p. 40 Whether the Law of Grace condemn any and how p. 44 45 The Distinction of sides quae justificat quâ justificat considered p. 46 c. MR. Blak's first Argument answered p. 53 Argument 2. answered p. 55 Argument 3. p. 57 Argument 4. p. 63 Argument 5. and 6. p. 64 Disputation 2. Quest WHether works are a condition of condition of Justification and so whether we are justified by works as such a condition The terms Works and Justification explained p. 70 71 The Term Condition explained p. 72 The Truth laid down in several Propositions p. 75 Negative and Affirmative The main Proposition proved p. 79 c. Quest Can Christ be Instrumental in justifying p. 84 Quest Did Christ expiate the sins that by the Gospel men are obliged to punishment for p. 86 Of Repentance and the habit of Faith in Justification p. 85 86 Quest Doth the Gospel justifie us p. 86 87 88 89 Other points briefly discussed p. 90 The Opponents stating of the Question p. 94 95 96 Divers unjust charges repelled p. 97 to 101 The Opponents Thesis and Arguments p. 101 102 How Abraham was justified debated to p. 110 All works make not the Reward to be not of Grace proved by six Arguments p. 111 to 115. And by Expositors p. 115 c. His second Argument from the difference put between faith and other Graces in Justification p. 118 The case of faiths Interest opened by a similitude p. 120 His third Argument considered Our first Justification how different from the following p. 122 123 His fourth Argument of self Righteousness and causal conditions p. 124 c. His Fifth Argument Works are the fruits therefore not the condition p. 128 His sixth Argument p. 132 His seventh Argument Of a twofold Righteousness or Justification p. 133 His eight Argument that cannot be a condition of Justification which it self needeth Justification p. 136 Answered Paul judgeth them dung p. 140 How justifying faith belongs to the Law and the difference between the Law and Gospel p. 142 More of Christs suffering for the violation of the new Covenant p. 146 His ninth Argument we fill men with doubts p. 147 Answered His tenth Argument p. 149 Of the reconciling of Paul and James p. 150. c. Letters that past between this Reverend Brother and me p. 157 In which is discussed the Argument from Abrahams Justification And in the last Letter these questions 1. Whether videre audire be only Grammatical actions and Physical Passions p. 194 c. 2. Whether Believing be only so and credere only pati p. 198 3. Whether Faith be passive in its Instrumentality p. 207 4. Whether the Opponents way make not other Graces as proper Instruments of Justification p. 211 5. Whether Faith be a proper Instrument of Justification p. 212 6. Question If Faith be an Instrument whether it justifie primarily and proxime as such or as an apprehension of Christ or Righteousness p. 214 7. Question which is the more clear safe and certain Doctrine p. 220 Repentance whether excluded p. 227 Of Faith relatively taken p. 228 Of the Assemblies Definition of faith p. 230 The Judgement of some Divines p. 233 c. whether a dying man may look on his own Acts as the Conditions of the Covenant performed p. 241 c. Further Explications p. 244. c. Disputation 3. Quest WHether Besides the Righteousness of Christ imputed there be a personal evangelical Righteousness necessary to Justification and Salvation Affir p. 259 Distinctions and Propositions Negative and Affirmative for explication p. 260 c. Proved p. 266 Objections answered p. 269 c. Mr. Warner's Arguments confuted p. 273 to 285 Mr. Warner's 13th chap. confuted about Justistcation and the Interest of Obedience c p. 286 Master Warner's Arguments answered by which he would exclude Christ as King c. from being the Object of justifying faith p. 293. c. The other chief passages in his Book considered p. 305 c. His distinction of fides quae qua p. 308 c. His Preface answered in an Epistle p. 313 MR. John Tombe's his friendly Animadversions on my Aphorisms with a Discussion of them p. 322 Justification in Law-title by the Promise fully vindicated p. 332 c. Whether Justification be a continued Act or but one Act. p. 341 c. Whether Faith comprize Love Subjection or other Graces at large p. 345 c. Whether Faith be only in the Intellect or also in the Will p. 354 c. Justifying Faith receiveth Christ as Lord c. p. 358 It is Faith and not only Love or other Graces by which the Will receiveth Christ p. 361. c. The Gospel is a Law p. 369 c. Repentance necessary to Justification p. 370 c. How Faith justifieth p. 377 Whether Christ had a Title on Earth to Rule p. 379 Of Christs universal Dominion and Redemption p. 380 More of the Justification by the Gospel-Promise p. 384 Of Preparatives to Justification p. 387 What Paul excludeth as opposite to faith in Justification p. 391 392 Of Intercision of Justification and the guilt of particular sins p. 393 c. Disputation 4. Quest WHether the Faith which Paul opposeth to works in Justification be one only Physical Act of the Soul Or Whether all Humane Acts except one Physical Act of Faith be the works which Paul excludeth from Justification Neg. p. 399 The Question opened and it s proved that this Faith is not one only Act. 1. Either Numerically 2. Or of an inferior Genus so as to be of one only Faculty Nor only God the Father Christ Promise Pardon Heaven c. the Object 3. Nor in specie specielissima proved by many Arguments ERRATA PAge 6. line 23. read that 1. p. 13. l. 10. r. quae Christum p. 14. l. 9. r. promitentis I. 22. r. hath p. 18. l. 3. r. as this l. 34. r. proof of p. 19. â— 24. r. be the. l. 34. r. â— p. 21. l. 17. r. that be is p. 24. l. 35. r. thus p. 29. l. 13. r. though p. 32. l. 32 r. must be p. 39. l. 6. r. with p. 44. l. 1. r. I need p. 45. l. 30. r. Commination P. â—2 l. 11. r. as p. 55. l 26. r. nostri l. 32. r. exclusion p. 64. l. 30. r. Curse p. 74. l. 8. r. capitibus p. 81. l. 13. r. no. l. 20. r. All. p. 85. l. 6. blot out against p. 87. l. 22. r. that is l. 21. r. execution p. 88. l. 12. read there p. 94. l. 10. r. notion p. 95. l. 3. r. u. l. 9. r. your p. 99. l. 19 r. as mediate it p. 119. l. 36. r. as p. 135. â— 5. r. that he hath not p. 136. l. 18. r. Christ p. 139. l. 13. r. a means page 152. l. 17. r. been p. 166. l. 38. r. we may p. 168. r. Gods p. 170 l. 17. r signs p. 175. l. 15. r. divers p. 178. l. 19. r. be that works not p. 180.
alone be questioned but thus branded Does not every man that undergoes various relations variously act according to them And do not men that make address address themselves in like variety He that is at once a Husband a Parent a Master a School-master a Physician acts variously according to all of these capacities Some come to him as a Father some as a Master some as a Teacher all of them come to him as a Physician But only they that come to him as a Physician are cured by him Believers through faith go to Christ that hears all the Relations mentioned But as they seek satisfaction in his blood-shedding which is an act of his Priesthood they are justified Repl. I ever granted that we are justified by trusting in Christs blood But not only by that Secondly It was God that sought satisfaction in Christs blood the Believer seeks for the fruit of that satisfactition Thirdly But now to the distinction I shall tell you freely my thought of it and the reasons of my resisting your use of it and then answer your reasons for it And first We must understand what it is that is distinguished whether the Habit of faith or the Acts As far as I am able to understand them they that understand themselves do intend to distinguish of the Habit by a virtual distinction and their meaning is The Habit of Faith which produceth both these acts doth justifie but not as it produceth the act of believing in Christ as Lord Teacher c. but as it produceth the Act of believing in his blood that is The habit is the remote cause and the act is the nearer cause and the habit justifieth by this Act and not by the other I verily think this is their meaning I am sure this is the most probable and rational that I can imagine But then first This contradicteth their ordinary assertion that it is not the Habit of faith but the act by which we are justified Secondly Then they do not mean that the act of believing in Christ as Lord c. is so much as the fides qua which if they will speak out and make no more ado the controversie will be much better understood For then it is a question that 's easily apprehended Whether only the act of faith in Christs satisfaction do justifie or the believing in Christ as King Priest and Prophet or all that is essential to Christian faith This is a plain case which fides qua and qua do not illustrate But then I must add that this begs the question as used by them but decideth it not And as qua respecteth but the Matter of the condition q. d. The habit as it produceth this act and not that is the condition of Justification for else it justifieth neither as it produceth the one or the other so it is the very Question between us Whether it be one act or the whole essence of the Christian faith that is the Condition And this supposeth the determination of other controversies that are not yet determined There are three opinions of the Habit of faith First that the several acts of faith have several habits Secondly that the divers acts have but one habit of faith distinct from the habits of other graces Thirdly That faith love and all graces have but one habit If the first hold then the distinction as before explained hath no place If the last hold then the Habit of Love or Fear may be on the same ground said to justifie If I have before hit on their meaning then the distinction of the Habit is virtualis and the distinction of the acts is realis and they totally exclude all acts save that which they fix upon not from being present but from a co-interest But from what interest Of a Cause that we deny even to all Of a Condition that they grant to these which they exclude Next we must understand the members of their Distinction And sometime they express one branch to be fides qua justificat and sometime fides qua apprehendit Christum satisfacienrem c. As to the former it cannot be contradistinct from faith in Christ as Lord but from faith as sanctifying c. it being but a denominative or virtual distinction of one and the same faith from the several consequents And so I easily grant that fides qua justificat non sanct ficat vel glorificat and so of all the consequents of it As it is the condition of one it is not the condition of the other which is no more then to say that there is between the consequents Distinctio realis from whence the antecedent Really the same may be denominatively or virtually distinguished As the same man that goeth before a hundred particular men hath a hundred distinct Relations to them as Before them all The very same condition in a free Gift may be the condition of many hundred benefits and accordingly be Relatively and denominatively distinguished when yet it is as truly the condition of all as of one and hath equal interest as to the procurement And as for the other phrase that fides qua recipit Christum satisfacientem justificat properly it is false Docrine if qua signifie the nearest Reason of faiths interest in procuring justification for then it is but to say that fides qua fides justificat which is false The denomination and the description express but the same thing fides is the denomination and Receptio Christi is the description if therefore it justifie qua Receptio Christi then it justifieth qua fides that is qua haec fides in specie which is to ascribe it to the ◠credere with a witness And elsewhere I have disproved it by many Arguments But if qua be taken less properly as denoting only the aptitude of faith to be the condition of Justification then still the Question is begged For we say that as the act of believing in Christs blood-shed hath a special aptitude in one respect so the act of believing in his Resurrection Intercession c. and receiving him as King Teacher c. hath a special aptitude in other respects upon which God hath certainly made them the Conditions of our Justification with the other But if any should distinguish of the act of faith and not the Habit and say that fides qua credit in Christum ut Regem justificat sed non quâ credit in Christum ut Regem I accept the former as being all that I desire and grant the latter But then I say the like of the other act of faith that fides quâ credit in Christum satisfacientem non justificat because fides quà fides non justificat sed fides quâ conditio praestita And I think I need to say no more for the opening the Fallacy that this distinction useth to cover And now I come to peruse all that I can find that is produced to support this distinction And the most is certain pretended
again I shall yield so far to their Importunity as to recite here briefly the state of the Controversie and some of that evidence which is elsewhere more largely produced for the truth And First We must explain what is meant by Works and what is meant by Justification what by a Condition and what by the Preposition by here when we speak of Justification by works And then we shall lay down the truth in several propositions Negative and Affirmative It seems strange to me to hear men on either side to speak against the Negative or Affirmative of the Question and reproach so bitterly those that maintain them without any distinction or explication as if either the error lay in the terms or the terms were so plain and univocal that the Propositions are true only on one part what sense soever they be taken in No doubt but he saith true that saith that Works are the Condition of Justification and he saith as true that saith they are not if they take the terms in such different senses as commonly Disputers on these Questions do take them And its past all doubt that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law and that it is not of Works but of Grace and it s as certain that a man is justified by works and not by faith only and that by their Words men shall be justified and by their Words they shall be condemned Gods word were not true if both these were not true We must therefore necessarily distinguish And first of Works First Sometime the term Works is taken for that in general which makes the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt Meritorious works Or for such as are conceited to be thus meritorious though they be not And those are materially either Works of perfect obedience without sin such as Adam had before his fall and Christ had and the good Angels have or else Works of obedience to the Mosaical Law which supposed sin and were used in order to pardon and life but mistakingly by the blind Unbelievers as supposing that the dignity of the Law did put such a dignity on their obedience thereto as that it would serve to life without the satisfaction and merit of Christ or at least must concur in Co-ordination therewith Or else lastly they are Gospel duties thus conceited meritorious Secondly But sometime the word Works is taken for that which standeth in a due subordination to grace and that first most generally for any moral virtuous Actions and so even faith it self is comprehended and even the very Receptive or fiduciall act of faith or less generally for external acts of obedience as distinct from internal habitual Grace and so Repentance Faith Love c. are not Works or for all acts external and internal except faith it self And so Repentance Desire after Christ Love to him denying our own Righteousness distrust in our selves c. are called Works Or else for all Acts external and internal besides the Reception of Christs Righteousness to Justification And so the belief of the Gospel the Acceptance of Christ as our Prophet and Lord by the Title of Redemption with many other acts of faith in Christ are called works besides the disclaiming of our own Righteousness and the rest before mentioned Secondly As for the word Justification it is so variously taken by Divines and in common use that it would require more words then I shall spend on this whole Dispute to name and open its several senses and therefore having elsewhere given a brief schem of them I shall now only mention these few which are most pertinent to our purpose First Some take Justification for some Immanent Acts of God and some for Transient And of the former some take it for Gods eternal Decree to justifie which neither Scripture calleth by this name nor will Reason allow us to do it but improperly Sometime it s taken for Gods Immanent present Approbation of a man and Reputing him to be just when he is first so constituted And this some few call a Transient Act because the Object is extrinsick But most call it Immanent because it makes no Alteration on that object And some plead that this is an eternal act without beginning because it is Gods essence which is eternal and these denominate the Act from the substance or Agent And other say that it begins in time because Gods Essence doth then begin to have that Respect to a sinner which makes it capable of such a denomination And so these speak of the Act denominatively formally respectively Both of them speak true but both speak not the same truth Sometime the word Justification is taken for a transient Act of God that maketh or conduceth to a change upon the extrinsick object And so first It s sometime taken by some Divines for a Conditional Justification which is but an act that hath a tendency to that change and this is not actual Justification Secondly Sometime it is taken for actual Justification and that is threefold First Constitutive Secondly Sentential thirdly executive First Constitutive Justification is first either in the qualities of the soul by inherent holyness which is first perfect such Adam once and the Angels and Christ had secondly or Imperfect such as the sanctified here have Secondly Or it s in our Relations when we are pardoned and receive our Right to Glory This is an act of God in Christ by the free Gift of the Gospel or Law of Grace and it is first The first putting a sinner into a state of Righteousness out of a state of Guilt Secondly Or it is the continuing him in that state and the renewing of particular pardon upon particular sins Secondly Sentential pardon or Justification is first by that Manifestation which God makes before the Angels in heaven Secondly at the day of Judgement before all the world Thirdly Executive Justification viz. the execution of the aforesaid sentence less properly called Justification and more properly called pardon consisteth in taking off the punishment inflicted and forbearing the punishment deserved and giving possession of the happiness adjudged us so that it is partly in this life viz. in giving the spirit and outward mercies and freeing us from judgements And thus sanctification it self is a part of Justification and partly in the life to come in freeing us from Hell and possessing us of Glory Thirdly As for the word Condition the Etymologists will tell us that it first signifieth Actionem condendi and then Passionem qua quid conditur and then qualitatem ipsam per quam condere aliguis vel condi aliquid potest hinc est pro statu qui factus est rem condendo deinceps pro omni statu quem persona vel res aut causa quoquo modo habet aut accipit But we have nothing to do with it in such large acceptions in which all things in the world may be called Conditions Vid. Martin in Nom. They
Cartwright cont Rhem. in loc For if the Reward should be given according to works God should be a Debtor unto man But it is absurd to make God a Debtor to man 2. He speaketh not of that Reward that ignorant men challenge to themselves but of the Reward that God should in justice give if men had deseerved it by their works 12. Hemiâ—gius even a Lutheran supposeth the Argument to be thus Imputatio gratuita non est operantis merces justitia credentis est imputatio gratuita ergo justitia credentis non est operantis merces Major probatur per contrarium Merces operanti id est ei qui aliquid operibus promeretur datur ex debito Probatio haec per concessionem Rhetoricam intelligenda est Nequaquam enim Paulus sentit quod quisquam ex debito fiat justus revera sed quae sit natura rerum indicat Imputare est aliquid gratia conferre non ex debito tribuere Merces proprie est quod debebatur ex merito hoc est Debiti solutio Yea in his blow at the Majorists he confesseth the truth 8. Evertitur corum dogma qui clamant opera necessaria ad salutem quae salus cum à Justificatione separari nequit non habet alias causas aut merita quam ipsa Justificatio Hoc tamen fatendum est quod opera necessariò requirantur in Justificatis ut iter intermedium non ut causa aut merita 13. Mich. Ragerus a Lutheran in loc Imputatio fidei opponitur imputationi ex merito imputatio fidei fit secundum gratiam E. fides in negotio Justificationis non consideratur ut opus morale quid enim per modum operis imputatur secundum debitum meritoriè imputatur Et qui operatur sive operans renatus sit sive non dummodo eâ intentione operetur ecque fine ut mercedem reportet opera sua censorio Dei judicio opposita velit 14. In like manner Georg Calixtus a Lutheran in loc pag. 26.28 c. To these I might add many other Protestant Expositors and the votes of abundance of Polemical Divines who tell the Papists that in Pauls sense it s all one to be justified by works to be justified by the Law and to be justified by merits But this much may suffice for the vindication of that Text and to prove that all works do not make the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace but only meritorious mercenary works and not those of gratitude c. beforenamed Treat ibid. The second Argument may be from the peculiar and express difference that the Scripture giveth between faith and other graces in respect of Justification So that faith and good works are not to be considered as concurrent in the same manner though one primarily the other secondarily so that if faith when it s said to Justifie doth it not as a condition but in some other peculiar notion which works are not capable of then we are not Justified by works as well as faith Now it s not lightly to be passed over that the Scripture still useth a peculiar expression of faith which is incommunicable to other graces Thus Rom. 3.25 Remission of sins is through faith in his blood Rom. 4.5 Faith is counted for Righteousness Rom. 5.1 Galatians â— 16 c. Answer First This is nothing to the Question and deserves no further answer The Question is not now whether faith and works justifie in the same manner that 's but a consequent rightly explained of another thing in question your self hath here made it the question whether Works be Conditions of Justification And that which I affirmed is before explained I grant that if faith justifie not as a condition but proxime in any other respect then Faith and Repentance c. justifie not in the same manner so that the sameness of their Interest in the general notion of a condition supposeth faith to be a condition but if you can prove that it is not I shall grant the difference which you prove Now it is not our question here whether faith be a condition or an Instrument but whether other works as you choose to call them or humane acts be conditions Secondly Scripture taketh not faith in the same sense as my Opposers do when it gives it the peculiar expressions that you mention Faith in Pauls sense is a Belief in Jesus Christ in all the respects essential to his person and office and so a hearty Acceptance of him for our Teacher Lord and Saviour Saviour I say both from the guilt and power of sin and as one that will lead us by his word and spirit into Possession of eternal Glory which he hath purchased So that it includeth many acts of Assent and a Love to our Saviour and desire of him and it implyeth self-denial and renouncing our own righteousness and all other Saviours and a sense of our sin and misery at least Antecedents or concomitants and sincere Affiance and Obedience in gratitude to our Redeemer as necessary consequents And this faith is set by Paul in opposition to the bare doing of the works of Moses Law and consequently of any other works with the same intention as separated from Christ who was the end and life of it or at least co-ordinate with him and so as the immediate matter of a legal Righteousness and consequently as mercenary and valuable in themselves or meritorious of the Reward This is Pauls faith But the faith disputed for by my Opponents is the Act of recumbency or Affiance on Christ at Justifier or Priest which they call the Apprehension of Christs righteousness and this as opposed to the Acceptance of Christ as our Teacher and King our Husband Head c. further then these contain his Priesthood and opposed to Repentance to the love of our Saviour to denying our own righteousness confessing our sins and confessing Christ to be our only Saviour Thankfulness for free grace c. all which are called works by these men and excluded from being so much as Conditions attending faith in our Justification or Remission of sin The case may be opened by this similitude A Physitian cometh to a populous City in an Epidemical Plague There is none can scape without his help he is a stranger to them and they have received false informations and apprehensions of him that he is but a mountebank and deceiver though indeed he came of purpose in love and compassion to save their lives having a most costly receipt which will certainly cure them He offereth himself to be their Physitian and freely to give them his Antidote and to cure and save them if they will but consent that is if they will take him for their Physitian and thankfully take his medicine His enemies disswade the people from believing in him and tell them that he is a Deceiver and that if they will but stir themselves and work and use such dyet and medicines as they tell them of
in other places between faith and any thing of ours that he admits of no medium 2. He instances in Abrahams works and excludes them now were Abrahams works works done by the meer strength of the Law Did not Abrahams Obedience and other works flow from Grace Were Abrahams works in opposition to Christ Yet even these are excluded 3. He excludes all works under any notion by the opposition justifying covering all is wholly attributed unto God 4. The Assertion is universal The Apostle saith without works in general ver 6. And he works not ver 5. Lastly By the testimony he brings from the Psalmist that blessedness is where sin is not imputed whrere it is forgiven These reasons do evidence that he excludes works under all notions in the act of Justification though not from the person justified 3. You say how then saith James true But I ask if there be justifying works how saith Paul true But again James saith true for this faith which in respect of its act ad intra doth only justifie yet it works ad extra The old Assertion is fides quae viva not quo viva You speak of a seeming Antilogie among the orthodox in this reconciliation but though all go not eadem semiâ—â yet they do eadem viâ against works under any notion whatsoever in the act of Justification 4. You argue that faith as an Instrument is excluded Thus Bellarmine also apprehendere est opus therefore faith is excluded But non sequitur Faith is passive in its Instrumentality and although to believe be a Grammatical action its verbum activum yet its physicâ—n or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 passive A man by believing doth not operari but recipere As videre audire are Grammatical actions but Physical or natural passions now you cannot say thus of the exercises of other Graces this is the seeming strength of your Exceptions For Repentance is not excluded as qualifying but as recipient which is a fifth Exception As for your discourse whether Paul disputes what is our Righteousness or upon what terms it is made over to us it doth not much matter for indeed Paul speaks to both those only inclusively or collaterally as you say but that which he chiefly intends is to shew in what manner we are justified whether by believing or working and these he makes two immediate opposites not granting any tertium You speak of Faith taken relatively for Christs Righteousness but how can you find out such a figure for faith in your sence unless you will acknowledge Love or Obedience relatively for Christs Righteousness Indeed those that hold Faiâ—h instrumentally receiving the whole righteousness of Christ and no other Grace they often speak of faith taken relatively but so cannot you who hold that not only seeing this brazen Serpent but any other actions of sence will as well heal the wounded Christian You say you acknowledge the Assemblies definition of resting or receiving you cannot take in that sence as they declare it as the Scripture words which are Metaphorical do imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righseousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object now you make the Righteousness of Christ made over to us in any other exercise of Grace as well as this So that although you would willingly seem not to recede from others yet you plainly do and although you think your Assertions are but more distinct explications yet they are indeed destructive Assertions to what our Divines do deliver neither may you while you intend to dispute exactly build upon some homiletical or popular expression in any mans book You reply to a second part in my Letter whether a godly man dying may be affected according to your position and thereupon you instance in Hezekiah Paul and that no man can dye with comfort without the evidence of these works But is this the state of the question with us Do you think that I deny a godly life to be a comfortable testimony and a necessary qualification of a man for pardon You cannot think that you speak to the point in this But here is the question Can a godly man dying think the Righteousness of Christ is made his by working or believing Is it repent and Christs Righteousness is by this made yours and rest in Christ Certainly the dying Christian is in agonies directed to this resting on Christ to the eying of this brazen Serpent not to be found in any thing but the Righteousness by faith It s an act of Dependance not of Obedience that interests us in Christs Righteousness It s that puts on the robes of Christ that our nakedness may not appear And that is very harsh still which you express to expect the Righteousness of the Covenant of Grace upon the conditions fulfilled by your se lf through Gods workings I am unwilling to parallel this with some passages that might be quoted out of unsound Authors but that I am confident howsoever your Pen-writes you have a tutissimum est to rest only upon Christs Righteousness and that by bare resting and beleiving you look for a Righteousness As Philosophers say we see or hear intus recipiendo not extra mittendo otherwise Bellarmine argues consonantly enough that Love would justifie as well as faith but we say that Faith doth pati Love doth agere Not but that faith is an active grace only in this act it is meer recipient Sir I have not time nor paper to answer those many questions the most of which I conceive impertinent to this business and your Explication of your self how imperfections in our Graces are done away and yet the conditions of righteousness is to me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I cannot go any further What I have written with much love and respect to you I should account it a great mercy to be instrumental to bring you to the right way again If there be so much Joy for reducing a wandring sheep be not offended if I say there will be much more for an erring shepheard though I hope at last your error may prove in words rather then in sence with heartly brotherly love I have written this and so let it be received from your fellow-labourer who honours Gods gifts in you and is also sensible of his own infirmities and proneness to err Dear Sir IF you doubt of the truth of my bodily infirmity it is because you neither know my body nor mind The dispute at Bewdley as it was almost at home so I had the choice of the time and such strength vouchsafed from God which I cannot again expect much less promise my self I told you I have some lucida intervalla perhaps a few hours in a moneth but if upon such uncertainty I should draw you to a journey and then ten to one fail you I should be injurious But seeing you so far and freely condiscend
neither and yet say it is harsh But the reason you intimate because Bellarmine hath some such phrase which I never remembred or observed in him and little do I care whether he have or no If the Papists be nearer to us then I take them to be it is cause of joy and not sorrow But sure I am that Protestant Writers generally use the word Condition and Wendeline saith The Papists abuse us in feigning us to say the Gospel is absolute and saith the Gospel in each sence is conditional In one sence Faith is the Condition in another Faith and Obedience c. But here you come again to the Labyrinth and transcendent Mysterie of passive Faith nay you enlarge the Mysterie yet more 1. You say again Faith doth pati 2. And yet Love doth agere 3. Else you would yield that Bellarmine argues consonantly enough that Love would justifie as well as Faith 4. Yet you acknowledge Faith an Active Grace but only in this Act its meerrecipient Answer I confess my reason utterly at a loss in this but yet if it were in my Bible to me Intelligible I would believe it as I do the Doctrine of the Trinity and cease enquiring But I cannot so do by any Creature to make him the Lord of my faith and Reason 1. Whether Faith doth Pati I have enquired already 2. That Love doth Agere I verily believe and yet I have ofter heard Love called a Passion then Faith And as Keckeram saith the Affections are more Passive then the immanent Elicit Acts of the Intellect and Will And though as it is in the Rational soul Love saith Aquin. is no Passion but a Willing which causeth me to judge it so near Kin to Faith yet as it is in the sensitive it is a Passion So that I am quite beyond doubt that physically love is more properly called a Passion then Faith 3. Therefore for ought I know it is no wonder if Bellarmine bear the Bell and Papists be unconvinced if you have no better Arguments then this especially if no body else had better 4. But yet the Mysterie is far more unsearchable to me that faith should be Active in all other save only this Act. What is this thing called Faith which you make such a Proteus to be Active and Passive as to several Objects Yea when it is acknowledged the same Faith which receiveth Christ and Righteousness and the several promises and resteth on Christ for the Pardon of each sin for hearing each Prayer for Assurance Peace Comfort Deliverance from temptations and dangers and sin and is thus usefull through all our lives for the fetching of help from Christ in every streight yet that this same Faith should be Active in all the Rest and Passive only in One justifying Act. Oh For the face of an Argument to prove this Sure its natural Reception of one Object and another is in point of Passiveness alike and its assigned Conditionality in Scripture is of like nature as to each branch of the good on that condition promised 5. And here also I perceive by your speech you make it consist in some single act And yet you never tell what that is and how then can it be in several faculties as Davenant Amesius Joh. Crocius Melancth with most do affirm 6. But yet the depth of the mysterie to me lies in understanding and reconciling your words Only in this Act its meerly Recipient Is this an Act too and yet meerly Recipient which you make a meer Pasâ—ive reception A meerly Passive Act is such a contradiction in adjecto to my understanding that I cannot welcome the notion thither yea if you had said less that it is an Act in any Part or Degree Passive I never knew that an Act could Pati yet am I more conscious of mine own insufficiency then to contend with one of your knowledge in matter of Philosophy but I must needs say that your notions are yet so far beyond my reach that possibly I might take the words as true upon the credit of one whom I so highly value yet am I not able to apprehend the sence The Joy in Heaven which you mention for a wandring sheep I think is meant of the first or some eminent recovery to Christ and not of every Philosophical notion sure Sir if salvation hang on this Doctrine as thus by you explained I am out of hope that either I or ever a one in all this countrey should ever come to heaven except by believing as that part of the Church believes which is of your opinion When I am yet apt to think that siding with any party in such opinions will not conduce to any mans salvation For I am of Bergius his mind that as it is not the Jew the Pagan or the Mahometan or any Infidel privative that shall be saved but the Christian so it is not the Papist the Lutheran the Calvinist the Arminian that shall be saved qua talis but the Catholick However I am in strong hopes that a man may be saved though he cannot understand how an Act can be a passive instrument nor do I think that my subscribing to that notion would make any great rejoycing in Heaven I am sorry you had not leisure to answer the Questions which were very pertinent to the business of my satisfaction though not to your business That my explication of that plain weighty necessary point how imperfect graces or duties can yet be the conditions of the New Covenant should seem a Paradox to you I say to you makes me yet more possest with admiration When you know that such conditions there are suppose it were but faith alone and you know your self that this faith is imperfect But I perceive we know but in part and therefore must differ in part He shall see whom God will enlighten I had far rather you had fallen upon that point then on the term of Justification by works If you would but grant me that Justifying faith as such is an Accepting of Christ for King and Prophet as well as for a Justifier and consequently that it is a resigning our selves to be ruled by him as well as to be saved by him I shall then be content for peace sake to lay by the phrase of Justification by workâ— though it be Gods own phrase if the Church were offended with it and required this at my hands So they will be satisfied with my silencing it without a renouncing it I have written thus largely that I might not be obscure and to let you see that though I have scarce time to eate or sleeep yet I have time and paper for this work and that I make not light of your dissent The Love and Respect which you mention to me I do as little doubt of as I do whether I have a heart in my breast and your desires of my reducing I know do proceed from your zeal and sincere affections That which I take worst is that you should
not Evangelical but Legal or it is in us and not in us Had you only pleaded that we are not justified by it as a Righteousness I should have answered you as before on that point Not as a Legal Righteousness nor an Evangelical Righteousness co-ordinate with Christs but as a fulfilling of the Condition of that Promise which gives us Christ and Pardon and Life by which performance of the Condition the Benefit becomes ours by the Will and Grant of the free Donor and we are no longer impenitent Infidels but just and justifiable from the false charge of being such and so of not having part in Christ It s one thing to be accused of sin as sin And another thing to be accused of the special sin of not accepting the Remedy and so of having no part in Christ and his Righteousness From the later we must have a real Faith and Title to Christ which must materially justifie us but from the former even from all sin that ever we are guilty of Christs Righteousness only justifieth us materially and meritoriously and our faith is but a bare condition A Confutation of the Error of Mr. Warners 13th Chapter about Justification and the interest of Obedience therein HE begins with a false Intimation that we revive the Papists first and second Justification and he that will believe him may take his course for me I crave only liberty for my self to believe that it is not all one to have Justification begun and continued and that Justification by the sentence of the Judge is not of the same kind with Justification Legal by the Donation of the Gospel If I may not have this Reverend Brothers leave to believe these matters I will believe them without his leave And that the Papists have such friends among us as those that make the world believe that such things as these are Popery I will also lament though such Disputers give not their consent His Endeavours to overthrow that Doctrine of mine which he nameth of second Justification begin pag. 223. where he argueth 1. from Rom. 5. 1 2 3. That the beginning and end is ascribed to faith Answer It s all granted faith is it that we are justified by to the last We are agreed of this inclusively But the Question is what 's the Exclusion Not believing in Christ as Lord and Master nor loving him but the works that make or are supposed to make that Reward to be of debt and not of Grace His second proof is from Phil. 3.7 8. To which I answer We are of Pauls mind but not of yours 1. He counted all as loss and dung that stood in opposition to or competition with Christ and so would I do by faith and love it self should they be so arrogant 2. Paul expresly nameth the works that he excludeth that is the Righteousness which is of the Law or in Legal works And do we make any doubt of this No nor of those works that materially are Evangelical for if they are formally Evangelical they cannot be set up against Christ their very nature being to subserve him Once for all remember this Argument Those works that are commanded by God in the Gospel are not excluded by God in the Gospel in that nature and to the use for which they are commanded But faith in Christ Jesus the Lord and Saviour an entire faith and Repentance towards God and love to him are commanded by God in the Gospel in order to the pardon of sin and the continuance of these with sincere Obedience are commanded as means of our continued pardon and as a means of our final Justification at Judgement Therefore none of these are excluded by the Gospel from any of these uses or ends He citeth also Act. 15. and Heb. 2.9 and Rom. 1.17 to as much purpose as the rest Pag. 228. He begins his Arguments The first is Because in vain are additions of numbers without which any thing may be done But without addition of works the act of justifying is perfect Ergo. Answer 1. As if the Question were of the Act of justifying and not of Justification passively taken Gods act hath no imperfection when yet it maketh not a perfect work 2. It s but spleen and partiality to harp upon the term works still to seduce your Readers to believe that I am for such works as Paul denyeth I use not the phrase of Justification by works nor think it fit to be used unless rarely or to explain such texts of Scripture as do use it or terms equipollent 3. Justification is neither perfect nor real without a faith in Christ as Head and Husband and Lord and Teacher and Intercessor as well as a Sacrifice for sin Nor is it perfect or true without repenting and loving Christ 4. Justification is so far perfect at first as that no sin past or existent is unpardoned But it is not so perfect but that 1. Many future sins must have renewed pardon 2. And means is to be used by us believing again at least for that end 3. And the continuance of pardon is given us but conditionally though we shall certainly perform the condition 4. And the most perfect sort of Justification by sentence at Judgement is still behind Are these things doubtfull among Divines or Christians That the Church must be thus molested by such disputing volumes against it to make the Papists and other enemies believe we hold I know not what Read the many Arguments of learned Sandford and Parker de Descensu and Bp. Vsher de Descensu to the Jesuite by which they prove that all separated souls as separated are under penalty and that Christs soul as seperated was so and then tell us whether your fancy of absolutely perfect Justification at the first will hold or not I wonder that men should so little know the difference betwixt Earth and Heaven a sinner in flesh and a Saint that is equal to the Angels of God and should dream of such perfection short of heaven the place of our perfection His second Argument is Faith and works are here contrary If of Faith then not of works Answer It s true of the works that Paul excludes but not of the works that you exclude For Faith in Christ is Works with such as you save only that act that resteth on his satisfaction for righteousness And repentance and love to Christ and denying our own righteousness are works with you And all these are necessarily subservient to Christ and Grace and therefore not contrary Augustine and after him the School-men put it into their most common definition of Grace that its a thing qua nemo male utitur And as to efficiency it s certainly true Grace doth not do any harm And if I may presume to tell Augustine that objectively Grace may be ill used yet perhaps he might reply not qua talis without contradiction In good sadness Is it not a strange thing for a man in his wits to expect to be
also of the objec as an offered good besides the understandings Assent to the Truth of the word which offereth it The former is by the Apostle oft distinguished from Love and is said to work by Love as the lively acts of the understanding produce answerable motions in the will But the later is that faith which justifieth to wit The Receiving of an offered Christ And this comprizeth both the Act of the Understanding and Will as almost all Protestant Divines affirm But both these acts together are called Faith from the former which is most strictly so called because the great difficulty then lay in Believing the Truth of the Gospel and would do still if it were not for the advantages of Credit Education Custom c. therefore the whole work is thence denominated though yet the compleating of the work be in the Will and the Understandings Act but preparatory thereto 2. You must also distinguish between Love to Christ the Mediator and the Grace of Charity in general as it is extended al so to God as Creator to Saints to all men c. And between that first act of Love which is in our first receiving of Christ and the love which we afterwards exercise on him and so I answer you 1. That as the Apostle distinguisheth between Faith Hope and Love So do I. 2. Faith taken strictly for assent to Divine Testimony produceth love in every one of the forementioned senses of the word Love 3. Justifying faith comprizing the wills acceptance produceth both the grace of Charity as it is exercised on other objects and also the following acts of it towards Christ the Mediator And so I acknowledge that Faith worketh by Love and that Love is not faith But yet whether Love be not in some sense essential to justifying faith if you speak only of Love to Christ and that not as a distinct grace but as it is comprized in our Acceptance of him at first I shall leave to your consideration when you have first resolved these things 1. Whether justifying faith be not an act of the Will as well as the Understanding Few but Papists deny it and not all of them 2. Whether Christ himself be not the object of it Few Protestants will deny it 3. Whether Good be not the object of the Will and so Christ be not willed as Good None doubts of it 4. Whether this willing be not the same as Loving as love is found in the rational appetite Sure Aquinas saith so no man that I know contradicting it 5. Whether you can call Affiance or any other act of the will justifying faith excluding this willing or not principally including it For 1. This is the Wills first act towards it object and will you say that Love goes before justifying faith and so before Justification and such a Love as is distinct from justifying faith as being no part of it How then is Love the fruit of faith and as Divines say a consequent of Justification Yet it is beyond all doubt that this Velle or Love to Christ goes before Affiance on him or any other act of the Will vide Aquin. 1.2 Q. 23. a. 33. Et. 1. Q. 20. a. 1 Et Tolet de anima l. 3. cap. 9. Q. â—7 28 Et Ames contra Gravinchou pag. 16. 2. And can it be imagined that preceding assent and subsequent Affiance in Christ should be conditions of our Justification and yet the Velle Christum oblatum that Willing which we call Consent Election or Acceptance which goeth between assent and Affiance should be excluded as no part of this condition 3. Especially considering that Affiance contains divers acts whereof one is of the Irascible of the sensitive and so is but an imperate act of the Will and less noble then that elicite Act which I plead for as well as Posterior to it and if Aquin. be not out in his Philosophy when he so oft saith that fiducia is spes roborata then our Divines make Hope to justifie Yet for all this I have not espoused this saying that Love to Christ is Essential to justifying faith nor will contend with any man that thinks it unmeet if we agree in the things of moment I hate to quarrel about words Nor do I think it a meet phrase to say we are justified by Love though in the sense before mentioned I think it true because it is but a part or affection as it were of that reception by which we are justified and stands not in so full a relation to the object received And yet if I had said none of all this I see not that I need any more then to deny your consequence as being wholly ungrounded For it followeth not that if it be an essential part that therefore it must have the Denomination of the whole yea though the whole be said to work by that part The Brain and Heart are essential parts of the Body and yet not to be called the Body and it is more proper to say that the body works by the Brain or Heart or that the vegetative soul doth work by the natural heat and Spirits then to say the Body worketh by the Body or the vegetative soul by it self I will explain all together in my usual Similitude which is Dr. Prestons or rather Pauls A condemned Beggar is offered a Pardon and also to be made a Queen if she will but take the Prince for her Husband Now here put your Questions 1. Is Love any part of the Condition of her Pardon and Dignity Answer Yes An essential part for Consent is of the Essence of it and Love is essential to true consent to receive any offered good Not love as it is a Passion but as it is an act of the rational Appetite which is but Velle And Eligere Consentire Acceptare are nothing else but a respective Willing 2. But it is not Love as a Vertue in general or as exercised on any other object which is this essential part of the Condition but only love to him whom she marrieth And so her first love is necessary to her Pardon and Dignity as begun and her continued love and marriage-faithfulness is necessary to them as they are to be continued supposing the Prince to know the heart as Christ doth Qu. 2. Is it then a meet phrase to say that she is pardoned and dignified by loving such a Prince Answ It hath some Truth in it but it is not a fit speech but rather that it is by marrying him because Love is but a part or as it were an Affection of that Marriage Covenant or consent which indeed doth dignifie her Love may be without marriage but not Marriage cordially without Love So in our present case justifying faith is the very Marriage Consent or Covenant with Christ It is therfore fitter to say we are justified by it then by love because the former expresseth the full condition the latter not Qu. 3. If love be an essential part of the
flyeth too boldly in the face of Christ and many a plain Text of Scripture Christ saith John 15.10 If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept c. 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Mat. 7.21 Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven 23 24. Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them c. Mat. 5. throughout verse 20. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven 1 John 3.10 In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his brother An hundred such passages might be cited And will you meet all these with your objections and say How shall I know when I have the full number c. Know that you have sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience and you may know you perform that Condition of the Gospel else not Treat pag. 236. That if good works be a Condition of Justification then none are justified till their death because in every good work is required perseverance in so much that perseverance is that to which the promise is made Mat. 24.6 Heb. 10.38 Rev. 2.7 20. So that it is not good works simply but persevered in that is required and therefore no Justification to the end of our daies so that we cannot have any peace with God till then Neither doth it avail to say Justification is not compleat till then for it cannot be at all till then because the Condition that gives life to all is not till then Answ 1. And is not perseverance in faith as necessary as perseverance in obedience Read Col. 1.23 John 15.2 3 c. and many the like and judge Will you thence infer that none are justified till death 2. But a little step out of the darkness of your Confusion will bring the fallacy of your Argument to the light and there will need no more to it The Gospel conveyeth to us several benefits some without any Condition and several benefits on several Conditions 1. Our first Actual pardon and Justification and right to life is given on Condition of our first Faith and Repentance and not on Condition of External works of Obedience nor yet of the persevering in faith it self much less in that Obedience 2. Our state of Justification is continued on condition of the continuance of Faith and Repentance with sincere Obedience 3. Our particular following sins have a particular pardon on Condition of the Continuance of the habits and renewing of the acts of that faith and repentance for known observed sins 4. Our full Justification by Sentence at Judgement is on the same condition as Glorification viz. On perseverance in Faith Repentance Hope Love and sincere Obedience Prove now if you can that perseverance is the Condition of our first pardon Prove if you can that final perseverance is the Condition of our continuance in a justified state till now You say Justification and peace cannot be ours till the condition be performed But what condition of that gift or of another gift If of that it s granted but it s still denyed that perseverance is any of the Condition of our first pardon If of another gift it s no reason of your Consequence If you speak of final Justification and Salvation I grant you all thus far that you have no full Right of possessing them but on perseverance nor no Right at all or certainty of Salvation but on supposition of perseverance as necessary to the possession And therefore if you can prove that we have no certainty of perseverance I will yield that we have no certainty of salvation Treat Thus we have asserted this truth by many Arguments and though any one singly by it self may not convince yet altogether may satisfie Now to the great Objections Answ I heartily wish that wiser Readers may find more truth and satisfaction in them then I can do if it be there to be found and to that end that they make their best of them all Treat James saith Abraham was justified by works so that in outward appearances these two great Apostles speak contradictions which hath made some deny the Canonical authority of James 's Epistle Yea one said blasphemously Althameirius Mentiris Jacobe in caput tuum But this is to cut not untie the knot 1. The scope of the Apostle Paul is to treat upon our Justification before God and what is the Instrument and means of obtaining it But the Apostle James takes Justification for the Declaration and Manifestation of it before men Answ This is not the only sense of James as I have proved before to which I refer you no nor any part of the sense of the word Justification with him though he mention shewing faith by works to men as an argument for his main conclusion yet he nowhere expoundeth the word Justification by it James expresly speaks of Imputation of Righteousness by God and of that Justification which is meant in the words of Gen. concerning Abraham even the same words that Paul expoundeth and of that Justification which inferreth salvation Treat Paul informeth us that faith only justifieth and James what kind of faith it is even a lively working faith Answ I have answered this in the beginning of this Disputation Treat It s said They dare not go against the plain words of the Apostle But it s not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the words but the sense Answ Our Question is How the sense of James shall be known Will you say not by the words but by the sense The words are to express the sense and we must take heed of forcing them as much as we can As to your saying of the Anthropomorphites and Hoc est corpus meum I answer the Tropical sense is oft the plainest and in particular in these instances If any man point to several pictures and say This is Caesar and this is Pompey c. I shall by use of speech the interpreter of words take the tropical sense to be the plainest and not the literal viz. That this is Caesars Image and not that it is his person And so here 2. Give me any cogent Evidence that I must leave the plain sense and I am satisfied 3. Remember I pray you that it s not the words but the sense that you except against Do not you except hereafter against the saying that we are Justified by works and not by faith only as James doth but against the ill sense that you can prove to be put upon the words Treat pag. 238. Lastly They are forced to add to the Apostle for they say works justifie as the Condition of the Gospel which the Apostle doth not speak a
Instrument 4. And Repentance under the notion of a preparative or condition 5. But if you mean only that he excludes the co-operation or efficiency of works I yield as before 6. Paul expresly excludes only the works of the Law that is such as are considered in opposition to Christ or co-ordination as required by the Law of Works and not such as Christ himself enjoyneth in subordination to himself so they keep that place of subordination 7. Pauls Question is What is the Righteousness which must denominate a sinner just at the Bar of the Law And this he saith is no Works under any notion no not Faith but only Christs Righteousness and so faith must be taken relatively for certainly it is Christ and not Faith that is that Righteousness Is not this all that our Divines say or require and so say I over and over But Paul doth not resolve there what is the Condition on which Christ makes over this Righteousness of his so directly but collaterally 8. Or if you say he do yet if Paul speak of our first possession of Justification I say it is without not only the operation but the presence of works which is more then you say 9. Or whether he speak of begun or continued Justification I say we are justified without works in Pauls sense yea that they are not so much as a condition of the continuance of Justification For works in Pauls sense relate to the reward as of debt and not of Grace As a man that works to yearn wages as Paul plainly saith Rom. 4.4 To him that worketh the Reward is not of Grace but of Debt These works I disclaim as sinfull in their ends But obeying the Gospel or being willing that Christ who hath redeemed us should rule over us and running that we obtain and fighting the good fight of faith and suffering with Christ that we may be glorified with him and improving our Talent and enduring to the end and so doing good works and laying up a good foundation against the time to come I think Paul excludes not any of these from being bare conditions or causae sine quibus non of our Justification at Judgement or the continuance of it here Abrahams faith excluded works in Pauls sense as before but not works in this sense or in James his sense When you say my sense for reconciling Paul and James cannot be admitted 1. I would you had told me what way to do it better and answered what I have said in that 2. Your reason appears to me of no seeming force For first you say the one saith a Justification by faith without works you make Faith as well as works c. Answer 1. Paul saith not barely without works but without the works of the Law And I have shewed you what he means by works Rom. 4.4 2. I say no more then James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only I believe both these Scriptures are true and need no reconciling as having no contradiction in the terms And yet I speak not so broad usually as James doth Where you say that the Orthodox do sweetly reconcile them I know not who you mean by the Orthodox For I doubt not but you know the variety of interpretations to reconcile them Piscator and Pemble have one Interpretation and way of Reconciliation Calvin Paraeus and most Divines another Camero confuteth the best esteemed and hath another Brochmond with most of the Lutherans have another Jac. Laurentius Althemor and many more tell us of divers which of these you mean by the Orthodox I know not But if you exclude all those from the Orthodox that say as I say in this you will exclude as Learned Divines and well reputed of as most Europe hath bred viz. excellent Conrad Bergius Ludov. Crecius Johan Crocius Johan Bergius c. Who though they all dispute for Justification by faith without works understanding it of the first Justification for most Divines have taken Justification to be rigidly simul semel till Dr. Downam evinced that it is a continued Act yet they both take works for meriting works that respect the reward as of Debt and they say that otherwise Obedience is a Condition or cause as they make it of continuing or not losing Justification once attained And is not that to say as much as I And many more I can name you that say as much And you approve of Mr. Bals book which saith that works or a purpose to walk with God do justifie as a passive qualification of the Subject capable of Justification You add that we may dispute c. but you know not how a godly man at his death can look on his Graces as Conditions of the Covenant fulfilled by him c. Which speech seems strange to me I confess if I be so I am ungodly For I have been as oft and as long in the expectation of death as most men and still am and yet I am so far from being afraid of this that I should live and dye in horror and desperation if I could not look upon the conditions of the Covenant of Grace fulfilled by my self through goes workings If by our Graces you mean Habits I think it more improper to call them the fulfilling the conditions of the Covenant For what you say of the Papists you know how fundamentally almost they differ from me in this confounding the Covenants Righteousness c. If it were not to one that knows it better then my self I would shew wherein For your question How come the imperfections in our conditions to be pardoned You know I have fully answered it both in the Aphorisms and Appendix And I would rather you had given me one discovery of the insufficiency of that answer then asked the Question again Briefly thus Guilt is an obligation to punishment as it is here to be understood Pardon is a freeing from that Obligation or Guilt and Punishment All Punishment is due by some Law According to the Law or Covenant of Works the imperfection of our Faith Love Obedience c. deserve punishment and Christ hath satisfied that Law and procured forgiveness of these imperfections and so acquit us from Guilt and punishment The new Law or Covenant of Grace doth not threaten death to any but final Unbelievers and so not to the imperfection of our Faith Love Obedience where they are sincere And where the Law threatneth not Punishment there is no obligation to Punishment or Guilt on the party from that Law and so no work for Pardon Imperfect believers perform the conditions of the new Covenant truly and it condemneth none for imperfection of degree where there is sincerity No man is ever pardoned whom the new Law condemneth that is final Unbelievers or Rejecters of Christ So that Christ removeth or forgiveth that obligation to punishment which by the Law of Works doth fall on us for our imperfections And for the Law of Grace where it obligeth not
and not the hundreth line or word to press them to Trust that he will pardon and save them All the powerfull Perachers that ever I heard however they dispute yet when they are preaching to the generality of people they zealously cry down laziness lukewarmness negligence unholyness prophaness c. As that which would be the liklyest cause of the damnation of the people But if only the foresaid saith be the condition and all other Graces or Duties be but meer signal effects of this and signal qualifications of the subject and not so much a conditions what need all this Were it not then better to perswade all people even when they are whoring or drunk to trust on Christ to pardon and justifie them And then when they have the tree and cause the fruits and signal effects will follow Quest 24. Yea Why do the best Divines preach so much against Presumption And what is Presumption if it be not this very faith which Divines call justifying viz. the Trusting to Christ for Pardon and Salvation only without taking him for their King and Prophet If it be said that this last must be present though not justifie How can the bare presence of an idle Accident so make or marr the efficacy of the cause Quest 25. If to be unwilling that Christ should raign over us be part of the directly condemning sin Luke 19.27 why is not the willingness he should raign part of saving justifying faith Quest 26. Seeing resting in Christ is no Physical apprehension of him who is bodily in Heaven nor of his Righteousness which is not a being capable of such an apprehension How can that Resting justifie more then any other Act but only as it is the condition to which the Promise is made Resting on a friend for a Benefit makes it not yours but his gift does that As Perkins cited by me To believe the Kingdom of France shall be mine makes it not mine But to believe Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven c. vid. loc where he saith as much as I vol. 1. p. 662. If God had not said He that believeth shall be justified and saved would Believing have done it And if he had said He that repenteth or loveth or calleth on the name of the Lord shall be justified or saved would not these have done it if so then doth not faith justifie directly as the condition of the Gift Promise or new Covenant And its apprehension is but its aptitude to be set apart for this Office And if it justifie as a condition of the Promise must not others do it so far as they are parts of the Condition Sir If you should deny me the favour I hope for in resolving these doubts yet let me hear whether I may expect it or not And in the interim I shall search in jealousie and pray for direction But till your Arguments shall change my judgement I remain confident that I can maintain most of the Antinomian Dotages against any man that denyeth the principles of my Book and that which is accounted novelty in it is but a more explicate distinct necessary delivery of common Truths Yours RICHARD BAXTER April 5 1650 Sir I Am sorry that you are not in capacity for the motion I profered I thought discourse would not so much infeeble you especially when it would have been in so loving a way And I judged it the more seasable because I had been informed of a late solemn conference you had about Paedobaptism which could not but much spend you I shall press no more for it although this very letter doth abundantly confirm me that letters are but a loss of time for one word might have prevented many large digressions Is not that endeavour of yours in your seventh question to prove out of my book that Repentance is a necessary condition or qualification in the Subject to be pardoned c. a meer impertinency You earnestly desire satisfaction of your conscience therefore I cannot think you do wilfully mistake For is that the state of the question with us Is it not this whether the Gospel Righteousness be made ours otherwise then by believing You say by believing and Obedience I say only believing I say faith is only the condition justifying or instrument receiving you make a justifying Repentance a justifying Patience you make other acts of grace justifying as well so that whereas heretofore we only had justifying faith now there are as many other qualities and all justifying as there are Graces So that I do firmly hold and it needs a recantation that repentance and other exercises of Grace are antecedent qualifications and are media ordinata in the use whereof only pardon can be had But what is this to you Who expresly maintain the righteousness of the Covenant of Grace to be made ours upon our godly working as well as believing If therefore you had spent your self to shew that faith had no peculiar Instrumentality in our Justification but what other Graces have then you had hit the mark What is more obvious then that there are many conditions in justificato which are not in actu justificationis The fastening of the head to the body is a necessary condition in homine vidente but it is not in actu videntis You grant indeed some precedency to faith but you make Faith and Works aequè though not aequaliter the conditions of Justification I should say much more to the state of the question but I forbear In other things you seem to come off and though I do not say you recede from your Assertions yet you much mollifie them that I need not therein contend with you But here is the stick Let it be demonstrated that whereas the Scripture in the current of it attributes Justification to believing only as through faith and by Faith and through faith in his blood that you can as truly say it s received by love and it s through love of his blood shed for our sakes c. This is a little of that much which might be said to the state of the question This I judge new Doctrine justifying Repentance justifying Charity And in my Letter I laid down an Argument Rom. 4. Concerning Abrahams Justification the Pattern of all others To this you reckon up many Answers but I see not the Argument shaken by it First you say you exclude a co-operation effective but why do we strive about words You do not exclude works justifying as well as faith let the expressions be what they will Whereas Paul saith he would be found having the Righteousness which is by faith you will add and which is by love by zeal 2. You desire it to be proved that Paul excludes all works under any notion I think it s very easily done First because of the immediate opposition between Faith and Works now you will contradict Pauls Argument and give a tertium works that are of Grace But the Apostles opposition is so immediate here and
answer 1. Righteousness is but a relation And therefore a thing which is naturally uncapable of being of it self physically apprehended This is past doubt 2. If it be physically received then either as a principle and quality or as an object Not the former For so we receive our first and after grace in sanctification but none ever said so in justification Nor indeed can that righteousness which is formally but a relation dwel in us as a principle or quality If we receive it as an object then by an Act Or if the soul were granted to be passive in reception of an object I have shewed that 1. It is but in apprehensione simplici None pleadeth for more But faith is not such 2. And so it would receive Christ no otherways then it receiveth any object whatsoever it thus apprehendeth 3. And this is not to receive Christ or his righteousness but the meer species of it according to your own Philosophers and if righteousness be but a relation and a relation as Durandus Dr. Twiss and many another thin be but Ens Rationis then the species of an Ens Rationis is a very curious Web Knowledge as D'Orbellis saith in 2. sent Dis 3. q. 3. is twofold i. e. sensitive and intellective and each of these twofold Intuitive and Abstractive Intuitive knowledge is indeed de objecto ut in se praesens quando scilicet res in propria existentia est per se motiva Exemplum de sensitiva est ut visus videt colorem yet this is but Recepiendo speciem non rem and this is not it in question Exemplum de intellectiva est ut visio Divinae essentiae à beatis This is utterly denyed to be at all by Doctor Stoughton Camer and other solid Divines against the School-mens judgement And if it be yet doubtless as we know not how so it is not such as faiths apprehension which we enquire after Cognitio Abstractiva est quando species rei movet ad cognoscendum rem ipsam hoc siveres sit in se praesens sive absens sive existat sive non Exemplum in sensitiva est ut phantasia imaginatur colorem Exemplum in intellectiva est ut intellectus cognoscit quidditatem coloris medicante ejus specie So that if it be either of these it were at the utmost but a passive reaception of the species and not of Christ or his righteousness 2. By what physical contact faith doth receive this might be enquired and 3. By what physical act of the Agent to neither of which questions can I imagine what tolerable answer can be given in defence of this cause 2. And if faith be a passive physical instrument it must have a Physical Efficiency and what is that to justifie why even God himself in this life doth that but by a Moral Act by his word and not by a physical as to particulars 3. But that which driveth me to the greatest admiration is How faith should Efficere patiendo If I should rip up this or require a demonstration of it in respect to the justification at judgement yea or in this life yea or of any effect I should lay such an odium on it from its absurdities that in dealing with you modesty doth forbid me to insist on it 4. The fourth requisite will be enquired after in the next Question save one The fourth Question is Whether other Graces may not be as properly called physical passive Instruments as Faith is your sense And I doubt not but they may though its true of neither For 1. If there be no physical reception of Christs righteousness imaginable but that which is per modum objecti and if other gratious acts have Christs righteousness for their object as well as that which you call faith then other Acts do receive Christs righteousness as well as saith but both branches of the Antecedent are true therefore the consequence the bare knowledge or simple apprehension of Christs righteousness per modum objecti may better pretend to this then recombency or affiance Yea and love it self more fitly then affiance may be said to receive or embrace its object which is not therefore false neither because Bellarmine hath it and you know he brings Austines plain words affirming love to be the hand by which they received him c. I confess if I first renounce not the concurrent Judgement of Philosophers I cannot approve of the common Answer which our Divines give to Bellarmine in this viz. That Faith receiveth Christs Righteousness first to make it ours but Love only to retain it and embrace and enjoy it when first we know it to be ours For though this say as much as I need to plead for acknowledging Love to be as properly a physical Reception for retention as Faith is for first Possession yet if affiance be taken in any proper ordinary sence it cannot thus hold good neither for so Affiance must signifie some act of the will in order of nature after love or at least not before it I acknowledge that so much of Faith as lyeth in the understanding is before Love in order of nature sicut ipse intellectus est simpliciter prior voluntate ut motivum mobili activum passivo ut Aquin. 1. q. § 2. a. 3.2 and 12. q. 13. a. 1. C. For as he Intellectus est primum motivum omnium potentiarium animae quoad determinationem actus voluntas verò quoad exercitium actus Aquin 12. q. 17. a. 1. C. But for the acts of the will toward Christ I could give you but to avoid tediousness I must forbear at large the Testimony of Aquinas Tolet Gerson Camero Amesius Zanchius Rob. Baronius Bradwardine Ravio Viguerius c. That Love is not only the first of all the Passions but even the first motion of the Will towards its Object and little or not at all different from Volition diligere being but intensive velle I have much more to say to this which here I must pretermit But still I speak not of Love as a Passion but a true closure as it were of the will with its Object as Good and expect love to be proper to the sensitive and strange to the intellective soul we must make it the same with Velle For Amor gaâ—dium in quantum significant Actus appetitus sensitivi passiones sunt non autem secundum quod significant Actus appetitus intellectivi inquit Aquinas 1. q. 2. a. 1.1 The fifth Question is Whether Faith be any Instrument of our Justification Answer Scotus gives many sences of the word Instrument and so doth Aquinas Schibler and most Philosophers that meddle with it and they give some so large as contain all causes in the world under God the first cause In so large a sence if any will call faith an Instrument of Justification I will not contend with him though yet I will not say so my self as judging faith to be no kind of cause of it at
honour of faith Though that were not so dangerous as to derogate from Christ For I acknowledge faith the only condition of our first Remission and justification and the principal part of the condition of our justification as continued and consummate And if faith be an instrumental cause I do not give that honor from it to works for they are not so Nay I boldly again aver that I give no more to obedience to Christ then Divines ordinarily do that is to be the secondary part of the condition of continued and consummate justification Only I give not so much as others to faith because I dare not ascribe so much to man And yet men make such a noise with the terrible name of Justification by works the Lords own phrase as if I gave more then themselves to man when I give so much less And thus Sir I have according to your advice spent my self as you speak in aiming at that mark which you were pleased to set me And now I shall proceed to the rest of your exceptions My next answer to you was that If works under every notion are excluded as you say they are then repentance is excluded under the notion of a condition or preparative But repentance under that notion is not excluded Therefore not works under every notion To this you reply that Repentance is not excluded as qualifying but as recipient which what is it but a plain yielding my Minor and so the cause For this is as much as I say If repentance be a work or act of ours and not excluded under the notion of a qualification or as you elsewhere yield a Medium ordinatum and a condition then works are not under every notion excluded And that repentance is not recipient how easily do I yeild to you But do you indeed think that when Paul excludeth the works of the Law that he excludeth them only as Recipient and not as qualifying If so as this answer seems to import seeing you will not have me here distinguish between works of Law and of Gospel or New Covenant then you give abundance more to works of the Law then I do or dare For I aver that Paul excludeth them even as qualifications yea and the very presence of them and that the Jews never dreamt of their works being Recipient To my next you say Whether Paul dispute what is our righteousness or upon what terms it is made ours it doth not much matter But I think it of very great moment they being Questions so very much different both in their sense and importance And whereas you think Paul speaks chiefly of the manner I think he speaks of both but primarily of the quasi materia and of the manner or means thereto but secondarily in reference to that So that I think the chief Question which Paul doth debate was Whether we are Justified by our own works or merits or by Anothers viz. the satisfaction of a surety which yet because it is no way made ours but by believing therefore he so puts the Question whether by works of the Law or by faith and so that he makes them two immediate opposites not granting any tertium I easily yield But of that before To the next you say that I cannot find such a figure for faith Relatively in my sense Answ And I conceive that faith in my sense may be taken Relatively full as well as in yours Doubtless acceptance of an offered Redeemer and all his benefits doth relate as properly to what is accepted viz. by the assent of the understanding initially and by the election and consent of the will consummately as a Physical Passive reception or instrumentality can do And also as it is a condition I make little doubt but it relateth to the thing given on that condition and that the very name of a condition is relative So that in my sense faith relateth to Christ two ways Whereof the former is but its very nature and so its aptitude to its office The later is that proper respect in which it immediately or directly justifieth Yet do I not mean as you seem to do as I gather by your phrase of putting Love and Obedience for Christs Righteousness For I conceive it may be put relatively and yet not strictly loco correlati for the thing related to when I say my hands or teeth feed me I do not put them instead of my Meat and yet I use the words relatively meaning my Meat principally and my teeth secondarily Neither do I mean that it relateth to Christs righteousness only or principally but first to himself And I doubt not but Love to Christ and Obedience to him as Redeemer do relate to him but not so fully clearly and directly express him as related to as Faith Faith being also so comprehensive a grace as to include some others It is a true saying that a poor woman that is marryrd to a Prince is made honourable by love and continued so by duty to her husband But it is more obscure and improper then to say she is made honourable by Marriage or taking such a man to her husband which includes love and implyeth duty and faithfulness as necessarily subsequent I conceive with Judicious Doctor Preston that faith is truly and properly such a consent contract or marriage with Christ Next to your similitude you say that I hold that not only seeing this brazen Serpent but any other Actions of sense will as well heal the wounded Christian To which I answer Similitudes run not on all four Thus far I believe that this holds 1. Christ was lift up on the Cross as the brazen Serpent was lift up 2. He was lift up for a cure to sin-stung souls as the brazen Serpent for the stung bodies 3. That as every one that looked on the Serpent was cured an easie condition so every one that believeth Christ to be the appointed Redeemer and heartily Accepteth him on the terms he is offered and so trusteth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life 4. That as the cure of their bodies came not from any natural reason drawn from the eye or from any natural excellency or efficacy of seeing above hearing or feeling but meerly from the free will and pleasure of God who ordained that looking should be the condition of their cure So all those Acts usually comprized or implyed in the word believing which justifie do it not from any natural excellency efficacy or instrumentality but meerly from the good pleasure of the Law-giver And therefore the natural Receptivity of Faith that is its very formal essence must not be given as the proper direct cause of its Justifying But that is its conditionality from the free appointment of God But on the other side 1. It was only one Act of one sense which was the condition of their cure but you will not say I believe that it is only one act of one faculty which justifieth however I will not 2. It
justified in co-ordination with Christs merits by denying that he hath any merits of his own that can so justifie him and by repenting of those sins that have condemned him and by desiring loving hoping in Christ alone for his Justification or by Thankfulness to God for justifying him by the sole merits of Christ And is it not a strange Exposition that feigneth Paul to mean and exclude such acts as these under the name of works But yet really if such a man be to be found that doth think to merit Justification by denying such merit I am against him as well as you His third Argument is If faith justifie only as the beginning of our Justification then there are degrees of Justification but there are no degrees Ergo. Answer 1. Faith is neither the Beginning nor End of Justification but a means of it 2. If you would insinuate that I deny faith to be the means of our continued as well as begun Justification you deal deceitfully 3. I deny your Consequence It may prove more necessary to the Continuance of our Justification then to its beginning and yet prove no degrees 4. But how Justification hath or hath not Degrees I have told you before and fuller in other writings His fourth Argument is Because good works do not precede but follow Justification Answer 1. Repentance and the Love of God in Christ and faith in Christ as Lord and Head and Teacher do go before the pardon of sin and so before Justification 2. External obedience goeth before Justification at Judgement and Justification as continued here Did you doubt of these His fifth Argument is that These two Justifications overthrow each other If by one we have peace with God what need the other How can good works perfect our Justification being themselves imperfect Answer All this is answered in the second Disputation 1. It s no contradiction to be justified by God by Christ by Faith by Words by Works if God be to be believed that affirmeth all 2. As imperfect faith may be the condition of pardon so may imperfect Repentance and imperfect Obedience of our sentential Absolution Pag. 233. He answereth the Objection Blessedness is ascribed to other Graces thus Not as if Happiness were in them per se but only as they are signs Answer Promising is more then Ascrbing It s a great advantage for you to have the forming of your Objections 2. Happiness per se is as much in Love as in Faith and more 3. Other Graces are media means which is more then only works Pag. 241. He proves that works justifie not subordinate to Faith thus Argument 1. No good works were found till faith had done its Works Answer 1. Faith hath not done its work till death we are not justified only by the first act of faith but by after-acts to the Death 2. Faith in Christ as Head and Lord and Teacher and Desire and Repentance were found before Faith had justified us 3. Obedience is found before the sentential Justification or the continuation of our first received Righteousness His second Argument is Because good works are the effects of Faith and Justification and therefore cannot be the cause Answer 1. They are none of the cause at all It s not well to intimate that we hold them the cause as in despight of all our own denyals 2. They are not so much as Means or Antecedents of that part of Justification of which they are the effect The act of faith which you will exercise before your death is as true a condition or Instrument if you will needs call it so of your Justification as continued as your first act of faith was of your Justification as begun And yet that act of faith is but fruit of your first Justification as well as Obedience is His third Argument is that If Gospel Obedience and good works do subordinately act with faith to the effecting of Justification then the Justification which proceedeth from both must be of a different kind and nature Answer 1. Neither faith nor work effect Justification 2. Justification by Promise and Gift and Justification by Sentence Plea c. are much different 3. But your consequence is nothing worth For these are not causes but conditions And if they were yet different causes may concur to the same effect which never man before you denyed that I know of Our case is as if to a Rebell that hath forfeited Life and Estate the King upon a Ransom grant him both on condition that he thankfully accept them as the fruits of that gift and Ransom and to hold them on condition that he often do his Homage to the King and return not to Rebellion Doth the first acceptance here serve turn for continuance of what is first received without the following Homage and Fidelity or do the different parts of the condition make such a difference in the benefit as you here take the Monstrous Justification to be as you rashly call it Another Argument is If faith be a total cause or condition of producing the effect of Justification then there 's no want of obedience for its assistance Answer 1. Faith or obedience are no causes of pardon 2. I will not trouble the Reader to open the shame of that Philosophy which you make such ostentation of Only I would remember you that causes total in suo genere may have others under them And that it followeth not that the sun shineth not or the fire heateth not or that you understand not and wrote not these words though I suppose you will say that God is Causa totalis of all these act nor yet that God doth use his creatures because of an insufficiency in himself 3. Faith taken for our becoming Believers Disciples Christians is the total condition of our first Receiving Justification 2. Faith taken more narrowly for our accepting Christs Righteousness is not the total Condition of our first Receiving of Justification 3. Obedience is part of the condition of the continuance of it and of our sentential Justification And whereas you talk over and over of Total causes and particular causes I tell you again they are no causes He adds that then Obedience doth nihil agere or actum agere Answer It doth nihil efficere But besides nihil and factum there 's two things oft mentioned Justification at Judgement and the non-amission of it here 3. He insipidly gain disputes that If an effect doth totally proceed from any cause then it totally depends on it And what then Therefore it solely dependeth on it And if these things were true what are they to our question But saith he When good works the fruit of faith are interrupted yet our Justification abides by the single influence of faith only as a total cause of its being and conservation Answer 1. Alas What would such Disputants do with the Church if Gods mercy did not hinder them By your own Argument now neither God nor Christ nor the Gospel are any
causes of our Justification For you say Faith is a Total cause and there can be but one Total Cause unless you lose the honor of your Philosophy 2. Faith is no proper cause at all 3. Did you not see what must needs be answered you That Faith is interrupted as well as Obedience and yet no intercision of our Justification When we sleep we do not at least alway act faith no more then obedience if so much And the habit of both continueth together sleeping and waking And if you should give over love and sincerity of obedience you would cease to be justified His last Argument is Because for sins after Conversion we must have recourse only by faith to Christ as our Advocate Answer 1. That speaks only of renewed pardon for particular sins but not of our Justification at Judgement nor the non-omission here 2. We must have recourse to Christ with Repentance and esteem and self-denial and desire c. as well as that act of faith which you plead for as the total cause And when you would set Zanchy against Zanchy you do but mis-understand him He saith truly with Paul that neither in whole or part are our own works such as Paul speaks of our Righteousness that is to answer the Law as Paul mentioneth or any way to merit or satisfie or stand in co-ordination with Christ But Zanchy never thought that Repentance and Faith in Christ as Head and Lord and Desire and Gratitude c. might be no means or Conditions of any sort of Justification or of that which we assert them to be means of I would answer much more of this Disputation but I am perswaded the judicious Reader will think I have done him wrong in troubling him with this much See pag. 298 299. how he answereth the Objection that pardon is promised to Repentance c. I will not disparage the Readers understanding so much as to offer him a Confutation of that and much more of the Book Only his many Arguments on the Question of my first Disputation I must crave your Patience while I examine briefly and I will tire you with no more Mr. W. pag. 411 412. I will rally up my Arguments against the foresaid Definition of Faith to be an accepting of Christ as Lord and Saviour proving that Christ only as Saviour and Priest offering himself up to the death of the Cross for our sins is the proper Object of justifying Faith as justifying Argument 1. If the Faith of the Fathers under the old Testament was directed to Christ as dying Priest and Saviour then also the Faith of Believers now ought so to be directed But. Ergo. Answ 1. I grant the whole and never made question of it But what kin is the conclusion of this Argument to that which you had to prove unless Only had been added Did we ever deny that Faith must be directed to Christ as Priest 2. A Saviour is a term respecting our whole Salvation and so Christ saveth by Teaching Ruling and judicial justifying as well as dying 3. The Fathers faith did not respect Christ as dying or satisfying only which you should prove but cannot Mr. W. Argument 2. If Christ as dying and as Saviour do satisfie Gods Justice and pacifie a sinners conscience then as dying and Saviour he is the Object of justifying Faith But Ergo. Answ The same answer serveth to this as to the last The conclusion is granted but nothing to the Question unless Only had been in 2. Christ as obeying actively and Christ as Rising and as interceding and as judging as King doth also justifie us Rom. 5.19 Rom. 4 24 25. Rom. 8.33.34 Mat. 12.37 and 25.34 40. Peruse these Texts impartially and be ignorant of this if you can 3. And yet the Argument will not hold that no act of faith is the condition of Justification but those whose object is considered only as justifying The accepting of Christ to sanctifie us is a real part of the condition of Justification Mr. W. Argument 3. If Christ as Lord be properly the Object of fear then he is not properly the Object of Faith as justifying But Ergo. Answ 1. If Properly be spoken de proprio quarto modo then is Christ properly the Object of neither that is he is not the object of either of these Only 2. But if properly be opposed to a tropical analogical or any such improper speech then he is the Object as Lord both of fear and faith and obedience c. 3. The deceit that still misleads most men in this point is in the terms of reduplication faith as justifying which men that look not through the bark do swallow without sufficient chewing and so wrong themselves and others by meer words Once more therefore understand that when men distinguish between fides quae justificans and qua justificans and say Faith which justifieth accepteth Christ as Head and Lord but faith as justifying taketh him only as a Priest The very distinction in the later branch of it qua justificans Is 1. Either palpable false Doctrine 2. And a meer begging of the Question 3. Or else co-incident with the other branch and so contradictory to their assertion For 1. The common Intent and meaning is that Fides quae credit in Christum justificat And so they suppose that Faith is to be denominated formally justificans ab objecto qua objectum And if this be true then fides qua fides justificat For the object is essential to faith in specie And so in their sense fides quae justificans is but the implication of this false Doctrine that haec fides in Christum crucifixum qua talis justificat Which I never yet met with sober Divine that would own when he saw it opened For the nature and essence of faith is but its aptitude to the office of justifying and it is the Covenant or free Gift of God in modo promittendi that assigneth it its office The nature of faith is but the Dispositio materiae but it s nearest interest in the effect is as a condition of the Promise performed 2. But if by the quâ justificans any should intend no more then to define the nature materially of that faith which is the condition of Justification then the qua and the qua is all one and then they contradict their own Assertion that fides quâ justificans non recipit Christum ut Dominum 3. If the quâ should relate to the effect then it would only express a distinction between Justification and other Benefits and not between faith and faith For then quâ justistcans should be contradistinct only from qua sanctificans or the like And if so it is one and the same Faith and the same acts of faith that sanctifie and justifie As if a King put into a gracious act to a company of Rebels that they shall be pardoned honoured enriched and all upon condition of their thankfull acceptance of him and of this act
For it fell out that I first saw your Book without the Epistle and Preface 2. Because I thought it fittest to follow the Method that my Subject and the Readers â—â—dification did require 3. Yet did I once purpose to have answered all that was of moment in your Book against the Truth but upon trial I found your Reasons so inconsiderable that weariness interrupted me and put an end to my Reply and withal I grew confident that my labour would be to little purpose For I dare venture any Judicious Divine upon your Book without the help of a Reply And for the rest it is not replying that will serve turn but either prejudice will hold them to the side that they have taken or else they will think him in the right that hath the last word when they have read mine they will think that I am in the right and when they have again read yours they will think that you carry the cause and when they read my Reply again they will say you were mistaken but usually they will go with the party that is in greatest credit or hath most interest in them or advantage on them But yet I think you will find that none of your strength against me is neglected For I can truly say that when I think not meet to Answer all that a man hath said I never pass by that which I take to be his strength but purposely call out that and leave that which I think is so grosly weak as to need no answer So much of your ten Demands or Laws as I apprehended necessary I have here answered supposing what I had said of the same points in my first Disputation which I saw no Reason too often to Repeat I am none of those that blame you for too much of the Metaphysicks but rather mervail that you feared not lest your Metaphysical Reader will wrong you by mis-applying your cited Schegkius contrary to your better opinion of your self and take both your Schegkius and your Scaliger for Prophets that could speak as if they had read your Book and been acquainted with your arguings But it seems you are not the first of that way By your Arguments in your Preface I perceive you think it a matter of very great moment to your cause to prove that there are divers acts of Faith whereas I am so far from denying it that I am ready to demonstrate that even the faith by which we are Justified is liker to have twenty acts then one only but many certainly it hath Your first Argument is from the different objects because the Objects specifie the Acts. A sufficient Argument which no man can confute But 1. This is no proof that one act only is it that we are justified by 2. Where you add that Justifying Faith hath not respect to Christ as Lord formaliter you beg the Question and assert no light mistake But where you add in its act of Justifying you do but obtrude upon us your fundamental Error which leadeth you to the rest by naked affirmations Faith hath properly no justifying act Justificare est efficere Faith doth not effect our Justification we are justified by faith indeed but not as by an efficient cause unless you will take Justification for Sanctification For real qualitative Mutations it doth effect but the Jus or Title to any mercy in the world it cannot Effect but Accept when offered If you â—â—nâ— see so plain a Truth in its Evidence yet observe by the words of the Reverend Brother that is my Opponent in the second Disputation and by your Prefacers Dr. Kendals course that its a passive instrumentality that the Defenders of your cause at last are driven to and therefore talk not of its act of Justifying unless you will mean Gods act of Justifying which faith is the Condition of And whereas you make unbelief to be formally a slighting and neglecting Christ as a Saviour and effectively you must mean only effective non formaliter a denying subjection to him as Lord. You err so great but so rare an error that I suppose it needless to confute it All Christians as far as I can learn have been till now agreed that Believing in Christ as Prophet and King is a real part of faith and that unbelief or rejecting him as Prophet and King is a real part of unbelief Your second Argument is from the different subjects where you give us two such palpable Fictions that its a wonder you can make your self believe them much more that you should lay so great a stress on such absurdities The first is that the Act of Faith is in several faculties and you elswhere give us to understand that it is one Physical Act that you mean And do you think in good sadness that one single Physical act can be the act of both the faculties The second is that the fear love and obedience to Christ as King is but in the Will But 1. That Readers do you expect that will take an Assertion of fear-Fear-Love and Obedience in stead of an assertion concerning Faith Were you not comparing faith in Christ as King with faith in Christ as Priest only And why speak you not of faith in one part of your comparison as well as in the other Your conclusion now is nothing to the Question 2. Or if you mean that Faith in Christ as King is not in both faculties as well as Faith in Christ as Priest or sacrifice did you think that any man of ordinary understanding would ever believe you without any proof or that ever such a thing can be proved Your third Argument is Because they are in a different time exerted the one that is Faith as Justifying being precedaneous to the other and to other Graces Answ Wonderfull Is that man justified that believeth not in Christ as the King and Prophet of the Church Do you believe this your self why then an Infidel is justified by Faith The ' Belief in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest only is not the Christian faith it is not faith in Christ properly because it is not faith in Christ as Christ For Christ as Priest only is not Christ A Heart only is not Corpus humanum A Body only is not a Man where there are three essential parts one of them is not the Thing without the rest The name Jesus Christ signifieth the office as well as the person It is essential to that Office that he be Prophet and King And hereby you shew that you do not only distinguish but divide For where there is a distance of time between the Acts there is a division Do you think that we are Christs enemies or followers of them unless we will believe you that a man is Justified by Believing in Christ only as a Priest or Ransom or in his Righteousness before ever be believe in him as King and Lord and so as Teacher c. If I had said that you are Christs enemy for such Doctrine
hear that their Discretion forbad them the other For all men are not so easily whistled into a Christs-Church contention against the Truth and Church of Christ as ' Dr. K. and one or two Confidents that living in a cold and sâ—eril Country are less substantive and more adjective then Innocents and Independents use to be None 's here so fruitfull as the Leaning Vine And what though some be drunken with the Wine They 'l fight the better if they can but hit And lay about them without fear or But stay See What Example is As the name of Dâ— K. and the remembrance of his differtatiuncula an Appendant to fax pro Tribunali that could salva fide fidem solvere began to tice me into a jocound vein so your concluding Poetry had almost tempted me in an Apish imitation to Poetize when weariness made me think of a conclusion But I had rather conclude with this serious motion to you that my end may meet your beginning that before you next write on this Subject you will better consider of the question that your qua justificans concerneth And instead of telling us that fides qua justificans respicit Christum Salvatorem that is fides qua justificans est fides as if it were justifying in order of Nature before it is Faith you will be pleased to tell us sub qua ratione fides justificat vel fide justificamut Whether you will say that fides qua justificans justificat or fides qua fides justificat which I think you disown or fides qua respicit apprehendit recipit Christum which is all one as fides qua fides or fides qua Instrumentum apprehendens which Metaphorical expression still signifieth no more then qua credit in Christum or qua fides Or whether you will stand to what you have affirmed chap. 9. pag. 67. that its Gods assignation of it to the office who therefore doth it because he wills it and to what you said pag 304. The meerest formal reason of a Believers Interest to pardon is a Believers fulfilling the condition And if you will stand to this that you have said and understand that the Doctrine of us whom you assault is the same more carefully expressed be intreated then to let your next bolt be shot at the right mark which is all that 's now requested of you by Your Christian Brother whether you will or no RICHARD BAXTER Decemb. 25. 1657. Richard Baxters DISCVSSION OF Mr John Tombes his Friendly Acceptable ANIMADVERSIONS ON HIS Aphorisms and other Writings About the Nature of Justification and of justifying Faith LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard 1658. Sir UPON reading of the Postscript in your late Book I have sent you these Animadversions You say Aphor. of Justification â—ag 184. All those Scriptures which speak of Justification as done in this life I understand of Justification in Title of Law So Rom. 5.1 and 4 2. and 5.9 Jam. 2.21 25 c. I conceive Justification being Gods Act Rom. 3.30 Rom. 8.33 consequent upon Faith and calling and importing a sentence opposite to Condemnation Rom. 8.30 33 34. and 5.1 terminated on particular persons Rom. 4.2 3 Rom. 8.30 it must be more then the Vertual Justification in Law-Title which is only an act of God prescribing or promisig a way of Justification not the sentence it self and is general and indeterminate to particular persons and is performed before the person justified believes Yea is the same though none were actually justified and therefore in my apprehension that Act of Gods Covenanting or promising in which I conceive you place the Justification by Law-Title Thes 38. Is not the Justification by faith meant Rom. 5.1 c. Besides to be justified notes a Passion which presupposeth an Action an Act Transient not Immanent or only Gods purpose to justifie nor can it be Gods Promise to justifie For the Act though it be Transient yet it is only a Declaration what he will do his promise to justifie upon condition is not Justifying and therefore a man is not by the Covenant without a further Act Denominated Justified though he be made justifyable by it I conceive Justification is a Court term Importing an Act of God as Judge whereas his promising is not his Act as Judge but Rector thes 42. you mention the Angels judging us Righteous and Rejoycing therein which whence it should be but by a sentence passed in Heaven I know not Constitutive Justification different from Declarative by sentence I do not find expressed under the term Justification It would be considered whether any other Act besides the sentence doth make a man just but giving of faith notwithstanding Christs Death and the conditional Covenant before faith a person is only justifyable Conditionalis nihil ponit in esse A person is upon giving of Faith justified but not by giving of faith that 's an act of Sanctification but by a sentence of God Thes 59. You make justification a continued act now it being a transient act I suppose it may not be well called a continued Act which imports a successive motion between the terminus a quo and terminus ad quem whereas the act whether by sentence or Covenant is not such a Motion It s not to be denyed that the Benefit and Vertue of it is continued but I think not the Act. If it be not sâ—mel but saepe yet it should be rather called Actus Renovatus Repetitus Iteratus then continued I incline to think there is but one Justification of a person in this life though there be frequent remissions of sin Of this you may Consider In the Saints Everlasting Rest pag. 11. Doubtless the Gospel takes faith for our obedience to All Gospel Precepts Believing doth not produce subjection to Christ as King as a finite but contains it as an Essential part c. Aphor. p. 25.5 Faith doth as Really and Immediately Receive Christ as King as Saviour or Priest and so Justifie Thes 65. Scripture doth not take the word Faith for any one single Act nor yet for various Acts of one only faculty but for a compleat entire motion of the whole soul to Christ its Object Thes 57. It is the Act of faith which justifies men at Age and not the Habit. Against this I object 1. Faith worketh by Love Gal. 5.16 If one be an essential part of the other and faith a compleat entire motion of the soul then when it is said Faith worketh by Love it might be said it worketh by Faith 2. Gospel Precepts are many if not all the same with the Moral Law if Justified then by obedience to them are we not justified by the works of the Law You conceive the Justification Jam. 2. to be by works in a proper sence and that before God and Rahabs act was a work of Hospitality ver 25.
to prove that by Dispositions and Preparations The Council mean Merits and that they would subdolously introduce the Thing Merita de congruo by changing the name as out of Osius words and others he gatherâ— 2. And know you not that Chemnitius prosesseth to yield to the soundness of that very sixth Chapter which you alledge were it not for these guiles that they use and their evil sense to advance Merit For saith he Omnino certus est sive modus sive ordo in vâ—rbo Dei nobis designatus prascriptus quo Deus utitur quando vult hominem ad Justificationem deducâ—re c. Et qui ad modum sive ordiâ—em illum divinitus prascriptum non volunt sâ— ductu spiritus accommodare sâ—d negligunt conculcant illum bi ad Justificationem non proveniunt Vult enim Deus à Nâ—titia Assensu verbi sui nos ordiri ante Justificationem oportet praecedere contritionem hoc est seriam agnitionem peccatorum pavores conscientiae agnoscentio iram Dei adversus nostra peccatâ— dolentis propter peocatum in qua contritione non retinetur sed abjicitur prapositum persâ—verandi pergendi in sceleribus Ad hos vere terrores necesse est accâ—dâ—râ— fidem que agnitione fiducia misericordia Dei promissa propter silium med atorâ—m rursui erigat consoletur animum ne oppressi desperatione ruamus in aeternum exitium Sed fides accedat ad Deum quaerat defideret petat apprahendat accipiat Remissionem peccatorum Et hoc modo seâ— ordine in vâ—rbo Dâ—i designatâ— viaâ— pâ—rari Domino ut in ipso per propteripsum fide consequamur accipiamus Justificationem ipsa scriptura tradit c. this also he shews Luther approved of Now I pray you tell me whether here be not full as much as Dr. Ward or I say And do you think Ghemnitius did join with the Papists of Trent when he confuted them 3. And if Dr. W. had spoak of Sanctification are there not multitudes of our own best approved Divines that make all these acts to be found in men by way of preparation before Sanctification Mr. Rogers of Dedham in his Treat of faith Mr. Hooker in his Epist before that book and ost in his own book affirmeth not only a common preparatory contrition Hungring and thirsting Hope Love Joy but even effectual special Vocation it self and so faith to go before Sanctification and Justification And indeed what man denyeth it except Mr. Pemble and a very few that with him make Sanctification and Vocation to be all one which how far I approve my self I have shewed in Trâ—at of Rest Part. 1 Chap. 8. sect 2.3.4 4. But look into the words and find out what error you can Which of those acts do you think goes not before Justification And if they go before sure you will not deny but they do some way or other dispose or fit a man for pardon or else God would not have prescribed them before it 1. Catholick faith is the Belief of the Catholick Doctrine I am sure you take that to go before Justification 2. If Hope of pardon go not before then Affiance to which Hope is essential goes not before Yea then Believers do despair in the Act of Believing to Justification 3. I never knew the man that doubted whether fear of Punishment went before 4. The same I may say of grief for sin 5. And if all the doubt be of Purpose against sin and for Amendment 1. Sure they that say Repentance is pre-requisite to justification will not exclude a Purpose of Amendment 2. And sure those that say Sanctification and Vocation are all one and go before Justification will hardly exclude it 3. They that take a turning from Idols to the true God as the end to be in order before a Turning from Infidelity to the Mediator as the way which is by Faith these must needs think that so much of Actual Amendment goes before Justification ye believe in God believe also in me 4. They that say Faith alone justifieth but not the faith which is alone will surely include this Purpose as Antecedent Davenant Mr. Ball c. express it and insist on it Dr. Twiss calleth works Media causae dispositivae But it were endless to cite Authors in this Point 5. But I tell you my mind I take this Purpose of obeying Christ de futuro to be very Faith it self For faith is a Covenant reception of Christ and to take him for Christ and King-Redeemer and to Purpose yea Covenant to obey him are but one thing And therefore a Giving up our selves as Redeemed-subjects and so a purpose of being actually subject are faith it self And then they must needs be prerequisite to Justification So that whether you take these Acts for common or special suely they go before Justification as Dr. Ward saith Dare you tell any man of yout Hearers that though he have not so much as a Purpose to mend yet he is justified by Faith Truly such passages haue embittered the minds of Papists and many weak ones against our Doctrine of Justification and given great advantage to the Antinomists For what you say of contradicting Dr. Downamâ— and Mr. Pemble I answer 1. Though they differ between themselves in the point of Justification and one hath wrote a confutation of the others Doctrine yet you will never shew me wherein this speech of Dr. Ward doth contradict either of them Indeed if Dr. Ward had determined whether he meant common Dispositions or special perhaps he might have contradicted one of them they do so far differ themselves For you know Mr. Pemble not only in his Vindic. Grat. but even in the place you cite pag. 42.43 takes those Acts to be of special Grace or a part of Sanctification which most Divines do judge to be preparatory thereto And for my part I judge as Mr. Pemble if you take but that point in to qualifie it which I have asserted Treat of Rest second Edit part 3. cap. 11. that the sincerity of Grace as saving lyeth not in the bare nature of the Act but in the prevailing degree which Morality may specifie then I say as Mr. Pemble pag. 43. that these Vertues which are many of them by our Divines reckoned as Dispositions to Regeneration are if they be true the main parts and fruits of Regeneration 2. But I admire how you should think that speech of Dr. Wards should be a joining with the Papists against Dr. Downame and Mr. Pemble when Downame tells you that the Papists dispute of another subject then we do while they mean one thing by it viz Sanctification and we another upon which ground Mr. Wotton is ready to throw out the Dispute as being about one Term but different subjects And Mr. Pemble answers that the Argument of Bellarmine from that chapter of the Councils sixth sess is framed on the Error which puts out of frame the whole Dispute
and Goodness to be all one and the Understanding and Will for all one takes also Assent and Affiance for all one but I shall go on the supposition that his singular opinion is commonly disallowed however the Scotists and many others deny the real Distinction of Faculties The common Vote of Protestant Divines is that Faith is in both Faculties the Intellect and Will and hath for its object the Entity of Christs person and the Verity of the Gospel and the goodness of Christ and his benefits offered which Faith accepteth Davenants Words are plain and true Determ Qu. 38. pag. 174. In actu fidei justificantis tota anima se convertit ad causam justificantem And qu. 37. pag. 166. Fides illa quam Scriptura agnoscit habet in se complicatum actum Voluntatis Intellectus Neque nobis absurdum sed valde consentaneum videtur actum illum quo tota anima purificatur justificatur ad totam animam pertinere ita ut in nudo intellectu habeat initium in voluntate complementum Argument 1. The Object of this Faith is both Truth and Goodness Therefore it is the act both of the Intellect and the Will That Truth is the Object of it is evident 1. In that the Metaphysical Verity of Christs person is the Object of it or else Christ were not the Object of it 2. In that the moral Verity of the Gospel 1. as revealing Christ 2. as promising pardon is the object of it as is confest and the Scripture doth so plentifully declare that it were superfluous to cite the words That goodness is the object of it appeareth 1. In that Christ as Redeemer Mediator Saviour is the object of it and that is Christ as necessary and good to us It is Christ for our forgiveness Justification and Salvation and so under the formal notion of good 2. In that it is a Promise as a Promise Testament Grant or Deed of Gift that is the Object by it And it is Essential to these to be good to us as well as True and the Truth is but for the good 3. In that it is Pardon Justification and Life eternal finally that are the object of it which as such and as offered to us are good If I thought these things needed proof I would give you more Argument 2. The Scripture revealeth to us that this Faith is the Act both of the Intellect and the Will therefore it is so That it is the act of the Intellect is so plain in Scripture that I should accuse my self of wearying you with needless work if I should go about to prove it The Papists are right enough in thus much and Dr. Downame de Justific and against Pemble in Append. to Covenant of Grace hath proved it at large That it is an act of the Will our Divines have fully proved against the Papists in many a full Discourse 1. From the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie Affiance and such an Affiance as is the act of the Will as well as of the Intellect 2. Because the Scripture often putteth Willing as equipollent to Believing in Revel 22.17 Whosoever Will let him take the water of Life freely where Willing and Taking are both acts of the Will and the faith in question so in other places 3. The Scripture calleth it by the name of Receiving Christ Joh. 1.12 Col. 2.6 which is the Acceptance or consent of the Will 4. The Scripture often makes Faith to be the Internal covenanting and closure of the heart with Christ which is the act of the Will and therefore it perswadeth with the Will to this end and accuseth men as unwilling and calleth them Refusers Neglecters Slighters Rejecters Despisers of Christ that are Unbelievers privatively I trouble you not to cite the Texts as being needless and done by many Besides that as in the former Argument the Promise Christ Pardon Life and other good things as good are frequently made the Object of Faith Argument 3. The Veracity of God is the formal Object of Faith But the Veracity of God is his Goodness or participateth at least as much of his Goodness as of his Wisdom and his Power therefore the Goodness of Good is the formal Object of Faith and consequently it is an act of the Will God cannot lye because he is perfectly good wise and Powerfull Object But say some Papists All these acts that you mention here are Love and not Faith Faith doth but assent and Love consenteth or accepteth Answ 1. Do you not your selves call it fides formata charitate And why then may not we call it faith 2. The Scripture calleth it Faith in the phrases formentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and therefore it is Faith 3. Though sometimes in other cases the Apostle distinguish Faith Hope and Love yet when he speaketh of Faith as justifying and as the form of a Christian he comprehendeth Love to Christ as Saviour in it and a confidence in him such as in common Language we call Hope As Love signifieth the Passion of the soul it may be a consequent but as it is but the velle Christum beneficia oblata so it is faith it self as Maccovius and Chamier have truly told the Papists It was a faith in Christ though beginning to sink that 's expressed Luk. 24.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But we trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel Our Translators have put we Trusted for we Hoped because they thought the signification the same or else they would not sure have done it And when the Apostle saith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 11.1 If we may denominate the act from the Object we may see that he there makes Faith and Hope to be co-essential And when Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ our Hope it seems hope there is but an act of Faith And so 2 Cor. 1.10 1 Tim. 4.10 To Hope in God or Christ or put our Hope in him seemeth to me all one as to put our Trust in him for future Mercy which is Faith To which is opposed 1 Tim. 6.17 putting our Hope in riches so 1 Cor. 15.19 to have Hope in Christ so the Septuagint Psal 42.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hope in God is a Complication of Faith and Hope in one word and translated by us Trust in God 4. Though the Willing Consent or Acceptance of an offered Benefit have truly somewhat of Love in it yet Love is not the proper name of that Act. Every Volition is not usually called Love Prop. 3. It is not not only God the Father nor only Christ the Redeemer nor only the Promise nor only pardon or Righteousness or Heaven that is the object of that faith which Paul opposeth to works in Jusification Argument 1. If many or all these art so linked together that to believe one of them as revealed in Scripture is to believe more or all then it
act it self and therefore it is not faith as faith that is as it is an apprehension of Christ or recumbency on him that Justifyeth nor yet as an Instrument thus acting The nature of the act is but its aptitude to its office or justifying Interest and not the formal cause of it Proposition 6. No work or act of man is any true proper cause of his justification as Justification is commonly taken in the Gospel neither Principal or Instrumental The highest Interest that they can have is but to be a condition of our Justification and so a Dispositio moralis which therefore some call cansa dispositiva and some causa sine qua non and it s indeed but a Nominall cause and truly no cause at all Proposition 7. Whatsoever works do stand in opposition to Christ or disjunct from him yea or that stand not in a due subordination to him are so far from Justifying even as conditions that they are sins which do deserve condemnation Proposition 8. Works as taken for the Imperate Acts of Obedience external distinct from the first Radical Graces are not so much as conditions of our Justification as begun or our being put into a Justified state Proposition 9. Repentance from dead works denying our our selves renouncing our own Righteousness c. much less external Obedience are not the receptive condition of our Justification as faith is that is Their nature is not to be an actual Acceptance of Christ that is they are not faith and therefore are not designed on that account to be the Condition of our Justification Proposition 10. God doth not justifie us by Imputing our own faith to us in stead of perfect Obedience to the Law as if it were sufficient or esteemed by him sufficient to supply its place For it is Christs Righteousness that in point of value and merit doth supply its place nor doth any work of ours justifie us by satisfying for our sins for that 's the work of Christ the Mediator Our faith and love and obedience which are for the receiving and improving of him and his Righteousness and so stand in full subordination to him are not to be made co-partners of his office or honor Affirm Proposition first We are justified by the merits of a perfect sinless Obedience of Christ together with his sufferings which he performed both to the Law of nature the Law of Moses and the Law which was proper to himself as Mediator as the subject obliged Proposition 2. There is somewhat in the nature of faith it self in specie which makes it fit to be elected and appointed by God to be the great summary Condition of the Gospel that it be Receptive an Acceptance of Christ is the nature of the thing but that it be a condition of our Justification is from the will and constitution of the Donor and Justifier Proposition 3. There is also somewhat in the nature of Repentance self-denyal renouncing all other Saviours and our own righteousness desiring Christ loving Christ intending God and Glory as our end procured by Christ confessing sin c. which make them apt to be Dispositive Conditions and so to be comprized or implyed in faith the summary Receptive condition as its necessary attendants at least Proposition 4. Accordingly God hath joyned these together in his Promise and constitution making faith the summary and receptive Condition and making the said acts of Repentance self-denyal renouncing our own righteousness disclaiming in heart Justification by the works of the Law and the renouncing of all other Saviours also the desiring and loving of Christ offered and the willing of God as our God and the renouncing of all other Gods and so of the world flesh and devil at least in the resolution of the heart I say making these the dispositive Conditions which are ever implyed when faith only is expressed some of them as subservient to faith and perhaps some of them as real parts of faith it self Of which more anon Proposition 5. The Gospel promiseth Justification to all that will Believe or are Believers To be a Believer and to be a Disciple of Christ in Scripture sense is all one and so is it to be a Disciple and to be a Christian therefore the sense of the promise is that we shall be justified if we become true Christians or Disciples of Christ and therefore justifying faith comprehendeth all that is essential to our Discipleâ—ship or Christianity as its constitutive causes Proposition 6. It is not therefore any one single Act of faith alone by which we are justified but it is many Physical acts conjunctly which constitute that faith which the Gospel makes the condition of Life Those therefore that call any one Act or two by the name of justifying faith and all the rest by the name of works and say that it is only the act of recumbency on Christ as Priest or on Christ as dying for us or only the act of apprehending or accepting his imputed Righteousness by which we are justified and that our Assent or Acceptance of him as our Teacher and Lord our desire of him our love to him our renouncing other Saviours and our own Righteousness c. are the works which Paul doth exclude from our Justification and that it is Jewish to expect to be justified by these though but as Conditions of Justification these persons do mistake Paul and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and Justification and their Doctrine tendeth to corrupt the very nature of Christianity it self Though yet I doubt not but any of these acts conceited meritorious or otherwise as before explained in the Negative if men can believe contradictories may be the matter of such works as Paul excludeth And so may that one act also which they appropriate the name of justifying faith to Proposition 7. Sincere obedience to God in Christ is a condition of our continuance in a state of Justification or of our not losing it And our perseverance therein is a condition of our appearing in that state before the Lord at our departure hence Proposition 8. Our Faith Love and Works of Love or sincere Obedience are conditions of our sentential Justification by Christ at the particular and general Judgement which is the great Justification And so as they will prove our Interest in Christ our Righteousness so will they materially themselves justifie us against the particular false Accusation of being finally impenitent Unbelievers not Loving not obeying sincerely For to deny a false accusation is sufficient to our Justification Proposition 9. As Glorification and Deliverance from Hell is by some called Executive pardon or Justification so the foresaid acts are conditions of that execution which are conditions of Justification by the sentence of the Judge Proposition 10. As to a real inherent Justice or Justification in this life we have it in part in our Sanctification and Obedience and in the life to come we shall have it in perfection So much for the
some to be the Conditions of life And if you believe not this I refer you to Mr. Blake who will undertake to prove more 2. But your assertion is groundless I said not that they are works of the Law What if the Law condemn the neglect of a Gospel duty Do I call the duty a work of the Law because I say the Law condemneth the neglecters of it 3. But are you indeed of the contrary opinion and against that which you dispute against Do you think that the Law doth not threaten unbelievers when the Gospel hath commanded faith Have I so much ado to perswade the men of your party that the Gospel hath any peculiar threatning or penalty and that it is truly a Law which the Lutherans have taught too many and now do you think that its only the Gospel that Curseth impenitent unelievers and that maketh punishment due for the remnant of these sins in penitent Believers Let the Reader judge who runneth into extreams and self-contradiction Treat ib. But above all this is not to be endured that Christ hath not suffered for the breaches of the New Covenant and that there is no such breach but final impenitency For are the defects of our Repentance faith and love in Christ other then the partial breaches of the Covenant of Grace our unthankfulness unfruitfulness yea sometimes with Peter our grievous revolts and apostacies What are those but the sad shakings of our Covenant-interest though they do not dissolve it But it is not my purpose to fall on this because of its impertinency to my matter in hand Answ I rather thought it your purpose to fall upon it though you confess it impertinent to your matter in hand For I thought you had purposed before you had Printed of Preached Reader I suppose thee one that hath no pleasure in darkness and therefore wouldst see this intolerable errour bare-faced To which end besides what is said before understand 1. That I use to distinguish between a threefold breach of the Covenant 1. A sin against a meer precept of the Gospel which precept may be Synecdochically called the Covenant 2. A sin against our own Promise to God when we Covenant with him 3. A violation of Gods constitution Believe and be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned making us the proper subjects of its Actual Curse or Obligation to its peculiar punishment 2. On these distinctions I use to say as followeth 1. That Christ suffered for our breaches of Gospel precepts 2. And for our breaches of many promises of our own to God 3. And for our temporary non-performance of the Gospel Conditions which left us under a non-liberation for that time and therefore we had no freedom from so much as was executed 4. But not for such violation of the New Covenant or Law of Grace as makes us the actual subjects of its Curse or Obligation to Remediless punishment These are my usual limitations and explications And do I need to say any more now in defence of this opinion which my Reverend Brother saith is not to be endured 1. Is it a clear and profitable way of teaching to confound all these under the general name of Covenant-breaking 2. Or is it a comfortable Doctrine and like to make Congregations blessed that our defects of repentance unfruitfulness and unthankfulness c. are such violations of the Law of Grace or the Conditions of the Gospel as bring us under its actual obligation to Remediless punishment That is in plain English to say We shall all be damned Treat ib. Argument 9. If works be a condition of our Justification then must the godly soul be filled with perpetual doubts and troubles whether it be a person justified or no. This doth not follow accidentally through mans perversness from the fore-named Doctrine but the very Genius of it tends thereunto For if a Condition be not performed then the mercy Covenanted cannot be claimed As in faith if a man do not believe he cannot say Christ with his benefits are his Thus if he have not works the Condition is not performed but still he continueth without this benefit But for works How shall I know when I have the full number of them Whether is the Condition of the species or individuums of works Is not one kind of work omitted when it s my duty enough to invalidate my Justification Will it not be as dangerous to omit that one as all seeing that one is required as a Condition Answ Your Argument is an unproved Assertion not having any thing to make it probable 1. Belief in Christ as Lord and Teacher is Works with the Opponents Why may not a man know when he believeth in Christ as King and Prophet and is his Disciple as well as when he believeth in him as Priest 2. Repentance is Works also with the Opponents Why may not a man know when he Repenteth as well as when he believeth 3. Do you not give up the Protestant cause here to the Papists in the point of certainty of salvation We tell them that we may be certain that our faith is sincere And how why by its fruits and concomitants and that we take Christ for Lord as well as Saviour or to save us from the power of sin as well as the guilt And is it now come to that pass that these cannot be known What not the signs by which faith it self should be known and therefore should be notiora This it is to eye man and to be set upon the making good of an opinion 4. Let all Protestants answer you and I have answered you How will they know when they Repent and Believe when they have performed the full of these believed all necessary Truths Repented of all sins that must be Repented of Whether it be the species or individual acts of these that are necessary Will not the omission of Repentance for one sin invalidate it Or the omission of many individual acts of faith are not those acts conditions c. Answer these and you are answered 5. But I shall answer you briefly for them and me It s no impossible thing to know when a man sincerely believeth repenteth and obeyeth though many Articles are Essential to the Assenting part of faith and many sins must be Repented of and many duties must be done God hath made known to us the Essentials of each It is not the Degree of any of them but the Truth that is the Condition A man that hath imperfect Repentance Faith and Obedience may know when they are sincere notwithstanding the imperfections Do you not believe this Will you not maintain it against a Papist when you are returned to your former temper what need any more then to be said of it 6. Your Argument makes as much against the making use of these by way of bare signs as by way of Conditions For an unknown sign is no sign to us 7. And how could you over-look it that your Argument
in part or whole But James spoak of Works not as answering the Law but as fulfilling the condition of the Gospel and implyed as promised or resolved on in our first believing and so as subservient to the Sacrifice Merit and Righteousness of Christ as the avoiding of poison or dangerous meats that may kill though the conrtary cannot cure is subservient to the curing medicine of a Physician and implyed in our taking him for our Physician at first And so much briefly to satisfie you and the world of the Reasons of my Dissent from you that I may not differ from so Dear and Reverend a Brother without making it appear that necessity did compel me That which I have passed over being about the Instrumentality of Faith I shall speak to if God will together with Mr. Blakes Reasonings on that Subject in another Disputation Oppon Works are not a Condition much less a Cause of our Justification under any Notion whatsoever they are taken i. e. Neither Faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher becoming his Disciples Repentance Love Hope Prayer for Pardon Confession Self-denyal sincere Obedience c. are Causes or Conditions of Justification as begun continued or as it is most eminent in the sentence at Judgement Cons Erg. This Faith Repentance Prayer Obedience c. are not truly means of our Justification now or at Judgement Ergo. Not means to the pardon of sin and freedom from punishment Ergo. Not means of Salvation from Hell or of that Glory to which the final Justification will adjudge us Ergo. 1. They are not necessary necessitate medii and 2. No Man must use them as means to his present pardon or Justification or final Justification or salvation Ergo. No means must be used for present or final Justification or Salvation but only the Instrumental receiving or apprehending of Christs Righteousness or of Christ as Priest Ergo. Object There are means besides Causes and Conditions Answ Besides Causas Conditiones proximas there are but besides Causas Conditiones proximas remotas in this case there are none that I know of if there be name them LETTERS That past between This REVEREND Much HONOURED BROTHER And my SELF 1649 and 1650. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster HAving heard that Mr. disliked some things in my Aphorisms and by the perswasions of some intended a Confutation of them I wrote to him an earnest Request that he would acquaint me with what he disliked annexing his Reasons to convince me of my Errors professing my earnest Desire of Information especially from him To which he replyed as followeth Dear Sir I Have indeed declared to some who happily may have informed you of it as I desired that there were several Doctrinal points asserted in your Book to which I could not pedibus ire much less corde such are many positions about Christs Righteousness about faiths Justification in your sense and the Efficacy of new Obedience in this work as well as faith Yea Love made some kind of the actings of Faith The good old sound definition of Faith waved and a new one substituted Not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operari also called into Evangelical Righteousness and this made our personal Righteousness These things and divers others do make me vehemently dissent from you in the matters asserted Yet I do really honour you for your great Abilities and zealous Piety earnestly desiring of God that he would prolong your life and have mercy upon hss Church by sparing this Epaphroditus But whereas you have been told that I had animadversions on your Book this was a mistake for the truth is though I have cast my thoughts upon some part of it yet I have not any digested or prepared considerations about it but do defer such a work till I shall have opportunity to discharge that part I have publiquely promised about imputed Righteousness which Subject I cannot yet prosecute being hindred by other avocations It is true I have had advertisement from some honoured friends of mine at London that it is expected I should do something in those points because by your Inscription of my name which I take as an Act of your real Love and respect to me though I am unworthy of any such Testimony they think I am interested Had I known the Contents of the book before published I would have most importunately urged you at least to have taken more time of deliberation about the divulgation of them which you know have much novelty in them I know things are not to be embraced or rejected because either old or new yet Paul doth dislike 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we may so read it and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall conclude with this Let not any difference from you in Judgement be any obstruction to improve your utmost Abilities which are many and lovely to the finding out and propagating of Truth If God prolong your life I hope this next Summer we may have mutual oral Conference together which is the most conducible way to clear both Truth and our Opinions Your faithfull Friend and Brother Decemb. 3. To the Reverend and his much Honoured Friend Mr. Baxter Preacher of the Word of God at Kederminster those Deliver Sir I Received yours which I acknowledge a Favour but not so great as I expect Your dissent is so generally known that I cannot but hope to know some of the Grounds of it I hope you cannot so vehemently dissent in points of such Moment and yet deny me a discovery of mine Error The defering of such a work till you have wrote another Book doth intimate what will be injurious to the Church your self and me If you intend to publish a Confutation when I am dead and deny me any help for conviction while I live 1. The Church will lose the fruit of my own Recantation 2. And your self one part of the fruit of your Labor 3. And I may dye in error unrecanted and you being now importuned for your help be guilty of it If you did but know how gladly I would publiquely recant you would not deny your help You that would have so importuned me to deliberate if you had known before I hope will not deny your assistance for my recovery I did not hastily that I did But though I wanted the opportunity of consulting you before yet I hope it is not too late I am confident if you know me you are not so uncharitable as to think me uncurable It is therefore your flat duty not to suffer sin upon me Let me therefore intreat you to send me one or two of your strongest Arguments against some of the weightyest points in difference and to answer mine I know it is not an hours work with you to do that much and I would bestow twenty for you If you suspect that I will any way mis-imploy your papers you shall prescribe me the
therefore I will call a moral Instrument the condition which we must perform I will not call a moral Instrument either of the Act which God performeth or yet of the effect which floweth from that act immediately Yet if any will say that it is properly and principally a condition and that it so justifieth and yet that it may be called an Instrument moral in an improper sence as it is a condition first or else in regard of its receiving use will stretch the word Instrument so wide as to apply it to it I will not contend for a word when we agree in sence And thus Mr. Wotton yieldeth as with an ill will to call it an Instrument proving it first to justifie as a condition But I am loth to give it any proper causality in justifying And now let us see whose sence is 1. More obscure I avoid and abhor all vain niceties in so fundamental a point as Justification is therefore I say plainly but That faith is the condition on which God hath bestowed Christ and all his benefits in the Gospel What woman cannot understand this at a word But your Doctrine what Oedipus is able to unfold for my part it is quite past my reach and most that I converse with are as silly as my self Can every poor man or woman reach to know what a passive Action or a passive Passion or a Passive Instrument is and how we receive Christ as a man takes a gift in his hand or to see through all the difficulties that I have discovered here in your Doctrine Even they that raise questions what one act of faith doth justifie whether of the Vnderstanding or Will Whether Assent or Affiance c. Do seem vainly and hurtfully curious to me much more those that reduce all to an unconceivable patâ— I plainly therefore asfiâ—m that faith is not any physical receiving as the hand doth receive money as you would afterward make me believe the Assembly mâ—â—ns but a Metaphorical moral receiving and that it is not by any one act of the soul much less a Passion but by the whole soul Understanding and Will the former beginning the later consummating it as Davâ—nant soundly And let us trye by common speech which of these is the more plain and probable sence Suppose a Prince will redeem a Turkish condemed slave and send him word I have bought thee and if thou wilt receive or take me for thy Redeemer Deliverer and Lord and for the future wilt serve me and be thankfull I will actually set thee free Here it would sure be a silly thing to fall a questioning what the Prince means by the word Receive or take Whether it be an act of this faculty or that Whether this or that act Or whether it is meerly Pati Though we are too wise to understand this now I warrant you the foolishest slave would soon understand it and know that to receive or take the Prince for his Redeemer is to believe him and consent and thankfully accept of him as he requires and of deliverance by him And he that should ask him Whether it were the bare act of affiance or whether gratitude or love were included in the term would seem but simple to him If a Prince will deliver a condemned woman from death and offer with all to marry her and give her himself and all he hath on condition she will receive or take him for her husband and accordingly be a faithfull wife to him till death He that should here step in and raise profound Scruples and enter difficult disputes whether this receiving were an act of the Understanding or Will Whether Affiance Recombency Assurance c. or whether a Passion would be well judged ridâ—culous when every man knows at the first word what it is for the woman to receive or take a man for her Husband even gladly and lovingly to consent and accept the offer and with all her heart deliver up her self to him accordingly So if a King of another Nation that hath right also to this but not possession should send to us to charge us to receive him for our King what a hard word is this to understand or doth it signifie any one act or the act of any one single faculty that the people of the land must perform Oh how too learned Divines or too unlearned have puzzled and amazed poor souls and muddyed the clear streams of the Doctrine of Christ in this so weighty and plain a point of justification In a word Sir I know there is never a one of my Hearers can understand your Doctrine of instrumentality Active or Passive nor have they the Logick necessary thereto and therefore I will not speak to them in such a language Even while I untye your knots I am thought a Barbaâ—iâ—n and not understood how much more if I spoke what I understand not my self nor am able though I set my wits on the tenter 2. And then let us see which is the truer and certaâ—ner your Doctrine or mine And 1. I have said somewhat already to weaken the credit of yours 2. And more from what is last said it is unlikely to me to be true because of the obscurity for I believe God hath spoke plainer in fundamentals and not laid folks salvation upon that which none but Scholars of a better or worse judgement then I can understand I know there is that kind of difficulty in Divine things which requireth the spiritual illumination of the understanding but not such in foundation points that necessarily requireth so much humane learning 3. Your way hath not one word of Scripture for it Where doth Scripture say in phrase or sense that faith Justifieth as an instrument or that it is such Active or Passive Or that it is this or that only Act But now for the Doctrine I teach 1. Neither your self nor any solid man denyeth it that faith is a condition and so justifieth and that it is a Moral receiving and by the whole soul esepcially the hearty consent and acceptance of the will most Divines teach as I could shew but for wasting time 2. I prove it further that it is but this plain Moral recepâ—ion thus As Christ is offered so he is received therefore the Assembly say as he is offered in the Gospâ—l But Christ is offered Morally in the Gospel and not Physically therefore he must be so received 3. Rejicere est noâ—le Ergo reciâ—ere est velle To reject Christ is the condemning sin of infidelity but that lies in an unwillingness to have him to be their Redeemer Saviour and especially Lord therefore receiving Christ is a willingness consent or acceptance of him for Redeemer and Lord Joh. 1.10 His own received him not What is that but they refused him and not that they wree not Passive physical receivers of Justice Luke 19.27 These mine enemies that would not I should reign over them bring hither and destroy c. Then willingness of his
Lord. But such an accepting of him is not properly or in the account of God or in it self Faith or obedience Ergo. The Minor I prove if purposes intentions or verbal professions to believe or obey are not properly faith obedience then such an accepting is not faith or obedience The Minor proved That which is or may be found in Hypocrites or Reprobates is not true faith or obedience Bu Ergo. Answ The Lord pardon the hardness of my heart that hath no more compassionate sense of the miseries of that poor Church and the dishonour of God which such Disputes as this proclaim by Arguments as fit to be answered by Tears as by words 1. A little before he was proving Argument 12. that none could call Christ Lord but by the Spirit and therefore this act was after Justification And now he proveth that its common to Hypocrites Reprobates 2. Here he delivereth me from all the trouble and fallacy that the distinction of fides quae Justificat and fides qua Justificat hath been guilty of For if the act that we dispute about be no faith at all then it is not the fides quae And yet he often is upon the Qua Justificans himself forgetting this 3. Had I but delivered such a Doctrine as this what should I have heard Justifying faith hath three Parts ASSENT CONSENT and AFFIANCE which also have several acts or parts according to the divers essential parts of the Object ASSENT is but Initial and introductory to the rest as all acts of the Intellect are to those of the Will CONSENT is the same which we here call ACCEPTING which is but the meer VOLITION denominated from its respect to the offer and thing offered This as it is in the will the commanding Faculty so is it as it were the Heart of Faith the first act being but to lead in this and AFFIANCE the third being commanded much by this or depending on it For as it is seated in the Affections so far it is distinct from this Velle or CONSENT Now when ever we name Faith by any one of these three acts as the Scripture doth from every one we include them all though to avoid tediousness we stand not to name all the parts when ever by one word we express the whole And all these Acts have whole Christ in all the essentials of his Person and office for their object Now that this faith in Christ as Lord or accepting him should be said and that by a Christian Divine and that in the Reformed Church to be no faith at all to say nothing of his denying it to be obedience is no matter of honour or comfort to us How oft doth the Scripture expresly mention faith in our Lord Jesus Christ Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord Col 2.6 with other equipollent terms But I will not offer to trouble any Christian Reader with Arguments for such a Truth 4. But yet the man would be thought to have Reason for what he saith and to his proof I further answer 1. Purposes Intentions and verbal Professions were none of the terms or things in question but Accepting or Believing in Christ as Lord Teacher c. These are but concomitants the two first and the last a consequent 2. Is it the Act Accepting that this Brother disputeth against or is it the Object Christ as Lord as being none of the faith by which we are justified If it be the former 1. What Agreement then hath this Argument with all the rest or with his question 2. What Agreement hath his Judgement with the holy Scripture that calleth Faith a Receiving of Christ and maketh it equipollent with Believing in his Name John 1.11.12 Col. 2.6 3. What Agreement hath his Judgement with the Protestant Faith that maketh Christ himself as Good to be the Object of faith to be embraced or chosen or accepted by the will as well as the word as True to be Assented to by the understanding But if it be the Object that he meaneth then what force or sense is there in his Argument from the terms Purposing Intending Confessing Let him name what Act he please so it respect this Object and if it be an Act of faith indeed it s all one as to our present Controversie If he take Consent willing or Accepting of Christ to be no act of Faith let him name any other that he will own for I would quarrel as little as may be about words or impertinent things and let that be it 4. And how could he choose but see that his Argument is as much against Accepting Christ as Priest as against Accepting him as Lord to Justification No doubt but a man that had the common Reason to write but such a book as this must needs see this if he regard what he said And therefore I must take it for granted that his Argument is against both alike even to prove that Accepting of Christ as Lord or as Saviour is no faith or obedience at all But the Reader will hardly believe till he weigheth it that a waking man would reason thus upon such a Question as this in hand 5. Consenting that Christ shall be my Lord and Teacher and Head doth imply a consent and so a Purpose of future obeying learning and receiving from him And so consenting that Christ shall be my Righteousness Intercessor and Justifier doth imply a Purpose of Trusting in him for the future And yet this consent in both cases is Justifying faith 6. And its dolefull Doctrine were he a true Prophet to all Gods Church that Purposes and Intentions to believe and obey are no more then may be found in Hypocrites or Reprobates For though there are superficial uneffectual purposes and Intentions in them as there is an uneffectual faith in them yet if no Purposes and Intentions will prove men Saints then nothing in this world will prove them Saints For the Evidences of Grace are more certain to him that hath them in the Heart then in the outward Actions And in the Heart the very new Creature lyeth much in these two Desires themselves will prove true Grace Much more when they rise to setled Purposes Why else did Barnabas exhort the young beginners that with purpose of Heart they should cleave unto the Lord as intimating that their stability lay in this And Intentions are the very Heart of the New man For Intention is that act that is exercised about the End which is God himself Intendere finem is no more then Velle vel Amare Deum It is the Love of God above all And if this be common to Hypocrites and Reprobates what a case are we in then I hope I have given you a sufficient account of the Impertinency and vanity of Mr. Warners fifteen Arguments To which he adjoyneth a rabble of the words of Socinians Arminians and I know not who to assure you that we his new Adversaries do joyn with that company and plead their cause And he that
commanded in the Law and Abrahams work was a sacrificing or offering a work of the Ceremonial Law ver 21. 3. Repentance is obedience to one Gospel Precept yet Faith and Repentance are distinguished Mar. 1.15.6 1. Love Faith Hope are three 1 Cor. 13.13 1. Tim. 1.5 2 Thes 1.3 faith and Love have different Objects Col. 1.4 Phil. 5. 1 Thes 1. ◠Therefore not the same nor one an Essential part of the other 4. Obedience is a sign to prove faith Jam. 2.18 and therefore not an Essential part 5. If Faith include obedience to all Gospel Precepts as an Essential part then actual faith includes actual obedience to all Gospel Precepts as an essential part and if the Act of faith Justifie men at Age not the Habit and receiving Christ as King as immediatly Justifie as believing in Christ as Saviour then a person of Age is not Justified without actual obedience to all Gospel Precepts and this may be not till Death if then and so no Justification in this Life 6. If Faith justifie as immediatly by receiving Christ as King as by receiving him as Saviour then it justifies by receiving Christ as Judge Matth. 25.34 as Law-giver Avenger of his enemies and so a man is justified By receiving Christs Judging Punishing Condemning Commanding Avenging as well as saving by his Death which is contrary to Rom. 3.25 5.9 7. The Scripture makes the object of justifying faith Christs Death Resurrection Blood Rom. 3.25 10.9 Gal. 2.20 21. Nowhere Christs dominion Ergo. Subjection to Christ as King is not an essential part 8. The object of Faith is nowhere made to be a Gospel Precept such as forgiving others using Sacraments c. nor Christ as commanding but the Declaration of the Accomplishments of Christ and the counsel of God in him 1 Cor. 15.1 c. Rom. 1 16 17. Gal. 3.8 Ergo Obedience is not an Essential part 9. If it be an essential part then either Genus or Difference for no other Essential parts belong to a quality or Action not the Genus that 's Assent Aph. p. 254.274 when the object is a Proposition when it is an Incomplex term Trust is the Genus not the Difference that 's chiefly taken from the object Keker syst Logic. l. 1. sect 2. c. 2. can Defin. Accid 5.7 Obedience may make known Faith as a sign but not as a part it s at least in order of Nature after the cause is afore the effect the Antecedent before the Consequent and faith is such Heb. 11.8 c. 10. If Faith be a compleat entire motion of the whole soul to Christ then it should be Love Joy Hope Understanding Will Memory Fear But this is not to be said Ergo. It is alleadged 1. Faith must be the Act of the whole soul else part should receive him part not Answ Faith is expressed by the Metaphor of Receiving Joh. 1.12 Col. 2.6 And he is Received by the Receiving of his Word Joh. 12.48 1 Thes 2.13 which is Received by Assent 2. The whole soul receives Christ though by other Graces besides faith 2. Acts 8.37 Rom. 10.10 Answ The term Whole notes not every inward faculty but as after sincerely not feignedly as Simon Magus So Illyricus 3. Faith is called Obeying the Gospel Rom. 10.16 1 Pet. 1.22 4.17 2 Thes 1.8 Gal. 3.1 5.7 Heb. 5.9 But the Gospel commandeth All thus to obey Christ as Lord forgive others love his people bear what sufferings are Imposed diligently use his Means and Ordinances confessing bewailing sins praying for pardon sincerely and to the end Answ Heb. 5.9 speaks of obeyng Christ but doth not call faith obeying Christ but be it granted Faith is called obeying of Christ or the Gospel doth it follow that it is obedience in doing those named Acts It may be obedience by Assent to the Doctrine of Christ that he is the Messiah died for sins c. commanded 1 Cor. 15.3 1 Joh. 3.23 which the terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do rather Import then the other Acts mentioned The Gospel and Truth are restrained to the Doctrine of Christs coming dying c nowhere applyed that I know to the Precepts of forgiving others suffering death receiving the Lords Supper c. 4. The fulfilling the condition of the new Covenant is called faith Gal. 3.12 23 25. Answer Neither of these places make faith the fulfilling of the Condition of the New Covenant nor any place else In Gal. 3.12 It s said the Law that is the Covenant of the Law is not of Faith i. e. doth not assign Life to Faith in Christ Faith Gal. 3 23 25. is put saith Piscat for the time of the Gospel or Christ say others or the Doctrine of Faith By Faith only the condition of the Covenant concerning Justification in this life is fulfilled not concerning every Benefit of the new Covenant Repentance is the condition of Remission of sins forgiving others doing good to the Saints of entering into Life 5. The Gospel reveals not Christs offices as separate Ergo. They mnst be so believed Answ The conclusion is granted but proves not faith to justifie in receiving Christ as King 6. It offers Christ as King and so must be received Answer the same 7. Scripture nowhere tieth Justification to the receit of him as priest only Ar. The contrary is proved from Rom. 3.25 5.9 8. Commonly Christ is called our Lord and Saviour Answ True But we are justified by his blood 9. If we receive him not as a King then not as an entire Saviour Answ True Yet Justification is by his death 2 Cor. 5.21 Gal. 2.21 Rom. 3 25 and 59. 10. Christ is not received truly if not entirely as King Answ True But this proves not that obedience is an essential part of faith or that subjection to Christ as King justifies as immediatety as receiving him as Saviour 11. The exalting of his proper Kingly office is a Principal End of Christs dying Psal 2. Rom. 14.9 Answ True But it follows not that either Obedience is an Essential part of faith or subjection to Christ as King justifieth as immediately as receiving him as Saviour or Priest Yours in the Truth I.T. Sir IT s to be considered 1. Whether these words answer to Valedict orat at B. pag. 191. Nothing but the satisfaction of Christ is that which our Divines call the matter of our Justification or the Righteousness which we must plead to Acquit us in Judgement And it is said Rom. 3.25 through faith in his Blood and Rom. 5.9 by his Blood Do not prove Christs Death either the sole or chief Object of faith as Justifying and how this stands with Aphorism of Justification Thes 66. and its Explication 2. Whether the words Luk. 12.14 import not a disclaiming or denial of a Title to judge and so your answer be not insufficient pag. 276. which seems to suppose a Title and only a Suspension of Exercise in that state of Humiliation 3.
Marriage-consent then may we not as well say Marriage causeth Marriage as to say Marriage causeth Love Answer No. For 1. That Love which it causeth is the following acts of Love 2. And the name of Love is most usually given only to the Passion which is in the sensitive but not usually to the meer Velle the elicite act of the rational appetite I have been the more prolix on this because it serves also for answer to other of your Objections especially the third 2. You object Gospel-Precepts are many if not all the same with the moral Law if justified then by obedience to them are we not justified by the works of the Law c. Answer 1. James yields the whole 2. If you speak of our Justification at first by which of guilty and lyable to condemnation we become recti in curia or are acquit I then yield all that you seek here viz. that we are not justified by works 3. This objection is grounded on your formentioned mistake of my meaning as if I thought that justifying faith contained essentially such obedience or works 4. We are not justified by works of the Law if you mean the Law of works or by any works which make the reward to be not of Grace but of Debt which are the works that Paul speaks of 5. That which you call the moral Law viz. the bare Precepts of the Decalogue taken Division without the sanction viz the Promise or the Commination is not the Law but one part of the Law and the other part viz. the sanction adjoined if diversified makes it two distinct Laws though the Duty commanded be the same The Law that commandeth Socrates to drink Cicutam is not the same with that which should command a sick man to drink some for a cure 6. That our Justification is continued on condition of our sincere obedience added to our faith I maintain with James 7. Will you answer your own objection and you tell me what to answer Faith is a duty of the moral Law if we are justified by faith then we are justified by a work of the Law I know you will not evade as those that say Faith is not a work but a Passion nor as those that say we are justified by it not as a work but as an Instrument for I have heard you disclaim that If you say it is not as a work but as a condition by the free Law-giver appointed to this end then you say as I do both of faith and secondarily of works For what Divine denyeth works to be a condition of Salvation or of the final Justification or of our present Justification as continued vel nor amittendi Justificationem jam recaptam as Conr. Bergius saith I know but one other evasion left in the world which I once thought none would have adventured on but lately an acute Disputant with me maintains that faith is not conditio moralis vel ex voluntate constituentis but Conditio physica vel ex natura rei But I think I shall easily and quickly disprove this opinion Rababs and Abrahams works were works of the New Law of Grace and not of the old Law of works In a word As there is a two fold Law so there is a two fold Accusation and Justification when we are accused as breakers of the Law of works that is as sinners in common sort and so as lyable to the penalty thereof then we plead only Christs satisfaction as our Righteousnes and no work of our own But when we are Accused of final non-performance of the conditions of the New Law that is of being Rejectors of Christ the Mediator we are justified by producing our faith and sincere obedience to him The former Paul speaks of and James of the latter You may see Divines of great Name saying as I in this as Mead Deodate on James the 2. but most fully Placaus in Thes Salmuriens Thes de Justific c. To your third Objection That Faith Repentance Hope and Love as before explained are distinguished I easily yield you But where you say Faith and Love have different Objects therefore one is no essential part of the other I answer That faith in Christ and Love to the Saints which your Texts mention have different Objects I soon confess But faith in Christ as it is the first Act of the Will and love to Christ have one and the same Object beyond all doubt Your fourth I wholly yield if you speak of faith strictly or as it Justifieth and not in a large improper sence Your fifth is grounded on the forementioned mistake of my meaning And there needs no further answer but only to tell you that though sincere obedience to all Christs Lawes be a part of the condition of our Justification as continued and consummate at Judgement yet it follows not that every particular duty must be done no more then that Adam must obey every particular Law before he were actually just It is sufficient that there be no other defect in our Obedience but what may stand with sincerity The same Precept may command or make Duty to one and not to another and so be no Precept as to him A man that lives but an hour after his conversion is bound sincerely to obey Christ according to his Law but he is not bound to build Churches nor to do the work of twenty years Christ may be received as King and is in the same moment in which he is received as Justifier and in that reception we covenant to obey him and take him for our Lord to the death but not to obey him on earth when we are dead for we are then freed from these Lawes and come under the Lawes of the Glorified To your sixth I answer The Texts alledged have no shew of contradicting the Point you oppos se One saith we are justified by his Blood But doth it thence follow therefore not by Believing in him or receiving him as King are we made partakers of it His Blood is the Purchasing cause but we enquire after the condition on our part The other Text saith through faith in his Blood But 1. it saith not only in his Blood 2. And his blood is the Ground of his Dominion as well as of his Justifying us for by his blood he bought all into his own hands For to this end he Died Rose and Revived that he might be Lord of Dead and Living Rom. 14.9 It may be therefore through faith in his Blood as the chief part of the satisfaction and yet necessarily also through faith in himself or the Reception of himself as the Christ 3. Yet doth the Apostle most conveniently say through faith in his blood rather then through faith in his Dominion or Government because when he speaks of Faith he speaks Relatively not as some understand it by Faith meaning Christ but using the name of that Act which fitliest and fulliest relates to its Object and so intending the Object more
Luk. 19.27 Those mine enemies that would not I should raign over them bring them hither c. saith Amesius Medul l. 2. cap. 5. § 48. Opponuntur ista Infidelitas c. fidei non tantum qua tollunt Assensum illum Intellectus qui est ad fidem necessarius sed etiam qua inferunt includunt privationem illius Elections apprehensionis fidei quae est in Voluntate Surely an unwillingness to accept Christ for our Lord and Saviour is no small part of the condemning sin which we therefore call the rejecting of Christ The treading him under foot Neglecting so great Salvation Not willing to come to Christ for life Making light of him when they are invited to the marriage Mat. 22. and making excuses Not-kissiing the son Psal 2. with many the like which import the Wills refusal of Christ himself and not only its unwillingness to believe the Truth of the Promise or Declaration of the Gospel To your tenth Objection I answer by denying the consequence we speak of the soul as rational and not as sensitive or vegetative When the understanding Will receive Christ the whole soul doth it that is every faculty or the soul by a full entire motion in its several Actings to the Object presented both as true and good Your Joy Hope Fear are in the sensitive And Love as a Passion and as commonly taken And for Memory take it for an act of the Understanding or of Understanding and Imagination conjunct or for a third faculty as please your self it will not breed any difficulty in the case But whether Fear be properly a Receiving of Christ or any Object as Good I much question I take it rather for the shunning of an evil then the Reception of Good So much for your Objections I will next as impartially as I can consider your Answers to what I laid down for the proof of the Point in Question But first I must acknowledge that I have given you and others great advantage against the Doctrine of that Book by the immethodicalness and neglect of Art and not giving the Arguments in form which I then thought not so necessary as now I perceive it is for I was ready to yield wholly to Gibeeufs reasons against formal arguing Praefat. ante lib. 2. de Libertate The present expectation of death caused me to make that haste which I now repent yet though I see some oversights in the manner of expression I see no cause to change my mind in the Doctrine of it Also I must desire you to remember here that the proof lyeth on your part and not on mine Affirmanti incumbit probatio It is acknowledged by almost all that fides qua Justificat Justifying faith is a Receiving of Christ as Lord and not only as Saviour or Justifier And you and I are agreed on it that Faith justifieth not as an Instrument but as a Condition so that they who will go further here and maintain that yet Faith justifieth only As it Receiveth Christ as Justifier or as Saviour and not as King must prove what they say If I prove 1. that Faith justifieth as the Condition on performance whereof the Gift is conferred 2. And that this Faith which is the Condition is the Accepting of Christ as Christ or the Anointed King and Saviour both which are yielded me I must needs think that I have proved that the Receiving Christ as King doth as truly Justifie as the Receiving him as Priest or Justifier Yet I had rather not say that either Justifies because 1. it is no Scripture phrase 2. and seemeth to import an Efficiency but rather that we are justified by it which imports here but a conditionality and is the Scripture phrase Till you have proved your exclusion of faith in one respect from the Justifying Office and your confinement of it to the other my proof stands good I give you the entire condition and ubi Lex non distinguit non est distinguendum multó minus dividendum And though those that assert the proper Instrumentality of faith in Justifying or else the meer natural conditionality may have something to say for their Division though with foul absurdities Yet what you can say who have escaped those conceits I cannot imagine Me thinks if faith Justifie as the condition of the Grant or Covenant and this condition be the Receiving of Christ as Lord and Saviour it should be impossible to exclude the receiving Christ as King from Justifying till you first exclude it from the said conditionality A Quatenus ad omne valet consequentia To Justifie therefore As the condition on which the Promise gives Christ and with him Justification must needs infer that we are justified by all whatsoever hath such a conditionality Yet as I said before when we intend to express not only or principally the Act of the Receiver but also or principally the Grace of the Giver then it is a fitter phrase to say we are Justified by faith in his Blood or by Receiving Christ the Saviour and Justifier because it fulliest and fitliest expresseth that Grace which we intend and thus Paul oft doth So that they who distinguish between Fides quae Justificat and Fides qua Justificat and admit that Act into the former which they exclude from the latter must prove what they say Fides qua justificat non Recipit Christum vel ut Regem vel sacerdotem sed tantum Justificat i. e. Qua est Conditio non est Receptio Nec qua Recipit Justificat i. e. Qua Receptio non est Conditio Materia forma non sunt confundenda Actus fidei est quasi materia vel Aptitudo tantum ad officium conditionalitatis Distinctio igitur ipsa est inepta Now to your Answers Pardon this prolixity First I must tell you that by that phrase the whole soul I mean the entire motion of the soul by Understanding and Willing to its Object both as True and Good For I know the whole soul may be said to understand in every Intellectual Action and to will in every act of willing But when it only understands or Assents and not willeth it doth not Act fully according to its Power nor according to the nature of its Object when the Goodness is neglected and the Truth only apprehended And it is not a compleat motion seeing the Acts of the understanding are but introductory or preparatory to those of the Will where the motion of the Rational soul is compleat And so my Argument stands thus If Justifying faith be the Act both of the understanding and the Will then it is not one single act only But c. Ergo c. Prob. Anteced Justifying faith is the Receiving of Christ but Christ is Received by the Understanding and Will by the former incompleatly by the latter compleatly therefore Justifying faith is the Acting both of the Understanding and Will Probatur Minor Christ must be Received as Good and not only