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
pleased him This Proposition is self-evident for it is of the very Essence of Free-will in God the First and Freest Agent that in all external temporal things which fall under his Free-will he might have done them or not have done them he might have done them thus as he doth them or he might have done them otherwise than he hath done if he had pleased But antecedently to his free Purpose and Decree the whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace and of its terms and receptive Condition depended upon God's Free-will and Soveraign Pleasure Hence the Gospel is called the Mystery of God's Will and the Revelation of the Gospel unto us is said to be the making known unto us the Mystery of his Will according to his Good Pleasure which he hath purposed in himself Eph. 1.9 Now if the whole Mystery of the Covenant of Grace depended on God's Free-will then the ordaining of this or that to be the receptive Condition of the Covenant depended on his Will also and so antecedently to the free Purpose of his Will there was no natural necessity that Faith alone and no other thing should be the receptive Condition of the Covenant 2. It is not yet past Dispute amongst Divines Whether antecedently to God's free Purpose and Decree to save us by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ alone he might not have freely purposed and decreed to have pardoned and saved us some other way Amongst our Reformed Divines Calvin Twiss and Rutherford and others were of this Opinion yea even Dr. Owen himself was once of this Opinion though afterwards he changed his mind in that as he did in other things witness what he wrote in his Book called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ Or A Treatise of Redemption c. Book II. Chap. II. Page 57. The Foundation of this whole Assertion seems to me to be false and erroneous viz that God could not have Mercy on Mankind unless satisfaction were made by his Son It is true indeed supposing the Decree Purpose and Constitution of God that so it should be that so he would manifest his Glory by the way of vindicative Justice it was impossible that it should otherwise be for with the Lord there is neither change nor shadow of turning Lam. 1.18 1 Sam. 15.29 But to assert positively that absolutely and antecedently to his Constitution he could not have done it is to me an unwritten Tradition the Scripture affirming no such thing neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence if any one shall deny this we will try what the Lord will enable us to say unto it and in the mean time rest contented in that of Augustin though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his Infinite Wisdome yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient because we find he proceeded therein Thus Dr. Owen in that Book and though he unsaid this again and embraced that Opinion which he then called an unwritten Tradition yet there are other Learned Divines of that same Opinion at this Day Mistake us not for we do not say that we are of it but that some are and that the matter is not yet past dispute And the Consequence which we infer is undeniable that if God antecedently to his Constitution and Degree could have pardoned and saved us some other way without the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ then surely he could have offered and promised us Pardon and Salwation without the Condition of Faith in Christ and upon what other Condition he pleafed 3. Though we grant that upon supposition that God would pardon our Sins and save our Souls it did not consist with the Glory of his Justice and Honour of his Law and Government to do it without Satisfaction for the Offence we had given and the Dishonour we had done him by our Sins and therefore it was necessary not onely from the free purpose of God's Will but also from the nature of his vindictive governing Justice that Christ by suffering in our stead should satisfie his Justice for our Sins yet doth it not follow at all by any natural necessity arising immediately from the essential nature of Faith without any appointment and constitution of God's Will that Faith because it is of a receptive nature and nothing else shall be the Condition upon the performance whereof Christ with his Satisfaction and Merits shall be not only offered but given unto us For as Dr. Owen saith very well in his little Book of the Trinity and Satisfaction of Christ pag. 208. The satisfaction made for Sin being not made by the Sinner himself there must of necessity be a Rule Order and Law-constitution how the Sinner may come to be interested in it and made Partaker of it for the consequent of the freedome of one by the suffering of another is not matural or necessary but must proceed and arise from a Law-constitution Compact and Agreement Now the way constituted and appointed is that of Faith or believing as explained in the Scripture Thus Dr. Owen To which we add that the Scripture explains it thus Gal. 5.6 That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but Faith which worketh by Love From this Passage of Dr. Owen and the Argument contained in it it is most evident that it doth not arise immediately and necessarily from the receptive nature of Faith that it is the Condition of the Offer and Promise but from the Will of God constituting and appointing it to be the Condition Faith's receptive apprehensive nature is but a remote Reason of its Conditionality and doth but make it fit to be the Condition if God please to make it so And it is God's Will and Law-constitution onely which is the nearest and formal Reason of its Conditionality and which doth immediately and formally make it to be the Condition of the Covenant Joh. 6.40 This is no new notion of ours we find it long agoe before many of us were born Walaeus Doctor and Professor of Divinity in Leyden in his Enchiridion Religionis Reformatae pag. 112. said that Fides nos Justificat sed relativè considerata quia haec est Voluntas Dei ut qui credit in Christum ejus meriti fiat Particeps Faith Justifies us but relatively considered because this is the Will of God that he who believes in Christ shall be made Partaker of his Merit And not onely Mr. Baxter but Cartwright also pag. 179. of his Book against Baxter agrees with him in acknowledging this Truth his Words are these The Reason why Christs Righteousness cannot Justifie except it be apprehended by Faith is this That God doth require Faith of us Faith I say apprehending Christ and his Righteousness believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that so we may be Justified Gods Will is properly the cause yet there is a congruity in the thing it self an aptitude you grant in the nature of Faith It is of an
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
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
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
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
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
obtained Hence Paul saith Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die And Heb. 3.12 Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God We do not therefore think that the Act it self of believing repenting and mortifying the flesh doth effect or merit the conservation of Justifying Grace because all these things are done by us faintly and imperfectly sometimes also through the Prevalency of some great Tentation they are as it were choaked and oppressed but we say that God himself of his free Mercy preserves the Regenerate in a state of Grace and Salvation whilst they walk in these wayes As therefore for the preservation of Natural Life it is necessarily required that a Man carefully avoid Fire Water Precipices Poysons and other things which destroy the Health of the Body so for the preservation of Spiritual Life it is necessarily required that a Man avoid Vnbelief Impenitency and other things that are destructive and contrary to the Salvation of Souls which cannot be avoided unless the opposite and contrary Actions be exercised But these Actions do not preserve the Life of Grace properly and of themselves by touching or producing the very effect it self of preservation but improperly and by accident by excluding and removing the cause of destruction Thus we have at large refuted the Authour of the Letter his Second Errour against the Purity of Christian Faith and have fully and clearly proved the Covenant of Grace to be Conditional This we have done first by clear Scripture Secondly by certain and evident Reason grounded upon Scripture Thirdly by Testimonies of Orthodox Divines and First by Testimonies of the Antient Doctors of the Primitive Church Secondly by Testimonies of Divines of the Reformed Churches both at Home and Abroad and particularly by the Testimony of the Divines of the Famous Synod of Dort Whence it is as clear as the Sun that we preach no new Arminian Gospel in this great Point of the Covenant of Grace and consequently that the Authour of the Letter is a false Witness in Matter of Fact who hath proclaimed us to the World to be Preachers of a new Arminian Gospel on the account of our Doctrine in the point of Justification If after all this he should say that though we have proved the Covenant to be conditional and Faith to be the receptive applicative condition of it yet we have not proved that Faith justifies as a Condition We Answer That look by what place of Scripture he shall ever be able to prove that Faith justifies as an Instrument and a hand by the same shall we prove that Faith justifies as a receptive applicative condition For as we said before we take a receptive applicative Condition and a moral foederal instrument to be one and the same thing So did the Westminster Assembly of Divines before us And in this sense which alone is justifiable we hold Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition with respect to Justification And if that will please our Authour we shall grant him that Faith is a hand and not only a hand but an eye and a mouth too an eye to look unto Christ crucified John 3.14 15. John 6.40 Isa 45.22 And a mouth to eat and drink and feed on his Crucified Flesh and Blood John 6.35 50 51 53 54 55 56 57 58. We shall conclude this Answer with the Testimony of Two Learneder and Wiser Men than our Authour seems to be The first is the Reverend Mr. Lukin a Worthy Judicious Congregational Minister in his Life of Faith printed above Thirty years ago Lukin 's Life of Faith p. 24 25. For the question about the Interest of Faith in our Justification whether it justifie as an Instrument or as a Condition I think saith he it deserves not half the words that have been used about it they are both of them School-terms and not found in the Scripture and should not therefore disturb the peace of the Church especially seeing both Parties at variance are agreed in the thing but not in the formal notion under which they do conceive it and I think both lides are so far agreed that Faith may be called an Instrument allowing much impropriety of speech and that it may be called a Condition while we thereby do not suppose any such thing as merit Thus Mr. Lukin Now we heartily accept of this expedient for the calming of the Tempest which the Letter hath raised We will never desire the Authour to call Faith a meritorious condition for we never called it so our selves if he will grant us that it is but improperly an Instrument of Justification The other is the Learned Turretin that famous Calvinist Professor of Divinity lately at Geneva who writes thus Caeterum non anxiè quaerendum putamus an fides instrumenti notionem induat in hoc negotio c. Turretin Instit part 2. loc 16. quaest 7. p. 737. But we do not think that it is curiously to be enquired after whether Faith put on the nation of an Instrument in this matter of Justification or likewise of a condition as it seems to some men For nothing hinders but both notions may be ascribed to it provided Condition be not taken for that in consideration whereof God justifies Man in the Covenant of Grace after the manner that works were the Condition of Justification in the Legal Covenant For in this sense it cannot be called a condition unless we come over to the Socinians and Arminians who will have Faith or the Act of believing to be accepted by God for perfect Righteousness which we have but now resuted But taking the word Condition in a large sense for all that which is required on our part to obtain that benefit whether it have the notion of a cause properly so called or only of an instrumental Cause for as that Condition hath the relation of an Instrument so that Instrument hath the nature of a Condition on our part without which Justification cannot be obtained Thus Turretin to which we fully agree except that we think he gives too much to Faith in conceiving it to be an instrumental cause of Justification yet since he says that it is no cause properly so called it follows necessarily that it is not properly an instrumental cause and so hath no proper causal influence upon the act of Justification and if so then it is but improperly an instrument as Mr. Lukin saith and so the whole Controversie comes to nothing but a strife about the propriety or impropriety of a word which Turretin plainly saw and therefore confessed that Faith is so an Instrument as to be a Condition and so a Condition as to be an Instrument of Justification And taking the word Instrument in a moral Sense for a means of receiving the benefit of Justification for Christ's sake only we do unfeignedly affirm as Turretin doth that a sincere Faith is both the Instrument and Receptive
Heb. 6.4 5 6. It is impossible for those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good Word of God and the Powers of the World to come if they shall fall away to return them again unto Repentance The Sixth Position The very Elect in those Acts going before Regeneration do not carry themselves so but that for their Negligence and Resistance they may be justly relinquished and forsaken of God but such is the special Mercy of God towards them that though they do for a while repel and choak the Grace of God exciting and inlightning them yet God doth urge them again and again nor doth he cease to stir them forward till he have throughly subdued them to his Grace and set them in the State of regenerate Sons John 6.37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no no wise cast out Jerem. 14.7 O Lord though our Iniquities testifie against us do thou it for thy Names sake for our backslidings are many Jerem. 32.39 I will give them one Heart and one way that they may fear me for ever And Phil. 1.6 He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ But if God should not go on thus to follow even those that hold off and retire from him no Calling would be effectual there would be no Filial Adoption and even Election it self grounded upon the good Pleasure of God would be frustrated Since the Fall of Man God would have it ascribed to his Grace that a Man doth come unto him neither will he have it ascribed Aug. de bonoâ— persever to any thing but his Grace that a Man doth not go from him The Seventh Position Those that are not elected when they resist the Spirit of God and his Grace in these Acts foregoing Regeneration and exstinguish the initial effects of the same in themselves by the fault of their own free will are justly forsaken by God whensoever it pleaseth him Whom by their own fault so forsaken we truly pronounce to remain by the same demerit hardned and unconverted We think it to be without all doubt that no mortal man doth so carry himself toward God but that either by omitting that which he should have done or committing that which he should not have done he deserves to have the Grace taken from him which be hath Which ground being forelay'd it is clear that God without all injustice or cruelty may take from such men that Grace which he hath extended to them and leave them to the hardness of their own hearts Rom. 9.18 He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth God also oweth this to no man that when he resists enlightning and exciting Grace and serves his own lusts he should then soften and mollify him by that special Grace which no hard heart resists Rom. 11.35 Who hath first given unto him and it shall be recompenced unto him again Again he that is thus forsaken being not converted perishes through his own fault John 5.34 40. I say these things that ye might be saved and ye will not come to me that ye might have life Acts 28.27 The heart of this people is waxed groâ—â— and their eare are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed least they should be converted and I should heal them Thus our Divines in the Synod and with the approbation of the Synod of Dort gave their Judgment at large and the grounds and reasons of it concerning the dispositions which are ordinarily previous to Regeneration and saving Conversation all which we have transcribed word for word out of their Collegiate suffrage that the world may see that our opinion concerning Preparations and Dispositions previous to saving Conversation is neither new nor singular but is the very same with that of the Synod of Dort from whom we learned it according to the Scripture Now we will shew that this same Doctrine of our Divines in the Synod of Dort is received and approved by those very Divines whom our Authour in his Letter would suborn to be Witnesses against us in the Controversie between him and us we shall demonstrate this by the Testimonies of Dr. Ames Dr. Twiss and Dr. Owen who do all three expressy approve of the suffrage of our Britain Divines in this matter 1. Dr. Ames hath an intire Disputation against Maccovius concerning the preparation of a Sinner to Conversion It and some other Dissertations of his are ordinarily bound up with his short Scholastical reply to Grevinchovius In that Disputation after he had in the first Position rejected as we have done all Dispositions any wise meritorious of Justification in the second Position he says That because there are no meritorious Dispositions for that reason so to hate the very name Disposition as without any distinction to take away and deny all Preparatory affections and motions in a Sinner whereby God makes way for his Congruous Conversion and in some sort puts him in an order and course of Actions which have a tendency unto Regeneration this is as judiciously and wisely doâ—e as if one should absolutely deny that there are any good Works at all because meritorious works are justly condemned And in his 3d. Position But we doubt not to assert says Ames that in every Sinner of ripe years who is to be Converted ordinarily some dispositions tending to Conversion go before it altho in a different degree according to the wise dispensation of God And in his 5th Position De istis inquit nihil certius est quâm quod in Syn. Dord ad art 3. 4. Proposuerunt Theologi Britanni sunt quaedam opera c. Concerning those Dispositions says Ames Nothing is more certain than that which the Brittain Divines proposed in the Synod of Dort upon the 3d. and 4th Articles There are some external works ordinarily required of men before they be brought to the state of Regeneration or Conversion And there are some internal Effects previous to Conversion or Regeneration which by the power of the Word and Spirit are stirred up in the hearts of those who are not yet justified such are the knowledge of Gods will sense of sin fear of Punishment thought of deliverance some hope of pardon For as in the natural Generation of man there are many previous dispositions so also in the Spiritual Generation c. Thus Ames highly approved what we have quoted before at large out of the Suffrage Then he quotes Perkins for the same opinion in his cases of Conscience Book 1. c. 5. In his 8th Position So great says Ames is the evidence of this Truth that he who opposeth it by one rash Sentence seems to blot out the whole first part of the Catechism with a great part of the Second and also to abrogate and make void the whole
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-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