not of great moment but the supercilious haughtinesse of the man puft with the opinion of his secular learning so high as to puf and pif at so many excellent Divines for learning and holinesse to many of which he is not worthy to be an Amanuensis is unsufferable I shall therefore as briefly as I can expresse upon what grounds our Divines and how far they make the righteousnesse of Christ the matter of our justification as near as I may upon good probabilities conjecture The Doctrine of justification by Christ is no where in the four Evangelists held forth under the name of justification or justifying Many both Parables and clear doctrines that proceeded from the lips of Christ do indeed in other words fully display it specially John the Evangelist who made it more his task to record the doctrine then the acts of Christ because he saw those historifyed somewhat largely by the other three Evangelists which had written before him Eagle-like mounting on high to the contemplation of his Celestiall and Divine nature and doctrines very exactly sets it forth but under other words naming it Life eternall Life everlasting Life He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life Joh. 3. 36. Is passed from death to life Joh. 5. 24. Hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. My flesh which I give for the life of the world Joh. 6. 51. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life Joh. 5. 40. Except ye eat my flesh and drink my bloud ye have no life in you he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6. 57. In all which and many other texts of this Evangelist none can deny but by life is to be understood chiefly if not only life in law the life of justification not that of glory which is to be received above but that of grace here For so those Scriptures point out a life here in this present world enduring everlastingly to all eternity and not a life here only to be hoped for and hereafter to come into our fruition Neither do I find the word justifie used but once by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles Nor yet at all in any one of the Epistles of the Apostles St. James only excepted in one Chapter but by the Apostle Paul alone Yet the substance of justification was the chief doctrine in all their Epistles handled but the same set forth under the name of Salvation saving life and other phrases which our Saviour himself used And these phrases also doth St. Paul use as equipollent with the word Justifying in all his Epistles Now the reason why this Apostle more then the rest treats of this doctrine under the name of justification I conceive to be this Because he was forced to handle it by way of controversie against the false Apostles some professing some rejecting Christ that taught justification and salvation by the works of the Law in part and not by faith only whom therefore he must needs in his disputes treat with in their own tearms and words Their Argumentation against the Apostle as may be gathered from the Apostles answers ran in this tenour and to this effect That righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But the righteousnesse of the Law is that righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh man perfectly righteous at least by procuring proper righteousnesse to him therefore that alone saveth The Apostle here granteth the proposition that no other righteousnesse but that which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But denyeth the assumption that the righteousnesse of the Law only or at all justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous Because only the perfect doers of the law are perfectly righteous not the hearers But no man can perfectly do it And contrariwise proveth that the righteousness of the Gospel which he cals the Righteousnesse of God the Righteousnesse of faith the Righteousnesse of God by faith which consisteth in Christs satisfaction imputed to us is the Righteousnesse which justifyeth and maketh perfectly righteous because it cleanseth from the guilt and freeth from the imputation of all sin and unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 17. 3. 5 21 22 25 26. 4. 3 5 6 11. 5. 17 18 21. 9. 30. 10. 3 4 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. In all which places and in many other the Apostle having rejected the righteousnesse of works from being asserteth the righteousnesse of God in Christ by faith to be the righteousnesse the matter and substance of the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed This he illustrateth Rom. 5. 19. by a comparison between Adam and Christ Adams disobedience and Christs obedience As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made roghteous the ones disobedience was not only the merit but also the matter of our sin as far as sin is capable of matter the very sin it self which being imputed to us as being in him without any personall and actuall sin of our own makes us sinners So the obedience of Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin and giving satisfaction to Gods justice in obedience to that positive command of the Father which required it was and is not only the merit but also the matter of that righteousnesse which being imputed to us as being in Christ without any personall obedience of ours added to it constituteth us righteous and justifyed in Gods acceptance or is that for by and in which the Lord pronounceth us just and justifyed to our own consciences Such is the frequent dispute of the Apostle about the substance and matter of that righteousnesse by which we are justify ad which he concludes not to be a righteousnesse inherent in us but this Righteousnesse inherent in Christ but imputed to us and apprehended by faith to justification whom God hath set forth as a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. And this is all that I finde our Divines to mean in saying the righteousnesse or satisfaction of Christ is the materiall cause of our justification defending against the Papists as the Apostle did againsts the Pharisees that the matter of the righteousnesse which God accepteth and imputeth to us in justifying us or unto righteousnesse and justification is this righteousnesse of Christ only not the righteousnesse of works Mr. Baxter in rejecting the phrase 1. As rude and not Logicall 2. As at the best unproper doth first accuse the Apostle and secondarily them that follow his Apostolicall doctrine and phrase of this rudenesse and impropriety of language One of them speaks out the minde of the rest Deus justitiam i. e. Obedientiam satisfactionem Sevarpius â—rs Th eol â— justif â— 925. Christi nostram facit ac pro nostra ducit c. atque ita nos antequam justos pronunciet justos facit God makes the righteousnesse i. e. the obedience and satisfaction of Christ ours
sinns against the Gospel as well as against the Law Though I have spoken of all these enough of each in its proper place within this Tractate yet somewhat for the fuller Clearing of my meaning may be said here also The first and second I shall for brevity join in one as of no small Cognation As farr as I hold and have declared my self to hold them 1 I have also manifested in due place how they are or seem at least to be grounded upon the Scriptures 2 They are expresly and boldly asserted by many of the most Conspicuous Divines in piety and Learning that any of the Protestant Churches have enjoyed ever since the Reformation 3. And that without the Contradiction or exception of any Church or Orthodox Writer for well nigh a hundred yeares made against it A great and probable Argument that it was the Common Judgement of all the Churches 4. Mr. Rhaeterfordt in his Exercit. Apolog holds it forth not as the private opinion of some particular men but as the Common Judgement of all the Churches And the Remonstrants take it as such For so I remember they oft argue in their Apol. and elswhere Justificatio est purus putus Actus in Deo immanens c. not that they express what Arminius his judgment and theirs after him is in this point but that from this as a conclusion which they knew common to and would not be denyed by any Protestant their Argument would stand firm against them Neither know I any one of the Protestants that hath written against them excepting against it 5 I never read any to make me dissent in judgement from these Worthies that hath given his reasons against it save Mr. Br. alone and he handles the question like a man spoyled with Philosophy and vain deceit as the Apostle termeth the use of exotick learning in purely Gospel matters after the traditions of men and Rudiments of the world not after Christ Col. 2. 8. And his nakedness in such his arguing is enough discovered by a learned Writer whose worth I shall still honour but have not so much as an Ambition ever to match * Mr. Kendal He tells us indeed that Dr Downham hath written against it as delivered by Mr. Pemble But I could not get the book to see his reasons nor know I any thing which he hath written but as I have heard from others Besides I have been told that some of the late Reverend Synod disrelished the doctrine but cannot finde that any one of them hath published his reasons for such a disrelish And Charity will not permit me to harbour the lightest imagination that any of those grave Divines culld and selected out of the whole Nation for their eminency in godliness and learning should without any means used for information and conviction exercise a Tyranny over the Consciences of their lesser brethren to force them into an implicit Faith to beleeve as themselves beleeve specially when doing it they shall put out that which they think at least to be the light of the word in their conscience and in consenting with them without hearing a reason they shall dissent from others whom their Modesty will confess to be of no less deservings in the Church who have given their reasons Yet still I hold 1 that those Scriptures which treat of Justification by Faith do all relate to the transient justification which no man partakes of till he beleeveth 2 That no man is personally justified but onely in Christ the publike person till he be by Faith united to Christ That righteousness and life so discend to us from the second Adam as sinn and condemnation from the first As by the offence of one judgement came upon all to condemnation so by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all to Justification of life Rom. 5. 18 19. In Adam the publike person we were all represented he was all and we all considered in him God saw us in all our individuall persâ—ns in him though we through Adam saw it not so that Aâ—am sinning we all sinned in him and became dead in law and guilty of condemnation before God as if we had been then being and actually sinning Nevertheless as to our selves we were not personally sinners and guilty untill we had a personall being in and from Adam So in Christ satisfying Gods justce for sinn the Elect were all represented as in a publike person satisfying in him by him and so all in him and by him justified and absolved in all their individualls from sinn and condemnation before God Nevertheless we are not personally so justified untill we have a personall being and new being in Christ and from Christ 3. That this Transient Justification is a justifying or being justified before God passed at Gods Tribunall set up in mans Conscience from which he pronounceth absolution to a poore sinner denying himself and resting upon Christ alone for Mercy So that now and never untill now he hath boldness to pierce by Faith into the Holiest and plead his righteousness before him that sitteth on the Mercy-seat Thus our justification which was before in God and in Christ is not at all derogatory to the justification which is by Faith but onely prevents that this latter may not be derogatory to the praise of Gods Grace and Christs merits which have completed all without our subserviency for us and thus God is all seen to be all and our boasting excluded This hitherto is my judgement untill I shall be better instructed Tu si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti And at length if it shall be granted to be an error yet it cannot be Antinomism being a deviation not from the doctrine of the Law but of the Gospel It was not the judgement but malice of Mr. Br that gave it this brand of ignominy 3 To the free absolute and unconditionall Justification I need not to Apologize for my self at all It is to the truly pious of the Ministery to whom my words are directed who among other have given this evidence of your godlinesse that ye have not forsaken your first Faith by declining to Popery or Arminianism what others judge of me is to me a small thing saith the Apostle of such I weigh it not But ye no doubt teach that the very promulgation of Justification runs upon no other condition but Faith alone and upon Faith not as a quality or vertue but instrumentall to apply the righteousnesse of Christ to Justification that works and the universall conditionall Justification which Mr. Br. hath learned of his Masters are to be excluded In this your doctrine is one and the same in sense and substance with theirs that affirm Justification to be unconditionall And it is indifferent to me to deliver the same truth in their words or yours Onely I find that they make use of both the former and this Conclusion as strong Fortresses against Popery and Arminianism which causeth Mr.
Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law no flesh is justified Why then do we draw the poor Gentiles to seek any furtherance to their justification by the observation of the Law by which our selves who were most privileged with it could not be justified but by Christ onely without the law So here Even they that had the law and were not a little zealous for and active in the righteousness of the law had need of a redeemer were justified and saved not at all by the lawes righteousness but onely by Christs redeeming of them What madnes is it then in you O foolish Galathians that are not of the holy stock of Israel but sinners of the Gentiles to seek any help to your justification by the works of the law which could not justifie the very Israelites that were born and brought up in it and not to repose your selves upon Christ alone If Mr. Baxter will pretend any other meaning of the Text besides he shall therein wound and not strengthen his Cause For he speaks of the same persons here to be under the law onely in the hand of a Mediator not under the Curse of the law but under such an administration thereof that even before they actually beleeved in Christ the very person of Christ are affirmed ver 1. to be Lords of all all the inheritance which is by Christ ergo not under the wrath of God before they embraced the Faith of Christ As for the other Scriptures which he annexeth yet further to prove that the very elect before and untill they beleeve are under the Law in the sense so oft manifested let him once shew how he will argue and what he will conclude and upon what grounds from them we shall be ready to answer him In the interim I profess I see not any thing in them more prevalent to his purpose than a nights lodging in a bed of snow and ice to cure the Cough Yet from all these wrested Scriptures he Concludes at last that the deliverance which beleevers have by Christ from the Curse of the Law is a conditionall deliverance viz. if they will obey the Gospel i. e. when they beleeve if they will beleeve not onely while they live but also when they are dead and buried For as we say that a conditionall proposition doth nihil ponere so it is true in the sense of Mr Bax. here that this conditionall promise doth nihil promittere The Condition as long as this world lasteth being still in performing not performed and so nothing obteined Yet will he have this new nothing together with the abrogation of the ceremoniall Law to which we never were none but the Israelites ever have been subject to be the great privilege of beleevers and effect of Christs bloud When we poor souls with our dull eyes can see no more privilege that we have herein by Christs bloud than the worst of infidells and reprobates have for they also â—ave this conditionall deliverance from the curse and freedom from the ceremoniall law And this deliverance saith he is yet more full when we perform the conditions of our freedom And then we are said to dead to the Law Rom. 7. 4. and the obligation to punishment dead as to us ver 6. This is indeed a full and perfect deliverance But what doth he mean in saying when we perform c. either when we are performing the conditions That were a contradiction to himself in what he saith p. 74. that we are not perfectly freed till the day of resurrection and judgement And so also it will be hard for another save Mr. Br. to make sense of the words That the deliverance of beleevers is yet more full when they perform the Conditions are performing the conditions of their freedom i. e. more full when they beleeve than when they do beleeve For if we should grant to Mr. Br Faith to be a condition and not rather a mean or instrument of our justification yet would we grant him no other condition thereof Or doth he mean it is full when they have performed the Conditions it seems then that some of the Conditions are left to be performed in the next world because untill then he tells us we can have no such perfect freedom This is the free Grace of God which Mr. Br boasteth himself so much to extoll p. 79. let him that delights in it be his disciple That which he speaks in the upshott for the mitigation of his harsh doctrine aforegoing that he knoweth this Covenant of works continueth not to the same ends and uses as before c. is but a trick of the Jesuits to give sugar after the poyson which was before gone down to destroy Neither can he make out how beleevers are under the law of nature as a Covenant of works and yet not bound to seek life according to the tenor and condition of that Covenant If any marvell that Mr. Baxter should so waste his spirits in abusing both divine and humane learning to prove the Saints to be still under the Curse under the law as a Covenant of works he will cease to wonder if he take notice of a further aim that he hath therein He would not out of doubt have so much insisted on it had he not looked to a further end in it If the beleevers are still under a Covenant of works as to the Curse wrath and Condemnation much more are they under a Covenant of works as unto life and Justification If the former be once granted he accounts the game wonn as to the latter Therefore doth he so much stirr in the former that he may with the more facility and less contradiction bring in afterwards the latter Justification by works which is his very busines in Compiling this book CHAP. XI Whether as the Covenant of Works was made with all mankind in Adam their representative so the Covenant of Grace was made with all the elect in Christ their Representer What relation the Covenants made with Adam Abraham the Israelites and lastly with us under the Gospel have to that Covenant made with Christ B. Thesis 14. p. 89. THe Tenor of the New Covenant is this that Christ having made sufficient satisfaction to the Law whosoever will repent and beleeve in him to the end shall be justified through that satisfaction from all that the Law did charge upon them and be moreover advanced to far greater privileges and glory then they fell from But whosoever fullfilleth not these conditions shall have no more benefit by the bloud of Christ than what they here received and abused but must answer the charge of the Law themselves And for their neglect of Christ must also suffer a far greater condemnation Or briâ—fly whosoever beleeveth in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life but he that beleeveth not shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Mar. 16. 16. Jo. 3. 15 16 17 18. 36.
every such person That these Antinomians of the former age were filthy dreamers loose livers such as turned the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ into lasciviousness is very probable if not certain from that which Calvin and others have written against Antinomians and Libertines And from such we have no less abhorrence then Mr. Baxter But while Mr. Baxter declaimeth against the innocent hee proclaimes himselfe a rank Antinomian in teaching and maintaining that the perfect obedience and righteousnesse of the Law are not required and consequentially not due under the Gospel Islebius himself never spake so derogatorily to the righteousness of the Law CHAP. XXIII Arg. Mr. Baxters distinction of Justification in Title of Law and in Sentence of Judgement examined together with other distinctions equipollent to this Whether besides the present there be also a future Justification and whether it be begun and perfected together at once I should wholly have passed over the 37 38 39 and 40 Theses with their Explications as meerly shady imaginations voyd of all reality and substance without stopping to give them one word of answer For why should wee talke of Pictures that have no life in them were it not that it is Master Baxters drift to carry us through these wayes of his own chalking wholly from Christ under a pretext of leading us to Christ the Justifier To frustrate therefore his deceit I shall speak somewhat to these passages of his Tractate also Thes 37. pag. 183. B. Iustification is either in title and the sense of Law or in sentence of judgement The first may be called Constitutive the second Declarative the first Virtual the second Actual Lawyers have layd it down for a Maxim Non est distinguendum ubi Lex non distinguit i. e. We are not to distinguish of any point in the Law where the Law it self hath not made a distinction If the Laws of men are not much lesse are the Laws and Word of God to be violated with mens bold distinctions For this is no lesse then to bring Gods sacred Oracles into a subjection to mans vain fancies Let Mr. Baxter shew any Scripture that gives footing for the distinguishing of Justification into that which is in title of Law and that which is in sentence of judgement into constitutive and declarative or virtuall and actuall Justification These are the inventions of wanton wits in these latter times whose endeavour it hath been to tear in peeces and thereby wholly nullifie Gods Justification and to put many Justifications of their own in stead thereof We deny not a constitutive and declarative Justification in some sense but in Mr. Baxters sense we deny it It is granted that the Satisfaction which the Son by promise gave and the Father accepted for the sins of the Elect according to the Covenant between the Father and the Son before more then once mentioned did constitute the Elect justified in Christ before they were born who notwithstanding were not declared just to their own consciences before they actually beleeved nor to others until they manifested their Faith by their Works But Mr. Baxter explodes this constitutive and declarative Justification as an unsufferable abhomination and will not have his virtuality and actuality to these applyed And let him alleage any one Scripture that calls the sentence of life unto those that shall bee saved by grace that is to be pronounced in the last day Justification Or if he cannot but that the justification of the New Covenant wherever it be mentioned in the Word be that which is in this present life who sees not that his distinguishing here tends to the subverting of Scriptures and of the both virtual and actual Justification which the Scriptures speak of B. The Scripture speaks of it many times as a future thing and not yet done Rom. 3. 30. Mat. 12. 37. Rom. 2. 13. Explic pag. 185. This is all that he bringeth or can bring for Justification in the day of Judgement and this all is nothing It followeth not because these Scriptures speak of Justification as of a thing to come saying they shall be not they are justified that this Future tense doth point out the day of Judgement If I should say Mr. Baxter shall dye I should not be accused for speaking an untruth but if any will needs confine that shall to the day of Judgement that Mr. Baxter shall then dye who would not laugh at the absurdity of the consequence That of Mat. 12. 37. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned and that of Rom. 2. 13. Not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified speak of Justification after the tenor and covenant of the Law not of Grace therefore pertain nothing to the present purpose Hee shall but Dare verba damnably deceive with words that teacheth men to seek for Justification by the righteousness of the Law consisting in deeds and words Whosoever indeed shall neither in word or deed be found a transgressor of the Law actually or originally shall be justified by his words and deeds But this man must be sought for out of a happier generation then those of the race of Adam else if we except Christ alone we must return our Non est inventus That of Rom. 3. 30. speaks indeed in the Future tense but may be as properly rendred by the word will as shall though the difference be not very considerable thus It is one God which will or shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through Faith The Apostle here meaneth no otherwise speaking here in the Future then what he had said before in the Present Tense of Justification And it is as if he had said God hath decreed and declared his method of justifying both Jews Gentiles to be one and the same As long as there remain or succeed any upon earth of either part to be justified the purpose of God abides firm to justifie as wel the one as the other by faith and no one of either sort by Works neither circumcision nor uncircumcision shall avail or hinder any thing but Christ faith in Christ shall bee all unto all in this businesse as long as the world endureth And what is there then in this Text to pâ—ove Mr. Baxters declarative Justification in the day of Judgement Not that wee deny the adjudging of life in the day of Judgement to all that in this life were justified but the Scriptures terming this last sentence by the name of Justification whatsoever is said of Justification by Faith or Grace is still to be understood in this life And the whole reason that Mr. Baxter hath here to coyn a Justification in the day of judgement is to lay a foundation of Popish Justification by Works as by the sequele of this his Treatise will more fully appear Else would we not contend with him about meer words did they not tend to a destructive end and that we are taught
Covenant and that pretious Gospell promise He that beleeveth in the Son shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life so I affirm faith to be both Gods and Mans instrument Gods effective and mans receptive instrument in relation to justification as shall be beneath more fully explained First it is Gods instrument This justification is but Gods pronouncing and declaring a man to his own conscience to be just and discharged from sin and condemnation through Christ so that he perceives and apprehends himself absolved and doth acquiesce in this absolution One chief instrument by which God doth thus justifie or declare and manifest man to himself just and pardoned is faith This is Gods instrument in the same sense in which Mr. Baxter maketh the promise and grant of the new Covenant to be Gods instrument and that more fully as I in part shewed before For that grant doth but declare a possibility to a man as it is considered by it self to be justifyed promising forgivenesse and life to all that shall beleeve By this act alone no singular person is actually justifyed But now this grant premised when God is pleased to infuse faith into the soul of any singular person by it as by his instrument he declareth that person to himself just and acquitted from condemnation so that he can thenceforth plead out his own justification God hath pronounced them all just and pardoned which beleeve in his Son I so beleeve therefore I am pronounced and declared of God just and pardoned So this faith is the instrument of God for so Lawyers term Deeds and Grants in writing instruments yea instruments of him that makes the Deed or Grant And the promise of the new Covenant or the new Testament is called novum Instrumentum as it is his evidence written not without the man as that Gospell grant but by the finger of Gods Spirit in the hearts of the Elect so that they may read this instrument of Gods writing within their hearts evidencing and manifesting to themselves their justification from God And this is one principall instrument and evidence of God promised under the new Covenant Jer. 31. 31-35 recited as now fulfilled by the Apostle Heb. 8. 8-12 10. 16 17. I will write my Lawes in their hearts c. what Law but the rule doctrine and evidence of life and salvaâ—ion But what benefit by having it written within them more then if it were in writing without them Yes this They shall not need externall teaching to know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest What knowledg of God was this whereupon they should not need teachers They shall know him to be their God their Justifyer their Saviour for so much intimate the next words For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more This was one chief part of the Law or will of God written in their hearts justification or everlasting remission of sins This they should not need to be taught from without the instrument of writing or evidence thereof should be within their own hearts apparent not to others but their own reading And what more principall evidence or instrument of writing within our hearts thus to assure us then our faith engraven by Gods own hand in us I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself whether I wrest this Scripture from its proper sense or if any shall except against me I doubt not but I shall make it good to be the minde of the holy Ghost which I have here given To the same purpose is it that Faith is called the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Whose evidence Gods evidence given us by which he declareth to us and manifesteth to our consciences the invisible things of our justification and salvation and when given then our evidence also by which we not only apprehend but also plead against all the accusations of the Law yea of sin and Satan our actuall justification And that it is called the witnesse of God in us or within us because God by this witnesse as his instrument declares and evidenceth us to our own consciences justifyed 1 Joh. 5. 10. Secondly It is mans instrument by which he applyeth to himself and without which he cannot applie to himself this justification and remission of the new Covenant to know and be sensible of it that he may rest and rejoyce in it being justifyed in himself i. e. in his own knowledge and conscience God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5. 19. Reconciliation and Justification as hath been shâ—wed are one and the same thing That we may receive it therefore from him in Christ he gives us as many as are his Elect this living faith as an instrument by which he may apply it and bring it home into our bosomes Therefore is the operation of the soul by faith set forth in the Scripture by a comparison of a mans working by the severall members of the body as by his instruments Calling Faith sometimes the eâ—e of man by which he looketh to Christ crucifyed as the Israelites to the brazen Serpent thence to obtain cure to the wounded and poysoned soul Joh. 3. 14 15. Sometimes the fooâ— of the soul by which it runs and comes to Christ for life and justification Joh. 5. 40. Sometimes the hand of the soul by which it apprehendeth Christ and the justification that is in and by him To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to as many as beleeve in his Name Joh. 1. 12. Sometimes the mouth of the soul by which it eateth and drinketh in Christ with the life that is in him both to justifie and sanctifie He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2. 3. Sometimes the armes of the soul by which it embraceth and holdeth in possession Christ with his life and righteousnesse He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Sâ—n hath not life 1 Joh. 5. 12. What doth all this imply lesse then that faith is instrumentall to our justification Yea given to us to be the sole instrument on our part by which to apply to our selves the justification offered by God in Christ Or what else is meant by the generall voice of the Gospell pronouncing us to be justifyed by faith but by faith Gods instrument and evidence to declare and manifest it to our souls and our instrument to apprehend and hold it fast and firm to our selves It remaineth now to examin Mr. Baxters reasons by which he assayeth to prove that it is neither mans nor Gods instrument First that it is not mans instrument he thus argueth B. Not mans instrument for he is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself Both this and all that which followeth in this his dispute
of Promise how can it bee sayd properly this Doctrine tends to drive out obedience from the World Can it drive out of the World that which is not in it Had he sayd it tends to drive out the Formality and outside Morality and base Hypocrisie from the World wee might have considered of it But to tell of driving out obedience that which God accepteth and alloweth as true Obedience from such as would never bee drawne to it implies a kinde of contradiction 4. If hee meane Spirituall and Gospel Obedience the obedience of Faith which consisteth in the deniall of our owne righteousnesse and our owne strength and cleaving to Christ alone for Justification and Sanctification and that this Doctrine doth not drive it out of the World but hinder the World from pertaking of it how doth the Wisedome of Christ and the Wisdome of Mr. Baxter heerein dash eyther against other God so loved the world saith Christ that hee gave his onely begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have life everlasting Jo. 3. 16. He that believeth in mee out of his belly shall flow Rivers of living water Jo. 7. 38. If I bee lifted up from the Earth I will draw all men to me Jo. 12. 32. Come unto me all that are weary and heavy layden and I will refresh you Mat. 11. 28. Goe preach the Gospel to every Creature hee that beleeveth shall be saved Mark 16. 15 16. This is a faithfull saying c. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief 1 Tim. 1 15. They that receive abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousnesse shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ and hundreds more the like Scriptures in which the fulnesse of grace and righteousnesse offered to the world to the chiefe sinners of the world freely to be given to as many as will receive and believe in Christ is made an attractive to obedience and not as Mr. Baxter slandereth this Doctrine a hinderance to it 5. If there be any of the world that are so offended at this Doctrine as to make it a stone of stumbling to them and an hinderance to the obedience of faith they are the worst people of the world Jewes or of a Jewish spirit Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites who having made cleane the outside of the cup and platter though the inside be unpurged from its guilt think themselvs the alone holy and righteous persons will not enter into the Kingdome of Grace unlesse their owne worth and righteousnesse shall usher them into it and the Publicans and Harlots bee barr'd out â—â— unworthy rend their cloaths and cast dust in the aire like mad-men if mention bee made of admitting with them the unclean Gentiles Acts 22. 21 23. If the Prodigall sonne be entertained refuse in great wrath any more to meddle in their Fathers house and service Luke 15. 28 30. And will not hearken though earnestly entreated These many years have I served and never transgressed and shall now this companion of harlots be here with mee and these last that came in at evening bee made equall with us that have borne the burthen and heat of the day Mat. 20. 12. They had their owne Farmes Oxen Wives Therefore as happy enough at home they would not come to pertake of the Lords Fâ—ast but left it to the poore blinde and laâ—â— c. But against such the Lord hath sworne that they should not taste of his supper Luk. 14. and the misery of this doome wee see lying heavy upon that Nation to this day Is it not enough to Mr. Baxter that hee hath not himselfe taken heed of this Leaven of theirs but that hee must seeke to sowre us with it tco that we might incurre the like vengeance 6. If there bee such as turne this Doctrine into licentiousness that because good works are not appointed of God to be the condition of their justification will therefore relax their diligence the fault is not in the Doctrine but in the corruption of their hearts They ought to conclude from Grace to duty and not to carnall liberty If they do otherwise it is not because they have but because they have not effectually drank into themselves this Doctrine Else if all the means of Grace which carnall men abuse should bee guilty of their abuse then the death of Christ and preaching of the Gospel must be anathematized because he is laid as a stone at which some will stumble and as well for the fall as the rising of many in Israel and that is to some the savour of death as well as to others the savour of life The children must not lose their bread for feare the doggs should catch after it to satisfie their rapine The Apostle had delivered a sacred doctrine of Gospell truth Where sinne abounded Grace abounded much more Ro. 5. 20. Hee seeth easily this doctrine would be abused by sensuallists therefore annexeth an Objection Shall we continue in sinne that Grace may abound Ro. 6. 1. This use some might make of it Doth hee therefore recall his doctrine Nothing lesse Better many wretches to wantonize to their ruine than one soule for which Christ hath died lose such a prop of consolation 7. The truly beleeving saints cannot so reason or abuse the grace of God or relax their obedience as for other reasons so specially for those alleadged by the Apostle in the following part of that 6. Chapter to the Romans 8. Wee doe not by the Preaching of this Doctrine open a door to prophanenesse but following the guidance of the Scripture make use of it as the strongest obligation to obedience as in Answer to the next of Mr. Baxters Queres shall be manifested Lastly Mr. Baxters Doctrine of justification by Works is guilty of as many other crimes so of this also wherewith hee chargeth ours 1. By instilling into men a supposition of a possibility and necessity of attayning such a righteousness of their owne and worthiness of their works by the worth and merit whereof they may deserve Christ and justification by him The selfe-righteous Justiciaries will greedily swallow downe this bait and then little regard the obedience of faith Will not come in to Christ but upon their owne Terms and Articles For the whole need not the Physitian but the sicke Proofe enough heereof we have in the Scribes and Pharisees who if they might not be admitted as the only sons of God wholly rejected the Kingdome of God The very Publicanes and Harlots entring before them Such pride is there naturally in mans heart that if they have any thing of their owne faire though but in appearance they thinke the Gospel of Christ more credited by their profession of it than themselves benefited by it 2. By blunting the edge of mens desires after Christ If it must be their owne works and righteousness that must mediate their interest in Christ and justification by him despaire of attainment strikes them
Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. saith the Holy Ghost but whether Mr Baxter doth in this Treatise bring us another Gospel his Doctrine in the Examination thereof will manifest 4 I would that this his Treatise did speak him out to be so strictly and tenderly conscientious as his friends proclaim him I should then either in person have made recourse to him to communicate my thoughts to him or written in another tone in the spirit of meeknesse to him to have received fuller satisfaction from him if my impotency could not have ministred some information to him But we shall find in what he writes many things that may work in us a jealousie of the sincerity of a sanctified Conscience in him I shall here mention some generals leaving the rest untill we come to except against the particulars One thing that occasioneth this jealousie is the want of ingenuity truth and simplicity in his Assertions For one instance hereof we need not step further then to the title of the work where he affirms it to be published especially for the use of the Church of Kederminster in Worcestershire Can any man that hath but glanced an eye on the surface of humane literature think him to mean as he speaketh Either we must conclude that he hath the very spirit of all Philosophicall and Metaphysicall learning which he breaths forth as effectually upon his Disciples as Knipperdoling did the Holy Ghost upon his Anabaptists or else his Church for the greatest number of its members is not in a capacity of understanding him That his Church by his presidency in it is on a sudden become a Najoth in Ramah every Saul that comes neer it doth philosophari if not prophetare so that ex ejus Ludo tanquam ex equo Trojano innumeri principes exiêre Pauls Princes I mean Princes in secular wisedome and learning 1 Cor. 2. 6. 8. else if his people have no such inspiration above other Churches surely the most of them stagger at the first word in the title of the Book understand not the tenth part of his sacred subtle distinctions but in most things that he saith he is to them a Barbarian and they to him Nay Mr Baxter is not a novice he knowes where and for what mouths to chew his morsels and to whom to give them to be chewed It was especially for the nimble wits and logicall Teachers of the Churches that this broth was boyled as I shall shew more fully afterward that having misled the leaders he might by them mislead their flocks also 2 And as little ingenuity and truth is there in him where he quoteth some whom he against his stomach cals Orthodox Divines and from some locutions and fragments of their sentences concludes them to be of his Judgement when he knowes their Doctrine about Justification to be so diametrically opposite to his as hell to heaven and Antichrist to Christ so that if they be Orthodox himselfe must needs be Hetorodox This he well knowes but his ingenuity and single-heartednes hides it and pretends the contrary 3 Is not his face Ferry-man-like one way and his motion another when the whole tenor of what he writes is not to set up any new opinion but to erect again and put life into that cursed Heresie of the Papists Justification by Works yet to hide his purpose from them that see not or will not see he sometimes solemnly professeth before God that it is no affectation of singularity that drew him to this Judgement at other times falls foul with the Papists telling us that no advantage is to be given to the Papists in this Doctrine of Justification when himselfe all the while is ploughing their field and strengthening their hands to the offence of all the truly wise and godly what hypocrisie sembling and dissembling is this Why doth he acquit himselfe of that which no man chargeth upon him What understanding Reader of him can harbour one thought of his bending to singularity It is plain to every eye that is open that he walks not solitary but hath thronged himselfe into the communion of the Holy Mother Church and fellowship of all her Saint Popish Schoolmen Monks Fryers and Jesuites That his study is to lay an odium implicitely and in the dark upon us I mean not onely all the Orthodox Divines but also all the Reformed Churches that have been or now are that they are all guilty of singularity seperation and Apostacy in departing from the Romish Synagogue in the Doctrine of Justification therefore hath he spread his nets to catch as many as he can to carry them back into Babylon againe Let Mr Baxter have as he hath a confident and swelling opinion of his owne abilities but let him not so abuse all others as if star-like their light must be totally dazled at the approach of his supposed sun-beams Wretched England if all her Seers are become blind and none can discern Christ from Antichrist even in his mystery Nay let him know that there are many which see and detest what he hath written no lesse then if it had been sent by the Popes own Legate to beguile Ingenuity truth and sincerity would have acted another way Mr Baxter if he had been seasoned therewith would have plainly acknowledged that he had examined the Controversie between us and the Papists about Justification that as far as his comprehension can reach he finds them in the truth and us erroneous and then should have alledged the Scriptures and other Arguments which they produce for the establishing of their Tenents and the Exceptions which in the Reformed Churches have been made against such Arguments and shewed the invalidity of those Exceptions in no wise answering or weakning the Popish Reasons by means whereof his judgement and conscience force him to side with them and not with us Thus candour and conscience would have wrought upon him for he cannot deny but that both he closeth with them in the same conclusions and that all the Scriptures Arguments and distinctions scarce any excepted which he brings for the promoting of such Conclusions are taken from the Papists and have been answered over and over a hundred times by our Divines Therefore to set forth his Assertions as new and to annex his Reasons for the confirmation thereof as now first heard of argues intolerable impudency in his daubing and dissembling To have dealt thus candidly and conscientiously would have excited many learned and holy men to a lovely conference with him which now contemn him as a seducer and seduced but if this had been done where should the crooked Serpent and working of Satan and Deceivablenasse of unrighteousnesse which still accompany that Man of sin and those that beare his marke have appeared 2 Thess 2. 9 10. 4 And his doublenesse and liegerdemain is no lesse exercised in that thorow-out his Treatise he is ever and anon sparkling his fire-brands against the Antinomians thereby secretly instilling into his unwary Readers that it
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
governed untill his coming That it was he who first preached to Adam salvation by the seed of the Woman and afterward more cleerly to Abraham That it was he also which delivered the Law upon Mount Sinai and added there a second Covenant in shew and sound a meer Covenant of works Do and be Blessed Sin and be Cursed which Covenant alone is expresly called the Old Covenant and is indeed now repealed and abolished from being any more a Covenant saving to them that put themselves under it This was but a temporary Covenant an Appendix to the Covenant before made with Abraham and both this and that with Abraham were but subordinate Covenants to that before mentioned between God and Christ Here now all that were justified before Christs coming in the flesh were justified in Christ by force of the first Covenant made between the Father and the Son The promise to Adam and the Covenants made with Abraham and with the Israelites together with all the Sacraments and signes annexed to all these tended onely to bring them that were justified before in Christ to a reall and sensible participation of it and the comforts thereof by Faith within their own consciences So is it now under the Gospel administration That first Covenant is that by which our justification is compleatly finished in Christ the preaching of Faith in a Covenant way tends onely to this that as many as were before justified in Christ may by Faith have their Justification declared and evidenced to their consciences to fill them with joy unspeakable and full of glory and with that peace which passeth all understanding Not but that Christ could without any such Sub-Covenanting have filled up his elect with all the marrow and mystery of Justification by immediate Revelation from himself as he dealt with Paul the Apostle but that this way made most for his and his Fathers glory both in them that are saved and in them that perish 4 Faith it self much less any other qualification gift or act is not a condition of Justification in foro Dei there Christ hath pleaded our discharge by his blood still maketh intercession for us but a means or instrument by which we receive Christ Jesus and the righteousnes or justification that is in him to our selves for consolation and salvation in foro conscientiae so stood the case in respect of the fore-mentioned under Covenant that of the Law When the Lord Christ had published his Law upon Mount Sinai and given to Israel by Moses all his Judgments and Statutes there now passeth a solemn Covenant betwixt Christ and them the people also every one in person assenting gladly to fulfill all that they might be blessed or if in the least point they should fail to yeeld themselves cursed This Covenant was made more visibly and in every part more strictly after the nature and rule of Covenants then this under the Gospel Yet will any say that this perfect obedience so Covenanted was a condition of their justification and salvation without which none could be justified or saved Then were all damned for no one either did or could perfectly obey Nay it was added because of transgressions saith the Apostle Gal. 3. 19. i. e. as a means so to operate about sin in the discovery of it and the damnation that is by it so also to convince men that they might be driven from all supposition of their own righteousnes and seek righteousnes by Christ alone in whom alone the elect were justified before this Covenant was made In the same manner the holding forth of justification now under the Gospel in the form and likenes of a Covenant Beleeve and be saved beleeve not and perish for ever proveth not Faith to be the condition of the New Covenant as hath been said even the whole preaching of salvation by Christ and injoyning of Faith upon all to receive it is an effect of that First great Covenant of Grace between the Father and the Son and a part of Christs Propheticall Office which he undertook in that Covenant to accomplish in undertaking the Mediatorship between God and Men. An effect of that first Covenant I say For so it was agreed that All which the Father had given to Christ by him to be justified and saved should come to him i. e. beleeve in him Jo 6. 37. To this purpose it was Covenanted on the Sons part to seek and to save that which was lost Luke 19. 10. to call unto him all to participate by Faith of the life light righteousness and salvation that he had received for them Isa 55. 1. Io 7. 37. Ma. 11. 28. This was a part of his Propheticall Office to discover the treasures of Grace in his heart and to envite all to the participation thereof And then on the Fathers part it was Covenanted that he would draw to Christ all the Elect all that he had given to Christ that while the Gospel sounded in their ears he would divinely by his Spirit teach and move their hearts that they shall not but come to Christ Jo 6. 43 44. And lastly it is agreed on the Sons part again that of all that the Father thus bringeth to him he must cast out none lose none but raise them all at the last day to glorification and the reason of all is annexed It is the Fathers will i. e. that which was Covenanted between the Father and him in Heaven and he came down from Heaven not to do his own will i. e. any thing of his private will without the consent of his Father but the will of him that sent him i. e. what was Covenanted between the Father and him and concurrent with the will of both Jo 6. 37 38 39. Thus all that which Mr B. calleth the Covenant of Grace is but an effect or an Article and branch of the Covenant made of old between God and Christ And Faith not so properly termed a condition of justification as an instrument to apprehend the present comfort of it being before ours in Christ 5 That this Covenant of Grace is absolute shall be the work of the next Chapter to evince CHAP. XII That Text of Jer 31. 31 32 33 c. opened and Mr. Baxters elusions by which he would evince that it proveth not a free and unconditionall Covenant answered with some other Argumentations with Mr. Baxter about the same Question I Now come to that Testimony of Jer. 31. 31 32 33. cited in Heb. 8. 8-10 against which Mr. B. so much excepteth That New Covenant there mentioned is called the New Covenant not in opposition to the Old Covenant made in the beginning with Adam but in opposition to that Covenant made two thousand and six hundred years after at least with Israel upon Mount Sinai And that Covenant upon Mount Sinai is called the Old Covenant not in opposition to the Cov of Grace made if not from eternity according to Mr. B. yet by Mr B. acknowledgment almost 3000 years
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
explained as Christ is our legall Righteousness Explication This assertion so odious to those that understand not its grounds is yet so clear from what is sayd before that I need no more to prove it For first I have cleared before that there must be a personall righteousnesse besides that imputed in all that are justified And that secondly the fulfilling of the conditions of each Covenant is our Righteoesnesse in reference to that Covenant But Faith is the fulfilling of the conditions of the New Covenant therefore it is righteousnesse in relation to that Covenant I do not here take Faith for any our single act but as I shall afterward explain it Mr. Baxter verifieth the Proverb Noscitur ex comite qui non cognoscitur ex se The affections of the man may bee discerned by his company with whom he is as it were in a confederacy The Holy Ghost pronounceth of the Jews once degenerated into the manners and false-worships of the Canaanits that they were no more children of Abraham but that their birth was of the land of Canaan their father was an Amorite their mother a Hittite when once they had taken the pattern of their Religion from the Amorites and Hittites and diverted from the Word of God and steps of their own Progenitors Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the following Patriarcks and Prophets Ezek. 16. 3. What should we account lesse of Mr. Baxter whom wee finde deriving his Religion from the Papists and their associates the Arminians in contempt of Scriptures and the godly Divines of the Reformed Churches His former assertions That beleevers are still under the curse of the Law after they are in Christ That their Justification is but conditionall both before and after their believing That none is in any sense justified before he believeth That Justification is a continued act during onely so long as we continue fulfilling broken off when we break and repaired when we return to the fulfilling again of the supposed conditions thereof That it is not compleated before the end of our life or as Mr. Baxter out-stripping most of his Masters will have it not before the day of Judgement These all hee cannot deny to be Doctrines held in common by the Jesuits and Arminians and I could were there need alleage the very words of Bellarmine and other Jesuits and of Arminius Corvinus Episcopius Grevinchovius the Apology of the Remonstrants and in most of these even Socinus himselfe whose not onely matter but also their very words Mr. Baxter hath transcribed into our language in the delivery of those Tenents Here againe hee doth in this Thesis lay downe a conclusion before more then hinted at wherein Bellarmine Socinus and Arminius fully agree that Faith is our righteousnesse even Faith it self our Evangelicall righteousnesse viz. to Justification that it is so far from being an error to affirm it that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know He acknowledgeth it in the Explication to be an assertion odious to some Rational men would therefore expect great strength of Arguments to prove it And what brings hee Nothing but his own Authority which to us is of equal and but of equal authority with theirs from whom hee hath taken it up It is clear saith he from what is said before No lesse clear I acknowledge then the face of a man in a mud-wall for a Looking-glasse 1. I have cleared before saith he besides that imputed that there must be also a personall Righteousness in all that are justified This is not denyed that there must bee such a personall Righteousnesse but that where it is it is there proper and effectuall to Justification is no better cleared then hath been said How the second thing was before cleared by him I referre to that which hath been said of both sides about it If the casting of dust and dirt into the eyes may be properly called clearing of them in this and in no other sense doe I acknowledge the thing to bee cleared by what Mr. Baxter hath before said Where he laies down this caution I doe not here take Faith for any one single act but as I shall afterward explain it he might have spared the labour to tell us so For wee see what himself seeth that so to take it would bee a ruinating blow to the most of the foregoing and following doctrines about Justification conteined in this his book But he goeth forward thus B. Quaest In what sense is then Faith said to be imputed to us for Righteousnesse if it be our Righteousnesse it self Answ Plainly thus Man is become unrighteous by breaking the Law of Righteousnesse that was given him Christ fully satisfieth for this transgression and buyeth the prisoners into his own hands and maketh with them a New Covenant That whosoever will accept of him and beleeve in him who hath thus satisfied it shall be as effectuall for their Justification as if they had fulfilled the Law of Works themselves A Tenant forfeiteth his Lease to his Landlord by not paying his Rent he runnes deep in debt to him and is disabled to pay him any more Rent for the future Whereupon he is put out of his house and cast into prison till he pay the debt His Landlords sonne payeth it for him taketh him out of prison and putteth him in his house again as his Tenant having purchâ—sed house and all to himself He maketh him a new Lease in this Tenor that paying but a Pepper-corn yearly to him he shall be acquit both from his debt and from all other Rent for the future which by his old Lease was to be payed Yet doth he not cancell the old Lease but keepeth it in his hands to put it in suit against the Tenant if he should be so foolish as to deny the payment of the pepper-corn In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed to the tenant as if he had payed the rent of the old Lease Yet this imputation doth not extoll the pepper corn nor vilifie the benefit of his benefactor whoredeemed him Nor can it be sayd that the purchase did onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that graine of pepper But thus a personall Rent must be payd for the testification of his homage He was never redemeed to be independent and his own Land-lord and Master The old Rent he cannot pay His new Land-lords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn Doe I need to apply this to the present case or cannot every man apply it Even so is our Evangelicall Righteousness or Faith imputed to us for as real Righteousnes as perfect obedience Two things are considerable in the debt of Righteousness The value and the personall performance and interest The value of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us in stead of the value of a perfect obedience of our own performing and the value of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personal
Baxter how is not then himself in famous in reference to that for which he pronounceth them famous Or in granting them at the highest the name of Theologers doth he not inure upon himself the brand of a Theologaster But peradventure he thus insignizeth them in respect of the opinion that others have of them though in his own accompt or in comparison with himself he knowes not whither to terme them Cranes or Pigmies Or it is a peece of that subtlety which elsewhere he useth frequently to abuse the ignorant with a conceit that all which he delivers is orthodox because of his pretending himself to be an admirer of such in whom verity and Godlines with profoundness in learning are met together Or lastly Ambition of popular glory and praise might invite him so to magnify them The greater the Champions are with whom he Combateth The more glorious he may conceive his victory to be if he return out of the field Conqueror And he might expect that the lesser and lower rank will be as mute as fishes when they see the Classicall Doctors of highest esteem once battered by his disputations Two Kings could not stand before him how shall we stand 2. Kin. 10. 4. so c. However it be all that know them and him will conclude certainly that hee doth in no wise so speak of them because he can say of them in the words of John whom I love in the truth 3. Jo. 1. But note ye out of the same mouth in the same breath come Blessing and Cursing The Kiss and the stab of Joab go together Majestically rather than Magisterially he mounts them to the top of the Stage to hurl them down thence in the same Momâ—nt headless Master Pemble long since while he was yet a young man slâ—pt in Christ But Doctor Twisse not untill of late in a venerable old age was laid in the grave and Master Baxter a Punie to him throwes his curses after him that he was erroneous hereticall yea one that set up the Pillar of that which he calls and detesteth as the worst of Heresies Antinomianism Dared he but to have whispered so while Doctor Twisse was yet living It is come to passe what I conceived and intimated to divers of my friends at the first coming abroad of Doctor Twisse his works that during his life we should finde none that would write against him but after his death there would be many censurers though never an answerer of him Our eyes have seene since his death brought forth into the light those Tractates which while he lived dared not come forth out of the womb of darknesse And those mouths now open after his death to snarl at him which for fear of him were as fast shut while he lived as the Egyptian doggs at the presence of an Israelite Exo. 11. 7. yet may some take it to argue an ignoble Spirit in Master Baxter so to tread on the neck of a dead Lion having not so much as looked thorow the Grate upon him while yet living and to seek honour by the Conquest of them Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ But there is but little harm where there is but barking onely without biting And how little impression upon Doctor Twisse his either Doctrine or reputation Master Baxters sugillation hath made we have in part and in generall seen already and may yet take notice more particularly 2. Then when in opposition to Doctor Twisse his Major proposition vizt All Acts immanent in God are Eternal he tells us that Immanent in God must needs be taken Negatively not Positively § To speake more scripturally than Metaphysically I answer I see no ground of such a necessity but that it may be understood as well positively as yea rather positively than Negatively What is immanent in God but abiding or residing in God or to use the Scripture terms hidden in God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 3. 3. Yet so that when it is revealed it abides notwithstanding and hath its immanency in God still Approbation Acceptation accounting us just and loving us in Christ are Acts of Gods Knowledge and will and both before and after we have the revelation thereof to our soules they are immanent and abiding in God fâ—om everlasting to everlasting Are there not immâ—nent Acts in the soul of man much more in the minde and will of God What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him Even so none knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. By the things of God and the things of a man I doubt not but it will be granted that we must understand the apprehensions volitions purposes and affâ—ctions if I may so speak of God and of men And are not these things in God as well as the things of God So they are as properly termed Acts immanent in God in a positive sense as actually abiding in God as in a Negative in opposition to their Transiency and termination upon a subject without God The latter is not onely or so much denyed as the former affirmed And thus our justification is positively and depositively immanent in God from eternity Posited in the bosom of God the Father as in the Cabbinet of his counsells and deposited in the hand of God the Son as in the hand of a faithfull Mediator and surety for us upon his undertaking to make satisfaction which God the Father accepted as present satisfaction made for our sinns 3. The reason which he annexeth to prove that Acts are not positively immanent in God is insufficient and reasonlesse For Acts saith he have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause As if Acts and effects could not also abide and remain in their cause Master Baxter no doubt hath read Bellarmine Arminius and Corvinus in their disputes against the Doctrine of the reformed Churches suppose now an act of approbation hath passed within him so far as that their Faith is become his Faith also but secretly and not fully yet manifested to the World Is not this approbation an Act of Master Baxter if so is it not also an immanent Act abiding in himselfe within his owne minde as well positively the râ—siding as negatively not transient upon those Writers to produce any new relation or passion in them Himselfe and his Master Grotius concurre That the effects of efficient voluntarie causes do not alway immediately follow them That God hath decreed from eternity the transient Justification of the Elect in their own consciences yet the execution thereof follows not untill they beleeve Thes 15. and its Explication and here againe pag. 177. I demand now where this decree this act lyeth hid untill the execution thereof It must be either no where and consequently null and annihilated or else abide still and bee Immanent in God and so what was in God from eternity is immanent in him from eternity
opposeth it to Conditional Justification in Christ how many senses it may bear and scarce ever a good one yet in the ambiguity of the phrase a way left him to evade The 44 Thesis is ridiculous to all that desire to speak after the wisdome of God and not after the fallacies of men that are meere foolishnesse with God Men that are but thus conditionally pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified again c. ut suprà In this at last Master Baxter is not to be deprived of his due praise that he makes his foundation and building to consist of homogeneous Materialls an imaginary foundation and a phantasticall building It is as much as if he had said A fancied something made up of nothing may without the spilling of much blood or sweat be resolved into nothing again The Cat in the Fable which Venus turned into a fair Virgin because she would not leave to hunt mice was quickly reformed into a Cat again If one dream make Master Baxter a Holy Pope the next dream may unpope and unhallow him again And men that were but conditionally justified may be unjustified again and be altogether as well justified while unjustified as when conditionally justified and as fully pardoned while unpardoned as when conditionally pardoned and all the debt as fully required at their hands when it is conditionally forgiven as when it is unforgiven again And all this without any change in God or in his lawes For all these are not Gods but Master Baxters and his Arminians and Jesuits justifications and Non-Justifications pardonings and unpardonings forgiving debts and requiring them again God is unchangable His gifts and calling without Repentance Rom. 11. 29. But these are Protei and Chamelions specially when the change is from evill to worse and would feign to themselves and us a God like to themselves that should be a changeable God no God It behoved Master Baxter to have proved from Scriptures this Popish Arminian Doctrine of conditionall justifying and unjustifying c. from the word that it might appear to us that the Oracles of God and not the Sophistry of men had drawn him into this Topsie turnie tattle rather than Doctrine of justification Not doing this his breath smells of a Pope in his belly That his aim is to make the word of God to strike saile to the Sophisms of the Papists and Arminians and not these to the word For so he proceeds in the next which is the 45 Thesis in their language B. Yea in Case the justified by faith should cease believing the Scripture would pronounce them unjust again c. because their Justification doth continue conditional as long as they live here c. if they should cease to be believers they would cease to be justified If the Heavens fall we shall need no hobbies to catch larkes If Master Baxter cease to be a man he will cease to be an Impostour They are suppositions of things possible or impossible which in both these his Theses he maketh if of possibles why doth he not prove them if of impossibles what can he aim at but the deceiving of them that are made to be taken and the destroying of the peace of tender and infirme consciences Hee turnes us over in the former position to Ball of the Covenant I have it not But if there he be the same Ball with Ball of Faith there is no more agreement betweene Ball and Bax than betwixt Christ and Belial I heard indeed long since that this Master Ball seeing fashionablenesse and formality tending somewhat to the Popish Outsidenesse in Religion was the way to preferment had before his death somewhat declined But unlesse I saw grounds for such a thought I cannot entertain it so great an estimation both of his ablenesse and holinesse hath his Treatise of Faith left in me But if otherwise it is not unnaturall to a Ball to roll especially down the hill And we halt not between two opinions we have the Lord and not Baal for our God But Master Baxter cannot put upon us this bull that he should with a trick of the hand beguile us into an opinion that in this Doctrine he is a follower of Baal Nay first his popish Schoolmen and Jesuits have taught him and then Arminius and his followers have polished him so that in these two Theses he doth but speak parat-like even word for word after these his Masters as I could if there were need alleadge cut of the Authors whom he followeth Yea further the more antient Schoolmen and the most learned and Metaphysicall among the Jesuits blow off as basely derogatory from the perfection of Gods Nature the frothy positions which he here layeth down as Articles of Faith which he doth not at all apply himselfe to prove as if they were unquestionable because his quill hath dropt them He sees his Doctrine in these 2 Theses such as either hath nothing but words in it or if any thing reall such as tendeth to the advancing of the Popish and Arminian Doctrines of Universall Redemption Freewill falling from Grace c. Therefore intreats his reader in the Explication to suspend his judgement till another Tractate of his about universall Redemption come forth which in the Postscript to these Aphorisms he tels us he is not certain whether it will be ever and in his Append. pag. 164. seems to conclude that it will be never And that if I mistake not is upon Saint Justifications day according to the Baxterian account And in case it bring no better savour of Christ with it then this his Tractate better then then sooner To which time also if he had suspended the publication of this book I doubt not he might have obtained more then a conditional Justification from the guilt of such a suspension And For that which intimates the falling away of the justified saith he he speaks onely upon supposition c. but doth beleeve that the justified by Faith never do nor shall fall away ibid. Explic. A larger profession in respect to this Article of his Creed then I expected from him if it be single and hath no flaw of rottennesse and deceit in it But when we have found him calling the sentence of judgement in the last day justification by Faith as well as that which is in this life in title of Law as he terms it pag. 185. and makes the justification in this life to be meerly conditional and consequently either nul or reversible in these 44 45 Thes what can we think can be his meaning when he saith I beleeve that the justified by faith never do or shall fall away but this that they that are sentenced once to life in the day of judgement and already glorified neither doe nor shall fall away And yet for him that holds our justification to be stil but conditional untill the day of judgement it would I think be a harder task to prove that it remains not conditional after
adoption Or lastly is his meaning that our union with Christ is the foundation not only of remission justification and reconciliation which do restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favor which we had lost and faln from but also of Adoption and of a far higher advancement then that from which he fell herein I shall not dissent from him But why then doth he so transpose his words as to make the stream of Gods operations to run backward if not to make mans qualifications the ground of his union with Christ his faith and good works by which he is justifyed to be if not the cause yet the antecedent of this union and not this union to be the cause or antecedent of his both justification and holinesse So much I thought fit to interpose here that this Thesis of Mr. Baxter might not serve as a bridge to carry over the reader captive unto some fallacious untruths in the after-part of this his Tractate contained Hence now let us passe to the 55 Thesis which hath not a totall disagreement with the former that have been examined in this Chapter but a dependence upon them B. Thesis 55. p. 211. Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin the penalty is not due and where it is not due it cannot properly be forgiven therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed though the grounds of certain remission be laid before The strength and evidence of this reasoning will the better appear if we lay by it another to the same tune and upon the same terms It cannot be denyed to be as good an argumentation as this if I should thus argue Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin there is no penalty due and where it is not due it cannot properly be required therefore the sins that have been committed since the death of Christ had not their penalty born by Christ before they were committed and consequently Gods justice remains unsatisfyed for the sins of all that have been committed since the death of Christ and every offender is to bear the condemnation of them in his own bosome though the grounds of certain remission were laid before in God except another Christ be sent from heaven to bear or the same Christ again to bear the penalty of the sins after they are committed Whether this argumentation doth not carry in it as great if not greater likelihood of reason then Mr. Baxters I leave to every rationall man to judge And thus when a proud lust possesseth us to reason from our own brain and not from Gods word we easily reason our selves into hell Neither do I see how Mr. Baxter according to this reasoning can ever look to be justifyed or saved except by one of these two wayes either by asserting his own righteousnesse which hitherto with his fellowes he hath made but a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christ to justifie and save to be at a pinch all-sufficient and effectuall to perfect the work without Christ as it is with partners in a Trade and buying and selling of wares what one doth both do and what bargain one makes both must stand to it Or else by canonizing the Popish masse to offer therein Christ often unto God as a sacrifice for the expiation and forgivenesse of his sins when he hath committed them sith Christs offering himself was in no wise the bearing of the penalty or satisfying of Gods justice for his or our sins because not then committed But let us see whether in any sense the reasoning of Mr. Baxter here may be made good or taken up as tolerable Not to mention here Gods forgiving of sins as an act immanent in God from eternity For this would but make Mr. Baxter startle he is no more patient to hear this voice then was Caligula at the voice of Thunder his bloud riseth at it as do theirs at the sight of a Cat whose natures have an antipathy to that poor creature that never meant them hurt Let us consider forgivenesse and pardon in tearms and wayes as himself granteth a possibility of giving and receiving it And First in foro conscientiae at the bar of God in the conscience of man to which he most limiteth and contracteth remission and justification May not the offender apprehend and apply to himself the pardon of his future as well as of his past and present sins through the Lord Christ in some sense 1. In respect of the seed of all the sins which he shall through infirmity commit in the time to come of his life I mean his corrupt nature or originall defilement and sin from which as from their naturall source all their acts of sin spring every true beleever is and may apprehend himself pardoned this the very Papists acknowledge denying originall sin and defectivenesse to have any mortality of sin in it because the guilt thereof is purged from the soul by the bloud of Christ at his very first admission and entrance into Christ as they say In this respect I doubt not but Mr. Baxter will confesse that all their after acts of sin are remitted in their seed and womb to beleevers before they be committed 2. In respect of Gods not imputing them to the person that shall offend so the sins not yet committed are forgiven to every elect person God hath laid on Christs score all the sins of the elect committed or to be committed and satisfyed his justice for them upon Christ who in their names hath paid the penalty of all therefore their consciences are discharged neither sins past nor sins to come shall be any more imputed to them There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. There is dayly new sinning why not also subjection to condemnation because the person being in Christ though subject to a necessity of sinning yet through the justification of his person is exempted from the further imputation of sin so committed unto condemnation He that beleeveth hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5. 24. He comes dayly into the acting of new sins how is it that he comes not into a subjection and obligation to condemnation by those sins but because they were forgiven to the offender before therefore not imputed to him when committed It is one chief priviledge of the new Covenant Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Jer. 31. 38. c. Heb. 10. 17 18. speaks the holy Ghost here only of sin past and not of those to come that they which are within the new Covenant have remission of them then 1. The same person hath some sins forgiven and some not forgiven by Christ that which is past is remitted that which is to come is retained 2. Then the priviledge is no priviledge if only sins past are not remembred but sins to come are
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
as his Masters have done before him My labour therefore here will be the lesse because the labour of so many before me hath been so full to manifest how alien and improper these Scriptures are to desend what these men would have defended by them For why should I say again what so many worthies have said untill Mr. Baxter shall make it his taske to prove some infirmity and insufficiency in that which they have spoken All that Mr. Baxter here saith he doth almost wholely transcribe out of Bellarmine giving us a compendium of what Bellarmine hath at large and so Mr. Baxter here is but Bellarmine abridged Let us lay them together and 1 They jumpe in one common conclusion That the bare act of beleeving saith Mr. Baxter faith alone saith Bellarmine Thes 60. is not the only condition of Justification but many other duties c. One of these duties according to Bellarmine first and after Explicat p. 234. him according to Mr. Baxter here is Repentance In this alone they differ that Mr. Baxter puts Repentance as the first and Bellarmine puts it as the fourth in order after Faith and concurring with it in the pardon of sin and salvation The Scriptures which Mr. Baxter alleageth for repentance are some from Bellarmine some from Bellarmines fellowes To this place I referred those Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quoted Thes 14. pa. 90. beginning with Mark 1. 15. to prove repentance a collaterall with faith All which are here quoted over again saving these three Act. 20. 21. Revel 2. 5. ver 16. all which three Scriptures speak no lesse home to his purpose then if he should thus argue Kederminster is in Worcestershire ergo it supports Pauls Church at London Act. 20. 21. The Apostle having affirmed himself to have dealt faithfully in preaching all that was profitable to them to evince it gathers into two heads the sum of all his doctrine which he had testifyed among them viz. Repentance toward God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ what is there in this to prove repentance a concomitant with faith to justifie is every profitable doctrine effectuall to justifie A mans food and garments are both profitable to him shall I therefore concude either that his garments do nourish him or his meat clothe him Revel 2. 5 Christ admonisheth the Angell of the Church of Ephesus To repent and do his first works else will he come and remove his candlestick out of its place except he repent what is this to justification will he say that the removing of the candlestick out of its place was either the justifying of the unjustifyed or unjustifying of him that was before justifyed And Revel 2. 16. Christ cals upon the Angell of the Church at Pergamos Repent or else I will come to thee quickly and will fight against them viz. the Balaamites and Nicholaitans mentioned in the two former verses with the sword of my mouth Surely Mr. Baxter must flie from the latter and rationall meaning and follow the precepts of Origen in fishing after the Spirit or an Allegoricall sense of these words to make them speak any thing for his justification by repentance All the rest Scriptures quoted in the 14. Thesis we have again in a bunch here pa. 235. in the explication of his 60. Thesis to prove the same thing And here why doth he deal worse then Bellarmine in attributing justification which he makes to consist in pardon and salvation to repentance without manifesting as Bellarmine doth what he means by repentance This is but to strive about words and leave the matter in darknesse As for the other particular Scriptures here quoted if I should particularly examine them we should find not a few of them as the three former coming no neerer to the question in hand then Tybris doth to Thames As for all such of them as have the least shew or sound of speaking for him he hath them in part from Bellarmine whom he here followeth and in part from other Jesuits and Fryers that controversally handle the Popish justification against us I refer therefore the reader to informe himself from the many answers of the many Protestant Theologists which they have extant against Bellarmine and the rest of that generation from whom if truth and sobernesse be dear to him it is almost unpossible but that he must receive satisfaction Yet something shall I speak in generall of these quoted Scriptures As many of them as do hold forth the promise of life upon condition of repentance to sinners or to sinners if they repent all the rest quotations being altogether besides the purpose These all speak of a legall or of an Evangelicall repentance Of a legall repentance consisting meerly in a feeling of humiliation and contrition for hatred against departing from sinne and applying of the endeavours to all morall vertue and obedience This is a meerly morall repentance derivable from the strength of naturall conscience illuminated by the Law and common knowledge of Gods will and nature In this sense is the word taken in most of the Scriptures quoted from the old Testament and some also possibly of those that are quoted out of the new But then the life by these Scriptures promised is not the life of justification or of spirituall and supernaturall blessednesse but that which the administration under the Law is wont to call life viz. 1 The fruition of the land of Canaan which prefigured the life and rest both of grace and glory And 2 Of the blessings of health honour peace plenty safety and other temporall benefits promised to the obedient in the Land of Canaan This is clear to him that will see from the 18 of Ezek. where so often mention is made of life and death Turn and live if ye turn not ye shall die what is here meant by this life and death may be understood from that proverb cursedly used by the Jews whereof mention is made in the beginning of the Chapter The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge the fathers have sinned and death is inflicted upon the children for their fathers fault This gave occasion for the delivery of all the doctrine comprehended within this Chapter in which God throughly vindicateth his justice from inflicting death upon the children righteous children for their wicked parents offences shewing how justly they dyed which dyed and lived which lived in reference to their own not their fathers sinne and righteousnesse what then was this death here denounced or the setting of the teeth on edge but the plague famine sword which had been upon them in the Land and their captivity and exile now upon them in Babylon out of the Land of their inheritance these temporall evills are the death here affirmed to be inflicted and denounced to be continued upon them The life promised upon condition of their repentance and turning from their evill wayes was their restauration to the land and blessings of the
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
1 c. some name James the son of Alpheus the Brother of Christ and one of the 12 Apostles others James sirnamed Oblias or the Just of whom Jâ—sephus writeth the Author of it adhuc sub judice lis est Or that the matter method and if I may so speak spirit of this Epistle sounds not in one harmony with the rest parts or books of the new Testament but rather after the writings of the books under the old Covenant or after such as stuck still to the old Covenant as Philo Judaeus and others all which Mr. Baxter better knows to have been by many objected then I know how satisfactorily to answer it By these and other reasons some have expunged it from the Catalogue of Scriptures which are of divine inspiration and have reduced it into the kind and number of writings that are usually termed Ecclesiasticall in a good sense not disagreeing any where from the Canon yet not of that dignity as to be accepted as a part of the Canon it self I shall leave these things to be disputed by others and examine the testimonies which Mr. Baxter hence alleageth what and how far it makes for him as the authority of the holy Ghost himselfe Here it is remarkable that Mr. Baxter who followes the Jesuits every foot and inch in the interpreting of this and all other Scriptures from which he would with them set up justification by works like a man made all of zeal perks up to terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the text and from using apparent violence to it implying that all the Protestant Churches and Saints which have stood in the defence of the faith of Christ against the Papists now almost 200. years have dealt thus sacrilegiously in robbing this Text of its due sense And the Fryers and Jesuites alone good men have stood up as the fast friends of Christ to maintain this truth of Christ and the spirit and meaning of this Scripture against the violation of the sacrilegious hands of these hereticall Protestants And that himself is now at last stirred up by the Spirit that hath wrought so powerfully upon the Jesuits to vindicate and set forth the true meaning of this Text with the same fidelity and sincerity which they his Masters have used before him Therefore to excite all men to gaze on his ingenuity and sincerity and to admire him as the one alone man among Protestants raised up to undeceive all the Churches that have so long strayed from the holy mother Church he thus like wisedome it self uttereth his voice B. Pag. 297. I dare not teach the holy Ghost to speak nor force the Scripture nor raise an exposition so far from the plain importance of the words without apparent necessity but here is not the least necessity there being not the least inconvenience that I know of in affirming justification by works in the fore explained sense i. e. in the sense which Mr. Baxters sense and reason without any help of Scripture hath devised Men seldome are bold with Scripture in forcing it but they are first bold with conscience in forcing it as one M. Baxter who with onespell hath forced all the large and divine disputes of Paul about justification into a cherristone and hurld it at the feet of his St. Sense there to do homage or to be trampled into the dirt After this his protestation of his integrity zeal and tendernesse of conscience in interpreting Scriptures and the impression which he feels or feigns in his soul which the heretick Protestants have made by not expounding this Scripture in the same words which the Jesuits do Let us see with what tendernesse and fear himself in the next words speaketh of it B If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it must be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter in plain and frequent expressions no whit dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scriptuee say what it will to the contrary What is this but with the Papists to make the Scripture a nose of wax If St. James speak it so over and over that justification is by works and not by faith only I will see more cause before I deny it or say he means a working faith He that in all this can see one least spark of that professed sincerity which he protesteth in himself and requires in others worthier then himself let him make it out I can see nothing else but fraud doublenesse and falshood 1 When he sayeth that it is the very scope of a Chapter and not only some one phrase that here holds forth justification by works before God it is the same which he hath from Bellarmine Bel. lib. 1. de justif cap. 15. Scopus Jacobi saith he fuit demonstrare fidem veram atque Catholicam ad salutem sine operibus non sufficere c. i. e. The scope of James in his Chapter was to shew that a true and Catholick faith is not sufficient without works to salvation and with as much truth and fidelity doth this man speak it as did the other from whom he learned it This being no more the scope of this Chapter or of James in it then to deny the salvation which is by Christ and to set on men to seek it by the Law 2 That this phrase of justification by works in Mr. Baxters sense is no whit dissonant from any other Scripture whether he means difference in sound or difference in substance is as very a paradox as if he had said that contradictories are not dissonaÌ„t For if this doctrine after Mr. Baxters sense must stand as true doctrine and for the Gospell of Christ then must we cast away almost if not altogether all the other Scriptures of the new Testament as hereticall and limit our selves to this alone and to Mr. Baxters glosse in it to learn true righteousnesse and the way to life For how vain empty and audacious his annihilating of Pauls doctrine about justification with one breath is we shall see in its proper place and finde that he destroyes the genuine scope and meaning of that Apostle in many of his Epistles to sacrifice all to his imaginary scope of James in some few words here delivered 3 When he tels us of wresting and making a Creed c. he proclaims to the World that all the Protestant Churches which have constantly defended justification by faith without works i. e. by Christ Jesus apprehended by faith without concurrence of works c. have wrested and violated the Scripture set up a Creed of their own in despight of the Scriptures speaking to the contrary For what he cunningly and seemingly fastens upon one Mr. Pemble he layes to the charge of all the Protestant Churches there being not one
upon what terms salvation runneth under the Legall or old Covenant B. Rev. 22 14. Blessed are they that doe his commandements that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in by the gates into the City The doing of Christs commandements heer is the same which Heb. 5. 9. is called the obeying of Christ and the meaning of both is there explained Faith which Christs commandement calls for gives right to the tree of life and to all the priviledges of the new Hierusalem B. Ja. 1. 22. 23. 24. 25. What he would infer from the three former of these verses hee saith not and I dream not Any other three verses in the whole Bible might have been quoted as pertinent to his purpose as these as far as my dull brain can comprehend To the 25. if by the Law of Liberty he understands the Law of the Old Covenant or of the Decalogue and by blessed everlasting salvation as he erewhile termed it then hee prescribes salvation hence to bee sought by the Law and not by Christ by the covenant of works not of grace and so the salvation of man shall stand or fall upon these terms as hee doth or doth not forget to doe all that is commanded in the Law and Christ must not be at all looked after heer is no mention at all of him and thus to argue is worse than Popish even Jewish But if he understand by the Law of Liberty the Gospel then hath it the same sense with the former Scriptures teacheth us to seek salvation in a Gospel way as a free gift from free grace as children of liberty whom the son hath made free and not as children of bondage by works He that doth thâ—s shall be blessed in this his deed Some of our Expositors I know expound it another way yet not with but against Mr. Baxter B. Ma. 5. 1. to the 13. To this enough hath been sayd a little before in this Chapter B. Especially Mat. 5. 19. 20. The former verse runs thus Whosoever therfore shal break one of the least of these CoÌ„mandments and teach men so to do the same shal be least in the Kingdom of Heaven But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shal be great in the Kingdom of Heaven Christ here speaketh of Teachers under the Gospel And the sense as may be gathered from the precedent verses is this Whosoever under a pretence of the liberty of the Gospel shall take to himselfe or instill into others a licentiousnesse to break the Commandements of the Law or to neglect any of that holiness and righteousness which is the matter of the Law that man shal be an instrument of little yea of no use in the Gospel Church But whosoever shal so learn and teach Christ as in and thrrough him to take into his owne and presse upon other mens affections and practise all the duties of holiness and righteousnesse which the Law requireth in a Gospel way this man shall be an instrument of great good in the Gospel Church as one that hath learned and teacheth Christ to salvation and to sanctificâ—tion also If this in its substance be not the meaning of this Scripture I know not the meaning of any one Text of Scripture The latter which is the 20. verse is read in these words Excâ—pt your Righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdome of Heaven True Theirs was their owne Righteousness the Righteousnesse of works which could never satisfie for or expiate their unrighteousness Except we trample this as dung in respect of confidence in it to put on Christ for righteousness who hath both satisfied and expiated we shall never enter into the spirituall Priviledges of the Kingdome of Grace much lesse into the joyes of the Kingdome of glory What is there in either of these verses to promote Mr. Baxters salvation by Works B. Mat. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that go in therat But strait is the gate and narrow the way that leadeth to life and few there be that find it And will Mr. Br. take up the broad and vulgar way of expounding this broad and that narrow gate and way That by the broad way and wide gate are to be understood the way of prophaneness Atheisme Lust Luxury Carnall security c. and by the strait Gate and narrow way strictnesse of life and conversation unless he ride in this common Rode there is nothing to be found that will square with his purpose But that this interpretation is wide from the scope of Christ will appeare 1. by comparing Luke with Mathew who Luke 13 24 thus renders the words of Christ Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many shall seeke to enter in and shall not bee able Whence it appeares that both these Gates and Wayes are such as men seek to enter into life by And was there ever that man so mad so void of the naturall light of reason and conscience that did strive to enter into life by Prophanenesse Lust Atheisme and impure living Doth not the Apostle tell us that the most stupified among the Heathen do so far know the judgement of God as to know these things to be worthy of death Rom. 1. vers ult â— When it is said of the narrow way and gate few there be that finde it if it should be understood of the strictness of Morall holinesse and righteousnesse it might well be said few there are that enter by it but to say few there be that finde it is not agreeable to reason For who is there that findes it not The very Light of nature teacheth all men this naturall way to life by the strictnes and perfection of their naturall and morall righteousness And this is the greatest beam in their eye blinding them that they cannot see the straight and effectuall way indeed What then is the strait gate and narrow way to life wherof Christ heer speaketh Let Christ himselfe interpret himself I am the way I am the door by mee if any man enter none can come to the Father but by me Jo. 10. 9. and 14. 6. The way into the holiest i. e. into heaven consecrated or new made for us through the vail of Christs flesh saith the Apostle Heb. 10. 19. 20. or let Mr. Br shew that the Gospel owneth any other way to life This is the way that few find when Peter had seen and spoken but of a glimpse and glance of it Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona saith our Saviour for flâ—sh and bloud hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is in heaven Mâ— 16. None can enter into it except the Father draw him Jo 6. 44. Except he be taught and have learned of the Father ver 45. And great striving must there be against ouâ— own wisedome before we can
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
our selves which he teacheth to tend only to selfe-ruining B. 3. Thankefulnesse for what we have received either in possession title or promise must be a singular spur to duty But I pray you tell me Have you received all the life and mercy you doe expect Are you in Heaven already Have you all the Grace that you need or desire in degree If not why may you not labouâ— for what you have not as well as be thankefull for what you have Or have you as full a certainty of â—â— heerafter as you desire If not why may you not labour for it Al this is also totally besides the QuestioÌ„ which is not whether we may but how we are to labour whether with that most excellent and Gospel-frame of spirit consisting in love and thankfulnesse or mercenarily by works and whether in the way of Faith which the Gospel or of naturall Righteousness which the Law teacheth Many shall seeke to enter and shall not bee able faith the Master Wee through the spirit wait for the hope of Righteousness by Faith saith the Apostle Not so but by and for our Works not at all by Faith but as it is an act or worke saith Mr. Baxter let him shew his light and Authority to be greater than Pauls before hee looke that wee should run after him I shall put one question to him arising from the last of his Interrogatories which will be harder for him to resolve than a thousand such as he hath here wil be to us When hee tels us we must labour for the full certainty of Heaven hereafter is there any such certaintainty in this world attainable according to his principle of but â— conditionall justification and salvation untill the day of Judgementâ— or how is it to be obtained Let him make it out to us If he doth it I shall conclude that he can also turne Heaven into Earth and Earth into Heaven and nothing to bee unpossible to him if not let his Reader judge whether his indeavour be to delude or else to teach In the next Chapter or Section if wee attend onely to the sound and roare of words Mr. Baxter appeares more formidable from pag. 83. to the 98. of his Appendix in which hee presents us with thirteen Considerations to shew the vanity and intolerable damnable wickednesse of this supposed doctrine which he opposeth But the whole sloud of his wit wrath and eloquence heere poured out together runs into the dead Sea by a desart and desolate way in which it meets with no mortall crearure to wet or hurt it For who is there of all mankinde that hath said wee ought not to act for life in the sense which this man suborneth or otherwise than I have before oft expressed Much lesse is there any professed Christian that hath asserted as hee insinuateth That wee must not come to Christ that we may have life nor strive to enter in at the straite gate nor lay violant hands on the Kingdome of Heaven nor lay up for our selves a Treasure in Heaven nor seeke the Kingdome of God and the Righteousnesse the reof nor presse on for the attainment of the Resurrection c. Let him be named by Mr. Baxter that he may be brought forth and stoned which thus blasphemeth I shall not hinder it That which they teach is that Workes are not to be performed to this end that as works or doing as opposed to believing by and for their owne or our owne Righteousnesse in doing them they should put us into the possession of the life of justification and blessednesse If Mr. Baxter have any thing to say against this assertion or against that which I before laid as the state of the question it wil be taken into examination till then I shall leave him to fight with his owne shaddow having no loose time to spend in gazing upon the activity of such a Combatant CHAP. X. Arg. The Authour of the Booke intituled The Marrow of Moderne Divinity vindicated from the Aspersions wherewith Mr. Baxter defameth him and his Doctrine HEere because I am to follow and my taske is not to leave Mr. Baxter untill I have examined all that hee saith to prove Justification by works I am necessitated to fall into that which will be judged a Digression After hee hath enacted by a Law that to say wee must not worke for life is a Blasphemy or at least an intolerable errour and to hold it practically a necessarily damning Doctrine that whosoever doth it must be everlastingly damned for it All which wee acknowledge to bee in some sense true after the sound of the words though after the meaning of the Authour they can never be saved which practically hold the contrary as possibly I shall afterwards shew Now he proceeds to indite and arraigne to condemnation one Authour as guilty of this damning Doctrine viz. The Authour of the Book called The Marrow of Moderne Divinity and many his Accessaries viz. all those Divines that have annexed their approbatory subscriptions to the usefullnesse of it so finde we the man expressing himselfe Aphorism pag 330. B. When such a Book as that stiled the Marrow of Modern Divinity can have so many applauding epistles of such Divines when the doctrine of it is that we must not Act for justification and Salvation but onely in thankfulnesse for it This he speaketh onely in generall we shall finde his particulars following To this therefore I answer onely in generall 1 That it were to bee desired that Mr Baxter had inured no more dishonour upon thosâ— Divines to whom he dedicates his book by such his dedication than those forementioned Divines have attracted to themselves by their applauding epistles 2 And that those Divines with Mr. Baxter himselfe could mention so many sound parts in his booke both in the matter and ends of the Author as hee hath picked out imaginary errours in the other 3 As to the doctrine of that booke which he so accuseth I shall there examine in particulars where Mr. Baxter particularly drawes it into accusation and judgement Onely by the way let me thus far excuse my selfe 1 I never knew who was the Author of that worke 2. Neither have I read it otherwise than here and there a fragment as I found it lying in my friends houses so that I could no otherwise judge of it but ex ungue Leonem what the whole was but by that which my slender judgement told me the part which I read was not onely orthodox but singularly usefull 3 That I never knew there was a second part of it much lesse saw it until Mr Baxter by his quotation therof so told me But that since I have gotten both parts yet by meanes of other imployments have not had time any further to read it but where Mr. Baxter accuseth it of error 4. That if I knew the Author to be yet living I should have wholly left the defence of himselfe to himselfe It was not so much the
animosity as the ingenuity of Scaliger which caused him when he heard that one had busied himselfe about the correcting of the errors in his writings to cry out Ego meos corrigam errores I my selfe will be the corrector of my owne errors The same taske may this Author justly challenge to himselfe if living to be himselfe the defender of his owne writings Perhaps he is doing it perhaps he hath done it I shall therefore in my uncertainty what is done onely with such brevity seeke to disabuse the doubting readers of both that I shall in no wise prevent the Authors fuller vindicating of his owne or rather Gods cause in his hand Let us then attend to Mr Baxters accusations particularized Append. pag. 100. and so onward It was questioned as may be seen pag. 99. why he excepted against the Book called the Marrow of Modern Divinity he answers there because it is guilty of this hainous doctrine This he begins now pag. 100 to shew in particulars alleaging first the words of that booke thus B M. M. pag. 174. he meanes 179 Qu. Would you not have beleevers to eschew evill and do good for feare of Hell or for hope of Heaven Answ No indeed I would not have any beleever to doe the one or the other for so farr as they doe so their obedience is but slavish c. To which end he alleageth Lu. 1. 74. 75. Having thus alleaged the Author he thus endeavours to accuse and confute him B But that speaks of freedom from feare of our enemies such as Christ forbids Lu. 12. 5. where yet he commandeth the fearing of God and consequently even that feare of enemies is forbidden as they stand in opposition to God and not as his instruments in subordination Or if it be even a feare of God that is there meant yet it cannot be all feare of him and his displeasure So farr as we are in danger of sin and suffering we must fear it and so far as our assurance is still unperfect a jealousie of our owne hearts and a dreadfull Reverence of God also are necessary But not the legall terrors of the former bondage such as arise from the apprebension of sin unpardoned and of God as being our enemy Who ever heard any doctrine more unanswerably proved to bee hainous If any man question by what Arguments he can easily answer himselfe by this â—hat Mr. Baxter trying and finding himselfe unable to do it at length grants it to be sound and good Thus are they driven oft-times to wound themselves who draw the Sword against the Truth The Author of that booke proveth that beleevers or the redeemed of Christ are no longer to serve for feare of Hâ—ll by the testimony of the H. G. Lu. 1. 74. 75. That we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse c. Mr. Baxter to evade the force of this Scripture first contendeth that by enemies are here to be understood not spirituall but mortall enemies wicked men and their persecutions Now may not a blind man perceive this to bee a shifting not an answer of this Scripture 1. The grouÌ„d of this not fearing is here layd to be our deliveraÌ„ce cut of their hands whom else we should feare And will Mr Baxter say that Christ came to deliver his elect from the persecutions of men and not from sin death hell which were our most formidable enemies This were to make Christs kingdome to be of this world and to joyn with the carnall Iewes that expected such a carnall Christ and câ—rnall kingdome that might be eminent in the world 2. Or hath he actually purchased to us such a deliverance doth not experience declare the contrary 3. Or must we so long suspend our serving of God in Righteousnesse and Holiness untill we be actually delivered from all feare and danger of mens persecutions For so runs the Text as well in the originall as in our translation that the deliverance is layd as the ground of the service and that put in our possession before this can be put in execution at least without feare 4. Is not deliverance heere the same thing with the salvation mentioned ver 77 which Iohn was to preach but that was salvation and so is this deliverance by the remission of sins and consequently we must serve who are in Christ without feare of vengeance and Hell He sees that with this evasion he cannot decline the edge of this Scripture therefore takes up the right interpretation of it at last thus Or if it be even a feare of God that is there meant c. Why had he not spoken full to the point in question and said the feare of Hell This minsing will nothing help him All that he saith against it in this sense is but such as is wont to proceed from the extravagancy of an astonished and self confounded man For who ever said that a beleever must cast off all feare of God and not be possessed still with a filiall feare to displease him Or that as farr as he is in danger of sin and suffering he must not feare it to shun it Or that so farr as our assurance is still unperfect or perfect a jealousy of our own harts and a dreadfull Reverence of God are not necessary But what is all this to the serving of God for feare of Hell How doth he daub with untempered morter At length he determines the question But not the legall terrors of our former bondage such as arise from the apprehension of sin unpardoned and of Gods beeing our enemy I need to say no more but where then is the feare of Hell in a beleever doeth it arise from the apprehension of the pardon of his sin and of God reconciled to him in Christ what can be said more weakly to confute or more strongly to confirme that which he cals a hainous doctrine Is Mr. Baxter an adversary or an accessary to him whom he pronouâ—ceth the Author of this wicked intolerable damnable doctrine Himself speaks more to confirm it than the person whom he opposeth But how according to his principles the terrors of our former bondage as he describes it are in this life removed neyther can I see nor he make out without contradicting himselfe B. In the 180. page Hee denieth the plaine sense of the Text Mat. 10. 28. Enough Magisterially if it were true what he objecteth to say only and not to demonstrate the truth of what hee objecteth But if false who perceiveth not the censorious spirit of the Objector That it is false appeareth evidently for how doth hee deny the plain sense which denieth no sense at all of the Text but onely declares what he thinks to bee the more principall scope of Christ in that Text than other And in this the context will evince that hee speaketh the truth B. In the 155. page He maketh this the difference betweene the two Covenants One sayth Doe this and
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
that I will accuse you to the Father there is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom you trust Jo. 5. 45. But whether the inference of making Paul a Legall Preacher is to be ascribed to Mr Baxter or to the Author of the Marrow of Modern Divinity is easily discernible That Author had onely sayd that one sentence of Paul in a whole Epistle was the voice of the Law Mr. Baxter inferreth that so to say is to make Paul a Legall Preacher consequentially that to preach any thing of the Law makes a Legall Preacher Let now Mr. Baxter name one Minister within this Nation that hath taught such ranke Antinomisme as himselfe here that professeth himselfe an Antaegonist to destroy it But wee may perceive by this he will be all things as well Antinomian as Arminian and Papist to smother the truth of the Gospell B. And as shamefully doth he abuse 1 Co. 6. 9. 10. as if the Apostle when he biddeth them not to be deceived were deceiving them himselfe in telling them that no unrighteous person fornicators adulterers c. shall inherit the Kingdome of God Is this Law Then let me be a Preacher of the Law If Paul be a Legallist then will I be a Legallist too But these men know not that the Apostle speaketh of those that die such and that these sins exclude men the Kingdome as they are rebellious against Christ their Lord and so a violation of the new Covenant How extreamly is this man in love Narcissus like with his own beauty or rather fancy Every other Visage not begotten of his seed and fashioned to his image is an Owle with him The words of the Authour are these The Law saith knowest thou not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Be not deceived c. 1 Cor. 6. 9. And therefore thou being a sinner and not righteous shalt not inherit the Kingdome of God This is all that he hath against which Mr. Baxter raiseth his hubub a shamefull abuse of the Scripture Let him deny if hee can this to bee though lesse principally and secondarily the voice of the Gospel yet primarily and more principally the voice of the Law If not then surely as he hath a Gospel so also hath hee a Law of his owne making Or what other ground is there why such shall not inherit the Kingdome but because they are not in Christ Fer whosoever is baptized with the bloud of Christ to justification is baptized also with his spirit to sanctification And if not in Christ then under the Law If under the Law then under the curse and condemnation of the Law and consequentially under the threat of the Law here denounced Or what should hinder the Apostle from denouncing the curse of the Law against them that are and wil be under the Law Let Mr. Baxter have his will that the Gospel condemnes them for their finall unbeliefe and rebellion against Christ yet doth not the Law condemne them too for all their unrighteousness fornications Adulteries c. If he deny it wee shall finde him the Author of a sweet peece of Gospel Doctrine That they which are in Christ are under the Curse of the Law so hath hee before stoutly asserted but they which are enemies of Christ are exempted from it If he confess it then the shame returns upon himselfe which he layes on this Author B. So in part 1. pag. 189. hee mentioneth a Preacher that sayd hee durst not exhort nor pâ—rswade sinners to beleeve their sinnes were pardoned untill hee saw their lives reformed for feare they should take more liberty to sinne And hee censureth that Preacher to bee ignorant in the Mystery of Faith And putting a false construction upon his words he descanteth over him and insulteth against him for delivering an absurdity in saying that which he said not Let him but add what followeth it wil appear there is no footing for him in these his words for al the abusive carpings wherwith he seeks to disgrace him I thinke â—sayth the Author that Preachâ—r was ignorant of the Mystery of Fayth for it is of the Nature of sovereigne Waters which so wash off the corruption of the Vlâ—er that they coole the heat and stay the spreading of the insection and so by degrees heal the same Neither did he know that it is the Nature of Cordialls so to comfort the heart and â—ase it as to expell the noxâ—ous humours and strengthen Nature against them Is it not heere evident that the fayling which hee censureth in that Minister is his mistake of the power and Nature of Spirituall and Gospel comforts that hee dared not to speake a word oâ— consolation to a wounded soule before hee saw and had had pâ—oofe of his reformation though never so much burthened with the consideration of his sinne past and gasping after Christ and forgiveness by him for fear such spirituall comfort would carry him backe into carnall liberty againe Nay sayth this Author The Mystery of Faith or consolation which is by faith in Christ Jesus is like sovereigne Waters and Cordialls doth not onely comfort the wounded soule against the guilt but also subdue the power and stay the spreading of sinn strengthening the soule against the future prevalency of corruption so that the due application and reception of it is the best furtherance and not at all a hinderance to the reformation of the Life This doctrine may possibly offend Mr. Baxters palate but I am sure it squares with the Gospel All that Mr. Baxter hath therefore pag. 104. 105. against the Authors words wrested into a wrong sense expresseth Mr. Baxter what hee is but in no wise weakeneth the estimation of the Author with them that are wise â—or he doth neyther explicitely nor implicitely affirme that justifiing Faith is a beleeving that our sinnes are pardoned as Mr. Baxter untruly suggesteth â—nd thence draws matter of sugillation He names the Mystery or â—aith which is one and the same as if he had sayd the Mystery of Christ or the Mystery of the Gospel all which in holy Writ are 〈…〉 lent â—â—rme And what he affirms of this Mystery of Faith or 〈…〉 the deeper it sincks into the heart the more it purifies 〈…〉 strengtheneth in the power of godliness Mr. Baxter◠〈…〉 affixed to this Doctrine shall not hinder my Amen 〈…〉 B. Many other intolerable errourâ— I could shew you in this booke as his making the New Covenant to threaten nothing but present afflictions and losse of our present communion with God pag. 208. And that we pray for no other kinde of Pardon pag. 206. 210 Contrary to Mar. 16. 16. Heb. 10. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Heb. 2. 3. Jo. 15. 2. 6. and many other places He might more properly have sayd Many other intolerable slanders his candor and conscience could have iâ—ured upon this booke For so his next words would have verified what hee had sayd as his mâ—king the New Covenant to threaten
dead from further labouring and moving to this end For what righteousness what works can bee sufficient to such an atchievement So obedience to the Faith is nipt in the very budde where there is a sense and conviction of a mans naughtiness and nothingness 3. By taking off the spirits of a Christians love joy and alacrity in beleeving and serving when a humble and selfe-denying soul is once choaked with Mr. Baxters Doctrine that all the benefit which he hath or can have by Christ is to be only a probationer for justification and life even to his dying day that till then hee is but conditionally pardoned and conditionally adopted that Gods love to him may be anon turned into hatred his sinnes againe imputed and himselfe hurried into hell That his safety still depends upon his own works righteousnes no peny no Pater noster that the grace of God is let to farme for fine and rent no one promise of the word in all this his Booke being alledged by Mr. Baxter which I can remember of any support which the beleever shall receive from God in the state of Grace but all Selfe doe and selfe have This Doctrine eyther benummeth and freezeth up all a poore Christians love and delight in serving God emasculating his spirits to obedience or reduceth him under a yoke of bondage making him to worke possibly but in feare not of love as under the rod or rather in the fire fearing death and hell all his life time And whether this bee saving in Mr. Baxters accompt obedience or disobedience let them that are spirituall judge 4. By turning the very obedience of his Disciples into disobedience and rebellion The best works done to be justified by them and for them are the greatest abhomination in Gods accompt his Grace and Salvation are either denied or refused when wee bring works to appropriate it to us Rom. 4. 4 5. what is righteousnesse in its matter is sin in its end Therefore shall wee finde still that whosoever are admitted to those that seek to ingratiate themselvs by their good works though done in Christs name are hurled off from Christ I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance I know you not depart from mee yee workers of iniquity More joy for one sinner that repenteth than for ninety nine just persons that need no repentance For a more full and satisfactory answer to the Argument contained in this Quere I leave the Reader to the perusing of the Protestant Divines that have written upon this Subject and abundantly refuted this calumny of the Papists what I have here said is rather an addition to them then a full answer to the Quere which I leave to be fetcht from them What he speakes in the Amplification of this Quere needeth no large examination First he grants That love and thankfulness should be enough to hold us to obedience and duty and will bee so when all our ends are attained in our ultimate end then wee shall act for these ends no more c. How untowardly doth this passage and and another passage of the former Quere hang together what he pronounceth here that love and thankfulnesse should be enough to hold us to duty without doing for justification and salvation and that which here should be and hereafter shall be our perfection the same he affirmes there if practiced will undoubtedly damne the Practicer So according to Mr. Baxter if a Christian endeavour sincerely to do what he should and to come as neere in this life as it is possible to the perfection which he shall enjoy in the future hee shall undoubtedly bee damned for it Who then goes about to drive obedience out of the world he or they whom he opposeth What use is to be made of the affections of feare desire hope and care to the attainment of our great ends hath been enough discussed in the examination of the former Quere and would be a meere Tautology here to do it againe Let it be proved once that God hath left Justification by workes to be a motive to obedience it shall be granted to bee a help to the destroying of Obedience to take downe this one Motive But if contrariwise Justification of sinners by Works and Morall Obedience bee erected not by God but by the Devill Mr. Baxters neither Sophistry nor Oratory shall induce us to leane upon the Devils crutch both to the forfeiting of our Justification and turning our Obedience into sin CHAP. XII Whether the doctrine of justification by Faith without workes be a soul-cozening doctrine or harden the people in a soul-cozening Faith what the doctrine of Faith which the Protestant Churches holde is and how farr from deserving this Calumny with something about the facility or difficulty to perswade the multitude to such a Faith HIs fourth Quere by which as by another Argument he goeth about to make odious and to destroy justification by Faith without works runs thus B. pag. 326. Doth it not much confirme the world in their soul cozening Faith surely that Faith which is by many thought to justifie is it that our people doe all most easily embrace that is the receiving of Christ for their Saviour and expecting pardon and salvation by him but not withall receiving him for their Lord and King nor delivering up themselves to be ruled by him I meet not with one but is resolved in such a Faith till it be overthrowne by teaching them better They would all trust Christ for the saving of their soules and that without dissembling for ought any man can discerne Are all these men justified c. A Chip of the same blocke with the former in the use of it Mr. Baxter as he hath learned of them from whom he hath received it levels against the very heart of Christ and his Gospell Had hee said with Iames that to say we have Faith and not to have workes is to cozen our souls I should have said with him But in that he speaketh not of a soul-cozening profession of Faith but layeth so horrid an imputation upon Faith it selfe this gives us cause to examine what Faith he meaneth that we may be able to discern whether that Faith or else Mr. Baxter by defaming it goe about to cozen our souls and so embrace the true friend and reject the Cheater This cozening Faith according to Mr. Baxter must needs bee that which squareth not in its nature and manner of justification with the justifying Faith viz. that Gospell Faith which neither as a deed and worke as a worke of Morall duty and worke of our owne righteousnesse of our perfect and meritorious righteousnesse doth begin and but begin to inright us to Christ and justification by him leaving to eyther vertues and works to perfect it but as an instrument ordeyned and given us of God by which we receive Christ alone offering up himselfe a sacrifice for us to bee cur whole righteousness to justification and that without
To the 2 d. That it hath had a great hand in turning many learned men from the Protestant Religion to Popery 1 I demand whether there be not a contradiction in the Quere How were they ever escaped from the dreggs of Popery that yet held Justification by works which is the very root out of which all other Popish errors almost spring and by it self alone is worse than all the rest Or how can such persons be said to have turned from the Protestant Religion that joyned not with the Protestants in the very Foundation Let all the Confessions of all the Protestant Churches be read and but one produced that hath not with all defiance râ—jâ—cted justification by works as a foul abhomination They must needs be very learned men that had learned this mysticall Art of turning in Religion from them to whom they were not joyned unto them from whom they were never severed 2 If any have so turned they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would without doubt have continued with us But they went out from us that they might be made manifest that they were not of us 1 Joh. 2. 19. 3 Nevertheless they that are truly learned i. e. which have the mysterie of Christ revealed to them not by flesh and blood but by their Father which is in heaven that have learned as the truth is in Christ Jesus that have been taught of God and have so heard and learned of the Father that by his teaching they come to Christ being drawn and given to Christ by the effectuall teaching of God these shall never turn back again They are built upon the Rock and all the gates of Hell shall not prevail against them It is the will of the Father that of all those which are thus given to Christ he should lose nothing but raise it again at the last day Mat. 16. 18. Eph. 4. 21. Jo. 6. 45. 39. 4 By the vanity levity changes and whirlings of these learned ones in humane literature the Lord is pleased to publish to the world how vain and of no power such learning is while unsaâ—ctified to true blessedness I thank thee O father c. that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Mat. 11. 25. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent saith the Lord. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 1. 19 20. Professing themselves wise they became fools because they became vain in their imaginations Rom. 1. 21 22. So vain that they bring the transcendent mysteries of divine things to be tryed in the scales of humane reason and that which the Apostle saith is falsly called Science i. e. philosophicall learning A due stroke of Gods judgment upon them that will be wise without Christ and against him that while they will dispute and in their disputations subject the doctrines of Faith which can have no other foundation but the authority of the word to the rules and principles of secular Arts they shall with all their Art and Learning dispute themselves out of Christ out of Happiness 5 No more hath befaln them herein than God had before threatned should be the doom of such Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved For this Cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they might all be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 10. 12. 6 And most justly for pride goeth before destruction And what higher degree of pride than that an impure worm should swell with such an opinion of his own righteousness that he will refuse the life and salvation which are by Christ except his own righteousness be valued at so high a rate by the eternall God as to constitute him worthy of it Yet such is the high spirit of these self-righteous workers that they will enter heaven triumphing in their own strength and righteousness or els refuse to enter Magis honorificum est habere aliquid ex merito saith Bellarmine speaking of Merit quam ex sola donatione ideo deus ut filios suos magis honoraret c. It is more honourable to have something of merit than of meer gift Therefore God that he might the more honour his Children hath made a way that they should get to themselves eternall life by their own merits To the same purpose is that of another of the same nest Absit ut justi vitam eternam expectent ut pauper Tapper in Art Lovan Tom 2. art 9. Eleemosynam multo enim gloriosius est ipsos quasi victores triumphatores eam possidere tanquam palmam suis sudoribus debitam i. e. Far be it that the righteous should expect eternall life as a poor man doth an Alms. For it is much more glorious that they should possess it as conquerours and triumphers do the Crown due to their labors When this arrogant conceit once possesseth M. Brs. learned men to make themselves glorious by their ecclypsing of the glory of Gods grace no marvail if we see them not so much turning as turned out among the dogs and swine How can ye believe which seek honour one of another and not the honour which is of God only John 5. 44. 7 Yet for one that Mr. Br. can mention who in hatred of this Doctrine hath made a defection from I dare to undertake to produce hundreds that by the sweetnesse of it and demonstration of the Spirit in preaching it have been drawn to the profession of the Protestant Religion It is a conclusion of Luther lamenting the schisms and Controversies stirred in the Churches about lighter and lesser things That if these had been layd aside and this one Article of Justification by Faith alone had been by the counited labors of all the Churches most of all though not only preached and continued to be preached to this day saith he the whole Kingdom of the Pope had by this time laid wholly shivered How adversatively do the spirits of Luther and Mr. Br. fight either against the other Yea of the many learned that Mr. Br. speaks of we can find him particularizing but one his St. Grotius pag. 331. thus B. This Doctrine was one that helped to turn off Grotius to Cassandrian Popery See Grotij votum 21 22 23. 115. Is Grotius so turned off most likely is it sure that Mr. Br. will follow him and truly we may add if not this doctrine surely that which is worse hath turned off Mr. Br. to Tridenâ—ine and Jesuitized Popery See Mr. Brs. Aphorisms not in four pages only but almost in all the passages of that Book and its Appendix And thus Grotius and he make up if not many yet a number of
Qu. 14. that he so layeth this position that he may thereby lay a ground-work for Justification by works Doth Dr. Preston to this end make Christ as Lord the object of Justifying Faith or any where affirm him to be offered as a Law-giver or Commander of morall works and duties to our justifying Much less doth he affirm that such works have any thing to do with Faith in justifying A notable skill hath Mr. Br in confounding when he should divide and distinguish and in distinguishing when there is no need as either may serve to his purpose He knowes that Dr. Preston when he treats of the New Covenant comprehends under it the whole doctrine and all the Promises of Grace made Yea and Amen in Christ as the same Christ is given to us not onely to Justification but also to regeneration illumination sanctification and whatsoever the Grace of the Eternall Father hath made him to us And when he treats of Faith he handles it as the instrument by which not onely Justification but also all the other benefits of Christ may be made ours in receiving Christ the treasury spring of all appropriated to us Therefore in describing the New Covenant he describes it in generall as the womb of all the blessings which are attainable by Christ and not of Justification and Salvation alone And in describing Faith he describes it as the instrument by which we apprehend and appropriate to our selves not onely Christ as righteousness and salvation but also as wisedome and sanctification yea all that tends to the perfecting of a poor sinner to our selves Therefore is it that he speaks more largely of the Covenant and treats more fully of it then needed if he had been to speak of it onely to Justification and Blessedness and that he speaks of Faith more largely and mentioneth other acts of it then are required to this one end And necessarily must he so do else should he have maimed both the Covenant of Grace and the Faith of Christ Here whatsoever Dr. Preston speaketh of the Covenant and Faith in generall of which some part belongeth to the interessing of us to sanctification and other blessings which are by Christ Mr. Br to beguile his Reader confoundeth and confineth to Justification as being spoken of it alone When contrariwise the Doctor doth enough cleerly express the distinct benefits of the Covenant and the distinct acts of Faith receiving the distinct benefits in the very words which he alledgeth out of him App. p. 117. Thou shalt receive the gift of Righteousness wrought by him for an absolution for thy sins and for a reconciliation with me This is our Justification And thereupon thou shalt grow up in love and obedience towards me This is our sanctification But suppose he should have affirmed that Faith as it cleaveth to Christ not onely for the sprinkling of his blood for Justification but withall for the effusion of his spirit to sanctification and the shedding forth of his beams for illumination and the stretching forth of his Almighty arm for supportation c. doth in all these acts justifie as some Divines do seem to speak though without prejudice to their reputation not enough advisedly yet both he and they are so far from making either the most spiritual knowledge and wisedom which are the immediate fruits of illumination or love righteousnes and holines and their acts or works which are the immediate fruits of sanctification to be in any respect usefull to justification that they utterly deny peace joy and hope the immediate fruits of Justification to be any way effectuall and usefull in this business But I find not Dr. Preston any where laying that ground-work much less erecting such a building on it To the five last points if Mr. Br hold them in that which I have expressed to be Dr. Prestons sense yea which himself expresseth to be his own sense I have nothing to say against him The tenth onely excepted to which I must be also mute because neither doth Mr. Br alledg what the Doctor saith and I have not that Treatise of his to inform me But all this is but a playing with holy things he might as well have said Dr. Preston consents with him in confessing there is a God a Christ a Justification a man a sinner to be justified as have said most of what he hath here said We expected he should have produced testimonies of other Divines speaking in common with him what he speaks in common with the Papists in opposition to the doctrine of the Protestants In his Appendix p. 167. and thenceforth to the end of the Book he brings a new supply of Testimonies which he intituleth Bax. Sayings of excellent Divines added to satisfie you who charge me with singularity I shall examine so many of them as have any shew of agreement with Mr. Br in those things wherein he fights against the doctrine of the Protestant Churches Bax. 1 He alleadgeth Dr. Twisse his discovery of Dr. Jacksons vanity p. 528. What one of our Church will maintaine that any one obteins actuall Redemption by Christ without Faith esspecially considering that redemption by the blood of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one Eph. 1. 17. Col. 1. 14. How prettily would he here instill into the thought of his Reader that Dr. Twisse is a man of levity here a subverter of Antinomianism whereof in his Aphorisms p. 173. he complained him to be a Pillarer that here he subverteth Justification from eternity whereof elswhere he is an assertor Nay here he speaketh of the Justification which is by vertue of the New Covenant of the obteining of it actually to our selves This neither Papist nor Protestant neither Dr. Twisse noâ— Mr. Br ever affirmed to be without Faith Bax. 2. Bishop Hooper cited by Dr. Jackson Christ onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law Expounded by Dr. Twisse against Dr. Jackson p. 584. His meaning in my judgment is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfection of our faith and holiness although we continue therein untill death But he hath not made satisfaction for the contempts and hatred of his word c. in case men do continue therein unto death Here is nothing of that which Mr. B. hunts after that Christ hath satisfied for no offence no infirmity committed against the New Covenant but this alone is the sum of it that they shall have no benefit by Christ no one sin committed against the Law or Gospel pardoned to them who live and dye impenitent and unbelievers According to that of our Saviour Jo. 8. 24. Therefore I said unto you ye shall dye in your sins for if ye beleeve not that I am he ye shall dye in your sins B. 3 Alstedius Distinct Theol. cap. 17. p. 73. The Condition of the Covenant of Grace is partly Faith partly Evangelicall obedience or holiness of life proceeding from Faith in Christ 1 In
an opinion that he and the Papists his Masters have the whole body of the Scriptures on their side to prove Justification by works But that the Protestants can only catch here and there a sentence of Scripture that hath a seeming and scarce a seeming to speak for them It is a Maxime of Mr. Br. himself that men are seldom bold with Scripture to force it but they are first bold with Conscience to force it pag. 297. Yet here he is bold not only to force but to stifle Scriptures When himself quoteth a Scripture to maintain his Popish Justification see how he improves it in the same page If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it were to be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter c. no whiâ— dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scripture say what it will to the contrary Lo what a mountain he can make of a mole-hill and bring all Scriptures into the belly of one making that one of what dimension he listeth all the rest to say what he commands them when he is to plead for the Papists But here when he is â—o produce what the Protestants have to urge against the Papists what mincing and mayming doth he use forcing the whole body of the Gospel into a Cherristone it is but here and there a sound without substance that they beguile themselves with Did the man as he pretends seek to apprehend to himself and sincerely to make out unto others Scripture Tâ—uâ—h we should find him faithfully alledging what the Churches of Christ have cited against Antichrist His false dealing herein declares his hatred of the Truth that he will not have the Scriptures shine upon it in their full splendor that it may not be known and embraced Nay we have the main body of the New Testament speaking for us specially almost all the Doctrinal part of the Epistles to the Romans Galathians Ephesians Colossions Hebrews all the four Evangelists specially St John as I have before shewed A breviate of Scriptures which our Divines have urged to this purpose I have before given and it would be useless here to rehearse 3. Even these few Scriptures which he quoteth affirm that man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law that if he were justified by Works he had whereof to glory and boast himself that if they which are of the Law be heirs Faith is made void and the promise of no effect That it is of Faith that it may be of Grace that it is by Grace through Faith not of Works Were there nothing else is there not a strong appearance of Contradiction in these Scriptures to Mr. Brs. doctrine that we are justified by Faith and Works together 4 But see we how he evades these Scriptures and all other Testimonies of the Apostles viz. That his dispute is what is the Righteousness which we must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which we are justified as the proper Righteousness of the Law and this hee well concludeth is neither works nor faith but the Righteousness which is by Faith i. e. Christs Righteousness But St. James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by this Righteousness of Christ whether Faith only or Works also so farr Mr. Baxter Must not Mr. Br. needs be happy that hath learned so perfectly that which he cals else-where the Papists Feat of making the Scriptures a nose of wax and turning them into his own complexion Let any one now alledg against him that of the Apostle Gal. 1. 8. If Paul or an Angell from heaven shall preach to you any other Gospel than what you have received let him be accursed Cannot he as prettily and solidly shift the Curse from him and retort it upon the denouncer as he doth these Scriptures upon the alledgers True may hee say but I am not Paul nor an Angell from heaven therefore the Curse cannot fall on me Nay I have made Paul to preach another Gospel since his death thatn what he preached in his life Therefore Paul is accursed As good grounds hath he for this as his former arguing But let us see whether his interpretation of these Scriptures be so solid as pretty To that of James I have spoken before therefore shall say little here Onely I cannot omit how unsufferable his audacious confidence is that he thinks it enough to say without shewing or endeavouring to shew it from the Context or otherwise this is the meaning of Pauls and that the scope of James his dispute No such immodesty is oft there to be found in the very Jesuits Socinians and Arminians They when they go about to pervert in stead of expounding any Scripture labour stoutly from the Context and from a seeming Coherence of other Scriptures to make such a perverting exposition either probable or plausible This man doth all pro Imperio Sic volo sic jubeo c. I say it what man or Angell dares to deny it Doth hee think all the world to be his Diocess that he may force what he hath or saith he hath upon his Kederminsterians upon the consciences of all men an implicit Faith that all must believe when and because he saith it Is the infallible spirit gone out of Zedechiah 1 King 22. 24. or out of Bellarmine or Arminius inâ—o him Or doth he execute the office of the Popes Legate speaking to us only that which is decreed in his unerring Chair or hath hee gotten a monopoly of Socinus his Right Reason which is infallible what else can hee alledg that his word must be taken for a Law without dispute Or is it indeed because he finds Gods word will yeeld him no succour therefore he must proprio Marte militare act in his own name because God is not with him So indeed it seemeth for neither God nor reason nor any thing els but a high conceit of himself will be accessary to his reasonless Conclusions viz. that James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by Christs Righteousness when James in his whole dispute there neither expresly nor implyedly utters a word of Christs righteousness or if Mr. Brs Jesuito-Arminian condition nor any thing that can easily be reduced to Christ himself Or where doth Paul dispute only of the righteousnes proper to justification and not also of the way and means by which this righteousness may be applyed to us and made ours Or in which of his quoted Scriptures or any other of the Apostles writings when he excludes works doth he exclude Faith also from its subserviency to justifying Such peremptory dreams of a haughty brain cannot be more fitly answered than with contempt and â—ilence Thus should I do were it not in respect to some
pious and not unlearned men that have taken some infection of the Epidemicall disease of our times too easily to drink down errors differing herein only from the vulgar that error is more appetible to them from a learned and sophisticall than truth from a plainer though faithfull hand Let a man once have the name of a learnnd Scholar and strict-walking Pharisee all his Doctrines by such men are concluded to be of rare use and excellency before they be seen whether they be white or black from Heaven or from Hell Not a few of these men having in my hearing stood firm and up moved in the defence of the doctrines of this book of Mr. Brs. not being able to speak any thing to refell the objections made against it but this that the Author thereof is an eminently learned and pious man As if Satan had not the wit to make choyse of his instruments that have the most compleat aptitude and power to deceive or that the Jews had not so much to say for their Pharisees the Papists for their Bellarmine and the Remoâ—strants for their Arminius or the Devill had forgotten his ancient subtlety when he will seduce from the verity of Christs Gospel to change himself into an Angell of Light or that no damning errour could proceed from a self-saving or rather self-deceiving Pharisee To cleer up the truth to such at lest to give their occasion to search the Scriptures by which they may cleer it to themselves I shall lay and compare together Paul and Mr. Br. in that which Mr. Br. saith was the question about which Paul disputed that it may be made evident whether they agree or contradict either the other To this purpose by the way there is to be taken out of the way a fallacy that lurketh in Mr. Brs. words where he saith The dispute of St. Paul is upon this Question It is not enough to say this was A Question excâ—pt he say also it was the Question yea the Onely Question upon which the Apostle disputed in those places where he excludeth works and inferreth Faith alone to be ordeined as effectuall to justification He disputed in some of his Epistles upon many questions To reduce what hee disputed severally to the severall questions all to one were to make non-sense of the whole The same may be said of all mens yea of the most Scholastick disputes of Mr. Br. himself who is a greater Philosopher and more studied in Logick and Metaphysicks than ever the Apostle was But I deny it to be the onely or the chief question about which St. Paâ—l so disputeth what is the Righteousnesse which wee must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which wee are justified as the proper Righteousness of the Law I grant it to be one but a less principall question upon which he disputes But the more principall question is in generall by what means we may be interessed into Christ or obtain the righteousness of Christ to become ours and so still retâ—in it to justification More particularly whether the Native Faederall holiness of the Jewes and the priviledges of the Covenant in part mentioned Rom. 9. 4 5. Phil. 3. 5. Gal. 2. 15. Or their actuall and personall righteousnesse and sincere obedience to the Law mentioned Phil. 3. 6. Mat. 20. 12. and the 19 20. together with all the Typicall purgings mentioned in the 9. 10. Chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews On the other side whether all the Naturall and Morall righteousness of the Gentiles which they performed by the instinct of the Law of Nature written in their Consciences without the help or knowledg of Gods written law or their exemption from the Covenant of God made with the Jews For some of the believing Gentiles reading the promises made of calling unto the grace of Christ them that were not Gods people or beloved before weakly concluded that their former uncircumcision and uncovenant-ship was a speciall furtherance to their admission unto Christ as may be probably gathered from Rom. 11. 19. Gal. 5. 6. whether any of these kinds of holinesse and works of righteousness either with Faith or without Faith or whether Faith alone without all or any of these be required as instrumentall subservient and effectuall to inright us to the Justification which is by Christ This was the more principall question upon which Paul disputeth in the places before mentioned Somewhat he saith to the former but lesse principally and seldom but in subserviency to this So the question upon which Paul disputes in his Epistles and Mr. Br. in his Aphorisms is one and the same but their Conclusions absolutely contradictory either to other The one concludeth that Faith alone without mans works and righteousness The other that not faith alone but Faith as a work together with all other works of righteousnesse do justifie and all morall duties collaterally with Faith are required to make the Righteousness of Christ ours to justification No greater or more palpable Contradiction can be devised Whosoever shall preach another Gospell of Justification otherwise than by Faith in Christ without works let him be accursed saith Paul Whosoever shall be practically a solifidian trust to a bare Faith and not work for Justification shall be Damned saith Mr. Br. If one of these be granted to be an Apostle of Christ the other must needs be proclaimed to be the Apostle of Antichrist But whether this which I have expressed be indeed the principal question on which the Apostle so disputeth adhuc sub judice lis est We are left uncertain on both hands may some say True and if I onely say and not shew it I shall be guilty of the fault which I blame in Mr. Br. And so we may deserve both to be laught at as Triflers This therefore is the next thing to be added First then if we do but consider to whom and against whom the Apostle handleth these disputes for Mr. Br. reduceth them all to his Epistles it will be more than probable to every rationall man that his most principall question is By what means we possesse and continue in the possession of the righteousnesse which is by Christ to Justification And but secondarily less principally and in subserviency to this question What the righteousnesse is by which we are to be justified The persons to whom he writeth were all Christians the purest and most eminent Churches of Christ that had received the pure doctrine of Christ by the preaching of the Apostles viz. that whereas sinn and death and the Curse by sinn reigned over all men in all the world so that all wete Children of wrath and every soul guilty before God Christ was given of the Father to be the Author of Righteousness and life by the Mediation of his death that in him and in no other name under heaven was salvation attainable that whosoever would beleeve in him should have everlasting life should be Justified freely by Grace
the Apostles termes by which he freely and without necessity in relation to his justice willeth the salvation of one and willeth not the salvation of another loveth or hateth imputeth not or doth impute sinne according to his own free will But justification in the latter sense is an act of Gods righteousnes or faithfulnesse by which hee faithfully and righteously accomplisheth his promises of grace in just â—ying and absolving them which believe by the sentence of pardon pronounced to their conscience according to the Gospel promise made to beleevers No word of promise went before justification in the former sense to make it an act of justice to fulfill that promise neither could it be an act of his natural justice that by the necessity of his nature he should so justifie and love any for then should none be either loved or saved freely of God when contrariwise it was in his own free choice to love or to hate to save or condemn all or mutatis vicibus to have loved Esau hated Jacob to have willed the condemnation of the saved and the salvation of the reprobated But the word of promise preceded justification in the latter sense which it is righteousnesse in God to fulfill therefore is it an act as well of his justice or righteousnesse as of his free grace 3. That Justification in the former sense is antecedaneous or foregoing to all covenants whatsoever 1. In order of nature though not in time it goeth before that covenant between the father and the son mentioned before in the examination of the explication of Mr. Baxters fourteenth Thesis and consequently before Christs undertaking to make or the fathers Covenant to accept what he should offer in satisfaction for the sinnes of the elect For in order of nature the willing of the end alway goeth before the willing of the means conducing to the end so that Gods willing mans righteousnesse and immunity from sinne and loving him to salvation must needs goe before his willing of Christs satisfying of his justice which was but a mean appointed of God to the constituting of man righteous before him that he might be pure from sinne discharged from condemnation and partaker of salvation which was the end Not that there was any precedency or following after of these acts of God in time for they are both coeternal and before all times Whom God hath loved and forgiven their sinnes them hath he so loved and forgiven in and through Christ from all eternity and through and for the merit of his satisfaction Much more doth this immanent act of justification go before not onely in nature but in time also the other temporary Covenants both the Covenant of workes made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace made after by Gospel promise by Christ or God in Christ to us and with us For these had all their being in time But justification in its other acceptation is subsequent unto and followes after and is an effect of not onely the Covenant of Grace but of faith it selfe which the Covenant of Grace calls for as a mean to attain it None else but a beleiver nor he until he actually beleeveth is thus actually justified or hath pardon of sinnes and absolution from wrath declared and pronounced of God in his conscience And thus to be justified in Christ or in God is one thing and to bee justified in our selves by God through Christ is another The former is an antecedent the latter an effect or consequent of the Covenant of Grace 4. That neither the mediation satisfaction of Christ nor much lesse our faith in Christ nor any of the most noble gifts of grace received from Christ either in their habit or operation do move God to justifie us so as to put into him a will to pardon our sins and accept us as righteous or to change his affection from nilling to will our forgivenesse and happinesse and from hating to love and accept us because he is God and therefore immutable and there cannot be any cause of Gods will rendred any more than of God himselfe For the Will of God is God himselfe and these immanent acts of God are God himselfe acting So that the substration of all that Christ hath suffered and by his sufferings satisfied for us and of all that we doe or can doe to put our selves into union with Christ and a conformity with the Will of God are in no wise the causes or conditions or antecedents of Gods first loving owning and pronouncing uâ— righteous and pure from sinne imputed but the effects thereof For he so loveth and justifieth all that in a Covenant way have been or shall be justified in their own conscience before ever they beleeve or live But that the intervening of Christs satisfaction for our sinnes and our recumbency upon and embracing of Christ so satisfying by faith that we may be justified do ad nothing to God which was not nor alter any thing which was in his will before but do onely lay and make a way by Gods ordination how he from all eternity loving and justifying us in himselfe freely may in a course most convenient to magnify both his truth and righteousnesse and withal his grace and mercy at length actually declare us just in and to our own consciences and for ever acquit us from sinne and wrath to the admiration of Men and Angels And so the former justification is a pure simple free and irrespective act of God having no causality out of himselfe moving him to it but the latter is a foederal Gospel or Covenant justification respecting his own Covenant before made Christs satisfaction already given and pleaded in heaven by Christ and mans faith in the mediator and promiser pleading the promise and the blood of the mediator sealing it upon all which he doth he cannot but actually pronounce and declare to the conscience of the beleiver his perfect absolution from sin and vengeance This latter is indeed the justifying wherof the Scriptures primarily speak as oft as they speak of justification by faith but so as the former is also in such Scriptures implyed Neither is the Scripture silent in reference to the former as considered without the latter or apart from it 5. That although all that are or shall be justified by faith in time i. e. each onâ— in the time when he so beleeveth were justified also in Christ secretly in God before they beleived or yet lived even from eternity Yet is there no man justified by vertue of the New Covenant and promise of the Gospel proclaiming right to the Lord Christ to forgivenesse of sinnes freedome from condemnation heirship to Gods Kingdom and all other benefits of Christs Passion until he doth actually beleeve and embrace Christ thorow him to have all those pretious promises made good and effectual to himselfe Though in Christ he were Lord of all before yet differed he nothing in himselfe from a servant from a child of
wrath his life and righteousnesse were hid with Christ in God He could claim nothing from God by any evidential title but wrath and condemnation though he had right in Christ yet had he no right unto Christ though in Christ all was his because Christ had united purchased and received all into his hands for him yet had he no right to Christ by which to claim a partnership and interest in the kingdome and priviledge of grace was without all true peace of conscience all joy and consolation in the promises of grace under fears and terrors in expectation of wrath and damnation could be sensible of nothing but anger hatred and displeasure against him for sinne knew not himselfe to be one of the children of promise Gal. 4. 28. to be entitled to Christ in whom alone the promises of God are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. Therefore as if there had been no Christ no Mediator and reconciler no Covenant of Grace yea no Grace or acts of Grace eternal or temporary in God thorow Christ so he remained under a Spirit either of delusion or of bondage still But now when the father hath drawn him to Christ and Christ hath received him when Christ hath apprehended him to himselfe by his Spirit and he by faith hath apprehended Christ to himselfe for redemption reconciliation remission righteousnesse and whatsoever else is laid up in Christ for him and so hath union and communion with Christ hath Christ in him and is himselfe in Christ Now his justification which was sure before in God and in Christ is also made sure to his conscience He is now justified in his own conscience after the tenor and by the vertue of the Gospel and Covenant and promises of Grace findes and knowes himselfe through Christ absolved at Gods tribunal hath all the evidences for it that possibly he can desire the Word and the Oath of God that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to ly he may have a strong consolation Heb. 6. 18. The Word evidenceth and his faith evidenceth the Covenant is now sealed mutually and reciprocally between God and him by beleeving he hath put to his seal that God is true and God sealeth to his conscience by certifying it by his Spirit that his wrath is pacified that all accusations are silenced there is no condemnation to him being now in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. Himselfe may now rest satisfied banishing henceforth all fears and doubts and glorying in the Lord that the fear of death is past it is enough my soul is now alive Christ is made sinne for me that I might become the Righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen thy Salvation and in the interim while he is here enjoying a heaven upon earth a kingdome of Righteousnesse joy and peace in the Holy Ghost untill he was incorporated by faith into Christ Christ might indeed plead for him but he had no evidence no shew of title not an article under Gods hand or from his lips to plead at Gods barre for life or pardon 6. That neverthelesse when a man truly beleeveth then may he apprehend justification and remission of sinnes not onely as now first declared and evidenced to his own soul But also as past and compleat before the foundation of the world was laid Because from eternity Christ satisfied in that he undertook to satisfie for the sinnes of the Elect and God from eternity rested in this satisfaction undertaken by Christ and so laid aside all displeasure which without this Covenant between him and his onely Son he might have taken up as wel against them that should afterward beleeve as against them which dye in unbeleef For their justification in time doth à posteriore argue their justification before all times and where faith findes the least rivulet of the great stream sent forth it can it ought by it to ascend up to the very fountain to be filled and satisfied with the deliciousnesse thereof Thus shall we finde the Apostle almost in all his Epistles from the sense of their present enjoyments in Christ to carry upward the Saints to whom he writeth unto the very bosom of Gods eternal grace counsell and good pleasure where all was laid up and treasured for them from all eternity that thence it might in due time be shed forth upon them Faith runs not away rashly and hastily with the gift but delights to enter and pierce through the vail to contemplate and embrace the as well eternal as infinite love of the giver 7. That although no man receiveth the sensible comfort of his justification before he actually beleeveth yet every elect vessell hath besides and without his knowledge the true benefit thereof as to freedome from vengeance throughout the whole time of his infidelity was in Christ beloved accepted and owned of God as righteous in that his sinne was not imputed as fully before as after he beleeved the price of his redemption was paid all his sinnes borne and punished upon the shoulders yea the soul and body of Christ so that himselfe was no lesse exempted from the revenging wrath of God from all obligation to make any part of satisfaction in his own person for his sinnes as hee that was already in Christ by faith So that whatsoever afflictions befell him in the time of his unbelief were not the infliction of the curse as the curse for sinne but sanctified chastisements of a loving father flowing from his grace and favour not from his indignation and hatred against his person though against his sins tending all to his good not to his ruine Else if he should have born the least stroke of Gods revenging justice and in the least pittance have made but one least peece of satisfaction by his sufferings for his offences then either Christ hath made satisfaction for him but in part and is not his whole Saviour and redeemer for that himselfe hath satisfied divine justice in part or otherwise the father hath taken satisfaction twice for the same sins once from the Lord Christ and after that from the offender also But this were to slander either the perfection of Christs mediation or the incorruptnesse of Gods justice both which are unsufferable 8. That the justification which is by faith consisteth not onely in a bare apprehension of our justification and pardon from God for this is onely mans act and no express act of God but first in Gods actual declaration evidencing and certisfying the conscience of man drawn to the barre of judgement set up as it were in the conscience that God hath taken satisfaction to his offended justice from the Lord Christ for all the offenders sinnes and hath for ever quit-claimed and discharged him from all sin and wrath and admitted him into favour and family to be under the dispensations of his grace for ever And then indeed God having by this
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
that gave and as he gave his life for the world and giveth life to the world All works are excluded that this beleeving might be reserved sole entire sacred and soveraign to receive Christ to Justification and salvation Here at length I shall put a period to my Examination of this Tractate of Mr. Br. in which I have not wittingly let passe any one particle of all that he hath brought to the re-erecting of Justification by works without examining the strength and force of it which if he had done in relation to all the Arguments which the Protestant Churches and Divines have brought against it before he adventured peremptorily to pronounce their doctrine Hâ—torodox and Antinomistick and the doctrine of the Papists in this point sound and holy I am of opinion that either this work of his had never come forth to the subverting of souls and troubling of the Church or if it had so come forth it would have been a very abomination to all that are not made to be taken and trampled under foot as an accursed thing But now having begun in that manner as we see to set up this worst piece of damning Popery under a false pretence of love to the Protestant and hatred of the Popish Religion It is not to be expected but that seeing his reputation jeoparded he will per fas nefas proceed to seek the support of it though it be to the further ecclipsing of the Grace of God and honour of Christ CHAP. XXV The Conclusion of the whole Treatise demonstrating that although we with the Scriptures exclude works from Justification yet we include them as necessary to a Christian life and that no less seriously and upon more spirituall grounds than the Evill Workers that will be justified by them HAving ended at present with Mr. Baxter I have for the Conclusion of all somewhat to say that may have relation to the weak reader It is a difficult thing to remove works from justification and not to expose our selves therein to the Censure of babish ungospellized and unstablished men that we therein banish them also from the life and practice of a Christian When we teach that the righteousness of the Gospel is revealed from Faith to Faith as it is written the just shall live by Faith not by works Rom. 1. 17. And that no man is justified by the Law i. e. by the strictest observation of the righteousness of the Law Because it is written that the just shall live by Faith Gal. 3. 11. That the inheritance is by Faith not by works lest any man should boast Rom. 4. 1 2. Eph. 2. 8 9. That it is of Faith that it may be of Grace and if it be of grace then is it no more of works else grace were no more Grace But if it be of works then is it no more of grace otherwise works were no more works Rom. 4. 16. 11. 6. That whosoever seeketh justification and blessedness by works worketh himself out of it and shall never attaine it because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the works af the Law Rom. 9. 31 32. At the sound of this doctrine the unspiritual man excepteth and flesh and bloud swelleth murmuringly Crying out What profit is it then to serve the Lord Why should I fast pray give alms shew mercy study holines and purity deny my self the pleasures of sinn any more when all these have no â—fficacy in them to justifie and save It was the Clamor of men against Paul when he preached the riches of grace abounding the more by the abounding of Mans sinns We will therefore sinn said they that Grace may abound Rom. 6. 1. And do evill that good may come Rom. 3. 8. This doctrine of Faith makes voyd the Law loosing us from all obligation to perform the holines and righteousness which the Law requireth Rom. 3. 31. And as Mr. Br. teacheth them further to reply against God tendeth to drive obedience out of the world For if it be denyed that man can merit happiness by his own righteousness he will cease to be righteous and take the bitt in his teeth to run rebell So deep an impression hath the Covenant of works yet still in mans heart that though he be insufficient to do or to think as he ought 2 Cor. 3. 5. yet he will have Do and Live to be the issue of Life and Death still And Mr. Br. teacheth them to stopp the hole of mans insufficiency with this nayl not of the Sanctuary but of Alexander the Copper-Smith because we cannot perform legall therefore Gospel-obedience shall do the work as if work were not work when the Title of Gospel is written on it and because we cannot fullfill perfect therefore sincere obedience shall serve the Turn Hence is it that the Popish and Arminian doctrines wherewith this Book of Mr. Br. is fully fraughted takes every where so plausibly with and hath such Compleat acceptance among the multitude both of the learned and unlearned It is a doctrine not above but agreeing with the principles of Nature and the naturall man even the naturall Conscience suggesteth it to the unlearned to seek for happiness by their own righteousness And both that and the precepts of Moral Philosophy also together with the Law of Moses instruct the learned to seek for the Summum Bonum the best felicity all felicity in the way of vertue and vertuous performances Here now when any comes to them in the name of Christ holding forth to them the same doctrine it kindles in them so swiftly as fire in towe no need of the teaching of God or renewing of the Spirit Flesh and bloud of it self gives its suffrage to it An easie task have these teachers to perswade men and draw disciples after them and set them in an activeness and dexterity of practicing what they teach It is easily learned to swimm swiftly with the stream and to drop the Bowle down the hill But to teach men to live by Faith and yet to be fruitfull in good works too Not to seek justification and life by their righteousness yet to be zealous of all righteousnes and good works continually hic labor hoc opus est It is above the principles of Nature to apprehend it He must swimm against the stream and roll the Bowl against the Hill walk after the Spirit and not after the Flesh that puts it effectually into practice Yet that our Doctrine doth not let loose the reins to the flesh nor howsoever carnall sensuallists may abuse it to their Condemnation in the least degree blunt the spirits of the spirituall man to well-doing nor deny the both expediency and necessity of all good works in the life of a Christian is evident 1 Because although we exclude morall qualifications and works from officiating to Justification yet we retein and include them in and unto sanctification Our doctrine with Christs and his Apostles holds forth the Lord Jesus to every soul