as long as you will you shall never tempt me by it to renounce my Baptism and List my self under the grand Enemy of Love and Concord nor to Preach up Hatred and Division for nothing as in the Name of Christ If you will handle such Controversies without Distinguishing of Faiths Works and Justifications I will never perswade any Friend of mine to be your Pupil or Disciple Then Simon Magus's faith and the Devils faith and Peters faith must all pass for the same and justifie accordingly Then indeed Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost yea and Christ as our Teacher King and Judg c. must pass for the Works by which no Man is Justified If Distinction be unsound detect the Error of it If not it is no Honour to a disputing Doctor to reproach it § X. But pag. 17. you set upon your great undeâ—eiving Work to shew the evil of ill using Words Words you say as they are enfranchised into Language are but the Agents and Factors of things for which they continually negotiate with our Minds conveying Errands on all occasions c. Let them mark that charge the vanity and bombast of Metaphors on others one word Signa should have served our turn instead of all this Whence it follows that their use and signification is Vnalterable but by the stamp of the like publick usage and imposition from whence at first they received their being c. Answ O Juniors Will not such deceiving Words save you from my Deceits But 1. Is there a Law and unalterable Law for the sense of Words Indeed the Words of the sacred Text must have no new Sense put upon them 2. Are you sure that it was Publick usage and Imposition from whence they first received their being How shall we know that they grew not into publick use from one Mans first Invention except those that not Publick use but God Himself made 3. Are you sure that all or most Words now Latine or English have the same and only the same use or sense as was put upon them at the first Is the change of the sense of Words a strange thing to us 4. But that which concerneth our Case most is Whether there be many Words either of Hebrew and Greek in the Scripture or of Latine English or any common Language which have not many Significations Your Reputation forbids you to deny it And should not those many Significations be distinguished as there is Cause Are not Faith Works Just Justice Justification words of divers senses in the Scripture and do not common Writers and Speakers use them yet more variously And shall a Disputer take on him that the use or signification of each is but one or two or is so fixed that there needeth no distinction 5. Is the change that is made in all Languages in the World made by the same publick usage and imposition from which at first they received their being 6. If as you say the same thing can be represented by different words only when they are Synonymous should we not avoid seeming to represent the same by Equivocals which unexplained are unfit for it Pag. 20. You tell me what sad work you are doing and no wonder Sin and Passions are self-troubling things And it 's well if it be sad to your self alone and not to such as you tempt into Mistakes Hatred and Division It should be sad to every Christian to see and hear those whom they are bound to Love represented as odious And you are still pag. 19. feigning that Every eye may see Men dealing Blows and Deaths about and therefore we are not wise if we think them agreed But doubtless many that seem killed by such Blows as some of yours are still alive And many a one is in Heaven that by Divines pretending to be Orthodox were damned on Earth And many Men are more agreed than they were aware of I have known a Knavish Fellow set two Persons of quality on Fighting before they spake a word to one another by telling them secretly and falsly what one said against the other Many differ even to persecuting and bloodshed by Will and Passion and Practice upon a falsly supposed great difference in Judgment I will not so suddenly repeat what Proof I have given of some of this in the place you noted Cath. Theol. Confer 11 12 13. There is more skill required to narrow differences than to widen them and to reconcile than to divide as there is to quench a Fire than to kindle it to build than to pull down to heal than to wound I presume therefore to repeat aloud my contrary Cautions to your Juniors Young-Men after long sad Experience of the sinful and miserable Contentions of the Clergie and consequently of the Christian World that you may escape the Guilt I beseech you whoever contradicteth it consider and believe these following Notices 1. That all Words are but arbitrary Signs and are changed as Men please and through the Penury of them and Mans imperfection in the Art of Speaking there are very few at all that have not various Significations 2. That this Speaking-Art requireth so much time and study and all Men are so defective in it and the variety of Mens skill in it is so very great that no Men in the World do perfectly agree in their interpretation and use of Words The doleful plague of the Confusion of Tongues doth still hinder our full Communication and maketh it hard for us to understand Words our selves or to be understood by others for Words must have a three-fold aptitude of Signification 1. To signifie the Matter 2. And the Speakers conceptions of it 3. And this as adapted to the hearers Mind to make a true Impression there 3. That God in Mercy hath not made Words so necessary as Things nor necessary but for the sake of the Things If God Christ Grace and Heaven be known believed and duly accepted you shall be saved by what Words soever it be brought to pass 4. Therefore Real Fundamentals or Necessaries to Salvation are more easily defined than Verbal ones For more or fewer Words these or other Words are needful to help some Persons to Faith and Love and Holiness as their Capacities are different 5. But as he that truly believeth in and giveth up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant is a true Christian to be loved and shall be saved so he that understandeth such Words as help him to that true Faith and Consent doth know so much of the Verbal part as is of necessity to his Christianity and Salvation 6. And he that is such holdeth no Heresie or Error inconsistent with it If he truly love God it 's a contradiction to say that he holdeth an Error inconsistent with the Love of God 7. Therefore see that you Love all such as Christians till some proved or notorious inconsistents nullifying his Profession disoblige you 8.
against and condemn one another away with them all 2. Because divers great Volumes and other sad Evidence tells me that by their invented sence of Imputation they have tempted many Learned men to deny Imputation of Christ's Righteousness absolutely and bitterly revile it as a most Libertine Irreligious Doctrine 3. But above all that they do so exceedingly confirm the Papists I must profess that besides carnal Interest and the snare of ill Education I do not think that there is any thing in the World that maketh or hardneth and confirmeth Papists more and hindreth their reception of the Truth than these same well-meaning people that are most zealous against them by two means 1. One by Divisions and unruliness in Church-respects by which they perswade men especially Rulers that without such a Center as the Papacy there will be no Union and without such Violence as theirs there will be no Rule and Order Thus one extreme doth breed and feed another 2. The other is by this unsound sence of the Doctrine of Imputation of Christs Righteousness with an unsound Description of Faith saying that every man is to believe it as Gods word or fide divinâ that his own sins are pardoned which when the Papists read that these men make it one of the chief Points of our difference from Rome doth occasion them to triumph and reproach us and confidently dissent from us in all the rest I find in my self that my full certainty that they err in Transubstantiation and some other points doth greatly resolve me to neglect them at least or suspect them in the rest which seem more dubious And when the Papists find men most grosly erring in the very point where they lay the main stress of the difference who can expect otherwise but that this should make them despise and cast away our Books and take us as men self-condemned and already vanquished and dispute with us with the prejudice as we do with an Arrian or Socinian They themselves that cast away our Books because they dissent from us may feel in themselves what the Papists are like to do on this temptation 4. And it is not to be disregarded that many private persons not studied in these points are led away by the Authority of these men for more than Papists believe as the Church believeth to speak evil of the Truth and sinfully to Backbite and Slander those Teachers whom they hear others slander and to speak evil of the things which they know not And to see Gods own Servants seduced into Disaffection and abuse and false Speeches against those Ministers that do most clearly tell them the truth is a thing not silently to be cherished by any that are valuers of Love and Concord among Christians and of the Truth and their Brethrens Souls and that are displeased with that which the Devil is most pleased and God displeased with These are my Reasons submitted to every Readers Censure which may be as various as their Capacities Interests or Prejudices My Arguments in the third Chapter I have but briefly and hastily mentioned as dealing with the lovers of naked Truth who will not refuse it when they see it in its self-evidence But they that desire larger proof may find enough in Mr. Gataker and Mr. Wotton de Reconcil and in John Goodwin of Justification If they can read him without prejudice From whom yet I differ in the Meritorious Cause of our Justification and take in the habitual and actual Holiness of Christ as well as his Sufferings and equal in Merits and think that pardon it self is merited by his Obedience as well as by his Satisfaction To say nothing of some of his too harsh expressions about the Imputation of Faith and non-imputation of Christs Obedience which yet in some explications he mollifyeth and sheweth that his sence is the same with theirs that place all our Righteousness in remission of Sin such as besides those after-mentioned are Musculus Chamier and abundance more And when one saith that Faith is taken properly and another that it is taken Relatively in Imputation they seem to mean the same thing For Faith properly taken is essentiated by its Object And what Christ's Office is and what Faith's Office is I find almost all Protestants are agreed in sence while they differ in the manner of expression except there be a real difference in this point of simple Personating us in his perfect Holiness and making the Person of a Mediator to contain essentially in sensu Civili the very Person of every elect sinner and every such one to have verily been and done in sensu civili what Christ was and did I much marvel to find that with most the Imputation of Satisfaction is said to be for Remission of the penalty and Imputation of perfect Holiness for the obtaining of the Reward Eternal Life and yet that the far greater part of them that go that way say that Imputation of all Christs Righteousness goeth first as the Cause and Remission of Sin followeth as the Effect So even Mr. Roborough pag. 55. and others Which seemeth to me to have this Sence as if God said to a Believer I do repute thee to have perfectly fulfilled the Law in Christ and so to be no sinner and therefore forgive thee all thy sin In our sence it is true and runs but thus I do repute Christ to have been perfectly just habitually and actually in the Person of a Mediator in the Nature of Man and to have suffered as if he had been a sinner in the Person of a Sponsor by his own Consent and that in the very place and stead of sinners and by this to have satisfyed my Justice and by both to have merited free Justification and Life to be given by the new Covenant to all Believers And thou being a Believer I do repute thee justified and adopted by this satisfactory and meritorious Righteousness of Christ and by this free Covenant-Gift as verily and surely as if thou hadst done it and suffered thy self For my own part I find by experience that almost all Christians that I talk with of it have just this very notion of our Justification which I have expressed till some particular Disputer by way of Controversie hath thrust the other notion into their mind And for peace-sake I will say again what I have elsewhere said that I cannot think but that almost all Protestants agree in the substance of this point of Justification though some having not Acuteness enough to form their Notions of it rightly nor Humility enough to suspect their Understandings wrangle about Words supposing it to be about the Matter Because I find that all are agreed 1. That no Elect Person is Justified or Righteous by Imputation while he is an Infidel or Ungodly except three or four that speak confusedly and support the Antinomians 2. That God doth not repute us to have done what Christ did in our individual natural Person 's Physically The
any Work and Merit of man And his death and blood alone is sufficient to abolish expiate all the sins of all men All must come to Christ for pardon and Remission of Sin Salvation and every thing All our trust and hope is to be fastened on him alone Through him only and his merits God is appeas'd and propitious Loveth us and giveth us Life eternal XI The Palatinate Confession ib. pag. 149. I believe that God the Father for the most full Satisfaction of Christ doth never remember any of my sins and that pravity which I must strive against while I live but contrarily will rather of grace give me the righteousness of Christ so that I have no need to fear the judgment of God And pag. 155. If he merited and obtained Remission of all our sins by the only and bitter passion and death of the Cross so be it we embracing it by true Faith as the satisfaction for our sins apply it to our selves I find no more of this XII The Polonian Churches of Lutherans and Bohemians agreed in the Augustane and Bohemian Confession before recited XIII The Helvetian Confession To Justifie signifieth to the Apostle in the dispute of Justification To Remit sins to Absolve from the fault and punishment to Receive into favour and to Pronounce just For Christ took on himself and took away the sins of the World and satisfied Gods Justice God therefore for the sake of Christ alone suffering and raised again is propitious to our sins and imputeth them not to us but imputeth the righteousness of Christ for ours so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or Holy but also endowed with the Righteousness of Christ and so absolved from sins Death and Condemnation and are righteous and heirs of life eternal Speaking properly God only justifieth us and justifieth only for Christ not imputing to us sins but imputing to us his Righteousness This Confession speaketh in terms neerest the opposed opinion But indeed saith no more than we all say Christs Righteousness being given and imputed to us as the Meritorious Cause of our pardon and right to life XIV The Basil Confession Art 9. We confess Remission of sins by Faith in Jesus Christ crucified And though this Faith work continually by Love yet Righteousness and Satisfaction for our Sins we do not attribute to works which are fruits of Faith but only to true affiance faith in the blood shed of the Lamb of God We ingenuously profess that in Christ who is our Righteousness Holiness Redemption Way Truth Wisdom Life all things are freely given us The works therefore of the faithful are done not that they may satisfie for their sins but only that by them they may declare that they are thankful to God for so great benefits given us in Christ XV. The Argentine Confession of the four Cities Cap. 3. ib. pag. 179. hath but this hereof When heretofore they delivered that a mans own proper Works are required to his Justification we teach that this is to be acknowledged wholly received of God's benevolence and Christ's Merit and perceived only by Faith C. 4. We are sure that no man can be made Righteous or saved unless he love God above all and most studiously imitate him We can no otherwise be Justified that is become both Righteous and Saved for our Righteousness is our very Salvation than if we being first indued with Faith by which believing the Gospel and perswaded that God hath adopted us as Sons and will for ever give us his fatherly benevolence we wholly depend on his beck or will XVI The Synod of Dort mentioneth only Christs death for the pardon of sin and Justification The Belgick Confession § 22. having mentioned Christ and his merits made ours § 23. addeth We believe that our blessedness consisteth in Remission of our sins for Jesus Christ and that our Righteousness before God is therein contained as David and Paul teach We are justified freely or by Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus We hold this Foundation firm and give all the Glory to God presuming nothing of our selves and our merits but we rest on the sole Obedience of a Crucified Christ which is ours when we believe in him Here you see in what sence they hold that Christs merits are ours Not to justifie us by the Law that saith Obey perfectly and Live but as the merit of our pardon which they here take for their whole Righteousness XVII The Scottish Confession Corp. Conf. pag. 125. hath but that true Believers receive in this life Remission of Sins and that by Faith alone in Christs blood So that though sin remain yet it is not Imputed to us but is remitted and covered by Christs Righteousness This is plain and past all question XVIII The French Confession is more plain § 18. ib. pag. 81. We believe that our whole Righteousness lyeth in the pardon of our sins which is also as David witnesseth our only blessedness Therefore all other reasons by which men think to be justified before God we plainly reject and all opinion of Merit being cast away we rest only in the Obedience of Christ which is Imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and that we may get Grace before God So that Imputation of Obedience they think is but for pardon of sin and acceptance Concerning Protestants Judgment of Imputation it is further to be noted 1. That they are not agreed whether Imputation of Christ's perfect Holiness and Obedience be before or after the Imputation of his Passion in order of nature Some think that our sins are first in order of nature done away by the Imputation of his sufferings that we may be free from punishment and next that his perfection is Imputed to us to merit the Reward of life eternal But the most learned Confuters of the Papists hold that Imputation of Christs Obedience and Suffering together are in order of nature before our Remission of sin and Acceptance as the meritorious cause And these can mean it in no other sence than that which I maintain So doth Davenant de Just hab et act Pet. Molinaeus Thes Sedan Vol. 1. pag. 625. Imputatio justitiae Christi propter quam peccata remittuntur censemur justi coram Deo Maresius Thes Sedan Vol. 2. pag. 770 771. § 6 10. maketh the material cause of our Justification to be the Merits and Satisfaction of Christ yea the Merit of his Satisfaction and so maketh the formal Cause of Justification to be the Imputation of Christs Righteousness or which is the same the solemn Remission of all sins and our free Acceptance with God Note that he maketh Imputation to be the same thing with Remission and Acceptance which is more than the former said 2. Note that when they say that Imputation is the Form of Justification they mean not of Justification Passively as it is ours but Actively as it is Gods Justifying
of a name of your own introduction for illustration If we were playing at a Game of Tropes I could tell you that the Healing of Mens Vnbelief is applicatory for the healing of their Guilt And the healing of Men's Ignorance Pride and Wrangling about words and frightning Men into a Conceit that it is about Life and Death is applicatory as to the healing of the Churches Wounds and Shame But I rather chuse to ask you Whether it was never heard that a particular subordinate personal Righteousness even Faith and Repentance was made by God the Condition of our Right to Pardon and Life by Christ's Righteousness Did you never teach your Sholars this in what words you thought best And yet even our Faith is a Fruit of Christ's Righteousness but nevertheless the Condition of other Fruits If you say that our Faith or Performance is not to be called Righteousness I refer you to my Answer to Mr. Cartwright And if the word Righteousness be not ofter ten to one used in Scripture for somewhat Personal than for Christ's Righteousness imputed then think that you have said something If you say But it justifieth not as a Righteousness but as an Instrument I Answer 1. I have said elsewhere so much of its Instrumentality that I am ashamed to repeat it 2. It justifieth not at all for that signifieth efficiency but only maketh us capable Recipients 3. We are justified by it as a medium and that is a Condition performed as aforesaid And when that Condition by a Law is made both a Duty and a Condition of Life the performance is by necessary resultancy a Righteousness But we are not justified by it as it is a Righteousness in genere nor as a mere moral Virtue or Obedience to the Law of Nature but as it is the performance of the Condition of the Law of Grace and so as it is this particular Righteousness and no other § 13. In Legal Justification saith he taken precisely either there is Remission of sin or not If not What Justification is that If yea then Evangelical Justification is not necessary to the application of it because the Application is supposed c. Answ 1. What I usually call Evangelical Righteousness he supposeth me to call Justification which yet is true and sound but such as is before explained 2. This is but the same again and needeth no new answer The performance of the Condition is strangely here supposed to follow the Right or Benefit of the Gift or Covenant If he would have the Reader think I said so he may as ingeniously tell that I deny all Justification If not what meaneth he CHAP. VII Dr. Tullies Quarrel about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness considered § 1. CAp. 8. pag. 79. he saith Because no Man out of Socinus School hath by his Dictates more sharply exagitated this Imputation of Righteousness than the Author of the Aphorisms and it is in all mens hands we think meet to bring into a clearer Light the things objected by him or more truly his Sophistical Cavils whence the fitter Prospect may be taken of almost the whole Controversie Answ That the Reader may see by what Weapons Theological Warriours wound the Churches Peace and profligate brotherly Love let him consider how many palpable Untruths are in these few Lines even in matter of Fact 1. Let him read Dr. Gell Mr. Thorndike and by his own confession the Papists a multitude of them and tell me true that No Man out of Socinus School hath c. To say nothing of many late Writings near us 2. If I have 1. never written one word against Imputation of Righteousness there or elsewhere 2. Yea have oft written for it 3. And if those very Pages be for it which he accuseth 4. Yea if there and elsewhere I write more for it than Olevian Vrsine Paraeus Scultetus Wendeline Piscator and all the rest of those great Divines who are for the Imputation only of the Passive Righteousness of Christ when I profess there and often to concur with Mr. Bradshaw Grotius and others that take in the Active also yea and the Habitual yea and Divine respectively as advancing the Merits of the Humane If all this be notoriously true what Epithets will you give to this Academical Doctors notorious Untruth 3. When that Book of Aphorisms was suspended or retracted between twenty and thirty years ago publickly because of many crude Passages and unapt Words and many Books since written by me purposely fully opening my mind of the same things all which he passeth wholly by save a late Epistle what credit is to be given to that Man's ingenuity who pretendeth that this being in all mens hands the answering it will so far clear all the Controversie § 2. Dr. T. He hence assaulteth the Sentence of the Reformed because it supposeth as he saith that we were in Christ at least legally before we believed or were born But what proof of the consequence doth he bring The rest are but his Reasons against the Consequences and his talk against me as pouring out Oracles c. Answ 1. Is this the mode of our present Academical Disputers To pass by the stating of the Controversie yea to silence the state of it as laid down by the Author whom he opposeth in that very place and more fully elsewhere often Reader the Author of the Aphorisms pag. 45. and forward distinguishing as Mr. Bradshaw doth of the several senses of Imputation and how Christ's Righteousness is made ours 1. Beginneth with their Opinion who hold That Christ did so obey in our stead as that in God's esteem and in point of Law we were in Christ dying and suffering and so in him we did both perfectly fulfil the Commands of the Law by Obedience and the Threatnings of it by bearing the Penalty and thus say they is Christ's Righteousness imputed to us viz. His Passive Righteousness for the pardon of our sins and deliverance from the Penalty His Active Righteousness for the making of us Righteous and giving us title to the Kingdom And some say the Habitual Righteousness of his Humane Nature instead of our own Habitual Righteousness Yea some add the Righteousness of the Divine Nature The second Opinion which he reciteth is this That God the Father accepteth the sufferings and merits of his Son as a valuable consideration on which he will wholly forgive and acquit the Offenders and receive them into his favour and give them the addition of a more excellent happiness so they will but receive his Son on the terms expressed in the Gospel And as distinct from theirs who would thus have the Passive Righteousness only imputed he professeth himself to hold with Bradshaw Grotius c. that the Active also is so imputed being Justitia Meriti as well as Personae and endeavoureth to prove it But not imputed in the first rigid sense as if God esteemed us to have been and done and suffered our selves in and by Christ and merited
this Faith the Condition of our Title and if we do this we shall be judged evangelically Righteous that is such as have done all that was necessary to their right in Christ and the said Benefits and therefore have such a Right This is plain English and plain Truth wrangle no more against it and against the very Letter of the Text and against your Brethren and the Churches Concord by making Men believe that there are grievous Differences where there are none Reader I was going on to Answer the rest but my time is short Death is at the door Thou seest what kind of Work I have of it even to detect a Learned Man's Oversights and temerarious Accusations The weariness will be more to thee and me than the profit I find little before but what I have before answered here and oft elsewhere And therefore I will here take up only adding one Chapter of Defence of that Conciliation which I attempted in an Epistle to Mr. W. Allens Book of the Two Covenants and this Doctor like an Enemy of Peace assaulteth CHAP. VIII The Concord of Protestants in the Matter of Justification defended against Dr. Tullies Oppositions who would make Discord under pretence of proving it § 1. WHile Truth is pretended by most that by envious striving introduce Confusion and every evil Work it usually falleth out by God's just Judgment that such are almost as opposite to Truth as to Charity and Peace What more palpable instances can there be than such as on such accounts have lately assaulted me Mr. Danvers Mr. Bagshaw c. and now this Learned Doctor The very stream of all his Opposition against me about Imputation is enforced by this oft repeated Forgery that I deny all Imputation of Christ's Righteousness Yea he neither by fear modesty or ingenuity was restrained from writing pag. 117. Omnem ludibrio habet Imputationem He derideth all Imputation Judg by this what credit contentious Men deserve § 2. The conciliatory Propositions which I laid down in an Epistle to Mr. W. Allens Book I will here transcribe that the Reader may see what it is that these Militant Doctors war against Lest any who know not how to stop in mediocrity should be tempted by Socinians or Papists to think that we countenance any of their Errors or that our Differences in the point of Justification by Faith or Works are greater than indeed they are and lest any weak Opinionative Persons should clamour unpeaceably against their Brethren and think to raise a name to themselves for their differing Notions I shall here give the Reader such evidences of our real Concord as shall silence that Calumny Though some few Lutherans did upon peevish suspiciousness against George Major long ago assert That Good Works are not necessary to Salvation And though some few good Men whose Zeal without Judgment doth better serve their own turn than the Churches are jealous lest all the good that is ascribed to Man be a dishonour to God and therefore speak as if God were honoured most by saying the worst words of our selves and many have uncomely and irregular Notions about these Matters And though some that are addicted to sidings do take it to be their Godly Zeal to censure and reproach the more understanding sort when they most grosly err themselves And though too many of the People are carried about through injudiciousness and temptations to false Doctrines and evil Lives yet is the Argument of Protestants thus manifested 1. They all affirm that Christ's Sacrifice with his Holiness and perfect Obedience are the meritorious Cause of the forgiving Covenants and of our Pardon and Justification thereby and of our Right to Life Eternal which it giveth us And that this Price was not paid or given in it self immediately to us but to God for us and so that our foresaid Benefits are its Effects 2. They agree that Christ's Person and ours were not really the same and therefore that the same Righteousness which is an Accident of one cannot possibly be an Accident of the other 3. They all detest the Conceit that God should aver and repute a Man to have done that which he never did 4. They all agree that Christ's Sacrifice and Merits are really so effectual to procure our Pardon Justification Adoption and right to the sealing Gift of the Holy Ghost and to Glory upon our Faith and Repentance that God giveth us all these benefits of the New-Covenant as certainly for the sake of Christ and his Righteousness as if we had satisfied him and merited them our selves and that thus far Christ's Righteousness is ours in its Effects and imputed to us in that we are thus used for it and shall be judged accordingly 5. They all agree that we are justified by none but a practical or working Faith 6. And that this Faith is the Condition of the Promise or Gift of Justification and Adoption 7. And that Repentance is a Condition also though as it is not the same with Faith as Repentance of Unbelief is on another aptitudinal account even as a willingness to be cured and a willingness to take one for my Physician and to trust him in the use of his Remedies are on several accounts the Conditions on which that Physician will undertake the Cure or as willingness to return to subjection and thankful acceptance of a purchased Pardon and of the Purchasers Love and future Authority are the Conditions of a Rebel's Pardon 8. And they all agree that in the first instant of a Man's Conversion or Believing he is entred into a state of Justification before he hath done any outward Works and that so it is true that good Works follow the Justified and go not before his initial Justification as also in the sense that Austin spake it who took Justification for that which we call Sanctification or Conversion 9. And they all agree that Justifying Faith is such a receiving affiance as is both 〈…〉 Intellect and the Will and therefore as in 〈…〉 participateth of some kind of Love to the justifying Object as well as to Justification 10. And that no Man can chuse or use Christ as a Means so called in respect to his own intention to bring him to God the Father who hath not so much love to God as to take him for his end in the use of that means 11. And they agree that we shall be all judged according to our Works by the Rule of the Covenant of Grace though not for our Works by way of commutative or legal proper merit And Judging is the Genus whose Species is Justifying and Condemning and to be judged according to our Works is nothing but to be justified or condemned according to them 12. They all agree that no Man can possibly merit of God in point of Commutative Justice nor yet in point of Distributive or Governing Justice according to the Law of Nature or Innocency as Adam might have done nor by the Works of the Mosaical
Reasons and you presently feign a Retractation of the Doctrine and of about sixty Books of Retractions It 's well that pag. 23. you had the justice not to justifie your Nec dubito quin imputatam Christi justitiam incluserit But to confess your Injustice was too much It is not your own Retractation that you are for it seems § XIV Pag. 23 24. You talk as if my supposing that both Justice and Imputation are capable of Definitions which are not the Things were a Fallacy because or is a disjunctive viz. When I say that the Definition of the one or the other is not the Thing Do you grant it of them Disjunctively and yet maintain the contrary of them Conjunct Yes you say Imputed Justice cannot differ from its true definition unless you will have it to differ really from it self And pag. 34. you say I am ashamed you should thus over and over expose your self as if supposing Definitions true they were not the same Re with the Definitum Good Sir talk what you please in private to such as understand not what you say and let them give you a grand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for your pains but you may do well to use more Civility to the reason of a Scholar though he hath not yet worn out his Freshmans Gown Answ This is no light or jesting Matter The comfort of Souls dependeth on it I see some Men expect that Reverence of their Scholarship should give them great advantage But if one argued thus with me for Transubstantiation I would not turn to him to escape the Guilt of Incivility If the Definition and the Definitum as in question now be the same Thing wo to all the Unlearned World and wo to all Freshmen that yet have not learnt well to define and wo to all Divines that differ in their Definitions except those that are in the right I know that a Word and a Mental Conception are not Nothing They may be called Things but when we distinguish the Things from their Signs Names or Definitions we take not the word Things so laxly as to comprehend the said Signs Names c. When we say that the Thing defined is necessary but to be able to Define it or actually to Define it is not necessary to Salvation it is notorious that we take Definition as Defining actively as it is Actus definientis and Definire sure is not the same with the Thing defined I have heard before your Letter told me that Definitum definitio idem sunt But I pray you let us not quibble almost all the World under a sentence of Damnation As long ago as it is since I read such words I remember our Masters told us I think Schibler in his Topicks for one that when they are taken Pro terminis Logicis definitio definitum non sunt idem but only when they are taken Pro rebus per eos terminos significatis and that there they differ in Modo significandi essentiam the definitum signifying the Essence confusedly and the Definition distinctly If you will take the Res definita for that which is strictly nothing but Rei conceptus inadaequatus seu partialis that is a Species and that not as the thing is Existent extra intellectum but as the conception is an operation of the Mind so I confess that he that hath a true Conception of a Species as meerly denominated or as defined hath the same conception of it And also the Thing named and the Thing defined is the same thing in it self Homo Animal rationale are the same that is it is the same essence which is denominated Homo and defined Animal rationale And it is the same Conceptus mentis which we have if true when we denominate and when we define But as Things are distinct from the knowledg and signs of Things nothing is Res that is not existent and nothing existeth but in Singulars or Individuals And as nothing can be defined but a Species so a Species or any Vniversal is nothing but a Notion or Ens rationis save as it existeth in the said Individuals And in the Individuals it is nothing but their being as partially or inadequatly taken or a Conceptus objectivus partialis whether it be of a thing really or only intellectually partible or any thing which our narrow Minds cannot conceive of Vno simplici conceptu activo Now if you take the word Definition for the Species as existent in Individuals it is really a part of the thing that is a Partial objective conceptus or somewhat of the Thing as Intelligible But this is to take Definition in Sensu passivo for the Thing defined which our Case distinguisheth But Sir I crave your leave to distinguish Real objective Beings from 1. The Knowledg 2. and the Names and other Logical Organs by which we know them and express our knowledg of them God Christ Grace Glory Pardon Justification Sanctification the Gospel-Doctrine Precept Promises Faith Hope Love Obedience Humility Patience c. are the Res definitae in our Case not as they are in esse cognito or in the notion or idea of them but in esse reali To Define properly is either 1. Mentally to conceive of these things 2. or Expressively to signifie such Conceptions agreeably to the nature of the things known or Expressively defined Which is if the Definition be perfect under the notions of a Genus and Differentia The Definition as in Words is but a Logical Organ as Names are also Notifying signs Mental defining is but the said distinct knowledg of the thing defined and is neither really the Thing it self nor usually of necessity to the Thing Which two I shall prove distinctly as to the sense of our Case 1. The Definition of Justification is either our Distinct knowledg or Expression of it Justification is not our Distinct knowledg or Expression of it Therefore the Definition of Justification and Justification are not the same Justification In sensu activo is not an Act of God and In sensu passivo is the Relative state of Man thereby effected But the Definition of Justification is neither The Definition of Justification is a work of Art but Justification is a Work of Grace A wicked damnable Man or a damned Devil may define Justification and so have the Definition of it but not Justification it self The Definition of Justification Faith Love c. is Quid Logicum but Justification Faith Love c. are things Physical and Moral A Man is Justified or hath Christs Righteousness imputed to him in his sleep and when he thinketh not of it but he hath not the Active definition of Justification in his sleep c. Other things be not the same Really with their Dâ—finition therefore neither is Justification Faith c. The Sun is not really the same thing with a Definition of the Sun nor Light Heat Motion c. A Brute can see taste feel smell that cannot
define them If you have a Bishoprick because you define a Bishoprick or have a Lordship a Kingdom Health c. because you can define them your Axiome hath stood you in good stead The Definition is but Explicatio rei But Rei explicatio non est ipsa res Individuals say most are not Definable But nothing is truly Res but Individuals Vniversals as they are in the Mind are existent Individual Acts Cogitations Nâ—tions As they are out of the Mind they are nothing but Individuorum quid intelligibile The Definition of Learning of a Doctor c. may be got in a day If Learning and Doctorship may be so what useless things are Universities and Books Perswade a hungry Scholar that he hath Meat and Drink or the Ambitious that he hath Preferment or the Covetous or Poor that he hath Money because he hath in his Mind or Mouth the Definition of it and quibble him into satisfaction by telling him that Definitio definitum sunt idem re We know and express things narrowly by Names and largely and distinctly by Definitions The Definition here is Explicatio nominis as Animal rationale of the name Homo and both Name and Definition as they are Verba mentis vel oris or Verborum significatio are surely divers from the things named and defined known and expressed unless by the Thing you mean only the Knowledg or Notion of the Thing Therefore though Cui competit definitio eidem quoque competit definitum contra quod convenit definitioni convenit definito Yet say not that Imputed Righteousness in Re is the same with the Definition as it is the Definers act By this time you have helpt Men to understand by an Instance why St. Paul so much warneth Christians to take heed lest any deceive them by vain Philosophy even by Sophistry and abused arbitrary Notions Remember Sir that our Case is of grand Importance As it is stated in my Direct 42. which you assaulted it is Whether if the Question were of the Object of Predestination of the nature of the Will 's liberty Divine concourse and determining way of Grace of the Definition of Justification Faith c. a few well studied Divines are not here to be preferred before Authority and the major Vote Such are my words I assert 1. That the Defining of Justification Faith c. is a work of Art 2. And I have many and many times told the World which you seem to strike at that Christians do not differ so much in their Real conceptions of the Matter as they do in their Definitions 1. Because Definitions are made up of Ambiguous words whose Explication they are not agreed in and almost all Words are ambiguous till explained and ambiguous Words are not fit to define or be defined till explained And 2. Because both selecting fit terms and explaining them and ordering them are works of Art in which Men are unequal and there is as great variety of Intellectual Conceptions as of Faces 3. And I have often said That a Knowledg intuitive or a Simple apprehension of a thing as Sensate or an Internal experience or Reflect act and a general notion of some things may prove the truth of Grace and save Souls and make us capable of Christian Love and Communion as being true saving Knowledg 4. And consequently I have often said that many a thousand Christians have Faith Hope Desire Love Humility Obedience Justication Adoption Vnion with Christ who can define none of these Unless you will speak equivocally of Definition it self and say as good Melancthon and as Gutherleth and some other Romists that Notitia intuitiva est definitio who yet say but what I am saying when they add Vel saltem instar definitionis If all are without Faith Love Justification Adoption who cannot give a true Definition of them how few will be saved How much more then doth Learning to Mens salvation than Grace And Aristotle then is not so far below Paul or the Spirit of Christ as we justly believe The Case is so weighty and palpable that you have nothing to say but as you did about the Guilt of our nearer Parents sins to yield all the Cause and with a passionate clamour to tell Men that I mistake you or wrest your words of which I shall appeal to every sober Reader that will peruse the words of mine which you assault and yours as they are an Answer to mine In a word you go about by the abuse of a trivial Axiome of Definitions 1. To sentence most Christians to Hell and cast them into Desperation as wanting the Grace which they cannot define 2. And to destroy Christian Love and Concord and tear the Church into as many Shreds as there be diversities of Definitions used by them 3. And you would tempt us to think much hardlier of your self than we must or will do as if your Faith Justification c. were unsound because your Definitions are so I know that Vnius rei una tantum est Definitio speaking 1. Not of the Terms but the Sense 2. And supposing that Definition to be perfectly true that is the truth of Intellection and Expression consisting in their congruity to the Thing while the thing is one and the same the conception and expression which is perfectly true must be so too But 1. Our understandings are all imperfect and we know nothing perfectly but Secundum quaedam and Zanckez saith truly that Nihil scitur if we call that only Knowledg which is perfect And consequently no Mental Definition is perfect 2. And Imperfections have many degrees 3. And our Terms which make up that which you know I called a Definition in my Dir. 42. as it is in words are as aforesaid various mutable and variously understood and used § XV. Pag. 24. Again you are at it Whom do you mean by that one rare Person whose single Judgment is to be preferred in the point of Justification and to whom Answ 1. No one that knoweth not the difference between an Invididuum vagum determinatum 2. No one that is of so hard Metal as in despite of the plainest words to insinuate to the World that these words A few well-studied Judicious Divines do signifie only one and that these words One Man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before the Rulers and major Vote in difficult speculations do signifie one individuum determinatum in the World and that the Speaker is bound to name the Man No one that thinketh that Pemble who in his Vind. Grat. hath almost the very same words said well and that I who repeat them am as criminal as you pretend No one who either knoweth not that almost all the World even Papists agree in this Rule or that thinketh his judgment fit herein to bear them all down No one who when his abuses are brought into the open Sun-shine will rather accuse the Light than repent But pag. 25. After some
who am thus publickly by visible Calumny traduced truly to tell you where you mistake and how you wrong Gods Church and Truth more than me and if also I offer peaceably to wash my own face this is hard fronted Calumny dragging a Doctor in Scarlet at the Wheels of my Chariot which might occasion his degrading and turning out c. This over-tenderness of your honour as to other mens words and too little care of the means of it as to your own hath a cause that it concerneth you to find out Had you the tenth part as many Books written against you as are against me by Quakers Seekers Infidels Antinomians Millenaries Anabaptists Separatists Semi-separatists Papists Pseudo-Tilenus Diocesans Conformists and many Enemies of Peace to whom it was not I but your self that joyned you it would have hardened you into some more patience If you will needs be militant you must expect replies And he that will injuriously speak to the World what he should not speak must look to hear what he would not hear But you add Sir the Name and Quality of a DOCTOR and Master of a Literate Society might have been treated more civilly by you Answ 1. I am ready to ask you forgiveness for any word that any impartial man yea or your Reverend Brethren of that Academy themselves whom I will allow to be somewhat partial for you shall notifie to me to be uncivil or any way injurious 2. But to be free with you neither Doctorship Mastership nor â—carlet will Priviledg you to fight against Truth Right and Peace and to vent gross mistakes and by gross untruths in matter of fact such as is your Omnem ludibrio habet imputationem to abuse your poor Brethren and keep the longconsuming flà mes still burning by false representing those as Popish and I know not what who speak not as unaptly as your self and all this without contradiction Were you a Bp. my Body and Estate might be in your power but Truth Justice and the Love of Christians and the Churches peace should not be cowardly betrayed by me on pretense of reverence to your Name and Quality I am heartily desirous that for ORDER-sake the Name and Honour of my Superiours may be very reverently used But if they will think that Errour Injustice and Confusion must take sanctuary under bare Ecclesiastical or Academical Names and robes they will find themselves mistaken Truth and Honesty will conquer when they pass through Smithfield flames Prisons confine them not Death kills them not No siege will force an honest Conscience by famine to give up He that cannot endure the sight of his own excrements must not dish them up to another mans Table lest they be sent him back again And more freedom is allowed against Peace-Breakers in Frays and Wars than towards men that are in a quieter sort of Controversie § XX. P. 36.37 You say For your various Definitions of Justification Constitutive Sentential Executive in Foro Dei in foro Conscientiae c. What need this heap of distinctions here when you know the question betwixt us is of no other Justification but the Constitutive in foro Dei that which maketh us righteous in the Court of Heaven I have nothing to do with you yet in any else as your own Conscience will tell you when you please If you have not more Justice and civility for your intelligent Readers I wish you would shew more Compassion to your Ignorant Homagers and not thus abuse them with your palpable Evasions Answ Doth the question Whether the several sorts of Justification will bear one and the same Definition deserve all this anger and the much greater that followeth 1. Seeing I am turned to my Reader I will crave his impartial judgment I never received and agreed on a state of the question with this Doctor He writeth against my books In those Books I over and over and over distinguish of Justification Constitutive Sentential and Executive besides those subordinate sorts by Witness Evidence Apology c. I oft open their differences He writeth against me as denying all Imputation of Christs Righteousness and holding Popish Justification by works and never tells me whether he take the word Justification in the same sense that I do or in which of those that I had opened And now he passionately appealeth to my Conscience that I knew his sence What he saith my Conscience will tell me it is not true It will tell me no such thing but the clean contrary that even after all his Disputes and Anger and these words I profess I know not what he meaneth by Justification 2. What Constitutive in foro Dei that which maketh us Righteous in the Court of Heaven meaneth with him I cannot conjecture He denyeth not my Distinctions but saith what need they I ever distinguished Making Righteous Judging Righteous Executively useing as Righteous The first is in our selves The second is by Divines said to be in foro Dei an act of Judgment the third is upon us after both now he seemeth to confound the two first and yet denyeth not their difference and saith he meaneth Constitutive in foro He that is made Righteous is such in se and as such is Justifiable in foro We are Made Righteous by God as free Donor and Imputer antecedently to judgment We are in foro sentenced Righteous by God as Judg so that this by sentence presupposeth the former God never Judgeth us Righteous and Justifieth us against Accusation till he have first Made us Righteous and Justified us from adherent Guilt by Pardon and Donation Which of these meaneth he I ask not my Ignorant homagers who know no more than I but his Intelligent Reader He taketh on him to go the Commonest way of Protestants And the Commonest way is to acknowledg that a Constitutive Justification or making the man Just antecedent to the Actus forensis must need go first but that it is the second which Paul usually meaneth which is the actus forensis the sentence of the Judg in foro contrary to Condemnation And doth the Doctor think that to make Righteous and to sentence as Righteous are all one and that we are made Righteous in foro otherwise than to be just in our selves and so Justifiable in foro before the Sentence or do Protestants take the Sentence to be Constituting or Making us Righteous All this is such talk as had I read it in Mr. Bunnyan of the Covenants or any of my Ignorant Homagers I should have said the Author is a stranger to the Controversie into which he hath rashly plunged himself but I have more reverence to so learned a man and therefore blame my dull understanding 3. But what if I had known as I do not yet what sort of Justification he meaneth Doth he not know that I was then debating the Case with him whether the Logical Definitions of Justification Faith c. are not a work of Art in which a few well-studied