it is the cause though Calvin Twiss Ames Rutherford c. have not spared to say and write that it is in some sense a cause an inferiour disposing cause c. but a duty and condition until the performing whereof God hath suspended the Gift of Eternal Life and Glory and to the Performers of which duty and condition he hath freely promised and according to his promise he graciously giveth Eternal Life and Glory for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness only And we desire it may be alwayes remembred that from this condition of sincere obedience we do by no means exclude but include the continued exercise of Faith in Christ as that which is the spring of it and which runs through all the parts of it as also we hold that it comprehends the continued practice of Repentance and Love to God and Man Such sincere Obedience we hold to be a condition to be performed on our part Ezek. 18.24 25. Heb. 10.38 for the obtaining of Eternal Life and Glory For we learn from the Scriptures of Truth that if any of God's People should apostatize from Faith in Christ fall from the Profession and Practice of Christs true Religion and give themselves up to the wilful commission of all manner of Abominations and dye in that state without Repentance they would lose their Right to Eternal Life be shut out of Heaven and cast down to Hell there to suffer the Vengeance of Eternal Fire Whereas on the contrary all that continue to the end in the exercise of Faith in Christ and in the practice of Repentance and Evangelical Obedience they have their Right to Life and Glory still continued to them and shall through God's Grace and Mercy and Christ's Righteousness and Merits be put into the full and eternal possession of it If our Authour should object and say that we suppose an impossibility from whence there is no right arguing for or against any thing We desire him to consider what Dr. Twiss sayes in the 29 Page of his Answer to the Book called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to practice His Words are When we say the elect Saints cannot fall from Grace this is spoken not in respect of any absolute impossibility but meerly upon supposition of God's upholding them And accordingly they are said to be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 Now this impossibility of falling away from Grace in Scholastical account is but an Impossibility Secundum quid like as we say It is impossible that Antichrist should fall or the Jews be called till the time which God hath appointed is come for bringing forth these great and wonderful Works of his but the contrary is simply possible on either part Thus Twiss Our Answer then is that the Apostacy of a Saint is not simply and absolutely impossible Alas it is but too possible with respect to us considered in our selves but it is onely impossible in some respects to wit in respect of God's Purpose and Promise and Christ's Intercession c. And notwithstanding its being impossible in this sense yet we find it supposed and granted also to be possible in another sense And further we find that the Spirit of God in Holy Scripture supposes greater Impossibilities than that seems to be and rationally argues from them too Witness John 8.55 Gal. 1.8 If any should further object and say that hereby we destroy the Saints Assurance of Eternal Life and Glory by holding that their obtaining of it is suspended on a condition We Answer the consequence is false because those who are assured upon good Grounds that they are truly Converted and Justified by Faith in Christ's Blood See 1 Joh. 2.19 may from Holy Scripture be assured of the condition of perseverance through Grace in Faith Repentance and whatever God hath made necessary to their obtaining Eternal Life and Glory Indeed if our Glorification depended upon a Condition of which we could not be sure then neither could we be sure of Glorification it self But we believe and maintain that through Grace we may and ought to be sure of the Condition to wit of Perseverance and consequently that we may and ought to be sure of our future Glorification which is infallibly promised to perseverance in Faith and Holiness We know the Followers of Luther whom our Authour so much magnifies as if he were for him and his Party deny that a Saint can be absolutely sure ordinarily in this World that he shall be saved in the World to come It is true they maintain that a Saint may and ought to be absolutely sure that he is in a state of Grace and Salvation for the present but they deny and on their Principles must deny that he can have an absolute but onely a conditional assurance of his Eternal Salvation and Glorification because they say he cannot be absolutely sure that he shall not fall totally and finally from the state of Grace that he is now in If we should follow Luther or the Lutherans in this what a Clamour would our Authour raise against us how would he proclaim us to the World to be Arminians or Papists yet Luther was a blessed Man and most Orthodox Divine because in his Commentary on the Galathians he seems to hold with our Authour in some things though in other things of greater importance he be against him and us too But Holy Scripture is the Rule and Measure of our Faith in these and all other Religious Matters and according to the Prescript thereof we believe profess and preach to the People that as Christ purchased all Grace for us by his Blood so he gives it unto us by his Spirit in the use of his appointed Means and what Saving Grace he once gives unto his People he never wholly takes away from them again and that if at any time they fall into Sin against Knowledge and Conscience he raises them up again by causing them to renew their Faith and Repentance and never wholly leaves them nor forsakes them but gives them still more Grace according to their need and by Grace prepares them for and at last brings them unto Glory Thus we desire and endeavour to Preach Christ and now we appeal to all who have any Conscience of Truth and Honesty whether we neglect to Preach Christ or whether in the preaching of Christ we set up any thing in co-ordination with him yea whether we be not so far from it that on the contrary we make all subordinate to him and derive all Grace from him not only the Grace of Justification and Glorification which are promised on Condition of Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience but also the Grace of effectual Vocation Faith and Repentance in a Word all the Grace whereby we perform the whole condition of the Covenant from first to last From the premisses it may manifestly appear to any that are not stark blind that we do not hold Faith Repentance and
sorrows and pains than to hear that this is the Command of God this is the voice of Christ the Bridegroom that they be surely perswaded that Remission of sins or Reconciliation is given not for our worthiness but freely through Mercy for Christ's sake that the benefit may be certain As for the word Justification in those passages of Paul it signifies the Remission of sins or Reconciliation or imputation of Righteousness that is the acceptation of the Person And in the same Article the paragraph concerning good works This new life then should be obedience towards God And the Gospel preaches Repentance nor can there be Faith but in those who repent because Faith comforts Mens hearts in contrition and fears of sin c. Moreover we also teach concerning this Obedience that they who commit mortal sins that is wilful presumptuous sins against Knowledge and Conscience are not just because God requires this obedience that we resist our corrupt lusts and affections But those who do not resist but obey them against the Command of God and do actions against their Conscience they are unjust and they neither retain the Holy Spirit nor Faith that is confidence of Mercy For in those who delight in sin and do not repent there cannot indeed be that Trust or Confidence which may seek for remission of sins This passage of the Augustan Confession we thus understand that habitual reigning wilful sin against Conscience and without Repentance is inconsistent with a state of Grace and Reconciliation And we think that all Protestants except Antinomians are agreed in this One passage more and we have done with this Confession of Faith It is in the same 20th Article of Faith a little before the passage last quoted There is no need here of disstations about predestination and the like For the promise is universal and it takes nothing from works yea it stirs up to Faith and to Works that are truely good For remission of sins is transferred or removed from our Works unto God's Mercy not that we may do nothing but much rather that we may know how our Obedience pleaseth God in our so great infirmity This was the first Protestant Confession of Faith written by Melancthon Received by the Protestant Churches subscribed by their Ministers and that not onely by Luther and those of his Party but even by Calvin also It was likewise subscribed by seven Princes and Dukes in Germany and by the Magistrates of Cities and presented unto the Emperour Charles V. in the Year 1530. We hope then it will not be denyed but that this Augustan Confession contains the true Doctrine of the Gospel in the points of Justification by Faith and of the necessity of Repentance unto the obtaining pardon of sin and of sincere Obedience unto the obtaining of Eternal Salvation And if so then our Doctrine in those points is likewise the true Doctrine of the Gospel for it is the same with that of the Augustan Confession as to those Matters of which we treat From the Augustan Confession and the Testimony of many Princes Pastours Cities and Churches who subscribed and received it we come to the Articles of the Church of England which we have all subscribed the 11th Article concerning Justification we most heartily embrace and acknowledge that it is a most wholsome Doctrine and full of comfort that we are justified by Faith onely in that sense which is more largely explained in the Homily of Justification to which the Article expresly refers us and which by consequence we have subscribed by subscribing the Article It is called a Sermon of the Salvation of Mankind by Christ onely and a very good Sermon it is worth a thousand of our Authour's Letter which deserves not to be mentioned the same Day with it For understanding then the true and full meaning of the Article of Justification we must have recourse to the Homily or Sermon of Salvation In which Excellent Sermon pag. 13. We read as followeth London Edit 1673. That though according to the Apostle we are justified by a true and lively Faith onely and that that Faith is the Gist of God Yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God to be joined with Faith in every Man that is Justified but it shutteth them out from the office of Justifying So that although they be all present together marke that they do not onely necessarily follow and flow from Faith in time but when we are first Justified they are present together with it in him that is Justified yet they Justifie not altogether nor the Faith also doth not shut out the Justice of our good Works as necessary to be done afterwards of Duty towards God for we are most bounden to serve God in doing good Deeds commanded by him in his Holy Scripture all the Days of our life but it excludeth them so that we may not do them to this intent to be made good by doing them For all the good works that we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our Justification c. Again in the second part of that Sermon pag. 15. Nevertheless this Sentence that we be Justified by Faith onely is not so meant of them that the said Justifying Faith is alone in Man without true Repentance Hope Charity Dread and Fear of God at any time and season Nor when they say that we be Justified freely they mean not that we should or might afterwards be idle and that nothing should be required on our parts afterwards Neither they mean not so to be justified without good Works that we should do no good Works at all But this saying that we be justified by Faith onely freely and without Works is spoken for to take away clearly all Merit of our Works as being unable to deserve our Justification at God's Hand and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of Man and the Goodness of God the great infirmity of our selves and the Might and Power of God the imperfectness of our own works and the most abundant Grace of our Saviour Christ and therefore wholly to ascribe the Merit and Deserving of our Justification unto Christ onely and his most precious Blood-shedding This Faith the Holy Scripture teacheth us this is the strong Rock and Foundation of Christian Religion this Doctrine all Old and Antient Authours of Christ's Church do approve this Doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true Glory of Christ and beateth down the vain-glory of Man this whosoever denieth is not be accounted for a Christian Man nor for a setter forth of Christ's Glory but for an Adversary to Christ and his Gospel and for a setter forth of Mens vain-glory Again pag. 16. The true meaning and understanding of this Doctrine we be Justified freely by Faith without Works or we be Justified by Faith in Christ onely is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us
that more and worse is feared which what it should be we cannot imagine unless it be that they fear we will at last renounce Christ and Christianity But to this we will say with David 2 Sam. 16.12 it may be the Lord will look upon our case and requite us good for this reviling Dr. let p. 12. Downame Bishop of Derry whom our Authour also commends in his Letter shall next come in for a Witness on our behalf who in his Book of the Covenant of Grace saith The promises of the Gospel cannot be applyed to any aright but only to those who have the condition of the promise page 134 135. which is the justifying Faith For the Gospel doth not promise Justification and Salvation to all but to those only who have a justifying Faith Therefore a Man must be endued with justifying Faith before he can or ought to apply the promises of the Gospel to himself For as Salvation is promised to them that believe so damnation is denounced to them that believe not Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18. Again No man ought to apply the promise of the Gospel to himself who hath not the condition of the promise ibid. page 153. unless he will perniciously deceive himself For as he that believeth shall be saved so he that believeth not shall be condemned page 154. Again As we daily sin so we must daily ask forgiveness Prayer being the means that God hath ordained to that end Object Yea But saith the Papist ye forsooth have already full assurance of the remission of all your sins not only past but also to come Answ It is absurd to imagine that sins be remitted before they be committed and much more that we be assured they are remitted before they be either remitted or committed That indeed were a Doctrine to animate and to encourage Men to sin But howsoever the Pope sometimes forgiveth sins to come yet God doth not When God justifyeth a man he giveth him remission of sins past Rom. 3.25 As for time to come we teach that although Christ hath merited and God hath promised remission of sins of all the faithful unto the end of the World notwithstanding remission of sins is not actually obtained and much less by special Faith believed until Men do actually believe and repent and by humble and faithful Prayer renew their Faith and Repentance For as God hath promised to the faithful all good things But how Matt. 7.7 8. To them that ask Luke 18.13 14. that seek that knock So also remission of sins Neither is it to be doubted but that remission of sin though merited by Christ though promised by God though sealed unto us in the Sacrament of Baptisme is obtained by the effectual Prayer of those who believe and repent for whom Christ hath merited it and to whom God hath promised it in his Word and sealed it by the Sacrament even as the obtaining of the rain which God had promised 1 Kings 18. ver 1 41. and the Prophet Elias had foretold is ascribed to the effectual Prayer of Elias James 5.16 18. To Bishop Downames we add the very Learned and Pious Gatakers Testimony When â—altâ—arsh the Antinomian had objected and said either place Salvation on a free bottom or else you make the New Covenant but an old Covenant in new terms Do this and live believe this and live repent and live obey and live Gataker replies This is frivolous because as hath been shewed Gatakers shadows without Substance page 49. Salvations free bottom is no way impeached by such conditions as these required and scandalous because therein the Apostles Doctrine is not covertly but directly challenged as overthrowing and razing the foundation of free Grace For what is believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved but believe and live Or what is repent that your sins may be done away but repent and live Or what is He is the Authour of Salvation to all that obey him but obey and live And I demand again what this amounts unto whether it be any other than blasphemy to say that the Apostles by such their Doctrine did not place Salvation upon a free bottom but brought in the old Covenant again in new terms Sir Dare you say in your new revealed Mystery believe not and yet live repent not and yet live obey not and yet live Again We may truly say that you and yours are they that either cannot or will not see the Wood for Trees Ibid. page 57. the conditions on which Salvation by Christ is propounded though in the Gospel they do every where occur and offer themselves will ye nill ye to your eyes With Gataker we joyn Mr. Ball who in his Treatise of Faith recommended by a Preface of Dr. Sibbes saith Balls Treatise of Faith part 1. page 86. The promise of remission of sins is conditional and becometh not absolute until the condition be fulfilled This is the word of Grace Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved When doth this conditional proposition become absolute When we believe what That our sins are pardoned No but when we believe in Christ to obtain pardon which is the thing promised upon condition of belief Again The priviledge of Grace and Comfort which comes to the Soul by believing must be distinguished from the Condition of the Covenant Ibid. page 89. which is required on our parts before we can obtain pardon Again We can teach no Faith to Salvation but according to the rule of Christ Repent and believe the Gospel no remission of sin Ibid. page 136. but according to the like Rule Luke 24.47 Acts 2.37 38. But Faith seeketh and receiveth pardon as it is proffered in the word of Grace Repentance is necessary to the pardon of sin as a condition without which it cannot be obtained not as a cause why it is given Luke 13.3 1 John 1.9 Acts 11.18 If Mercy should be vouchsafed to all indifferently the Grace of God should be a boulster to mans sin c. Lastly We conclude this head of our defence with the Testimony of the Synod of Dort We have already shewed that the Geneva Divines in that Synod gave it in under their hands and were therein approved by the Synod That the Covenant of Grace is conditional We might be large in shewing the like of many others but we will confine our selves for brevities sake to the Embdan Bremen and English Divines their Suffrages recorded in the Acts of the Synod First The Embdane Divines in the Synod said That God required the same conditions from those that were in Covenant with him under the Old and New Testament to wit Faith and the obedience of Faith Act. Synodi Dord part 2. page 93. Gen. 12. Abraham believed God and the Apostle â—in Rom. 4. Teaches that we are saved by the same Faith Gen. 17. Abraham is commanded to walk before God and be perfect The same is every where
Justifying Faith cannot come from a Heart that is neither renewed nor unrenewed neither regenerate nor unregenerate for there is no such Heart in any Man nor indeed can there be any such Heart For renewed and not at all renewed regenerate and not at all regenerate are contradictions which admit of no medium Every Heart of Man then in the whole World must be one of these but cannot be both at once nor any third thing distinct from both for there is no middle between the two betweenrenewed and not at all renewed c. Since then every Heart of Man in the World cannot be both renewed and not at all renewed at the same time nor yet be any third thing but must be either one or other 2. We say in the second place That the first vital act of Justifying Faith cannot come from an Heart not at all renewed nor regenerate For a vital act of Justifying Faith is too good and precious Fruit to grow upon the corrupt Tree of a Heart wholly unrenewed and unregenerate Our Saviour in Matth. 7.16 17 18. give us to understand that we may with as much reason expect to gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles as that a vital act of precious justifying Faith should come from a Heart that is altogether unregenerate and unrenewed It remains then in the third place that since the first vital act of justifying Faith cannot come from a Heart that is altogether unrenewed and unregenerate that is all stony hard and obstinately bent unto evil It must of necessity come from a Heart that is at least partly renewed and regenerate partly Flesh or tender and pliable to the Will of God And from this it follows unavoidably that there must be a real holy change wrought in the Heart of Man before his Justification by faith for the Heart of Man cannot possibly be renewed and regenerated either in part or in whole without some real holy change wrought in it but it is renewed and regenerated in part at least in order of Nature before the first vital act of justifying faith as hath been proved and that first vital act of faith is in order of Nature before justification by faith therefore there is and must be some real holy change wrought in the Heart before justification by faith From all which it is evident that the Opinion of our Authour is erroneous and against the purity of our Christian faith to wit that there is no real change no holy disposition or qualification before Justification by faith And that on the contrary there is and must be a real change of the Heart there are and must be several holy dispositions and qualifications wrought in the Soul by the Word and Spirit of the Lord before we can be justified by faith and our sins can be actually and absolutely forgiven us This we have clearly proved both by Scripture and by Reason agreeable to Scripture Now in the Third and Last place we shall prove it by the Testimony of famous and orthodox Protestant Divines We begin with Calvin who as was shewn before in his Commentary on Ezek. 18. v. 23. saith Praecedit veniam poenitentia quemadmodum hîc dicitur That Repentance goes before pardon of sin as it is said to doe in this place of Scripture Whence we observe 1. That it is not a meer legal Repentance such as may be in an unconverted Man that he speaks of but it is an Evangelical saving Repentance for first it is a Repentance that consists in turning from sin v. 23. yea from all sin in Heart and Affection v. 21. Secondly in doing the whole known will of God that is doing it in desire and resolution v. 21. But a meer legal Repentance doth not consist in these things nor hath it so good an effect upon the Soul Thirdly It is a Repentance to which Pardon and Life is promised through Christ But no such thing is promised to a meer legal Repentance Therefore it is not a Legal but an Evangelical Repentance that Calvin there speaks of 2. We observe that if in Calvin's Judgment a true Evangelical Repentance goes before pardon of sin and Justification then a true justifying faith goes before it also For Calvin was clearly of the opinion that faith goes before a true Evangelical Repentance in so much that he saies Instit lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 1. Quibus videtur fidem potius praecedere poenitentia quà m ab ipsâ manare vel proferri tanquum fructus ab arbore nunquam vis ejus fuit cognita That they never knew the power of Repentance who think that it is rather before Faith than that it slows or proceeds from Faith as Fruit from a Tree These Words of Calvin manifestly shew that he held faith to be in order of nature before true Evangelical Repentance which we must thus understand as we said before that the seminal Principle of Faith with some of its Acts to wit the assenting Act is before any Act of true Evangelical Repentance and not that all the Acts of justifying faith are before any one Act of true Evangelical Repentance otherwise we shall make Calvin foully to contradict himself For as was proved before Calvin in the same Book fol. 210. and Chapter Sect. 19. lays down the right order of things exactly saying that the Lord Christ first declares that the Treasures of Gods Mercy are in him set open to us which Declaration of his calls for the faith of assent in us After that in the second place the Lord requires us to repent induced thereunto by the faith of the said Declaration And Thirdly and Lastly Exigit fiduciam erga Dei promissiones He requires our trust in the promises of God to us now truly repenting of our sins The Act of Faith then which Calvin held to be in order before Repentance and to be the root and spring of it is the Faith of the conditional Promise of God that he hath Mercy and Pardon for us if we truly repent And this seems to be his meaning by what he writes in the second Paragraph following For saith he whilst Christ and John preach thus Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Do not they derive the cause of Repentance from the very Grace and Promise of Salvation Therefore the import of their Words is as much as if they had said because the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand therefore repent And a little after he adds Quod etiam demonstrat illa Oseae exhortatio c. Which thing also that exhortation of Hosea demonstrates Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn Hos 6.1 and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will bind us up Quia spes veniae tanquam stimulus additur ne in suis peccatis torpeant Because the hope of pardon is given as a spur to Repentance least they should lie secure in their sins By this Passage we see that the Faith which goes
Spirit together because according to the Principle aforesaid the Written Word is supposed to say nothing at all of that matter Therefore if ever it be Revealed to the Man and so if ever he be comforted in this World it must be by the Spirit without the Word And then all the poor disconsolate Mans ground of Comfort must be reduced to this That God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word But then we demand how our Authour will be able to assure the poor disconsolate dying Man that God will really do so that God will reveal it to him by his Spirit immediately without the Written Word For that immediate extraordinary Revelation being a thing that depends also upon Gods Arbitrary Free Will he may do it or not do it as he pleaseth and if God may freely not do it how can our Authour ever assure the Man that he will do it That is that he will by his Spirit immediately and extraordinarily reveal to him without the Written Word that he shall have Eternal Life and not Eternal Death for his Portion But now if our Authour should say that God hath given unto Man a Promise in his Written Word to ground his Faith upon though he hath not given a stated Rule and standing positive Law according to which he will proceed with Man at Death and Judgment We would readily reply thus Either the Promise in the Written Word made to the dying disconsolate Man is an absolute Promise that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life however it be with him whether he be converted or unconverted penitent or impenitent believer or unbeliever And we are sure there is no such promise in the Bible and to tell him of such a Promise would be at once to belie God and to delude the poor Man Or 2. It is a conditional Promise That God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life If through Grace he unfeignedly repent of all his sins and believe on Christ with a lively effectual Faith a Faith working by Love which he is bound to do under the pain of Eternal Death If this be the Promise that the poor dying Man must ground his Faith upon that God for Christ's sake will give him Eternal Life then this is the very thing which Dr. Twisse and we after him call the Law according to which God proceeds in dispensing to his People the subsequent Blessings of the Covenant such as Justification and Glorification are And so our Authour comes over into our Camp which he must do at last and confess if not to us at least to God that he hath grosly misrepresented and falsly accused Christ's faithful Ministers and hath endeavoured to delude the People and to render the Ministers odious to the People and thereby to hinder the success of their Ministry And he must sincerely repent of having done so But if he will yet go on in the way of his own heart we shall be sorry for him and not cease to pray the Lord if it be his will to have Mercy on him and to give him repentance for the scandalous sin which he hath committed in publickly slandring Christs Ministers and in boldly asserting a notorious falsehood in matter of fact saying That the new Law of Grace is a new Word of an old but ill meaning And that he hath really done so we have not only said but proved by the plain testimonies of credible Witnesses whereof two Sealed the Truth of the Gospel with their Blood above fourteen hundred years ago SECT II. Of his second Error that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional SEcondly the Author of the Letter asserts that the Covenant of Grace is Absolute and not Conditional as appears from page 18. at the end and page 24. And particularly he denies that Faith in Christ is the Condition of Justification page 8. Some say that faith justifies as it is a fulfilling of the condition of the New Covenant if thou believest thou shalt be saved This he finds fault with and opposes to it the old Protestant Doctrine as he calls it That the place of Faith in Justification is only that of a Hand or Instrument c. Where we observe 1. That he makes faith its being a Condition and its being a hand or instrument to be two opposite things the one whereof is inconsistent with and destructive of the other and so in this he not only fights against us but likewise against the Assembly of Divines at Westminster who held Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition in the matter of Justification as was shewed before 2. He makes it to be New Doctrine and contrary to the Old Protestant Doctrine to hold that Faith is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace and that we are Justified by Faith as a Condition of the Covenant wherein he makes the Assembly as well as us to be Preachers of a New Doctrine and Corrupters of the Gospel since they likewise held Faith to be a Condition of the Covenant as aforesaid And again in page 9. We say that Faith in Christ is neither Work nor Condition nor Qualification in Justification but is a meer instrument and he affirms that their saying so is that by which the fire is kindled So that saith he in page 10. It is come to that as Mr. Christopher Fowler said that he that will not be Antichristian must be called an Antinomian Here it is very remarkable that he not only denies Faith to be either Work Condition or Qualification in the matter of Justification but he also in effect affirms that it is Antichristian to assert that Faith is either Work Condition or Qualification and that he will therefore rather choose to be called an Antinomian for denying than to be an Antichristian for affirming it This is and must be his meaning or else he was dreaming and knew not what he did when he cited Mr. Fowler and brought in his Judicious saying with a so that it is come to that as Mr. Fowler said c. Finally in page 25 at the beginning he says that Faith in the Office of Justification is neither Condition nor Qualification but in its very act is a renouncing of all such pretences From all which it is plain that we do not wrest his Words nor charge him with an Opinion which he doth not hold for he so firmly holds the Covenant of Grace to be Absolute and not Conditional and particularly that Faith is neither the Condition of obtaining Justification nor a qualification of the Person then Justified when he believes that he glories to be accounted an Antinomian rather than renounce that Opinion page 24. And he holds it to be New and Antichristian Doctrine to maintain that Faith is either a Condition of obtaining Justification or a qualification of the Person justified or to be justified in that instant of time wherein he believes Before we refute this Opinion we will briefly
truth that Repentance is before Justification at least in order of Nature They object further if Repentance be before Justification then it is either before or after Faith but it cannot be before Faith for it is impossible that a man should sincerely repent before he believe Nor can it be after Faith if it be before Justification for a man is justified by Faith and that assoon as he believes We answer That men needed not to be deluded by such a silly sophism if they would distinguish 1. Between the Abiding Seed and Principle and the Transient Act of Faith 2. Between the Assenting Act of Faith and it s fiducially consenting act For though Faith in the Principle of it be but one single Grace yet in the Exercise of it it hath several acts successively following one another and yet not so closely neither but that the Act of Repentance may come between them Now to apply these distinctions we say that from Repentance's being before Justification it doth by no means follow that it is altogether and in all respects before Faith For 1. The Seed and Principle of Faith is before the Act of Repentance 2. The assenting Act of Faith is also before the Act of Repentance And thus from a principle of Faith and by the help of an Act of Faith the Soul sincerely repents in order to Justification and pardon of sin then after the said Act of Repentance there comes another Act of Faith to wit the Act of Fiducial consent to receive Christ as he is offered in the Gospel whereupon the penitent believing Soul is immediately justified and pardoned This we learn of Calvin who in his Institutions lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 19. writes thus Sic Christus suas conciones auspicatus est c. So also Christ began his Sermons Mark 1.15 The Kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the Gospel First he declares that the treasures of God's mercy were opened in him Then 2. He requires Repentance And 3. and lastly He requires a trust or relyance on the promises of God Here we have the Lords order of things judiciously set forth 1. He declares that the Treasures of God's Mercy are opened in him This Declaration of God's Infinite Mercy in Christ held forth to lost Sinners of Mankind is the object of our Faith of assent and we are bound to assent to it as an infallible Truth and to be firmly perswaded of it 2. He requires our Repentance he requires that assenting to the Truth of the Gospel and being firmly perswaded that God is upon terms of Mercy with us through him we should repent and be heartily sorry that by our sins we have offended so merciful a God and resolve in God's strength to do so no more 3. And lastly That supposing we so repent from a principle of Faith assenting to the Revelation of God's great Mercy in Christ to lost Sinners indefinitely he requires that we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises that according to his promises he will for Christ's sake be merciful to us in pardoning us all our sins When we are through Grace arrived at this Act of Faith whereby we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises then we are instantly pardoned accepted as Righteous and get a right to Life for the alone satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of our Lord Redeemer But we could never attain to this Act of Faith and thereby to pardon of sin for Christ's sake if we did not first believe with the Faith of assent that God through Christ is upon terms of Mercy and Peace with us That is the first Act of Faith and when it is of the right kind and proceeds from the right Principle the super-natural Seed of Faith put into the heart it is through the influence of the Holy Spirit of mighty force and efficacy 1. To make us repent to make us through Grace heartily sorry for having displeased and dishonoured so good and Merciful a God by our sins and to make us resolve through Grace to do so no more 2. It is of as great force and efficacy to make us trust and rely on Gods promises and on Christ revealed in the promises that God according to his promises will for Christ's sake justifie and pardon us Thus we have answered that frivolous Objection and clearly shewed how true Repentance is in order before Justification and pardon of sin and yet not altogether and in all respects before Faith but partly after and partly before Faith after the principle and assenting Act of Faith but before the fiducially consenting and trusting Act of Faith And what though no Man could give a clear account of the exact order observed by our Souls in the acting of their several Graces yet that should hinder no Christian from believing that true Repentance is in order before pardon of sin because God who cannot he hath plainly told us in the Scripture of Truth that it is in order before pardon as hath been proved If then we have any Faith in God and his Word We should say Let God be True who ever proves a Lyar. Certainly it is very unreasonable foolish and dangerous too to deny or doubt of that which is clear because we cannot throughly understand that which is obscure to wit the precise order of the Souls acting its Graces This may suffice at present to prove that the Gospel-promise of Justification and pardon of sin is conditional and that Faith and Repentance are the Condition of it 2. In the second and last place we shall briefly prove by Scripture that the Gospel-promise of Glorification and Eternal Salvation is conditional and that sincere obedience is the Condition of it For the better understanding of our meaning in this matter we premise a few things As 1. That this is to be understood upon supposition that a man lives some considerable time after that he is effectually called and justified and pardoned upon his first believing and repenting and that he hath space and opportunity to perform his Covenant Engagement unto the Lord and to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance If the Man dye presently after his Justification and pardon there is no more required on his part the Spirit perfects his begun Sanctification and God through Christ consummates his Salvation without requiring any more of him than what he is inabled to do as he is a dying But if God give him time and opportunity and he live It is required that proportionably to his Talents and time he serve the Lord in Faith and Holy Obedience that he renew his Faith and Repentance for pardon as often as he finds that he has fallen into sin and that he return to his Duty again serving the Lord all his days in Faith Hope Love Fear Patience Meekness Humility and Heavenly-mindedness c. 2. The Obedience that is required as aforesaid must
doth justify us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear God's Word and believe it although we have Faith Hope Charity Repentance Dread and Fear of God within us and do never so many Works thereunto Yet we must renounce the Merit of all our said Vertues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds which we either have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve remission of our sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust onely in God's Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby God's Grace and Remission as well of our Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after our Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again And at the end of the same 16. and beginning of 17. Page You see that the very true meaning of this Proposition or Saying we be Justified by Faith in Christ onely according to the meaning of the Old Antient Authours I is this We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be Justified by God's free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ onely and by no Vertue or good Works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the Cause meritorious thereof All this we most heartily approve of But we doubt whether our Authour will join with us in it because he says the Papists own this That Christ onely is the Meritorious Cause of our Justification And if it be so Lett. pag. 6. then according to his reckoning the Church of England and we may be both Papists in the point of Justification notwithstanding that the said Homily was written purposely against the Papists and we have all subscribed to it It may be our Authour has so accustomed himself to call Men Papists when ever he is angry with them that he cannot forbear it and therefore as he used to call the Church of England Men Papists so now being angry with us his Passion may have excited him to bring his Habit into Act and to rank us also among Papists in the point of Justification But we leave this and proceed to what is more material and that is that if we be not Justified by Works because they do not nor cannot merit Justification then it will follow that for the same reason we are not Justified by Faith because Faith can no more merit Justification than Works This Objection the Authour or Authours of the Homily foresaw and answered it by confessing that Faith doth not Justify us on the account of its meritorious Nature but on another account Their Words are these As great and as godly a Vertue as the lively Faith is yet it putteth us from it self and remitteth or appointeth us unto Christ for to have only by him remission of our sins or Justification So that our Faith in Christ as it were saith unto us thus It is not I that take away your sins but it is Christ only and to him only I send you for that purpose forsaking therein all your good vertues Words Thoughts and Works and only putting your trust in Christ And in the Third Part Pag. 17. Nevertheless because Faith doth directly send us to Christ for remission of our sins and that by Faith given us of God we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the remission of our sins which thing none other of our vertues or works properly doth therefore Scripture useth to say that Faith without Works doth Justify Thus far that Excellent Sermon And this is the same thing which we maintain That God hath chosen Faith above all other Graces and Vertues to be the receptive applicative Condition or moral Instrument and Means of Justification because it hath a proper and peculiar aptitude and fitness for that use being both of an illuminative and receptive Nature and as it is of an illuminative Nature it assures us that we can be Justified by no Satisfaction and Merit but that of Christ and so it sends us to him alone for Justification Then as it is of a receptive Nature it embraceth the Promise and takes hold of him and his Righteousness as held forth to us in the Promise that thereby and for the Satisfaction and Merits thereof alone and for no other thing we may be Justified In this sense we hold that we are Justified by Faith onely and that Faith is the onely receptive applicative Condition of Justification Yet this hinders not but that Repentance is the dispositive Condition of Justification The Homily saith expresly that Faith doth not shut out Repentance but that they are present together and that by Faith we trust only in Gods mercy and Christs Sacrifice to obtain thereby Remission of all Sins Original and Actual if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again Part 2. pag. 16. Which words manifestly shew that they held Repentance to be a Condition of Justification but it cannot be according to the Authours of the Homily either a meritorious Condition for there is none such at all possible nor a receptive applicative Condition for that is the office of Faith onely Therefore it must be a dispositive Condition And then after one is Justified it is evident that they held sincere Obedience to be indispensably necessary to his continuing in a Justified state and obtaining Eternal Salvation For they say in Part 3. pag. 17. that if after we are Justified and made Members of Christ we care not how we live whether we do good or avoid evil Works we make our selves Members of the Devil and surely that is inconsistent with a Justified state Therefore to prevent our becoming Members of the Devil again sincere Obedience from a Principle of Faith and Love is indispensably necessary And that this was their true meaning is further evident from the Sermon of Good Works Part I. pag. 29. Where they quote and approve the saying of Chrysostom concerning the penitent Thief The words are This I will surely affirm that Faith onely saved him If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again Indeed this is but a Supposition and we have no reason to think that if he had lived longer he would not have been careful to lead a Life of Faith and Holy Obedience yet if the antecedent be supposed the consequent necessarily follows that he would have lost his Salvation again For as it is in the Sermon of Faith To them that have evil works Second Part p. 24. and lead their Life in disobedience and transgression or
conditions are freely given by God neither if they be sincere do they by their imperfection hinder our Salvation which proceeds from another cause Here we see those four Learned Doctors Polyander Rivet Waleus and Thysius held that not only Faith but new and sincere Obedience is the condition of obtaining Salvation so that both together make up the one intire condition of the Gospel Gomarus another Learned Professor of Divinity in the Netherlands a Member of the Synod of Dort saith That the Gospel is called God's Covenant Quia mutuam Dei hominum obligationem Oper. Gomari par 3. disp 14. Thes 29. page 52. de vitâ aeternâ ipsis certâ conditione dandâ promulgat because it promulgates the mutual obligation of God and Men concerning the giving them Eternal Life upon their performing a certain condition And it is called the Covenant of God de salute per Christum gratuitâ concerning free Salvation by Christ because God in the Gospel of meer Grace publisheth and offereth unto all men whatsoever on condition of true Faith not only Christ and perfect Righteousness in him for Reconciliation and Eternal Life but also he promiseth unto his Elect and perfecteth in them the prescribed Condition of Faith and Repentance Here we see Gomarus holds Repentance to be part of the intire Condition of the Gospel Covenant Whereunto agrees the Testimony of Pemble Pemble of Justifying Faith Sect. 2. Chap. 1. page 22. who saith The Condition of the Covenant of Grace required in them that shall be justified is Faith Believe this and live is a compact of the freest and purest Mercy wherein the Reward of Eternal Life is given us in favour to that which bears not the least proportion of worth with it So that he that performs the Condition cannot yet demand the wages as due unto him in severity of Justice but only by the Grace of a free promise the fulfilling of which he may humbly sue for Ibid. page 24. And again Although saith he the Act of Justification of a sinner be properly the only work of God for the only merit of Christ Yet is it rightly ascribed unto Faith and it alone forasmuch as Faith is the main Condition of the New Covenant which as we must performe if we will be justified so by the performance whereof we are said to obtain Justification and Life Here it is observable that Pemble saith That Faith is the main Condition of the Covenant of Grace which implies there is some Condition besides but subordinate to Faith And this we do firmly hold that Faith is the main Condition because it is the only receptive applicative Condition to which Repentance the dispositive Condition and all our after-Obedience is subordinate Perkins another of those Divines whom we are said to despise gives his Vote also for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace Witness what he writes in his Reformed Catholick In the Covenant of Grace two things must be considered Reformed Catholâ— point 4. of Justif the manner differ 2. Reason 1. The Substance thereof and the Condition The substance of the Covenant is That Righteousness and Life Everlasting is given to God's Church and People by Christ The Condition is That we for our parts are by Faith to receive the foresaid benefits And this Condition is by Grace as well as the substance And in his little Latine Tract of Predestination and the Grace of God which Dr. Twiss defended against Arminius Perkins de Praedest gratiâ edit Cant. An. 1598. pag. 130. in his Book called Vindiciae Gratiae he says Gratia secunda est vel imputata vel inhaerens Imputata est in Justificatione cujus pars remissio peccatorum c. The second Grace is either imputed or inherent Imputed Grace is in Justification whereof a part is Remission of sins and this Justification and Remission with respect to sins past remains firm and will so remain for ever That saying of the Schoolmen is most true Sins once remitted never return But when any true Believer hath fallen into some grievous hainous sin the pardon of that defection or backsliding is indeed purposed and decreed by God yet it hath no actual existence at all on God's part nor is it received at all on mans part till he repent Yea if he should never repent which yet is impossible for that one sin he would be damned as guilty of Eternal Death For there is no new pardon of any new sin without a new Act of Faith and Repentance This passage of Mr. Perkins implies to the full all that we have said concerning the necessity of Repentance as the dispositive condition of obtaining the pardon of our sins and concerning the necessity of sincere Obedience continued from a Principle of Faith and Love or after any notable backsliding renewed by new Acts of Faith and Repentance as the Condition of getting possession of the Heavenly inheritance Of the same Judgment was Pareus for thus he writes in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Fidem inserit ut doceat fidem esse conditionem sub quâ Christus nobis datus est propitiatorium Pareus in Rom. 3.25 The Apostle inserts Faith in the 25th verse to teach us that Faith is the Condition under which Christ is given us for a propitiation And again in the writing against the five Arminian Articles which he sent to the Synod of Dort not being able to go himself by reason of Age and which was read in highly approved by Act. Synod Dord part 1. p. 264. and recorded in the Acts of the Synod he says that Conditio certaminis precum vigilantiae omnino est necessaria ad perseverantiam The Condition of fighting and praying and watching is altogether necessary unto perseverance But then he adds in opposition to the Arminians That the said Condition is wrought in the faithful by the Spiâ—it of God which he proves from Deut. 30.6 Jer. 32.40 Ezek. 36.27 1 Pet. 1.5 c. And to what the Arminians said that the Condition is commanded and not promised he answers Promissiones de ipsa conditione fidei precum perseverantiae in fidelibus per spiritum Dei efficiendâ disertè loquuntur c. The promises plainly speak of the Condition of Faith Prayer Perseverance as that which is to be effected in Believers by the Spirit of God Nor doth it follow that the effecting of the Condition is not promised because it is commanded and required of the faithful For it is also commanded that they fear God and walk in his Commandments and yet God promiseth I will put my fear in their hearts c. I will cause them towalk in my Statutes c. But it is commanded not that they can of themselves but that they ought to perform it that so being sensible of their own weakness they may know what they ought to ask of God neither yet do these promises wholly exclude the great or small lapses and sins of the
125. and Justified do sometimes through their own default fall into hainous sins and thereby they do incur the Fatherly Anger of God they draw upon themselves a damnable Guiltiness and lose their present â—tness to the Kingdome of Heaven Thon they prove their Position It is manifest say they by the Examples of David and Peter that the Regenerate can throw themselves headlong into most grievous sins God sometimes permitting it that they may learn with all humility to acknowledge that not by their own strength or deserts but by Gods Mercy alone they were freed from Eternal Death and had Life Eternal bestowed upon them Whilst they cleave to such sins and sleep securely therein God's Fatherly Anger ariseth against them Psal 89.31 Rom. 2.9 Besides they draw upon themselves damnable Guilt so that as long as they continue without Repentance in that state they neither ought nor can perswade themselves otherwise than that they are subject to Eternal Death Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die For they are bound in the Chain of a Capital Crime by the desert whereof according to God's Ordinance they are subject to Death although they are not as yet given over to Death nor about to be given over if we consider the Fatherly Love of God but are first to be rescued from this sin that they may also be rescued from the guilt of Death Lastly in respect of their present Condition they lose the fitness which they had of entâ—ing into the Kingdome of Heaven because into that Kingdome there shall in no wise enter any thing that is defiled Rev. 21.27 or that worketh Abomination For the Crown of Life is not set upon the Head of any but those who have fought a good fight and have finished their course in Faith and Holiness 2 Tim. 4.8 He is therefore unfit to obtain this Crown whosoever as yet cleaves to the Works of wickedness The Fourth Position is The unalterable Ordinance of God doth require that the Faithful so straying out of the right way must first return again into the way by a renewed performance of Faith and Repentance before he can be brought to the end of the way that is to the Kingdome of Heaven By the Decree of Election the Faithful are so predestinated to the End that they are as along the Kings High-way to be led to this appointed End no other ways than by the Means ordained by God Nor are these Decrees of God concerning the Means Manner and Order of such Events less fixed and sure than the Decrees of the End and of the Events themselves If any Man therefore walk in a way contrary to God's Ordinance namely that broad way of Vncleanness and Impenitence which leads directly down to Hell he can never come by this Means to the Kingdome of Heaven yea and if Death should overtake him wandring in this By-path he cannot but fall into Everlasting Death This is the constant and manifest Voice of the Holy Scripture Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.3 Be not deceived neither fornicatours nor idolaters c. shall inherit the kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 They are deceived therefore who think that the Elect wallowing in such Crimes and so dying must notwithstanding needs be saved through the force of Election For the Salvation of the Elect is sure indeed God so decreeing But withal by the Decree of the same our God it is not otherwise sure than by the way of Faith Repentance and Holiness Heb. 12.14 Without holiness no man shall see God The foundation of God standeth sure And Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 Again their Fifth Position is that In the mean time between the Guilt of a grievous sin and the Renewed Act of Faith and Repentance such an Offender stands by his own desert to be condemned by Christ's Merit Ibid. Art V. pag. 126 127. and God's Decree to be acquitted but actually absolved he is not until he hath obtained pardon by Renewed Faith and Repentance And for Proof of this Position they say in Page 128. The Father of Mercies hath set down this Order That the Act of Repentance must go before the Benefit of Forgiveness Psal 32.5 Ezek. 18.27 Thus those Excellent Divines and Judicious Faithful Ministers of Christ By all which it is clear as the Sun That the Synod of Dort taught the conditionality of the Covenant and held Faith Repentance sincere Obedience and Perseverance to the End to be the indispensably necessary Conditions of obtaining Eternal Salvation and therefore if there happen to be a partial Intermission of sincere Evangelical Obedience for a time by Christians falling into hainous wilful sins there must be a renewing of Faith and Repentance and a returning to their Obedience again before they can obtain the pardon of those Sins and the Eternal Salvation of their Souls which is all that we hold in this matter And it is alserted explained and solidly proved by the most Learned and Judicious Dâ—â—â—â—â—ant who was a Member of the Synod of Dâ—â— in another Book of his in these Words Bond Opera sunt necessaria ad Justificationis statum relinendum Praelect de Justitiâ Habit. Act. cap. 31. p. 404 405. conservandum non ut causae c. that is Good Workes are necessary to retain and preserve the state of Justification not as causes which of themselves effect produce or merit this Preservation but as Means or Conditions without which God will not preserve the Grace of Justification in Men. And here may be reckoned up the same Works which we mentioned in the foregoing Conclusion For as no Man receives that general Justification which froes from the Guilt of all former sins unless Repentance Faith a Purpose to lead a New Life and other Actions of that nature concurre So no Man retains a state free from Guilt with respect to following sins but by means of the same Actions of believing in God calling upon God mortifying the flesh continually repenting and grieving for the sins that are continually committed The Reason why all these things are necessarily required on our part is this because these things cannot be always absent but their contraries will begin to be present which are repugnant to the Nature of a justified Man For if you take away Faith in God and Prayer there succeeds unbelief and contempt of God's Name If you take away the endeavour of Mortification and the exercise of Repentance there breaks in upon the Man predominant Lusts and Sins wasting the Conscience Therefore because it is not God's will that Men who are Vnbelievers obstinate carnal should enjoy the benefit of Justification he requires continual Works of Faith Repentance and Mortification by whose presence are thrust as it were out of Doors and driven far away Vnbelief Obstinacy Security and other Poysons of Justifying Grace and also of particular sins there is a particular pardon
Fruit of the Spirit of Bondage which prepares for the hearing of the Gospel and for the receiving of the Spirit of Adoption by the Gospel then in the Preaching the Gospel the tender Mercies of God displayed unto us and how ready be is to Pardon Sin in general and that of Free Grace may better our Repentance and when we are thus by Degrees brought to the Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father then our Repentance shall be most perfect as before I said And when we look upon him whom we have pierced and can in Assurance of Faith say with the Apostle I live by Faith in him who loved me and gave himself for me this is of Power to prick a Master vein and make us bleed out Repentance in the sight of our Gracious God whom we have offended and who yet in despite of our Sins hath loved us more Devoutly and Affectionately than ever before Yet is it true as he the Arminian saith That Repentance is nothing worth without Faith what thinks he of Ahabs Repentance when he put on Sackcloath and wallowed in Ashes upon the Word of Judgment against his House brought unto him by the Prophet Eliah Do we not know what the Lord said hereupon unto Eliah Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me because he submitteth himself before me I will not bring that evil in his days The uttermost of the Ninivites Faith was but this that we read of who can tell if God will turn and Repent and turn from his fierce Wrath that we perish not Yet their Repentance was such that when God saw their works that they turned from their Evil Ways he repented of the Evil which he said that he would do unto them and he did it not Jon. 3.9 Thus Dr. Twiss whereby it is evident that he was far from thinking that all which a man can do before he have the Spirit of God dwelling in him and that he may get a Holy Heart and a saving Faith and so be fitted to lead a Holy Life is nothing but vain labour and an Acting of Sin Object 2. Secondly Our Author Objects the seventh Article of the 16. Chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith And our Answer is That that Article of the Confession of Faith is the same in effect with the 13th Article of the Church of England and therefore is to be taken in the same Sence to wit That the Works of unregenerate men done before and without any Grace of Christs Spirit though they may be materially good yet they are formally so sinful that they do not make a Man meet to receive any Grace from God either the Grace of Regeneration or Justification and as for the Works of unregenerate Men which are done by the help of supernatural preventing common Grace though they be better than the former which are done by the alone Strength of Nature yet they are sinful too they are so defiled with Sin as they proceed from an unregenerate Man that they cannot please God so far as to make a Man meet to receive the Grace of Justification from God nor do they make a Man meet to receive the Grace of Regeneration from God by way of Reward due to them as Congruously Meritorious thereof Yet in another sound sence they may make a Man meet to receive the Grace of Regeneration and Conversion from God to wit as they are wrought in Men by the Spirit and according to the Word and are ordained by God to be means of removing such things as hinder Conversion and of the helping men forward in the way unto and of fitting and preparing them for Conversion as a Gracious Gift which ordinarily God freely gives to those who are so prepared by the Word and Spirit of Christ In this sound sence though not in the Popish or Semipelagian sense the foresaid works do indeed make men meet to receive Grace from God and the Article of the Confession of Faith saith nothing to the contrary Yea it is plainly against that absired opinion that all that an Unregenerate man can do by any means in order to the getting of his heart savingly changed and initially sanctified by the special effectual Grace of the Regenerating Spirit of Christ is vain labour and an acting of Sin we say that the foresaid Article of the Confession of Faith is plainly against that absurd opinion for it says expresly That works of Unregerate men are things which God Commands and are of good use both to themselves and others and one of the best uses they can possibly be of unto themselves is to dispose and prepare them for Regeneration and Conversion and to make them if not meet yet at least less unmeet to receive special saving Grace from God through Jesus Christ And thus according to the Confession of Faith and our principle agreeable thereunto we can give encouragement to unregenerate men to attend upon God in the diligent use of means for obtaining the free and effectual Grace of the Regenerating Spirit and so Conversion thereby but our Author seems to tell Unregenerate men that all they can do before they be Regenerated and have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them which is got only by Faith in Christ and therefore is in order of nature after Faith in Christ altho they do it with a desire that they may be Regenerated and may obtain a precious holy Faith in Christ and thereby the Holy Spirit of Christ it is all vain labour and an acting of sin Now is not this great encouragement for men to wait upon God in the use of his appointed means for the obtaining of converting Grace and a new holy heart to tell them that all they can do in order to that end is vain labour and acting of sin We hope such men will not believe our Author but if they do there is nothing can be expected from them but that â—hev should cast off all use of means and give over all reading hearing and praying for why should they trouble themselves with such Religious Exercises since all is an acting of sin and lost labour too Yet if our Author should intend to set up for a Quietist the foresaid Doctrine may be of good use to bring in Disciples to him for he can tell them holdly as his manner is that if they will become Quietists he will shew them an infallible way wherein they shall neither act sin nor yet lose their labour for if they will become right Quietists they shall neither act nor labour but wholly rest from action and labour and shall not act sin nor lose their labour because they shall not act nor labour at all but wholly rest from action and labour and whilest they are in a state of perfect rest without any kind of action or labour at all Then the Spirit of God shall fall upon them and Regenerate and Convert them 3d. Objection Thirdly He Objects the Testimony of Calvin who in his Institutions writes thus
not so with us at this day But when we look abroad into the World and into the present state of the Reformed Churches at home and abroad and see or hear what lives Men generally lead how they fight against God and against one another against God by transgressing all his holy just and good Laws and by turning his Grace into Lasciviousness And against one another by injustice and uncharitableness by malice and envy by lying and slandering c. We cannot but fear that God is against us and will fight against us as we are against him Levit. 26.23 24. and fight against him And it greatly encreases our fear to see that those who pretend to greatest seriousness in Religion have lately fallen out and have been quarrelling together about such a practical point of Religion as that is Whether true Repentance is necessary before we can obtain from God the pardon of our sins through the alone satisfaction and Merits of Christ When God is loudly calling us to Repentance for obtaining the pardon of our sins and we should all be found in the practice of Repentance in order to that end we are like Mad-men fallen to disputing Whether our Repentance be necessary before we are pardoned when we are pardoned or after we are pardoned And there are those amongst us who have raised a great clamour against such honest and faithful Ministers of Christ as dare tell and dare not but tell the People that they must truly repent of their sins before they can obtain the pardon of them although at the same time they assure the people from the Lord that God for Christs sake will most certainly pardon them immediately after they have repented This is cried out against as dangerous Doctrine by a sort of Religious People amongst us who will have it that Repentance is only necessary after God hath pardoned us but not before And though to please these People some Ministers have openly granted That Repentance and pardon of Sin are simultaneous in time that is they are not one before another for any space of time but are both together only Repentance is first in order of Nature by the grace thereof to dispose and prepare us for receiving our Pardon by Faith in Christs Blood Yet this will not give them content but they will have their Pardon before Repentance and the Ministers who preach or write otherwise shall be proclaimed to be Antichristian Arminian or any thing that Passion suggests This we say greatly encreaseth our fears for to us it seems evident that the hand of Joab is in this matter that is plainly that Satan has a wicked design by this means to keep the People from Repentance and so from obtaining the pardon of their sins that the desolating Judgments of God may come upon the Nation and that we may be all destroyed together And that Satan may not be discovered he hath artificially disguised himself and appears on the Stage transformed into an Angel of Light pleading for the exaltation of the glorious riches of free grace in the Justification of Sinners by the Blood of Christ without all works of any Law whatsoever and with great appearance of Zeal asserting That the freeness of Gods Grace in the Justification of Sinners by Faith in the Blood Merits and satisfaction of Christ cannot possibly be maintained unless it be denyed that true Repentance is antecedently necessary to our obtaining the pardon of our Sins It seems to us that this is Satans Plot against us and that he hath thus disguised himself the better to carry it on and the more effectually to compass his design upon us And this is the more probable because we find that at the beginning of the Reformation Satan plaid the same game when he perceived that by our first Reformers preaching up Justification by Faith only and not by Works many People were induced to separate from the Church of Rome and embrace the Reformation he endeavoured to make them believe that since Sinners are Justified and Pardoned by Faith only and not by Works then there was no necessity that they should repent of their Sins in order to their obtaining the Pardon of them And thus he thought that though they had got their feet loosed out of one of his Snares yet he should still keep them fast in another and lead them Captive at his will That this is so indeed and no Fiction of ours is manifest from the Testimony of Bishop Hooper that blessed faithful and valiant Martyr of Christ who in the Reign of Queen Mary was burnt alive for the Protestant Religion in a slow Fire about the space of three quarters of an hour and sealed the Truth of the Gospel with his blood This Man of God in a Book of his Intituled A Declaration of Christ and his Office Printed at Zurich in the Year 1547. Chap. VII th handling the point of Justification saith This is certain and too true Let the whole Gospel be preached unto the World as it ought to be Repentance and a vertuous Life with Faith as God preached the Gospel unto Adam in Paradise Noah Abraham Moses Isaiah saying Vae Genti Peccatrici c. Isa 1.4 c John the Baptist repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand As Christ did Repent and believe the Gospel Mark 1. and then of an hundred that come to the Gospel there would not come one When they hear sole or only faith and the mercy of God to justify and that they may eat all ments at all times with thanksgiving they embrace that Gospel with all joy and willing heart And what is he that would not receive this Gospel the flesh it self were there no immortal soul in it would receive this Gospel because it promiseth aid help and consolation without Works But now speak of the other part of the Gospel as Paul teacheth Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye And as he prescribeth the life of a Justified man in the same Epistle Chap. 12 13 14 15 16. And Christ Mat. 10. And Peter in the 2 Epistle and 1 Chap. This part of the Gospel is not so pleasant therefore Men take the first liberty c. Thus that blessed Saint who feared neither Man nor Devil but in the true faith and fear of God set himself with a Divine courage and holy boldness to oppose the Devil and all his Instruments to destroy his Kingdome in the World and on the contrary to exalt the Name and Glory of God and to set up Christs Spiritual Kingdom in the hearts and lives of Men. Would to God! that we had many Hoopers amongst us at this day who saith again in the same Chapter not far from the beginning Nothing maketh the cause wherefore this mercy to wit of Justification should be given saving only the death of Christ which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only sufficient Price and Gage for sin And although it be necessary and
but a Protestant Bishop and a zealous Protestant who held Rome to be Mystical Babylon and the Pope to be Antichrist as appears from what he wrote in Tortura Torti pag. 183 184 185 186 187. Now this zealous Protestant in his 17th Sermon of the Nativity on Psal 2.7 writes thus We had well hoped Christ would have preached no Law all Gospel he Bp. Andrews Volume of Sermons pag. 161. That he would have preached down the old Law but not have preached up any new We see it is otherwise A Law he hath to preach and preach it he will He saith himself Praedicabo Legem So if we will be his Auditors he tells us plainly we must receive a Law from his mouth If we love not to hear of a Law we must go to some other Church For in Christs Church there a Law is preached Christ began we must follow and say every one of us as he saith Praedicabo Legem Christ will preach a Law and they that are not for the Law are not for Christ It was their quarrel above at the 3d. verse they would none of Christ for this very cause that Christ comes preaching a Law and they would live lawless They would endure no Yoke that were the Sons of Belial Belial that is No Yoke But what agreement hath Christ with Belial 2 Cor. 6.15 The very Gospel hath her Law A Law Evangelical there is which Christ preached And as he did we to do the like look but into the grand Commission by which we all preach which Christ gave at his going out of the World Goe saith he Mar. 28.19 preach the Gospel to all Nations teaching them what to observe the things that I have commanded you Lo here is commanding and here is observing Page 162. So the Gospel consists not only of certain Articles to be believed but of certain Commandments and they to be observed Now I know not how but we are fallen clean from the term Law nay we are even fallen out with it Nothing but Gospel now The name of Law we look strangely at we shun it in our common talk To this it is come while men seek to live as they list Preach them Gospel as much as ye will but hear ye no Law to be preached to hold or keep them in And we have Gospelled it so long that the Christian Law is clean gone with us I speak it to this end to have the one term retained as well as the other to have neither term abolished but with equal regard both kept on foot They are not so well advised that seek to suppress either name If the name once be lost the thing it self will not long stay but go after it and be lost too The Christian Religion in the very best times of it was called Christiana Lex the Christian Law And all the Antient Fathers liked the term well and took it upon them To conclude Gospel it how you will if the Gospel have not the Legalia of it acknowledged allowed and preserved to it if once it lose the force and vigour of a Law it is a sign it declines it grows weak and unprofitable and that is a sign it will not long last And Page 165. he saith 1. There is the benefit of this Law what he doth for us 2. And then what we are to do for him our duty out of this Law The benefit is the Gospel of this Law the duty is the Law of this Gospel And Page 166 They speak of Laws of Grace this is indeed a Law of Grace nay it is the Law of Grace not only as it is opposite to the Law of Nature but even because it offereth Grace the greatest Grace that ever was This was Printed and Published in the Year 1624. and that vvas before most of us vvere born And yet even then the Gospel vvas expresly called the Nevv Lavv of Grace by Bishop Andrews and therefore it is no nevv Word vvhich we have lately invented And not onely Bishop Andrews vvho vvas every vvhit as expert as our Authour can be in making a jingling noise vvith Words vvhich vvas more in fashion then than it is novv but the famous Dr. Twiss vvho vvas used to a Scholastick close way of reasoning both says and proves that the Gospel is a Lavv. Therefore he shall be our last Witness in this Cause Novv in his Ansvver to an Arminian Book called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to practice he plainly asserts as we do that God deals with Men not meerly as an absolute Soveraign arbitrary Lord but as a Ruler and Governour according to a known Law in giving unto them or with-holding from them the subsequent blessings and benefits of the new Covenant His Words are these Now like as the act of God's decree Pag. 40.41 42. is of the meer pleasure of God no temporal thing being fit to be the cause of the eternal decree of God in like sort the giving of Faith and Repentance proceeds meerly of the good pleasure of God According to that God hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 9.18 And to obtain mercy at the hand of God is to obtain faith Rom. 11.30 But as for Glory and Salvation we do not say that God in conferring it proceeds according to the meer pleasure of his will but according to a Law which is this whosoever believeth shall be saved which Law we willingly profess he made according to the meer pleasure of his will but having made such a Law he proceeds according to it No such Law hath he made according whereunto to proceed in the dispensation of the grace of Faith and Repentance In like manner the Dr. there distinguishes between the denyal of Special Grace of Faith and Repentance and the denyal of Glory As for the first the denyal of Special Grace to some when God gives it to others the Doctor says that God proceeds therein according to the meer pleasure of his Will but as to the second his own Words are these As touching the denyal of Glory and inflicting damnation God doth not proceed according to the meer pleasure of his will but according to a Law which is this Whosoever believeth not shall be damned And albeit God made that Law according to the meer pleasure of his will yet no wise man will say that he denies glory and inflicts damnation on men according to the meer pleasure of his will The case being clear that God denies the one and inflicts the other meerly for their sins who are thus dealt withal And in the next Page Like as God inflicts not damnation but by way of punishment so he doth not bestow Salvation on any of ripe Years but by way of reward Yet here also is a difference for damnation is inflicted by way of punishment for the evil works sake which are committed but Salvation is not conferred by way of Reward for the good works sake which are performed but meerly for Christs sake Thus
apprehensive nature and its apprehending Christs Righteousness the Will of God still presupposed doth make this Righteousness ours even as a Gift becomes ours by our receiving of it These Worthy Divines we see were of our Opinion That it is not the nature of Faith it self nor its relation unto Christ which is essential to it that doth formally make it to be the Instrumental Means or Condition of our Justification but it is the Will of God ordaining it to that Office It is true they held and we with them hold that there is a congruity and fitness in Faith to be the receptive and applicative Condition of the Promise and of Christ and his Righteousness therein because it is of a receptive applicative nature yet that doth not formally make it the Condition For notwithstanding its fitness to be the Condition yet it would never have actually and formally been the Condition of Justification nor would it ever have availed us to Justification if God by an Act of his Free-will had not made it the Condition of Justification Is not Justification a great Blessing and Benefit which is in the power and at the disposal of God and Christ and may not God do what he will with his own may not he give his Blessing and Benefit upon what Terms and Conditions he and his Son shall think fit to agree upon This surely is so evident that no reasonable Man can have reason to deny it And then the consequence is as evident that it is not any thing intrinsecal to Faith and so not its relation to Christ which is intrinsecal to it that can nextly and formally make it the Instrumental Means or Condition of Justification but it is and must be the Will of God and his Son Christ Jesus agreeing that Faith shall be and ordaining Faith to be the Instrumental Means Terms and Condition of our Justification For these Reasons we dissent and all Men that love the Truth should dissent from our Authour if by saying that an accepting Faith is the native Condition of the Offer of Christ and of all his fulness he mean That Faith of its own nature necessarily is the condition of the promise and could not possibly 〈◊〉 otherwise so that 〈◊〉 being the condition doth necessarily and wholly arise from its own intrinsecal nature and not at all from the Will of God and Christ constituting and ordaining it do that Office of being the Condition of the promise We dare not uscribe so much Vertue and Efficacy to the intrinsecal Nature of Faith in the matter of our Justification But if by saying That an accepting Faith is the Native condition of the offer of Christ and his fulness our Authour means no more but this That Faith being of a receptive Nature it hath a natural aptitude and fitness to be made the condition of the promise of Justification and that that was a reason why it pleased God and Christ to make and constitute Faith to be the receptive condition of Justification we shall not oppose but join with him in this sense of his words But though we grant him for the reason aforesaid that Faith is the one native receptive condition of Justification yet we can never grant that Faith taken in his sense for the one single Grace or it may be for one single Act of the one single Grace of Faith is the only condition of Justification and much less that it is the only condition of Glorification For as Faith is the one yea and only receptive condition so true Repentance it the dispositive condition of Justification or of the Person to be justified in order to his Justification And moreover Repontance is as native a condition in its kind as Faith in its kind it is us native a dispositive condition as Faith is a native receptive condition For sincere Repentance being a Godly sorrow for having displeased and dishonoured God and a firm resolution through Grace to do so no more it doth from the very nature of the thing dispose and prepare the Soul for pardon and then God hath likewise for that reason Willed Ordained and Constituted Repentance to be the dispositive Condition of pardon of Sin and Justification As we proved before by plain testimonies of God's Holy Word And though Faith and Repentance be equally necessary from the Will Ordination and Constitution of God and Christ yet of the two Repentance seems to be the most necessary with that kind of necessity which ariseth precisely from the nature of the thing For it seems to be absolutely impossible because repugnant to the perfection of God's Holy Nature to Justifie Pardon and Love with a Love of Complacency a Rebellious Sinner whilst he is impenitent and continues his full Resolution to go on in his Rebellion and Enmity against Heaven The sense of this Truth seems to have been much upon the very Reverend and Learned Mr. Clarkson's Spirit and therefore it made him say in his Discourse of free Grace page 129 130 131. If the terms or conditions be such as it is not possible in the nature of the thing that the mercy offered should be effected without them then the offers of saving mercies are as free and gracious as can be as there is any possibility they should be and no more can be desired Then he takes Repentance for his instance we do not say that he altogether excludes the other terms but that Repentance is that which he Jingles out to instance in and which he much insists upon as taken in its Latitude And thus he goes on Let me clear this in one of those terms which is comprehensive of all the rest It is required of those who will partake of Saving Mercies that they leave sin forsake their evil ways Prov. 28.13 Isa 55.7 2 Tim. 2.19 This is the summ of all Conditions and whatever is required in other terms is included in this or may be resolved into it Now it is not possible that saving Mercies should otherwise be had that they should be received or enjoyed but upon these terms not only because the Lord would have it so but because the Nature of the thing doth so require it that it is not otherwise feasible for sin is our impotency Now can we possibly have strength in the inner man if we will not part with our weakness Sin is our deformity that which renders our Souls loathsome and ugly in the eye of God Now can our Souls be made lovely if we will not part with that which is our defilement and ugliness Can we be made clean if we will not part with our leprosie Sin is our enmity against God therein it consists now can we possibly be reconciled if we will not lay aside our enmity Sin is the wound the mortal Disease of the Soul and can you be healed if you will not part with your Disease Sin is your Misery and can you be happy if not part with your misery Happyness consists in the enjoyment of God
but adhering to sin and the enjoyment of a Holy God are utterly inconsistent And can you be happy without happyness or by retaining that which is inconsistent with it So that you see there is an utter impossibility that Salvation should be had but upon these terms There is an inconsistency a plain contradiction in any other supposition It is an impossibility not only to us but to the Almighty and therefore the terms are as free and gracious as possibly could be Ommpotent Grace it self could not make them more gracious thus Mr. Clarkson Now let any Body of common understanding and honesty read and consider this passage and they will plainly see that he speaks here of Repentance and of Repentance not only as it denotes a Holy fruitful Life and is the condition of consummate Salvation and Glorification but also as it denotes the Souls first turning from sin and returning to God and is the disposing preparing Condition of our first obtaining the Pardon of our Sins and Justification and Reconciliation of our Persons And in both respects he holds Repentance to be a Condition indispensably necessary not only from the free Constitution and Ordination of God but also from the very nature of the thing so that God himself cannot dispense with it Now if this Doctrine of Mr. Clarkson's be true and good then let the World judge whether that Doctrine be not false and pernicious which our Authour delivers in the 30 page of his Letter That a real Change and Repentance is not antecedently necessary to Justification and Pardon of sin This indeed we affirm to be necessary and he finds fault with us for it and makes it to be a part of our New Scheme of Divinity into which he foists sincere Obedience as if that also were a part of our new Scheme That sincere Obedience is antecedently necessary to Justification But this is his calumny that we hold sincere Obedience distinct from Faith and Repentance to be antecedently necessary to Justification all that know us and our Doctrine know this to be false and the contrary to be true that in our Judgment sincere Obedience is not necessary before but after our Justification and before our Glorisication As for a real Change and Repentance we do indeed believe and preach that they are necessary indispensably necessary in order of Nature at least before our Justification and pardon of sin for a real change is wrought in us by effectual calling and that is certainly before Justification Rom. 8.30 And Repentance is the dispositive condition of Justification and the means to be used by us for obtaining the pardon of our sins which is an essential part of Justification But so it is that the condition is in order of Nature before the thing conditionate or the thing promised upon condition as also the means is in execution before the end therefore Repentance which is the Condition and Means is in order of Nature before Justification which is the thing conditionate and the end This we proved before both by Scripture and Reason and so doth Mr. Clarkson prove it in the passage we have now quoted by two pertinent Scriptures Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy and Isa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and unto our God for he will abundantly pardon Surely one would guess by this that Mr. Clarkson in his time was one of the Masters in our Israel with whom our Authour finds fault page 15 of his Letter for saying to a Man who asks them What he must do to be saved that he must repent and mourn for his known sins and leave and loath them and God will have mercy on him And most certainly if ever there were any such Masters in our Israel Mr. Clarkson was one of them for according to his Principles he must in that case have given a Man that answer for he strongly asserts that God Almighty cannot have Mercy upon and pardon a wicked Man unless he repent mourn for his known sins leave and loath them But it would seem our Authour is such a Crafts-Master that he can teach a wicked Man how to obtain the Mercy of God in the pardon of his sins before and without repenting of mourning for leaving and loathing of them for he blames us for telling a wicked Man who comes to us for advice what he must do to be saved that he must repent mourn for and turn from his sins and God will have mercy on him and pardon him now if this be bad Advice then it plainly follows that if the same wicked Man go to our Authour and if he can give him better advice he must shew him a way to obtain God's mercy in pardoning his sins and saving his Soul before and without his repenting of mourning for and turning from his sins But how can our Authour effect this how can he teach a wicked Man to be saved from Sin and Wrath without Repentance Why he pretends this is easily done by giving the Man that same advice which Paul and Silas in Acts 16.30 31. gave unto the Goaler when he asked them what he should do to be saved And they said to him Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house This he says is an old Answer so old that with many it seems to be out of date page 14 and it is the right Answer For says he page 15 Why should not the right Answer be given believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved By this it is evident that he sets these two Answers in opposition the one to the other as inconsistent and makes Repent and God will have mercy on you to be the wrong Answer And Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved to be the right Answer And now is not he a wise Master in our Israel who talks thus If he had only talkt thus to his silly Proselytes in a private corner though we had been credibly informed of it we should not have easily believed it or if the evidence had been such as we could not choose but believe it yet we should not have wondred so much at the matter but that he should appear in print with such stuff that he should appear on the Theatre of the World in the face of the Sun and tell a knowing wise People that a wicked man who asks Ministers what he must do to be saved must not be taught to repent of his sins but to believe in Christ that he may be saved as if these two things were inconsistent the one being right and the other wrong It cannot but move us to admiration of his strange confidence to an indignation at his gross ignorance or vile hypocrisie and to a tender compassion towards those poor
Souls whose lot it is to be led into the Ditch by such blind guides But good Sir how doth it appear that our answer is wrong and yours only is right Why may not both be right and why must not both be right and both concur to make up one entire answer and full advice to a wicked man who under Conviction comes and asks Ministers what he must do to be saved If you had behaved your self in this matter like a fair adversary or an honest Man you had given in our answer fully without curtailing it for you know in your conscience that in such a case our full Answer and Advice to a Man is that he must do both he must both believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of mourn for and turn from his Sins The Conscience of Truth extorted this Confession from you in your appendix page 41. as we observed before That your hottest opposers would freely tell such a man that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin Why did not you then if you be an honest man give in our full answer and refute it if you thought it was wrong If you say that Paul did not give such a full answer and advice to the Goaler Acts 16.30 31. but bid him believe only in the Lord Jesus Christ and thereupon promised him Salvation without advising him to repent and turn from his sins We answer It is true Paul bid the Goaler believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but it is utterly false that he bid him only believe there is no such exclusive particle in the Text and though the Sacred Historian Luke mention not expresly that Paul bid the Goaler repent yet it doth by no means follow that because Luke doth not say expresly that Paul bid the Goaler repent therefore he did not bid him for it was never Lukes intention to set down in his History every Word or Sentence which Paul at any time spoke to the People Nay in the very next verse Acts 16.32 Luke says that Paul and Silas spake unto the Goaler the Word of the Lord and to all that were in his house but he doth not tell us particularly what that Word was Nor doth our Authour know nor can he with a good Conscience say that it was not an Advice and Exhortation to repent to mourn for his known sins and to leave and loath them assuring him that thereupon God would have mercy on him and pardon his sins and save his Soul for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake If our Authour say that as he cannot be sure of the negative that he did not so we cannot be sure of the affirmative that he did preach the necessity of Repentance to the Goaler We answer that we can prove and do thus prove the affirmative 1. Because it was a part of the Apostles Commission to preach Repentance unto all People as well as Faith in Christ for which see Mark 16.15 16. compared with Luke 24.47 48. But Paul was an Apostle therefore he acted according to the Apostolical Commission 2. Because Paul baptized or caused the Goaler to be baptized and it was necessary that Repentance should be preached to him and professed by him before such an one as he were admitted to Baptisme 3. Because Paul himself tells us as his words are recorded by the Sacred Historian Luke that it was his common Practice to preach Repentance as well as Faith unto all those whom he Converted or intended and endeavoured to convert unto the Christian Religion Thus did he at Lystra Acts 14.15 He exhorted the people to turn from their vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth c. Thus also at Athens Acts 17.30 31. He commanded them all from the Lord to repent and perswaded them so to do by a most powerful Motive and Argument taken from God's being Rector and Judge of the World and from his having appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ and will then justifie or condemn reward or punish every man according to their works and this he assured them of by an Argument taken from Christ's Resurrection from the dead Again in Acts 20.21 he tells us That Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus were the sum and substance of his Sermons these were the two subjects that he â—ordinarily preached upon both to Jews and Gentiles And lastly in Acts 26.20 22 23. we read that he declared openly to Ring Agrippa that from the first time he was miraculously called to be an Apostle his business had been to preach Repentance and Faith From all which we conclude that we have good reason to believe and assert the affirmative that Paul did not preach Faith only but that he preached Repentance also to the Goaler and withal we challenge and defie our Authour to prove the Negative that Paul preached not the necessity of Repentance but of Faith only in order to his Salvation But saith our Authour page 15. No wit or art of man will ever find a crack or flaw in or devise another or a better answer than Pauls to the Goaler believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved We Reply It is far from the thoughts of any of us or of any good Christian to find fault with or to go about to mend Paul's Answer to the Goalers question all that we say is that his whole answer is not set down expresly by the Historian Luke and we have proved it A truer Answer cannot indeed be given than it was but a fuller may be given and we have proved it was given by Paul though not particularly expressed by Luke This may satisfie any reasonable Man for we are sure it cannot be confuted Yet for the farther satisfaction of all Men if possible we will here transeribe and set down a passage of Mr. Venning a famous Congregational Minister once in this City It is in his Sermon called the way to true happyness preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen January 28. 1654 5 on Matth. 7.21 page 10 11 12. I ground it further saith he on this Rule which is an undeniable one and for not attending whereunto we have had so many needless groundless and unprofitable disputes in the World The Rule is this That the Scripture doth often yea very usually put particular Duties for all Religion and therefore annexeth Salvation to distinct Graces Sometimes it is he that believeth shall be saved Elsewhere he that calleth upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved Here it is He that doth the will of God Now all these and the like are complex and comprehensive propositions and contain more in them than they make shew of for God speaks much in a little Acts and Duties of Religion being as Moralists speak of their Vertues inter se connexae linked together in a Golden Chain Religion is not this or that piece but the whole which is usually expressed in a word or
be pardoned and saved for the sake of Christ who shed his most precious Blood for the remission of sins 3. The very same Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used in this same sense by Origen in his Third Book against Celsus Cambridge Edition pag. 154. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God grants the Grace of Repentance i. e. the Gracious Blessing and Priviledge which is obtained by Repentance to wit pardon of sin This is and must be the sense of Origen's Words there and they can have no other For Origen affirms there in opposition to the Calumny of Celsus as shall be shewed by and by that Men must first be truly penitent they must be inwardly changed and converted from Evil to Good before God be merciful to them so as to pardon their sins And when they are so wrought upon as to be really changed converted and become truly penitent then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God grants them the Grace of Repentance that is the pardon of their sins which is the gracious Benefit annexed to Repentance and promised to all upon Condition that they truly repent To put another sense on Origen's Words would be to make Non-sense of them and to make him say That if Men be first truly penitent God will afterwards give them Grace whereby they may be or are made truly penitent Origen was not such a filly Man as to write thus foolishly for the Christian Religion against a learned and malitious Heathen 4. Clement and Origen's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace of Repentance is the same thing with Tertullian's Fructus Paenitentiae Fruit of Repentance but Tertullian's Fruit of Repentance is pardon of sin for so he writes Lib. de Pudicitiâ Cap. 10. Ita cessatio delicti radiae est veniae ut venia sit paenitentiae fructus Ceasing from sin is so the root of pardon that pardon is the fruit of repentance 5. And Lastly the Words-which immediately follow in Clement shew this to be his meaning for he adds Let us take a diligent view of all Generations and learn that in every Generation the Lord hath given place of Repentance to such as were willing to turn unto him Noah preached Repentance and they that obeyed were saved Jonah preached Destruction to the Ninivites but they repenting them of their sins appeased God by their humble Supplications and were preserved These Words plainly shew that by saying that through the Blood of Christ shed for our Salvation God hath offered the Grace of Repentance to the whole World Clement meant that God hath admitted all Men to Repentance as the way and means to obtain Pardon and hath promised and according to his Promise doth give them Pardon for Christ's sake upon their Repentance But it may be some will Object that yet the same Clement in the same First Epistle to the Corinthians saith pag. 67. They the Holy Men before and under the Law were all Glorified and made Great not by themselves or by their own Works or by the just Actions which they did but by his Will So we Christians then being called in Christ Jesus by his Will are not justified by our selves nor by our own wisdome or knowledge or piety or by the works which we have done in holiness of heart but by Faith whereby the Almighty God hath Justified all Men from the beginning of the World to whom he Glory for ever and ever Amen We Answer that this makes nothing against us for we have believed we do and through Grace will always believe that God Justisies us by Faith and not by any Works distinct from Faith in the sense before explained that is that God of his own Gracious Will and Pleasure hath ordained Faith to be the only receptive applicative Condition Means or federal moral Instrument of Justification upon our performing of which Condition or using of which Means and Instrument God doth freely justifie us for the sake of Christ's satissactory meritorious Righteousness onely We do indeed with Clement and with the Holy Prophets and Apostles believe that sincere Repentance is pre-required as a dispositive Condition to our obtaining of Justification yet we do not say any more than they did that we are Justified by Repentance but together with them we say that we are Justified by Faith only because God hath appointed Faith onely to that Office of being the receptive Condition and inward applicative Means of Justifiaation through Christ's Blood Clemeut's saying that God Justifies us by Faith and not by Works must undoubtedly be understood in this sense as appears by what we have quoted and shall now further quote out of him Pag. 102. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us speedily remove this evil from among us and let us fall down before the Lord humbly beseeching him with Tears that being become favourable he would be reconciled unto us By this Passage we see that Clement held as we do that repenting of mourning for and turning from our known sins and humble earnest Prayer to God through Christ is a means indispensably necessary to be used by us before we can have ground to hope that God will have mercy on us in pardoning our sins And as he held Faith and Repentance together to be indispensably necessary to the obtaining of Justification and pardon of sin so he held sincere Obedience in a course of holy living to be indispensably necessary to the obtaining of Glorification and Eternal Salvation For thus he writes pag. 61 62. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Since therefore all things are both seen and heard by him let us fear him and forsake all foul desires of evil Actions that so we may be protected by his Mercy from those Judgments which are to come For whither can any one of us flee from his powerful Hand And what World will entertain any of them who fall off from him or turn Renegado's Let us come unto him therefore in the holiness of our Souls lifting up unto him pure and undefiled hands loving this our gentle and merciful Father who hath made us unto himself the portion of his election And pag. 73. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be sound in the number of them that wait on him that so we may be made Partakers of those Gifts which are promised But Beloved how shall this be done If our Thoughts be stedfastly fixed upon God by Faith if we enquire after those things which are well-pleasing and acceptable unto him if we do those things which are agreeable to his pure and irreproveable will and follow the way of Truth Casting away from us all injustice and iniquity covetousness contentions malignities and deceits whisperings and backbitings hatred of God pride and boasting vain-glory and ambition for they that do these things are abominable unto God and not onely the Doers thereof but they also which consent thereunto For the Scripture saith c. As in Psalm 50. which Clement quotes from v. 16.
to the end And then he proceeds saying This is the way Beloved wherein we find Jesus Christ our saving health the High Priest of our Offerings the Guardian and Helper of our weakness Lastly In Page 102 105 106. He that hath Love in Christ let him keep the Commandments of Christ c. Blessed are we Beloved if we have done the Commandments of God in the Concord of Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that through Love our Sins may be forgiven us For it is written Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin neither is there guile in his mouth This Blessedness hath been unto those who were chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen Thus Clement who was Paul's Fellow-Labourer Phil. 4.3 and who may well be presumed to know his Mind as to these Matters and we see evidently by his Words that he held as we do that Faith and Repentance are both antecedently necessary to Justification and pardon of sin and further that sincere Obedience to Christ's Commandments in a course of holy living is indispensably necessary to the obtaining of Eternal Life and Glory in the Everlasting Kingdome of our most Glorious God and Saviour But some may possibly say what did Clement mean by writing as he doth that our sins are forgiven us through Love Is that an Orthodox Expression We Answer What did our Saviour mean by saying Mat. 6.14 15. If ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses And again what did our Saviour mean by saying Mark 11.25 When ye stand praying forgive if ye have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses Were these Orthodox Expressions If they were Orthodox as doubtless they were and it were Blasphemy to think otherwise then so is the expression of Clement Orthodox for the Expressions are alike upon the matter and the meaning is the same Clement by saying that our sins are forgiven through Love meant no more but that our forgiving our Neighbour his Trespasses against us which is an Act of Love is a Means of God's appointment whereby we obtain the forgiveness of our sins from God through Christ We do not doubt but this was Clement's meaning and we are sure it was our Saviours When he said Mark 11.25 If ye have ought against any forgive that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you Our blessed Lord who is the faithful Witness makes God's forgiving us to be the End and our forgiving our Neighbour to be a Means indispensably necessary to be used by us for obtaining that End So that we obtain the forgiveness of our sins through Love in a very sound and Orthodox sense even as sound and Orthodox as Christ's Gospel is In the second place we bring the foresaid Testimony of Origen to prove that the real change which is wrought in the Soul by a sincere Repentance is antecedently necessary to dispose and prepare us for obtaining the promised Blessing of Pardon of sin which is an essential part of Justification It is in his Third Book against Celsus of the Cambridge Edition pag. 154. The Passage in Origen begins thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Which we will give the sense of in English for the use of our Authour After these things viz. which had been objected and answered before he Celsus takes upon him to charge us with that which is not granted by the more rational judicious Believers though perhaps it may be thought so by some foolish or ignorant Christians that as some Men are overcome by and under the Dominion of a tender compassionate natural frame and temper of Mind so God being overcome by and under the power of a merciful compassionate nature towards them that are in misery he relieves and pardons miserable Men though they be wicked if withal they be of a pitiful merciful nature◠But though they be otherwise good men yet God rejects them if they be not of such a pitiful compassionate Nature Which is most unjust For according to our Faith God doth not relieve so as to pardon and receive into his Favour any wicked Man unless he be first turned unto virtue that is converted like as he doth not reject any that is now become a good Man But neither doth he relieve or shew mercy unto any Man of a merciful Nature meerly because he is of a merciful Nature taking the word Mercy in the sense that the vulgar or common People use it in but those that greatly condemn themselves for their sins so as thereupon to mourn and bewail themselves as lost and undone by reason of the evil they have done and withal give evidence of a signal change such as becomes true Penitents God grants to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grace of Repentance that is the Gracious Fruit and Benefit promised to Repentance even to them who have changed their most wicked course For unto such is given as by Act of Oblivion a pardon of their past sins through the vertue that comes to dwell in their Souls and casts out the vice and corruption that possessed them before Or if at first they attain not unto a confirmed habit of vertue yet there is a notable change in the Soul which proceeds so far as that it is sufficient according to the proportion of it to purge out and take away the great abundance of wickedness that was in it before so as it can hardly ever get into the Soul again Thus far Origen In which Testimony of his there are several things worthy of our observation 1. Origen did not write this meerly as a private Christian or Teacher of the Church declaring what was his own private Opinion but as the great and famous Apologist in his time for Christ the Christian Church and for the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Heatheus particularly against Celsus a very learned Heathen who had written learnedly and spitefully against Christ and against Christians and the Christian Religion 2. Whereas Celsus had charged Christians with an absurd impious Opinion as that they believed That God pardoneth wicked Mens sins and receives them into his Favour if they be of a good Nature of a soft pitiful compassionate Temper before there pass a real change upon them before they repent before they turn from sin and return unto God in Heart and Affection Origen deuyed the Charge and affirmed that no rational intelligent judicious Christian believed any such thing that if any Christian did at all believe that God justified and pardoned a wicked Man before he had repented of his sins and returned unto the Lord they must be some foolish simple ignorant People and yet he would not absolutely grant to his Adversary that there
this Father Why even God for none is so much a Father as he none so affectionate as he Thorefore he shall receive thee his Son although thou hast prodigally spent that which thou hadst received from him although thou returnest naked yet he will receive thee because thou art returned And he will rejoyce more in thy return than in another mans sobriety Sed si poeniteat ex animo but it is on condition that thou repent from thy heart that thou compare thy hunger-starved condition with the plenty of thy Fathers hired Servants that thou forsake the swine those unclean beasts that thou come back to thy Father though he be offended with thee saying Father I have sinned nor am I worthy to be now called thine By this we plainly see that Tertullian preached the necessity of sincere Repentance antecedently to the obtaining pardon of sin Next to Tertullian we alledge blessed Cyprian for a Witness of the same Truth Thus then he writes Dominus loquitur c. Operum Cypr. Tom. 1. Epist 18. edit Colon. Agrip. An. 1617. The Lord speaketh and saith to whom shall I look but to him that is humble and still and trembleth at my words Seeing we ought to be all such they then much more ought to be such whose Duty it is to endeavour that after a grievous fall they may obtain God's favour and mercy by true Repentance and great humility In his 52 Epistle to Antonianus page 59. Dominus in Evangelio c. The Lord in the Gospel setting forth the goodness and kind affection of God the Father saith What man is there of you who if his Son ask of him bread will give him a stone Or if he ask a fish will give him a Serpent If ye then who are evil know how to give good gifts unto your Children how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him The Lord here makes a comparison between a Carnal Father or a Father of the Flesh and the Eternal and large goodness and kindness of God the Father Now if it be so that this evil sinful Father upon Earth who hath been grievously offended by his sinful and wicked Son yet if afterwards he see him reformed and having forsaken the sins of his former Life and being by the sorrow of Repentance amended and changed to sober and good manners and to the Discipline of Innocency or to a Holy course of Life he both rejoyceth and is glad and having received him whom he formerly had cast off he embraces him with the desire of a Fatherly Joy How much-more doth that One and True Father who is Good Merciful and Kind yea Goodness Mercy and Kindness it self rejoyce in the Repentance of his Children neither doth he threaten wrath to the penitent nor punishment to them that mourn and lament But he rather promiseth them pardon and favour Whence the Lord in the Gospel saith They are blessed who mourn for he that mourns moves compassion Whereas he that is stubborn and proud heaps up to himself the wrath and punishment of the judgment to come And in the same Epistle page 60. Scimâ—s juxtd Divinarâ—m Scripturdrum fidem ductore hortatore ipso Deo ad agendum poenitentiam peccatores redigi veniam atque indulgentiam poenitentibus non denegari We know according to the Faith of the Holy Scriptures God himself being both the Author and Exhorter that Sinners are brought to Repentance and also that forgiveness and favour is not denyed them when they do repent And in his eighth Epistle to the Clergy and People after he had told them that according as it had been revealed and foretold by prophecy the Enemy had got power over them and had raised a terrible Persecution against them because of their Divisions and Contentions their breaking the Lords Commandments and sleepy way of Prayer and after he had most passionately exhorted them to give themselves much to Watching and prayer to earnest frequent fervent Prayer Night and Day and had pressed them thereunto both by precept and example of Christ and his Apostles who spent Days and Nights in Prayer and had likewise encouraged them thereunto by telling them that Christ prayed not for himself and his own sins but for them and for their sins he added as it is in pag. 16. of that Book Quod si pro nobis c. i. e. which if it be so that he the Lord Jesus labours and watches and prays for us and for the pardon of our sins how much the more should we continue in Prayer and Supplication We have Jesus Christ our Lord and God to be Advocate and Intercessour for our Sins if so be or on condition that we repent of our sins past and confessing and being sensible of our Faults whereby we now at this present time offend the Lord we promise that for time to come we will walk in his ways and fear his Commandments By this that we have cited and by much more that we could cite out of Cyprian it may evidently appear that that blessed Martyr of Jesus was far from being of Opinion that God pardons the sins of his People before they repent Indeed to tell People that God pardons their sins before they repent it is falsa misericordia false or deceitful Mercy it is not curare sed si dicere verum volumus occidere the way to cure but if we will speak the Truth to kill Souls in the Judgment of those Ancient Elders and Deacons who wrote the 31. Epistle to Cyprian page 37. and Cyprians himself was of the same Judgment for thus he writes in the same Book pag. 143. Qui peccantem c. That is De lapsis Tom. 2. He who flatters a sinner with sweet and pleasant words gives him occasionto sin and doth not restrain but nourish his sinful lusts Whereas he who at once both reprovesâ— and instructs his brother by giving him more solid and firm counsel he helps him forward in the way to Salvation Whom I love saith the Lord I rebuke and chasten So the Minister of God ought not to deceive the People by cunning and cousening compliances but to provide sound and saving Remedies for their Souls He an ignorant unskilful Chirurgion who is afraid to feel with his hand the swelling is hollowness of wounds and whilst he keeps the corrupt humour close shut up in the secret recesses of the bowels he increases it and makes the wound more dangerous The wound must be opened and incisions must be made and the Malady must be cured with a stronger and sharper Remedy even by cutting off and taking away the flesh that is corrupted and putrified Let the sick Person cry out and complain as he will by reason of the pain which he hath not patience to endure yet afterwards he will thank the Chirurgion when he finds that he is cured Thus Cyprian and sure this is sufficient to shew that he would never have said that it
is bad counsel to tell an awakened Sinner that he must repent of his known sins mourn for them leave and loath them Cyprian was more loving and faithful to the Souls of Men than so to betray them to the Enemy of their Salvation he would have lost his Life before he would have done it And indeed he did at last lose his Life for his faithfulness to Christ and to the Souls of his People He laid down his life for the brethren he sealed the Truth of Christ's Gospel with his Blood about the Year of our Lord 250 and that is above fourteen hundred years ago These five Fathers flourished within the first Three Hundred years after Christ when the Church was in its greatest purity and Three of them to wit Clement Justin and Cyprian were Martyrs we need say no more to vindicate our Doctrine from the aspersion of Novelty which is fulsty cast upon it yet we think fit to add further two or three Testimonies of those Fathers who afterwards were great Asserters of the necessity and efficacy of God's Grace against the Peâ—ugians of which the chief was the famous Augustin who they say was born in Africa the faâ—he day that Pelagius was born in Britain the Lord intimating by that Providence that he had raised up Augustin to be an instrument in his hand to mantain and defend the necessity and efficacy of his Grace against Pelagius who deuyed it Now in his 105 Epistle to Sixtus This great Champion of the Church in his time saith That no Man is delivered and justified from any sin original or actual of omission or commission nisi gratiâ Dei per Jesuâ—â— Christâ—â—â— Dominum nostrum 〈◊〉 Solùm remissione peccatorum sed priùs ipsius inspiratione fidei timoris Dei impartiâ—o salubriter orationis affectu effectu But by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord not only by forgiving him his sins but first by inspiring into him Faith and the fear of God the affection and effect of Prayer being savingly impairted unto him In this passuge of Augustins we observe That 1. He affirms that non liberatur justificatur quisquam nisi gratiâ Dei c. That no Man is freed and justified from any sin but by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 2. That God's Grace in our Justificution appeals not only in his forgiving as our sins for the sake of Christ but also in this that prins fâ—st before he justifies us in forgiving our sins he inspires into us Faith in Christ and fear of God and in that he gives us an inclination and ability to pray and excites us to actual Prayer For that is the thing that he means by affectus effectus erationis salubriter impartiâ—us The Affection of Prayer is the fitness and disposition of the Mind for the Duty and we conceive that the effect of Prayer in this place signi 〈…〉 pâ—aying of the Soul its actual breathing after God for tho pardon of its sins These three things Faith Fear and Prayer in Augustins Judgment go before remission of sins and so before Justification of which according to our Confessions and Catechisms Remission of sin is an essential part at least And the consequence of this is that according to Austin there is some Spiritual good wrought in us and done by us before our sins be pardoned and we be justified And so we are qualified at least for pardon and that by the Grace of God in Christ The same Authour in another Book saith Homines non intolligentes quod ait ipse Apostolus lib. de grat lib. urb cap. 7. 〈…〉 hominem per â—idem sine operibus legis putarverunt eum dicere sufficere homini fidem etianise malè vivat bona opera non habeat quod absit ut sentiret vas electionis c. Men not understanding that which the Apostle bimself saith we judge that a man is justified by Faith without the works of the Law They have thought that he said Faith is sufficient to a man although he live a wicked life and have not good works Which God forbid that that chosen Vessel shâ—ild have thought or believed Who when he had said in a certain place In Christ cyesus neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing immediately he â—dâ—ea but â—aith which worketh by Love This is that Faith which distinguisheth â—â—d separateth God's faithful People from the unclean Devils for even they as the Aâ—oâ—tle James saith believe and tremble but they do no good works therefore they have noâ— that Faith by which the just doth live that is which works by love that God may render unto him Eternal Life according to his works But because we have even good works themselves from that God from whom we have Faith and Love therefore the same teacher of the Gentiles hath called Eternal Life it self Grace or Gist And in the next and 8th Chapter he saith That Paul in Ephes 2.8 9. Having written that we are saved by Grace through Faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should hoast he saw that men might think that this was so spoken as if good works were not necessary to Believers but that Faith alone was sufficient to them And again that men may be proud of their good works as if they were able of themselves to do them therefore he immediately added for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he hath prepared that we should walk in them Audi intellige non ex operibus dictum tanquam tuis ex teipso tibi existentibus Hear and understand saith Austin It is said not of works as if they were thine own which thou hadst of and from thy self for thou art created in Christ Jesus unto them We have also a large Confession of Faith of Fifteen Pastors of the Church of Christ in Africa Fulgent de Incarn Gra. J. Chr. concerning the Incarnation and Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ it was indeed written by one of them to wit the Famous Fulgentius but all their Naines are prefixed to it and it is by them directed to Petrus Diaconus In the 17th Chapter of that Book they write thus Ipse Salvator noster c. Our Saviour himself with the commanding power of his own voice speaks unto the will of man saying repent and believe the Gospel yet it is clear a man receives from God Repentance unto Life that he may begin to believe in God so that he cannot believe in God at all unless he receive Repentance by the gift of God who sheweth Mercy But what is a Mans Repentance but the change of his Will 〈◊〉 Theresore God who gives a Man Repentance doth himself change Mans Will Now observe here 1. That in the Judgment of the foresaid Fifteen Fathers the Lord both Commands and gives Repentance unto Life 2. That the Lord gives Repentance before
we believe in God because he gives us Repentance that we may begin to believe in God 3. That we cannot believe in God at all unless God first give us Repentance which must be understood in this sense that we cannot believe at all with the Faith of fiducial consent and recumbency unless it be first given us to repent for it is self-evident that we can and do believe with the Faith of assent before we do repent and indeed we neither do nor can repent till we first believe with the Faith of assent as was shewed before And it is clear from their own words that they meant not that we cannot believe with the Faith of assent but that we cannot believe with the Faith of consent and fiducial recumbency unless it be first given us to repent Their words are A Man receives from God Repentance unto Life ut in Deum credere incipiat that he may begin to believe in God Now by believing in God undoubtedly they meant believing in him so as to consent to have him for our God and so as to trust him as our God And could not mean only believing so far as to assent that there is a God and that his word is true For they were the Disciples of Holy Austin and had learned of him to distinguish between credere Deum credere Deo credere in Deum believing a God and believing that all God saith is true and believing in God so as to love him and take him for our God and trust him as our God It is this believing in God which they say cannot be begun till we have first repented through Grace and this is a great Truth as we shewed before out of Calvin And since this believing with fiducial consent and recumbency is justifying Faith it follows evidently that those Fifteen Fathers held Repentance to be before Remission of Sins and before Justification as it consists in Remission of Sins because they held it to be before Justifying Faith whereby we receive Remission of sins Act. 10.43 4. We observe they say that Repentance is a change of our Will and God himself by giving us Repentance changes our Wills Therefore in the Judgment of those Fifteen Fathers there is and must be a real change in us before we be justified and pardoned And we must let our Authour know that these Fathers which are for us against him were burning and shining Lights in their day Most of them if not all suffered banishment for the true Faith of Christ under the persecution of the Arian Vandals in Africa For we have a Synodical Epistle of theirs concerning the Grace of God and the will of man which was written by them in their Exile in Sardinia to which Twelve of their Names are prefixed the self-same names which are prefixed to the foresaid confession of Faith concerning the Incarnation and Grace of our Lord Jesus directed to Petrus Diaconus and his Brethren who were come from the Eastern Churches to receive information concerning the Faith of the Westorn Churches We will here cite one short passage out of the Synodical Epistle of those Twelve banished Pastors of Christ's Church It is in the 10th Chapter Quod autem vos dicitis c. As to what ye who wrote to us say that man is saved by the alone Mercy of God but they say unless a man run and labour with his own will he cannot be saved We answer that both are fitly held if the right order be kept between the Mercy of God and will of man that Mercy go before and the Will follow that God's Mercy alone confer the beginning of Salvation with which afterwards the Will of Man may cooperate towards its own Salvation that God's Mercy preventing or going before may direct the course of mans will and that mans will obeying through the same Mercy or Grace following it may according to its intention run towards the heavenly prize Here we see that it was the Judgment of those Twelve Confessors That we are saved by the alone Mercy and Grace of God if through Grace preventing and assisting us we yield Obedience to the Lord and run and labour to obtain the prize of Eternal Life and Glory And that if we do not this we cannot be saved This is what we say that sincere Obedience is so indispensably necessary that without it we cannot be saved It shall suffice at present to have demonstrated by the Testimonies aforesaid that we are no Innovators no Preachers of a new Gospel and Divinity in this matter since we have Christ and his Apostles and the Fathers of the best and purest Ages on our side all giving in testimony for us and against our Authour It will not consist with our designed brevity to alledge more testimonies of the Doctors of the Primitive Church and therefore we pass from them to the Modern Divines the Doctors and Pastors of the Reformed Churches We begin with the Augustan Confession of Faith and the Edition we make use of is that which was printed at Wittenbergh in the year 1540. In the 20th Testimonies of Modern Divines Article concerning Faith these are its words Primum igitur de fide justificatione sic docent Christus apte complexus est summam Evangelii c. First therefore they the Protestant Ministers and Churches thus teach concerning Faith and Justification Christ hath fitly comprehended the Sum of the Gospel when in the last Chapter of Luke he commands Repentance and Remission of sins to be preached in his Name For the Gospel reproves sin and requires Repentance and at the same time offers Remission of sins freely for Christ's sake and not for our own worthiness And as the preaching of Repentance is universal so also the promise of Grace is universal and commands all to believe and receive the benefit of Christ as Christ says Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden And Paul says He is rich unto all that call upon him Therefore though some Contrition and Repentance is necessary yet we must believe that Remission of sins is given unto us and that of unjust we are made just that is reconciled or accepted and made the Children of God freely for Christ's sake and not for the worth or merit of contrition or of other works that go before or follow after But this benefit is to be received by faith c. Therefore when we say that we are justified by Faith we do not understand this that we are just for the Dignity Worth or Merit of the Vertue of Faith it self But this is the meaning that we obtain the remission of sins and the imputation of Righteousness through Mercy for Christ's sake but this Mercy cannot be received but by Faith And here Faith signifies not merely the knowledge of the History but it signifies to believe the promise of Mercy which we obtain for Christ the Mediator For what can be more acceptable to an afflicted trembling conscience in its true
breaking of God's Commandements without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire Mat. 25. These Passages do manifestly show that in the Judgment of the Church of England as sincere Repentance is indispensably necessary to obtain forgiveness of sin so sincere Obedience from a principle of Faith and Love and bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance is indispensably necessary to the escaping of eternal damnation and obtaining of eternal Salvation Let any Man read and consider the Sermon of Repentance in the same Book Tom. 2. pag. 324. and he will see this to be as clear as the Light at Noon-day We will quote one short Passage out of it in Page 339. they say The filihiness of sin is such that as long as we do abide in it God cannot but detest and abhorre us neither can there be any hope that we shall enter into the Heavenly Jerusalem except we be first made clean and purged from it But this will never be unless forsaking our former Life we do with our whole Heart return unto the Lord our God and with a full purpose of Amendment of Life flee unto his Mercy taking sure hold thereupon through Faith in the Blood of his Son Jesus Christ This excellent Passage shews clearly that as Faith is the receptive applicative Condition so true Repentance is the dispositive Condition of the Covenant of Pardon and Life and that the one is as necessary in its kind as the other is and that unless through Grace we do both we are undone for ever Thus we have shewed at large what was the old Gospel Doctrine of the Church of England at the Reformation and that our Doctrine is exactly the same Therefore it must needs be a most horrid we will not say lye but falsehood that we preach a new Gospel and that we are to be blamed for telling People that they must repent and mourn for their known sins leave and loath them and God will have Mercy upon them for Christ's sake From whole Societies of Protestants we pass to the Testimonies of Individual Pastours of the Reformed Churches And we begin with Calvin who in his Commentary on Ezek. 18.23 sayes Deus ergo non ita vult omnes salvos fieri ut discrimen omne tollat boni mali sed praecedit veniam poenitentia quemadmodum hîc dicitur Therefore God doth not so will all Men to be saved as to take away all difference between good and evil but Repentance goes before Pardon as it is here said And again on the same Text We hold therefore that God doth not will now the death of a Sinner because he calls all to Repentance without making a difference and promises that he shall be ready to receive them modo seriò resipiscant if they or on condition that they earnestly repent And in his Institutions he writes thus Lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 20. Quare ubi remissionem peccatorum offert Deus c. For which reason where God offers remission of sins he likewise useth to require on our part Repentance signifying thereby that his Mercy offered ought to cause Men to repent Doe saith he Judgment and Justice because Salvation is come near at band Isa 56.1 Likewise The Redeemer shall come to Sion and to them who turn from transgression in Jacob Isa 59.20 Again Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteousness of his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him Isa 55.6 7. Again Be converted and repent that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 Where yet it is to be noted that this Condition to wit of Repentance is not so annexed to those Promises as if our Repentance were the ground of meriting our pardon but rather because the Lord hath determined to show mercy unto Men for this end that they might repent he shews them whither they are to go to wit unto God by Repentance if they will obtain Favour In these passages we observe 1. That Calvin says expresly That Repentance is a Condition annexed to the promise of pardon 2. That the performance of that Condition goes before pardon And 3. That therefore we are to repent and so perform the Condition that we may obtain the Grace of pardon 4. That in Calvin's Judgment Repentance is a Condition of Justification and that because Calvin believed Justification and pardon of sin to be the same thing as is most evident from what he writes against Osiander Instit 3d. Book cap. 11. Sect. 4.11 21 22. 5. That in Calvins Judgment Repentance is the dispositive Condition of Justification For it must be either the receptive or dispositive Condition but it cannot be the receptive Condition for in Calvin's judgment Faith is the only receptive Condition therefore it must be the dispositive Condition And indeed Calvin so held it to be for in his third Book of Institutions chap. 3. Sect. 18. He says Privatim Deo confiteri pars est verae poenitentiae quae omitti non potest Nihil enim minus consentaneum quam ut peccata ignoscat Deus in quibus nobis ipsi blandimur c. To confess our sins in secret to God is a part of true Repentance which cannot be omitted For nothing is less becoming or suitable than that God should forgive us those sins in which we flatter or please our selves On the contrary Calvin writing against Pighius says Contra Pigh de lib. arb lib. 5. Sect. Adducit tamen Sanè humiles Deus respicit sicut illi acceptum cordis contriti afflicti sacrificium David canit Indeed God hath regard unto the humble as David sings in his Psalm that the Sacrifice of a contrite and afflicted heart is acceptable and pleasing unto him These passages show That in Calvin's judgment an impenitent sinner is by reason of his impenitence unfit for pardon but that the true Penitent by his Humiliation and brokenness of Heart is disposed and fitted for pardon so that it is agreeable to the perfections of God's Nature to accept such a Person in Christ and to pardon his sins for Christ's sake And as Calvin held Faith and Repentance to be the Conditions of our Justification so did he hold sincere Obedience from a Principle of Faith and Love to be the Condition of our not falling from a justified state and of our obtaining the possession of Eternal Life and Glory For thus he writes in his Institutions Quoties ergo audimus c. Therefore as often as we hear lib. 3. cap. 17. Sect. 6. that God bestows his benefits on them who keep his Law we are to remember that God's Children are there designed or described by the Duty which they ought to be continually exercised in that we are for this reason adopted that we should reverence and honour him for
Faith and consequently before Justification We say Let but any Man read those Two Chapters of Dr. Ames his Books now mentioned and he will see it as clear as the Sun that he was of the same mind with Rollock and held That an Holy Change is wrought on us and a Seed or Principle of Holyness is put into us and some Holy Act is produced by us before we be justified and our sins be forgiven us And as for Dr. Twiss though the Antinomians have laid claim to him and some of ours have almost given him up to them by Reason of some Expressions of his which seem to favour them yet Mr. Jessop in his Preface to Mr. Grailes Book hath shewed that they have no sufficient ground for their so doing and hath proved as we have further done that he is on our side against them Yea and against our Authour too We read that Arminius in the Preface to his Answer unto Perkins complained that though Mr. Perkins did not yet there were some others who did contend that Repentance doth not go before but follow after Remission of Sins Twiss Vind. gratiae Resp ad Arminii Praefat. pag. 17. Edit Amster 1648. fol. Whereunto Dr. Twiss answered by Confessing ingenuously That the places of Holy Scripture which prove that Repentance is before Remission of Sins are expressiora frequentiora both more express and more numerous than those that seem to favour the other Opinion And indeed the places of Scripture that speak of Peoples repenting after their Sins are pardoned prove nothing at all but what we and all sober Christians grant that our Repentance is to be continued all the days of our Life and that the Repentance which is begun before Justification and is but weak and imperfect is to be carried on through Grace unto greater Perfection afterwards by reducing our purposes into Practice and bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance to the doing whereof the Assurance of Gods special Love to us in having pardoned our Sins and accepted us as righteous unto Life through Jesus Christ doth not a little animate and excite us As to what Twiss saith there that it is without Controversie that as Remission of Sins is an immanent Act in God it is before both Faith and Repentance that is neither more nor less than this that God himself and his Decree to remit Sin is before both Faith and Repentance which is indeed very true for God and his Decree was before this World or any thing in this World but though it be true it is nothing to the purpose for to speak properly as we ought and as the Lord speaks to us in his Word Remission of Sins is not an immanent Act of God that is it is not the Decree of God which is Eternal but the consequent and the effect of the Decree which is Temporal and is every where promised in the Scripture as a thing future and to come upon Condition of Faith and Repentance as Dr. Twiss himself expresly affirms most frequently over and over as we have shewed already and may do it yet farther hereafter From single Witnesses we pass to a whole Assembly of Divines who give in their Testimony for us and it is the Synod of Dort the most famous Assembly of Divines that ever was in the Reformed Churches for it consisted of a great number of Learned men delegated and deputed from all the best Reformed Churches in Europe In the eleventh and twelfth Canons on the third and fourth Articles their Words are as followeth Act. Synodi Dord Part. 1. p. 303. But when God executes this his good Pleasure in the Elect or works in them true Conversion he not only causeth the Gospel to be outwardly Preached to them and by the Holy Spirit powerfully enlightens their Mind that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God but also by the Efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit he penetrates or pierces into the innermost parts of Man he opens his closed he softens his hard and circumcises his uncircumcised Heart he infuses new qualities into his Will and of dead makes it alive of evil makes it good of unwilling makes it willing of disobedient makes it obedient and so Acts and strengthens it that as a good Tree it may be able to bring forth the Fruit of good Actions And then the Will now renewed is not only acted and moved by God but being acted by God it acts it self Wherefore even Man himself by that Grace received is rightly said to believe and repent This was subscribed by the whole Synod now here we have such a Testimony of the Reformed Churches for a real change for Holy Qualifications and Dispositions in the Soul of Man before Justification as we are sure our Author can never find the like to oppose against us for no real change no Holy Qualifications or Dispositions in the Soul of Man before sustification And that the Synod held this real change those Holy Qualifications or Dispositions to be in the Soul before Justification is manifest because they affirm all this to be necessary that the Will may be able to act and that the Man may produce the saving Acts of Faith and Repentance but so it is that the very Act it self of Faith is before Justification as hath been proved and so it was believed to be by the Synodic Therefore a fortiori all that is before the Act of Faith is also before Justification This were enough if we could say no more to prove that it is we who cleave to the old received Protestant Doctrine in this matter Yet something more we will adde from some of the Suffrages of the Colledges of Divines recorded in the Acts of the Synod And first we find that the Embdane Divines in their Judgment concerning the first Article do very particularly and clearly set down the way and order of Gods bringing his Elect unto Eternal Life and Glory Their Words are Actor Synodi Dord part 2. pag. 77. Via inter Electionis decretum decreti finem intermedia quâ Deus ex mera gratiâ peculiariter electos ad salutem provehit est 1. Christus 2. Vocatio ad Christum efficax 3. Fides 4. Justificatio per fidem c. The intermediate way between the Decree of Election and the end of the Decree by which God of meer Grace brings to Salvation those whom he hath peculiarly chosen is 1. Christ 2. Effectual Vocation unto Christ 3. Faith 4. Justification c. To these they speak particularly one after another First They shew that Christ is deservedly set in the first place for he is the second Adam through whom all the Elect are saved by unspeakable Mercy What they say of Christ there we all agree to and also that all the other particulars are subordinate to him and through him Then they speak to the second means which is Effectual Calling and that they say is Quando Vox Dei
both they and the Synod which approved their Suffrage and gave them great thanks for it did all of them believe that there is and must be a great and holy change wrought on us and holy Dispositions and Qualifications bestowed on us before we are immediately able and that we may be able to believe and repent and consequently before we are justified Yea our Divines expresly reject it as the first Arminian Error against that part of the third and fourth Articles which relates to Regeneration and Conversion unto God by Faith and Repentance That in Regeneration there are no spiritual Gifts infused into the Wills of Men. Pag. 91. This Arminian Errour they disprove and amongst other Arguments against it Pag. 92. they use this for one As the Will of a meer natural Man is said to be vicious from a certain inbred and inherent wickedness which in a wicked man even when he doth nothing is habitual so again we must acknowledge that in the Will of the regenerate there is a certain Righteousness or Goodness as it is in the Original given and infused by God which is presupposed unto their Religious Actions St. Austin in many places setteth forth this habitual Righteousness or Goodness And Prosper calls this goodness of the Will Prosper de vocat Gentium lib. 1. c. 6. superni agricolae primam plantationem the first planting of the Heavenly Husbandman Now a Plantation Notes something ingrafted in the Soul not an Act or Action flowing from the Soul Thus our Divines at Dort whereby we see that it is a branch of Arminianism to deny that there is any Holy Habit Seed Root or Permanent Principle of Grace or any Spiritual Qualification wrought in the Soul before Justification And we find that long ago Robinson one of the rigidest Seperatists from the Worship and Discipline of the Church of England yet Religiously adhered to her Doctrine in this Point we are upon for thus he writes in Defence of the Doctrine of the Synod at Dort Robinsons Defence of the Doct. of the Synod at Dort p. 109. Pag. 132.133 That a man may have his Sins pardoned who yet wants all brotherly Love and goodness the Scriptures every where deny Mat. 6.14 15. 1 Joh. 3.14 15. Mark 11 24 25. Rom. 8.1 Psal 32.1 2. And afterwards in the same Book By the Word and Spirit saith he God regenerates Men or gives them Faith and Repentance which they must have before they can believe or repent as the Child must have Life before it can live or do Acts of Life and must be generated or begotten before it have Life or Being Regeneration therefore goes before Faith and Repentance Here we see that old rigid zealous Nonconformist held that there must be a real great change made on a Man a Holy Principle must be put into him and Holy Qualifications bestowed upon him before he can believe and repent and consequently before he can be justified Pag. 56. Again before in the same Book he saith expresly that Rom. 8.29 30. Shews plainly that our Predestination or Election goes before our Calling and our Calling before our Justification And in the same Page Gods chusing a Man whether in Decree from Eternity or by Actual and Effectual Calling and calling of him out of the State of Sin by giving him the Spirit of Faith and Grace goes before his believing for he cannot believe before he have Faith nor have it before God give him it but his actual saving by Justification and Glorificaton follows after Faith The same Truth is witnessed unto by Mr. Ball in his Treatise of Faith Part 1. p. 1.36 Every one saith he is not fit to receive the Promise of Mercy the Enemies of the Gospel of Christ Worldlings Hypocrites and all in whom Sin reigneth can have no true Faith in Christ he is only sit to receive Mercy who knows that he is lost in himself and unsatiably desires to be eased of the heavy burden of his Sins Faith is a Work of Grace of the Essicacy of Gods Spirit whereby we answer to the Effectual Call of God and come unto him that we might be partakers of Life Eternal And if saving Effectual Calling be precedent to Faith the subject of living Faith is Man savingly called according to the purpose of Gods Will. We can teach no Faith to Salvation but according to the Rule of Christ Mark 1.15 Repent and Believe the Gospel no Remission but according to the like rule Luke 24.47 Acts 2.37 38. Our last Witness is Mr. Gataker who saith God doth not actually remit or release Sin until he give Grace to repent Gatakers shadows without substance p. 55. which in the Gospel Phrase and Method goes constantly before pardon c. We might easily bring many more of our Reformed Divines to witness unto this Truth but these are sufficient to shew that it is the old Protestant Doctrine generally received in the Reformed Churches that there is and must be a real Holy Change a seminal permanent Principle of Spiritual Life some Holy Dispositions and Qualifications wrought in us by the Spirit of Christ before we are justified by Faith in the Blood of Christ And here by the way we must tell our Author what it may be he doth not know First that if he will believe Bardwardin Let. p. 13. with whom he saith God blessed England against the Pelagians then he will find it to be a Branch of the Pelagian Heresie that there is no Gracious Principle no Holy Disposition or Qualification wrought in us before our Justification For Bradwardin saith so expresly Bradward de causâ dei lib. 1. Cap. 43. p. 397. Asserunt ambae partes residuae opinionis Pelagii remissionem peccati Justificationem injusti praecedere gratiam tempore vel naturâ That is Both the remaining parts of the Opinion of Pelagius assert that Remission of Sin and the Justification of the unjust go before Grace in Time or in Nature Thus Bradwardin and then he falls a Confuting of this Pelagian Opinion by such Arguments as most manifestly shew that by the Word Grace there he meant not the Good-Will Love and Favour of God but the Effect of it upon the Soul even a Gracious Gift communicated unto and a real Holy change wrought in the Soul whereby of ungracious it is made inherently Gracious and of unjust and unholy it is made inwardly Just and Holy This Grace this Gracious change he maintains to be in Order before Remission of Sin and the Denial of this Grace this Gracious change before Remission of Sin he declares to be a Branch of Pelagian Heresie We thought fit to let the World know that what by some is accounted pure Gospel Doctrine now was in former times accounted a part of Pelagius his Opinion and that even by Bradwardin whom our Authour so highly commends Yet at the same time we must declare that we do by no means approve Bradwardins way of Confuting
Scripture We Answer by denying the Consequence of the first Proposition as false for it doth not follow that we should warn People not to believe on Christ too soon And we have nothing Offered to prove that such an absurdity follows from our Doctrine but this mans bare Word which we have found to be so often false in matter of Fact that we can give no credit to it in other things And he is so unhappy here and elsewhere throughout his Letter that he makes his own Tongue or Pen to fall upon himself for he confesses that it is no good Argument that if People cannot be truly Holy before the Tree be changed Matth. 12.33 34 35. and before they have a new Heart Ezek. 36.26 27. as he grants they cannot then Ministers should warn People not to be Holy too soon For to give them any such warning he grants to be absur'd Let him then consider Let. p. 11 12. whether the same or the like Answer he can give to this Argument which would prove that Ministers should warn People not to be Holy too soon may not be given to the other silly Argument whereby he would prove that upon our Principle Ministers should warn People not to believe on Christ too soon for it is as certainly true that People cannot actually believe on Christ with a saving justifying Faith before the Tree be changed and the Heart be in part renewed as it is that they cannot be truely Holy before the Tree be changed and the Heart be renewed When we are to deal with Unbelievers our Lord hath given us other Work to do than to warn them not to believe too soon and let our Author try when he pleases he will find enough to do to convince them that their present Indisposition and disability to believe doth not free them from the Obligation which the Lord by his Word hath laid upon them to believe and to direct them unto the right means in the use whereof they may obtain from the Lord both the necessary Disposition unto Faith and also the Principle and Act of Faith it self Our Author we perceive has been at this Work and before we have done with him we shall see what a rare Specimen of his skill this way he hath given the World Fourthly But he farther Objects We hold forth that God justifieth the Ungodly Pag. 25. Rom. 4.5 Neither by making him Godly before he justifie him nor leaving him Ungodly after be hath justified him but that the same Grace that justifies him doth immediately sanctifie him We Answer this is the Text that our Antinomians much insist upon and think it sufficient to make all Men Antinomians And we are glad to find that it hath not that full effect upon him for tho he be one with them with respect to any Holy change in Order before Justification and denies it as they do yet he separates himself from them with respect to what follows after Justification and saith that we are sanctified immediately after Justification and so he joins himself to us now there may be good worldly Policy in this to hold with both sides as much as he can But if he do not agree with himself what ground can others have to trust him that ever he will heartily agree with them and that he doth not agree with himself we think is apparent from what he writes Pag. 16. A Man saith he is to believe that he may be justified Gal. 2.16 Again Pag. 32. No Words or Warnings repeated nor plainest Instructions can beat into Mens Heads and Hearts that the first coming to Christ by Faith or Believing on him is not a Believing we shall be saved by him but a Believing on him that we may be saved by him And again Pag. 7. The direct Act is properly justifying saving Faith by which the lost Sinner comes to Christ and relies upon him for Salvation Yet when we do press Sinners to come to Christ by a direct Act of Faith consisting in an humble reliance on him for Mercy and Pardon they will understand us whether we will or not of a reflex Act of Faith by which a Man knows and believes that his Sins are pardoned and that Christ is his when they might easily know that we mean no such thing These three Passages show clearly that he holds saving Faith to be both before Justification and before Assurance of Justification We confess that we do very well understand this to be the meaning of these Words now quoted ouâ— of his Letter for we think they are not capable of any other sense but though we understand the Words of the Letter yet we do not understand the Author of them and we much doubt whether he understands himself and that because he immediately adds Page 7. that Mr. Marshal in his excellent Book lately Published hath largely opened this and the true Controversie of this Day And Pag. 35. Marshals Book saith he is a deep practical well jointed Discourse and if it be singly used I look upon it as one of the most useful Books the World hath seen for many Years I fear not but it will stand firm as a Rock against all Opposition and will prove good Seed and Food and Light and Life to many hereafter Who that reads this can doubt but that our Author has read Marshaâ—s Book and that he approves it and believes every thing at least that is material in it and yet there is one thing very material in it and it is one of the main joints in it That justifying Faith is a Believing that we are now justified and shall be Eternally saved and that the Assurance of this that we are now justified and shall be saved is essential to the direct Act of Faith This Marshal with all his might strives to prove and it seems he hath done it to the Conviction of our Author who believes that that Opinion can never be disproved again Yea he seems so Confident of the Truth of Marshals Opinion that he spares not to reflect on the Westminster Assembly of Divines for denying it as they do in their Confession of Faith Chap. 18. Art 3. In these Words This infallible Assurance doth not so belong to the Essence of Faith but that a true Believer may mait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it Thus the Assombly But doth he reflect on them for this why if he doth not let him tell us what he means by these following Words Was not the Holiness of the first Protestants eminent and shining Let. p. 22. and yet they generally put Assurance in the Definition of their Faith We cannot say that Gospel Holiness has prospered much by the Correction or Mitigation of that harsh-like Definition If these Words of his whatever might be his Intention do not reflect upon the Assembly we do not understand plain English and moreover we cannot but think also that they imply his owning of Marshals
whereby we receive Christ with siducial consent that through him we may be justified and saved But there is not one of them that proves that an absolute Assurance that Christ for the present is ours and that we are now justified and in the State of Salvation is essentially necessary unto and included in the direct Act of justifying Faith And whereas it is Confidently said that all our Reformed Divines were for this sort of Assurance as essential to the direct Act of that Faith whereby we are first justified we Answer That it is indeed said with Confidence enough but it is a vain groundtess Confidence for though some might be of that false Opinion yet it is notoriously false that all were we shall at present give one considerable instance to the contrary and our Instance shall be in Mr. Fox the Author of the Book of Martyrs De Christe gratis Justificante p. 246 247. who in his Book of Justification written against the Papists says expresly Sic mea feri ratio ut existimem c. Such is my Judgment that I think this Confident Perswasion of Mercy and Assurance of the Promised Salvation is not the thing which properly and absolutely delivers us from Sin and justifies us before God but that there is some other thing proposed in the Gospel which must some way in Order of Nature go before this Assurance and justifie us before God for Faith in the Person of the Son necessarily goes before which Faith in the Person of the Son first reconciles us to God Afterward a confident or sure perswasion of most certain mercy follows this Faith Concerning which Mercy none of those who believe in Christ can justly doubt By this and more that Mr. Fox saith in the same place it is clear as the Light that he did not believe that an absolute Assurance of our being now pardoned justified and reconciled to God is included in and essential to the direct Act of Faith whereby we are justified in the sight of God but on the contrary he held that the direct Act of Faith in the Person of the Son of God whereby we are justified goes before the said Assurance and Assurance follows after it which is what we believe and so doth our Author with us for he tells the Unbeliever That a Man is not called to believe that he is in Christ Mark the Expression he doth not only say A Man is not called to believe that he was in Christ before he believed For that Marshal and all but Antinomians do say but he says that a Man is not called to believe that he is in Christ pro praesenti for this present that his Sins are now pardoned and he now a justified Man but he is called to believe the Gospel Record and to believe in Christ according to the Record that is he is to believe that he may be justified and not that he is justified But now Marshal unto whom our Author appeals for the opening of this matter hath so opened it that he hath shut it up in darkness Confusion and Self-contradiction as it were no difficult task to demonstrate He maintains confidently 1. That Assurance of our being now justified and of the Pardon of our Sins is necessarily and essentially included in the direct Act of justifying Faith Pag. 169 170 171.172 173 177 178 179 180 181 182 c. 2. He maintains That all the Reprobate who live in the visible Church are by God strictly obliged under Pain of Eternal Damnation to believe with the foresaid justifying Faith and absolute Assurance which is essential to it that they are now justified and that their Sins are now pardoned though it be then and always false that they are justified and their Sins pardoned Pag. 202.204 Yet he saith that this is but the Appearance of a great Absurdity Pag. 171. whereby he gives us to understand either 1. That it is no real Absurdity to hold that God obliges Men under pain of Eternal Damnation to believe assuredly that a falshood is truth and that they who are not pardoned are pardoned Or 2. That he denies the Consequence to wit that God obliges the Reprobate to believe a falshood And the meaning of that is that though he hath granted both the Premisses yet he will stifly deny the Conclusion whereby men whose eyes are open may see what a rare Gist of Reasoning Mr. Marshal was endowed with Again though he maintain that an absolute Assurance of our present Justification and future Eternal Salvation is essential to the direct Act of justifying Faith yet he saith many precious Saints who have that Faith and that Assurance of Justification and Salvation which is essential to it may not know at all that it shall go well with them at the day of Judgment Pag. 173. and this for want of the other after-Assurance which comes by the reflex Act and by Self-examination Now is not that a strange Assurance which a Man hath by Faith of his Eternal Salvation whereby he doth not know at all whether he shall be Eternally Saved or Eternally Damned for want of another kind of Assurance by Spiritual Sense and feeling whereby he may know how it shall go with him at the Day of Judgement whether he shall be then Eternally Saved or Damned to what purpose serves the first Assurance when a man can know nothing at all by it without a second Assurance Is not that a plain Indication that the first pretended Assurance is nothing but an ens rationis a Creature of a Man 's own making which hath no real Existence but in his vain Imagination Our Author sometimes seems to be wiser than to believe such vain Fancies and yet at other times he appears to be deeply in love with them as when he most highly commends Mr. Marshals Book in which we deny not but there are good things as the most Soveraign Antidote against the Poyson of the new Divinity and says that he hath largely opened this matter For our parts we are willing to impute this to his not having Attentively read that Book and so to his not knowing that Mr. Marshal did manifestly contradict and dispute against his Opinion as a Limb or Joint of the new Divinity But we are afraid his unbeliever will be really scandalized at his telling him that he is not called at the first to believe that he is now in Christ that his Sins are pardoned and he is now a justified Man though in the same Letter he sends him to Marshals Book for Information and Direction in this very matter and it tells him the quite contrary and confidently maintains that an Unbeliever is called and commanded at first upon Pain of Eternal Damnation to believe with absolute Assurance by the direct Act of Faith in Christ that he is now in Christ his Sins pardoned and he a justified Man This we are afraid will tempt his Unbeliever to say Either Sir you believe this of Marshal or not
That according to the Description which he gives of a Middle-way-man Let. p. 2. we may safely and with a good Conscience according to the Light which God hath given us deny that we are Middle-way-men for he makes a Middle-way-man to be one who espouses defends and promotes a Middle-way betwixt the Arminians and the Orthodox But that we are Middle-way-men in this Sense we must deny for we cannot own our selves to be such men without lying against our Consciences and saying that we are not Orthodox or but half-Orthodox which we believe to be a great falshood If therefore our Author would have us to confess that we are Middle-way-men 1. He must give us a better and truer Definition of a Middle-way-man for this will not fit us at all belike he would have the World believe that we are half-Arminians and half-Orthodox but if that be his meaning in intimating that we steer a Middle-course between the Arminians and the Orthodox it is an abominable Calumny which we have already wiped off by solemnly and sincerely Declaring that we do not participate of the Arminian extream at all we are no Arminians in whole or in part 2. He would do well to tell us whom he means by the Orthodox it may be that by the Orthodox he means chiefly himself and his small party exclusively of all other Protestants If that be his meaning we say 1. That he must not thus beg but prove his Orthodoxy before we can own him to be thus very Orthodox 2. We think that such a Notion of Orthodoxy is too narrow and Schismatical It is a Monopolizing of soundness in the Faith to a Party and that Comparatively a small Party of Christians too and a branding of all the rest with the Mark of Unsound and Erroneous in the Faith Whereas the real Difference between those called Middle-way-men on the one side and the most of those called Orthodox on the other may not be matter of Faith strictly so called but rather matter of Opinion and so both Parties may be Orthodox or sound in the Faith That is notwithstanding some different Sentiments in lesser things they may both firmly and fully agree in believing all the Articles of Christian Faith which are necessary to Church Communion on Earth and to the obtaining Eternal Salvation in Heaven through the Mercy of God the Father the Merits and Satisfaction of the Son and the Grace of the Holy Spirit 3dly If he had shewed us in his Letter wherein that Middle-way doth particularly consist according to his Opinion we should have it may be either owned or disowned it in part or in whole according as we had found him to have truly represented or misrepresented it to the World But since he hath not done that we cannot know certainly what he means by that Middle-way he talks of 4thly Yet by some Passages in his Letter we guess that he Points at the controversie about the extent of Christs Death which hath been amongst Protestant Divines since the Reformation or since the time that Beza and Piscator began to write on that Head after the Reformation And if that be the thing he Points at without naming it we will First Give the true State of the Controversie Secondly Declare briefly what our Opinion is as to that matter And for the State of the Controversie First There are some Divines in the World who are said to hold that Christ died equally for all men Elect and Non-elect and that God on the account of Christs Death gives a common sufficient Grace to them all whereby they may all if they will apply to themselves the Vertue of Christs Death and thereby obtain Justification and Salvation But that Christ did not dye for the Elect out of any special Love to them above others and that God through Christ doth not give any Special Effectual Determining Grace to the Elect more than to the Non-elect This is the Arminian extream Secondly There are other Divines who hold that Christ died for the Elect only and exclusively of all others and that he died not for any of the Non-elect in any proper tolerable true sense that he no more died for any of those Men who are not elected to Eternal Life than he died for the Devil and that such Men have no more to do with the Satisfaction and Meriâ—s of Christ than the Devil hath This is the other extream And we suppose that this is that which our Author accounts the Orthodex side and that he is of this side himself But Thirdly Between these two extream Opinions there is a Golden mean there is a Middâ—e-way which hath been many hundred years ago and still is expressed in this form of Words That Christ died only for the Elect-Sinners of Mankind both Sufficiently and Efficaciously but that he died for the Non-elect only Sufficiently but not Efficaciously This is the State of the Controversie 2. If Secondly It be now demanded Whether we be for this Middle-way or not In Answer to that demand we say That there are a great many of us who are Calumniated by our Author as corrupters of the Gospel by holding a Conditional Covenant and tho' we do not doubt but we all agree in the foresaid General form of Words and in admitting the Distirction of Christs dying for the Elect Efficaciciously and for the Reprebate only Sufficiently yet it may be that when we come to explain what we particularly mean by Christs dying Sufficiently only for the Non-elect there will be some little Difference amongst us in some of our Notions and Expressions and possibly some of us may not in effect differ from our Author further than in the manner of our Expression and in the Method of our Conceptions and Notions But 1. We are all of one Mind and of one Faith with respect to Christs dying Efficaciously for the Elect only and we hope also that our Author himself agrees with us herein Which is the main thing wherein our Agreement is necessary And then 2. As to the Non-Elect especially those of them to whom the Gospel is preached we hope all of us do and will agree to this That Christ died for them sufficiently in such a sense as he did not dye for the fallen Angels so that if they should believe in Christ and repent of their sins as they are bound to do according to the tenour and terms of the Gospel they should be saved through Christ and not perish as they do by persevering in Unbelief and Impenitence And being thus far agreed we hope we shall keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and as to any little difference of Judgment that may remain we shall bear with one another in Love after the example of the famous Synod of Dort whereof the Members differed in the Synod upon this very point and yet they bore with one another and wisely agreed against the Arminian extreme as most manifestly appears from the Acts of