elswhere pronounceth of men that when they lay in their blood in their nakedness then hee made it the time of love sayd to them live spread his skirt over them and covered them entred into Covenant with them and made them his Ezek. 16. 6 8. God of his great love wherewith hee hath loved us even when we were dead in sins and trespasses hath quickned us c. Ephes 2. 4 5. God commendeth his love to us that when we were yet sinners when enemies we were justified by Christs blood and reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5 8 9 10. Here it is evident to all men that the love of God justifying and reconciling us to himself goeth before our Faith and Workes was then in its power and operation when wee were yet sinners in all our pollution enemies dead in sinne therefore without any spirituall motion or operation to our own cleansing or happiness I demand now when this love of God so justifying us beganne Not when we beleeved and first obeyed the Gospel for it went before it was then acted toward us when wee were enemies dead c. Or when wee beganne to be sinners Then it seems our sinne begat this love in God and then let the Atheists Aphorism stand as an impregnable Principle let our sinne abound that the grace and love of God may abound Or was there ever an hatred of us as a contrary affection in God before which is now expelled that love might succeed in its place And hath God now changed his hating of us to condemne us into a love to justifie and save us This were to accuse God of mutableness and change For God is Love 1 Iohn 4. 8. and the Love of God is God himselfe loving and to affirme where wee finde the Love of God at present that there was a time when this Love was not in God and a time when God beganne to love is no other but to affirme that there was a time when God yet was not and a time when he beganne to bee God the will of God being God himselfe And the volitions or willings of God being God himself willing And the acts of Gods Love and Hatred being acts of Gods Will yea of God himselfe and no more subject to change because immanent in God then God himselfe So that these Scriptures which affirme Gods love to us when sinners doe affirm also consequentially his love to us before we were either in being or just or sinners even from eternity Thirdly when the Lord saith to his people I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jerem. 13. 3. Doth hee not mean a love which is from everlasting to everlasting Or is there a Love of God to everlasting which was not from everlasting Or was it not the Love of accepting and approbation of them unto Righteousnesse and Salvation whereof hee there speaketh And when the Apostle Iohn tels us that the glory of Gods love doth herein shine forth Not that we loved him but that he loved us 1 John 4. 10. making not our love or any fruits thereof the foundation of Gods love to us but the love of God to us to goe before and prevent our love is not this a doctrin universally true of all the Saints that are or have been that Gods love to them prevented and was antecedaneous to their love toward him if so then consequently before mans being as well as before his loving and if before mans being then from eternity was this grace given us that we were loved of God in Christ to justification and salvation It is that which the Lord Christ speaketh and that not obscurely in his prayer before his passion where having interceded and craved sundry blessings for his Elect he adds this reason why he craved those blessings in their behalfe viz. That the world may know that thou hast sent me and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me Jo. 17. 23. How is that in the next verse he explaineth himself thus Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world what doth follow hence but that as Christ so they that are Christs were loved of God unto life before the foundation of the world why will not Master Baxter acknowledge what Christ hath prayed that all the world may know Object 1. Or will it be objected that God loving the Elect in Christ before the foundation of the world is to be understood onely in this sense that before the foundation of the world God decreed in himselfe to love them in Christ afterward in time Then must we so conclude of Christ also that God loved Christ before that is decreed before the foundation of the world to love Christ in after time not that he loved him from eternity for as hee loved Christ so he loved them in Christ But he actually loved Christ as the head of the Church before the foundation of the World therefore also he loved the Elect in Christ as the body and members of Christ before the foundation of the world Yea to decree from eternity to love them afterward in time and untill the time came to hate them or not to love them in Christ was to decree mutablenesse and change in his own will i. e. in himselfe which is wholly repugnant to his nature that cannot change by receiving augmentation unto or diminution of the acts of his Will which were in him from eternity Object 2. But perhaps Master Baxter may object with his friends of the Netherlands the Arminians whose ghosts have much infested us within this Nation these many years that this love of God from Eternity that which he shed abroad upon the Elect when they were yet sinners enemies and dead in sin is to be understood onely of Gods universal common love his love to all the creatures which he hath made or at the uttermost his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his love unto mankind which he extends to all alike Making the raine to descend and his Sun to shine upon the just and unjust and fills the hearts of all with food and gladness Sol. But how then was Jaakob loved and Esau hated when Esau partaked more of this common love than Jaakob or was it a Common love by which God doth justifie and reconcile sinners to himselfe then all shall be reconciled justified and saved Or when the Apostle termes it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the much or great love of God out of which when he quickned us yet dead in sinnes and trespasses Eph. 2. 4. was this the common love extended to all the Sonns and Daughters of Adam without difference Then also for God loved us as he loved Christ the love of God to Christ was a common love in nothing supereminent to the love wherewith he loved Cain and Judas Lastly when God saith I have not beheld iniquity in Jaakob nor seen perversnesse in Israel Num. 23. 21. it will I doubt not be granted that the meaning was that God did
in his other forementioned operations upon us by his Word and Spirit not only to teach and command but also by his infinite power to enliven us to bring forth fruits of so great a salvation and to walke worthy of it in all holinesse and righteousnesse and exactnesse to fulfill all duties and works of Christian obedience In this he is to be made indeed the object of justifying faith or which is the same of sanctifying faith yet not at it justifyeth but as it sanctifyeth We should not a little maim both the office of faith and the benefits which we have by Christ if we should restrain them all to justification Nay Christ is made unto us as well sanctification as righteousnesse and faith adhereth as fast to Christ for the one as the other else is it not a legitimate but bastard faith Neverthelesse Christ is not in the same respect the object of faith as sanctifying and of the same as justifying Because this is Mr. Baxters supereminent Argument in which himself seems most to trust and by which so many learned Ministers do even professe themselves staggered and astonished I shall omit nothing unexamined that he speaketh in the affirming or confirming of it lest any should take occasion to say that the strongest part thereof is not because it could not be answered Therefore have I left out nothing of what he hath said to the other Proposition though many things were unworthy of Animadversion To the consequent of this Proposition he speaketh more in his next two Theses viz. 73. 74. what is inserted in these two Aphorisms more fit to be examined under another notion I shall here forbear to transcribe leaving it for its proper place What is to the present purpose he thus expresseth B. Thes 73. pa. 289. Faith only doth not justifie in opposition to the works of the Gospell but those works do also justifie Thes 74. Both faith and works justifie in the same kind of causality viz. as Causae sine quibus non or mediate and improper causes or as Dr. Twisse causae dispositivae c. The like may be said of Love and of others in the same station These are but meer affirmations and contain no reasons to confirme only in the latter Thesis seemingly at least is produced the authority of that Antinomian Dr. Twisse but with so fine a conveyance as that he may be kept in or left out at pleasure if Mr. Baxter be dealt with to make good his allegation of him He knowes the name and authority of Dr. Twisse to be great and amiable as an eminent servant of Christ and patron of his truth He concludes therefore that his assertions will be swallowed with the more facility having such an authority to sweeten and fortifie them Therefore so interserteth his Testimony that his Reader may suppose Dr. Twisse to affirm works to be causas dispositivas of justification I neither have read all that Dr. Twisse hath written neither do I so far trust my memory as to deny it flatly and peremptorily Yet by knowing Dr. Twisse aright I am as confident that Bellarmine hath taught the righteousnesse of justification to be meerly by imputation and our justification only by faith as that Dr. Twisse hath any way affirmed works in this or any other respect to prevent or operate to our justification If he did why doth not Mr. Baxter quote the place as elsewhere he doth very diligently when the Testimony of the Author makes for him or why in the end of his Appendix where he sucks out of Dr. Twisse and others all that he thinks may make for his advantage doth he not cite this so pregnant a Testimony But he hath left to himself an evasion that when he hath beguiled whom he can with such an authority being found at last he can answer his meaning is the term or phrase viz. causa dispositiva upon some other not to this Argument is that which Dr. Twisse useth I finde him indeed calling works causas sine quibus non or dispositivas salutis of our salvation or glorification never of our justification And so far is he from attributing under this term what Mr. Baxter attributeth that he seriously abandoneth it So he expresseth himself Vind. Lib. 1. Par. 2. Sect. 2. Proxime finem Vix majus pâ—ceatum est quam justificationem quaerere ex operibus and almost in the next words Nullum opus Deo gratiuâ— acceptius est quam sibi justitiae suae in negotiosalutis renunt iare et in Christo unice confidere But come we now to that which he speaks for confirmation the first part consists in prefacing His own conscience telling him that it is a Pharisaicall Popish principle which he hear positeth he forelayes his Proeme to the proofe thereof thus B. I know this is the doctrine that will have the loudest out-cries raised against it and will make some cry out Heresie Popery Socinianism and what not For mine own part the searcher of hearts knoweth that not singularity affection of novelty nor any goodwill to Popery provoketh me to entertain it but that I have earnestly sought the Lords direction upon my knees before I durst adventure on it and that I resisted the light of this conclusion as long as I was able but a man cannot force his own understanding if the evidence of truth force it not though he may force his pen or tongue to silence or dissembling That which I shall do further is to give you some proofs c. First here a word to such Ministers as being more the disciples of men then of Christ and better versed in Sophistry then Divinity do only not deify Mr. Baxter maintaining all his doctrine in this book to be the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches Why do they anger the man in charging him with so low a spirit that he hath nothing but what is common with him and the most eminent lights in the Church will not he be offended at it doth he not here in some kind pronounce himself a dissenter and that what he here asserteth is that which the Protestant Churches detest as heresie doth not himself even before experience what acceptance his book would have as it were proclaime himself in this point departed from us into the Tents of Papists and Socinians As to Mr. Baxter 1. We have before granted to him that he gives no cause of suspicion that affection of singularity and novelty hath drawn him into this opinion For he is not herein singular nor is his doctrine new but such as the Phariâ—ees in Christs time and the false Apostles in the Apostles times and the worst of Hereticks from thence unto our dayes have unanimously pestered the Church with Yet in this I appeal to Mr. Baxter whether some affection of repute by being a deviser of a new way and new Arguments for the confirmation of this old Popish Socinian doctrine hath not possessed him 2. Whether the searcher of
of them that hath not at all times held and spoken the same things with Mr. Pemble And so pronounceth the faith of Christ to have been no where sound but within the confines of Rome and that the Protestant Churches are all hereticall and apostates have rejected the faith of Christ and sought righteousnesse and salvation by a Creed of their owne making 4 Neverthelesse his sincerity in the very next words after his such stout pleading for the Papists fals foul with them for making the Scripture a nose of wax to delude the simple with an opinion that he hath no confederacy with them Yet 5 Holds them fast by the hand telling us that he will joyn with them and follow James in their sense and interpretation to seek justification by works and not by faith only But let us come to the text it self and see whether St. James will be brought to dance after St. Bellarmine and Mr. Baxter with all their piping and charming and in this the sincerity of these two great champions in the interpreting of this Scripture will appear First for the scope of the Words who can better expresse it then the Author This himself declares to be the subversion of the false confidences of shadie beleevers who being destitute of true faith gloried in the meer shadow and profession of it as if it should justifie and save them though it never wrought to their Sanctification but left them to every good work reprobate Against this pernicious delusion he bends the whole drift of his dispute and proveth such a faith to be vain dead devillish and on the contrary that the faith which justifyeth is lively and operative in good works This will be manifested in examining the severall passages of the dispute specially to him that will take the labour of reading but some of the many hundreds of our Divines that have answered the Arguments of the Papists hence deduced either in their Commentaries upon this Epistle or in handling this Controversie against them And herein some of the learned among the Papists are more plyant to obey and lesse stubborn to resist the truth then Mr. Baxter The scope of the Apostle saith Cajetan is to shew quod non fide sterili sed foecunda justificâ—mur i. e. that we are justifyed not by a barren but fruitfull faith Thus do we finde James himself staâ—ing the question ver 14. What doth it profit though a man say he hath faith and hath not works shall his faith save him It is against the saying and false professing of faith that hath no force or life to bring forth good works and not against faith indâ—ed which worketh by love that the Apostle here argueth denying to it any efficacy to Justification this is the thing which we shall finde him prosecuting throughout his whole disputation and on the contrary part affirming faith which is living and active to good works to be also alive and effectuall to justifie This will more properly offer it self to be made out in the next place Let us then come to examine Mr. Baxters dispute from the authority of James Pag. 293. Br. In opening this I shall first shew the clearness of that in Iames for the point in question c. This he goeth about to doe by dashing in peeces all whatsoever hath been sayd by all or any of the Protestant Churches or Writers against the Papists in expounding this Text thus B. The ordinary expositions of St. James are these two 1. That he speaks of Justification before men and not before God 2. That he speaks of works as justifying our Faith and not as justifying our persons or as Mr. Pembles phrase is The Apostle when he saith works justifie must bee understood by a Metonymy that a working faith justifieth That the former exposition is false may appear thus This is his shewing the clearnesse of that in St. James viz. to anathematize all that any of the faithfull servants and Martyrs of the Lord Jesus within the Protestant Churches have spoken in the Exposition therof that it may bee embraced by all after the Catholick that is Romish interpretation Two things wee except against in this his clarifying passage 1. That being very good both at confounding and dividing as hee sees either to make for his turn hee doth heer by dividing seek to pervert as erewhile by confounding we found him to obscure the truth Why doth he make two opinions two expositions heer of that which is but one Hath he learned of Maâ—chiavel so to deal in spiritualls as hee prescribes in Politicks Divide impera Why els should hee set at division those that are united Or make them to fight one against another who speak the same things Or set in opposition Iohn against Calvin and Calvin against Iohn Or David against Pareus and Pareus against David And so other thousands when every of these gives both these expositions which he mentioneth in one Possibly as to some particulars in this question he may meet with some particular Writer urging the one onely but he knowes that most and those not the meanest make use of both as shal be shewed 2. Wee except against him that in alleadging theâ—e expositions he doth subtlely hide the grounds upon which the Protestants doe fix these their expositions And thus he exposeth them to the vulgar at least as groundless dreams shifting evasions wherof no reason can be given on our part That all the reason lieth on the Papists part with whom therfore he hath joyned Is this Christian or Jesâ—iticall dealing Would it not bee expected from him that professeth himselfe a Protestant and zealous Presbyterâ—â—n when â—e divides himselfe utterly from them all them of whose side hee professeth himselfe to be at least to set down their opinions and grounds thereof and to confute those grounds and not as hee doth deny and fight against the conclusion without speaking a word to the premisses What he therefore fraudulently omits I shall heer supply rendring the expositions as our Divines give it and the grounds of it and not as Mr. Baxter corrupts it We have found him acknowledging that if it be but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture that one must bee reduced to the rest and not all the rest to that one pa. 297. So stands the case heer The ordinary language yea drift of the New Testament is to hold forth Justification by faith without works as wee have seen before and every one that will but consideratively reade as other the Evangelists so chiefly the Gospell written by Iohn the Apostle the Acts of the Apostles the Epistles to the Romans to the Galatians to the Ephesians Philippians Colossians and Hebrews especially and above the rest and withall from the rest it must needs appeare This one passage in one Epistle hath a sound of differing but a souÌ„d Must al be reduced to this or this to all According to the rule therefore allowed by Mr. Baxter
From the attributes that he gives to the faith to which he denieth justification viz. a dead faith ver 17. 20. 26. A faith of Devils ver 19. But a dead and Devillish faith are not a true Gospel faith but at the best a figment and counterfeit thereof 4. From the similitude by which he illustrateth his disputation If a man in a pretence of charity speaks comfortable words to his hungry and naked brother Alas poor soul be cloathed be filled but ministreth nothing to him for his refreshing will any call that flourish of words true charity Is it any more then a paint therof So also of him that saith hee hath faith but evidenceth it not by its fruits c. The verball faith doth no more profit to justification than the verball charity to sanctification If one of these in the mind of the Author be true charity then according to the minde of the Author also the other is true Faith 5. From the object of that Faith which James excludeth from Iustification Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the object of justifying Faith is Christ Thes 66 -68 and their explication But let him shew that James doth here expresly or impliedly in any one passage of his dispute make Christ the object of that Faith which he excludes from justification or any other object than the Faith of a meer Heathen or Hypocrite may pitch upon viz. generall truths that there is a God c. else let him grant from his owne principles that it is not true Faith but an unprofitable Historicall Faith as some terme it which is here excluded Thus have our writers in answer to the Papists Cavills expressed the minde of James in this place or rather from him selfe declared what himselfe expresseth to be his minde and this they expresse not as Mr. Baxter perverts them by some one but by both of these interpretations viz. of the word justifying and the word Faith manifesting out of James himselfe that as oft as in this dispute he attributes justification to works he speaks of justification i e. the declaration or manifestation thereof to men As when vers 21 Abraham and ver 25. Rahab and ver 24. A man indefinitely are said to be justified by works he meanes they are so manifested and declared by their works to us This is a usuall phrase not only in Scripture but in our common expressions and our common talk I will justifie what I have spoken or done i. e. I will declare it make it appear to be all good true and just I will justifie him from all that is layd to his charge i. e. I will declare and prove him just and free from all that he is charged with Again where hee denieth justification to that dead faith that worketh not by love that by faith he means a false profession and counterfeit of and not the true justifying faith and who among us ever said that to say I have faith never expressing the power and fruits of it can justifie a man So there is nothing to be found in James crossing the Protestant yea Evangelicall and Apostolicall conclusion that we are justified in our consciences before God by faith alone without works i. e. by a living and working not a dead faith yet without works can we not be declared and manifested just unto men That which Mr. Br. hath spoken against the former part of this interpretation viz. justification before men we have found to be either less or worse than nothing To the other viz. the denying of justification to faith that is a counterfeit a false profession of faith hee saith nothing and why because hee hath not what to say Therfore he stifles it in darknes will not have his Reader hear of it for then actum est he must run to S. Francis or some other Saint S. James leaves him in the mire It is no lesse ludicrous than fallacious that he turns the state of the question another way and danceth round about it never comming to that which our Divines answer 1. Having devised pag. 294. that we say James speaks of works as justifying our faith not our persons he doth pa. 296. goe about to prove that works justifie the person not the faith only And who ever denied this position Doe not wee all say that the holy life declares the truth of faith and therin justifieth as to men the professor of it from all hypocrisie in making such a profession 2. pag. 297. he falls foul with the Ghost of sweet Mr. Pemble for saying that by Faith and works Iames understands a working Faith And after a sharp chiding without examining his Reasons the matter whereof I have before examined at length p. 298. fetching breath he offers him peace and friendship upon condition that he will arise from the grave say what Mr. Baxter saith But despairing of that and concluding if he should rise again from the dead he would still say with the Protestant Churches and Writers that Fides solùm justificat non autem fides sola Faith alone justifieth but not that Faith which is alone without works because that alone faith is not a true Faith he 3. Makes a transition to fall out with all Protestant Churches for attributing too much to Faith in making it instrumentall to Iustification that when Believers are said to receive Christ Io. 1. 12. and to receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of Righteousnesse Rom. 5. 17. wee will not say they receive this Christ this gift of his Righteousnesse to Iustification without any receiving instrument but make Faith the instrument by which we receive the same p. 299. A most pernicious Doctrine to Mr. Baxters Cause If it stand Mr. Baxters Iustification by workes in the same relation with Faith as its Concause must needs fall and tumble downe to hell for works will not be bowed into any instrumentality to co-operate with Faith in receiving Christ and his righteousness When contrariwise if we would say as he doth and which we must take his word without any further demonstration to bee true then in despite of Paul and the Holy Ghost our justification should be parted between faith and works and Mr. Brs. new Gospel stand the Gospel of Grace being wholly taken out of the way as unprofitable But in all that he saith hee diligently keeps off from speaking a word to what our Divines say in proving from James himselfe that he means not true faith when hee denies to the counterfeit or profession of it any efficacy to justifie and let the conscientious Reader judge whether he doth this in zeal for Christ or against him Let none except that possibly hee never read any of them that have thus expounded James What one of them hath he then read Nay I rather question what one of them hath he not read or with what one thing is he unacquainted that any of them hath written He is a stranger to Mr. Br. that will accuse him of little reading
and his glorying that they prove wee may act for salvation p. 81. which as generally posited by him no man ever denied there is no need of answering that which they are brought to prove being granted At length in the same pa. 81. of his App. he frameth an objection made against his doctrine thus B. Object But is it not the most excellent and Gospel-like frame of spirit to doe all out of meere Love to God and from thankefulnesse for life obtained by Christ and given us To this Objection he gives a three fold Answer Bax. Answ 1. If it come not from love to God it is not sincâ—re But is it sincere if it come from love to God Is there not aswell a naturall love as a naturall fear of God in the hearts of all both good and bad Or was there ever any that hated God as God and good Or that served him from hatred to him If such a Naturall or Morall Love for I finde not Mr. Baxter ascending any where higher suffice to make the obedience of men sincere and because sincere a perfect and sufficient righteousnes to justification and salvation Then all will more fitly cohere than the golden crowne with the golden pantofle a universall conditioning righteousness with a universall conditionall salvation All shall be saved except the Antinomian Paulites or Protestants if Mr. Baxters Gospel stand if he misse none else but they B. 2. Yet doth not the Gospel any where set our love to God and to our own souls in opposition nor teach us to love God and not our selves but contrarily joyneth them both together and commandeth them both The love of our selves and desire of our own preservation would never have been planted so deeply in our nature by the God of Nature if it had been unlawfull I conclude therefore that to love God and not our selves and so to do all without respect to our own good is no Gospel frame of spirit As home to the matter as his doctrine of Justification to the truth Where was conscience when will and wit alone shew themselves to beguile his Readers with meere opinions and imaginary suspitions Who ever opposed the ordinate love of God to the ordinate and subordinate love of our selves When he hath degraded us from being men yea into a state beneath Beasts and bruits telling the world that we doe not appetere bonum desire and move unto any thing that is good yea our chiefe good thenceforth hee thinks the world in stead of hearing will trample us as other stocks and stones that have no sensitive appetite Our doctrine is of another frame Wee oppose the love of God which is from the spirit of Adoption not from Nature to the servile feare which is from the spirit of Bondage following heerin the light and testimony of the Holy Ghost Ro. 8. 15. 1. Jo. 4. 18. And this I doubt not to be also the meaning of the Apostle Gal. 5. 6. where hee makes the all on our part to justification consist in Faith which worketh by love i. e. in faith which carrieth out the beleever to work no more in slavish fear and by a mercenary spirit but in the freedome and spirit of Love And whosoever will but vnwinde the Clew of Pauls disputation in the whole 4. Chapter especially from verse 21. and so forward to this 6. verse of Chap. 5. shall I think have the suffrage of his own Reason for this interpretation For the Apostle having disputed of the bondage discending from Hagar to Ismael and his Children from Mount Sinai to those that held themselves under the Covenant of Works Doe and live there given and withall of the Freedom discending from Sarah to Isaac and his seed viz. the seed of Christ then included in and typified by Isaac i. e. from the New and spirituall Jerusalem to all true Christians concludes of all such We are not the Children of the bond woman but of the free and in 5. Chap. verse 1. exhorting them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free And forbidding and in the next 3 verses shewing the danger of returning againe under the servile yoke of the Covenant of works Do and live whereas by Faith and not by works the hope of Righteousness is to be expected he concludes in the sixth verse that neither circumsition nor uncircumsition i. e. neither workes nor any externall priviledges of the workers avail any thing to life and righteousnesse but Faith which worketh by love what is that but Faith which worketh by a new principle of filiall love and not from that olde principle of servile feare the proper adjunct of the Covenant of workes This is to be the Children of the free not the bond woman by the Faith of Christ alone to seek for righteousnesse yet to be still working from a principle of love not of feare to bring forth fruits of sanctification to him that hath freely justified us This man saith the Apostle hath entred into his rest as God hath entred into his rest Heb. 4. 10. As God having consummated the worke of Creation rested and ceased from his worke because all was perfect and needed no addition and Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat downe at the right hand of God ceasing from further sufferings because our redemption is fully perfected and nothing more needed to bee added Heb 10. 12. 14. So every beeleever in respect of the rest of Grace having received by Faith the righteousnesse which is by this one sacrifice of Christ for the purging of all his sins sitteth downe for ever at rest in the fruition and firme tenure thereof ceasing from his owne workes to perfect his justification because it is already compleated and nothing needeth to be added to it All his workings henceforth is to manage so great a salvation to the glory of the Author as God worketh hitherto and Christ worketh for the governing and disposing to their proper ends the Creatures made and elect men redeemed Mr. Baxter contrariwise teacheth men so to love themselves as with love to destroy themselves and so to seek for life as to be sure to lose it forbidding them to enter into their Rest of Grace and calling them back to the yoke of bondage againe not suffring them to cease from their owne workes nor to doe that worke of God Jo 6. 29. nor to act in the Sp. of love but of feare and bondage Is not he one of those hard Taskmasters from whose cruelty Christ calleth his Disciples Come unto mee all yee that are weary and heavy laden with the yoakes and burthens which your legall Teachers impose on you and I will give you rest c. These will never permit you to have rest to your soules Mat. 11. 28 29. I conclude therefore that Mr. Baxters Conclusion of this his second Answer to the Objection is as patt to the purpose as an Oyster-shell to a hungry appetite and the love to
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâ—st speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌ„s Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ„ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
not Trid. Conc. in the forecited place the only Condition of the New Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition I desire no more of those that deny this but that the Scripture may be judg Whosoever shall reduce the contrary Doctrine Bell. de Justif lib. 1. cap. 13 c. into practice viz. to seek salvation and Justification by faith only not at al by works it wil undâ—ubtedly damn him Those other duties that justifie are Repentance praying for pardon forgiving others Love sincere obedience works of Love i. e. all good works not faith alone or some of these works and vertues with it but all must have their concurrence to justifie Aphor. p. 235 236 237. 325. Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For We are still said to be justified by Bell. de Justif lib. 1. Faith which is an Act of ours Append p. 80. Morall duties are part of the condition of our salvation aâ— for it to be performed And evâ— faith is a Morall duty So thâ— Daventria So Pemble cites the Papists objecting Treat of justif p. 37. according to Mr. Brs. doctrinâ— Morall works and duties alonâ— as such are required of us to Jâ—stification and not Faith it seâ— this way usefull but as a moraâ— work and duty Append. p. 80. When the Apostle saith by worâ— and not by faith only hee plainâ— makes them concomitant in procurâ—ment Bell. de necessitate operum ad salutem or in that kind of Causalâ— which they have especially seeing â— saith not as he is commonly inteâ—preted not by faith which is â— lone but not by faith onely â— the phrase Justified by works tâ— word by implyeth more than an â—dle concomitancy If they should onâ— stand by while Faith 〈◊〉 all â— would not be said we are justifiâ— by works Aph. p. 299 300. Faith in the largest sense as comprehendeth all the conditions See Weimrichius l. 1. in Epist ad Romanos c. 3. p. 207. the N C is when a sinner c. do beleeve the truth of the Gospell aâ— accept of Christ as his only Lord aâ— Saviour c. and sincerely thouâ— imperfectly obey him as his Lord foâ— Osor lib. 3. de Instit n. 70. giving others loving his people beâ—ring all what sufferings are imposeâ— diligently using his Means and Orâ—nances c. And all this sincerely â— to the end Aph. Thes 70. Apâ— Bel. lib 4. de Justif c. 10. Qu. de veritate honor operum p. 243. This personall Gospell-righteoâ—ness is in its kind a perfect Righâ—ousness and so far we may admit the doctrine of personall perfection Aphor Thes 24. The first point of Justification and that which is but a point the first point must needs be a very small pittance Bell. de Juâ—if lib. 1. â—ap 20. Malden in Matth. 9. of it I grant to be Faith alone but the accoÌ„plishment i. e. the perfitting thereof is not without the joynt procuremeÌ„t of obedience Aph. p. 302. In a Larger sence as promise is an obligation and the thing promised is â—el de Mer. called Debt so the performers of the Condition are called worthy and the thing promised is called Debt Thes â—ea all the â—apists as â—lleaged â—y Cal. Inst â—b 3. ca. 14. â—ect 12. â—ap 17. â—ect 3. 15. 26. Yea in this Meriting the obligation to reward is Gods ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthiness lieth in our performance of the Condition on our part Aph. pa. 141. As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of works by that Bell. lib. 4. â—le Justif â—ap 1. power which he had received by nature So is it possible for us to fullfill the Conditions of the New Covenant i. e. the righteousness which the Law requireth by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ But whether this be grace or no grace Pelagius his imaginary or the Gospel real grace he wil not let us know so that herein the Papists are more ingenious than he for they express themselves plainly of effectuall Grace indeed Thes 27. The Doctrine of Justification by Hos in Conâ—ut pa. 140 â—b 3. Faith onely tendeth to drive obedience out of the world For if men do once beleeve that it is not so much Canis inprefat in Andr. Vega Andr. Vega de Justif in Epist prefat Osor de Justif lib. 2 7. as a part of the Condition of their Justification will it not much tend to relax their diligence And it doth much confirm the world in their Soul-cozening Faith c. Aphor. pag. 325 326. It was not the intent of the Father Trident. Cone Sess 6. cap. 14 16. Sess 14. cap. 8 9. Bel. de Purgatorio Bel. de Poenitent lib. 4. or Son that by this satisfaction the offenders should be immediately delivered from the whole Curse of the Law and freed from the evill which they had brought upon themselves but some part must be executed in soul and body and remain upon them at the pleasure of Christ And this Curse is upon not onely affenders in generall but also upon the Elect and beleevers Aph. p. 65 66 68. Not till the day of Resurrection Judgement will all the effects of Sin Bellarmine and all his fellows Bel. de Justif lib. 4. cap. 7. Syn. Trid. ib. can 12. and Law wrath be perfectly removed from the beleevers justified Beleevers after they be justified are under the Law as it is a Covenant of works for life and death Aph. p. 78 79. 82. Onely a conditionall but not an absolute Andr. Vega de Fide operibus q. 2 So also Thomas Seotus Bellarmine discharge is granted to any in this life When we do perform the coÌ„dition yet still the discharge remains conditionall till we have quite finished our performance and where the condition is not performed the law is still in force shall be executed A. p. 82. The justification of beleevers in this life is conditionall ut supra Men that are but thus conditionally Bellarmine prosecuteth this Argument at large pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified again for their non-performance of the conditions and all the debt so forgiven be required at their hands so that there can be no certainty of perseverance to salvation Aph. Thes 44. He seems in the explication to lenifie his assertion but to it I have spoken before Our Legall Righteousnes is not personal or in our selves and in our own qualificatioÌ„s actions c. but wholly without us in Christ Our Evangelicall Bel. de justif Lib. 1. Righteousness consisteth in our own Actions of Faith Gospel obedience This is the onely Condition of our interest in the Righteousness of Christ Now by reason of this personall righteousnes consisting in the Recâ—â—tude of their own dispositions
and actions the godly are called Righteous in Scripture and their faith and duties are said to pleas God viz. at they are related to the Covenant of grace i. e. as they are coÌ„ditions procuring our Justification by Christ as well as in regard of the imputed Righteousnes which he addeth but as a cypher bringing no proof for it but all seemingly for the former Aphor. Thes 18 19 20 22 and its explication p. 119. c. We are justified by works commanded This is the generall vote of all Popish writers none excepted in the Law yet as they make up not our Legall but our Evangelicall Righteousness not as they are done upon legall terms but as they are conditions of the New Covenant This is the chief substaÌ„ce of Mr Brs whole book and it is a poorer shift to elude the doctrine of Paul than is that of the Papists Love is an essentiall part of Justifying Faith not properly a fruit of of it Aph. p 266. When Faith therefore The common Tenet of Papists not love is said to justifie it is said so to work in its essentiall work of accepting by Love pa. 268. That both are necessary to salvation are concurrent in apprehending Christ is doubtless p. 271. Love doth truly receive Christ c. p. 224. The people are to understand that for them to take upon trust from their Teachers what they cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary that many This also is a known Tenet among the Papists do imagin Epistle to the reader in the last page save two These may suffice for a Taste by which the reader may judge whether Mr. Brs and the Papists Barrells are filled with the same Herring or not Should I proceed to Compare also his and their equivocations ambiguities mentall reservations together with their purposed and not unwary Contradictions when to say and deny the same thing in severall places as may severally make for their advantage But specially if I should go on to Compare them how they bring the same arguments to prove their severall assertions and the same distinctions and other shifts of Sophistry to elude the Scriptures and reasons which make against them I should procedere ad infinitum almost begin but finde no end In alleaging the words of the severall Authors something here and there hath perhaps been abbreviated some words standing as cyphers without waight in reference to the questions Controverted interserted to make up some orderly Connexion of the following with the foregoing particular cited But no where have I wittingly Committed any such alteration of the words as to alter in one Title the sense of the Writer as will be evident to all that will but take the pains to examine the citations with their authentique or books from which they are cited Neither is there any one thing alleaged in which the two parties Cohere but what hath been still Controverted between the Papists and Protestants Else would it be easie to produce a thousand particulars wherein the Pope and Luther themselves speak one and the same thing without opposition or difference If any where when Mr. Br and the Papists speak the same words yet Mr. Br means not punctually the same thing with the Papists in every such allegation I undertake to manifest that he is worse and delivers more self-exalting Grace-depressing doctrine than they Yet all this is too little to set forth the frame of Mr. Brs spirit he may take himself injured and left too obscure if he be but matched with the Papists and have no pre-eminence granted him before and above them in exalting mans righteousnes and nullifying the Grace of God in Christ That we may not rob him of the praise to which his ambition seems to aspire we will grant to him that the Papists are but the Pigmies and he the Giant that in the battell between Michael and the Dragon he hath superexcelled more deserved the Scarlet Hat Miter Crosier yea Triple Crown it sâ—lf than they that have and wear them if not by his Art yet at least by his daring boldnes in his undertakings This service therefore I shall do him to manifest not onely his equality with but also his exâ—perancy above many of the famous Champions of Rome That many of the brave Cardinals Bishops Jesuits and Fryars of the Church of Rome are Protestants in the poynt of Justification as compared with Mr. Br and that he sheweth himself in many particularâ— about this doctrine a Papist of a deeper dye than the more modest Papists yea than some of the most Jesuitized and Trentified Rabbi's among them This shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVII A comparing of Mr. Baxters Doctrine with the Doctrine of some of the more Modest and other more Trentified and Jesuitized Papists in which he is found more Antichristian than they Papists 1 IT is to be noted that the Scripture attributeth this imputation of Righteousness to no other thing but Faith 2 Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to forgive and reconcile but all its vertue proceeds from its object namely Christ whose vertue and merit God hath disposed to apply to the sinner unto Justification by Faith on him 3 If it be enquired how the Law of Faith is distinguished by Paul against the Law of works even of morall works when Faith also is comprehended under the genus or kind of works for to beleeve is our work The solution is that to beleeve in him that justifieth the ungodly leaneth upon the Righteousnes of another to wit of God through Christ but other works do lean upon their own Righteousness every work is in or after it self good and makes him good that hath it 4 If Faith as it is a certain Act and of it self should procure Righteousness then were not Righteousness given freely God hath not used works to justifie as he hath used Faith that men should not boast attributing Righteousness to the vertue or merit of works 5 Faith is not counted to us for Righteousness as if it self were made our Righteousness but because it brings a Righteousness on man before God not as it is an act of man then Grace should be of works for to beleeve is a kind of work but of Gods will as he hath willed that Righteousness should be given to man by Faith and the vertue of Christ upon whom man beleeveth should be communicated to the beleever This is to count or impute Faith to Righteousness before God 6 Whereas we attain a twofold Righteousness by Faith an inherent Righteousness c. by which we become pertakers of Gods nature and the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us c. It remains to be enquired upon which of these we ought to lean or trust and to account our selves justified before God My judgment is that we are to rest to rest I say as upon a stable
Part 1. p. 277. to the 286. More of Justification see Bellarmine Repentance Faith Works Condition Scripture Lord Prayer Forgiving Love Easie Christ Papists Paul Cozen Grace Causes Reconciliation Degrees K. The kingdome and pardon of God and of Christ are one and the same Part 1. p. 228 229. L. VVhether beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works largely discussed against Mr. Br. part 1. p. 61 to 97. Protestants reasons for the Negative ibid. p. 62-66 Mr. Brs Sophistry in stating the question ibid. p. 66-70 The Law not repealed as a Covenant of Works to any but in a right sense nulld to beleevers part 1. p. 71-74 The vanity of the distinctions fallaciousness of the Arguments which Mr. Br brings to prove the Affiâ—mative ibid. p. 75. to the 97 Many abuse the Law in preaching it first not onely to kill but then also to make alive again Pref. p. 11 12. Distinguishing the same works into works of the Law and works of the Gospel viz Paul and Moral Law-giver vid. Lord. Legal or Law teacher vid. Gospel Secular Learning see Arts Sophistry Tertullion Bullinger The doctrine of Faith gives not the Reins to carnall Liberty Part 2. p. 286. to the 295 The doctrine of Mr. Br so accusing it doth se ibid. p. 170 171 c. Do and Live whether and in what respects the voyce of the Gospel and in what sense to work for Life not from Life or from Life not for Life are either and both sound doctrine Part 2. p. 137. to the 153. 158. Part 1. p. 179. Whether Christ Justifie as our Lord and Law giver and that it follow thence we are justified by works as well as by Faith Part 2. p. 64. to the 84. How farr and in what sense onely the affirmative may be granted ibid. p. 79. The question stated ibid. p. 65. Mr. Baxters Arguments to prove the affirmative answered ibid. p. 71. to 84. VVhether Love cooperate with Faith in Justifying Part 2. p. 37. 40. Our Acting from Love to God denieth not a regular Love to our selves Part 2. p. 293 294. M. Mr. Brs Magisteriall and usurped Authority in saying without proving Part 2 p. 252 253. Marks vid. Evidences Metaphysicks see Arts. Mr. Brs doctrine of Merits examined in which he shews himself as high-flown a Papist as any of the Jesuits Part 1. p. 186. to the 194. An Admonition to such Ministers as inconsiderately suck up Mr. Brs doctrines Part 1. p 59 60. What the Moral Law is as considered in it self and in what sense taken Part 1. p. 197-199 VVhat Relation it hath to the severall Covenants ibid. p. 201 202 c. Why the Gospel continues it as a Rule and that it can be no more repealed or abrogated than God un-Godded ibid. p. 199 200 203-206 N. Novelty or Newnes of words and phrases used oft for the Vshering in of errors Part 1. p. 128 129. O. Obscuring see Darkening How all the Offices of Christ concur in our Justification yet nothing concludible thence for Justification by works Part 2. p. 63 64. Origen how great a Scholar and how great an abuser of his Learning and corrupter of the Gospel Pref. p. 33 34. P. VVhether our doctrine by excluding works from justifying be a stumbling block to Papists hindering their conversion and an occasion given to many learned men to turn Papists and therefore unsound Part 2. p. 188 to 197. Mr. Brs doctrine compared with the worst of the Papists and found one and the same with theirs Part 2. p. 215. to p. 222 His doctrine compared with such of the Papists as write more moderately found worse than theirs ibid. p. 223. to the 229. VVhether his doctrine contradicts Pauls or not ibid. p. 234. to the 258. His first Reason refuted viz. that Pauls question was what is the proper Righteousness by which we are justified but his own by what means we may attain this Righteousness though they answer differently to these differing questions they consent in Judgements ibid. p. 239 to the 250. His 2 reason that Paul excludes the works of the Law not of the Gospel vain and Popish ibid. p. 251. to the 257. His 3 reason that Paul under the word Faith implyeth works and obedience vitious in the same kinde with the former ibid. p. 257 258. It is no sound reason that Christ commands not the Perfect Righteousness of the Law because Mr. Br seeth no Reason why he should require what he enableth no man to perform Part 1. p. 215. 217 VVhat Reasons thereof may be given ibid. p. 216 217. Perfect See Sincere and Righteousness Person vid. Work Philosophy vid. Arts. Whether Mr. Brs doctrine be as he contendeth free from Popery Part. 2. p. 209 to 215. VVhether it be possible for us to perform a Righteousness perfect to Justification Part 1. p. 194. 196. Whether and in what sense Praying for pardon may be said to be a condition of pardoning and justifying Pa. 2. p. 31-33 Promises see Qualifie Punish and Punishment vid. Curse and Affliction VVhether Mr. Br hold for Purgatory Part 1. p. 54-56 Q. Promises of life made to persons so and so Qualified describe the Justified but demonstrate not for what they are justified Part 2. p. 40 41. 269. Rules given by our Divines for the right understanding of such promises to persons of such qualifications P. 2. p. 112 c. Quotations without the words of Scripture or shewing how he would argue thence why so frequent with Mr. Br. P. 2. Cha. 2 3 in the beginning thereof R. Whether ReconciliatioÌ„ denotes the same thing with or different from Remission and Justification Part 1. p. 227 228 308 309. VVhether and in what Respects sin may be Remitted before it be committed Part 1. p. 310. to the 313. Whether and in what sense Repentance may be said to officiat in Justifying Par. 2. p. 26. to the 31. Scripture seemingly asserting it examined ibid. What Legal Repentance is ibid. p. 26. What the life promised and death threatened under the Law to this legal Repentance are ibid. p. 26-28 What Gospel Repentance is and how manifold ibid. p. 29-31 Sometimes one with Faith ibid. p. 29 30. In what sense life is promised to it ibid. Repentance either in its large or strict sense how it giveth life ibid. p. 28 29 30. Mr. Brs doctrine of a twofold Righteousness absolutely necessary to Justification the one Legal the other Evangelical this in our selves that in Christ and his Reasons to make good 1 his phrase 2 his matter examined and refelled Part 1. p. 119. to p. 143. His dispute that his doctrine is not derotory to Christ and his Righteousness proved fallacious and false Part 2. p. 259. to the 265. VVhether Righteousness be a Reall Being or else but a Modification of a Being Part 1. p. 149 150. 159. to 161 VVhether the Scripture call men Righteous only for performing the Cnnditions of the New Covenant Part 1. p. 144. to 163.
the condition yet still the discharge remains Here he followeth Arminius because in this point Arminius over-runs the Papists conditionall saith he till we have quite finished the performance i. e. till we have gasped out the last breath So that in this life there is no discharge but a conditionall promise that possibly we may in the world to come be discharged what is this discharging but Justifying and absolving us from what but from the sinn which we have committed and from the vengeance which the law threateneth such a justification he denyeth to be attainable in this life And this argument he thus urgeth Whosoever is not perfectly justified is still under the law as a Covenant of works But the very Saints are not in this world so Justified ergo they are under the Law c. The second that Justification in the world to come must be procured by mans own willing c. He delivereth plainly enough in that he saith that we must perform yea continue performing the conditions untill we go out of this world and then we may possibly obtein to be justified in the world to come What are the conditions by which we procure the discharge Mr. B tells us afterward as we shall finde Faith and good works These must we observe and continue observing to the end to procure justification after this life ended And so it is by our own strong and lasting endeavours that after the world is ended our sins may be possibly forgiven and we saved Here if we grant unto him that we are Gods hirelings thus to work in his vineyard the whole day the whole term of our life and that Justification is the wages of our work to be paid in the evening i. e. at the end of the world then it will follow indeed what he deduceth hence that untill the world be ended we are still under the Curse of the Law 3 That they that are in Christ may fall away and be damned if they continue in their Apostacy or may after their many apostacies oft renew again their union with Christ and so at last be justified he speaks out fully in telling us It is not one instantaneous act of beleeving but a continued faith that shall quite discharge us that no longer are we discharged than we are beleevers and when we cease to beleeve the Law is still in force and condemneth Either he reasoneth from an unpossible supposition or a possible and usuall Case incident to beleevers If from an impossibility it makes not at all for his purpose If it were possible for him to fall from grace then should beleevers be under the Law again But it is not possible c. ergo they shall never be reduced under the law again But he argueth as from a possible and usuall case and then if we grant him that the Saints may fall away it will follow that they are not absolutely freed from the curse of the law in this life But in granting this we grant our selves to be Popish and may shake hands with Mr. Br. The fourth that no man can in this life be certain of salvation depends on the former For if we cannot be certain of our perseverance we cannot be certain of eternall happines and by necessary consequence it must be concluded also that we are not discharged from the bondage of the Law But we cannot grant the premisses from which such inferences are drawn unless we will grant away our selves also in despair to perdition And therefore we deny to Mr. B all his argumentation here as having nothing of Christ but all of Antichrist in it I mean not to prosecute in this place a dispute against Mr. B about these four pernicious errors which he holds in common with other Papists himself will elswhere minister to me an occasion of speaking more fully to them where he doth not onely touch upon but also professedly handle the most if not all of them Here I shall onely to preserve the simple from his guile manifest upon what fallacious grounds he pitcheth these his assertions They are principally these two 1 That Faith as an infused gift of grace and a part of our inherent righteousnesse doth justifie when it is not onely as the Papists say Fides informis but also Formata perfected both in its duration of time and in all its Concomitants the other habits vertues and gifts of grace such as are love mercy goodness temperance c. and in the fruits and acts of all these which are good works For so shall we finde him in the sequele of this tractate teaching 2 That Faith and all those its Concomitants with their fruits and effects depend upon our freewill to gain and retein refuse and lose them at the pleasure and lust of our corrupt freewill These points being granted all those foure errors will follow as necessary deductions thence But the orthodox Churches hold and the Oracles of the Gospel teach otherwise 1 That our Justification floweth from our union to Christ that All in Adam are under the Law under the Curse unblessed unjustified unpardoned But that all which are in Christ are justified pardoned c. So the Apostle Phil. 3. 8. c. All things are doung to me that I may winn Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousnes which is of the law but that which is through the Faith of Christ c. Here was the Apostles righteousnes and Justification to winn Christ and be found in him And this union unto Christ is made up principally by the Spirit by which Christ apprehendeth and uniteth us to himself No otherwise is our Justification attributed to faith than as it is the instrument by which we apprehend Christ to our selves as we are apprehended of Christ to himself and bring home into our bosom◠the benefit of this our union to him together with the sense and joy of our Justification by him This I shall have occasion to illustrate and prove more fully before I part with Mr. Baxter and because he will call me to it in another place here I shall say no more of it 2 That our Faith both in its existence and perseverance dependeth not upon the fickle sweek of our own freewill but upon the support of Gods power and unchangeable love and upon the vertue of Christs mediation and faithfullnes of the Mediator though our freewill be mutable yet the gifts calling of God are without repentance i. e. without Change Rom. 11. 29. He that hath begun a good work in you will performe it till the day of Jesus Christ Phil. 1. 6. Though our faith be weak yet we are preserved by the power of God through Faith and salvation Christ hath by his sacrifice purchased to us not onely salvation but faith also both in its being and persevering to apprehend him and it to our persevering Consolation They shall never perish saith he neither shall any man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any one
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
also concurreth with it to blesse it even it alone to this end Here to determine peremptorily whether of these acts of God his qualifying of faith for or his commanding it to this use is more and lesse direct or proper to the end or whether they are coordinates thereunto I fear may proceed more from a headie rashnesse then from the modesty of Christian wisdome especially because I take justifying faith to be more then a naturall or morall virtue which Mr. Baxter possibly will deny viz. an infused habit qualifyed by God himself that infuseth it with this peculiar property to cleave unto Christ and receive him But by the way it shall not be impertinent to shew in some particulars what mentall Reservations Mr. Baxter hath in his words not easily appearing to a cursory reader 1. When he saith B. Faith justifyeth as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant His meaning is that it only so far justifyeth as it fulfilleth the condition But throughout our whole life according to his principles we are but fulfilling have not fulfilled the condition of the new Covenant therefore throughout our whole life we are but in justifying not justifyed And then consequently if it be true what most of our Divines conclude that in the next life there shall be no use of faith because vinon and fruition are proper to that state beleevers shall not be justifyed at all because the condition was never fulfilled 2. When he saith B. Because God hath commanded no other means nor promised justification to any other therefore it is that faith is the only condition and so only thus justifyeth The reader that doth but catch here a little and there a little of his doctrine would think him by what he here findeth no lesse Orthodox in the point of Justification then Luther or Paul himself that he explodes all works all inherent righteousnesse from bearing the least part with faith unto justification whereas contrariwise he speaks not here of the faith of Gods stamping but of his own coining of a faith that brings in all good works that is it self all good works to justification attributes no more to faith then he doth to any other part of our inherent righteousnesse nor any thing to faith it self as usefull to justifie but as it is our whole inherent righteousnesse or at least a part of it as partly by that which hath been but principally by that part of his treatise which remains to be examined appeareth The rest of this Section I let passe without examination I come now to the fift and last Section of his Explication pag. 230. B. 5. That faiths receiving Christ and his righteousnesse is the remote and secondary and not the formall reason why it justifyeth appeareth thus We finde verifyed in Mr. Baxter that of the Poet Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat having professed open warre against the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches yea of the Gospell of Christ he manageth it more by stratagems then by valour We finde him here perverting in stead of rightly stating the question thereby to get advantage to answer what he will and to what he pleaseth The question controverted between us and the Papists first and in these latter times the Arminians also is not whether Gods instituting of faith in Christ or else the acting of faith so instituted be the one the formall and the other the remote reason why it justifyeth But whether faith so instituted of God to be the mean or instrument of our Justification doth justifie by vertue received from Christ its object or else by its own vertue as it is a good work or as it is an act of righteousnesse performed in obedience to Gods commandement That which they maintain is that faith justifyeth by vertue of its object Christ denying the Papists work and the Arminians act If Mr. Baxter did labour more for truth then for victory we should not finde in him so much fraud and so little of sincerity It is not Christs but Antichrists kingdome that is maintained by the pillarage of shifts and sophisms Let him not astonish the poor Saints of Christ with words that they cannot understand obscuring the truth with needlesse terms of art his poor flock of Kederminster for whom he affirmes himself to have compiled this work are in all probability as well acquainted with the formall and remote reason why faith justifyeth as they are with Hocus Pocus his Liegerdemain In this point let him either confute the assertion of our Divines or maintain the adversaries assertion here he doth neither directly but beats the aire and makes a great noise to little purpose Yet let us see how well he proveth his own assertion B. Suppose Christ had done all that he did for sinners and they had beleeved in him thereupon without any Covenant promising Justification by this Faith would this Faith have justified them By what Law or whence will they plead their Justification at the Bar of God This supposition is not full there must be another supposition antecedaneous to this supposition A true supposition that will shew the invalidity of this feigned one Suppose that upon a foregoing Covenant between the Father and him Christ hath done all this for his elect whom he knoweth by name and so Christ in their names hath given and God hath taken full satisfaction for all their offences and hereupon Christ hath received in their behalf a full acquittance and discharge Who now shall lay any thing to their charge It is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. under this supposition they are for ever freed from pleading at Gods Bar They have there an Advocate to plead for them Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. Sits at the right hand of God with the effectuall Oratory of his pretious bloud making intercession for us Rom. 8. 34. so the supposition of Mr. Baxter extends no further then this if without any Covenant promise of Justification by Faith in Christ could they by beleeving in him have had the beeing and comfort of Justification within their own souls Unlesse God had by some other way ratified and sealed this benefit to them I acknowledge they could not yet had their justification been still nothing the lesse firm before God in Christ But now by the promise of the New Covenant through Faith they have the sweetnesse and joy thereof in themselves also B. But suppose Christ having done all that he did for us that he should in framing the New Covenant have put in any other condition and said whosoever loveth God shall by vertue of my satisfaction be justified would not this love have justified No doubt of it I conclude then thus The receiving of Christ is as the silver of this coin the Gospel promise is as the Kings stamp which maketh it curraut for justifying If God had seen it meet to have stamped any thing else it
his sophistry hath bin occupant In these two Positions viz and 57 58. Mr. Baxters aym is at two assertions of the Protestants to smite them through viz. the instrumentality of Faith and the vertue which it deriveth from Christs it object to justifie and to set up his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere or act of beleeving under the name of a condition of the New Covenant without any respect of instrumentality that it hath to apprehend Christ or any vertue that it receives from Christ apprehended to justifie This he doth in the last words of the 57. Thesis telling us that faith can be said only in a remote and improper sense as it receiveth Christ to justifie where by receiving he shaketh and shifts off the instrumentality of faith and by Christ the vertue of faiths object into a remote and darke corner as not working at all or very obscurely in our justification But his act of beleeving he exalteth as the proper and formall reason of faiths justifying This he illustrateth in the Explication pa. 230. Suppose Christ had put some other condition of the new Covenant as Love Patience Temperance Mercy c. that could not be instruments of receiving Christ nor have Christ their object to draw vertue from him should not either of these notwithstanding though neither instruments nor in a capacity to have Christ their object from which to have drawn vertue by their own act have justifyed So faith being the condition of the new Covenant doth by its act justifie So argued he under Thes 57. But doubting of the validity of his reasons there either to weaken ours or to stablish his own assertion he addes this Thesis more fully to confirm what he had there endevoured The ground of this is saith he because and because as is before expressed I answer there is no sufficient ground laid for the confuting of ours or the strengthning of his tenent For be it that Christs righteousnesse be ours by divine donation or imputation how doth he build his opinion upon this ground that the act of faith as being the condition c. doth properly justifie He must shew his meaning in words at length and not in figures before he shall win us to build with him straw and stubble upon the ground that is good and fitted to bear a good structure But very remarkably doth he here dispute in opposing Gods donation or giving or our beleeving or receiving of Christs righteousnesse as if they could not both consist together in justifying us at least properly Then it seems we are properly justifyed by the donation of Christ without his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or act of faith Yea then are we properly and formally justifyed in Christ before we yet beleeved For he will not denie that Gods donation of Christ at least in his sense is before our receiving him And thus with one breath he will throw down all that before with so much labour he hath built But let us see how from this ground he batters our assertions and what force there is in his battery If we look to the Prothesis of his Thesis alone the argument in substance runs to this Tenour Faith doth not justifie us either as an instrument or by vertue of Christ or Christs righteousnesse its object because it doth not justifie us as an instrument or by vertue of its object Who can shake his buildings that founds them on such firme ground That this is the force of his reasoning is evident to them that observe him that by the word receiving he excludes the instrumentality and by Christ excludes the object of faith from any proper acting to justifie us as I said before But we will annex the Antithesis to his Prothesis and so fill up his Thesis and then see what strength there is in the whole to his advantage or our disadvantage What he must prove in his and refute on our part hath been already declared Only in the forecited Prothesis he begs the conclusion that he should have proved Therefore we must lay his whole argument from the donation or imputation alone yet will we put his Argument fully thus If Christs righteousnesse doth not properly justifie us because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by Gods imputation or donation then faith doth not justifie as an instrument or by vertue of Christ its object but as it is an act containing the condition of the Covenant But the former is true therefore the latter also I deny the assumption as to the former member thereof the beleeving and receiving c. And Mr. Baxter brings not so much as a gry to prove it And as to the latter member Gods donation c. I deny the consequent of the Major Though Christs righteousnesse justifie us properly because it is ours in Law by Gods donation or imputation yet it followes not that either faith as an act or condition doth so of it self justifie or that it doth not justifie as an instrument and by vertue of its object or as some say its correlate or as others by the communion that it puts us into with Christ this I prove thus not from terms of art but from the authority and testimonies of the most high God 1. From the relation between the brazen Serpent the Type and Christ Jesus the Antitype Joh. 3. 14. The brazen Serpent was of Gods donation to Israel so also was the Soveraigne power that was infused into it to heal but the eyes of the wounded Israelites must be directed unto and fixed upon the Serpent for cure and then vertue issued from it to heal So was the son of man lifted up with vertue in him to heal Christ with this vertue is of Gods donation yet this donation hinders not but that our faith as an instrument must be directed to and fixed upon him alone for justification and so that justifying vertue or righteousnesse in him comes from him upon us to justification It is no more the act of faith that of it self because a condition if indeed a condition doth it then the act of the eye cured the wounded without vertue drawn by it from its object 2. From the cure of the woman which had the bloudy issue Marke 5. 25. it will not be denyed that the vertue by which she was healed was of divine donation yet it was brought home to her not by the instrumentall service of her hand touching Christs garment for the multitude touched his garments and thronged him yet had no benefit by it verse 31. But her faith apprehending Christ himself so said the Lord Thy faith hath made thee whole verse 34. yet not the act of faith as a condition but faith as an instrument by which the poor woman drew vertue from Christ its object Jesus perceived that vertue had gone out of him verse 34. So it was not the vertue of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or act of beleeving but of Christ beleeved
Treatise what before he did but hint and whisper in a kind of darkenesse now he preacheth on the top of the house proclaiming it as the sole Soul-saving doctrine canonizing as Saints the Papists for the constant holding forth of it and Anathematizing all the Protestants Churches as Apostaticall for departing from it as by examining what followes in this his Tractate will appear For the avoiding of confusion and prevention of a voluminous prolixity into which I see my self already carried by following him Thesis after Thesis being necessitated thereby as he speaks so to examine and answer the same things often in many places I shall endeavour to reduce unto some few heads the sum of what he saith upon this Question examining that which is to the purpose and leaving the rest that is inconsideraable or impertinent to it 1 Then I shall endeavour to draw out from him the state of the Question what he holdeth and how he holds it forth to us 2 I shall examine his Arguments and Reasons by which he endeavoureth to confirme his assertion or assertions 3 I shall also examine what force there is in the Reasons which he bringeth to clear himself and his doctrine from being derogatory to the grace of God and full efficacy of Christs mediation or from all tainture of Popery Socinianism or other heresies Within this Triangle I conceive the whole fabrick of his doctrine of workes to be comprehended and in examining of these fully nothing to be left unexamined that may make for his purpose 1 The state of the Question or his assertions which he maintaineth I shall as neer as may fitly be done transcribe from him in his own words thus 1 The bare act of beleeving is not the only condition of the new Covenant but severall other duties also are part of this condition viz. of Justification For this is his meaning and if he be not so understood he is understood besides his meaning and in what he saith he saith nothing His Tractate contains Aphorisms of Justification only And the conditions of the new Covenant which tend to Illumination Sanctification Glorification c. must not be confounded with those of Justification if it were granted him that the Gospell dispenseth all or any of these upon conditions In this sense therefore he must he will be understood Thes 60. pa. 235. 2 That these duties coordinate with Faith to our Justification as conditions thereof are Repentance praying for pardon forgiving others love hearing the word consideration conviction godly sorrow knowledge of Christ assent to the truth of the Gospell subjection consent acceptance cordiall covenanting self-resigning esteeming and preferring Christ before all loving him above all sincerity perseverance affiance sincere obedience and works of love serious painfull and constant use of Gods ordinances hearing praying meditating in a word all good works i. e. all the works of Righteousnesse holinesse mercy c. which the Law requireth yet with this proviso that all these legall workes must be called not our Legall but our Gospell Righteousnesse Thes 60. p. 235 236. p. 240 241 242. Thes 73 74 p. 289. 290 291 292. 3 That the non-performance of any one of these doth hinder but it is not one or many but a concurrence of all these together in one that sufficeth to condition us unto Justification Thes 61. So that when the promise of life is made in Scripture to our beleeving in Christ or to any other inseparable concomitant of Faith you must understand it Caeteris paribus viz. that your knowledge repentance obedience good workes c. are not an inch behind your faith or in sensu composito that it is a compounded Faith hath all other vertues not only included in it but also actuated and cooperating with it for justification or else you must be shaken off unjustified yea though all the rest be in act and but one out of act Thes 61. and its Explication He saith not this indeed totidem verbis word by word But let him deny the least particle of all this to be his meaning he shall by such a denyall extremely wound if not wholly subvert his cause and yeeld it to us 4 It is not the habit of these vertues as infused from above into us but the act or work of them as set in operation by us that justifieth For so saith he of Faith it self much more implieth it of the other vertues that it is the act of faith alone as it is our act or work that justifyeth aâ—d consequentially that we are justifyed wholly by works viz. as the alone condition or causa sine qua non 5 That some of these justifying vertues or works are antecedaneous to or fore-going preparatives of some integrall parts some proper essentiall formall acts some differentiall and essentiall parts some modifications some in separable products some both parts and necessary consequents and subservient acts some necessary continuing and exercising means and lastly some separable adjuncts of Faith yet tending to the well being thereof and thus having adorned faith like the Cornish Chough with the feathers of all the best birds he sends it to scar aloft with these plumes to heaven for justification which without this borrowed help of it self it was not in a capacity to do pa. 240 241 242. In these particulars I take the whole sum of his doctrine about this Question to be comprehended He addeth indeed some lenitives here and there to mitigate and make tolerable the asperity and harshnesse of these his assertions which we shall examine among the reasons that he brings to manifest his doctrine not to be derogatory from the glory of Gods grace c. as being more proper to that then this place All the forementioned particulars may be summed up in this one That all the acts or works of all morall vertues and of all insuâ—ed Habits if he grant any such are required coordinately with faith to make up the conditio upon which we shall and without which we cannot be justifyed In opposition to this all the Protestant Churches do and still have maintained that Faith alone and the same not as it is in the consideration of a habit or vertue or as an act of ours but by way of a means or instrument as hath been before explained justifyeth without any concurrence of works with it in the act and office of justifying This assertion he endeavours to destroy and establish his own with many Arguments which we shall examine severally either after other CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters preface to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures to prove Justification by works examined and the Scriptures which the Protestant writers bring against it and Mr. Baxter would have stifled in darknesse here brought to light together with the opinion of the most eminent Protestant writers upon this Subject HIS first argument is drawn from Scriptures unto which he thus prefaceth B. 235. I desire no more of those that deny this but that
but those of Mr. Baxter as far as they relate to it do follow justification 4 The scope of these Scriptures is to urge upon all that draw near to God in prayer to purge out all hatred and purposes of revenge against their brethren from their hearts and the argument by which this duty is pressed is that else it as also any other reigning sin allowed within the heart will make both their persons and prayers an abomination to the Lord. God will not hear will not forgive such as bring while they bring such a devill in their hearts before him they shall depart without any more answer of peace to their souls then they are disposed to give to their brethren against whom they are provoked From these Scriptures therefore we may gather how they are qualifyed which are forgiven and justifyed not by what qualifications and works they have obtained justification That whosoever hath tasted of the pardoning grace of God the same by beholding in Christ the glory of Gods grace as in a glasse is transformed into the same image of grace love mercy goodnesse pity c. towards his brethren as himself hath found in God and sees shining forth upon him from the face of God through Christ 2 Cor. 3. 18. That in whomsoever this mercy and goodnesse of God appears not whatsoever he boasteth of faith and devoutnesse in prayer yet it is certain that he is empty of justifying faith and of the justification which is by faith and so we have here some description of the justifyed and unjustifyed not a precept of duties by which the unjustifyed may attain to be justifyed 5 The three last quotations of Mr. Baxter do subvert utterly all that he built by the former quotations For these Scriptures affirming it to be not indefinitely prayer but the prayer of faith which saveth and obtaineth forgivenesse that not the asking simply but the asking of the faithfull in Christs Name is prevalent that not every one but we know that whatsoever we aske we have our petitions granted do manifest that whatsoever vertue is in prayer it floweth from faith prayer it self is a dead work unlesse faith enliven it and all our works of mercy and forgiving dead works untill faith becomes the living root from which they derive life or rather hath breathed out the life which it hath suckt from Christ our life into them That it is Christs name and mediation that makes all accepted with God and that not to all but to those peculiar ones of Christ that are in union and conjunction with Christ it being a priviledge peculiar to true beleevers that is here mentioned under the word we we have it saith the Apostle the world hath no part in it Esaus forgiving Sauls confession of sin and Simon Magus his prayer for forgivenesse may as in Mr. Baxters last quotation Act. 8. 22. perhaps be so far heard and forgivenesse obtained from the Lord as to the exempting of them from some temporall vengeance but not to interest them in the justification of the Gospell If the cryes and workes of any of these dogs bring them in to partake of the childrens bread it is but in mans judgement alone before God it was their faith and cleaving to Christ yea being in Christ by faith that of dogs made them children and partakers of the Gospell priviledges So these Scriptures in no wise prescribe as I said the duties by or for which we are but delineate the Acts and qualifications of those that are justifyed by Christ So much in generall to the summe of these Scriptures as for the meaning of the severall Scriptures and how Mr. Baxter argues from them as the Papists how the Sophisters for so our men fitly tearm the Papists endeavour from them to prove justification by works and the Protestants answer and confute them I leave to the Reader to fetch from the Commentators themselves whom they shall finde to speake fully as Mr. Baxter knoweth but concealeth not daring to enter the Lists with them The third duty which he brings as coofficiating with Pag. 236. faith to justification is a complexion of duties the whole swarm the vast mountain of duties all that men and Angels can devise to be duty yet that he might declare how he can measure and contain so huge an Ocean in his fist he crusheth them so together as that they may be held in the concave of two Eg-shels love and sincere obedience and their works Fain would he have followed Bellarmine as his shâ—ddow at every turne but he finds his genius somewhat differing from Bellarmines The Cardinall was for prolixity Mr. Baxter is for brevity Bellarmine puts love in the fourth place as operating to justification with faith and thence proceeds to more But Mr. Baxter follows him here to love and weary to go after him any further in particulars shakes hands in love with him and parts from him with good leave in respect of his method but in his matter to hold with him throughout the work The first Scripture which he quotes is the first which Bellarmine alleadgeth thus B. Luk. 7. 47. though I knew in Pinks interpretation of that It seems Pink hath given the right interpretation of that Text which all the Protestants give But Bellarmine interprets it otherwise and must not Christ mean as Bellarmine will have him The words of the Text are these Wherefore I say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much But to whom little is forgiven the same loveth litle What doth Mr. Baxter hence conclude the same with Bellarmine her much love was the ground of the forgivenesse of her many sins and so her love went before her justification and forgivenesse which followed as the fruit or consequent thereof Bellarmine and his fellowrs put authority and holinesse upon this interpretation else would not Mr. Baxter who makes right reason the foundation and rule of his Religion forswear his wit and reason to follow it For it is evident from the Text to all that are not sworn enemies to the truth that the Lord Jesus reasoneth here from the effect to the cause and not from the cause to the effect from the womans great love that many sins were forgiven her causing this love not from the greatnesse of her love as from the cause why so many sins were forgiven her So runs the Text Which will love most he to whom the creditor hath forgiven 500. pence or he Ve. 41 c. to whom he forgave 50 The answer was I suppose he to whom most was forgiven Thou hast well said saith the Lord so it is with this woman she loves much because much was forgiven her Who sees not here the forgivenesse to be the cause of the love not the love of the forgivenesse Or will Bellarmine which affirmes this woman to be Mary Magdalen or Mr. Baxter after him say that while she was yet a Harlot and had seven Devils in her that
she loved Christ much how good was it to be possessed of a whole legion of such white Devils that breathed into the soul possessed such strong love of Christ But why then said Christ to her Thy faith hath saved thee ver 50. did her faith only save her but her love justifie her This is one piece of Mr. Baxters new Divinity and with him I leave it Let him learn modesty and truth from Soarez himself a Prelate among the Papists Oportet advertere in hoc quod dicitur quoniam dilexit multum non prius dilexisse multum magnam dilectionem causam fuisse tantae remissionis sed vice versa quoniam remissa sunt ei peccata multa ideo dilexisse multum Soarez in locum He addes Mat. 5. 44. Luk. 6. 27 45. Love your enemies c. That ye may be the children of your heavenly Father c. What will Mr. Baxter hence conclude but that our love c. is the cause or ground of our Adoption That we love God first and then he us afterward That not his grace but our righteousnesse makes us his Children and him our father But contrariwise Christ here exhorteth the children to be like the father directs his words to the already Adopted so to put on the image and resemble the nature and operations of their heavenly Father that they may be i. e. declare themselves to be the children of the heavenly Father Like that of Joh. 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love c. And that of 1 Joh. 3. 10. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devill he that loveth not is not of God c. So love on our part doth not make but manifest us to be the children of God But remarkeable is his next quotation Joh. 15. 12 17. This is my commandement that ye love one another ergo love justifyeth as good as if I should argue Christ commanded Peter to angle and take a fish ergo Peters angling and catching a fish justifyed him As if whatsoever Christ commanded he commanded to justification And as full to his purpose is 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. what the Lord hath laid up for them that love him ergo my love was the condition of Gods laying up for me as if God had not laid up for me before I loved him How agrees this with that which after he annexeth Mat. 25. Inherit the Kingdome prepared for you before the beginning of the world and Rom. 8. 28. All things shall work together for good to them that love God who are they such as are called according to his purpose if called then justifyed and who denyeth the riches of Gods grace dispensing all things for the good of his justifyed ones that love him But what is this to loves justifying And rare logick from the next two Scriptures Grace be with them that love the Lord Jesus Eph. 6. 24. And he that loveth him not let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16. 22. Ergo love to Christ justifyeth in rank and life with faith when I make my love the ground or condition of Gods grace and cease to make the grace of Christ the foundation of my love to Christ then will I expect that Mr. Baxter will justifie me untill then I shall be in his account Anathema maranatha Again God hath promised the Crown the Kingdom to them that love him Jam. 1. 12. 2. 5. Ergo Justification is a Crown and Kingdom and love will then justifie when it brings us to the Crown and Kingdome untill then we are unjustifyed He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father Joh. 14. 21. Ergo our love to Christ begets love in the Father and ergo the love of the Father is our justification and what else Mr. Baxter will for he concludes quidlibet e quolibet I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall finde me Prov. 8. 17. Ergo God doth not love us untill we love him nor seek us till we seek him and so God is moved by us not we by him and perhaps justifyed for of this he speaketh by us before we are justifyed by him That I may cause them that love me to inherit substance and I will fill their treasures ver 21. Ergo our justification is in our chests and purses and our love prevails upon God and Christ to fill them up to the brim with this golden justification I know not whether I may lawfully follow him in his non sequiturs and playing with the sacred Oracles of God surely neither Lucian nor Corn Agrippa with his Asse could ever treat of holy things more ludibriously or expose the sacred word of God to more scorn then this man doth were it out of weaknesse that he doth it he were to be pittied But who knoweth not if Mr. Baxter knoweth not what validity or invalidity there is in every Argument to prove Where was conscience then in quoting so many Scriptures which are no more proper to prove that to which they are applyed then they are to demonstrate a world in the Moon he knoweth the most of them have neither sound nor shew that way and those that have some shew have but a shew and being thoroughly urged to his present purpose would neither prove what he would have here proved but contrariwise crush in pieces some of his former assertions which are the pillars of the whole structure made in this book and falling will necessitate the ruine of the whole fabrick All this he saw therefore stopped at the quotation without alleadging or applying the Scriptures quoted If the man were no more happy in in his Philosophy then in his Theology he should have very little thanks from Rome And it is to be doubted his esteem will be the lesse there for his pretending to be a Scripturist and over-turning or at least shaming with his fingering of Scriptures the specious frontispice which he had erected by his Sophistry Unlesse possibly this may advantage him that he shewes the same genius and spirit in arguing from Scriptures with those holy Fathers and Fryers for so profoundly do we find them arguing Thou art Peter and upon this rock c. Mat. 16. Ergo the Pope is Christ vicar and vicegerent c. Master or Lord Here are two swords Luk. 22. 38. Ergo the Pope hath both swords of Ecclesiasticall and Civill power committed to him God made two lights the greater to rule the day the lesser the night Gâ—n 1. Ergo the Popes power is so much more excellent then Kings and Emperors as the glory of the Sun surpasseth that of the Moon I beat down my body and keep it in subjection 1 Cor. 9. Ergo we must doe penance and whip and scourge our backs when there is occasion Every mans work shall be tryed by fire 1 Cor. 3. Ergo there is a purgatory of fire to be
once revealed to us and made ours in possession or in hope ought so to spiritualize us so to swallow us up into the spirit that we should no longer walk after the flesh but after the spirit to delight in the Law of God in all the holiness and righteousnes which the Law teacheth after the inner man He that seeks not so to doe hath hugd in his arms a dream of Christ not Christ himselfe hath had him possibly in his fancy never in his heart and conscience Hee that hath effectually met with God in Christ reconciling the world to himselfe and there tasted the love of God or rather God which is love hath suffered a Metamorphosis and is changed all into love hath so beheld God shining in Christ as in a glasse that he is transformed into the same image is or would bee wâ—olly configured to the likeness of God Yea we grant more that the truly justified and adopted ones of the Lord may perform these works of naturall righteousness which the Law commandeth with respect to and expectation of the future glory which shall be revealed to them and conferred on them for Christs sake as a reward of such their imperfect service yet not a reward of debt purchased by and due to their works but of free gift and grace from their indulgent father who of his infinite love and bounty is wont to recompence the mites of his dear childrens labours with the talents of his grace and bounty not because they are worthy but because he is gracious yea Grace and Love it selfe Ro. 4 4. 5. Goe ye into my vineyard and whatsoever is right or meet ye shall receive Mat. 20. 7. It must bee a boundless reward what such a father shall think right and meet to bestow upon his dear children Their reward shall bee proportioned not to the pittance of their poore service but to the riches of their fathers bounty and uncircumscriptiveness of his treasure The respect of such infinite treasure in their fathers hand and the riches of his love to bestow it in largest dimensions upon them with a gracious respect to their dutifulness and service should serve as a strong motive and attractive to them to be still doing for him When I was yet in my bloud hee loved and cleansed me Ezek. 16. 6 -9. When dead he quickned me Eph. 2. 1. When without strength to work when a sinner when ungodly when an enemy he gave his son to die for me and reconciled me to himselfe What will he now doe for mee so quickned reconciled washed and justified having attained strength if I employ that strength in his service Ro. 5. 6-10 Now wee are the sons of God but it doth not yet appear what wee shall bee onely wee know that when he appears we shall bee like him having therefore this hope we ought to purifie our selves as he is pure 1. Jo. 2. 25. 3. Thus are the saints to draw encouragement to obedience from the consideration of the reward or rather from the infinite love and bounty of the rewarder 3. That they which are out of Christ yet under the means of Grace and Ministry of the Gospel must performe all pure Gospel duties which the Law requireth onely in generall and implicitely but the Gospel specifieth expresly to the severall ends to which the wisdome of God hath severally related them some to justification some to sanctification by Christ Jesus It is their duty to hear learn study and meditate upon the doctrine of Grace and mystery of Christ duly to prize and value it to desire gasp cry and pray for the effectuallizing of it to themselves to embrace and receive Christ to repent of their long estrangedness from him to deny themselves and cast away all opinion of and confidence in their owne righteousness that Christ alone may bee embraced and the dung being cast out they may bee replenished with that which is indeed the Treasure and all this that they may bee justified and saved not by and for these duties so performed but by and for Christ to whom they seek and strive in all these duties to come into union All this the Gospel both tacitely implieth and expresly teacheth and the Law also in generall and inclusively commandeth as hath been sayd Thus the Kingdome of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Here stil Christ is al to justification salvatioÌ„ Faith the alone instrument to receive him All the other actings are but subservient to Faith in this its instrumentall service to make way for it As when a treasure is offered by a munificent benefactor to a poor beggar the grace of the benefactor and pretiousnesse of the treasure is that which inricheth him and the hand the alone instrument to receive it yet must the eye guide him the understanding prompt him the wil move him the feet carry him and other actings of the minde and body bee subservient to him that the hand may rerceive that which inricheth him At length when all is done such a begger hath more apparent grounds of boasting that hee hath been and done somewhat to his owne enriching than the best of us that we have been or done any thing to our own Justification For though the Benefactor hath poured upon him freely of his own mercy not for or upon condition of his crying running to him emptying his hand of what was in it before and stretching it forth to bee filled with the treasure profered him yet the benefactor gave him neither a heart to desire nor wisdome to value nor light to guide him nor feet to carry him nor a hand to receive the treasure conferred It is otherwise in our Justification by Christ God freely gives it in Christ and all the power will actings and instruments by which we come into the possession of it Neither when we affirme all these to be our duty while yet unjustified doe we thereby affirme that all must be done before we can bee justified The grace of God oft prevents our operation in most of these justifying us by Faith before we have time to put our selves upon many of these operations In this sense I know none that denieth an obligation upon sinners to act and worke for their justification and salvation 4 They that are justified ought to be still active and industrious in all the duties of the Gospell tending to their confirmation in the Faith stablishment in Christ illumination in the misteries of the Gospell denyall of themselves and seeking to be wholly swallowed up into the Lord Iesus that they may be dayly more filled and ravished with fuller assurance and comfort of their justjfication salvation by him This we find the Apostle making his taske Phill. 3. 8 9 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. And hereunto tend the many memento's scattered by the holy Ghost in the Gospell watch pray take heed beware stand fast hold fast Run fight strive continew c. All which tend to the
dead from further labouring and moving to this end For what righteousness what works can bee sufficient to such an atchievement So obedience to the Faith is nipt in the very budde where there is a sense and conviction of a mans naughtiness and nothingness 3. By taking off the spirits of a Christians love joy and alacrity in beleeving and serving when a humble and selfe-denying soul is once choaked with Mr. Baxters Doctrine that all the benefit which he hath or can have by Christ is to be only a probationer for justification and life even to his dying day that till then hee is but conditionally pardoned and conditionally adopted that Gods love to him may be anon turned into hatred his sinnes againe imputed and himselfe hurried into hell That his safety still depends upon his own works righteousnes no peny no Pater noster that the grace of God is let to farme for fine and rent no one promise of the word in all this his Booke being alledged by Mr. Baxter which I can remember of any support which the beleever shall receive from God in the state of Grace but all Selfe doe and selfe have This Doctrine eyther benummeth and freezeth up all a poore Christians love and delight in serving God emasculating his spirits to obedience or reduceth him under a yoke of bondage making him to worke possibly but in feare not of love as under the rod or rather in the fire fearing death and hell all his life time And whether this bee saving in Mr. Baxters accompt obedience or disobedience let them that are spirituall judge 4. By turning the very obedience of his Disciples into disobedience and rebellion The best works done to be justified by them and for them are the greatest abhomination in Gods accompt his Grace and Salvation are either denied or refused when wee bring works to appropriate it to us Rom. 4. 4 5. what is righteousnesse in its matter is sin in its end Therefore shall wee finde still that whosoever are admitted to those that seek to ingratiate themselvs by their good works though done in Christs name are hurled off from Christ I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance I know you not depart from mee yee workers of iniquity More joy for one sinner that repenteth than for ninety nine just persons that need no repentance For a more full and satisfactory answer to the Argument contained in this Quere I leave the Reader to the perusing of the Protestant Divines that have written upon this Subject and abundantly refuted this calumny of the Papists what I have here said is rather an addition to them then a full answer to the Quere which I leave to be fetcht from them What he speakes in the Amplification of this Quere needeth no large examination First he grants That love and thankfulness should be enough to hold us to obedience and duty and will bee so when all our ends are attained in our ultimate end then wee shall act for these ends no more c. How untowardly doth this passage and and another passage of the former Quere hang together what he pronounceth here that love and thankfulnesse should be enough to hold us to duty without doing for justification and salvation and that which here should be and hereafter shall be our perfection the same he affirmes there if practiced will undoubtedly damne the Practicer So according to Mr. Baxter if a Christian endeavour sincerely to do what he should and to come as neere in this life as it is possible to the perfection which he shall enjoy in the future hee shall undoubtedly bee damned for it Who then goes about to drive obedience out of the world he or they whom he opposeth What use is to be made of the affections of feare desire hope and care to the attainment of our great ends hath been enough discussed in the examination of the former Quere and would be a meere Tautology here to do it againe Let it be proved once that God hath left Justification by workes to be a motive to obedience it shall be granted to bee a help to the destroying of Obedience to take downe this one Motive But if contrariwise Justification of sinners by Works and Morall Obedience bee erected not by God but by the Devill Mr. Baxters neither Sophistry nor Oratory shall induce us to leane upon the Devils crutch both to the forfeiting of our Justification and turning our Obedience into sin CHAP. XII Whether the doctrine of justification by Faith without workes be a soul-cozening doctrine or harden the people in a soul-cozening Faith what the doctrine of Faith which the Protestant Churches holde is and how farr from deserving this Calumny with something about the facility or difficulty to perswade the multitude to such a Faith HIs fourth Quere by which as by another Argument he goeth about to make odious and to destroy justification by Faith without works runs thus B. pag. 326. Doth it not much confirme the world in their soul cozening Faith surely that Faith which is by many thought to justifie is it that our people doe all most easily embrace that is the receiving of Christ for their Saviour and expecting pardon and salvation by him but not withall receiving him for their Lord and King nor delivering up themselves to be ruled by him I meet not with one but is resolved in such a Faith till it be overthrowne by teaching them better They would all trust Christ for the saving of their soules and that without dissembling for ought any man can discerne Are all these men justified c. A Chip of the same blocke with the former in the use of it Mr. Baxter as he hath learned of them from whom he hath received it levels against the very heart of Christ and his Gospell Had hee said with Iames that to say we have Faith and not to have workes is to cozen our souls I should have said with him But in that he speaketh not of a soul-cozening profession of Faith but layeth so horrid an imputation upon Faith it selfe this gives us cause to examine what Faith he meaneth that we may be able to discern whether that Faith or else Mr. Baxter by defaming it goe about to cozen our souls and so embrace the true friend and reject the Cheater This cozening Faith according to Mr. Baxter must needs bee that which squareth not in its nature and manner of justification with the justifying Faith viz. that Gospell Faith which neither as a deed and worke as a worke of Morall duty and worke of our owne righteousnesse of our perfect and meritorious righteousnesse doth begin and but begin to inright us to Christ and justification by him leaving to eyther vertues and works to perfect it but as an instrument ordeyned and given us of God by which we receive Christ alone offering up himselfe a sacrifice for us to bee cur whole righteousness to justification and that without
thing that firmly susteineth namely the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not on the holiness and grace inherent in our selves For this is unperfect c. therefore we cannot for it be counted Righteous before God But the imputed righteousness of Christ is a perfect righteousnes in which there is nothing that can offend the eyes of God but all things that can abundantly please him Vpon this alone therefore are we to rest as upon a thing sure and stable and to beleeve that by it alone we are justified 7 This may undoubtedly be affirmed and it is the opinion of all Divines that God can justifie men and make them pleasing and amiable to him without any inherent quality or habits infused 8 To the same purpose and somewhat more fully speaketh Bellarmine The guilt or obligation to punishment saith he may be taken away without the infusion of Righteousnes For nothing hinders by how much the less God can will the not ordeining to punishment and the pardoning of the offence and the not accounting him for an enemy to whom he hath not granted the gift of habituall Righteousness 9 The Scope of James in the second Chapter of his Epistle is to shew that we are justified not by a barren but by a fruitfull Faith 10 The meaning of James is not that Faith without works is dead c. For it is evident that we are justified by Faith even without works But his meaning is that Faith without works that is which refuseth to work or is noâ— disposed to work is a dead Faith vain and justifieth not What therefore James alleageth out of Gen. 15. Abraham beleeved God to this purpose he alleageth it that he beleeved being in readiness to work Therefore he saith that in the work of offering his Son the Scripture was fulfilled speaking of his Faith prepared to work It was fulfilled I say as to the execution of that great work to which his Faith was prepared 11 If any where in Scripture thou hearest reward or wages promised know that it is no otherwise due then by Gods promise freely he hath promised freely he gives If thou wilt abide in his Grace and Favour make no mention of thy Merits 12 All Papists consentingly make the Merits of Christ the foundation of mans merits as far as he can merit Neither Faith nor works nor doing nor sufferings say they have any other vertue to merit then what they receive from the merits of Christs death then as they are dipt in his blood this makes them acceptable to the Father 13 When Christ saith of the woman Luk. 7. 47. Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much it is to be understood not that she loved much and so her much love was the cause of her great forgiveness but contrarywise that because many sins were forgiven her therefore she loved much 14 To be given freely and to be a retribution to works are as much opposit as that which is free and that which is from Justice or as not due and debt And this way of inference the Apostle useth in the beginning of this 4th Chapter viz. speaking of Justification by Grace 15 The work of Justice is wages or Reward and this way of Justice Grace excludeth whose work is meer gift or Donation 16 In this verse the Apostle concludeth that Christ hath saved us from all the evill both of fault and punishment That there is nothing of condemnation remaining to them that are in Christ because all judgment is taken away both to the fault and the punishment 17 It is certain that when originall sin is remited that the evils which it brought are not remitted and taken away as all finde by experience Notwithstanding they remain not under the consideration of punishment because the fault being taken away there can be no desert as to punishment remaining 18 I will remember their iniquities no more saith the Lord i. e. I will neither in this world injoin any Penance for them nor in that which is to come inflict any punishment for them So hath the Holy Ghost promised that our sins shall be forgiven by the New Covenant of Grace 19 In regard of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain glory it is most safe to repose our whole confidence in the sole mercy and benignity of God Baxter THe bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Cardinall Contarenus in Rom. 4. Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition The Common opinion that justifying faith as justifying doth consist in any one single act is a Wretched Mistake by the one act of faith he means Faith in opposition to works Aph. p. 235 248. Faith it self is our righteousnesse viz. our Evangelicall as Christ is our Legall Righteousnesse It self Toletus a Iesuite upon Rom. 3. is imputed to us for righteousnesse Aph. p. 125 126. It justifieth as it is an act of ours and as it is a morall duty App. p. 80. 102. Both Faith and workes make up one condition one righteousness one perfect righteousness of our own by Cardinall Cajetan upon Rom. 3. which we merit to be justified by God by the legall righteousness which is in Christ And consequently Faith doth not lean upon anothers and works upon their own righteousness but both make up one compounded righteousness and goodness which make us righteous and good also and by this righteousness and goodness deservers of justification salvation Aph. Thes 17 18 19 20 23 24 26. and scatteringly throughout the whole Book Faith as an act of ours and of it self with other workes procureth Righteousness And God hath used Toletus the Iesuit up on Rom. 1. works to justifie as he hath used faith even in the same kinde of causality So we have found Mr. Br. oft affirming as may be seen in our former quotations Let him deny that he holds the consequents of these two Antecedents if he will It is so far from being an error to affirm that Faith it self is our righteousness that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know yea it both is our Righteousnesse and is imputed to us for righteousnesse The very personall performance of faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment of righteousnes Idem in Rom. 4. as if we had paid the full duty and righteousnesse which the Law requireth This is the substance of his words though not his very words which being continued in terms of a Metaphor cannot without the citing of the whole similitude be expressed to the understanding otherwise Aphor. p. 125 126 129. There is a two-fold righteousnesse attainable by Christ at least in words the one an inherent righteousnesse in our selves consisting in the seed and acts of Faith Love Holinesse c. the other in Christ but made over to beleevers by Gods Donation if not imputation Both of these are absolutely necessary to salvation neither is
Readers with Affection and prejudice the two worst Clouds which oft bemist the judgement of them that are both pious and prudent that in seeing they do not because they would not perceive the truth for a season The Affections of many he attracted to himself by professing himself a zealous Presbyterian This pretext made not a few to look over and beyond his Contagious doctrine to behold and regard the person of the man for his unanimity with them in discipline This vizzard is at length so faln from his Face that the most do and all may see him under this profession to have been but as the Anabaptized Jesuit taking his station there from whence he thought to have most advantage to promote his Popish doctrines Concluding that under that name his Fraud would not be so easily espyed And is there now any which seeth not he would be Episcopal Presbyterian Independent for any Government for no Government helping him to drive home to the head his soul-subverting doctrines into the hearts of men Prejudice against the sacred Truth which he oppugneth he fomented by aspersing the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and the reformed Churches of Christ with the black brand of Antinonianism reserving onely the Papists and Arminians whom he followeth free of it How much he hath prevailed in sowring with the leaven of Scribes and Pharisees which is hypocrisie the vulgar sort not onely of the people but of the Ministers also with this gross imposture would be incredible if experience did not manifest it Therefore finding this Feat so soveraign to the attainment of his ends assoon as he heard of exceptions in the Press against his Aphorisms his first indeavours have been to fill with prejudice the minds of men against the both work and Author thereof dispersing thorow this Citty by his Printer that it is the Hant-shire Antinomian that excepteth so against him How irrational and malicious this his inditement against me is may appear hence that I dwell in one of the obscurest nooks of this English little world so unknown as he is famous that he could not so much as hear of my name saving by some one of his Circumforaneous Legates which having their Provinces assigned either of one or more Counties are still Circling and Compassing them first to disperse this his Mystery of iniquity with such accurateness that there may be no one that hath the repute of a pious Gentleman or Minister a stranger to it and then by their frequent visitations to examine how the Baxterian Faith thrives in each person and to hold them fixed to it These returning once in six or seven Moneths out of their Circuits to their Grand Master may possibly speak in things which they know not what they think may be plausible to him It hath not been unknown I acknowledge to some of these that I disrelished his doctrine and did hinder the embracing of it But might not this my dissenting be as properly termed Treason as Antinonianism Yet because I understand that these sparkes of false fire have no sooner faln than taken in some I am forced to Apologize somewhat and that with the more Confidence because to you that have the eyes of your understanding most clear rightly to Censure or judge that prejudice may be no hinderance to the truth What I shall speak herein must relate partly to my self partly to Mr. Br. and partly to the doctrine it self which he hath drawn into Controversie Condemning it of Antinomism 1 What I shall speak of my self shall not be with an heart and a heart the one open to let out what it listeth the other reserved to retein in secrecy what is not for advantage to the ends sought after but in plainness and simplicity I shall deliver the whole and naked truth of my judgement as before the Lord my Judge and Justifier Neither is there need of hiding and Tergiversation for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ It is the power of God to salvation c. And as sweet to me as the salvation which it bringeth I therefore profess my self clear from all that is rightly Called and hath been judged by the reformed Churches and their Champions Antinonianism i. e. oppositeness to the Law These things I acknowledg my self to hold and teach 1 That Beleevers are not under the Curse of the Law as the Curse 2 Nor are the Afflictions which befall them so the Curse of the Law or revenging punishments for sinn but the fruits of the tender Love of a good and provident Father working for good to them 3 That they are not under the Law as a Covenant of works If these things be Antinonism I acknowledg my self an Antinomian yet such as onely the blindness madness and malice of men possibly may account so but that I have the Apostles and all the Protestant Churches and Writers without any exception under the same aspersion with me having all stoutly maintained all these as Gospel-truths against the false Apostles Papists and Arminians in their severall generations without the Contradiction of any except Papists and Arminians to whom Mr. Br. not without some fellowes hath lately Apostatized 4 Yet I still grant the preaching of the Law and that in its full perfection and all its terrors usefull to shake in pieces all the carnall Confidences and self righteousness of man that despairing of safety in himself he may be forced to seek it out of himself from meer Mercy in another which is Christ the Saviour 5. That the Law is still a perfect rule and directive of all morall righteousness and obedience both to beleevers and unbeleevers so that in both all variation from it is sinn but Conformity to it is regularity and obedience In respect of my judgement therefore about the Law I question not my discharge from the imputation of Antinomism among the truly wise and orthodox except to be a Christian be Antinonianism 2 As to Mr. Br it is evident that he asperseth the innocent with the Fault whereof himself is guilty He denies Christ to require under the Gospel the perfect holiness and righteousness which the Law commandeth and Consequently that it is not either our duty to perform it or our sinn to fail in it or that the Law is an adequate and Competent rule of morall obedience Because it Commands more than it is our duty to perform He saith not Christ requires it not in order to this end but simply and absolutely he requires it not If this be not Antinomianism Part. 1. p. 213. c. then Islebius himself hath been unjustly Charged with it 3 As to the matter yet remaining Charged by Mr. Br. and others with Antinomianism it may be reduced principally to four heads 1 Justification as an Immanent Act in God As actually Completed in the redemption which is by Christ in Christ both these before we beleeve 3 The absoluteness and irrespectiveness of it freely without Conditions 4 Christs satisfying for mans
2. 15 is the Originall though our Translation hath it and not by childbearing if shee continue in faith and charity and holines with sobriety The meaning is notwithstanding the Popish false glosse given it that although sorrow in Childbearing was first inflicted upon that sexe as a part of Gods Curse for sin yet as many as beleeve shall finde the Curse removed and a blessing in the place thereof It shall be made a happy furtherance to their salvation putting them in minde of their sin that first brought the sorrow and so filling them with self-deniall and self-abhorring that they shall cleave the faster to Christ for salvation by Faith as knowing themselves forlorn in themselves and stand the more fixed and stedfast in charity holines and sobriety The like is to be concluded of the rest of the sufferings which he particularizeth God so dispenseth them that they may be furtherances of salvation to beleevers by working in them humblednes and self-denyall bearing up themselves by faith in Christ alone both for salvation and increase of their sanctification The very pravity of our nature of which he speaketh is left in us not as a curse in wrath but as a means in Gods wisdome and love more to humble us to make us more to cleave unto Christ and an Antagonist against which fighting in the power and spirit of Christ we may overcome and having overcome may obtein the Crown So that these two Arguments are impertinent and nothing to the question To the third I answer that there is nothing els in it but a wresting of Scriptures from their proper sense that they may be subservient to Mr. Baxters ends First that of 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. maketh nothing to his purpose It onely testifieth that as by man came death i. e. by Adam so by man i. e. by Christ came the resurrection But how far both of the members of this proposition reach is manifest by the following words For as in Adam all dye i. e. all that live and die in Adam perish hopelesly and everlastingly So in Christ all shall be made alive i. e. All that are translated out of Adam into Christ The one man being the root of death to himself and all that are in him the other the root of life to himself and to all that by faith shall be ingraffed into him That this is the genuine meaning of the words is evident by the next verse which amplifieth what th'apostle had said in this viz. who are these all that shall be made alive in Christ First Christ saith the Apostle as the first fruits then they that are Christs at his coming Here is no mention of the resurrection of them that are not in Christ Not that these shall not also be raised by Christ but that the Apostle speaketh here not of resurrection in generall but of resurrection to life whereof those that are in Christ do alone partake Even as of those which dye in Adam he speakes of an everlasting death whereof the unregenerate alone partake So that there is not any mention here expressed of the death of beleevers much lesse of the curse and wrath in their death Touching the second Scripture which he quoteth and citeth Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death who doubts but it is so to them that are under the guilt and dominion of sin But what is this to beleevers And the third Scripture is as pat as the two former For this caus many of you are sick many weak many sleep The Apostle here writes to a visible Church in which it appears there were some true and some but formall and temporary beleevers Christ is in the midst of this Church dispensing his discipline The true beleevers by the contagion of the formall professors had somewhat prophaned the Lords Table by resorting to it somewhat disorderly The other had totally violated it by coming to it drunken and so were worse than beasts from their own Tables here now had Christ inflicted chastisements of sicknes and weaknes for the humbling and amending of those that were his but death and vengeance upon them that while they professed faith in him yet were indeed despisers of him and his ordinances What is this to the Curse of the Law upon beleevers Therefore I shall add to Mr. Baxters And if so my and if so if so that wresting of Scriptures will serve the turn Mr. Baxter will surely have the water run in his ground and his fancy stand though Gods truth thereby fall to the earth To the fourth That his phrase is ambiguous and it is not easily understood what so cunning a sophister meaneth by evills Untill therefore he hath discharged his bushell of distinctions putting a difference after his manner between a naturall and a metaphysicall good whereof this evill is a privation between an evill physicall and an evill morall and an evill in a theologicall sense between the evill of sense and the evill of loss and a whole bundle more of evills that he can distinguish into their kinds we know not what he meaneth when he saith that sufferings are in their own nature evills to us If I should answer in one sense he hath the slight quickly to evade to another and to study out all his evills would cost more labor than a hundred such Arguments and all his evills to boot are worthy of As for that which he addeth Doubtles so far as it is the effect of sin it is evill and the effect of the Law also It is as much as if he had said doubtles so far as the Sun is made or is the effect of a thunder cloud it is black and dark and the effect of the Thunderbolt also We deny it to be the effect of sin as the meritorious cause thereof so that the suffering of a beleever should be the curse or revenging punishment of his sin Christ hath born that and so it shall not be in this respect evill nor the effect of the law neither We grant a beleevers sin to be oft the occasion never the proper cause of a beleevers sufferings To the fifth We deny not the sufferings of beleevers to be oft in Scripture ascribed to Gods Anger But it is so ascribed 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set forth Gods dealings to mans dull understanding by a similitude of mans passions that they might be the more easily comprehended Because man in his anger and wrath doth correct most severely therefore the sufferings of the Saints when they are great and grievous are said to come from Gods anger and therefore said to be from his anger to speak out that they are great afflictions such as children receive from their parents when they are most hot in their passion Not that there is indeed any such passion in God 2 In respect of the sufferers apprehension who being weak in faith and too much prejudiced by sense is apt for a season sometimes in great tryalls to conclude himself
wrath his life and righteousnesse were hid with Christ in God He could claim nothing from God by any evidential title but wrath and condemnation though he had right in Christ yet had he no right unto Christ though in Christ all was his because Christ had united purchased and received all into his hands for him yet had he no right to Christ by which to claim a partnership and interest in the kingdome and priviledge of grace was without all true peace of conscience all joy and consolation in the promises of grace under fears and terrors in expectation of wrath and damnation could be sensible of nothing but anger hatred and displeasure against him for sinne knew not himselfe to be one of the children of promise Gal. 4. 28. to be entitled to Christ in whom alone the promises of God are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. Therefore as if there had been no Christ no Mediator and reconciler no Covenant of Grace yea no Grace or acts of Grace eternal or temporary in God thorow Christ so he remained under a Spirit either of delusion or of bondage still But now when the father hath drawn him to Christ and Christ hath received him when Christ hath apprehended him to himselfe by his Spirit and he by faith hath apprehended Christ to himselfe for redemption reconciliation remission righteousnesse and whatsoever else is laid up in Christ for him and so hath union and communion with Christ hath Christ in him and is himselfe in Christ Now his justification which was sure before in God and in Christ is also made sure to his conscience He is now justified in his own conscience after the tenor and by the vertue of the Gospel and Covenant and promises of Grace findes and knowes himselfe through Christ absolved at Gods tribunal hath all the evidences for it that possibly he can desire the Word and the Oath of God that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to ly he may have a strong consolation Heb. 6. 18. The Word evidenceth and his faith evidenceth the Covenant is now sealed mutually and reciprocally between God and him by beleeving he hath put to his seal that God is true and God sealeth to his conscience by certifying it by his Spirit that his wrath is pacified that all accusations are silenced there is no condemnation to him being now in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. Himselfe may now rest satisfied banishing henceforth all fears and doubts and glorying in the Lord that the fear of death is past it is enough my soul is now alive Christ is made sinne for me that I might become the Righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen thy Salvation and in the interim while he is here enjoying a heaven upon earth a kingdome of Righteousnesse joy and peace in the Holy Ghost untill he was incorporated by faith into Christ Christ might indeed plead for him but he had no evidence no shew of title not an article under Gods hand or from his lips to plead at Gods barre for life or pardon 6. That neverthelesse when a man truly beleeveth then may he apprehend justification and remission of sinnes not onely as now first declared and evidenced to his own soul But also as past and compleat before the foundation of the world was laid Because from eternity Christ satisfied in that he undertook to satisfie for the sinnes of the Elect and God from eternity rested in this satisfaction undertaken by Christ and so laid aside all displeasure which without this Covenant between him and his onely Son he might have taken up as wel against them that should afterward beleeve as against them which dye in unbeleef For their justification in time doth à posteriore argue their justification before all times and where faith findes the least rivulet of the great stream sent forth it can it ought by it to ascend up to the very fountain to be filled and satisfied with the deliciousnesse thereof Thus shall we finde the Apostle almost in all his Epistles from the sense of their present enjoyments in Christ to carry upward the Saints to whom he writeth unto the very bosom of Gods eternal grace counsell and good pleasure where all was laid up and treasured for them from all eternity that thence it might in due time be shed forth upon them Faith runs not away rashly and hastily with the gift but delights to enter and pierce through the vail to contemplate and embrace the as well eternal as infinite love of the giver 7. That although no man receiveth the sensible comfort of his justification before he actually beleeveth yet every elect vessell hath besides and without his knowledge the true benefit thereof as to freedome from vengeance throughout the whole time of his infidelity was in Christ beloved accepted and owned of God as righteous in that his sinne was not imputed as fully before as after he beleeved the price of his redemption was paid all his sinnes borne and punished upon the shoulders yea the soul and body of Christ so that himselfe was no lesse exempted from the revenging wrath of God from all obligation to make any part of satisfaction in his own person for his sinnes as hee that was already in Christ by faith So that whatsoever afflictions befell him in the time of his unbelief were not the infliction of the curse as the curse for sinne but sanctified chastisements of a loving father flowing from his grace and favour not from his indignation and hatred against his person though against his sins tending all to his good not to his ruine Else if he should have born the least stroke of Gods revenging justice and in the least pittance have made but one least peece of satisfaction by his sufferings for his offences then either Christ hath made satisfaction for him but in part and is not his whole Saviour and redeemer for that himselfe hath satisfied divine justice in part or otherwise the father hath taken satisfaction twice for the same sins once from the Lord Christ and after that from the offender also But this were to slander either the perfection of Christs mediation or the incorruptnesse of Gods justice both which are unsufferable 8. That the justification which is by faith consisteth not onely in a bare apprehension of our justification and pardon from God for this is onely mans act and no express act of God but first in Gods actual declaration evidencing and certisfying the conscience of man drawn to the barre of judgement set up as it were in the conscience that God hath taken satisfaction to his offended justice from the Lord Christ for all the offenders sinnes and hath for ever quit-claimed and discharged him from all sin and wrath and admitted him into favour and family to be under the dispensations of his grace for ever And then indeed God having by this
of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
instrumentall cause also But this Mr. Baxter will answer anon and I shall wait on him to hear how satisfactory his answer is 2. Whether in his answer to the Question as he puts it when he makes a mans lease or deed of gift and a Kings pardon to have their force from the hand and seal annexed to it is it not much more implyed that the grant of the Gospell without hand and seal put to it is not a sufficient instrument to the justifying of any man For the grant of the Gospell is made to the world indefinitely but when faith as the impression of Gods hand upon the soul and the Spirit witnessing and sealing to the conscience thou art the person to whom the justification generally proposed in the Gospell doth particularly belong and so are applyed by God as true accessary evidences to the grant of the Gospell to terminate justification upon the soul of man can Mr. Baxter deny these being acts of God distinct from the word of promise to be instrumentall to justification as properly and fully as the said promise and grant 3. To his Procatarctick causes which in the Thesis he giveth viz. so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men saith he I aske 1 Whether God may be moved in his will by any thing out of himself If so whether then something out of God do not give magis minus increase and diminution to God For every change of Gods will is a change of God himself and what shall it avail any to be justifyed by a mutable God that to day will justifie to morrow unjustifie againe being apt to take impression of change from things without him yea if a God mutable then in truth no God but one of the Pagans Idols or Puppets Or how little doth his additionall cause help him to speake after the manner of mâ—n he ought not to speak a lie for God to please men much lesse to lie against God to fashion himself to the manners of men foolish or wicked men If he say God cannot be moved by any thing out of himself how can he excuse himself from being a slanderer of the most high God by devising and asserting here 4. causes out of God moving him to justifie us having before wilfully suppressed in darknesse the riches of Gods grace within himself alsufficient without any auxiliary strength from the creature to move him How preposterous is he herein to the order of nature making the fruit to bear the tree and not the tree the fruit What lesse doth he in making Christs satisfaction and intercession the sinners supplication and desire of supply and the opportunity or advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie the causes of Gods will and gracious willings when contrariwise Gods gracious will is the cause of all these 2 Whether he jears at the invaluable means of our salvation or else that he thinks himself matching cocks for the game that he counterpoiseth the highest perfections of Christs mediatorship with mans vanity how unsufferable is it to see him putting into the one scale a precious pearl into the other a peppercorn or cherry stone To match Christs intercession with the sinners supplication To make the feeblenesse of man a collaterall and concause in the same order and degree of efficacy to justification with the vertue of Christ glorifyed It is to be acknowledged that the nothingnesse of the one is of as full validity as the omnipotency if I may so terme it of the other to beget new love new purposes new acts in Gods will This is that which God himself cannot do not because it is a work above his power but beneath his nature and perfection to work or to be capable of the working of any new impressions or changes in his will Neverthelesse this excuseth not Mr. Baxters vilifying of Christ in mating his intercession with the sinners supplication as if the former were a star of the same magnitude with the latter like that profane fellow that twisted together Religion and Cheese 3 Not to trifle away time upon every trifling word of Mr. Baxter I demand of him why seeing in the Explication pa. 215. he acknowledgeth that Procatarcticall or outwardly impulsive causes have properly no place with God he doth yet in his Thesis here fetch about again his four impulsive causes to marke them with severall names in their foreheads in Aristotles print is it not a testimony under his own hand that he will rather play and dance about God as if he were a meer may-pole then lose the ostentation of one least peece of his wit and art 4 Though I mean not to contend about the meritorious causality of Christs satisfaction because in this he hath as well many orthodox writers as Papists speaking in the same tone with him neverthelesse I should deny his assertion unlesse he he will grant me these 4. or 5. suppositions 1. That so far as justification is an act eternall and immamanent in God Christs satisfaction is not the meritorious cause of it 2. If in some other respect it be the meritorious cause that God doth therein merit from himself For the satisfaction made to him is of his own proper money himselfe paid the price in delivering his Sonne for our sinnes the body which Christ offered for us was given him by the Father to offer in our behalf 3. That this merit must in no wise hinder but that the entire benefit of justification must come to us freely without money and without price 4. That it is but unproperly termed merit even then when it respecteth the discharge which God giveth into a mans conscience it being so called metaphorically as our state in sin is considered as a state of debt which when Christ our surety hath paid for us he hath so far merited only as the payment of our debt may be said to deserve that we should receive a full acquittance from the debt In which Mr. Baxter goeth yet further that it was so paid that the Creditour might have chosen to accept it for satisfaction much more to have given us a full acquittance and discharge So that in relation to him and his principles it is lesse properly merit then to another 5. That Christs satisfaction is more properly to be called Gods foundation of this our new relation of justifyed persons upon which he hath inabled himself to justifie us in mercie without any seeming diminution of his justice and truth These things granted me I dismisse Mr. Baxter with his meriâ—orlous cause 5 When he cals Christs intercâ—ssion and the sinners supplication the morall perswading cause c. I demand whether there were such a totall deficiency or so great a scarcity of morall reason in God that it needed a begetting or quickning by perswasions from without him or whether he were so flinty aâ— that without strong perswasive reasons he could not be induced
Wherefore puts he the soul for the man but to cheat in stead of informing his reader If any say faith is the instrument of the soul he speaks by a Synecdoche putting the part the chief essentiall part of man for the whole man after the common use of the Scriptures and why may not the severall faculties of the soul be as well mans instruments as the severall members of the body It is not unproper to call the eye the instrument by which man seeth or his ear the instrument of hearing or the the tongue of speaking or the hand of working c. and why should it be then unproper to call the faculties of the soul the instruments of man to act those offices by each faculty to which each faculty is appropriated Or when faith is infused into the soul doth it disinstrument the faculties thereof that they become no more instrumentall to man in their places Nay it makes them instrumentall to work henceforth upon spirituall as before upon naturall and morall objects And this also answereth his second reason why the habit of faith cannot fitly be called our instrument because saith he the holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument I grant it but this is not the question That which he was to disprove is that faith makes not the faculties of the soul into which it is infused instrumentall to the applying of Christ to justification The Compasse is the Mariners instrument by which to steer his ship yet would it be nothing instrumentall to this purpose were it not touched with the Loadstone that points it to the North-pole so are the will and understanding instrumentall to the receiving of Christ and justification in and by him not by any innate power in themselves but as they are touched and pointed directly by faith to the bloud of Christ for justification as to the doctrine of Christ for illumination and to the Spirit of Christ for sanctification And for this cause we call not so much the faculty of the soul the instrument as faith because faith makes it instrumentall to justification The power and disposition which it hath to this act being not naturall from it self but supernaturall from faith infused into it and working on it In stead of answering in order to every particle of what he addeth it shall suffice to discover his Sophistry by which he seeketh to elude a sacred truth of the Gospell in all that he saith upon this Argument and this will be enough in answer to all that he saith yea manifest him unworthy of an answer As before he first maketh all the instrumentality or causality whether proper or improper of faith to consist in the act of faith or faith actuated as if the Chirurgeons instruments were not his instruments while they lie by him but then only while he actually useth them in the severall offices to which they are appointed and faith were no longer an instrument if an instrument of justification then while it is actually receiving Christ and so the same man should be justifyed and unjustifyed oft in the same day in the same hour being no longer justifyed then while faith is in the act of applying Christ And 2. In contracting the whole man yea Christian into a soul as if we did make such a faculty of the soul the souls and not the mans instrument to receive Christ which himself knoweth to be the meaning of no one of them against whom he fighteth but a slanderous and subtle trick of his own devising to make their doctrine seem absurd in an alien sense which in their own sense he can in no wise confute So 3. Here he further sophisticateth and perverteth their doctrine in contracting the whole man not only into a soul which he had done before but into some one or two faculties of the soul into which faith is infused and inherent as in its subject as if they taught that faith is the instrument of a faculty and not mans instrument The holinesse of the faculties is not their i. e. the faculties instrument saith he but themselves rectifyed The absurdities therefore which he infers as consequents of such an assertion are the consequents of his slander not of their doctrine None ever taught faith to be the instrument of a faculty or instrumentall to justifie a facultie but mans instrument and nstrumentall to justifie man 4. In supposing it as a thing granted that faith in the soul or faculties of the soul is nothing but the holinesse of such faculties or their being rectifyed and not a being distinct so distinct as may be called their instrument a doctrine well agreeing with his principles who makes sanctification the condition of justification and no further attributes any thing to faith but as it is a part of our sanctification Pag. 195. n. 5 6. and thorowout this whole Treatise but altogether denied by the Protestant Churches which ascribe not to faith any instrrumentality to justification as it is a part of our holinesse and rectitude but as by a supernaturall virtue which it infuseth into the soul to carry it out to Christ to God in Christ for remission and reconciliation Otherwise godlinesse hope love meeknesse and all other the fruits of the Spirit should justifie us equally with faith because the holinesse and rectitude of the soul consisteth no lesse in these then in faith And this is the thing in question if we grant it all is granted which the worst of Jesuites seeks or Mr. Baxter in this whole book contends for so that to make the whole thing in question a known and granted conclusion from which he will prove a particle in question is too grosse and un Baxterlike a Sophism he is wont to spin finer webs what make such course threads in his fingers And why saith he Not so distinct is faith a being distinct from the faculty in which it is Even this that it is a being distinct from the essence of man speaks it capable of an instrumentality to mans justification especially God having appointed and fitted it to that end much more of being an instrument in generall for mans use which is all that Mr. Baxter should have denyed when he denies it to be the faculties instrument 5. In reiterating the soul for the whole man and annexing captious words to it Who ever called habits or dispositions the souls instruments Thus he playes the Sophister to make the instrumentality of faith ridiculous as if we affirmed it instrumentall to justification quatenus as it is and only in this respect because it is a habit or disposition of the soul when contrariwise we ascribe this power and office to it as it is a virtue or gift of grace endewed with this property from the author of it to cleave to Christ and draw forth the soul with it to Christ for justification as hath been before expressed and in this office it hath no other habit power or disposition of the soul naturall or infused
not the latter his instruments in building the Temple Mr. Baxter himself must conclude the contrary B. 2. And that from a reason intrinsecall to faith it self So acted the Assyrians and the Devill in the acts before mentioned as instruments in Gods hand from a reason intrinsecall to themselves Did this increase their honour Rationall men in their actions make use of instruments that are fittest from an intrinsecall reason within themselves to produce the effect purposed They seek not to speak with their ears or hear with their eyes or see with their heels c. because these have not a reason intrinsecall in them to such effects doe they therefore ascribe honour to the tongue above other members as the eyes or hands c. because they speak with the tongue and not with their eyes and hands And do we ascribe to God or derogate from him when we say he hath no lesse wisdom then a man therefore useth yea maketh instruments both within and without fitted for his work when the Apostle affirmeth the foolishnesse of Preaching Gods power to save he robs God of none of his power to deifie either the foolishnesse of Preaching or the Word preached or the mortall Preacher thereof with Gods power B. And from a reason that will make other graces to be instruments as well as faith For love doth truly receive Christ also 1. Qui alterum accuâ—at probri ipsum se intueri oportet This trick he hath learned of Potiphars wife to accuse innocent Joseph of the fault whereof her self not he was guilty Mr. Baxter indeed makes Faith and Love con-causes of one and the same kinde to Justification viz. the severall parts that make up the body of Evangelicall Righteousnesse which he saith justifies us pag. 236. na 3. why doth he proclaim it a scandalous crime in us which he fastens to himself as a praise 2. We affirm not faith to be Gods instrument as it receiveth Christ nor any further to be the instrument of Gods justifying then of his declaring and evidencing us to our selves justified We affirm it to be our instrument yet as given us of God as it receives Christ Gods as by it he evidenceth life and righteousnesse to be ours ours as by it we receive Christ and the justification yea justifier in receiving Christ And when that Mr. Baxter shall make it his task not only to say as here but also to prove that God hath qualified love for this Office I shall not doubt to undertake the task to answer him B. 4. And worst of all from a reason which will make man to be the Causa proxima of his own justification For man is the Causa proxima of beleeving and receiving Christ and therefore not God but man is said to beleeve Here is much of sound to astonish fools but nothing of substance to satisfie the judicious For 1. Did we hereby make man the Causa proxima yet it is but the Causa proxima instrumentalis passiva of his Justification the next instrument to apply it and that not by any thing naturally his own but by the new hand of Faith which God hath given him to this end And this obscures not but cleers up the Grace of God Therefore by faith that it might appear to be by grace Rom. 4. 16. The begger by receiving the freely given treasure may be as properly called the Causa proxima of his enriching yet hath the Benefactor that freely gave it the entire praise of it 2. Or if there were any damage herein done to the Grace of God how much more guilty is Mr. Baxter of the fact in making mans faith and works the very righteousnesse which giveth man right and title to Christ and the Justification which is by Christ yea a righteousnesse perfect and worthy as he hath expressed himself before in what we have already examined Is not this to make Christs satisfaction the remote Causa sine qua non as he cals it in this 56 Thesis and man himself the Causa proxima sine qua non and if the Causa proxima must in his judgement have the preheminence then in his judgement mans righteousnesse hath herein preheminence above the righteousnesse of Christ 3. Yea not only this but the very devill is the Causa proxima sine qua non of our justification according to Mr. Baxter and so must in this great businesse have the upper hand of Christ For the Justification here is but a meer Embryon of Justification with him which most times comes to nought and naught But Justification in the day of Judgement is the thing consummate and in its perfection which he tels us is our acquitting from accusation and guilt which shall be then pleaded and managed against us by Satan Here he makes the Devils plea and managing of the Laws accusation the next Causa sine qua non upon which our finall and compleat justification followeth Thes 39. pag. 188 189. Where now is his worst of all in his or in our Doctrine Thus while Mr. Baxter fights against us with a sword that hath neither edge nor point he neither hurts us not provides for his own defence but by brandishing his weapon untowardly wounds his own face with the hilts B. And yet these very men doe send a Hue and Cry after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere for robbing Christ of the glory of Justification when we make it but a poor improper Causa sine qua non Why and yet All that he hath said against them is not against them but against himself and for himself he hath said nothing Only he hath entertained his Reader with a declamation against us who expected his own assertion should have been confirmed he hath by all laid never a Milstone no nor a Cherrystone in the way to hinder the pursuants of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crâ—dere at all for its sacriledge in robbing Christ When we make it c. which we with whom doth he side or whom makes he to side with him but Socinus Arminius and one or two possibly of their scholars among us which have carried this and many other monsters in their belly long before they were delivered of them and most probably have yet more behinde which have not yet seen the Sun It is Mr. Baxters unhappinesse that these notwithstanding his wresting and catching them by the heel come to the light still before him This is that most likely which stifles his Universall Redemption in the womb But having nothing else to do to make him gracious at Rome because he could not speak first his care is to speak all bigger then they all that have spoken before him Wee make it a poore improper Causa sine qua non i. e. in true and plain English a poor perfect merâ—torious righteousnesse a collaterall of and no lesse necessary then the righteousnesse of the Lord Christ as in this 56 and before in and under his 17 19 20 23 24 and 26 Theses
what Scriptures our Divines bring to prove justification to be only by faith and to deny all cooperation of works therein And herein I shall put limits to my self not letting out all that they produce for so should I offend with immoderate length but some particulars that the weakest reader may see what Mr. Baxter would not give him to see that our Churches are not destitute of strong grounds for the bearing up of their faith and assertions And when this is done I shall descend to examine the force of those Scriptures quoted by Mr. Baxter to see whether they make for him and against us I shall begin from the reasoning of the Apostle Rom. 3. 20. c. having before proved both the Jews by and under the Law and the Gentiles without the Law to be guilty before God he concludes Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justifyed c. and ver 21. The righteousnesse of God viz. to justification is manifested without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets to wit a righteousnesse which the Law is ignorant of the righteousnesse or life which is by faith From this righteousnesse the tenour of the Law or legall Covenant turns aside telling us he that doeth them shall live in them Gal. 3. 11 12. ver 22. Even the righteousnesse of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve Lo here it is denyed to be by the most righteous works which the most perfect Law of God himself prescribeth and attained by faith only ver 24. Being justifyed freely by his grace through the redemption which is by Jesus Christ what can be said more fully It shall not be impertinent to annote briefly out of Zanchy what he hath upon Hier. zanch De natura Dei Lib. 4. Cap. 2. Th. 2. this verse more largly when the Apostle saith we are justifyed by his grace Per Gratiam intelligit gratuitum Dei favorem omnibus nostris exclusis sive naturalibus sive supernaturalibus dignitatibus saith he i. e. by Grace the Apostle meaneth the free love or favour of God excluding all parts and pieces of our worth both naturall and supernaturall and addeth that the Apostle still opposeth grace to all our works and to all our inward vertues wrought in us by the holy Ghost himself as well as to our legall and morall righteousnesse yea to faith it selfe as it is a work as is manifest to every one that hath with any consideration read this Epistle Therefore saith he he excludeth all works that he may conclude our Justification to be by grace alone Yea more the Apostle saith he not contented to say we are justifyed by grace addeth thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace that is by the grace which is in God not by any gift of grace infused by him into ourselves that it might be wholly of God and not of our selves at all in the least part Yea not contented with all this he addeth freely to notifie that there is not required any work or qualification on our part to put us into the possession thereof for so it should not be wholly by the free and naked favour of God as he tearms it And lastly he addeth by the redemption which is by Jesus Christ by this work of Christ excluding all ours hitherto that profound Zanchius Neither cannot it be freely by the redemption of Christ if our qualifications and conditions be brought to interesse us to it for so should we be in some kinde purchasers and not receive it freely The Apostle proceeds ver 25. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins c. The whole thing of Gods ordination to make the redemption propitiation and remission of sinnes which is by Christ actually ours to our comfort is here assigned to be saith in his blood and not any foregoing concomitant or subsequent vertue or duty of ours annexed to it and all to declare his righteousnesse Ver. 26. His righteousnesse he saith again that he may be just and the justifyer of him that beleeveth in Jesus If Mr. Baxters fancy stand of the Legall righteousnesse in Christ and the Evangelicall righteousnesse in us the Apostles assignation of the end of Gods justifying us by Christ should be maimed For he should have said To declare to declare I say his righteousnesse and our righteousnesse that he might be just and a justifyer and we might be just and justifyers of our selves And then we are to expunge the next verse Where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith For boasting should not be at all excluded if our works should bear a part with faith in justifying so should we have matter of glorying in our selves still How full is the Apostle here in the confirmation of Justification by faith without works had he seen what the Papists and Mr. Baxter over their shoulders would have objected against it he could not have spoken more punctually Yet as I know what the Papists say for themselves so I am not ignorant what Mr. Baxter will except for himself But I reserve the Examination thereof for another place where he goeth about to purge his doctrine from all contrariety that it hath to the doctrine of the Apostle and from any derogation from the Grace of God A second Testimonie or authority from Scripture we may draw from Rom. 4. 1 c. I shall be short in it The Apostle here denies 1 Our father Abraham the father of the faithfull himself to have been justifyed by works for then he should have whereof to glory ver 2 3. But as Abraham was so all the faithfull are justifyed by faith without works or to render the words of the Text By faith and not by works Here Mr. Baxter hath no evasion as in the former Chapter viz. that the works of the Law only are denyed for Abraham was under the promise not under the Law nether was the Law then given and the promise under which he was was without all condition of works so that the Apostle here excludeth works indefinitely I mean not good and evill works for no man ever brought evill works as evill to be thereby justifyed But good works whether Legall or Evangelicall all acts and deeds both of naturall and infused righteousnesse and holinesse 2 In affirming of him that worketh i. e. that seeketh justification by works that the reward is reckoned of debt to him that he requires it as due and shall not receive it if it be not found due in Justice but to him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is imputed to righteousnesse i. e. as hath been already evinced Christ by faith apprehended is of the free grace of God made righteousnesse to him When Mr. Baxter therefore claps his bundle of works upon
land of Canaan again The same is evident from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy where Moses having in the name of God pronounced the many blessings and whole confluence of secular happinesse to the obedient and to them that after much transgression and many curses for their transgressions should repent and turn and denounced curses upon curses a whole deluge of judgements and temporary afflictions one on the neck of another against as many as should disâ—bey the Commandements c. cap. 28. cap. 29. he doth cap. 30 15 19. Call heaven and earth to witnesse that he had done his duty in setting before them life and death good and evill blessing and cursing inplying the life and death here mentioned consisted chiefly in outward prosperity and adversity stroaking and striking That these were the apples and the rods to allure and terrifie them yet in their minority and under a paedagogie untill faith should come and the Sun of tighteousnesse shine in its splendor that they might walk by faith and not by feeling act from love and not from fear from the Spirit of adoption and not of bondage so that this shadie life promised to a legall repentance is nothing to the life of justification but so far beneath it that it is in no capacity to be used as a proofe about it These therefore serve not at all to drive on Mr. Baxters conclusion In the second place Those Scriptures which he quotes that offer life upon condition of Evangelicall repentance doe not make for him any more then the former For Gospell repentance is taken either in a large or strict sense in the more large sense it is the same with conversion or regeneration and oft times equipollent and the same thing with faith though some little consider it to be so And this is as oft as repentance is put for the one and whole thing required on our part to put us into the actuall and sensible possession of the grace and life of the Gospell as Mat. 3. 2. Mark 6. 12. Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand The summe of their preaching was Repent so Luk. 13. 3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish 24. 47. and many other of the Scriptures which he quoteth In all these places repentance containeth primarily the change of our relation and but secondarily of our qualifications and manners It is a quidam motus in which acti agimus being moved by Gods Spirit we move the terminus a quo in this motion is self our self-righteousnesse and self-confidences from which we turn no lesse then from our polluted self sinfull self and sinfull wayes The terminus ad quem is God the grace of God inviting us The medinm per quod is the Lord Christ through whom we have accesse to the Father for remission first and then for sanctification also And as the scope of the Gospell requires us to understand in such Scriptures repentance in this sense so neither do the two Greek words rendered in Latine Resipiscâ—ntia in English Repentance refuse this sense For what is that change of the mind of the judgement wisdome and will when it is taken for a Theologicall vertue but a change of these in reference to happinesse A renouncing of and departing from natures groaping and erring directions by our own works and righteousnesse to seek for blessednesse and a cleaving to the directions of the Gospell pointing out Christ as the alone way to it For instance Paul while yet impenitent and unconverted walked by the light of his naturall conscience as it was informed and awaked by the Law and by this rule walked as a strict Pharisee touching the righteousnesse which is in the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 5 6. and looking as Mr. Baxter doth upon the doctrine of free grace and righteousnesse freely imputed as upon a licentious doctrine was carried with full sails of zeal totally to destroy it I verily thought with my self saith he that I ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus c. which thing I also did c. Act. 26. 9 10. Now when the Lord Christ met him in the midst of his raging madnesse so working upon his heart that he now beleeved in Christ whom he had erewhile persecuted received him and rested on him for righteousnesse whom he had erewhile blasphemed What will ye call this obedience to the faith this closing of his heart with Christ in stead of further dashing against him was it not his conversion his repentance or is the promise of life I mean the life of justification made to any other repentance besides this In this sense therefore repentance is not a quid distinctum a thing distinct from but one and the same with justifying faith or if it be objected that it is somewhat larger then justifying faith I shall not contend but acknowledge that it comprehends whole faith both qua justificat qua sanctificat to justification and to sanctification Yet this hinders not but that these two phrases repentance to life or remission of sins and faith to life and the remission of sins are in the language of the holy Ghost one and the same Where repentance is taken in a stricter sense and some of the Scripture which he quotes seem to promise remission of sins or life to it we must necessarily understand of every such Scriptures that it speaketh of the repentance which is actuated in our first conversion and calling or after it That which is in our first conversion or calling when it is taken in a strict sense is not as in the former sense put as the whole thing required on our parts but seems in words a coordinate with faith to interest us in the righteousnesse and life which are by Christ Such are these Scriptures Repent and beleeve the Gospell repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ Mark. â— 15. Act. 20. 21. and many other But in these repentance and faith together make up no more then in other Scriptures either faith alone or repentance alone in their large sense import and so repentance is taken for self-denyall self-abhorring self-subduing and faith for embracing Christ both these are repentance or faith in their larger sense To no other end doth repentance cast and empty out self but to be filled with Christ nor doth faith receive Christ untill self be let out and evacuated that it may receive him See we it in Paul his casting away his Phi. 3. 8 9. own righteosnesse as dung and losse and putting on of Christ to win and wear him for righteousnesse were two concurrent acts either of one faith or one repentance for we may use after the holy Ghost either term indifferently and repentance here is no distinct thing from faith nor faith from repentance and in naming these two the holy Ghost nameth not two gifts of grace but two acts of the same gift of grace in us so that hitherto the
what to be certain of It were more tolerable and excusable for me to leave the grounds of one single man giving his private interpretation of this Scripture despised unexamined and unanswered than for him so to deale with all the Churches of Christ But I will not be a follower of him that followes not Christ in lowliness and his Precept in selfe-deniall His dispute here is two fold 1 to prove that Iames speaks not of the declaration of our justification before men 2. To prove that he speaks of our justification before God when he mentioneth justification by works To the former all that he saith is Sophisticall and Fallacious For if wee grant that by the World hee meanes the whole generation of men both good and evill which yet can hardly bee drawne from his dispute which to make our assertion odious would make it out as relating only to the wicked of the world that these must be the alone Judges Notwithstanding his whole Argumentation is a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a waving the question with a false assumption that by Justification before men we meant a raising of a Tribunall upon earth in opposition to Gods in heaven there to set up men to be judges and to passe sentence of justification and remission of sinnes one upon another according to the evidence of every ones works The falshood wherof hee proves by the illegality of such a judicature and incompetency of the judges and evidence for it And what is this but a Devill of his own raysing and laying again For what one rationall man in any of the Reformed Churches ever dreamed of such a justification All that wee understand heerby is but a declaration and discovery of the tree by its fruits of the state of a man before God that he hath justified or not justified him according as we see the fruits of justification i. e. the works of sanctification following or not following the profession of faith And all this not by a judiciall sentence given for or against any nor by the judgement of infallible faith or knowledge but in the judgement of charity alone which hopeth all things beleeveth all things thinketh no evill except by strong evidence it bee drawn to it 1. Co. 13. 5. 7. In fighting against this doctrine Mr. Baxter fighteth against Christ against the Holy Ghost the Author of it not onely heer but elsewhere also By their fruits ye shall know them saith our Saviour Mat. 7. 16. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if yee love one another Io 13. 35. that the World may know that thou hast loved them Io 17. 28. He that is of God heareth us he that is not of God heareth us not hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error 1. Io 4. 6. Let your light so shine forth before others that they seeing your good workes may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Ma 5. 16. I magnifie my office if by any meanes I may provoke my bretheren c. and save some of them Ro. 11. 14. By your orderly carriage c. the unbeleever shall be convinced fall downe worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 1. Cor. 14. 24. 25. That he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed having nothing evill to say of you Tit. 2. 8. Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles that whereas they speake evill of you they may by your good works which they see glorifie God 1 Pet. 2. 12. Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme 2. Sam. 12. 14. God hath begun and will perfect in you the good worke as it is meet for me to judge of you because c. Phil. 1. 6 7. I am perswaded of you things that accompany salvation because of your works and labours of love c. Heb. 6. 9 10. Wee give thanks to God for you c. since we heard of your Faith in Christ Jesus and love to all the Saints for the hope which is laid up for you in Heaven Col. 1. 3 4 5 To the Saints which are at Rome Corinth c. and hundreds of the like Scriptures which testifie the declaration such a declaration of the Faith Saintship Justification and salvation of others by the evidence of their works that we ought that it is a sinne in men by the judgement of Charity not to acquiesce therein And on the contrary part testifying the want of such an evidence to be an occasion given to all men to reject our Faith and justification in the profession thereof as spurious and vaine Against all these Mr. Baxter excepreth pronouncing that mans judgement herein is illegall incompetent and the evidence insufficient therefore to make use of any judgement or discerning in this kind is usurpative Doth he herein fight against men or against God Suppose that the event in any thing prove contrary to our judgement yet is there not sin in such judgement while we follow Christs Rule and to be deceived by Charity rightly ordered if it may be called a deceivednesse yet is it no sinfull deceivednesse What hee produceth from the Apostle Vnto me it is a small thing to be judged of you or of mans judgement c. 1 Cor. 4. 3. is nothing subservient to his turne For the Apostle there speaketh of their unjust Censures of him besides and against Christs Rule the Rule of Charity from which while they erred their judgement was not to be regarded and in relation to the future judgement which followes not mans but Christs owne knowledge of us Thus have we found one part of his arguing vaine and wide from the scope in going about to prove that James his Justification by works is not to be taken for the declaring of us to men to be truly justified His second dispute is to prove that this Justification by Works is to be understood of our justifying by works at Gods Tribunall His Reasons to prove it are partly in his words before transcribed partly in a new supply thereunto added The first Reason in the former is B. 1. It is such as Salvation dependeth on ver 14. Brevis esse laboro Obscurus fio No mans immoderate prolixity and tediousness hath ever so much troubled mee as this mans pretended affectation of conciseness and brevity By it when hee speakes nothing he gets the advantage to bee thought of fooles that he speaketh great and mysticall things Were it not that I regard such as are too apt to run after his whistle though they know not his tune I should rather kick at such Delphicke mystericall passages of his than take them up to looke on them If James here take not justifying and saving for the same thing then to use Mr. Baxters words I am not certaine what to be certaine off So that when he saith it is such a justification as salvation dependeth on it is one as if hee
9. 15. So that it is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy verse 16. Many other Arguments have our Divines against the Papists about this question which I intreat the Reader to fetch from them for his fuller satisfaction Now let us see what Mr. Baxter brings to prove that obedience and good workes are the condition of our salvation Yet by the way let us note that the Argument it selfe which here Bell. de ju 〈…〉 4. 〈◊〉 he seeks to confirme is the Papists and great is Belarmines striving to maintaine it as his great prop of justification and salvation by works Si promissio vitae aeternae est conditionata faith he ut C 〈…〉 probavimus certè necessarium est implere conditionem si quis salvus fieri velit â—â—e if the promise of eternall life be conditionall 〈◊〉 I have proved in the first Chapter certainly he must nec 〈…〉 fill the condition that willâ—eâ— saved This Condition of which hee speakes is the same with Mr. Baxters viz. the Condition of works Neither shall it be impertinent heer to take into consideration some rules of our Divines for the right understanding of the minde of the holy Ghost in promising eternall life unto persons of such and such qualifications or that perform such and such duties before wee descend to examine the particular promises and testimonies which Mr. Br. alleadgeth These are principally such as follow 1. That they belong so farre as to bee effectuallized to none else but such as are vitally within the covenant of Grace under the protection of the bloud of the Lamb in spirituall union with Christ Jesus the mediator of the new Covenant according to that of the Apostle All the promises of God in him are yea and in him Amen never effectuallized to them that are not in him 2 Co. 1. 20. To Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not his seeds as of many but of one and to thy seed which was Christ viz. in him alone and to them alone to be confirmed which are in Christ Gal 3. 16. Therfore the blessedness which Matthew in sound of words seems to hold forth more generally Ma. 5 3. c. Luke as the Expositor of him or rather of the mind of Christ in those promises contracts to the right objects or persons to whom they were to bee made good thus Jesus lifted his eyes upon his disciples and said Blessed be YEE poor for yours is the Kingdome of God Blessed are YEE that hunger YEE that weep c. implying that the blessedness was to come upon them not by the vertue of these Acts and qualifications mentioned but upon this ground alone that they were his Disciples by him Gospellized and received into Covenant this is that which Augustine so much presseth in such promises to looke to the Root which is Christ and that the reward is not from their works because they are holy but because they are holy or Saints which wrought them and that they are thence saints from whence righteous not from the works but from the Faith of the workers 2. That in such promises the qualifications or works of the persons to whom they are directed are mentioned not as the ground or foundation of the blessednesse promised but to shew the method and order which God observes in bringing them to the possession therof Because he is holy pure spirituall therfore he powrs into them his purifying sanctifying and adopting spirit to conform them to his own will and nature before hee brings them into the full and reall fruition of himself So hee promiseth all the heaven of felicities to the meek the righteous the saints to them that love him that fear him that obey him not therby insinuating that hee found them but that he hath made or will make them such as many as he will crown at last with glory Heerin the power of that father of Spirits excelleth and exceedeth the power of the fathers of our bodies He new creates their hearts new forms their wills puts into them a new spirit therby making them as Peter saith partakers of the Divine Nature and to enjoy the kingdome of God within them heer before they be translated to it above 3. Nevertheless the foundation of all these promises is not such acts and qualifications in us but the relation of sons in which wee stand before God Such God beheld us in Christ before wee were born such hee hath made us that truly beleeve by the grace of the new Covenant having begotten us to himself of incorruptible seed 1. Pet. 1. 23. we are born of God and have received the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father So that our salvation dependeth not upon the vertues and good works which are mentioned in the promises but upon this our relation of sons if sons then heirs c. Ro. 8. 15. as a speciall friend of Mr. Br. who walks by the same rule and the same spirit with him hath acknowledged heerin consenting with our Divines and stoutly maintayning their Assertion at least because it seemed to give some fulture to his cause And I suppose Mr. Br. will not heer leave him whom in all the rest he followeth 4. Yet what the Lord giveth to and hath prepared of endlesse glory for his children as his children he doth oft-times hold forth and promise to them as a reward of such gifts of grace in them and of works which they have done or sufferings that they have undergone for his sake Not but that it was provided for them and promised to them before all such works and sufferings as they were children but for some other honourable ends which I shall in part mention having first instanced some promises of this kind Before the birth of Isaac long had the Lord of free grace promised to Abraham all blessedness corporall and spirituall present and future that his seed should be as the dust of the earth as the stars of heaven numberless that he should bee blessed and in him all nations of the earth be blessed that the land of Canaan the type and the eternall land of Promise the Antitype should be his and his seeds for ever Ge. 12 2. 3. and 13. 15. 16. and 15. 1-6 and 17. 1-8 Yet afterward cha 22. when Abraham had shewed that notable fruit of his faith fear and love to God in offering his son Isaac in obedience to Gods command God called from heaven to him by an Angel and sayd By my self have I sworn because thou hast done this thing and hast not with held thy son thy only son That in blessing I will blesse thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars in heaven and as the sand c. and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice Ge. 22. 15-18 We see heer that promised as a reward of this act of
obedience of Abraham which God had by promise made sure to him before ever hee offered his son or had the son to offer To this I might annex the harmony of Scriptures that testifying the kingdome of glory to be prepared for them that shall enjoy it from the beginning of the world purchased for them by Christs death Mat. 25. 34. Heb. 9. 15. That they were begotten to it by the seed of God begetting Christ in them 1. Pet. 1 3. 4 and are inrighted to it by their adoption yet notwithstanding God cals it the Reward of the inheritance and promiseth it to them for their works and faithfull service in the Lord Nor implying therby that the workes done put them into a worthiness or capacity to receive it For if a thousand times more were done and suffered by them that are not in Christ that are not adopted Children it should be nothing to salvation but for other very glorious and spirituall ends among which may be numbred these that follow 1. To declare the operation of the Spirit of Adoption upon the Saints that having the promise made and the hopâ— of this eternall inheritance begotten in them freely by Grace in Christ and the same witnessed and assured to them of meere mercy it doth not permit them to turn the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ into lasciviousness but stit encourage them to all doings sufferings for Christ by the intuition of the reward having their eyes-fixed upon the reward before them they are animated by it to do all things knowing that their labour is not vaine in the Lord to all sufferings concluding that all are not worthy to be compared to the glory to be revealed to them to rejoyce in all having an eye to the recompence of the reward And so all their obedience is in a way of love and thankfulnesse for the right which is freely given them to the Kingdome not thereby to inright themselves to it 2. To declare Gods acceptance as well of the works as the persons of his adopted ones and thereby to hearten them to well doing when in every act and service of love which they perform in every suffering that they beare for his sake he still as it were meets them not only with his apples and flaggons but also with his Crown and Kingdome for this and for that service renewing still the promise of it This sets an edge upon their Love and sublimates their Spirits to more and greater undertakings What doth my Heavenly Father take notice of and accept so graciously these weak services renew the Covenant and as it were bring down Heaven and himselfe into mee upon such slender performances so that I walke and work and do and suffer not onely in the hope but even in the view and possession of blessedness what is there so high or low great or small to which I should not stretch or stoop to please so good a Father shall I receive so great a salvation so frequently set afresh before mine eye and new ratified to me without doing or rendring any thing for it 3. To manifest to the evill world that God in the midst of the riches of his grace is also infinitely righteous a Lover and Rewarder of purity piety holinesse righteousness and all the works thereof For to these his promises of life are extended and into these hee leadeth his children new creating them to the performance thereof having ordeined them to walke therein So that hereby the mouth of the enemies of Christ and blasphemers are stopped from crying out against the inequality of Gods wayes or charging Christ to be unjustly a friend of Publicans and sinners Seeing that although hee loves them even while they are such and pittieth them because they are such yet he loves them not as such much lesse glorifieth them as such But first purgeth them with his owne bloud and sanctifies them by his owne Spirit and leads them forth in his owne strength into all obedience both of doing and suffering encouraging them by his precious promises in all the way of their Pilgrimage and telling them that no least portion of all their labours or patience in the Lord shall passe unregarded or unrewarded and in the end of all their journey crownes them and their obedience with the eternall glory promised Yet so as that all the glory which was promised to them in that which some of the Fathers and the Schoolmen call the Viâ the Way and that is actually conferred upon them in Patriâ in the Countrey in Heaven was theirs by grace in Christ before the foundation of the World was laid much more before they did either good or evill and theirs in themselves and to their own apprehensibleness if not apprehension at their fiâ—st union unto Christ and adoption into Gods Family through Christ so that if we look to the foundation therof in God it is his free Grace and Love unto us in Christ or in our selves it is our union unto Christ and relation of Sonship towards God in Christ Yet so as usually works intervene and the promises of God both to the works and workers as for many other so for the reasons and ends heer expressed oft renewed Now let us attend Mr. Br. to hear from him what Scriptures or reasons he brings to prove his Assumption B. Heb. 5. 9. Christ is the Author of eternall salvation to them that obey him This Scripture makes against him not for him 1. If Christ bee the authour then is not our obedience the ground of it but wee should be authors therof to our selves at least hee should bee in part author of it by his and we in part by our obedience and so the honour therof should be parted between Christ and our selves But this Mr. Br. would have to bee set up as his doctrine 2. Therfore when he is sayd to be such to them that obey him it is the same as if it were sayd to them that hurling away as dung their own righteousness do beleeve in and receive him alone to salvation For so to obey Christ to obey the Gospel and that which Christ calleth the hearing and keeping of My word My commandements My sayings in so many places as that it is hard â—o number them are equipollent terms and hold forth the obedience to the doctrine of faith in opposition to the obedience which the Law or old Covenant prescribeth to salvation a seeking of salvation by the righteousness of Christ and no more by our own righteousness 3. If it were otherwise yet the persons that shall bee saved by Christ are heer described only and not a condition by which they are to be saved prescribed B. Ro. 2. 7. 8. 9. 10. He alleadgeth not the words and may bee ashamed to quote the place to prove the salvation which is by the Gospel to follow the tenour of works knowing that the Apostle there goeth about to convince the Jews that the Law cannot save them by shewing
life and salvation not to the end that we may be justified by them but in thankfullnesse for our justification by Christ without workes to bee an Antinomian and damning doctrine if reduced to practice he pâ—rremptorily pronounceth not onely all Protestant Churches and saints but also Paul himselfe an Antinomian and damned For 1. that Paul and all the Apostles of Christ doe teach and urge upon all the Saints of Christ all diligence in good workes and duties and fruitfulnesse in obedience in thankfulnesse for their Iustification Mr. Baxter will not cannot deny for if he should he cannot be ignorant that he shall be forthwith overwhelmed with testimonies of Scriptures against him that himself must acknowledge unwrested Yea he must quench not only the light of the Gospell but also of reason and nature it selfe which possibly are more authentique with him than Gospell to deny that we are to be really as well as verbally thankfull to God for his least much more for his greatest benefits such as are our Iustification and salvation But that the Apostle also teacheth that we are not to performe good works and duties that we may be justified and saved by them is evident To him that worketh saith he i. e. seeketh it by works the reward is reckoned not of grace but of debt shall be conferred on him if due in strict Iustice he must expect nothing from grace But to him that worketh not seeks not the attainment therof by works his Faith is imputed to him for righteousnesse Ro. 4. 4. 5. to which he addeth the testimony of David pronouncing the man blessed to whom God imputeth righteousnesse without workes ver 6 7 8 By Grace are ye saved through Faith not of workes least any man should boast Eph. 2. 8 9. we knowing that a man is justified by the workes of the Law have beleeved in Christ Iesus that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ for by the works of the Law none can be justified Gal. 3 16. Not by workes of righteousnesse which we have done but of his mercy he hath saved us Tit. 3. 5. That no man is justified by the Law it is evident for the just shall live by Faith The strength of the reasoning is in the opposition of the Righteousnesse by which the Gospell to that by which the Law justifieth By Faith therefore not by our sinceerest and exactest study of the righteousnesse which the Law prescribeth Gal. 2. 11. with many other testimonies before frequently alledged Lo heere the Apostle teaching the same doctrine which Mr. Baxter damneth a working not for Iustficacation by his workes but from justification and in thankfulnesse for it Yea hee reduceth it to practise also Wee knowing that there is no iustification by workes have beleeved in Christ Jesus that we may be justified Gal. 2. 16. I count all things doung that I may winn Christ and bee found in him not having my owne Righteousnesse which is of the Law but that which is through Phil. 3. 8 9 the Faith of Christ the Righteousnesse of God by Faith Behold wee heere in these Scriptures the Apostle teaching and reducing to practise every particle of the doctrine which Mr. Baxter heere dâ—mneth What followeth According to Mr. Baxter Paul is an Antinomian and damned Let me also be so damned with Paul the Antinomian rather then justified in the way of Mr. Baxters justification Mr. Baxter cannot evade here by any sophisticall interpretation of Pauls sense and meaning in these scriptures For they which have delivered this doctrine of Paul in Pauls words or in words equivalent professe themselves to hold it also in Pauls sence and meaning So that Mr. Baxter in interpreting Pauls interprets their meaning also so that it is evident that his wrath here is against the very doctrine of Paul though his pretence bee to blow up them onely which speake after him But Mr. Baxter hath a greater authority than Paul can boast of for himselfe to pronounce them all Antinomians and damned with Paul that followe Pauls doctrine viz. the determination of the Holy councell of Trent which hath thus concluded Si quis dixerit c. If any shall say that a man is justified by Faith alone without workes let him be accursed Who dares now to equillize Pauls Tent to the Popes Throne and so many Cardinals and Bishops palaces As to the matter it selfe it is all sophisticall and fallatious that Mr. Baxter here delivereth Let him bring that Antinomian to light that hath ever taught that we must not labour and strive for justification and salvation against whom his Argument may holde good that he must needs bee damned because he that seeketh not and striveth not to enter shall never enter Some indeede by expressing themselves too briefly have given occasion to Mr. Baxter and such as he is to catch a phrase or sentence from them that may smel of some absurdity as considered in it selfe and by its selfe such as is that which he heer mentioneth we must work from life and not for life But if the scope of the Authors in such phrases be gathered from that which went before and that which followeth it will appear clearly they meant we are not to work and perform duties to this end that wee may bee justified and saved by such works as works and duties but to perform them in love and thankfulness to him that justifieth us freely of meer grace without works through the Redemption which is by Christ Jesus And this is the Question betweene Mr. Baxter and the Papists on the one part and the Antinomians i e. the Protestants on the other part whether wee must perform good works and duties to bee justified and saved by them and for them so performed yea by them or for them as they are our inherent righteousness our perfect possible and meritorious Righteousness All which he affirms and the Protestants with one consenting voice deny as hath been before and may after before we part from Mr. Br. be more fully manifested What he concludes with as a notable absurdity and inconvenience that will befall his doctrine of works if we will not say what he sayth viz. If good works bee no part of the Condition of our full justification and salvation who will use them to that end For how it can procure justification as a means and not be the condition therof I cannot conceive Besides his fallacy before noted in arguing from justification and salvation simply and indefinitely taken to a full justification and salvation of his own devising and so controvertibly again from this latter to that former it concerns him to look to the inconvenience and danger which useth and practiseth not to us which use not good works to that end And now is his time to consider that his full justification when hee thinks to possesse it do not evaporate into no justification no salvation Now to make way for the examination of what hee hath more largely to
this purpose in his Answer to the tenth eleventh Questions in his Appendix and to shew how hee there fights with his own phantasm feigns an Adversary and then quells him falls out with his own shadow never comming neer that which hee hath made to be the Question between him and the Protestant Churches but when the Adversary is Eastward hee rides out in indignation Westward beating every bush and wounding every bough that he meets with proclayming it an Adversary and so returns at last with as much gallantry as ever did William the Conquerour it shall be expedient for the disabusing of such as are apt in this kind to bee abused to premise something for the right stating of the Question heer controverted First then the doings duties and works about which the Question is conversant are of two kinds Legall or Evangelicall such as have their foundation in that law which is of Natural and Moral or such as are founded on precepts and doctrines of Gospell Positive right By the former I mean such works and duties as the naturall conscience specially if holpen by the written Law can apprehend to be and urge upon man as duty though there had never been a Christ or Gospell to adde further light By the later I meane such duties as are only in generall comprehended in the Law whatsoever the Lord shall at any time declare to bee his will and impose upon thee as thy duty thou shalt observe and do but cannot possibly be known in speciall to bee duties without a new revelation from heaven such as the Gospell is The former duties are naturall founded in Nature it selfe the later supernaturall because without a supernaturall manifestation they cannot be known and without a supernaturall power infused they cannot bee effectually performed All this Mr. Br. himselfe granteth in this his Treatise saving the very last clause which also because I finde him not any where flatly denying I shall forbear to prove taking it as granted with the rest 2. That this naturall righteousness and obedience was the Condition of the Old Covenant as to life and so remayneth still to them that remayn under the Old Coveant but so as that no man living can be saved by it since Adams fall but that whosoever is saved the same is saved after the tenour of the New Covenant i. e. the Covenant of Grace or the Gospel This also Mr. Baxter hath frequently taught and granted 3. That the duties of the New Covenant are of two sorts eyther more or lesse principall the more principall is fayth or receiving and embracing the Lord Christ together with the justification and salvation that are by him The lesse principall duties which are also pure Gospel duties are such as are subservient to faith or to the receiving of Christ alone to justification quickening illumination sanctification c. or to the reteyning of him and fuller closing with him to all these all other Evangelical ends for which he is given to us by the Father These 3. Positions are so frequently granted by Mr. Baxter in this his Book that I forbear to quote the places 4. That justification and salvation as the Scripture terms them a reward if indeed it doth ever so term justification as properly and strictly taken may bee considered first as benefits already conferred and in our possession in part or in the whole or else as rewards heerafter to be conferred the ground and foundation wherof was layd in our first conversion and union to Christ by faith together with the earnest and pledge of the spirit given to us by God to assure us of our full possession of all the fruits therof in the future And 2. if future the Gospel proposeth these as rewards of his free grace and benignity or else as rewards of dâ—bt due to our service and for the service done to him Neither in this can Mr. Baxter oppose or dissent 5. Then to come home and close to the Question it remains to be expressed how far all these duties are to be done for life I mean how far all or any kind of these are to bee performed for the attayning of justification and salvation as a reward and how far onely in love and thankfulness for the reward alrâ—ady made ours in possession or in hope 1. We grant that theâ— which are wholly under the Old Covenant having never the Gospel revealed unto them are bound to seek justification and salvation by the works of the Law or naturall righteousness still but they shall never attaine what they so seek because they are impotent to fulfill the condition Yet their unableness is no prejudice to Gods authority and obligation upon them It is otherwisâ— with them that live under the Gospel and have the Covenant of Grace in Christ revealed to them but have not yet so â—ffectually received Christ by fâ—ith as to beâ— justified and declared righteous within their own souls These are indeed to seek for justification and sâ—lvation yet not by the workes of the Law or legall naturall and meerly morall righteousnesse for this were to reject the new Covenant or Gospel with the justification which is by Christ and to hold themselves fast under the old Covenant in an incapacity to be justified and saved The best works of naturall righteousness which they can performe being but dead works of dead men like the stinch of Carrion offensive to the pure nosthrills of God who will therefore condemn not justifie for them 2. They that are in Christ and have obtayned justification and inchoat salvation by him i. e. have their conscience absolved and saved from sin and obligation to vengeance by faith in his bloud are to perform those works of naturall righteousnes not for life but from life not to procure thereby the life of justification for they have it already in Christ and to seek it more compleatly to be perfected by such works is as hath been before shewed to be so foolish as having begun in the spirit to seeke to bee perfected by the flâ—sh but in duty and thankfulness for so full and free a pardon and Gal. 3. 3. absolution which all our doings all our sufferings are insufficienr to answer Nevertheless the intuition of so great a redemption already attayned and in our possession together with the promise of so glorious an inheritance for the future life already confirmed to us by the seal of the spirit in the bloud of Christ are of such infinite value that we are to walk still in the splendor and glory of it so that our spirits should bee sublimated above earth and selfe to dwell and to spend our selves and be spent in the bosome of that Grace from which wee have received so much and expect yet so much more of ravishing and never ending felicity What neither eye hath seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man in a naturall way conceived of the riches of the incomprehensible bounty and free grace of God being
our selves which he teacheth to tend only to selfe-ruining B. 3. Thankefulnesse for what we have received either in possession title or promise must be a singular spur to duty But I pray you tell me Have you received all the life and mercy you doe expect Are you in Heaven already Have you all the Grace that you need or desire in degree If not why may you not labouâ— for what you have not as well as be thankefull for what you have Or have you as full a certainty of â—â— heerafter as you desire If not why may you not labour for it Al this is also totally besides the QuestioÌ„ which is not whether we may but how we are to labour whether with that most excellent and Gospel-frame of spirit consisting in love and thankfulnesse or mercenarily by works and whether in the way of Faith which the Gospel or of naturall Righteousness which the Law teacheth Many shall seeke to enter and shall not bee able faith the Master Wee through the spirit wait for the hope of Righteousness by Faith saith the Apostle Not so but by and for our Works not at all by Faith but as it is an act or worke saith Mr. Baxter let him shew his light and Authority to be greater than Pauls before hee looke that wee should run after him I shall put one question to him arising from the last of his Interrogatories which will be harder for him to resolve than a thousand such as he hath here wil be to us When hee tels us we must labour for the full certainty of Heaven hereafter is there any such certaintainty in this world attainable according to his principle of but â— conditionall justification and salvation untill the day of Judgementâ— or how is it to be obtained Let him make it out to us If he doth it I shall conclude that he can also turne Heaven into Earth and Earth into Heaven and nothing to bee unpossible to him if not let his Reader judge whether his indeavour be to delude or else to teach In the next Chapter or Section if wee attend onely to the sound and roare of words Mr. Baxter appeares more formidable from pag. 83. to the 98. of his Appendix in which hee presents us with thirteen Considerations to shew the vanity and intolerable damnable wickednesse of this supposed doctrine which he opposeth But the whole sloud of his wit wrath and eloquence heere poured out together runs into the dead Sea by a desart and desolate way in which it meets with no mortall crearure to wet or hurt it For who is there of all mankinde that hath said wee ought not to act for life in the sense which this man suborneth or otherwise than I have before oft expressed Much lesse is there any professed Christian that hath asserted as hee insinuateth That wee must not come to Christ that we may have life nor strive to enter in at the straite gate nor lay violant hands on the Kingdome of Heaven nor lay up for our selves a Treasure in Heaven nor seeke the Kingdome of God and the Righteousnesse the reof nor presse on for the attainment of the Resurrection c. Let him be named by Mr. Baxter that he may be brought forth and stoned which thus blasphemeth I shall not hinder it That which they teach is that Workes are not to be performed to this end that as works or doing as opposed to believing by and for their owne or our owne Righteousnesse in doing them they should put us into the possession of the life of justification and blessednesse If Mr. Baxter have any thing to say against this assertion or against that which I before laid as the state of the question it wil be taken into examination till then I shall leave him to fight with his owne shaddow having no loose time to spend in gazing upon the activity of such a Combatant CHAP. X. Arg. The Authour of the Booke intituled The Marrow of Moderne Divinity vindicated from the Aspersions wherewith Mr. Baxter defameth him and his Doctrine HEere because I am to follow and my taske is not to leave Mr. Baxter untill I have examined all that hee saith to prove Justification by works I am necessitated to fall into that which will be judged a Digression After hee hath enacted by a Law that to say wee must not worke for life is a Blasphemy or at least an intolerable errour and to hold it practically a necessarily damning Doctrine that whosoever doth it must be everlastingly damned for it All which wee acknowledge to bee in some sense true after the sound of the words though after the meaning of the Authour they can never be saved which practically hold the contrary as possibly I shall afterwards shew Now he proceeds to indite and arraigne to condemnation one Authour as guilty of this damning Doctrine viz. The Authour of the Book called The Marrow of Moderne Divinity and many his Accessaries viz. all those Divines that have annexed their approbatory subscriptions to the usefullnesse of it so finde we the man expressing himselfe Aphorism pag 330. B. When such a Book as that stiled the Marrow of Modern Divinity can have so many applauding epistles of such Divines when the doctrine of it is that we must not Act for justification and Salvation but onely in thankfulnesse for it This he speaketh onely in generall we shall finde his particulars following To this therefore I answer onely in generall 1 That it were to bee desired that Mr Baxter had inured no more dishonour upon thosâ— Divines to whom he dedicates his book by such his dedication than those forementioned Divines have attracted to themselves by their applauding epistles 2 And that those Divines with Mr. Baxter himselfe could mention so many sound parts in his booke both in the matter and ends of the Author as hee hath picked out imaginary errours in the other 3 As to the doctrine of that booke which he so accuseth I shall there examine in particulars where Mr. Baxter particularly drawes it into accusation and judgement Onely by the way let me thus far excuse my selfe 1 I never knew who was the Author of that worke 2. Neither have I read it otherwise than here and there a fragment as I found it lying in my friends houses so that I could no otherwise judge of it but ex ungue Leonem what the whole was but by that which my slender judgement told me the part which I read was not onely orthodox but singularly usefull 3 That I never knew there was a second part of it much lesse saw it until Mr Baxter by his quotation therof so told me But that since I have gotten both parts yet by meanes of other imployments have not had time any further to read it but where Mr. Baxter accuseth it of error 4. That if I knew the Author to be yet living I should have wholly left the defence of himselfe to himselfe It was not so much the
works and in opposition to works That this is Pauls doctrine and Pauls justifying Faith I suppose hath beene enough evinced before and shall God assisting bee more fully eleared in its due place when I come to examine the reasons which Mr. Baxter bringeth to proove his doctrine not to bee opposite to Pauls but the same with it Therefore in calling this Faith a soule couzening Faith hee proclaimes Paul yea Christ himselfe which revealed to Paul his Gospel a cheater and couzener learning this calumniation from that Jewish and Pharisaicall generation from which he hath derived his Doctrine Joh. 7. 12. But the testimony of the Holy Ghost runnes contrary to Mr. Baxters pronouncing them that joyne Works with Faith as necessary concâ—uses with it to Justification to bee the couzeners troublers and subverters of mens soules Col. 2. 4. Gal. 5. 12. Act. 15. 1. 24. But to vindicate the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches and therein also the doctrine of the Gospel both being one and one 〈◊〉 from having any thing in it that may give footing to this 〈◊〉 that we teach a soule-couzening Faith and to manifest that Mr. Baxter doth knowingly asperse the Doctrine of Faith and them that held it with this slander I shall collect into a few heads the doctrine which our Churches teach yea which Mr. Baxter knoweth they teach as to this Question First then they affirme That God hath layd up in one Christ alone all supplies for poore sinners to relieve them against all their spiritual wants of which supplies these 2 are principal ones righteousnesse to justification and the Spirit to Sanctification The one delivereth from guilt and condemnation the other from the domination of sin and impotency to acceptable obedience The former stateth the sinner Rectum in Curia righteous before God again having his sin pardoned and no more imputed the latter spirituallizeth quickneth and new formeth him again to the will and image of God in holinesse and righteousnesse 2 That whosoever receiveth one receiveth both these supplies from Christ none puts him on to justification but puts him on to sanctification also and so becomes a new creature as well in reality as in relation becomes inherently as well as imputatively righteous by him 3 That it is one and the same Faith which is instrumentall both to justification and sanctification though not by one and the same but by severall and different Acts. As my hand even the same hand is instrumentall both to feed and cloth me though not by the same but by different Acts. It is the will of my benefactor to hold my selfe to Mr. Baxters simily having ransommed me from Turkish thraldome and appointed me to honourable service in his house to leave open to me both his wardrop and his store house or promptuary of provisions with a command that I should pertake freely and richly of both that by the one I might be fitly habited and adorned by the other nourished and strengthened for honorable service to be done to him In both these my hand is instrumentall to serve and furnish me yet by severall Acts. It neither fetcheth meat from his wardrop nor clothing from his Pantry and Cellar but by several Acts from both and either what in both and either is laid up for me yet so as all is my Lords goods and by my pertaking thereof I am put into a capacity of dooing him faithfull and acceptable service I need not make the application every one can do it for himselfe The eternall King having layd downe the life of his owne son for the ransom of my soule hath opened to me all his treasuries in one the same Christ the treasury of his blood merits to purge me from the guilt of sin and obligation to judgement and vengeance so that having put on Christ crucified my Law is done my sin forgiven my nakednesse and filthinesse covered and I stand in Christ as perfectly righteous as if I had never offended the treasury of his spirit and spirituall gifts sufficient to turn my water into wine to renew my hart and to sannctifie me throughout that henceforth I shall hate sinn no lesse than hell and delight in the Law of God after the inner man taking no lesse pleasure in the holinesse than in the happinesse which are by Christ The eternall Father offers both together and neither without the other And the same spirit which drawes to one drawes to both The same Faith which apprehends one apprehends both is not a justifying except it be also a sanctifying Faith Yet by severall Acts and from severall treasuries in the same Christ the same Faith fetcheth justification from his satisfaction and new inherent righteousnesse from the spirit of sanctification 4 That as justification ought and doth declare it selfe to the person justified by its proper and immediate fruits peace of conscience joy in the Holy Ghost prizing Christ above all things soul contentation in him living and dwelling upon him selling all to enjoy him alone to righteousnesse and salvation counting all things dung and losse in comparison of him emptying our selves more and more of our owne righteousnesse of our owne-selfe confidence that hee may be made out all at Gods Tribunall repairing no more to Abanaâ— Pharfar no nor to Jordan it selfe but to the one fountaine of Christs blood there to Wash dayly and be cleane neither in this mountain nor yet at Hierusalem but in Christ alone to worship that we may be accepted So also sanctification doth and ought to shew it selfe to us and others by its fruits to our selves by the seeds and habits of love righteousnesse holinesse c. affecting the heart within To others by the fruits and workes of the spirit manifested in the practise without viz. all the Acts of love mercy goodnesse sanctity piety charity equity patience meeknesse c. as also in subduing the flesh by the spirit mortifying every evill affection fighting against every sinn that we may shew our selves a peculiar people of the Lord zealous of every good worke 5 That justification and sanctification by Faith in Christ do evidence either the other He that can finde himselfe truely justified may know himselfe to be no lesse truly sanctified by Christ because he that is in union with Christ so as to be pertaker of his justifying and saving righteousnesse by being so joyned to Christ is become one spirit with him saith the Apostle The spirit of sanctification discendeth and giveth influence from the head to the whole body and every member thereof So on the other side he that by being one spirit is sanctified by the same spirit of Christ may by this evidence know himselfe that Christ by the same spirit is made righteousnesse to him and is in the same relation to God with Christ being justified adopted c. a son and heir with him to all the inheritance Sanctification I say truly understood is such an evidence for none are sanctified but the justified and
praises of the man yet this act of his meriteth it not no not from Mr. B. For as far as he transcribes him p. 182. Mr. Ball no further foâ—lowes Grotius then to Gods relaxing of the Law to take satisfaction from Christ in our steed But if he had also asserted that after satisfaction actually taken they which in Christ have satisfied are yet all their life-time under the Curse of the Law to bear it in their own persons would Mr. B. have hidden it Yet this is the thing in question between Mr. B. and the Protestants whether after the giving and receiving of satisfaction for our breaches of the Law the Curs of the Law be either nulled or els onely in part relaxed as to our bearing it Yea if he â—e as Mâ— B. stiles him then have we the testimony of so great learned and holy a Divine as almost England ever bred against Mr. B. himself not being able to deny any one almost that England ever bred which hath written more directly and contrarily to Mr. B. then this man in his Tractate of Faith about Justification If elswhere he contradicts himself I shall oppose Ball against Ball yea Ball in afflictions when he lived by Faith and had nothing else but Christ apprehended by Faith to support his troubled soul to Ball nâ—w raised to a prosperous state in the world and whâ— seeing the Court infected with Popery Socinianism and Arminianism and no other bridge to prefermâ—nt so effectuall as some shew of bending at least to these wayes might possibly as far as Conscience would permit him make use of the language there held most authentick I say of the language for I cannot condemn his doctrine alledged in his three following Testimonies it taken in a good sense But his ambiguities of words seem to speak him out to have had a levell to somewhat els besides the supporting of the truth and yet his Conscience seems to hold him bound from saying any thing manifestly against the truth Mr. B. may possibly tickle himself with his words but his matter duly pondered gives him a sting sufficient to perswade him to forbear laughter Let the unbiassed judicious Reader add consideration to his reading and then judge The rest of the testimonies which he hath here cited and quoted I let passe as altogether besides the questions which Mr. B. hath set in agitation between himself and all the Protestant-Churches And thus at length have his Arguments been examined which he brings to confirm his Justification by works He hath many things tending to the confirmation of some other Paradoxes scattered in his Aphorisms beginning at p. 123. of his Appendix and ending at p. 164. but because those things are handled by way of disputation against others and Mr. B. as a challenger doth call out there by name Mr. Owen and Maccovius to a Duell with himself each after other exposing them to the world as base and silly Animals in what they have said except they come forth into open field to make it good It shall be both impertinent and uncivil in me to meddle in a business to which others and the same far more worthy and able are called as to their peculiar task I should not be excused by any herein from being one that loveth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be busie in another mans office specially seeing I know not what these challenged have done or are doing in the defence of themselves and the doctrine which they have asserted Were it that their reputation alone and not a truth of Christ which they had undertaken to defend were here clouded by Mr. B. I should think it no fault in them to pass it by in contemptuous silence but seeing Mr. B. endeavours upon their ruines to erect his mounts against the City of the living God to destroy it or at least spoyle it of its principall immunities denying the full justification of the Lords redeemed ones in this world holding them under the curs and wrath of God both in their life and death I perceive not how they can be silent without betraying the truth of God which they once undertook to defend Since this was written I understand Mr. Owen hath fully vindicated himself and learnedly defended all that Mr. B. had laid on his score Thus far to his Arguments that he hath brought to prove Justification by works I find no more nor in these have I hidden any thing but set them forth in their fullest strength CHAP. XV. Mr. Baxters Plea to prove his Doctrine free from Popery examined and refuted I Come now to the most accurate finest and chiefest part of Mr. Brs. Art his Alcumistry by which hee turneth the basest metals into gold darkness into light death into life deformity into beauty and hell into heaven it self All this he with strong endeavours labours to accomplish while with strong confidence hee goes about to vindicate his doctrine from all error all infection of Popery Socinianism Pharisaism and to render it the same with the doctrine of Paul and of Christ guiltless of all derogation to the praise of Gods grace Christs merits or the Saints comfort Yea to set it forth in such a splendor that although hee hath hitherto described such a grace of God as by his donation was no more appropriated and peculiarized to Peter then to Judas to the cursed in hell than to the Saints in heaven and such a Christ as reigneth Tyrant-like in the Kingdom of grace chaining up his own all his own subjects and friends under the curse of the Law to bear the horrors and torments of it in soul and body all their life yea after death as long as the world shall continue though he hath taken away from the Saints after their self-denyall repentance building themselves by their most holy Faith upon Christ the Rock after their renovation and sanctification by the Spirit all hope and possibility of attaining any assurance of Gods unchangeable love to them or of their sinns irrevocably pardoned or of their perseverance in the state of Grace or of their indefeazable right to glory or of their exemption from the curse and wrath of God while they live or of the rest and freedom of their souls after death either from the flames of Hell or of Purgatory as long as the world standeth After hee hath taught that no man shall have any part in Christ and his benefits which procureth it not by his own righteousness his own perfect righteousness in suo genere yea by the merits of his righteousness After that he hath proclaimed that his Gospel brings no better tidings of joy than these Yet at length hee comes to varnish over such a Grace such a Christ such a Gospel such a state of believers who are all of his own faigning with such paints and fine colours as by them to enamour all men to embrace these as the only true and appetible Grace Christ Gospel and state of beleevers That this Doctrine
both Covenants denying any usefulness to Faith it self in justifying but as it is a deed and morall work Let Babel it self be raked from end to end there will not be found more confusion The Papists say doing and works as works and doing cannot be our righteousness to justifie us But as they receive purification from the blood and grace of Christ so they obtain acceptance with God and becom our righteousnes to justifie us Christ say they hath merited that our fulfilling of the Law should justifie us Mr. Br. saith nay but our fulfilling the works which the Law requireth meriteth that we should receive Christ to Justification as we shall see by and by Let now any rationall man judg which party doth most confound the Covenants he that makes the works of the Law in and for themselves as they are simply done meritorious to Justification or they that ascribe nothing to works but what they have from Christ Both I acknowledg are to be abandoned but the deeper grain of self-extolling the more sensuall lusting after the flesh-pots of Aegypt is in Mr. Brs. Doctrine Let none object that Mr. Br. attributes it not to works as works of the Law but of the Gospel himself knoweth and hath learned that poor shift of the Papists and that they come off handsomer with it upon their then it is possible for him to do upon his principles Bax. 3. They are sottishly ignorant in the Doctrine of Justification so am not I. This I conceive he puts as a third difference between his and their doctrine For what he saith under this third particular that when they say justified they mean sanctified that he had made before the first difference If this be the difference then is he much more guilty than they I obtained mercie because I did it of ignorance saith the Apostle implying that they which did it maliciously against the light of their own understandings were excluded from mercy He that knoweth his fathers will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Yet I conceive Mr. Br. means here the Schoolmen of ancient times of Barbarism not the Jesuits Arminians Socinians and other Scholastick Phylosophick Theologasters of these later times For these are so knowing in Mr. Brs. account in the doctrine of Justification that hee hath borrowed all his knowledg and doctrine from them And why the former should be esteemed more sottishly ignorant in this than in other no lesse mysteriall doctrines of the Gospel I know not In thingt naturall and morall indeed they wrote as learned Philosophers so farr as refined reason could conduct them But in things purely Evangelicall saving about the persons and natures of Christ which they also handled more Metaphysically than Theologically besides some fragments gathered out of Augustine I could hardly ever meet with a sound piece in such of them as have come to my reading There may be a time when Mr. Br. may recant his profit and delight in dipping holy waters from the muddy streams contemning the pure fountain of the Gospel Or if he puts the difference in the former words Bax. 3 When they say we are justified by the works of the Gospel they mean onely that wee are sanctified by works that follow Faith and are bestowed by Grace they meriting our inherent Justice before God And in that which standeth as it were in a fourth place Bax. They take our works to be part our legall I take it only a part of our Evangelicall righteousnes or of the condition upon which Christs righteousness shall be ours Not to except here against his maimed alleadging of their opinions thereby feigning a distance from them that hee might allure his readers without suspition to joyn as neer with them as himself Let us take it for truth what he saith of them and then let the indifferent Reader judg 1 Whether is the most arrogant Doctrine the Papists that say works that follow and are the fruits of Faith and are done in the strength of grace supernaturally infused into the soul do merit or Mr. Br. that saith works as concauses with not fruits of Faith that flow from no other grace but Pelagius his morall Suasion without any Physicall renovation and change upon the will as for distinctions sake some of our Divines are wont to express themselves do so merit If Mr. Br. mean any thing els by grace he conceals it as a mysterie from us and will not throughout his whole book give one hint at it but makes man in his own naturall and morall qualifications the meriter of his own Justification by Christ 2 Or which ascribes most to works they that attribute to them inherent justice which is the lesser or hee that ascribes to them the meriting of Christs imputed righteousnes which is the greater Concerning legall and Evangelicall Righteousness I have spoken enough before And the phrase of the Papists and Mr. Br. is one and the same herein This might suffice to take off this delusion from his Readers that his Doctrine is not Popish But to manifest more fully in the sight of the Sun that every one may run reading it and read it running how grosly and in how many particulars his Doctrine is Papisticall I shall draw out in a parallel his Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Papists setting them side by side that whosoever will by comparing them may determine whether there be any worse Popery from Rome it self than from Kedderminster This I shall make the subject of the next Chapter CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of Mr. Baxter and of the most Trentified and Jesuitized Papists compared together in many particulars and found one and the same The Doctrine of the Papists and of Mr. Baxter compared together in many particulars in their Relation to Justification PAPISTS 1. THere is a two-fold Justification a first and a 2d. Justification the one inchoate unperfect more properly to be termed the beginning or root of and a disposition to justification or being justified than Justification it self or our being fully justified before God 2 The first justification is by the first grace given before all good works for the remission of sins for the meer merits of Christ to Infants by baptism to them that are of Age by Faith The second justification is by new obedience and good works by which the faithfull deserve increase of Righteousness to their fuller Justification 3 Good works are the condition of Justification without which Christs satisfaction is not applyed to us Of this opinion Bellarmine affirmeth some of his fellows to be and finds no fault with it or them onely himself takes up what seem'd to him more probable Himself also speaks to the same purpose The Gospel promising life upon condition of actuall working Righteousness which consists in keeping the Commandents 4 It is false therefore that we are justified by Faith onely the Scriptures no where affirm it let him be accursed that shall say it Many other graces vertues and
and conditions of the Law and the works and conditions of the Gospel 1 He onely saith all but proveth nothing therefore deserves onely the contempt of not an Answer from his Reader 2 He saith nothing but what he hath been taught by the Papists that though we cannot be justified by the works of the Law yet we are justified by Gospel works such as Faith is And must the Conclusions of the holy Apostaticall not Apostolicall Church be Canonicall to us because he hath made them so to himself 3 If he therefore forbears to prove what he saith because he holds it enough proved by the Papists already and so transmits his Reader to their Writings We also refer the reader to the perusall of the works of our Protestant writers that have dashed into shivers all such seeming proofs of the papists and brought to light the truth which they sought to imprison in darkness 4 Whatsoever he fableth here of Gospel works yet are they all legall or works of the Law which he obtrudeth upon men to Justification or as he here phraseth it to acquire part in Christ even to Faith it self he attributes no such property or power but as it is a morall work which the Law commandeth as we have found him speaking 5 to come to that in which the whole force of his reasoning here lyeth It is false what he affirmeth either that Paul doth in express words or in the sense and scope of his speech exclude onely the works of the Law but never the fulfilling of the same works as required by the Gospel for unless he so meaneth he saith nothing from their co-operation with Faith to Justification or that this is the reall difference between Legall and Gospel works that whereas in matter and substance they are one yet as they are done to justifie us by their own righteousness they are works of the Law but as done to justifie us by the righteousness of Christ so they are works of the Gospel or Gospel Conditions This is nothing but the Sophistry of a brain sophisticated with strong delusions to falsifie and nullifie the pure word of God For 1 What doth he bring to prove â—â—y least particle of what he saith if he had the testimony of God and Christ on his side would he leave their name and authority unmentioned 2 The Apostle when he treats of Justification by Christ doth not onely exclude works of the Law but works indefinitely and universally any works all works from having any power ordinate or not ordinate to give us part in it or him as hath been fully in its place before demonstrated 3 His dispute every where is as was declared and confirmed in the former Chapter not so much what is the righteousnesse which by its own power and vertue justifieth but what it is that instrumentally uniteth us to Christ for justification by him This he denyeth to all to any works and attributes to Faith alone as hath been there evidenced 4 In such places where he expresly speaketh of the works of the Law he means the Law written as it was given and pertained to the Jewes alone as a signall evidence of Gods love to them above all other Nations This is cleer from the Apostles own Testimony Ro. 2. 12 14. 17. 5. 13. as also where he numbreth Circumcision the observation of times and meats and other rituall peeces of the Ceremoniall Law together with the morall works of the Decalogue And will Mr. Br say that these rituall works are Conditions also of our part in Christ 5 When he so giveth the Adject of the Law to works calling them the works of the Law he doth it to beat down the pride and boasting of the Jewes that gloried in the Law Rom. 2. 23. declaring to them that although the Law were one principall prerogative vouchsafed to them not to any other people Rom. 9. 4. yet the works of the Law so glorious and privilegious had nothing to do with Faith to further our Justification by Christ but that the Gentiles without the Law had as free accesse to God by Faith in Christ as they with all the furniture of the Law and its works 6 Paul doth exclude all works under what name or notion soever from justifying so as Faith justifieth or to be instrumentall and conditionall to justification as Faith is But Faith is instrumentall or as M. Br. terms it conditionall to receive Christ to Justification Thereforr works are excludeded from being so conditionall or to be Conditions of the Gospel as he phraseth it This is apparent by those Scriptures where Paul saith Not of works but of Faith by Faith without works to him that worketh not but beleeveth c. as hath been 〈…〉 before alledged and amplified And all this of works without the adjection of the Law yea of works done hundreds of years before the Law to which Paul had reference in such disputes was given 7 Paul denyeth to works any operation in the Justification of Abraham or of us that obtein the same Justification with Abraham But the works which are denyed to justifie Abraham could not in Pauls sense be the works of the Law being acted 430 years before the Law was given and the Justification which is common to Abraham and his spirituall seed was and is justification by Christ So that works have nothing to do with Faith to condition us for justification by Christ This hath been made out in the former Chapter from Rom. 4. 1 c. 8 And lastly If such imperious arbitrary unreasonable and unproved distinctions be harkened to in Divinity what one part either of Law or Gospel shall abide sacred The whole word as Mr. Br. the great Artificer in the Trade somewhere complaines shall be made a waxen Nose For with as much integrity as Mr. B. hath here used to put the greatest Article of the Gospel to a topsie turnie may I mock at all the Commandments of the Decalogue with a distinctionary vanity to nullifie them Thou shalt have no other Gods before me True may I say but God meaneth other Gods of the Pagans devising not excluding the Gods of my own feigning Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image That is right said the Greeks once but God here excludeth the graven Images which the Romanes not the painted Images which we adore Thou shalt not steale the thief may here distinguish the lean Cattell are here excluded not the fat Thou shalt not murther the Pharisees glosse upon it was to wit my friends but my enemies I may The like might I say of the rest yea of every Gospel truth also and all with as good reason as Mr. Br. here deals with Paul We are justified or have part in Christ not by works but by Faith by Faith without works saith Paul Right saith Mr. Br. for he excludeth works onely as they are works of the Law not as they are works and Conditions of the Gospel Yet Vltra Sauromatus fugere
thirst if they do not arise work and fulfill their task We require first that the Rock be cloven with the Rod of God that the water of life may gush out in full Rivers and that the fainting souls be brought to drink thereof and then called upon in the life and strength which they have hence received to work and be doing Yea to come to this stream often to drink that their strength and spirits may be daily more revived that they may bâ—come daily more enabled for and more abundant in the work of the Lord. We have not with Mr. Br. yet learned the skill of preaching good works to make Christ ours but follow the rule of the Scriptures to preach Christ into the hearts of men to make them fruitfull in good works Neither doe wee count all formall obedience and righteousnesse of men though conscientiously and by the guidance of Naturall Conscience performed to be either sanctification or the fruit thereof That onely is sanctification which flowes from the heart of Christ and is infused by the Spirit of Christ For the attaiâ—ment thereof we call all men into union and fellowship with Christ so far are we from holding that Nothing is preaching Christ but the preaching him as Justifier and Saviour that we hold it an empty Preachment that preacheth any good thing without Christ or out of Christ of which men are not taught to make Christ the Alpha and the Omega We leave it to Mr. Br. and his brethren to urge works duties obedience c. and once in a Moon upon an auspicious Tropick thereof to remember Christ and grace and tell us that all must be done by the help of grace and without Christ we can do nothing Yet leaving us uncertain still whether it be the Grace and Christ of Pelagius or else of God reconciled to us that he speaketh I should be too long in expressing fully how we hold forth Christ whole Christ and only Christ to Adoption protection perseverance strengthening comforting perfecting c. In a word to all that is either good to be received or good to be done In him wee teach that God will have all his frâ—sh springs to reside that without him we are nothing can do nothing that in him and by him we have all and can do all things That therefore we preach nothing but Christ yet preach all that is to be preached in preaching him because in him it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell Col. 1. 19. even all fulness for us so that in him we are full out of him meer emptiness We would not have one beam of this Sun of Righteousness clouded but labour to discover to our people his full glory and Soveraignty to all those sacred ends to which God hath consecrated him that if any would have nothing of Christ to be preached but his pardoning and saving the sin may be wholly theirs not ours that they will receive the skirt of Christ and consequently refuse Christ when we preach to them whole Christ and all the benefits that are by him Nor 2 do we deny an ordinate and subordinate love to our selves as Mâ— Br. slanders us no lesse bitingly than secretly App. pa. 81 82. in teaching that it is the most Gospel-â—rame of Spirit to perform duty out of meer love to God without seeking by such duties wrought quasi opere operato remission of sins redemption from Hell and right to glory by the Merit thereof as he teacheth us to do thinking no doubt his glory shall be great if he can there perswade where all the suâ—tlest sons of Satan the Jesuits have not been able Nay we maintayn that none can regularly love himself who loveth not God above himself and seeks not Gods glory more than his own good That whosoever in a pretext of love to himself brings his fardle of trashie works at the feet of Christ by them to purchase to himself the benefits of his death is of all men the worst enemie to himself incurs rejection and expulsion from Christ and all the benefits of his death and resurrection For hee was sent to seeke oâ—ely that which was lost came not to call the righteous but sinners to repenâ—â—nce He loves himself indeed and spiritually that for his love to God denies himself The self-dejected Publican is acceâ—ted with God when the prating Pharisee is hurled with his mouth full of works out at the door Or is there any great difference between this and the Devils doctrine preached to our first Parents Ye shall be as Gods said the Devill Ye shall be all Christs Saviours Justifiers saith Mr. Br. Your righteousness and Christs righteousness shall jump together into the same kind of Causality to justifie and save you Our first Parents hearkned and seeking to become Gods became Devils or what is worse slaves to the Devill We have all felt the smart yet many and that of them which are termed Angels listen earnestly to the like hissing of the Serpent now again We can but mourn for them that in madd love to themselves will hasten up to heaven by climbing high Steeples that look fairly thither-ward but can never heave them up to it nay contrariwise can give them no such sustentation but that they fall thence and dash themselves into shivers Yet in our doctrine is contained a wise and ordinate love to our selves Though we use not works as waxen wings to soar aloft to kisse the Sun and settle our selves in the same Sphere with him yet wee make use of our qualifications and duties to the continuall encrease of our sanctification and to what greater good for himself can mans strongest love to himself aspire than to his full and real perfection consisting in his restitution to Gods image and conformity to his will and nature This shall be the Consummate blessedness which we shall enjoy above and it is a blessedness inchoate and increasing while we passe from strength to strength in it here Who are the self-haters and self-destroyers the Papists or we the success will at length evidence and such professed Divines and Christians among us as have not their eyes soyled with Kederminster dust and smoak can discern already Nor thirdly doth our doctrine tend to drive obedience out of the world So that we may answer Mr. Brs question Aphor. p. 325. If men once beleeve that works are not so much as a part of the Condition of our Justification will it not much tend to relax their diligâ—nce with the authority of the Apostle who having taught his Ephesians that we are saved by grace through faith not of works lest any man should boast Eph. 2. 8 9. Yet concludeth that as many as have learned Christ truly and heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus These all have learned to put off concerning the former conversation the old Man which is corrupt c. and to be renewed in the spirit of the mind and to put on