have been told by some of his godly acquaintance that the man had a naturall impotency of crazines in his brain And the whirlwind of imaginations wherewith he was carried to a hasty taking up of opinions and no les hasty hurling away of them again the much of the top and the little of the bottom of wit the flashes of nimblenes and the want of solidity and depth which he shewed in his writings his inconsistency with himself with others with the Scriptures his exâ—reme mutability and roving from Tropick to Tropick without settledness any where do in great measure prove the report to be true And if so he is to be pittied though his infirmities are not to be patronized However this extravagancy of his into so loos and careless expressions doth neither justifie Mr. B. Tenents nor ought to â—rejudice the Truth from which Mr. B. or any other hath erred Neither doth Mr. B. captiousnes so null my charity as to enteâ—â—ain the least conjecture that ever Master Saltmarsh meant or thought that Christ had sinne to repent of or beleeved to obtein the pardon thereof Here now wee finde Master Baxter returning from his irefull pursuit of his imaginary not reall Antinomians and of a dead mans Ghost that could neither see nor hear him And when hee reviews what he had written hee sees it neither holpen nor amended by his hot words spent upon the wind He had affirmed that there is a two-fold Righteousnesse necessary to our Justification one the Righteousnesse of Christ imputed to us the other a personall Righteousnesse or Righteousnesse of our owne inherent in our selves And to this our own Righteousnesse had attributed an equall power with the Righteousnesse of Christ to our Justification if not a power above and superiour to it This assertion of his he perceives to savour so much of humane arrogance and to use his own words to be a self-exalting horrid Doctrine of so high a nature and so contradictory to the whole Tenor of the Gospel that a short affected brawl with No-bodies and dead men cannot turn away the hatred which all that know and love the Lord Jesus must needs conceive against it Hee is therefore in a streight cure it he cannot revoke it he will not Therefore in stead of a better shift he posteth to the Monks Jesuits borrows their either Cowl or Cloak to cover the deformity of it And good reason have they to stead him for it is their cause in his hand viz. Justification by our own personal Righteousness that hath streightened him Let us now see what he brings from them to us to make their assertion from his pen tolerable B. Thes 21. 115. Not that wee can perform these conditions without Grace for without Christ we can doe nothing But that he enableth us to perform them our selves and doth not himself repent beleeve love Christ obey the Gospel for us as he did satisfie the Law for us B. Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some think it is a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee but the Actors of those duties though we professe to doe it onely by the strength of Grace But that it is Christ that repenteth and beleeveth not we is language somewhat strange to those that have been used to the language of Scripture or Reason Though I know there is a sort of sublime Platonick Plotinian Divines sprung up of late among us who think all things to bee but one c. We find in Scripture that as Christ hath his Mystery so hath Antichrist his Mystery also And that this latter is a Mystery of iniquity 2 Thess 2. 7. and Mystery Babylon the great c. And it is somewhat mysterious and strange that the materials of this Babel-building will not hold and close together without Babel slime to cement it Mr. Baxter would fain have fortified and fastened together the gaping chinks of this Babel with his owne morter But it will not hold therefore is he forced ever and anon to make use of the proper slime which the former Builders have left for them that come after to repair so doth hee in this place None of his own sHifts and tricks could hide the menstruousness and monstrousness of his Doctrine this Pall from Rome doth it no less perfectly then the Fig-leaf Aprons covered the nakedness and filthiness of our first Progenitors from the eye of God It sounded before so dreadfully as it was enough to make the ears of a true Christian to tingle at the hearing that Our own righteousnesse must goe foot by foot with Christs righteousnesse to our Justification but that which Mr. Baxter brings here from Rome takes off the ghastlyness and makes all smooth and himself in what he hath said no less amiable then he that had the Lambs horns but the voice of the Dragon Rev. 13. 11. How should it bee otherwise when all the glory is ascribed to Gods Grace and to the Spirit and Power of Christ so saith he Wee are justified in part by our own righteousnes indeed yet Not that we performe in this Righteousnesse which he termeth these conditions without Grace for without Christ wee can doe nothing but hee enableth us to perform them c. And in the Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some thinke it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee the Actors of these duties though we professe to doe it only by the strength of Grace Now when Mr. Baxter hath thus sayd and professed what reason can there be given why he should not bee thought as honest and innocent as the proudest Popish Prelates Jesuits and Friars that in answer to this objection which Mr. Baxter preventeth here have said and professed the same thing over and over many hundred times In stead of them all which even to name with their words abbreviated would fil a volumne I shall mention some few only First the Popish glosse thus speaketh Opera nostra quatenus nostra Glosa ordinaria in cap. 6. ad Rom. ver 23. sunt vim nullam Justificandi obtinent quatenus verò non à nobis sunt sed in nobis à Deo facta sunt per Gratiam Justificationem promerentur i. e. Our works as farre as they are ours have no power to justifie but as farre as they are not from us but wrought of God by Grace in us so they deserve justification In the same manner our English Jesuit Campian is recorded in the dispute which hee had with some of our English
other sin but final unbelief and rebellion But this finall unbelief and finall rebellion hath its belly so full of other small sins threatned in the womb of their Mother Rebellion as ever a man found of the berries in the belly of a breeding Lobster And in his Appendix pag. 23. he makes finall unbelief the genus to which he attributes but three species of which the first viz. Ordinary finall unbelief is not to bee considered as species specialissima but subalterna which being looked upon as a genus hath so many species or as a species hath so many individuals under it according to Mr. Baxters doctrine as the best Arithmetician in the world saving himselfe will not dare to yeeld up upon his casting the true summe of them to satisfie Mr. Baxters censure therein as it will appear when Mr. Baxter comes to unlace and rip abroad his Justifying Faith in its largest sense Thes 70. To these I might adde many more quaintisies of the same nature breathing out themselves from the veins of this his dispute But all the rest as those already mentioned are but tarrying irons to take up the time of men that are Malè feriati rather love to play with the buttons then to close with the body and drink in the spirit of true Christianity And what other end can Mr. Baxter have in these his chippings and mincings but to shew the delicacy of his wit Whom hath he in the substance of what he speaketh his adversary We grant and teach with him 1. That there is no sin prohibited by the Gospel or New Covenant which is not a sin against the Law and Old Covenant also 2. That finall unbelief and rebellion are sins if not unpardonable as if they exceeded the bounds of Gods grace and Christs merits to pardon them yet which have no futurition of pardon shall never be pardoned in this life or in that which is to come For so hath the Lord declared his purpose in reference to these sins 3. That both the Law and the Gospel concurre in damning such persons the Law as a Covenant of Workes properly for their refusall to submit even till death it self to the will and authority of God requiring Faith in Christ for their redemption from vengeance The Gospel improperly by withholding its shelter from the Laws sentence against them because they would never be perswaded to come under the shelter of it yea more in strengthning the hand of the Law to give them the sorer punishment for the contempt of Gods grace as well as of his Authority and Justice And thus not onely the mountains of their sinnes against the Law but also Christ the Rock shall fall upon them to their greater shivering for that they dared to dash themselves against him and would not be induced to be built against all the stroakes of vengeance upon him This is the summe of all that which Mr. Baxter here in substance saies To what purpose then are his elaborate distinctions of the differing respects and aspects senses and non-senses in which Christ hath either satisfied or not satisfied for mans sins unlesse it be Balaam-like to lay a stumbling block in the way of the simpler people of Gods Israel to occasion their fall to puzzle their judgements and consciences and to make the way of grace which is in it self as discovered by the Lord Christ easie and plaine to be unto them by his evill working therein intricate perplexed and full of snares To all sober men it sufficeth to know 1. That there is no one of their sins in whatsoever consideration it be taken but hath death and hell in the tayl of it 2. That there cannot be any other way of exemption from the death hel which every such sin of theirs meriteth by any other meanes but by the redemption which is by and in the Lord Jesus 3. That the blood of Christ hath in it a perfect efficacy to cleanse from all sin whatsoever no one excepted if it be applyed to cleanse Not the very sin against the Holy Ghost which it hath not power totally to purge out from the conscience if it were truly applyed But therefore is that sin never pardoned and purged from the soul because the Spirit of God never doth nor will apply the blood of Christ to the soul that is guilty of it nor generates Faith in such a soul to run unto and wash in the Fountain of Christs blood that it may be clean Let there be any one sin named of all the sins whereof our corrupt nature is pregnant that is so much a sin against the Gospel but that the purging or not purging away of it the absolving of the conscience from it or retaining of it upon the conscience doth not wholly depend upon the application or not application of the blood of Christ to the soul and I shall acknowledge that I have seen but the Letter and was never yet acquainted with the Spirit and drift of the Scriptures Or suppose we should take a delight to contend about that which is a meer lana caprina whether it be hair or wooll that grows upon the Goats shoulders how feeble might we manifest the reasons to be which Mr. Baxter beingeth to prove that the sins against the New Covenant are not satisfied for by the sacrifice of Christs death As 1. When the Apostle affirmeth Christ to have suffered death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament Heb. 9. 15. Doth it follow thence that he hath not redeemed from the transgressions against the New Covenant also If I say that Christ forgave to Peter or Paul or Mary Magdalen all their sins committed before conversion do I thereby as much as imply that he retains still and revengeth upon them all the sinnes they committed after they were converted Or should one of Mr. Baxters acquaintance say that whatsoever Mr. Baxter preached and wrote untill four or five years since was good and Orthodox doth it follow that all that he hath since preached and written is heretical and erroneous Nay the purpose of the Apostle here is to convince the Hebrews that sought in part for righteousnesse by the Law or Old Testament that it could not make its observers perfect For Christ dyed to redeem the transgressions of them that were under the first Covenant which he needed not to have done if all the Sacrifices under the Law could have purged them And thus the Morall Law is not here at all opposed to the Gospel that the Gospel or New Covenant doe purge the sinnes onely that were committed under and against the Morall Law because all the righteousnesse of the Morall Law could not purge them but the sacrifice of Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant is here opposed to the Leviticall sacrifices under the Legall Covenant What these could not the sacrifice of Christ hath expiated 2. Where he tels us that Christ could not satisfie for sinnes committed against the New Covenant
it so terme this 3. And of as little moment is that which he hath pag. 169. in the Explication of his Definition of Pardon calling iâ— a gracious Act where he blesseth and kisseth the image Tantundem set up by Grotius and polished by himselfe denying it to bee a pardon if it be not in some sort gratuitous or free and asserting that if Christ hath payd for us the idem or the proper debt then there is no place left for pardon and wee have nothing forgiven us For the Creditor saith he cannot refuse the proper debt nor deny an acquittance upon the receipt thereof c. A meer vanity of words without either ground or substance It doth not alway hold firm in trifling debts of money Suppose I have a sonne that having received his portion of my estate from me will forthwith come and pay it me for the debt of some bankrupt debtor that I have cast into prison if indeed it be so agreed upon between my self and my said Sonne and that to this end I gave him such a portion of my estate that he should so doe with it then it were not equity in me to refuse the payment so offered But yet Master Baxter wil not deny that this agreement or covenant between me and my sonne and my receiving of my own monyes in satisfaction for that Bankrupts debt though it be the same to the utmost farthing which hee owed is an act of grace or favour in mee to the said Debtor But in case â—here were no such covenant between me and my said sonne but that I gave him the said portion of my goods for other ends and uses and not to pay the Debts of Bankrupts I suppose then it is in my choice either to receive or refuse the full debt so offered me because he which offerrs it was not bound upon the Bond as Suretie or as Excecutor or Administrator to the Debtor nor is assigned by the Debtor to make payment in his stead What is there in this case binding me to receive the debt from such an hand or to give an acquittance to him that should pay it Much lesse will the case hold in point of Life and Death Suppose some Priest Jesuit or other Traytor were by the Law condemned to dye for Treason committed The day of Execution is at hand Master Baxter interposes and offereth to dye for him Is it not in the power of the chiefe Magistrates to refuse the accepting of the death of the Innocent for the Nocent Or if they doe accept the change is it not an Act of free grace to pardon the offendor accepting anothers sufferings for him Much more is it a gracious act in God to pardon us upon Christs suffering in our stead because hee sent his Sonne and gave him a body wherein to suffer for us Heb. 10. 5. And gives us acquittance having cast him into prison in our behalf untill he had payd the utmost farthing of our debts 4. What hee saith against the ignorant Antinomians in the end of page 169 and in page 170 hee hath sayd before and it hath been before examined and his pepper-corne being crushed hath been found too hot in smell and operation for a humble and selfe-denying Christian to meddle with in the point of Justification Therefore I conclude with him nor further to trouble the Reader with those sensless conceites which have onely a plausible shew of words but no footing in Scriptures or authority from Scriptures to establish them The rest of the Doctrine which hee delivereth in this page 170 and addeth page 171 and 172 I doe in part grant him and what I grant him not wee shall finde againe so involved in his dispute whether Justification bee an immanent or transient Act of God page 173 seq that it shall be more proper there then here to take it into examination In his 173 page Master Baxter enters upon a dispute of great moment whether Remission and Justification be immanent or transient Acts of God Before pag. 93 of this Tractate in a brave challenge of the Antinomians to produce one Scripture testifying Justification to be from eternity hee promised to shew or prove that Justification is not an immanent Act in God Here he addresseth himself to the accomplishment of what he there promised and in doing it he pretendedly draws the sword against the Antinomians as the sole assertors of the opinion which he here with much gallantry seeks to confute Two things then I conceive here to call for examination First how sound the reasons are which he brings to deny Pardon and Justification to be immanent and to prove them to bee meerly transient acts of God 2. What kind of Vermine these Antinomians are against whom Mr. Baxter hath already discharged so many Gun-shots before in this Treatise and findes them nevertheless yet alive and in a capacity to bear so many more shots from him in this and the following parts of this book Before my entrance upon either of these for an introduction to the former that the state of the question may the better appear I shall endeavour with as much fidelity and simplicity as in briefe I may to lay downe the judgements of our Protestant Divines whom he slanders here and every where almost with Antinomianism about this question before mentioned which Mr. Baxter here so much opposeth I mean such of these as hold not that all have taught it to be in some respect immanent in God 1. Then in their disputes against Bellarmine Arminius Socinus and their followers about remission of sinnes and justification they tell us that justification is taken sometimes actively for a judicial act of Gods grace sometimes passively or terminatively as it hath its termination upon beleevers In the former sense it is an act internal and immanent in God not transient upon an extraneous subject or in plain words it is secret abiding and hidden in God himselfe not declared or passing into the knowledg and conscience of man That it is of the same nature with the acts of election and reprobation having its complete being as these before the persons so elected justified and reprobated begin to have being life or faith in them or to doe good or evill But in its passive sense as it is terminated upon and made out to the conscience of a man so it is a transient act of God pronouncing and declaring home to the conscience of a man now living convinced of his sinnes and trembling at the sense and burthen thereof yet resting upon and cleaving to Christ by faith that his sinnes are forgiven for Christs sake and by this act and sentence of God in his conscience the poor sinner becomes sensible and apprehensive of his full discharge and absolution at Gods tribunal thorow Christs satisfaction made to justice for him 2. That justification as taken in the former sense is an Act of Gods supreme Lordship or dominion or else of his good pleasure to use
in his disobedience we all sinned and were condemned in him So also Christ the second Adam in making satisfaction to Gods justice upon the cross sustained the office of a publick person stood in the room of all the Elect bare their sins as imputed to him so that they all in him did their law were in him crucified dead and buried and suffered the paines of hell it self And as he was a publick person in his suffering so also was he in his resurrection having paid the utmost farthing of our debt he rose to receive a full acquittance or justification in his own and our names for all the sinnes for which and all the vengeance which he had suffered for us and we in him The justification and acquittance then given him and to us in his name by the Father is that which out of doubt Mr. Baxter calls Christs own justification yet was not his own so but that it was every elect persons in him Having the meaning of the phrase let us now enquire into the truth or falshood of the Position The Justification saith hee which we have in Christs own Justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders and none can lay claim to it till hee have performed the conditions nor shall any be personally justified till then Even the Elect c. Hee saith much and audaciously as all may see but how strongly doth hee prove it For confirmation saith hee in the Explic. there is enough said under the 15 18 19 20 Positions before And I answer how valid and pertinent to his purpose that Enough which hee there said is I there examined And because he brings here no new reasons I may justly passe it by without giving any further answer Onely it shall not bee impertinent to take notice how ambiguously hee layes downe every clause of this Position to corrupt with an evill sense whom hee can and to evade with the pretext of a good meaning where he cannot deceive if espied and questioned 1. When he saith this Justification is conditional as to the particular offenders none can lay claim c. Though by the whole frame of this his Treatise it is enough evident that he means what he speaks in the worst sense yet his words leave it here doubtful whether he means that our Justification which we have in Christs justification be conditional as Christ hath received it in his or our names or as he having received it for us doth offer it to particular offendors upon conditions upon the performance whereof they shall have it with the fruit and comfort thereof declared and evidenced to their own soules Though the former bee his sense yet knowing with what arguments hee may be encountred That there was an absolute and not a conditional payment made to which not a conditional but an absolute discharge is due That Christ as a publick person standing in our stead received the same justification for himselfe and us from all the sinnes that had been imputed both to him and us but that he received for himself not a conditional but an absolute Justification therefore for us also That if particular offendors be but conditionally justified in Christ then are they not at all actually and really justified in Christ and so the fruit of Christs death being suspended upon conditions may be none at all in case none performe the conditions That it is against the stream of the Gospel which affirms that even upon the cross he hath cancelled or blotted out the hand-writing spoiled the principalities and powers Col. 2. 14 15. redeemed us from the curse of the Law Gal. 3. 13. purged the conscience from dead works by his blood Heb. 9. 13 14. That God was in Christ reconciling the world while the world to himself 2 Cor. 5. 19. and made us accepted in the beloved Eph. 1. 6. And all this before we had a being personally therefore before we performed any conditions Knowing I say how he might be overwhelmed with arguments from the Scriptures by our Divines as hee hath read far more copiously then I have time here to particularize in their works against the Papists and Arminians and might have been more pressed and multiplyed against himself and that Truth is not onely unconquerable but victorious To prevent the inconvenience he leaves a hole by which to escape viz. Hee meant not thus But that our Justification is conditional as to our claim of right therein we are not personally justified have not our forgiveness declared and evidenced to our own consciences till we perform the conditions Such sincerity and integrity is there in Mr. Baxters doctrines 2. When he saith None can lay claim to Justification untill he have performed the conditions nor shall be personally justified till then he leaves it ambiguous whether he mean till his faith obedience and good works which with him are the conditions be in fieri or else in factum esse be begun or else finished and perfected in doing or else fully done His phrase directly points out the latter the whole stream of his disputations in this Book concurs with it Neither is Mr. Baxter such an A B C darian that he need to bee taught to speak Grammatically and to deliver in proper termes his own dictates that we should think him to speak more or lesse then he meaneth saving when he will doe so for his own advantage Unlesse therefore he meant in the latter sense and would be so understood hee would give no advantage by his words to any so to understand him This being then his meaning he leaves us yet in doubt whether he joynes with the Papists here in implying that it is possible to attain perfection of righteousness and so to have fully performed all obedience in this life thereby meriting Justification so winning it at the hardest before he wear it as we have found him in and under his 23 24 26 27 Theses maintaining enough fully behind the curtaine or else with the Arminians in holding that no man is justified in this life and so confounding Justification and Glorification either with the other an assertion worse then Popish wholly contradicting the whole â—enor of the Gospel as Rom. 4. 10. Abraham was justified while yet uncircumcised Rom. 5. being now justified now reconciled ver 9 10. So Rom. 8. 30. Eph. 1. 7. Yea not to stay particularizing the whole sum of the Gospel but because both Papists and Arminians are his cabinet friends that he might please both and offend neither it sufficeth him to shew himself an adversary to the truth wherein he hath them both confederates with him and either with the other it being no difficulty for him to close with both that differ but in words a little but are one in substance like Sampsons Foxes hung together by the tails in a firebrand though their faces look several waies 3. I might no less discover his subtilty in that ambiguous term of Personal Justification as he
kept in Gods memory to impute them every moment as fast as they are committed For one of these last milstones tyed to the neck of the poor offender sinks him into hell as surely as if all that are removed had their weight returned upon him with that one to sink him 3. If God hath remitted and justifyed a beleever from the sins which he hath committed and not from the sins which he foreknoweth they will commit but imputeth or will impute them then is the same person both justifyed and unjustifyed at the same time and God at the same time both loveth the same person to eternall life and hateth him to eternall condemnation which were no lesse absurdity then to attribute two contrary wils acting in God at once and so the same person be declared in his own conscience at the same time both in the state of life and in the state of death of life in respect of the sins past forgiven through Christ of death in regard of the sins to come not yet forgiven Secondly In Christ or as Mr. Baxter terms it Thesis 43. in Christs own justification either all sins are forgiven to the elect or none at all When having done their Law and paid their debt Christ appeared in the most holy place in the heaven at Gods mercy seat to mediate with his bloud for them he either received acquitance from and forgivenesse of all the sins which his elect in after times should commit and so in Christ their sins to come were forgiven or else no sin was forgiven for as yet they were not in being therefore neither were their sins yet committed But he received then in their names a full acquitance and forgivenesse of their sins as hath been before shewed therefore of their sins before they were committed and they were forgiven before they had offended Hence some of our Divines thus reason if since Christs satisfaction any sins be imputed any more to the elect they must be such as Christ hath or hath not expiated with his bloud and made satisfaction for to Gods justice if such as Christ hath expiated then notwithstanding that God imputes the sin yet the person to whom he imputes it is in grace and favour with God and the full penalty of his sin while imputed is paid to God but this were injustice not incident to God to impute a debt which is fully paid him If such as Christ hath not satisfyed for then the faith of an elect person obtains at Gods hands forgivenesse or the not imputing of such sins for which Christ hath not satisfyed Gods justice and so there shall be here remission without the shedding of bloud and justification out of Christ or faith and Gospell obedience shall be the price and ransome of their soules All which is most absurd Therefore the sins of the elect yet uncommitted are in Christ as fully forgiven as those that are already committed Thirdly If Mr. Baxters meaning be when he saith the sin is not forgiven before it be committed that the beleever hath not a singular apprehension of the forgivenesse of every singular sin before it be committed and that God hath not declared to his conscience the forgivenesse of every singular offence i. e. this evill which at this and that evill which in that hour of his life he shall drop into I acknowledge in this sense neither are any of our sins future forgiven nor many of our sins past For who in this case knoweth not only how oft he shall erre but also how oft and wherein he hath erred in this respect the generall pardon sealed in Christ bloud to us though it mention not every singular errour of our lives contained under the generall is alsufficient for us But perhaps Mr. Baxters meaning is that Christ hath not purchased to the elect a plenary and absolute forgivenesse but hath conditionally dyed for all if they shall beleeve and obey and upon this condition runs the hope of pardon as to the sins which they shall commit unto their lives end their renewed sins being dayly pardoned upon the continuance and dayly renewing of their obedience and so this Thesis runs in the same channell with the 43 44 45. Positions and for this cause I have annexed it to them Neither do I speak any thing to this Position in this sense here because it is prevented by what hath been already said in the examination of what he hath said there And too much hath been said both to those and this Position in which nothing but Magisteriall assertions without proofs are to be found CHAP. XXIV Arg. Mr. Baxters new Modell of the causes of Justification examined and first his dispute about the efficients and the materiall and formall causes thereof MR. Baxter in his 56. Thesis disputeth very Logically though but little Theologically of the causes of justification and because he thinks them all Athenians whom he hath a lust to corrupt viz. such as spend their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing some new thing Act. 17. 21. therefore looking aside from that which all the soundest i. e. with him the Antinomian Divines have said upon this Argument and disdaining it with a squint eye as too rustick and not enough pretty and dialecticall himself presents me with a new case and order of causes from the forge of his fancie viz. some sole and some sociall some single and some double some proper and some improper causes some causes that are causes and some causes that are no causes without further particularizing take him thus in his own words B. Thesis 56. By what hath been said it is apparent that justification in title may be ascribed to severall causes 1. The principall efficient cause is God 2. The instrumentall is the promise or grant of the new Covenant 3. The Prâ—catartick cause so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men is fourfold 1 And chiefly the satisfaction of Christ 2 The intercession of Christ and supplication of the sinner 3 The necessity of the sinner 4 The opportunity and advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie The first of these is the meritorious cause the second the morall perswading cause the third is the objective and the fourth is the occasion 2. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not 3. The formall cause is acquiting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling the Law to accuse or condemn him 4. The finall cause is the glory of God and of the Mediator and the deliverance of the sinner 5. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed It must be granted that he is not a man of delicacies hath a dull eye and dry brain whosoever is not enamoured with so fair a shew of causes like a cup-bord
or conditionall offer thereof to us Nor any thing to the justified and actually declared just in themselves Justification is no longer in a conditionall offer to them but in its absolute being within them Whatsoever therefore he addeth there pag. 43 44. is wide from the question being not limited to the Justification of the New Covenant which is the subject of his Treatise which here he shunneth and talketh extravagantly about sanctification because he cannot confute the absolute justification but that it doth and will stand and standing will not admit a conditional justification to stand with it and by it in its beeing though the offer thereof before it is in beeing be conditionall And this is all which at length he concludeth pag. 45. of the conditionall Covenant of Grace which without all this circuition would have been granted him viz. that it is propounded and offered to mankinde conditionally if they will beleeve and without this faith none hath or shall have the benefit and comfort thereof to themselves and in themselves because all these that do not or shall not being in a capacity to beleeve are reprobates and as many as are elect shall come to Christ and beleeve in him as hath been before shewed What he addeth for the application may have some pertinency to the matter there objected but it hath none to the thing here in question Therefore I passe it by as not concerning us 2. To his Causa sine qua non briefly thus 1 In so tearming Faith he denyes faith to be any cause at all of our Justification for that is but Causa â—quivoca or nomine tenus or titulo tenus hath but the name not the nature of a cause hath no causality upon gives no influx into the effect 2 Neither whatsoever it be is Faith the Causa sine qua non of Justification in that sense as Mr. Baxter taketh and defineth it either in his stricter or larger definition except he will say that no Infants are justified who do not cannot accept Christ much lesse so beleeve as in his larger definition he sets forth faith 3 Faith is not the Causa sine qua non of our justification in God no nor yet in Christs Justification as he tearms it for these are antecedaneous to our faith and our faith not an antecedent to it 4 At the utmost it can be but the Causa sine qua non of Gods declaring and evidencing of our selves to our selves justified and this justification Mr. Baxter so disdaineth and snuffs at that he will not own it much lesse mention it Yet can he not with all his Sophistry name any other act of justification in this life whereof faith can be proved to be the Antecedent Medium or Causa sine qua non 5 Why doth he call faith and all the conqualifications wherewith he loadeth the shoulders thereof and all the works which he makes its Concomitants the Causa sine qua non as if all these with their Colaterall in the other scale of his ballance Christs satisfaction did make up the one and sole Causa sine qua non of our justification can none else be named Besides other the weaknesse and infirmity of the Law to justifie as it removes the impediment of justifiablenesse in Gods Court of strict Justice For had there been a Law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law Gal. 3. 21. and sin which removes the same impediment might more properly and socially then Christs satisfaction have been placed on horseback in the same saddle of Causa sine qua non had not Mr. Baxter thought Christ would blesse but these would have defiled this golden saddle of his own either making or appropriating to this use and so bespattered and undressed the righteousnesse of his Qualifications and good works that they would never more become fit to ride on horsback in procession with the Holy Wafer Thus his condition and Causa sine qua non must be new modelled ere they will be Canonicall But see we here the mans wit which never fails him at a dead lift What he cannot act by power he seeks to compasse by a stratagem Because he cannot cover the nakednesse of his assertion he labors to make bare ours and cast filth in it that having diverted the eyes of his Reader thither he may forget the vanity of his Condition or Causa sine qua non And thus he doth it B. Here by the way take notice that the samemen thus blame the advancing of Faith so high as to be our true Gospel Righteousnesse Posit 17 20. and to be imputed in a proper sense Posit 23. do yet when it comes to tryall ascribe far more the faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying In examining all these quoted Theses I have shewed both who they are which blame him or at least his doctrine which was born before ever he commenced such a Doctor viz. All the Orthodox Protestant Divines and Christians and withall for what they blame it viz. as it is Papism Socinianism and at the best Arminianism 3. To which I have also made out their just grounds of blaming it as may be there seen yet to cheat his Reader he cals these those very men as if there were some few contemptible Antinomians lately sprung up when himself knows them to be all the Churches of Christ which since the Reformation have been called Protestants But of what blasphemy or evill fact doth he accuse them That they ascribe more to Faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying Yea but we have seen or thought we had seen at least just grounds for their so doing how doth Mr. Baxter aggravate it to make it odious B. 1. And so to have part of the honour of Gods own Act. Fie upon the Hugonets and Lutherans if this be true who then will not run from them at Mr. Baxters heels to Rome But the Scriptures make Balaams Aâ—se Gods instrument to rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet Namb. 22. 28 30. 2 Pet. 2. 15 16. The Raven his Instrument to feed Elijah 1 King 17. 6. The brazen Serpent his instrument of healing the Israelites bitten with firie Serpents Joh. 3. 14. Numb 21. 9. The Assyrians his instruments of chastising and reforming his people Isa 10. 5. c. and the very Devil his instrument of trying Job Job 1. 12. and of executing his pleasure upon Ahab 2 King 22. 21 22. Shall we now fall foul with the Scriptures and accuse them that they ascribe part of the honour of Gods own acts to the Asse the Raven the Serpent the Assyrians the Devil by affirming these to be the instruments by which God acted Doth not the seeblenesse of the means and instruments speak out the whole honour of the action to pertain to the Lord Was it to honour his slaves and abase his freemen and subjects the Lords Israel that Solomon made the former
he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they thought that the Kingdom of God should immediatly appeare by this Parable foretelling them that the Citizens the Children of the Kingdom the Iews for their rejection of Christ should bee cast out into utter darknesse where is weeping and gnashing of teeth i. e. into blindnesse of minde and stubbornnesse of heart accompanied with all calamity and misery as we see them undergoing untill this day This I acknowledge to be but my owne private opinion yet such as I could easily manifest from the Text it selfe if occasion were to be very probable if not certainely the minde of Christ Yet let it stand or fall sub calculo melioris Indicii But if we are to understand all of Christs last Comming to judgement it ministers nothing to advantage Mr. Baxters Cause but enough to ruinate it For first the faithfull Servants that shall bee so richly rewarded are such as wrought with a free spirit and the reward which they received was a free gift they challenged it not in St. Conditions name and Christ confers it freely as their munificent Lord. That hee mentions their service argues not either dignity or desert in their service but the riches of his grace that having justified their persons hee had in regard their service also The unprofitable servant cast into utter darknesse is Mr. Baxters legall man serving with a mercenary and slavish spirit expects nothing from Christ but in the way of justice lookes upon him as upon an Austere man a strait Law-giver and a rigorous exactor of the fulfilling of his Lawes I knew thee that thou art an hard man reaping where thou hast not sowne and gathering where thou hast not strawed and I was afraid saith he and so did nothing because of his feare of so strict a Lord at least nothing to purpose nothing to the advancing of the Kingdome of Christ in righteousnesse peace and joy in the Holy Ghost within himselfe or others The second Scripture Mat. 25. 34. 35. is most plain sayth Mr. Baxter in which the mouth of the Judge himselfe describeth the order of the processe of that day Come ye blessed inherit c. For I was hungry c. The Judges mouth describes but why doth Mr. Baxters mouth refuse to speak out the description which the Judge maketh of the processe of that day If hee began at ver 31. when Christ is set in his throne to call all Nations before him to judgement he declares the maner of the processe 1. by separating the sheep from the goats 2. by setting the sheep at his right hand What the sheep were himself declares Jo. 10. such as hear his voice his Gospel voice and are Gospellized and spirituallized by it What hee means by his right hand the Apostle declares 1. Thess 4 16 17. The dead in Christ shall rise first and shall bee caught up in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the ayre What to do not only to be with the Lord but also as the same Apostle sayth to sit with him in judgement and to judge the world 1. Co. 6. 2. This is the right hand of Christ to which the saints perhaps shall bee advanced even before the dead out of Christ shall be raysed To this at last is annexed what Mr. Br. alleadgeth Come yee blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world Who seeth not heer the grounds of their glorification to bee that they were Christs sheep the heirs of God and his elect vessels That they are to be convened before Christ not as prisoners to bee judged but to bee owned as his justified ones and to receive the glorious fruits of their justification and adoption a Kingdome by inheritance yea to sit as partners and Commissioners with Christ in judging the world what the Lord Iesus addeth for I was hungry c and yee thus and thus ministred unto me will Mr. Baxter because of the word for conclude these offices to be the cause of their justification then let him also conclude that the cause of Gods shewing mercy to Paul was his ignorance and unbeliefe This will as well follow from those words of Paul 1 Tim. 1. 13. I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbeliefe To his condition the proper place is to speak afterward So the 1 Pet. 1. 17. who without respect of Persons judgeth according to every mans work holds forth thus much to us that God cannot be deluded or corrupted as oft times earthly Iudges are either to pervert justice for favour or carnall ends or to take appearances for substance but jugeth all both persons and actions according to what they are not what they seem In like mnner 2 Cor. 5. 10. the Apostle appeales as may appeare by the 11. and 12. verses compared with this from the standers and censures of the false Apostles to the judgment Seat of God They had it seems questioned among the Corinthians the sincerity of both the Apostle and his Ministry Hee refers all to Christ the Iudge Before him wee must all appeare saith he and hee will reveale who are the sincere and which the hypocriticall Professors and Preachers of Christ they or I to take vengeance of the one and to owne the other He maimeth that testimony of Rev. 20. 12 13. that the force therof may not be understood by his Reader Let him supply what he hath cut off the Book of life by which they which are in Christ are to be judged which is there mentioned aswel as the other books by which the world is to be judged and then the judgments which the Saints are to pass through wil appear to be a judgment of Grace not of strict justice to consist in their admission to the Kingdom after the tenour of Grace not of Workes The other three Scriptures he seeth to have so little even of shew in them for his use that he deigns not the labour to alleage the words and let him not expect that I should stil do it for him Thus far we grant that the sentence of Iudgement though not the justifying sentence shall passe in the last day according to works 1. The whole world that hath not heard of Christ much less beleeved on him shall be judged according to their works to life or death according as their works have been perfect or unperfect yea to a measure of vengeance answering to the measure of their sinnes some to many some to fewer stripes 2. The whole bulk of professed Christians also shall in this respect be judged according to their works viz. that as their professions of and actings in Christ were eyther in truth or in hypocrisie meerly formall or else Vitall and reall so shall they be either exempted from or adjudged unto vengeance And so the secrets of all hearts shall bee then disclosed the Sheep and Goats Saints and Hypocrites shall then bee fully seperated one from the other which untill
that time shall never be wholly done nor bee known to all whose works were vitall and whose dead works 3. That the very Saints as compared one with another shall be judged according to their works i. e. shall be adjudged to glory in severall measures above according to the severall measures of their services and sufferings heere is the opinion of many eminent for learning and godliness neither doe their Reasons yet wholly sway me who dissent from them and will have neither right hand nor left hand nor sun nor stars nor great nor small but all equall in one degree of glory It is no proper place heer to dispute it but I see no reason to conclude that hee which distributeth his gifts of grace heer in different measures may not so also there distribute the degrees of glory Seeing both are by the purchase of his death and whether by the former he puts us in a greater or lesser capableness of the later is in question But in any other sense how as he sayth the sentence of justification shall passe according to works and that as hee infers from 2. Co. 5. 10. according to works whether good or evill I cannot conjecture 1. Not according to works as they are a condition which is the next thing hee undertakes to prove for evill works cannot be the condition of our justification either negatively that if we have done evill we neyther are nor shal be justified then all must bee damned nor positively that whosoever hath done evill shall be justified then all shall be saved Nor 2. shall it passe so as that according to our good works we shall be justified and according to our evill works we shall be condemned then every man at least every true Christian should be both saved and damned 3 Nor that we shal be much justified if we have all good works little justified if we have done some evil works also for that is the last judgment where every man shall have a full discharge or no discharge I must leave this as one of Mr. Baxters Mysteries it must die with him as to my understanding unless hee vouchsafe his interpretation As for the thing it selfe I utterly deny that they which are in Christ shall be so judged or justified according to their works as other men that they shall stand as prisoners with the world at the bar of Christ to bee judged for life and death as the other according to their works What that the Lord Christ should then discover the nakedness and lay open in the sight of men and divels all the sin and shame of his beloved members That he should cast in their faces all the filth of all their originall and actuall pollution even when they are upon the threshold of heaven Let it be Mr. Baxters doctrine my eares are abhorrent from the sound thereof It is against the stream of Gospel doctrine which tells us that Christ hath born their sin and curs and done their law therfore they are not to be called to such a reckoning That their iniquities are forgiven and sins covered Ro. 4. 7. That the Lord will no more remember them Heb. 10. 17. That they are not under the Law but under Grace Ro. 6. 14. Therfore exempted from the accusations of the Law at the Bar of Justice where the world is to be tried and to receive no other judgement but what flowes from the throne of grace That there is no condemnation to them that the law of the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath freed them from the law of â—in and death Ro. 8. 1. 2. So that the Law hath no mâ—re power of judgmeÌ„t over theÌ„ than the lawes of our Land to try an Angel of Heaven for life and death That none can lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect because God justifieth them and who is hee that is the judge and condemner even Christ which is their Saviour Ro. 8. 33. 34. That they are the sheep that shal be first separated and set at the right hand of Christ before he enters upon the judging of the world and so freed from judgement by the mercy of God in separating them as Augustine well observeth Aug. de Consens Evang. lib. 2. cap. 30. That they shall not come into condemnation but are passed from death to life Jo. 5. 24. That what to the world is the day of judgement to these is the day of Redemption Lu. 21. 28. They shall not come into judgement to answer for any one of their sins as is well observed by Reverend Mr. Fox the author of that which we call the De Christo gratis Justif p. 336. Book of Martyrs for saith he Sublatâ offensâ tollitur simul Judicii obligatio i. e. The sin being taken away viz. by the Lamb of God as appears Io. 1. 29. all obligation of judgement is taken away with it As for the works and righteousness which these Scriptures declare shal be mentioned to beleevers in that their Jubilizing day this speaks out the infinit freeness and riches of Gods grace in covering their nakedness and setting forth only the beauty and ornaments which he hath put upon them but in no wise any sufficient ground or reason upon which they might expect so great a salvation Suppose a noble and indulgent Father hath a prodigall and rebellious son that for many yeers hath grieved the spirit of his Father with his impure cariage and exorbitant outrages to whom notwithstanding his Fathers heart is no less indeared than was Davids to Absolom therfore never hath a thought of disinheriting him but reserves his whole heritage together with a boundles treasâ—re entire for him in the mean while wooing and even melting him with loving kindness into love and duty â— at length the son repenteth becomes ashamed of his base carriage toward so good a Father returns to him waits on him ministreth to him in his weakness and sickness and his Father by his last Will and Testament gives him all naming him therin his good and beloved son that hath done him great service ministred to him much comfort in the time of his necessity Will any hence gather that the attendance of such a son on such a Father at last is a sufficient ground and reason for the Fathers setling on him so vast an estate Could not the Father have hired a stranger for a few Crowns to have done him as much service Doth not the mentioning of the sons good deeds which he would seem to reward with so rich munificence speak out only the remarkable goodness of the Father that hath buried in oblivion all the disobedience and mischiefs which his son hath committed and will have his good parts alone to be mentioned or if another that was not his son had done a thousand times more in his service should he have been entitled for it to the inheritance So also in this case to attribute to the works of beleevers the
live the other sayth Live and doe this the one sayth Doe this for life the other sayth Doe this from life But I have provedfully that the Gospel saith also Doe this for life 1. Now hee manifesteth wherin the haynousnes of the doctrine of this Book and the intolerable damnable wickedness of the Author consisteth viz. in his blindness that hee did not foresee what Antichristian doctrine Mr. Baxter would afterward divulge to the world and say hee had fully proved it but for lacke of this foreknowledge doth heer deliver the contrary truth of Christ prepossessing the minds of men therewith against Mr. Baxters future impostures But 2. Let him not say he hath fully proved but let him fully prove that doing and works as the Scriptures doe oppose the same to faith and receiving of Christ in which sense this Author speaketh are injoyned by the Gospel to justification of life or the life of justification and then let him expect that his Gospel shall stand and the Gospel of Christ lie prostrate at his feet 3. Because Mr. Baxter will never bee able to prove this the true Disciples of Christ will still hold this as one principle difference between the two Covenants that the one requires us to seeke life after the tenour of Justice the other after the tenour of Grace The one bids us to seeke it by Works the other by Fayth The one presupposeth the originall righteousness given us in Adam bidding us by it to follow after happiness the other offereth Christ unto us as the fountain of life both of Justification and Sanctification calling upon us to receive or beleeve in him for both that both may be ours when Christ is ours He is our life and when Christ our life not works our life shall appear we also shall appear with him in glory This is all that this Author meaneth in this passage as himselfe makes evident If in this he be an Hereticke let mee live and die with him in his Heresie To prevent mistake I meane heere the Covenant of works in Mr. Baxters sense throughout this his Treatise viz. the first Covenant made with Adam B. So in his second part page 190. his great note to know the voyce of the Law by is this That when in Scripture there is any Morall worke commanded to bee done eyther for the eschewing of punishment or upon promise of any reward temporall or eternall or else when any promise is made with the condition of any worke to bee done which is commanded in the Law there is to bee understood the voyce of the Law A notorious and dangerous mistake which would make almost all the New Testament and the very Sermons of Christ himselfe to bee nothing but the Law of works I have fully proved before that Morall duties as part of our sincere obedience to Christ are part of the condition of our salvation and for it to be performed And even Faith is a Morall duty It is pity that any Christian should no better know the Law from the Gospel especially one that pretendeth to discover it to others About the matter heer delivered by this Author enough hath been spoken before in examining what Mr. Baxter hath sayd in many parts of his Aphorisms contrary to it Touching the proofe of the contrary Assertion Mr. Baxter hath sayd no more than nor so much as Bellarmine had sayd before him and left prepared to his hand Hee should therefore more properly have sayd Not I but Bellarmine hath fully proved and therefore fully because Mr. Baxter so affirmeth As to the Assertor of it why doth hee pitch upon this Author alone when Calvin Fulk Mr. Fox as I have before Chap. 15. alleadged and quoted them Dr. Amesius Medul Theol. lib. 1. cap. 22. Se. 19. In a word all Protestant Divines from Luther till this present time have in substance and most of them that have occasion to pitch upon the same Subject have even totidem verbis delivered the same doctrine as to mercenary or rewards of debt having learned the same from the Apostle why doth he single out this one as a singular man Let him with Bellarmine Stapleton Maldonat and the rest of that hair roar out against all the Reformed Churches A notorious and dangerous mistake c. A herd of Hereticks and ignorant Animalls It is pity that any Christian should no better know the Law from the Gospel especially such as pretend to discover it to others As to his Morall duties and even Faith as a Morall duty to bee performed for salvation hee speaks like such morall men as nature now blinded and corrupted formeth whose principle it is Naturam ut optimam ducem sequi to follow Nature and naturall instinct or Reason as their best guide knowing not spirituall things because the Naturall man cannot receive them If he savoured so much the Gospel as Philosophy why doth not the phrase which Christ his Apostles use of the spirit and spirituall things so much delight him as that of the Philosophers Morall and Moralities As much was Christs offering himselfe a sacrifice and giving satisfaction to the Justice of God a Morall duty and so not meritoricus for us because due to God from him by the Law for himselfe as Faith in Christ and other purely Gospel duties subservient unto Faith For both these duties on Christs and on our part are comprehended under this one generall of the Law of nature Whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt doe I shall leave the justification and salvation by Morall Faith and Morall duties to Mr. Baxter and with the Apostle through the Spirit wait for the hope of Righteousnesse by Faith Gal. 5. 5 B. So in the next page 191. he intelerably abuseth the Sripture in affirming that of 2. Thes 2. 12. to be the voice of the Law and so making Paul a Legall preacher Is then every teacher after Mr. Baxters Canon which declares what the voice force curse and condemnation of the Law is a Legall and Anti-Evangelicall preacher So he affirmes Paull to bee if he speake out what the curse and condemnation of the Law is Then not onely Paul but Christ also and all his Apostles are Legall not Gospel preachers For he will not deny them to have so made out the Law in its force c. Or when the Apostle in that quoted Stripture speakes of their Damnation which would not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousnesse doth he not leave them under the damnation of the Law for not embracing the Gospell doth not the Law hereby take occasion to damne them the more deeply for neglecting and rejecting the truth The proper office of the Gospell is not to condemn but to save Onely when its salvation is contemned it yeelds backe the contemners under the greater guilt to the Law to power out on them the larger if not largest measure of its curse and wrath Do not thinke saith our Saviour to the Iewes that rejected his Gospell
not Trid. Conc. in the forecited place the only Condition of the New Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition I desire no more of those that deny this but that the Scripture may be judg Whosoever shall reduce the contrary Doctrine Bell. de Justif lib. 1. cap. 13 c. into practice viz. to seek salvation and Justification by faith only not at al by works it wil undâ—ubtedly damn him Those other duties that justifie are Repentance praying for pardon forgiving others Love sincere obedience works of Love i. e. all good works not faith alone or some of these works and vertues with it but all must have their concurrence to justifie Aphor. p. 235 236 237. 325. Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For We are still said to be justified by Bell. de Justif lib. 1. Faith which is an Act of ours Append p. 80. Morall duties are part of the condition of our salvation aâ— for it to be performed And evâ— faith is a Morall duty So thâ— Daventria So Pemble cites the Papists objecting Treat of justif p. 37. according to Mr. Brs. doctrinâ— Morall works and duties alonâ— as such are required of us to Jâ—stification and not Faith it seâ— this way usefull but as a moraâ— work and duty Append. p. 80. When the Apostle saith by worâ— and not by faith only hee plainâ— makes them concomitant in procurâ—ment Bell. de necessitate operum ad salutem or in that kind of Causalâ— which they have especially seeing â— saith not as he is commonly inteâ—preted not by faith which is â— lone but not by faith onely â— the phrase Justified by works tâ— word by implyeth more than an â—dle concomitancy If they should onâ— stand by while Faith 〈◊〉 all â— would not be said we are justifiâ— by works Aph. p. 299 300. Faith in the largest sense as comprehendeth all the conditions See Weimrichius l. 1. in Epist ad Romanos c. 3. p. 207. the N C is when a sinner c. do beleeve the truth of the Gospell aâ— accept of Christ as his only Lord aâ— Saviour c. and sincerely thouâ— imperfectly obey him as his Lord foâ— Osor lib. 3. de Instit n. 70. giving others loving his people beâ—ring all what sufferings are imposeâ— diligently using his Means and Orâ—nances c. And all this sincerely â— to the end Aph. Thes 70. Apâ— Bel. lib 4. de Justif c. 10. Qu. de veritate honor operum p. 243. This personall Gospell-righteoâ—ness is in its kind a perfect Righâ—ousness and so far we may admit the doctrine of personall perfection Aphor Thes 24. The first point of Justification and that which is but a point the first point must needs be a very small pittance Bell. de Juâ—if lib. 1. â—ap 20. Malden in Matth. 9. of it I grant to be Faith alone but the accoÌ„plishment i. e. the perfitting thereof is not without the joynt procuremeÌ„t of obedience Aph. p. 302. In a Larger sence as promise is an obligation and the thing promised is â—el de Mer. called Debt so the performers of the Condition are called worthy and the thing promised is called Debt Thes â—ea all the â—apists as â—lleaged â—y Cal. Inst â—b 3. ca. 14. â—ect 12. â—ap 17. â—ect 3. 15. 26. Yea in this Meriting the obligation to reward is Gods ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthiness lieth in our performance of the Condition on our part Aph. pa. 141. As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of works by that Bell. lib. 4. â—le Justif â—ap 1. power which he had received by nature So is it possible for us to fullfill the Conditions of the New Covenant i. e. the righteousness which the Law requireth by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ But whether this be grace or no grace Pelagius his imaginary or the Gospel real grace he wil not let us know so that herein the Papists are more ingenious than he for they express themselves plainly of effectuall Grace indeed Thes 27. The Doctrine of Justification by Hos in Conâ—ut pa. 140 â—b 3. Faith onely tendeth to drive obedience out of the world For if men do once beleeve that it is not so much Canis inprefat in Andr. Vega Andr. Vega de Justif in Epist prefat Osor de Justif lib. 2 7. as a part of the Condition of their Justification will it not much tend to relax their diligence And it doth much confirm the world in their Soul-cozening Faith c. Aphor. pag. 325 326. It was not the intent of the Father Trident. Cone Sess 6. cap. 14 16. Sess 14. cap. 8 9. Bel. de Purgatorio Bel. de Poenitent lib. 4. or Son that by this satisfaction the offenders should be immediately delivered from the whole Curse of the Law and freed from the evill which they had brought upon themselves but some part must be executed in soul and body and remain upon them at the pleasure of Christ And this Curse is upon not onely affenders in generall but also upon the Elect and beleevers Aph. p. 65 66 68. Not till the day of Resurrection Judgement will all the effects of Sin Bellarmine and all his fellows Bel. de Justif lib. 4. cap. 7. Syn. Trid. ib. can 12. and Law wrath be perfectly removed from the beleevers justified Beleevers after they be justified are under the Law as it is a Covenant of works for life and death Aph. p. 78 79. 82. Onely a conditionall but not an absolute Andr. Vega de Fide operibus q. 2 So also Thomas Seotus Bellarmine discharge is granted to any in this life When we do perform the coÌ„dition yet still the discharge remains conditionall till we have quite finished our performance and where the condition is not performed the law is still in force shall be executed A. p. 82. The justification of beleevers in this life is conditionall ut supra Men that are but thus conditionally Bellarmine prosecuteth this Argument at large pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified again for their non-performance of the conditions and all the debt so forgiven be required at their hands so that there can be no certainty of perseverance to salvation Aph. Thes 44. He seems in the explication to lenifie his assertion but to it I have spoken before Our Legall Righteousnes is not personal or in our selves and in our own qualificatioÌ„s actions c. but wholly without us in Christ Our Evangelicall Bel. de justif Lib. 1. Righteousness consisteth in our own Actions of Faith Gospel obedience This is the onely Condition of our interest in the Righteousness of Christ Now by reason of this personall righteousnes consisting in the Recâ—â—tude of their own dispositions
Righteousness is in this Obedience Most accursed Doctrine so far am I from this that I say The Righteousness which we must plead against the Laws Accusation is not one grain of it in our Faith or Works but all out of us in Christs satisfaction Only our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience are the conditions upon which wee must partake of the former And yet such conditions as Christ worketh in us frely by his Spirit How forcible and unresistible is the power of Conscience flying in the face of the guilty and accusing where men applaud or at least hold their peace Who either of men or Angels could have charged Mr. Br. for saying that which he had not yet said or for venting Socinian Doctrine in his writings before he had yet written What none els can do M. Br. is forced by Conscience to do against himself to arraign himself at the Bar for Socinianism Conscience is the accuser what Patron will he retein to be his defender Nothing out of himself can suffice to answer an accuser within himself Therefore he fees Reason that is his sophisticated and sopisticall wit art and craft to plead his Cause against Conscience The first of these exceptions which these make for him against the Charge is the abuse which some make of this imputation laying it upon all that speak not as they But 1. This is besides the Charge These some had not then spoken against Mr. Br. it is the accusation of his own conscience which he should have answered and he hnows it not to have confederated with those some of whom he speaketh 2. I know none of those some that have layd that aspersion upon any of those Divines which he mentioneth save one and that one I suppose would be very angry with any other man in England M. Br. alone excepted that should go about to rob him of that honour which Mr. Br. calls a reproach It is for brotherhoodssake that he hears it from him 3. But his craft herein is to befool his Readers with an opinion that he is of the same judgment with Pareus Wotton Gataker c. of whom they that are dead have as much shewed their abhorrency from and opposition against his Doctrines as any that have lived upon earth And those that are living if they be consistent with themselves in their former writings whereof I nothing doubt are as far from Mr Br. as he is from Christ and his truth 4. His jeer that he casteth upon them that are Adversaries to his Doctrine terming them Zealous Divines infinuating that they have zeale without knowledg and learning I leave as proper to him that in that way of wisdom and righteousness which his own reason either as refined with Philosophy or corrupted with Sophistry suggesteth seeks for justification and eternall glory Let us be accounted fools to the world and no bodies in that which is falsly called science so that we may be wise in and zealous for that which is the power and wisedom of God to salvation The second Plea which he makes for himself is the singlenes and sincerity of his studies bent rather to seek out what is Scripture truth than what is Socinianism that he thinks that Socinus his Nature Studies and Attainments did not so much vary from his name Faustus the happy that he should be so unhappy as to hold nothing true and consequently that neither himself is so unhappy but that he hath learned some Truths from this happy Socinus and perhaps such as he could never learn from Christ his Apostles or faithfull Ministers But 1. This may be said of Faustus the Conjurer who by giving himself to the Devill did not exterminate all notions of all truths from his soul Will Mr Br. be his Disciple also Both had the like effectuall influence from Satan neither know I which to prefer 2. Who sent Mr. Br. to learn from such Teachers to seek for light in darkness or Heaven in Hell or Scripture-Truth in the precept of Pagans or glosses of Papists or Socinus his God Reason Is it not because there is no God in Israel that he goes to enquire of Baal-zebab the God of Ekron 2 King 1. 3. The Lord Jesus rebuketh silenceth and refuseth to hear the Spirit of lies even when hee speaks truth Mar. 1. 23 24 25. and abandoneth the spirituall Devil no less than if he had blasphemed Mat. 4. So also Paul Acts 16. 16-18 The truth of Christ needs not any disdains all props from Hell to sustain it He that will not dip from the fountain but at the pools which the unclean beasts have defiled let him without our envy have mudd and dung enough in the water which he drinketh 3. It is much to be doubted the mans heart deceives him Were his studie so unfeigned and serious to know what is Scripture truth he would more study the Scripture it self and less Bellarmin Socinus Arminius and such like Sophisters whose whole study it is to corrupt all and to leave no Scripture unperverted 4. Had he not ploughed with Socinus his Heyfers or rather Bulls he could never have sowed so much darnell in the field of Christ The third Plea which he bringeth to prove that his Doctrine is free from Socinianism is because there is one point wherein hee dissenteth from Secinus That Socinus and his followers deny any expiatory sacrifice that Christ hath offred to God to satisfie his Justice for our sins or that ther is any effectual vertue in Christs death to purge our Consciences from dead works But that he becomes our Saviour only in this that he hath given us more perfect precepts of Righteousness than were contained in the Law and the Prophets and withall he hath given us a Copie or pattern by his own practice to which we must be conformed And so we must be justified not by the blood of Christ but by our own obedience in following these precepts and this pattern which he hath given us In this point Mr. Br. professeth himself so farr from joyning with him that hee casteth off this Doctrine with abhorrence But this reasoning hath no soundness in it For 1 It is the same as if I should argue that Goliah was not of the race of the Giants because he had not upon each hand six fingers and upon each foot six toes at some of the Giants progeny had and possibly the Giant himself Or that Mr. Br. should seek by this Argument to prove himself no English-man because he dwels neerer the Severn than Thames So also might the Jews elude the words of Christ and Elymas the words of Paul as slanderous arguing themselves not to be the children of the Devill because they had flesh and bone so had not the Devill They had never carried Christ aloft and set him on a pinacle of the Temple fearing they might fall headlong thence themselves so had the Devill The seed the Lusts of the Devil abiding and reigning in them spake them
ugliness of this imaginary Chimera Here therefore it shall suffice leaving the Reader to the perusall of what hath been said already upon this subject to mind him of these two things 1. That both the whole and every least fragment of all that is here collected whether we look to the substance or Artifice used about it is not his but borrowed partly from the Papists partly from the Socinians and their Apes the Arminians as hath been before shewed and if I shall be called thereto I am ready more fully to shew by quoting the Authors out of whom he hath transcribed all almost word for word to his use So that the Reader may consult with such of our Writers that have answered their sophistry if he desire to read more fully and largely upon this subject and not expect it from mee who have already transgressed as some will judg by my too much largeness thereon as to Mr. Baxter 2 That although the voyce here be the voyce of Jacob yet the hands are the hands of Esau Sweet words but subverting doctrine in matter and substance Pills of poyson wrapt up in gold we except not against the gold but the poyson therein inclosed not against the Terms of words considered by themselves but against the pernicious doctrine which they palliate Whether we ascribe too much to Faith by making it an instrument see the examination of his answer to the last question which he propoundeth in the explication of Thes 56. But how false and fallacious his flaattering words which he useth here to make tolerable yea sweet his arrogant doctrine of Justification by works viz. that Wee that is I and the Papists with Socinus and Arminius make our righteousnesse but a Condition or Medium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness Not as works simply considered nor as Legall works nor as Meritorious works Nor as good works with which God is pleased but as our Gospel-righteousness and conditions to which the free Law-giver hath promised justification and life will easily appear to him that considereth what how much hee ascribeth to works Though he cals works a poor Causa sine qua non yet himself affirmeth that some Causes sine qua non deserve farr greater praise in morall respect than some that have a proper Causality do Aph. pa. 216. which though in words he deny of Faith meaning by faith all obedience and good works which hee calls the severall Acts of Faith Aph. p. 126. that it doth so deserve Aphor. p. 224. yet in matter and substance he affirms it And Nulla fides verbis cum res adversa loquatur For as I have more than hinted before 1 He maketh our righteousnes of works and Christs satisfactory righteousness co-ordinate and collateral in the procurement of our Justification the one as absolutely necessary as the other to the attainment of this end the one to purchase a possibility of Justification the other to render that which was but in possibility actual and effectual to us Both satisfactory the one as a sufficient Fine and payment the other as satisfactory Rent and homage Aph. Thes 17 18 19. pa. 129. 2 He puts both in the same order and kind of Causes making our righteousness and Christs satisfaction to be both the Causa sine qua non Thes 56. For although he names Faith there yet himself declares himselfe under Faith to mean and comprehend obedience also This Civility alone he vouchsafeth to Christ that he names Christs satisfaction before our faith or obedience because it seems that is the elder But in order power and authority to the producing of this effect Christ hath no pre-eminence given him above man 3 He affirms mans righteousness to be as perfect as Christs righteousness in order to Justification viz. both perfect in suo genere Christs righteousness perfect to do its work mans to its work or as he explains himself both perfect in the perfection of sufficiency in order to its end So that here also is a parity no efficiency in Christs righteousness without mans nor in mans without Christs to justifie But when the two perfections meet if neither lose its perfection they may after the world is ended perfect our justification Thes 24. p. 132. In the mean while till our works be added to Christs satisfaction what he saith of faith that he every where implyeth of the satisfaction of Christ that it is dead being alone as to the use and purpose of justifying And so as works make faith alive so they make Christs satisfaction alive as to the attainment of its end justification 4 That works justifie in the same kind of Causality and procurement with faith not only proving Faith to be sound but themselves being in the same obligation with Faith not idle Concomitants only standing by while Faith doth all which some fools might imagine hee meaneth when he calls them onely necessary Antecedents of Justification pa. 223. Nay they are Concomitants with Faith in the very Act of procuring it and in that kind of Causality which they have p. 299 300. 5 They do all this as they are works Even Faith it self justifieth as it is an Act of ours Append. p. 80. and as a morall duty Append. p. 102. So do all other Morall duties as they are part of our sincere obedience to Christ ibid. 6 That we are justified not only by works Aph. p. 300. and according to our works but also for our works pa. 320. that good works are a ground and Reason of it p. 221. 7 That we are justified for our works that is for the Merit of them Not Merit in the most proper and strict sense which is the performance of somewhat not due by one that is not under the Soveraignty of him to whom it is performed of that worth in it selfe which bindeth him to whom it is done in strict and naturall justice to requite him Such an obligation can no creature lay upon God Neither could perfect obedience in respect of the Law of Works if man had continued still upright have so merited But so far as it was possible for a perfect man to have merited under the Covenant of works hee may now merit also under the Covenant of Grace by his works viz. in an improper way of Meriting where the obligation to reward is Gods Ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthinesse lyeth in our performance of the Condition on our part Thus farr might Adam in his perfection have merited according to the Law of works and so farr may wee merit according to the Covenant of Grace Aphorism Thesis 26. pa. 138. 140 141. Let all this be laid together and who can but per-force acknowledge together with the horns of the Lamb the voyce of the Dragon also and all that he hath spoken pretendedly to the diminution of works under the fine terms of his causa sine qua non his