lived and came to Heaven but without Faith never any man had Life the Thief that was hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified him though as Bishop Davenant observes his Faith produced a great many good Works in a very short time but then it follows If he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again but this is the effect that I say that Faith by it self saved him but Works by themselves never justified any man Where he prefers Faith above Works because Faith being a Universal Principle of Obedience is accepted by God without Works when there wants time or opportunity to act them though in no other case but no Works can be pleasing and acceptable to God unless they proceed from a true and hearty Faith Neither Faith is without Works having opportunity thereto nor Works can avail to everlasting Life without Faith The third thing noted of Faith is What manner of Good Works Faith produces and the Good Works of Faith are not some external Acts of Hypocrisie or some worthless and flattering Devotions not some Arbitrary Superstitions c. but are the substantial Duties of Religion which consist in the love of God and of Men which make us like to God and useful to the World as is excellently discoursed in the Second and Third parts of the Homily of Good Works So that according to the sense of our Church Justifying Faith is not an idle and unactive Principle but is fruitful in Good Works and no other Faith can justifie us but such a lively Faith as abounds in all the Fruits of Righteousness according as it hath occasion and opportunity of doing good But to make this still more evident I observe farther that whereas our Church seems to lay the greatest stress upon one particular Act of Faith in the matter of Justification viz. our trust in the Mercy of God and our apprehending the Promise of Forgiveness through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ she also makes a good Life or at least a firm and stedfast Resolution of a good Life antecedently necessary to this Justifying Act of Faith or to our Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord and Saviour This is evident from that Reason which is assigned why no wicked men can have a sure Trust and Confidence in Gods Mercy For how can any man have this true Faith this sure confidence in God that by the Merits of Christ his sins be forgiven and be reconciled to the favour of God and to be partaker of the Kingdom of Heaven by Christ when he liveth ungodly and denieth Christ in his Deeds Surely no such ungodly man can have this Faith and trust in God For as they know Christ to be the only Saviour of the World so they know also that wicked men shall not enjoy the Kingdom of God They know that God hateth Unrighteousness that he will destroy all those that speak untruly that those who have done good Works which cannot be done without a lively Faith in Christ shall come forth into the Resurrection of Life and those that have done evil shall come unto the Resurrection of Iudgment Very well they know also that to them that be contentious and to them that will not be obedient unto the Truth but will obey Unrighteousness shall come indignation wrath and affliction c. The plain meaning of which words is this that no wicked man can have a true Faith in Gods Mercy because the Promise of forgiveness is made upon the Conditions of Repentance and a New Life whereas God hath threatned eternal damnation against all wicked Livers and therefore for any man while he lives in wickedness to hope to be pardoned by God for Christs sake is an express contradiction to the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel and surely no man shall be justified for believing a lie Thus in the first part of the Sermon of Faith the design of which is to prove that a true lively justifying Faith is fruitful in Good Works we are expresly taught That he that believeth that all that is spoken of God in the Bible is true and yet liveth so ungodly that he cannot look to enjoy the Promises and Benefits of God although it may be said that such a man hath a Faith and Belief to the Words of God yet it is not properly said that he believeth in God or hath such a Faith and Trust in God whereby he may surely look for Grace Mercy and everlasting Life at Gods hands but rather for indignation and punishment according to the merits of his wicked Life This contains the very same Doctrine which was expressed in the former Paragraph farther gives us an account what distinction our Church makes between Credere Deo Credere in Deum to believe God and to believe in God the first signifies to believe whatever is contained in the Word of God to be true the second is to yield such Obedience to the Revelations of the Divine Will as may encourage us to trust in God for the Accomplishment of all those gracious Promises of Pardon and Eternal Life This is all the fiducial Reliance which our Church teacheth to trust to the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ for Pardon and Eternal Life upon our faithful discharge of all Gospel-Obedience The same Doctrine is more expresly taught if it be possible in the Second Part of the Sermon of Faith Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth in me hath everlasting Life Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ hath everlasting Life it must needs consequently follow that he that hath this Faith must have also Good Works and be studious to observe Gods Commandments obediently For to them that have evil Works and lead their Life in Disobedience and Transgression or breaking Gods Commandments without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith They that do well shall go into Life eternal but they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire c. What can be more expresly said to prove the inseparable Union of Good Works with Faith in the Act of Justification In the Homily of Repentance this Doctrine is so plainly taught that there can be no possible evasion We are there told That the true Preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the glad and joyful tidings of Salvation have always in their godly Sermons and Preachings unto the People joyned these two together Repentance and Forgiveness of sins even as our Saviour Jesus Christ did appoint himself saying So it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day and that Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations Forgiveness of sins as I observed before is Evangelical Justification and the necessary condition of Forgiveness is Repentance This is proved in that
Homily by many Scripture-Promises and Examples and therefore we must consider what our Church means by Repentance and the explication of this is reduced to four principal Points From what we must return to whom we must return by whom we may be able to convert and the manner how to turn to God First From whence or from what things we must return and that is From all our sins not only grosser vices but the filthy lusts and inward concupiscences of the Flesh. All these things must they forsake that will truly turn unto the Lord and repent aright For sith for such things the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedience no end of punishment ought to be look'd for as long as we continue in such things But this must be done by Faith for sith that God is a Spirit he can by no other means be apprehended and taken hold upon That is God being a Spirit we cannot see him with bodily Eyes nor go to him on our Legs nor take hold of him with an Arm of Flesh and therefore this Metaphor of returning to God and going to him and taking hold of him must be expounded to a spiritual sense is the work of Faith which discovers him who is invisible and unites our Souls and Spirits to him And We have need of a Mediator for to bring and reconcile us unto him who for our sins is angry with us the same is Jesus Christ who being true and natural God c. took our nature upon him that so he might be a Mediator between God and us and pacifie his wrath In the second part of the Homily we have this general Description of Repentance That it is a true Returning unto God whereby men forsaking utterly their Idolatry and Wickedness do with a lively Faith embrace love and worship the true living GOD only and give themselves to all manner of good Works which by Gods Word they know to be acceptable unto him And we are there informed That there are four Parts of Repentance the first is Contrition of the Heart For we must be earnestly sorry for our sins and unfeignedly lament and bewail that we have by them so grievously offended our most bounteous and merciful God c. The second is an unfeigned Confession and acknowledging of our sins to God The third is Faith whereby we do apprehend and take hold upon the Promises of God touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins which Promises are sealed up unto us with the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Reason of this is because Contrition and Confession will avail us nothing unless we stedfastly believe and be fully perswaded that God for his Son Jesus Christs sake will forgive us all our sins for though we be never so earnestly sorry for our sins and acknowledge and confess them yet all these things shall be but means to bring us to utter desparation except we do stedfastly believe that God our heavenly Father will for his Son Jesus Christs sake pardon and forgive us our Offences and Trespasses and utterly put them out of remembrance in his sight therefore they that teach Repentance without Christ and a lively Faith in the Mercy of God do only teach Cains or Iudas Repentance That is they teach men to be sorry for their sins without any hopes of Pardon and Forgiveness which is only to be obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ. The fourth part of Repentance is an amendment of Life in bringing forth fruits worthy of Repentance for they that do truly repent must be clean alter'd and changed they must become New Creatures they must be no more the same that they were before As appears from Iohn the Baptists Exhortation to the Scribes and Pharisees whereby we do learn that if we will have the wrath of God to be pacified we must in no wise dissemble but turn unto him again with a true and sound Repentance which may be known and declared by good Fruits as by most sure and infallible signs thereof This I think is as plain as words can make it that Repentance which consists in a hearty sorrow for all our sins and in a humble Confession of them to Almighty God and in a sincere Faith and Trust in the Mercies of God through our Lord Jesus Christ together with an actual amendment of our lives is according to the sense of our Church absolutely necessary to obtain the pardon of our sins that is Iustification by the free Grace of God This has often made me wonder that any one should affix such a Doctrine as this to the Church of England That Repentance it self is not antecedently necessary to our Iustification I am sure the Learned Bishop Davenant was of another mind in this point for he expresly asserts that there are some Works sine quibus Iustificatio nunquam fuit ab ullo mortalium obtenta nunquam obtinebitur without which Justification never was and never shall be obtained by any mortal man among which he reckons true Repentance and Faith and the love of God and of our Neighbour Haec hujusmodi opera cordis interna sunt omnibus justificatis necessaria non quod contineant in se efficaciam seu meritum Iustificationis sed quod juxta ordinationem divinam vel requiruntur ut conditiones praeviae seu concurrentes sicuti poenitere credere vel ut effecta à fide justificante necessario manantia ut amare Deum c. i. e. These and such-like internal Works of the Heart are necessary to all that are justified not that they are meritorious Causes of Justification but because according to the Divine Appointment they are required either as previous or concurring conditions such as Repentance and Faith or as effects which necessarily flow from a justifying Faith such as to love God c. Where this Learned Prelate doth expresly assert that Repentance as well as Faith is a previous Condition of our Justification and I fear will hereafter be accounted one of our Innovators And that distinction which the Bishop makes between those Works which are required as previous Conditions of Justification as to repent and believe and those Works which are necessary Effects of justifying Faith which must always be present in the justified Person as to love God c. gives a plain and easie answer to the grand Exception against the antecedent necessity of Repentance to our Justification viz. Because then it must precede Faith it self I suppose because every true Believer is actually justified in the first instant of his being a true Believer whereas all good Works and therefore Repentance and Contrition which are certainly good Works are the Effects and Fruits of Faith and so consequently must follow our Justification by Faith unless we will place the Effects before their Cause But this is absolutely false that all good Works are the effects and fruits of justifying Faith for there are some good Works which
would be a greater blemish to the VVisdom and Justice of God than the necessity of Holiness to our Justification can be to the freeness of his Grace Having explained in what sense our Church rejects Good VVorks from the Office of Justifying viz. That nothing which we can do is so perfect as to merit and deserve Justification it is time to consider what our Church attributes to Faith in the Justification of a Sinner and upon what account she affirms That Faith only justifies And I cannot better explain this than in the words of the Homily it self which are these Truth it is that our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of Iustification that is to say our Works do not merit or deserve remission of our sins and make us of unjust just before God But God of his own Mercy through the only Merits Deservings of his Son Iesus Christ doth justifie us 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 Gods 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 VVorks doth justifie and forasmuch that it is all one Sentence in effect to say Faith without Works and only Faith doth justifie us therefore the old ancient Fathers of the Church from time to time have uttered our Iustification with this speech Only Faith justifieth us meaning none other thing than St. Paul meant when he said Faith without works justifieth us And because all this is brought to pass through the only Merits and Deservings of our Saviour Christ and not through our Merits or through the merit of any Vertue that we have within us or of any Work that cometh from us therefore in that respect of Merit and Deserving we forsake as it were altogether again Faith Works and all other Vertues For our own imperfection is so great through the corruption of original sin that all is unperfect that is within 〈◊〉 Faith Charity Hope Dread Thoughts Words and Works and therefore not apt to merit or deserve any part of our Iustification for us And this form of speaking use we in humbling of our selves to God and to give all the Glory to our Saviour Christ which is best worthy to have it These words are so plain that they need no comment and there are three things contained in them which do evidently declare the sense of our Church in this matter First That our Church does not attribute our Justification to Faith upon account of any Merit or Desert in Faith above other Vertues and Graces for in respect of Merit and Deserving we are taught to forsake again Faith it self as well as Works and all other Vertues As our Works do not merit or deserve remission of our sins no more does Faith Secondly That the reason why our Church attributes our Justification to Faith only is to declare that we owe our Justification wholly to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ That God of his own Mercy through the only Merits and Deservings of his Son Iesus Christ doth justifie us And thus immediately before we are told That the meaning of this Proposition or saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this we put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no vertue or good VVorks 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 So that whoever attributes the Justification of a Sinner wholly to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ without any other intervening Merit or Desert though he may differ in the phrase and manner of expression yet does acknowledge all that our Church means by being justified by Faith only and cannot justly be charged with deserting or opposing the Doctrin of our Church And therefore Thirdly the true Reason why our Church attributes our Justification to Faith only and not to Justice or Charity or the Love of God or any other Grace or Virtue is this because Faith only connects the necessity of Obedience and a Holy Life with the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ and thereby both secures and enforces our Duty and attributes the glory of all to Free Grace which is the great design of our Church For Justifying Faith according to the sense of our Church as abundantly appears from what I have discoursed above includes in its own nature Repentance and the Love of God and the sincere purposes of a new Life which as opportunity serves must actually produce all the Fruits of Righteousness for without this we cannot embrace the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness which is made upon the condition of Repentance and a new Life But then it is the proper office of Faith when we have done our best to depend upon the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ to pardon our many sins and defects and to accept and reward our imperfect services which attributes the glory of all not to our Merits and Deserts but to the Grace and Mercy of God Thus our Church tells us that the reason why Faith only is said to justifie is 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 Gods Mercy and of the Remission of our Sins which thing none other of our Virtues or Works properly doth That is Justice or Charity or any other Virtue doth not in its own nature include a dependence on the Grace and Mercy of God for its Acceptance and Reward and therefore should we be justified by these Virtues considered as distinct from Faith which alone embraces the Promise of Mercy we must be justified by their proper Merit and Desert not by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ. But now Faith is not only an active and vigorous Principle of a new Life but in its own nature includes a necessary dependence on the Promise of Pardon it sends to Christ for the Remission of our sins not immediately for this is not the first act of Faith but when we have done our best it teaches us to renounce the Merit of our own Works and to trust in the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ for our Pardon and Reward which ascribes the Praise of all to the Mercy of God Upon the same account our Church tells us that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Love Dread and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but yet it shutteth them out from the office of Iustifying so that though they be all present in
Salvation by receiving Christ by resting and relying and rolling on Christ There is no use of Repentance or Charity or the Love of God in this affair for they cannot apply the Righteousness of Christ to us If we come to Christ for Righteousness we must come without any Righteousness of our own And yet it is hard to understand how this fiducial Reliance on Christ can apply his Righteousness to us a confident Persuasion that Christ is ours may make a fanciful application of his Righteousness to us but a mere Reliance on Christ makes no application but only signifies a Hope that it shall be applied And if they will be true to their Principles that we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us which is God's act whereby he applies the Righteousness of Christ I cannot understand how we can be justified by applying his Righteousness to our selves by Faith which if it have any sense must signifie our imputing the Righteousness of Christ to our selves for the Righteousness of Christ can be applied to us only by Imputation which makes our Justification our own Act and not Gods For it is as absurd to the full to say that Faith is an Instrument in doing that which is intirely Gods act or that our Imputation of Christs Righteousness to our selves is an Instrument of Gods imputing his Righteousness to us And then it is worth considering which of these two Imputations must go first if we apply that is impute the Righteousness of Christ to our selves before God has imputed it this is a false Confidence and Presumption if God imputes it first then we are actually justified and there needs no Imputation or Application of Faith to make this Righteousness ours all that can be said in this case is what the Antinomians affirm that we are first justified before we believe and that Faith is only a Sign or Evidence not an Instrument of our Justification But to let pass the Absurdities of this Doctrin every one may perceive how different this notion is from the sense of the Church of England which does not attribute our Justification to Faith as our own Act much less to any particular Act of Faith but by Justification by Faith only intends no more than that God will pardon our sins if we repent of them and reform our Lives and trust in the Mercies of God through the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the sense of our Church the sole object of our trust is the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ and therefore the proper Act of Faith is to embrace the Promise of Pardon upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life we must first repent of our sins and reform our Lives and then rely on the Mercy of God for our Pardon and Reward But according to this new Divinity the sole object of our trust and reliance is the perfect and personal Righteousness of Christ which shuts out the Mercy of God and the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of Christ and the Promises of Pardon and the necessity of an inherent and personal Righteousness as abundantly appears from what I have discourst above But fourthly whereas our Church makes Christ only the meritorious cause of our Justification but still requires on our part Faith and Repentance and the Love of God as antecedent conditions of our Justification these men found all our hopes of Justification immediately on the Person of Christ. Every good Christian hopes to be justified and saved by Christ but not to be immediately saved by Christ i. e. by a bare Union to his Person but by believing his Gospel and obeying his Laws which are necessarily required on our part to give us an Interest in his Merits and Righteousness but to assert that nothing is necessary to our Justification but to apply Christ and his Righteousness to our selves by a fiducial Reliance and Recumbency is to place our hopes immediately in the Person of Christ which is the foundation of Antinomianism For this reason among others I charged them in my former Discourse with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Gospel and making a new Religion of the Person of Christ distinct from and contrary to the Religion of his Gospel For the Gospel requires a great many previous conditions to entitle us to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ as that we must repent of our sins and reform our Lives and become new Creatures and then God will pardon and reward us for the sake of Christ but if an immediate Application of the Righteousness of Christ to our selves by a fanciful and Enthusiastick Faith will make all Christ ours this makes all the conditions of the Gospel void and useless and sets up the Person of Christ and his Personal Righteousness instead of his Laws and Religion The Gospel attributes the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our imperfect Services to the virtue and efficacy of Christs Sacrifice and Righteousness and thus we are made righteous by Christ as by a meritorious Cause But in this way the Righteousness of Christ must serve instead of a personal and inherent Righteousness which makes us so innocent that we need no Pardon and so perfectly righteous that we merit a Reward This I take to be the grand Miscarriage in these mens Divinity which indeed is the foundation of Antinomianism though the mistake be very taking and popular which makes an opposition to it very odious that whereas Christ is our Life and our Righteousness our Wisdom and Power and the Author of all spiritual Blessings but does not dispense these Blessings immediately to us but in such ways and methods and upon such terms and conditions as are prescribed and declared in the Gospel these men send us immediately to the Person of Christ for Life and Righteousness for Beauty and Comliness for Grace and Wisdom and for the supply of all our spiritual wants which shuts out his Gospel and Religion or makes it wholly useless and let but Dr. Owen stand to what he asserts in his Vindication We do not imagin but believe from the Scripture and with the whole Church of God that we receive Grace and Salvation from the Person of Christ in those distinct ways wherein they are capable of being received if by that he means such ways as are prescribed in the Gospel and I declare I have no controversie with him about this matter Thus for instance Christ is our Righteousness as he is the meritorious cause of the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our sincere but imperfect services but the way to be made righteous by Christ is not immediately to go to Christ for Righteousness with all our sins and impurities about us to be cloathed with his perfect and personal Righteousness but to repent of our sins and to believe and obey the Gospel and then we shall be pardoned and rewarded for Christs sake Thus Christ is our
the Merits of Christ are imputed to us we understand the same thing of his Holiness and active Righteousness for since his Purity and Holiness gave worth and dignity to his Merits in the same sense wherein his Merits are said to be imputed to us his active Righteousness and Obedience is imputed also So that the Bishop never thought that the Obedience and Righteousness of Christ is so made ours that we are accounted by God to have done the same things to have performed all that Righteousness which Christ performed which is the modern notion of Imputation but it is so imputed to us that upon account of the Merits of Christs Life and Death God forgives the Sins and accepts the Persons of those who heartily believe in him as the same Learned and Reverend Person excellently explains it soon after Where he tells us that we are delivered from the Law by Faith in Christ Whosoever believes in him shall not perish and shall not come into condemnation or into Iudgment as he reads it Iohn v. 24. and adds What Iudgment is this from which Believers are delivered by Christ Proculdubio strictum illud ubi juxta normam legis aliquis examinatur prout deprehenditur huic norme respondere justus aut injustus pronunciatur c. No doubt that strict Judgment where men are examined according to the Rule of the Law and are pronounced just or unjust as they are found to agree with that Rule Iustificatio igitur salus credentium non ex eo dependet quod habent in se qualitatem nova justitiae quam audent legali examini stricto Dei judicio subjicere sed quod per propter Merita Redemptoris non subituri sunt tale judicium sed perinde cum illis agetur ac si haberent in seipsis exactam justitiam legalem Therefore the Justification and Salvation of Believers does not depend on this that they have such an internal Righteousness as they dare submit to a legal Tryal and to the strict and rigorous Judgment of God but that by and for the Merits of their Redeemer hey shall never undergo such a Judgment but shall be dealt with as if they had an exact legal Righteousness of their own And this he tells us hemeans by the Merits of Christ being the formal cause of our Iustification and in this sense I heartily own it though the abuse of that Phrase is a sufficient Reason to alter it Let us now consider in the third place what is required on our part in order to our Justification by Gods Mercy and by Christs Merits and that is plainly expressed in the Homily And upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us That we may the better understand this we must enquire What is meant by this Faith in the Merits of Christ And what is meant by a true and lively Faith in Christs Merits And what our Church attributes to this Faith in the Work of Justification First What is meant by Faith in the Merits of Christ Now the general Notion of Faith is that it is a perswasion and belief in mans heart whereby he knoweth that there is a God and agreeth unto all Truth of Gods most holy Word contained in the holy Scripture This is such a Faith as Devils and wicked Men may have But then a Faith in Christs Merits or a true justifying Faith such as no wicked men can have is not only the common belief of the Articles of Faith but it is also a true trust and confidence of the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a sted fast hope of all good things to be received at Gods hand and that although we through infirmity or temptation of our ghostly Enemy do fall from him by sin yet if we return again to him by true Repentance that he will forgive and forget our offences for his Sons sake our Saviour Jesus Christ and will make us Inheritors with him of his everlasting Kingdom and that in the mean time till that Kingdom come he will be our Protector and Defender in all perils and dangers whatsoever do chance and that though sometimes he doth send us sharp adversity yet that evermore he will be a loving Father unto us if we trust in him and commit our selves wholly unto him hang only upon him and call upon him ready to obey and serve him That is a Faith in the Merits of Christ is a sure Hope and Confidence in God a certain Expectation of all temporal and spiritual good things from God for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the condition of Repentance and a new Life or as it is excellently expressed a little after in the same Homily For the very sure and lively Christian Faith is not only to believe all things of God contained in holy Scripture but also is an earnest trust and confidence in God that he doth regard us and that he is careful over us as the Father is over the Child whom he doth love and that he will be merciful to us for his only Sons sake and that we have our Saviour Christ our perpetual Advocate and Priest in whose only Merits Oblation and Suffering we do trust that our Offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart sted fastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin So that Justifying Faith according to the sense of our Church is not a perswasion that our sins are actually pardoned or that God for Christs sake will forgive our sins without requiring any more of us than to believe that he will forgive them But it is a firm perswasion that God will forgive our sins for Christs sake if we repent of our sins and forsake them and determine through his gracious assistance never to return to them again But we shall understand this the better if we consider secondly what is meant by a true lively Faith in Christs Merits for our Church distinguishes between a dead and a lively Faith A dead Faith is by the holy Apostle St. James compared to the faith of Devils which believe God to be true and just and tremble for fear yet they do nothing well but all evil And such a manner of Faith have the wicked and naughty Christian People which confess God as St. Paul saith in their mouth but deny him in their deeds being abominable and without the right faith and to all good works reprovable And Forasmuch as Faith without Works is dead it is not now Faith as a dead Man is not a Man This dead Faith therefore is not the sure and substantial Faith which saveth Sinners Let us now consider what a lively Faith is and the description of that follows in these words Another Faith there is in
him that is justified yet they justifie not all together Where by these good Works being joyned with Faith and being present in him that is justified is meant that they are essential to a Justifying Faith and must be present as antecedent qualifications or conditions without which God will not justifie us as appears from what I have discourst above concerning the nature of Justifying Faith which includes Repentance and the Love of God c. as antecedently necessary to our embracing the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness which is not the first but the last and completing act of Faith For if these good Works be not one way or other necessary to our Justification no reason can be assigned why they should be present in him that is justified for Faith might then justifie alone without the Presence as well as without the Merit and Efficacy of our good Works And therefore when Faith is said to shut out these good Works from the office of Iustifying that though they be all present yet they do not justifie all together the design is not to deny the Necessity but the Merit of good Works This is plain from the Reason which is immediately assigned why these good Works cannot justifie because all the good Works we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our Iustification which is the constant Doctrin of the Homilies For our Church by Justification perpetually understands a meritorious and not a conditional Justification and therefore whatever justifies in this sense must by its own Virtue or Merit expiate our sins which is the reason alledged why no man can make himself righteous that is justifie himself by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest Presumption in Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself SO that is by the Merit and Virtue of his own Works And Faith it self considered as our own Act hath no greater privilege upon this account than any other Grace or Virtue for in respect of Merit and Deserving we forsake altogether again Faith Works and all other Virtues Faith does not justifie as our own Act that is it does not merit our Justification as it must do if it justifie as our own Act which in the sense of our Church signifies that we do something so meritorious as to deserve Justification at Gods hands But now Iustification is the office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him that is we can offer him nothing of our own to merit our Justification but which we receive from him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Iustifier and Saviour Iesus Christ. But for this reason Faith only is said to justifie and to shut out our own Works and itself also considered as our own Act from the office of justifying because though it strongly enforce the Necessity of good Works yet in its own nature it excludes all opinion of Merit and Desert For Faith has a necessary respect to the Promise of Mercy and Forgiveness and whoever acknowledges that he ows his Justification to the Mercy of God who for the sake of Christ pardons his Sins and rewards his Imperfect Services as all those must do who hope to be saved by Faith in the notion of our Church does plainly confess that his Works are imperfect and cannot deserve his Justification which takes away all opinion of Merit from our selves and attributes the glory of all to the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ. I shall only observe three things from this Discourse which are very material to our present purpose First that our Church was not acquainted with that Distinction in the modern sense of it that we are justified fide solâ but not solitariâ by Faith alone but not by that Faith which is alone the meaning of which according to some Modern Divines is this That we are justified only by that particular Act of Faith which apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and relies and rolls itself on Christ for Salvation and applies his Merits and Righteousness to the Soul without any regard to Repentance and the Love of God or any other Grace or Virtue That though at the same time God infuse the habits of all Graces and Virtues into a justified person yet in the Act of justifying he hath no regard at all to Repentance or any other Grace but we are justified in order of nature before these are infused into us and without any respect to them And some men would willingly affix this Notion as absurd as it is to our Church because she only requires the presence of these Graces and Virtues in the justified person but shuts them out from the office of Justifying But I have made it appear that these words admit a better sense and that Justification by Faith only in the modern Notion of it so as to exclude the antecedent Necessity of Repentance or any other internal Grace or Virtue is contrary to the constant doctrin of our Church which requires the presence of these Graces as antecedent conditions or qualifications though it shut them out from being the meritorious Causes of Justification And to confirm this I observe secondly that our Church doth not attribute our Justification to any particular Act of Faith She frequently indeed inculcates the embracing of the Promise of Pardon and Forgiveness as essential to a justifying Faith but the reason of that is not because that particular Act justifies us but to attribute our Justification not to the Merit of our own works but to the Mercy of God But she expresly affirms that Faith doth not justifie as our own Act that Justification is not the office of Man but of God and if we be not justified by Faith as our own Act much less can any particular Act of Faith which if it be considered as an Act must be considered as our own Act justifie which overthrows that Instrumentality of Faith in Justification which these men talk of but the plain meaning of our being justified by Faith only is this that God will pardon our sins and reward us with eternal life if we repent of our sins and believe and obey the Gospel of his Son trusting wholly in the Mercies of God and in the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ as it is exprest at large in the Homily That the true understanding and meaning of our being justified by Faith without Works or by Faith in Christ only is this that although we hear Gods Word and believe it although we have Faith Hope Charity and do never so many good Works thereunto yet we must renounce the Merit of all the said Virtues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Virtues and good deeds which
Man with the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein as revealed and declared in the Scripture This comprehends all those Revelations which immediately concern the Person of Christ as his Nature Offices Mediation and all the benefits which flow from them the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein And then he adds That without such a knowledge of the Person of Christ as this which contains all we can know and all that is revealed in the Gospel concerning Christ There is no true useful saving knowledge of any other Mysteries of the Gospel to be attained This indeed is very warily said and like a right Sophister set aside all the saving Mysteries of the Gospel which concern the Person and Offices and Mediation of Christ and then there are no other saving Mysteries to be discovered or at least no saving knowledge of any other Mysteries because he knew very well that no Christian could own any saving knowledge when he had laid aside the knowledge of Christ And yet in this saying he craftily insinuates too that there are some other saving Mysteries which are to be discovered when we are first acquainted with Christ and he should have done well to have told me what they are and how they may be discovered since my Living or my Christianity lay at stake and I am not very good at guessing but since he has here concealed this secret we must learn what it is from his former Writings and then whatever danger there be in it I must needs say that this acquaintance with the Person of Christ is a very ill way of expounding Scripture or of learning Gospel-Mysteries as being that which different men may use to different purposes as I shewed in my former Discourse and from whence some men draw such Conclusions as do quite evacuate the ends and design of the Gospel This is sufficient to vindicate my self from those imputations of Falshood and Calumny which occur almost in every Page of the Doctors Answer but I shall not dismiss this subject thus but shall first shew you that there is such a way of reasoning from the knowledge of Christ's Person now in great vogue among some late Writers and what Arguments I reject upon that score as weak or fallacious And secondly discourse something more particularly concerning this way of reasoning As for the first I have given instances enough of this nature in my former Discourse which were so plain and evident that I thought the bare mentioning of them was sufficient to convince any man from what Principles such Arguments and Conclusions were deduced But because I find that my Adversaries are willing to take no notice of the chief design for which those passages were alleadged but to fall into some collateral Disputes I must be forced more expresly to state the matter in debate and reduce it to another form and method The Question then between us is plainly this Whether any Persons pretend to learn or prove the great Principles of their Religion from an Acquaintance with the Nature Person Offices of Christ distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel In my former Discourse I asserted that they deduced such Doctrines from the knowledge of Christ as are no where expresly contained in Scripture and I doubt not but that will appear true upon a particular examination of such Doctrines as they have or shall fall in my way but let the Doctrines be true or false the present dispute is whether they make the knowledge of Christs Person a new medium of saving knowledge from whence we may learn the greater deeper and more saving Mysteries of Religion distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel And that they do so is plain from this that most of the Arguments from whence they deduce and by which they prove their most darling and mysterious Notions are wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christs Person and are no where exprest in Scripture I have already given two instances of this in his way of proving the naturalness of vindictive justice to God and the desert and demerit of sin and shall now add some more The Doctor proves from the Deity of Christ as I observed in my former Discourse the endless bottomless boundless grace and compassion that is in him mercy enough for the greatest the eldest the slubbornest transgressor the infiniteness of Grace with respect to the Spring or Fountain the Deity of Christ will answer all our Objections What is our finite guilt before it How comes this guilt to be finite now When we are so often told that the demerit of every sin is infinite as being committed against an infinite God and requiring an infinite satisfaction for its Atonement Shew me the Sinner that can spread his iniquity to the dimensions if I may so say of this Grace I am glad to hear the Doctor put so fair a sense on these words and to declare to the World that he designed no more in it than to invite all sorts of sinners though under the most discouraging qualifications to come unto Christ for Grace and Mercy by Faith and Repentance Though any man who reads that long Discourse about an endless bottomless boundless Grace and Compassion in Christ such an infinite Grace as makes nothing of our finite guilt as all the sins in the world cannot equal its dimensions without one word of Faith or Repentance or a new life to qualifie us for this mercy especially if withal he understood what a great Patron the Doctor is of the necessity of holiness and obedience to qualifie us for Gods mercy as appears from what I have already discoursed above would not easily have guessed this to have been his meaning And whoever writes a Book which cannot be understood without a Commentary ought not to complain that he is mistaken nor charge his Readers upon that account with ignorance falshood or calumny Though for my part I shall be very well contented he should write another Book consisting of little else than those mild and gentle imputations of falshood and calumny so he will but recant or at least handsomly palliate those doctrines which otherwise may encourage bad men continuing so to lay claim to such a boundless and bottomless mercy But my present business is to observe how the Doctor proves that there is such a boundless bottomless Grace in Christ and his Argument is taken from his Divine Nature which is infinite For when the Conduit of his humanity is inseparably united to the infinite inexhausted fonntain of the Deity who can look into the depths thereof if now there be Grace enough for sinners in an all sufficient God it is in Christ. This is a plain instance of this way of reasoning from an acquaintance with Christ with his Divine nature which the Scripture no where teaches and which is weak and fallacious For though the Divine Nature be infinite yet the exercise of mercy and compassion is regulated by wisdom
endeavoured to misrepresent the Doctrine and Design of my Book and by affixing ill names to it deter their followers from looking on the inside or once considering what it is they are afraid of I shall here give a short Abstract of the whole Doctrine and do earnestly beg that favour of every man if he will not be at the trouble to read and consider the Discourse it self at least to peruse this short Account of it before he allow himself the liberty of reviling Only I must observe by the way how the state of things is already altered since the appearing of my Discourse before the great noise and clamour was against Moral and Legal Preachers who preach'd up Holiness but left out Christ and the Grace of God now when they are charg'd on the other hand with as much undervaluing a holy Life and with advancing the Person of Christ to the prejudice of his Laws and Religion they change their note and would perswade the world that there is no real difference between us but that I force their Expressions to a sense which they never intended they are now grown great Patrons of Holiness and whatever they talk of the Excellency of Christs Person or of his boundless and bottomless compassion and of such an infinite mercy which all the sins in the world cannot equal and of such a Patience as will save us notwithstanding our sins they mean no more than what we believe as heartily as they that Christ is able and willing to save all those who repent and believe and reform their lives and that he will save none but upon these terms I am glad with all my heart to hear this for I designed no more than to establish this Doctrine but what account can they give after this of their general out-cry against Legal and Moral Preachers Were there any men who taught the People that Holiness would save them without the Merits of Christ I know no such they were none of my Companions and Complices at whom the Doctor so often flurts And if there be no real difference between us but only a different phrase and manner of expression I wonder why they should be so angry with those men who speak that so plainly that the People cannot mistake them which they affect to obscure in uncouth and mystical phrases There can be no account given of this but that they are willing at least that the People should believe there is a difference and are not so faithful to Mens Souls as to prevent such dangerous mistakes Were these phrases of coming to Christ and closing with Christ and leaning and resting and rolling our Souls on Christ for Salvation and such like generally understood not only by some cunning Sophisters when they are forc'd by reason and argument to put a sober sense on them but by the common people to signifie no more than expecting to be saved by Christ according to Gospel-terms that is upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance and a new Life I should think him very ill imployed who should disturb the peace of the Church for the sake of any modes of speaking but when it is so evident that the Preachers themselves when they have no adversary expound these phrases to a very different if not contrary purpose and that the generality of Hearers never suspect that coming to Christ and closing with Christ include Obedience and a holy Life but that this is rather a hinderance to their closing with Christ as their Preachers tell them This makes it necessary to oppose those forms of speech which are generally abused to evil purposes and it is an argument of no great honesty to be fond of words and phrases to the prejudice of mens souls And yet after all this the Doctor cannot forget his old grudge against these Preachers of holiness He tells us I know there are not a few who in the course of a vain worldly conversation whilst there is scarce a back or belly of a Disciple of Christ that blesseth God upon account of their bounty or charity the footsteps of levity vanity scurrility and prophaness being moreover left upon all the paths of their haunt are wont to declaim about holiness good works and justification by them which is a ready way to instruct men to Atheism or the scorn of every thing that is professed in Religion No doubt but there is a great mixture of truth and modesty in this censure I thank God I know no such persons and if I did I should abhor them as much as he can but the Doctors quarrel seems to be not so much at the vanity and prophaness c. of their Conversation for it is a known Maxim among them The worse the better as at their preaching Holiness c. Good Sir if such men are permitted to preach what would you have them preach Should they cry down holiness and preach up debauchery Is this the way to cure the world of Atheism Or should they teach men to trust wholly in the righteousness of Christ without any righteousness of their own I confess this would much more become them and I wonder all bad men are not of this perswasion though I hope the Doctor and his Friends have some better reason for their Zeal For the same cause these men persecute my Discourse the whole design of which is no more than to convince men of the absolute necessity of a universal Righteousness in order to please God and to save their souls that no man must expect to be saved by Christ without obeying the Gospel and imitating the example of his Lord and that this is the meaning of all those phrases of Scripture of believing in Christ and coming to him and receiving him and being united to him and ingrafted in him and the like which are expounded by some men to the prejudice of obedience and to encourage sinners to expect justification by Christ and those who are justified are actually in a state of salvation while they are in their filth and impurities I cannot but think it very glorious to suffer in such a cause this was the very reason why the Pharisees persecuted our Saviour himself because he rejected all their external and ceremonial righteousness and exacted from them a sincere and internal obedience to the divine Laws and plainly told them That nothing would carry them to Heaven but such a renovation of their minds and spirits as transformed them into the likeness and image of God This is the great fault of my Book and the true reason of all this noise and clamour as will appear by taking a summary account of the whole Design and Doctrine of it CHAP. I. Containing a short Account of the Design and Doctrine of the Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Christ c. THe Design I proposed to my self in that Discourse was to reconcile that Love and Honour and Adoration Trust and Affiance which all Christians owe to their Lord and
by Christ till we are united to him and we are not united to him till we obey him this gives the glory of all to Christ because we are justified for his sake by vertue of our Union to him and yet vindicates the necessity of a holy Life because this is essential to our Union to Christ. And this is the sum of whatever I asserted concerning the Necessity of Good Works to our Justification not that they can merit any thing of God but that they are the necessary conditions of the Covenant of Grace which was purchased and sealed by the Blood of Christ or in other words that they are necessary to our Union with Christ and thereby to give us an interest in all those Promises of Pardon and Grace and Eternal Life which Christ hath made to his Church The Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the Foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the terms of the Covenant then we must have a Righteousness of our own not to merit Justification or Eternal Life but to entitle us to the Grace and Mercy of the New Covenant or which is all one to unite us to Christ by whom and for whose sake we are justified to say that Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel a new Nature and Holiness of Life are the necessary conditions of our Justification by Christ and to say that they are essential to our Union to Christ by whom we are justified are different forms of Speech but signifie the same thing because Christ justifies none but those who are united to him and none are united to him but by Faith and Obedience and so e converso those who believe and obey the Gospel are in so doing united to Christ and they and none else shall be justified by him which gives a plain account how the Virtue and Merit of all is due to Christ because we are justified by our relation to him and explains the meaning of those phrases of receiving Christ and coming to him for Life and Salvation and believing in him which signifies our being united to him by a sincere Faith and Obedience which is necessarily required of all those who would be justified by him In the last Chapter I give a short account of the nature of Christs love to us and of our love to Christ that no man might mistake the love of Christ for a fond and easie passion nor think to please him with some heats and raptures of Fancy instead of the substantial Returns of Duty and Obedience the sum of which in short is this that Christ expressed a wonderful and stupendious Love in dying for us especially in dying for us while we were his Enemies upon which account the Scripture every where magnifies the love of Christ but though this were the greatest yet it is not the only expression of his love but he manifests the same good will in all the methods of his Grace and Providence he is an easie and gentle Governour who rules with the natural tenderness and compassion of a Shepherd a Husband a Head a Friend He pities our weaknesses and infirmities and is ready to help and succour us he is now ascended up to Heaven where he personally intercedes for us and with his own hand dispences all those Blessings to us which we want and pray for in his Name And he who loved Sinners so as to die for them must needs take pleasure in good men and dwell with them as one Friend dwells with another Iohn xiv 21 23. Christ will in a more especial manner be present with such good men who are careful in all things to obey him and will give very sensible demonstrations of his presence with them will manifest himself unto them and make his abode with them And now in return to this we must consider that Christ is our Superiour our Lord and Master and therefore our love to Christ must not express it self in a fond and familiar passion such as we have for our Friends and Equals but in a great Reverence and Devotion Superiors must be treated with Honour and Respect and therefore our love to our Parents and Superiors in the Fifth Commandment is called Honour and the same religious Affection to God which is sometimes called Love is at other times called Fear which signifies a Reverential Love or a Love of Honour Reverence and Devotion and therefore the external Expressions of our love to our Saviour are as various as the Expressions of Honour and must bear some respect to the nature and condition of the Person and that relation we stand in to him Christ being the only begotten Son of God we must have regard to the Greatness and Excellency of his Person Since he became Man and died for us we must admire and praise his Goodness He being our Mediator and Advocate we must trust and confide in him and expect the returns of our Prayers and all other Blessings from the prevalency of his Intercession He being our Prophet and Law-giver we must express our Love to him in a belief of his Gospel and a sincere Obedience to his Laws as Christ requires of his Disciples If you love me keep my Commandments And when we consider our Saviour as our Guide and Example the truest expression of our Love and Honour is to imitate him to live as he lived in the World And that which perfects our Love is an undaunted Courage and Resolution in professing the Faith of Christ whatever Dangers and Miseries it may expose us to in this world For there is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear These are the proper expressions of our love to Christ which are summarily comprehended in believing his Gospel and obeying it for to be a true Lover of Christ signifies neither more nor less than to be a good Christian. This is a faithful account of the Design and Doctrine of my Book which hath raised so much Noise and Clamour and hath sharpened the Pens and Tongues of so many against me but it is a vain attempt to think to out-face the Sun these are such bright and glorious Truths as will out-shine all the New Lights of present or former Ages and command belief from all honest and inquisitive Minds by their own natural Evidence The Doctrines which I designedly opposed in that Discourse are such as contradict these great Truths or at least such as I apprehended to do so either expresly or in their immediate consequences and because this is the principal thing which has anger'd so many men whose Cause and Reputation are concerned in the quarrel I shall give some brief account what those Doctrines are and in what sence I reject them which I hope may silence those scandalous reports as if I had struck at the very foundations of Christianity And first whereas I observed that to know Christ signifies the belief and knowledge of those Revelations which Christ
hath made to the World which includes whatever he hath revealed to us concerning his own Person Natures Mediation and the whole Will of God concerning our Salvation which must be learnt from the express Declarations of the Gospel not from some fanciful and imaginary consequences which is a very unsafe way in matters of pure Revelation Doctor Owen hath advanced an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ as the only Medium of saving knowledge that is when we have from the Gospel learnt who Christ is what he hath done and suffered for us when we have learnt those things which concern his Person Offices and Work we may then give free scope to our fancies and draw such conclusions as are no where expresly contained in Scripture or could not possibly have been learnt from Scripture at least not clearly and savingly without such an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ that is without reasoning and drawing conclusions from what Christ hath done suffered These conclusions must be formed into artificial Theories and Schemes of Religion and then these are the great Gospel-Mysteries and the only saving knowledge of Christ and those men only preach Christ who fill peoples heads with such choice Speculations as they have learnt from this Acquaintance with Christ. I thought there was very great reason to oppose this Principle which gave such boundless scope to mens fancies and allowed every man to frame and mold a Religion according to his own humour and was the more confirmed in this when I observed what strange Mysteries the Doctor himself had learn'd from this Acquaintance with Christ which I am sure without this he could never have learnt either from Scripture or Reason I gave several instances of this nature out of his own Writings which shall be made good in due time at present I must observe what Doctrines I there reject and in what sence I rejected such a notion of Gods Justice as represents him as fierce and savage as the worst of beings such a notion of Justice as disparages the Satisfaction of Christ as if the whole design of it were to gratifie Revenge and to appease a furious and merciless Deity which notion at first frighted Socinus out of his Wits and made him rather chuse to deny the satisfaction of Christ than to believe any thing so unworthy of God though thanks be to God that we need do neither I reject such a notion of Justice as disparages the Wisdom of God in the contrivance of our Redemption by Jesus Christ for if it were absolutely necessary for God to punish sin and there were no other Person in the World fit or able to bear the punishment of sin and to make expiation for it but only Christ there was required no great Wisdom to make the choice I reject such a notion of the Mercy and Patience of God as represents it to be the effect only of the satisfaction of Revenge which is like the tameness of an angry man when his passion is over which is an unworthy conceit of the infinite Love and Goodness of the Divine Nature I reject such a notion of Mercy as represents God to be fond easie to Sinners while they continue so and I think such a notion of Justice and Mercy very unworthy of God which represents him more concerned to punish Sin than to reform it And is it not hard that a man must be scandalized with denying the satisfaction of Christ and blaspheming God meerly for rejecting such Doctrines as are injurious to the Satisfaction of Christ and when they are pursued to their just and natural consequences are down right blasphemy against God this is a certain way to prevent the confutation of such Doctrines for you cannot confute them without discovering their blasphemy and whoever does so shall himself be charged as a Blasphemer But to proceed I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as is unintelligible such as the Great Patrons of it cannot explain nor any one else understand for since all our hopes of Salvation depends upon our Union to Christ I can by no means think that this is such a Mystery as surpasses humane knowledge for that on which the happiness of all men depends ought in reason to be so plain that it may be understood by all I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as intitles us to all the Personal Excellencies Fulness Beauty and to the Personal Righteousness of Christ as much as Marriage intitles a Woman to her Husbands Estate that whatever Christ hath done and suffered is as much reckoned ours when we are united to him as if we had done and suffered the same things our selves and that upon this account we are justified only by the Righteousness of Christ without respect to any inherent Righteousness in our selves Now I reject this because no Union can thus intitle us to Christs personal Excellencies and Righteousness but such a natural Union as makes Christ and Believers One Person that they are Christed with Christ which is an absurd and dangerous Heresie but neither our Marriage to Christ nor his being our Surety or Mediator can effect this for whatever Union there may be between the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers while their Persons remain distinct their Properties and Qualifications and Righteousness must be considered as distinct too and though we may receive great advantage by what Christ hath done and suffered yet it cannot be reckoned ours in that strict notion as if it had been done by us and there is a vast difference between these two notions for the first only makes the Righteousness of Christ the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Reward which makes it necessary to have a Righteousness of our own to entitle us to these Blessings but the second makes the Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness which destroys the necessity of any inherent Righteousness in our selves but of this more hereafter I reject such a notion of our Union to Christ whereby bad men may be nay must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins for if it once be granted as it must be granted if we believe the Gospel that our Union to Christ gives us an actual interest in all his Promises such as Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life it is easie to observe how this overthrows the whole Design of the Gospel if a bad man while he continues so may be united to Christ for then he is a Son of God and an Heir of Everlasting Life and what becomes then of all those Gospel-Threatnings which denounce the wrath of God against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men When Christ tells us That he who breaks the least of his Commandments shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven that except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and when St.
his Death and cite Heb. ix 12. to that purpose which I am sure no Socinian can own The proper notion of an Advocate or Intercessor is one who offers up our Prayers and Petitions and procures an Answer which was represented by the High Priests offering Incense in the Holy of Holies which signified the Prayers of the Congregation and therefore we find that while the Priest offered Incense in the Holy Place the People used to pray without that their Prayers might ascend together with the Incense Luke i. 10. So that Christs Intercession is founded on the virtue of his Sacrifice but it is not the representation of his Meritorius Sacrifice as Mr. Ferguson imagines but the Recommendation of our Prayers and Persons to God by virtue of his meritorious Sacrifice and therefore the Intercession of Christ is described by his being able to save all those to the uttermost who come unto God by him Heb. vii 25. And since we have such an High Priest who intercedes for us and is sensible of our Infirmities we are exhorted to come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Heb. iv 16. The death of Christ upon the Cross was a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of his Aaronical Priesthood to make Atonement for Sin by the Sacrifice of himself but when he ascended into Heaven and had presented his Blood in the holy Place he was no longer then a Priest after the Order of Aaron but after the Order of Melchisedeck as the Apostle proves at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews his work is not to offer himself any more in Sacrifice for he hath by one offering for ever perfected them who are sanctified but his Office is to bless the People in Gods Name as Melchisedeck blessed Abraham God hath sent his Son to bless us in turning of us from our iniquities He hath exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins So that now in virtue of his Death and Sacrifice Christ doth not intercede like some meaner Advocates by Prayers and Intreaties having all power both in Heaven and Earth committed to him but doth by his Power and Authority which he received from God as the Purchase and Reward of his Death and Sufferings bestow all those Blessings on us which we want and pray for in his Name For this Reason I asserted That Christs Intercession is the Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive sins not to make atonement for them which he did by his Death and Sacrifice as Mr. Ferguson would pervert my words but to apply this Expiation and Atonement to us in the actual forgiveness of our sins And this is so plain and evident a Truth that Mr. Ferguson himself cannot deny it though he quarrels with me for asserting it being willing it seems to find fault if he knew how His Words are these Indeed his Intercession as upon the one hand it is founded on his Oblation and Sacrifice being nothing but the representation of his meritorious Passion and a continuation of his sacerdotal Function which as I observed before is a mistaken notion of Christs Intercession as confounding his Sacrifice with his Intercession which is indeed founded on his Sacrifice and receives all its virtue and efficacy from it but yet is of a distinct nature and consideration so on the other hand it hath its effects towards us by virtue of the interposition of some Acts of his Kingly Office For these Offices being all vested in the same Person and having all the same general End and belonging all to the Work of Mediation it cannot otherwise be but that their Acts must have a mutual respect to each other but yet the Priestly Office to which Intercession appertains is formally distinct from his Kingly In which words he acknowledges that Christs Intercession as it respects us and consists in bestowing those Blessings on us which we want and which he hath purchased is an Act of Kingly Power and Authority which is as much as I asserted or ever intended to assert And as for what he adds that still his Priestly Office is formally distinguish'd from his Kingly I readily grant it so far as it respects his Sacrifice and Expiation which is an Act of his Aaronical Priesthood but as it respects his Intercession which is an Act of his Melchisedechian Priesthood his Kingly and Priestly Offices are so closely united that he is rather to be considered as a Regal Priest than as either Priest or King because it is the exercise of that Power and Authority which is founded on his Sacrifice And by this time I hope every ordinary Reader will see what a vain and malicious attempt it was for this Author to endeavour to represent me as a Socinian of which Candor and Ingenuity I shall give several other Instances hereafter and that he might have spared his pains in proving that the Kingly and Priestly Offices in Christ are distinct and that Christ is not a Metaphorical but a proper Priest But to return to our Looking-Glass-Maker he quarrels still that I say That Christs preaching the Gospel was the exercise of his Regal Power in publishing his Laws Our Author can understand that to enact Laws is an exercise of a Regal Power but not to publish them which would make every inferior Herald a King This is a very wise Objection which shews his Skill in Laws and Government It is not indeed necessary for a King to publish his Laws in his own Person this was a peculiar condescension of our Saviour to come in Person to us to publish his Laws but yet the publication of Laws must be made by the same Authority which Enacts them for publication is of the very essence of a Law and by wiser men than our Author put into the definition of it and therefore is the proper exercise of Regal Power I doubt my Readers will be quite tired with my taking notice of such impertinent Cavils and therefore I shall add but one or two more which are very remarkable and dismiss our Author for the present I commend the Wisdom and Honesty of our Church for teaching her Children a Religion without Art or Subtilty Our Author disproves this by shewing that no Child can understand the Church-Catechism without great art and subtilty he cannot understand what it is to be a Member of Christ without understanding the various significations of the Name Christ and whether he must be made a Member of the Church or of the Person of Christ and then he must know what this Church is which requires great subtilty c. Now by the same argument I can prove that a Child cannot understand the easiest thing in Nature without unridling all the Mysteries of Philosophy as for instance at this rate a Child cannot understand what Bread is unless he first understand what Matter is and then he
whatever becomes of this Exposition of which more hereafter did ever any man before Mr. Ferguson imagine that the Fulness of Christ of which we receive Grace for Grace was a proper Expression without the least Trope or Figure Fulness properly belongs only to space as filled with matter and is a metaphorical Expression when applied to Spirits or spiritual things and therefore I thought that instead of turning a proper Expression into Tropes and Figures I had expounded a figurative Expression to the most proper sense when by the Fulness which is in Christ I understood the most perfect Knowledge of the Divine Will and by this Fulness communicated to us the most perfect Declarations of the Divine Will in the Gospel which is a Dispensation of Grace and Truth But let us consider what proper work Mr. Ferguson makes of it By that Fulness in Christ of which we all receive Grace for Grace he understands a participation of renewing sanctifying Grace according to the plain and proper import of the words So that Christ is in a proper sense full of renewing and sanctifying Grace that is according to Mr. Ferguson's notion of it of infused habits of Grace and we receive this renewing Grace out of Christ's Fulness as Water flows out of a Fountain And thus either Grace passes from one Subject to another which the Philosopher would have told him no Habit or Quality can do or the very Substance of Christ is communicated to Christians together with these infused Habits of Grace which is a more ridiculous conceit than the Popish Transubstantiation or the Lutheran Consubstantiation The inherent Grace of Christ according to this notion is of the same identical nature with the infused Habits of Grace in Christians and the Essential Holiness of Christ is separable from his Person and may be transmitted into another Subject and may there be capable of increase and diminution Mr. Ferguson must necessarily allow all this if he take these words in a proper sense for it is not sufficient to say that Christ is endowed with power to renew and sanctifie us to deliver this Expression from Tropes and Figures but the very same Grace which is in Christ must be infused into Believers which is an excellent way of expounding Scriptures to a proper sense by turning them into Nonsense But these are but some slight Skirmishes in pag. 387. he draws forth his whole strength and force to make good this Charge against me That I pervert the Scripture by turning Plain and Proper Expressions into a Metaphorical Sense Of this he gives two instances the first is concerning the Priestly Office of Christ which he says I confound with his Regal Office and consequently make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then he tells us That there is not one Text in the Bible where Christ is called a Priest which can be understood in a proper sense but they must all of necessity be interpreted in a metaphorick as the Socinians expound them Now though I doubt it would puzzle Mr. Ferguson to give an intelligible account what he means by a proper and a a metaphorical Priest yet at least one might reasonably expect from him that in order to make good this Charge he should produce some express place where I make Christ a metaphorical Priest or some express Texts which I expound to such a metaphorical sense but he can do neither of these and therefore he first perverts my words as well as sense and then argues by consequence that I make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then by as good consequence I must expound those Texts which concern the Priesthood of Christ in a metaphorick sense and thus by consequence our Author loses his labour For I have already made it sufficiently appear how childishly he has mistaken or maliciously perverted my words and sense whereon this Charge is grounded only I am very glad to find upon this occasion that he has so much alter'd his Judgment of Dr. Stillingfleet and his Discourse concerning the Reason of the Sufferings of Christ for time was when he charged that Learned Person with betraying the Cause for the same Reasons for which I am now charged with Socinianism But our Author never commends any one unless it be to insinuate some commendation of himself or to reflect some disparagement and odium upon his Adversary His next instance concerns that account which I give of the nature of Justification And here he first lays down my sense of it and then makes some few cavilling exceptions against it then admirably proves that I pervert plain and proper expressions of Scripture to a metaphorical sense As for the first I own my words but dislike that blundering method into which he has cast them and therefore I shall beg leave to represent my own Conceptions in such order and method as may more easily and naturally express my sense I assert That our Justification and Acceptance with God depends wholly upon the Gospel-Covenant which does not exact from us a perfect and sinless Obedience but promises Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life upon the Conditions of Faith and Repentance and new Obedience that this Gospel-Covenant is wholly owing to the Merits of Christ who by the Sacrifice of his Death hath expiated our Sins and both in his Life and Death hath given a Noble Demonstration of his entire Obedience and Submission to the Divine Will for God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs Life and with the Sacrifice and Expiation of his Death entered into a New Covenant of Grace and Mercy with Mankind that the only way to partake of the blessings of this New Covenant is by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ that is in other words by acknowledging the Divine Authority of our Saviour believing his Revelations obeying his Laws trusting to the Merits of his Sacrifice and the Power of his Intercession and depending on the supplies and influences of his Grace So that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification but the Righteousness of his Life and Death is the meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared righteous and rewarded as righteous Persons our Righteousness is wholly owing to the Righteousness of Christ which in this sense may be said to be imputed to us because without this Covenant of Grace which is founded on the Righteousness of Christ the best man living could lay no claim to Righteousness or future Glory The Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the Foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the Terms of the Covenant i. e. What it is that will intitle us to all the Blessings of the Covenant then we must have a Righteousness of our own for the Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn This is a plain and easie Account of my sense concerning the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in
Christ and to this I will stand Let us hear then what Mr. Ferguson has to object against it And first he can by no means understand how the Righteousness of Christs Life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and follies he should have said of that Covenant wherein God promises to forgive our sins upon certain Conditions for asmuch as according to what I express elsewhere his Essential Goodness obliged him to it The words which he cites to this purpose are these That the natural notions which men have of God assure them that he is very good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace Now I would know of Mr. Ferguson which of these three he will reject whether he will deny that the natural notion of a Deity includes infinite Goodness or that the notion of infinite Goodness includes Pardoning Grace when there is a just and honourable occasion for it or that the Merits of Christs Life and Death have purchas'd the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel If he believe all these he is as much concerned to answer this Objection as I am if he deny them he must either turn Atheist or Socinian But pray who told him that the Goodness of God did immediately oblige him to pardon Sinners or that the Goodness of God confers an antecedent title on Sinners to Grace and Pardon May not a good God consult the Reputation of his Holiness and of his Authority and Government and dispence his Pardons in such prudent Methods as his own Infinite Wisdom shall direct And may he not then require the intervention of a Sacrifice and of a very meritorious one too to purchase and seal his Pardon to Sincers The Essential Goodness of God only proves That he may pardon Sin without a Sacrifice but it does not prove that either he will or must The next Exception is very surprizing That because I elsewhere assert That the whole Mystery of the Recovery of Mankind consists only in repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by Sin that is in making all men truly good and vertuous c. He cannot imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising of Remession of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that end But pray why so Is not the Promise of Pardon purchas'd and sealed with the Blood of Christ absolutely necessary to encourage men to be good Does not the Gospel represent this to be the last and ultimate end of what Christ hath done and suffered to rescue Mankind from the Power of the Devil and Dominion of their Lusts and to renew them after the Image of God If Mr. Ferguson be ignorant in these matters I can direct him to a very good Book which will better instruct him But suppose he know no other end of Christs Death but to satisfie a natural vindictive inexorable Iustice yet if this must be done before any thing else can be done is it not absolutely necessary to the last and ultimate end which is to transform men into the Image of God and to bring them to the fruition of him For the satisfaction of Justice in what sense soever he pleases to understand it can only be a means in order to the Recovery of lost Man not the Recovery it self In the next place he tells us That it seems inconsistent with the Wisdom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is What force there may be in that phrase of introducing a perfect Righteousness I cannot tell but I can discover no inconsistency with the Wisdom of God to accept reward those who are sincerely but not perfectly righteous for the sake of one who is If God bestowed so many Blessings on the Posterity of Abraham for the sake of their Father who was not perfectly righteous I wonder our Author should think it any derogation to the Divine Wisdom to accept and reward our imperfect Obedience for the sake of the perfect Righteousness Obedience of Christ. Nay though we should suppose that God had sent Christ into the world upon no other design but to set a most perfect Example of Holiness Obedience to the Divine Will and to give a plain Demonstration how highly he is pleased with Obedience to his Laws should not only greatly reward him in his own Person but should promise for his sake to pardon and reward all those who imitate though imperfectly his Example which in our Authors Phrase is to introduce a perfect Righteousness meerly that he may justifie us upon an imperfect one this would be no greater blemish to the Wisdom of God than it is to chuse fit and proper ways of expressing his love to Holiness and encouraging the Obedience of his Creatures But our Author proceeds very Rhetorically Nor shall I â—â—gue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of his Death must be imputed to us for Iustification in proportion to our Sins having been imputed to him in order to his Expiatory Sufferings He may argue thus if he pleases and I shall perfectly agree with him in it Let us then consider how he manages this Argument Christs Sufferings must not be attributed meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to Sin This I grant therefore our sins were imputed to him not only in the effects of them but in the guilt This I so far grant that the Sufferings of Christ had respect to the guilt of our Sins otherwise he could not have been a Sacrifice for Sin but whereas he adds That it is a thing utterly unintelligible I hope Mr. Ferguson thinks it never the less true for that how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of sin and the derivation of its guilt upon him I am so far of another mind that I think it unintelligible how it should be so for besides that guilt cannot be transferred upon an innocent Person though punishment may I cannot understand how Christ should suffer for our sins if the guilt of our sins were transferred upon himself if he died for our sins it is plain that the guilt is accounted ours still though the punishment be transferred on him And this is essential to the nature of a Sacrifice that it dies not for it self but for another and therefore not for its own but for anothers guilt continuing anothers Christ was no Sinner in any sense but a Sacrifice for Sin which differ just as much as bearing the guilt and bearing the punishment of sin Were our sins transferred on Christ in Mr. Ferguson's way so that our sins become his and that he may be called a Sinner nay the greatest of Sinners the necessary consequence of this
that Homily which seem to favour that notion of our Justification by the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness though that phrase of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness is nowhere used throughout the whole Homily but if we will take that Explication which the Homily it self gives of them it will evidently appear that there was no such thing intended by them I shall produce these expressions in their proper places and in the management of this Argument shall First explain the sense of our Church concerning the Doctrine of Justification out of the Homilies of Salvation Faith Good Works and Repentance And Secondly Show you how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and what a just reason this is for a more particular explication of those Expressions which occasioned the corruption of the wholsom Doctrine of our Church First I shall enquire what is the true sense of the Church of England concerning the Doctrine of Justification And first I observe that our Church places the nature and essence of Justification in the forgiveness of sins This is evident from the very first words of the Homily Because all men be Sinners and Offenders against God and Breakers of his Law Commandments therefore can no man by his own Acts Words and Deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another Righteousness or Iustification to be received at Gods own hands that is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended And this Iustification or Righteousness the forgiveness of sins which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our perfect and full Iustification So that our full and perfect Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins whereby God over-looking what we have done amiss deals with us as with Righteous Persons that is bestows Eternal Life on us The Homily takes notice of two ways of Justification The first is by our own Works when we live so innocently and vertuously as to be acquitted and absolved by God according to the strict Rules of Law and Justice But in this way no Sinner can be justified for the Law justifies no man who is a Transgressor of the Law and therefore since we are all Sinners and can neither expiate our past sins nor perfectly keep the Law for the future it is impossible that we should be justified by our own Acts and Deeds It remains therefore that no Sinner can be justified or accounted Just and Righteous before God without the pardon and forgiveness of his Sins this is the Justification and Righteousness of a Sinner that God forgives his wilful sins and covers all the defects of his good Actions for when the sin is pardoned and covered the man is innocent and righteous Now this Account I am sure cannot please Dr. Owen and his Friends who look upon the forgiveness of sin but as one part of our Justification and that the most inconsiderable too which only makes us innocent and delivers us from the condemnation of the Law but cannot entitle us to future Happiness besides Innocency as they tell us there is required a perfect Righteousness the first is owing to the Death of Christ which expiates our sins the second to the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness to us which makes us perfectly just and righteous this is a down-right contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church which teaches us that God accepts and allows of this forgiveness of sin for our full and perfect Iustification And indeed forgiveness of sins is a true Evangelical way of Justification in opposition to a Legal Justification which consists in perfect and unsinning Obedience the first our Church requires but the Doctor and his Friends exact the latter a perfect Righteousness of Works for as the Doctor observes Life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety All the difference the Doctor knows between the Law and the Gospel is only this that the Law required a perfect Righteousness from every man in his own Person the Gospel accepts of a perfect Righteousness in the Person of our Mediator but still we are justified by a Legal not Evangelical Righteousness that is by a Righteousness of Works not by pardon and forgiveness And it has been before observed by some learned men that to place our Justification in the forgiveness of our sins as our Church doth and in the Imputation of Christs Personal Righteousness to us as others do are not very consistent For by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are Legally Righteous or have a perfect Righteousness of Works and Forgiveness of sins and a perfect Righteousness destroy each other for if we are perfectly Righteous whether in our own Persons or by Imputation we need no Forgiveness and if we need Forgiveness it is plain that God does not so much as impute a perfect Righteousness to us So that when our Church places the whole nature of our Justification in the Forgiveness of sins it is a good Argument that she never thought of a Legal Righteousness of Works of the Imputation of Christs perfect Righteousness and Obedience to make us righteous before God But for a fuller Explication of this Doctrine of Justification we are taught in that Homily that there are especially three things which must go together in our Iustification upon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace upon Christs part Iustice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and sheddidg his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us This is a much more intelligible way of explaining the Doctrine of Justification than by the Material Formal Efficient Instrumental Causes and such-like terms of Art which need more explication than the Doctrine it self and therefore I shall follow this method and reduce the Doctrine of the Homilies under these three Heads What is Gods part what is Christs part and what is required on Mans part in the business of Justification First Let us consider what is Gods part in the Justification of a Sinner and that is the Mercy and Grace of God which expresses it self first in providing a Ransom for us as it is expressed in the Homily That our Iustification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God and of so great and free mercy that whereas all the World was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their Ransom it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy without any our Desert or Deserving to prepare for us the
most precious Iewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully paid the Law fulfilled and his Iustice satisfied There is no Controversie between us about this matter that it was an expression of the undeserved Goodness of God to send Christ into the World to save Sinners And secondly The Mercy of God is seen in the very Act of Justifying us in accepting this Atonement and in forgiving our sins Thus we are informed in the second part of that Sermon of Salvation Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so Justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ. Bywhich words it is very plain what is understood by Justification being Gods Act and not Mans that is that it is an Act of Favour and Grace not of Merit and Desert Though God may be said to Justifie an Innocent Man when he pronounces him Just and Righteous according to Law which is the proper office of a Judge i. e. to acquit an Innocent Man when he is arraigned yet in this case an Innocent Man may be said to Justifie himself because he is Justified by his own Actions and God only like a Just and Righteous Judge pronounces the Sentence of Justification that is acquits and absolves him as his actions deserve which strict Justice requires But in the Justification of a Sinner who dares not stand the trial of strict Justice but appeals to the Grace and Mercy of God Justification is properly Gods Act and not Mans is owing to the Divine Grace and Mercy not to Mans Merit and Desert Upon the same account we are told in the same place that not our own Act to believe in Christ or that this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth not justifie us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue that is within our selves Which I confess sounds very like what some men say That Faith doth not justifie us as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and applies it to us by which Righteousness thus apprehended by Faith we are justified but there is nothing less meant in this place as will appear from considering the whole Sentence which is this So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie 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 Gods Word and believe it 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 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 only in Gods 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 Gods Grace and Remission as well of Original Sin in Baptism as of all Actual Sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again The meaning of which is plain that we are not justified by Faith as our own act as we are not justified by Hope and Charity as our own acts that is that they cannot merit our Justification or the Forgiveness of our sins When we have done the best we can we must still fly to the Mercy of God through the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ that distinction of Faiths justifying not as our own Act but as it apprehends the Righteousness of Christ and cloaths us with the perfect Robes of his Righteousness for which God accounts us perfectly Righteous is of a later date than these Homilies and very inconsistent with the Doctrine contained in them Thus you see what Gods part is in the Justification of a Sinner viz. To provide a Ransom and to forgive sins in vertue of that Ransom that is to justifie those who according to the strictness and rigor of the Law are not Just and Righteous Persons Thus to conclude this in the words of the Homily You have heard the Office of God in our Iustification and how we receive it of him freely by his Mercy without our Deserts Let us now consider what is Christs part in our Justification and that is expressed by Iustice that is the satisfaction of Iustice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his Body and shedding of his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly The plain meaning of which is that we are justified for the sake of Christs Merits that his Obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God in dying for our sins and in fulfilling the Law is the meritorious cause of our Justification that is did deserve at Gods hands that for Christs sake he should pardon all humble penitent and believing Sinners This is all the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which our Church acknowledges that the Righteousness of Christ is the meritorious Cause of our Justification Thus we are told That Infants being baptized and dying in their Infancy are by this Sacrifice washed from their sins brought to Gods favour and made his Children and Inheritors of his Kingdom of Heaven And they which in act or deed do sin after their Baptism when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this Sacrifice from their sins in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation Which is to the same sense with that of St. Iohn that if we walk in the light as he is in the light if we are holy as God is we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Iohn i. 7. And to this sense our Church expounds those Texts Rom. iii. All have offended and have need of the Glory of God but are justified freely by his Grace by Redemption which is in Iesus Christ whom God hath set forth to us for a Reconciler and Peace-maker through
are essential to justifying Faith and it is not justifying Faith without them such as Repentance and Contrition without which no Faith is a true justifying Faith and therefore we may observe in our Homilies that sometimes Faith is made an essential part of Repentance sometimes Repentance is made essential to a justifying Faith as appears from what I have discoursed above The reason of the mistake is this That these men do not distinguish between the general notion of Faith and Iustifying Faith Faith in general as it signifies a belief of the Being and Providence of God and the Truth of the Scriptures c. is necessary to produce any good Actions for without Faith it is impossible to please God but this bare Assent of the Understanding is not justifying Faith till it excite in us a hearty sorrow for our sins and sincere purposes of a New Life and a great Trust and Affiance in the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ So that Repentance and the Purpose of a New Life are at least essential to justifying Faith and not the fruits and effects of it but the actual performance of these Vows and Promises and the faithful discharge of our Duty to God and Men in a holy and blameless Life may be called the effects of justifying Faith not that they are not as necessary to a justifying Faith as Repentance is but because our Justification is begun without them God in infinite Grace and Mercy receiving us into favour upon our first return to him though these good Works must necessarily follow to compleat and perfect our Justification as it is expresly observed from St. Chrysostom in the Homily of Good Works concerning the Thief upon the Cross that if he had lived and not regarded Faith and the Works thereof he should have lost his Salvation again And in this sense we are told in the Homily of Salvation That Faith doth not shut out the justice of our Good Works necessarily to be done afterwards that is after our Justification of Duty towards God And upon the same account our Church in her XII Article teaches us That Good Works are the Fruits of Faith and follow those who are Iustified And this gives an easie and plain account of the XIII Article of our Church which rejects those Works which are done before Justification that is before a Iustifying Faith as is plain from the Article Works done before the Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Iesus Christ neither do they make men meet to receive Grace or as the School-Authors say deserve Grace of Congruity yea rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done we doubt not but that they have the nature of Sin The plain meaning of which is this That Works done before Justifying Faith are not pleasing to God that is whatever Works we do before we repent of our sins and purpose to live a New Life and trust in the Mercy of God and Merits of our Saviour for Pardon and Acceptance cannot please God because such are not Good Works for when we reject Works done before Justification we must not reject Justifying Faith it self nor any thing which is necessary and essential to it for then we run our selves into such a Labyrinth out of which we shall never find a way And indeed I find that some men are very sensible what weight our Church lays upon the necessity of Repentance in order to our Justification and use some little Arts to avoid it for that Description of Faith which is given us in the first part of the Sermon of Faith concluding thus We do trust that our offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart stedfastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin Which maks Repentance of our sins and a sincere and stedfast purpose of a new life antecedently necessary to the justfying Act of Faith they use this evasion that the Homily adds Whensoever we repenting return to him either with respect to future sins to the forgiveness of which we all acknowledge Repentance to be necessary or else to distinguish a saving from a counterfeit and sudden Faith not as if true Evangelical Repentance had any influence upon the very Act of Iustification as Faith has The first account is the strangest that ever I met with for there can be no imaginable reason assigned why Repentance should be necessary to obtain the Pardon of those sins which we commit after Justification and not necessary to our first Justification I am sure neither the Scripture nor the Articles and Homilies of our Church nor the Confessions of any Reformed Churches which I ever yet saw ever made such a distinction The Commission which our Saviour gave to his Apostles was to preach Repentance and Forgiveness of sins in his Name to the unconverted and unjustified Jews and Heathens and both the Homilies of our Church and the Augustan-Confession do in express words found the Doctrine of Repentance upon that first Commission given to the Apostles and do thence conclude the necessity of Repentance in order to Forgiveness for since Justification consists in the forgiveness of our sins a repeated Forgiveness is but a repeated Justification of a Sinner and why that should be necessary to the after-acts of Justification which was not necessary to the first is beyond my Understanding The second account is much better that it is to distinguish between a saving and a counterfeit Faith but then this very distinction confirms the antecedent necessity of Repentance to Justification for the difference between a saving and counterfeit Faith according to this Account is that a saving Faith supposes Repentance or includes it in its very nature but a counterfeit Faith does not as for what they add that Evangelical Repentance hath not such an influence upon our Justification as Faith has is none of our present dispute if it be but acknowledged to be antecedently necessary we will consider the rest hereafter And now it is time to proceed to the last thing I proposed to consider what our Church attributes to Faith in the matter of our Justification And to state this matter plainly I shall first enquire in what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And secondly what the Office of Faith is in the Justification of a Sinner First In what sense our Church rejects Works from the Office of Justifying and attributes it to Faith alone And it is easily observed that our Church acknowledges the antecedent necessity of some Works to our Justification as we are expresly taught in the first part of the Sermon of Salvation And yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread
and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office of Iustifying So that although they be all present together in him that is justified yet they justifie not all together So that no man must expect this great Blessing of Justification unless together with Faith he have Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God which supposes that a man must be a true Penitent and a true Lover of God before he is justified Though Repentance and Hope c. have no actual influence upon our Justification yet they are causae sine quibus non such causes without which the effect will never follow which necessarily intitles them to the nature of Conditions for a Condition which hath no natural or meritorious Efficiency is only a causa sine quâ non and though it is true that the accidental presence of one thing with another which produces any Effect will not entitle it to any degree of Efficiency yet where there is such a natural Union between two things that neither of them can act alone though the effect may more immediately belong to one than to the other yet they both concur to it though the hand does immediately apprehend any thing or lay hold on it yet the Shoulder and the Arm is naturally necessary to produce this action because the Hand cannot move of it self And if they will allow us this similitude which they themselves sometimes use that Good VVorks be the Shoulder and Arm that upholds Faith we will allow Faith to be the Hand And thus it is in Moral Causes where the presence of two things of Faith suppose and Works is necessarily required in order to the same Effect there must be a concurrence of both though it may be in different manners When our Church asserts the necessary presence of some internal Graces and Vertues together with Faith in him who is to be justified she plainly acknowledges that we shall never be justified without them though not for them which is all that any one desires who denies and rejects the Merits of Good Works And as these internal Acts of Repentance Hope c. are antecedently necessary to Justification so Good Works must necessarily follow as we are taught in the same place Nor the Faith also doth not shut out the Iustice of our Good Works necessarily 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 of them that is to be justified by them And this we are taught is so necessary that unless these Good Works follow as the necessary Fruits of Faith we shall loose our Justification again as you heard above In what sense then does our Church reject good Works and attribute our Justification to Faith alone And that we are told over and over in the most plain and express words that it is only to take away the Merit of Good Works and to attribute our Justification to the free Mercy of God and Merits of Christ not to our own Works and Deservings Hence it is that Justification by Works is so often opposed to our Justification by the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ which are inconsistent in no other sense but that of Merit for though Good Works be supposed the necessary Conditions of Justification yet if they be acknowledged so imperfect as not to merit we shall still need the Merits of Christ to expiate our sins and the Mercy of God to pardon them and to accept of our imperfect Services But the words of the Homily are very express where after alledging the concurrent Testimonies of the ancient Fathers for Justification without Works by Faith alone we have this Explication given of them Nevertheless this Sentence that we be justified by Faith only 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 we be justified freely they mean not that we should or might afterward be idle and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward 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 only freely and without Works is spoken for to take away clearly all Merit of our Works as being unable to deserve our Justification at Gods hands 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 to Christ only and his most precious blood-shedding Hence for a man to be justified by his own Works is expounded as if we should affirm That a man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself That is when they reject Justification by Works they understand by it a meritorious Justification Thus in the third part of the Sermon of Salvation we are expresly taught That the true meaning of this Proposition or Saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this We put our Faith in Christ that we be justified by him only that we be justified by Gods free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only 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 This is so expresly the Doctrine of the Homilies that I need not multiply Testimonies for the proof of it from whence it is evident that our Church owns the necessity of Good Works to all intents and purposes excepting Merit and in this sense they reject Faith too as it is our own Work But now because our Church and all the Reformed Churches expresly reject Works in the matter of Justification under the notion of Merit and Deserving in which sense alone they are injurious to the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ from whence we argue that they own the necessity of Works upon all other Accounts and reject only the Merit of them Some tell us that we should rather argue that they put no difference between Works and the Merit of Works in the matter of Justification but equally reject them both But pray why so Truly for no Reason that I know but that it best serves their Hypothesis They acknowledge that there is a difference between Works and the Merit of Works but will by no means own that
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 Iustification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Iesus Christ the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby Gods Grace and Remission as well of our Original Sin in Baptism as of all actual Sins committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and unfeignedly turn to him All this is called being justified by Faith only which includes a renouncing the Merits and Deserts of our own Works but first requires that we should do good Works before we renounce the Merit of them and an affiance in the Mercy of God for Pardon and Forgiveness upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life This is all I contend for which is the Antient Catholick Doctrin of our Church against those modern notions of Reliance and Recumbency or the virtue of any particular Act of Faith in the Justification of a Sinner Thirdly I observe that should any man affirm in express words that we are justified by Works as well as by Faith meaning no more by it than that good Works are the necessary Conditions not the meritorious Causes of our Justification though he would differ in the manner of expression yet he would agree with our Church in the true notion of Justification whereas those who use the same phrase of being justified by Faith only and by Faith without Works thereby excluding the antecedent necessity of Repentance and Holiness to our Justification though they retain the same form of words yet renounce the constant Doctrin of our Church and are the only Apostates and Innovators Which may satisfie any man how unjustly I am charged with corrupting the Doctrin of our Church when I have only expressed the true sense and meaning of it in such words as are less liable to be mistaken and how vainly my Adversaries pretend to be such Obedient Sons of the Church of England when under an Orthodox Form of Words they have introduced such Doctrins as are diametrically opposite to the declared sense of this Church After this large and particular Account of the Doctrin of the Church of England concerning the Justification of a Sinner it is time in the second place to consider how the state of the Controversie is altered at this day and how those men whom I oppose have corrupted the Doctrin as well as rejected the Authority of our Church And though I have already given sufficient Intimations of this yet it may be of great use more particularly to shew how directly opposite these new and fantastick Notions are to the establisht Doctrin contained in our Articles and Homilies which though it would admit of a very large Discourse I shall comprize in as few words as may be And first whereas our Church expresly asserts that in the Justification of a Sinner on Gods part is required Mercy and Grace Justification consisting in the free Pardon of all our sins Mr. Ferguson very agreeably indeed to his own Principles expresly asserts that Justification does not consist in the Pardon of sin nor is it the result of Mercy but the off-spring of Justice Remission as he acknowledges is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising Favour but Iustification is the off spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity This Notion I have examined already and shall add nothing further for the Confutation of it It is directly contrary to the Doctrin of our Homilies and I hope that is Argument enough with these men who pretend such a mighty veneration for the Antient and Catholick Doctrin of our Church But then if any man should wonder as well he may how a Sinner should be justified in this Law-notion according to the strict Rules of Justice that is that a Sinner is justified not by being pardoned but by being acquitted and absolved as an innocent man who has never offended the account of this will farther discover what Friends they are to the Doctrin of our Church For secondly whereas the Church of England requires no more on Christs part but Iustice or the Satisfaction of Gods Iustice or the Price of our Redemption which makes him the meritorious Cause of our Iustification that God for Christs sake forgives the sins of true Penitents these men place our Justification in the Imputation of Christs personal Righteousness to us They tell us that Christ as our Surety and Mediator hath fulfilled all Righteousness for us and in our stead and that by being clothed with his perfect Righteousness we are accounted perfectly righteous and so are justified not as Malefactors when they are pardoned but as righteous and innocent men who are acquitted and absolved And I have already informed Mr. Ferguson how effectually this Notion undermines the necessity of an inherent Righteousness To be justified by the Merits of Christ signifies no more than to be justified by the gracious Terms and Conditions of the Gospel which is founded on the Merits of Christ which was purchased and sealed with his meritorious Bloud For the Merits of Christ do not immediately justifie any man but whereas strict Justice will not admit of Repentance nor accept of an imperfect though sincere Obedience God has for the sake of Christ who hath expiated our sins by his Death entered into a Covenant of Grace and Mercy wherein he promises Pardon to true Penitents and this necessarily requires an inherent Holiness not to merit but to qualifie us for the Grace of God But if we be made righteous by a perfect Righteousness imputed to us if this will answer all the demands of Law and Justice what need is there of an imperfect Righteousness of our own The Righteousness of Christ imputed to us makes us righteous as Christ is and what need is there then of any Righteousness of our own which would be according to the Proverb to burn day and to light up Candles in the Sun Dr. Owen takes notice of this Objection and pretends to give an Answer to it which must be a little considered for a little will serve the turn And first he observes that here is a great difference if it were no more than that this Righteousness was inherent in Christ and properly his own it is only reckoned and imputed to us or freely bestowed on us But does not this Imputation make it ours How then can we answer the demands of the Law with it Is any thing the less ours because it is not originally ours but so by Gift And the Doctor was sensible that this Answer would not do and therefore secondly he tells us the Truth is that Christ was not righteous with that Righteousness for himself but for us How plain are things when men will speak out So that now
the fruit of this We are thereby made the righteousness of God in him if we be righteousness where is our sinfulness to be charged upon us And he adds Many think there is such a kind of sinfulness that is a bar to them that though they would have Christ yet there is not a way open for them to take him Beloved there is no way of sinfulness to debar thee from coming to Christ if thou hast a heart to come to him and to venture thy self with joy against all objections into the bosome of Christ to discharge thee of all thy sinfulness And the Mystery of this he immediately explains The truth is men doat upon the establishing of their own righteousness to bring them to Christ and it is but presumptuous or licentious Doctrine That Christ may be their trust and they receive him and they considered simply ungodly as enemies Now one Egg is not more like another than this Doctrine is like what we find in M. Shephard Watson and D. Owen as evidently appears from those many passages cited from them in my former discourse Thus to proceed Dr. Crisp observes That Christ is a free way to all sorts of persons none excepted none prohibited for a Drunkard for a Whore-master for a Harlot an enemy to Christ. Or in Dr. Owens Phrase For the greatest the oldest the stubbornest transgressour And what Dr. Owen pleads for himself that he only represented such grace in Christ as should encourage all sorts of persons to come to him will serve Dr. Crisp as well as himself For he expresly adds Do not mistake me I do not say Christ is a free way to walk in him and yet to continue in such a condition but for entrance into him Christ is as free a way for the vilest sort of sinners as for any persons under heaven That is the worst man in the world may have as good an interest in Christ for Justification and Eternal life as the best but when Christ has got him he will make him good Of which more anon Thus Christ is a near way to the Father he brings the Father unto men and becomes such a way as that there is but one step from the lowest condition of sinfulness to the highest of being the Son of God That is he who receives Christ though at that instant of receiving him he be the greatest sinner in the world yet in the next moment is the Son of God and perfectly innocent and righteous with the righteousness of Christ and heir of eternal life And to take notice but of one passage more Christ is a spacious large elbow-room way When a man enters into Christ he enters into liberty and freedom But how is it said then Srait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life Answer By the straitness of the way is not here meant strictness of conversation But it is strait and narrow in this regard that all a mans own righteousness must be cut out of the way it must be so narrow that there must be nothing in the way but Christ which is exactly parallel with Dr. Owen's chastity of our affections to Christ in not taking any thing as our own righteousness into our affections and esteem for those ends and purposes for which we have received Christ that is not to contribute any thing to our Justification or Salvation This is the effect of making the Person of Christ in contradistinction from his Laws and Religion the immediate way unto the Father It were easie to give numerous instances of this nature but these may suffice to satisfie any intelligent man that all those precious and charming discourses of the Beauty and Loveliness and Fulness and Riches and Righteousness of Christ and of wooing and winning Souls to Christ as they are managed by these men are as formal hypocrisies as Iudas his Salutation of his Master when he betrayed him for the plain design is to advance his Person to the prejudice of his Laws and Religion whoever sends sinners immediately and directly to the Person of Christ for Righteousness and Justification and Eternal life without first requiring Repentance and the Love of God and at least the sincere purposes of a new life to entitle them to Grace and Mercy are down-right Antinomians whoever place the Essence of a justifying Faith in a meer fiducial reliance on Christ and a fancifull application of Christs Righteousness to themselves place all their hopes immediately on the Person of Christ which is to make a new Religion of Christ's Person in opposition to his Gospel But fifthly I observe farther That the Church of England makes Repentance and the Love of God and the sincere purposes of a New life antecedently necessary to our Justification as appears from what I have discoursed above but these men absolutely deny that Repentance or the Love of God or any other internal Grace or Vertue are necessary to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ but that we are justified before and without them at least in order of nature There are none of them indeed deny that those who are justified ought to live holily but yet they assert that God hath no regard to Repentance and Holiness in the Justification of a sinner but that all these follow our Justification as the effects and fruits of it God justifies the ungodly in a proper sense while they are ungodly but whom he justifies he sanctifies too and makes them holy Now if any man should enquire what great difference there is between these two since the necessity of Holiness is universally acknowledge I answer the difference is just as much as between the necessity of an Event and the necessity of Duty which I think is a very material difference in matters of Religion to place Holiness after Justification as a necessary effect and consequent of it acknowledges the necessity of Holiness as to the Event that those who are justified shall be sanctified but it destroys the necessity of Duty and undermines all the Arguments to a Holy life God may sanctifie us if he pleases by an irresistible and uncontroulable Power but there is no necessary Argument left to induce us as free Agents to purifie our selves and to co-operate with the Divine Grace which makes the whole Gospel and all the External Ministeries of Religion useless the great design of which is to furnish us with such cogent and perswasive Arguments as by the concurring assistance of the Divine Grace may effectually bow our Wills and govern our Affections and transform us into a Divine Nature If we are justified without Repentance and a New life if God accepts our Persons as Just and Righteous only for the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and this gives us an actual Title to Life and Immortality what reason can there be assigned so cogent as to conquer our love to Sin when there is no Argument to work either upon our Hopes or