Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall Rom. 10. 13 14. be saved How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not beleeved His argumentation runs thus Whosoever do rightly call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved but beleevers only call rightly upon the name of the Lord ergo beleevers only shall be saved He argues here from the effect to the cause from acceptable prayer to faith from whence it floweth concluding that salvation is promised to prayer not as it is an act performed in its self but as it is a fruit of faith ascribing all the furtherance unto salvation by prayer to faith that breaths it out and all the efficacy which faith hath to salvation to the Lord i. e. the grace of God or Christ the Mediatour beleeved in So making faith to be that which in the vertue of its object saveth and not prayer either in its act or in respect of the spirituall disposition of the heart to pray And with the Apostles argument from prayer to faith I might also argue to manifest that the Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quoteth to prove that forgiving of others is a collaterall condition with faith to justification or forgivenesse have no force in them to prove such a conclusion viz. Mat. 6. 12 14 15. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtours for if we forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if ye forgive not men their trspasses neither will your heavenly father forgive your trespasses Mat. 18. 35. So likewise shall my heavenly father do to you also if ye from your hearts forgive not every man to his brother their trespasses The like also in Mar. 11. 25 26. When ye stand praying forgive c. as in the former Scriptures Luke 6. 35. Forgive and ye shall be forgiven Isa 5. 15. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and if he hath committed sins they shall be forgiven him Joh. 14. 13 14. Whatsoever ye shall aske in my Name I will do it c. 1 Joh. 5. 15. Whatsoever we aske we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him The rest have nothing of sound much lesse of substance to the purpose for which they are quoted How much these Scriptures together with those of the former bunch that were intended by Mr. Baxter for the foysting in of Repentance and of the next bundle that he would have to force in all the works of love and obedience into the office of justification may prevail with some simple and ignorant persons I know not For these not being able to compare Scripture with Scripture and spirituall things with spirituall nor to search into the pith and bottom of Scriptures are carried as the Apostle saith with every wind and sound of doctrine whither their seducers will But I do not comprehend what Mr. Baxters designe is who having compiled this work chiefly if not only for the reading of the Learned should fardle up together these Scriptures to deceive such for the very quotations will send them not only to the Scriptures but also to the Commentators upon these severall Scriptures where they must needs find him and the Jesuits so wresting from them the same doctrine and Mr. Baxter so fully answered in their answer to the Jesuites that his Readers will not be able to decide which is the verier Jesuit he or those whom he followeth I had a thought therefore to transmit the Reader to the Commentators But to manifest to the simple how little there is in substance in these quoted Scriptures making for Mr. Baxter I shall interpose these few things 1 That the Scriptures are all of Gods inspiration concenting together in oâ—e harmony no where dashing either against other no more then God their Author dasheth against himself so that we must necessarily conclude that neither all nor any one of these Scriptures doth in its proper and genuine sense contradict those before alleadged Scriptures of justification by faith and not by works by faith without works by the righteousnesse of faith and not by our own righteousnesse by the law of faith in opposition to the law of works c. as before If then these Scriptures should bring in justification and remission but in part by our own works and righteousnesse Scripture would here be set in commotion against Scripture and God against God 2 Mr. Baxter doth here make this work of forgiving and praying for forgivenesse as also in the next place all love obedience and the works thereof not simply conditions of justification and forgivenesse which in some sense far from Mr. Baxters some of our Theologists admit but collaterally and in the same relation with faith and this is the highest toppe of Papall presumption not the worst of Jesuits speak more derogatorily to the depressing of Gods grace or more proudly to the exalting of mans works worth and righteousnesse 3 From this doctrine of his it would follow that praying and forgiving others must be such a condition of justification that where it is there is justification where it is not there is not justification the positing or not positing of the one including the summe of the other for so it is with faith He that beleeveth shall be saved he that beleeveth not shall be damned Mark 16. 16. so Joh. 3. 36. Will Mr. Baxter say so of forgiving others and praying for forgivenesse are all that do it justifyed dares he to say it No otherwise but with his caeteris paribus and sensu composito if he doth this and all things else which a Christian should do And thus I might also make every civill and indifferent Action the condition of justification A mans sleeping by night and working by day his eating when he is hungry and drinking when he is thirsty his improving of his groundâ— before he sowes them and sowing them when improved and reaping them when the crop is come to maturity all these and the like may be as well called conditions of justification for these also caeteris paribus when all things else are done which a Christian should do do stand as full in strength to justification as those works which Mr. Baxter particularizeth yea this caeteris paribus makes sin guilt ungodlinesse perdition c. more properly conditions of justification then any of those which Mr. Baxter nameth for without the actuall being of those none can be justifyed in Christ before God For Christ Came not to call the righteous but sinners to Repentance Mat. 9. 13. He hath shut up all under guilt under sin that the promise of righteousnesse by the faith of Jesus Christ might be upon all that beleeve Rom. 3. 19 22 23 24. He justifyeth the ungodly Rom. 4. 5. And saveth that which was lost Mat. 18. 11. Are these duties to be performed coordinately with faith that we may be justifyed surely rather then those which Mr. Baxter nameth for these still go before
1 If we look strictly to the words Mr. Baxter must hence argue only that our confession is a condition of Gods faithfulnesse as if God either cannot or will not be faithfull except we confesse But let us give Mr. Baxter the largest advantage that he can claim in the meaning of the words that God is positively and not hypothetically or conditionally faithfull and that of his faithfulnesse he will forgive and cleanse if we confesse In this sense then whereas the Apostle speaketh affirmatively not negatively if we confesse he will forgive not if we confesse not he will not forgive I do 2 Demand whether confession be so a condition of forgivenesse that whosoever confesseth shall be forgiven This Mr. Baxter will not affirme without his caeteris paribus whereof the Text speaks not a word expresly or implicitely for him and if he conclude negatively he concludes not from the Text but his own fancie Obj. But if you deny forgivenesse upon confession made you deny what the Text affirmeth and so fight against the word it self denying what it clearly affirmeth Answ True if we deny it to them to whom the Text grants and promiseth it But the Apostle speaks here not to the unjustifyed and unforgiven but to the Sants forgiven and justifyed already and the Emphasis of the proposition or promise is in the word we if we that are in Christ confesse God will hold faithfull in keeping Covenant with us and forgive So that this is a consolation to the Saints against all their dayly infirmities They have a priviledge above all the world besides If they sin they have an advocate with the Father c. through whom when they confesse and bewail their sins the grace of God will by his Spirit testifie and seal to their consciences the forgivenesse of them 3 To descend without the Text to Mr. Baxters conditio sine qua non there must be more then a grain of salt to make his assertion savory that without confession there is no forgivenesse For if by it he mean that of the Apostle Confession with the mouth he shall exclude many thousands from justification whom the Scripture excludeth not 4 I grant to Mr. Baxter that some of our Divines have affirmed though I fear somewhat rawly and inconsiderately that confession is a condition sine qua non of forgivenesse yet far from Mr. Baxters sense viz. with these three limitations whereof Mr. Baxter will not endure the test 1 Of the forgivenesse which is by the new Covenant or as it is declared and sealed up to our consciences Not of the forgivenesse which was laid up in the hands as laid up in the hands of Christ and ours in him before we beleeved or confessed 2 Such a condition as is not in the same relation with faith as Mr. Baxter makes it the very naming whereof they detest as absolutely contradicting the nature and authority of the Gospell 3 Such a condition as explodes the caeteris paribus sensu composito of Mr. Baxter so that though they speak somewhat of Mr. Baxters words yet they are at a defiance against his sense and meaning How and in what sense they will have it a condition is no place here to treat It hath been a digression to say any thing of it because it is utterly besides the Text to which alone here I was to speak B. Act. 8. 22. Repent of this thy wickednesse and pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee This Scripture I passed by in the former heap of his quotations as possibly a mistake in the quotation but finding it here again and afterward in a third place I see the man means as he quoteth and cannot enough marvell what he can fish from this Scripture to prove any thing of mans works a condition of justification If the word If here make or argue a condition it must be on Gods not on mans part that man must repent and pray upon condition that God will forgive else not if forgivenesse be not the causa sine qua non of repentance and prayer But this is nonsense to have God upon terms if he will have any duty from us He must therefore mean on the other side God will forgive upon condition of prayer and repentance But how he will perswade this Scripture to say it is past my capacity to comprehend Here is no promise himself grants there is but an half-promise of forgiving on Gods part Append. pag. 79. and nothing mentioned as a condition on mans part But contrariwise duties of naturall righteousnesse commanded or counselled to a naturall man upon such cold encouragement as the Scripture affords to the carnall devotions of carnall men carnally performed If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven If Mr. Baxters Assertions be but so sound as his Arguments neither will serve for good Bell-mettall B. Act. 3. 19 Repent and be converted that your sinns may be blotted out c. How far repentance is a condition hath been discoursed of and discussed already B. Act. 22. 16. Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord. Is then Baptism a condition so necessary that without it there is no washing away of sin And must the Popish Tenent be found writren in Mr. Baxters Calender with red letters Sacramenta opere operato conferunt gratiam or doth Baptism prove ineffectuall to all that do not cannot call upon the name of the Lord Then whether Mr. Baxter be more against himself or against the Protestant Churches who can decide More modestly speaks even Bellarmine which makes the desire of receiving the Sacraments a condition of justification expelling from forgivenesse them that desire them not this man rigorously and cruelly shakes into condemnation those that do not because they have not opportunity to receive them though their desire be unfeigned or if he doth not so this Scripture proves not Baptism to be the condition sine qua non As for calling upon the name of the Lord I have before spoken to B. 1 Pet. 4. 18. If the righteous be scarce saved where shall the wicked and ungodly appear I should be in a Labyrinth of doubts how he would argue hence for himself were it not that elsewhere he explaineth himself in his book thus If the righteous be scarce saved by all their strivings how shall they be saved that strive not at all We deny not the duty of striving in holy things yea of striving for salvation though in Mr. Baxters sense we deny it Yet the meaning of this Text as appears by its dependence upon the verse precedent is If the corruptions and unbelief of heart be so great in the very Saints and beleevers that they must passe through the purifying fire of Gods judgments more and more to perfect them before they be made vessels of honour in the Kingdome of glory or that they need the scourge of Gods correction to whip them back
of Rev. 3. 4. to be taken And hereunto runs the whole tenor of the Gospel making not our own righteousnes works but Christ in us the hope of Glory i. e. all the ground and worth upon which we may Cherish within our selves a lively hope of glory Col. 1. 27. 4 The word worthy in Scriptures oft signifieth Meet beseeming answerable to as Ma. 3. 8. Bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance Eph. 4. 1. Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called Col. 1. 10. Walk worthy of the Lord. The meaning is that we should bring forth fruits beseeming the repentance which we profess walk agreeable unto in ways becoming our holy vocation answerable to the Grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ not to make our selves worthy of the gift of repentance of so high a vocation of so glorious a Christ to be conferred upon us And in the same sense are those other scriptures Ma. 10. 11 12 13 37 22. 8. alleaged here by Mr. Br to be taken Where those that are termed worthy or unworthy of Christ and his Gospel are meant to be such as carry themselves in a way becoming or not becoming Christ and his Gospel preached to them Without any hinting at an imaginary worth or Merit in their performances that might make them deservers of Christ and the grace of the Gospel as is easie to be made out from the very Texts here alleaged if there were need thereof Thus it appears to be false either that in a larger sense promise is an obligation the thing promised is called Debt or that the performers of the coÌ„ditioÌ„s are called worthy their performance merit in the scriptures And consequently neither the fallacies nor the falsities of Mr Br do any thing avail him here to the setting up of Mans the frustrating of Christs Merits which is the scope of his levelling The explication in reference to this part of the Thesis hath nothing that may be called an addition to it Onely there pag. 141. as here in describing the third kinde of meriting he tels us that The obligation to reward is Gods ordinate Justice the truth of his promise the worthines lyeth in the performance of the Conditions on our part He doubted it seems that we would have taken him notwithstanding that which he had said equipollent with this in the Thesis to have had some seed of Christian modesty humility remaining in him that he had not totally forsworn all self-deniall unless he should express therefore hath expressed himself at the ful here to be ful of self-arrogance But in this doth he declare his intolerable contempt of the word that having himself quoted at the least 13 testimonies of scripture all with one harmony affirming that Gods Gospel dispensations are free of meer grace mercy without any reference to our works righâ—eousness that Gods grace mans works or worth cannot stand together but that they destroy either the other in reference to Justification salvation That mans merit in any respect without difference is a subversion and denyall of Gods grace in all respects For all this he shall find that will but peruse the 13 first scriptures which Mr B. quoteth in this Thesis yet he doth elude all w th this frothy distinction in the beginning of the same Thesis True Our Performances cannot be said to Merit in the most strict proper sense c. but in a larger sense they may What is this but to oppose the sacred verity of the most high God with the froth of mans wit what Scripture shall henceforth stand in its venerable Majesty authority if the boldnes of a corrupt worm shall thus puff it to nothing Of all other men I conceive Mr Br hath most need to make grace alone free Mercy his refuge For of all that I have met with accounted Members of any of the reformed Churches I never found any whose very meritorious services as he terms them such as this work of his is have more provocation in them But thus farr of his assertion which we have found full of the Leaven or rather to be the Leaven it self of the Scribes and Pharisees both of the former and latter ages Let us see now how he lenifieth sweeteneth it that his sacrilege in robbing God of the honour of his grace appear not B We ascribe not Merit saith he in the Thesis to our works as Merit is taken in its most proper and strict sense seeing there is nothing in the value of it or any benefit that God receiveth by it which may so entitle it Meritorius Neither is there any proportion betwixt it and the reward but in a larger sense as promise is an obligation and the thing promised is debt c. Yet in the explication p. 138 he grants to man a capacity of Meriting somwhat at the hands of God in this sense also lest he should seem to acknowlege that there are some of the worst reprobates yea devills that have not at all merited from God But of these he Concludes p. 139. that it is a poor kind of Meriting which they can boast of yet without some Merit that of good from the Justice of God he will not leave them destitute But in the Conclusion of the explication pag. 141. he adds somewhat more to take off the harshnes of his self-ascribing doctrine of Merit thus B This kinde of Meriting is no diminution to the greatnes or freenes of the Gift or Reward because it was a free and gracious Act of God to make our performance capable of that title and to engage himself in the foresaid promise to us and not for any gain that he expecteth by us or that our performance can bring him Lo ye now the strength of this mans wit that can blow heaven earth into a confusion with one breath with the next breath sett both into their due place and order again Nothing inferior is the slight of his wit to the slight and dexâ—erity of that head-mans hand that is reported so nimbly to execute his office that having cut off the head he left it standing without any wagging upon the shoulders still So this man hewes off the honour of Gods grace yet leaves it in all its glory without diminution still Yet let us reckon with the man a little Can he name any one of the worst Papists or Jesuits that doth attribute Merit to mans works in a higher degree than or doth not when he hath extolled mans Merits salve the grace of God as finely as himself Are not his words and theirs about Gods Grace and mans merits the same Doth he add any thing here of his own that he hath not learned of them We cannot merit saith Mr Br in the most strict and proper sense Why Alas saith he There is nothing in the value of our works or any benefit that God receives by them that may
of these his subtilty layes down not as positions here first asseâ—ted and consequently here to be proved But as assertions before proved and granted upon which he is now ready to build his other geere and tâ—ash which he hath in readiness to jâ—yne to these as a superstructure Whereas our sincere subjection and obedience to Christ saith he is part of the condition of the New Covenant And where again When the New Covenant saith Thou shalt obey sincerely putting there this voice of the New Covenant in opposition to the voice of the Old Covenant which as he tells us saith Thou shalt obey perfectly Here is a pretty slight to broach errors a creeping into men to perswade them in despight of their teeth that he and they are of one mind That he proved and they granted it yesternight when they were all fast a sleep and none of them spake or heard any thing Which shall we think this man to have more studied Machiavil or Mâ—ldonate If Bellarmine were alive hee would even shake off his red Cap with laughter to see a son of his so much more witty and crafty then his Father But to the matter it self First concerning obedience to the Morall Law that it is part of the condition of the New Covenant 1. I demand where it was before proved yea where in direct words asserted that it is here taken up as a point granted Hee gave cause enough indeed to bee suspected of it throughout the foregoing part of this Tractate but not evidence enough to be impleaded for it This is Magisterially to command Faith as one that speaketh by the authority of an infallible spirit and not Ministerially to teach as one that subjecteth himself and his Doctrine to the tryal of Gods Word 2. I demand whether he means not by the condition of the New Covenant the condition upon which and for which God will justifie the performer Yea that condition which he had before termed a righteousnesse perfect and meritorious in its own worthyness to Justification If this be not his meaning then Master Baxter eats up again to day what he spit out yesterday But this can in no wise befall the animosity of his spirit If it be his meaning then doth he pronounce even our legal righteousnes which consists in the fulfilling of the Morall duties of the Moral Law as well as our Evangelicall righteousnesse as he termes the personall righteousnesse which is conformed to the rule of the Gospel to bee meritorious to Justification And not any one of the Popes themselves have spoken higher language then this to deifie man in his own righteousnesse 3. I would be informed if the performance of the duties of the Morall Law in obedience to Christ doth justifie why the same performance in obedience to God doth not justifie also Is not obedience due as well to the Father as to the Son or is not Justification as much from the Father as from the Sonne The same honour is due to both and the same work of grace effected by both Neither can I see any more worth in Morall Righteousnesse Morally performed for I finde not Mr. Baxter as yet speaking further of it in obedience to the Son then in the same done to the Father by way of obedience to him But of this point we shall have a more proper place and occasion to speak more fully afterward 2. Concerning the second that the Gospel doth require but sincere not perfect obedience I might also enquire 1. Why Mr. Baxter doth here take it up pro concesso for granted He had indeed put it in the question to which he is answering but had said nothing for the solution of it except peradventure by the art of Ventriloquie he spake something under the Table that he might not bee heard when hee said in his first answer to it That the Morall Law is continued by Christ in the sense before expressed meaning by those words the expressions used in the said question that under the New Covenant the Morall Law commandeth not perfect obedience but onely sincere or at least the Gospel having the Morall Law for its preceptive part doth so If I knew that to be his meaning I have somewhat to say to it In mean while be it or be it not his meaning is every thing that Mr. Baxter hath once imagined in his brain or spoken under a bushel by and by to be taken up for a granted principle in Religion upon which he may make a superstructure of what he pleaseth 2. Why doth he not alledge those Testimonies of the New Testament which assert onely a sincere and not a perfect obedience Why doth hee suffer us poor soules to continue in darknesse for lack of his light communicated to us Is it in the outside or the inside of his Testament that this mystical doctrine is contained I acknowledge the promises of Gods free grace are made â—ut in the riches thereof to them that are in Christ that God for Christs sake will accept their sincere volitions and performances according to the ability which they have and not reject them for want of the ability which they have not That not onely the infirmities of their obedience but their very sins and disobedience is blotted out and shall be no more imputed to them c. But this in no wise denyeth perfect obedience to be their duty still Yea much more their duty under the Gospel then under the Law because there is a greater obligation of greater and more benefits upon them under thâ— Gospel then under the Law binding them to yeeld back perfect love and obedience to their Benefactor 3. What shall we think of those Texts in the New Testament which require of us to be perfect 2 Cor. 13. 11. Jam. 1. 4. Yea perfect as God is perfect Mat. 5. 48. reproving weakness and infirmity and commanding a going on to perfection Heb. 6. 1. as compared with the precedent Chapter in the latter part thereof Yea if perfection were not the duty of a Christian and unperfectness and infirmity his sin why doth the Apostle so much groan and grieve under the remainder of his naturall infirmities and presse on to perfection Rom. 7. 14 to the 24. Phi. 3. 12-14 Or is such unperfectness a sinne onely in reference to the rule of the Law and not the rule of the Gospel for that the Law doth but the Gospel doth not call for perfection This is both contrary to the Scriptures alleaged and doth withall make the Gospel to allow imperfections And to use Mr. Baxters own expressions which calleth the Gospel a Law what the Law forbids not we take the same to be approved by that Law If any should say that the Gospel doth not require perfect but sincere obedience ad aliquid in relation to this or that particular end it might in some case be a truth But Mr. Baxter layes it down positively in it self that the Gospel requires not perfection And this can
Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quotes to prove that repentance as a really distinct thing from faith justifyeth do wholly fail him For as our Divines well say against the Papists though these two acts must needs cooperate together viz. the casting out of self and the receiving of Christ yet it is the latter alone that doth properly and instrumentally justifie by receiving the justifyer and his righteousnesse the former act doth but disponere materiam as one saith not too catachrestically doth but put a man as it were in a justifiable posture and capacity doth but obiâ—em tollere pluck out and cast away the barre that might fasten the door against Christs entrance and this it doth not as a distinct vertue from faith but as a subservient act of faith to its receiving of Christ Lastly those of the forequoted Scriptures which speak of repentance in a strict sense advantagious to life after conversion and that which the Papists and Mr. Baxter call the first justification as 2 Cor. 7. 10. and some other these speak of repentance indeed really distinct from faith being an effect or fruit of faith But this repentance is in no other sense called repentance to life then as by it the Saints sometimes recover the sense and comfort of their justification that had for a while laid fainting in them or as it is impowred from above to repair confirme and increase the life of sanctification in them And this is besides the question in hand whether repentance justifyeth I shall therefore pretermit to speak futher of it And thus have we one file of his Scripture quotations examined and do finde that all which he would thence deduce to confirme a collaterall officiating of repentance as a thing really distinct from faith together with faith to justification stands him in no stead at all The second duty which he nameth as an equall condition with faith of our justification is praying for pardon and forgiving Pag. 230. others In this though he follow Bellarmine yet he holds not himself to Bellarmines words but having overtaken him runs beyond him Bellarmine thus speaketh having mentioned before two things that justifie Thirdly saith he Spes obtinendae veniae est etiam dispositio ad justitiam et remissionem peccatorum i. e. Hope of forgivenesse is also a disposition to righteousnesse and the remission of sins Mr. Baxter outruns him and saith that praying for pardon and forgiving of others too are conditions of pardon but suppose that I do hope and pray for pardon and forgive others too shall I then be forgiven Mr. Baxter will not promise that but if I do that caeteris paribus then forsooth I may hope well but what is this sensus compositus or caeteris paribus viz. if I do this and all that else is to be done i. e. all the duties which either Law or Gospell commands me But I demand if all this be done am I then justifyed Neither will he grant me this I am then conditionally justifyed as I was before I did any thing yea more I am now a probationer for justification and upon my bene se gesserit my good behaviour I am justifyed for an hour possibly untill I be unjustifyed again but if I do all and never cease to do all either while I am living c. or when I am dead there may be possibly a day when there be no more days when I may if all things faie well be justifyed But further that all may faie well will he tell me what the caeteris paribus the rest conditions are that I may perform them all and not misse in number Thus far possibly he will condescend to make known some of them and to give me some generalls of the rest and make known the materia prima in which the substantiall formes lurk yea the genera and the species that are such subalternatim but the species specialissimas infimas together with their individuals he either will not or cannot particularize the seed of Mr. Baxter in this kind is more numerous then the seed of Abraham more then the starres of heaven then the sands of the sea for multitude yet if one be wanting I am as far from justification as if I had nothing So blessed a man will Mr. Baxters conditions make me But let me on the contrary part demand of Mr. Baxter Suppose a person truely in the Covenant of grace vitally in Christ if he have never a one of these additory conditions actually moving in him is not his justification and glory as certain as anothers that hath all the conditions Mr. Baxter dares not deny the supposition to be possible for then shall he exclude all dying Infants from the kingdome of heaven which in another book of his it is said he flatly denyeth the consequent therefore cannot be denyed that justification before God is as sure without as with these conditions and so no condition at all to be granted of our justification save that which may assure and declare it to our selves What mis-spent time will it be then to bawl about two or three of many decads and centuries yea myriads of conditions by disputing whether they be conditions when if we know not and have not all the rest it shall go as well with those that have none of them as with them that have all to one I had almost said when these all brought as conditions in Mr. Baxters sense to Gods tribunall will without doubt condition him that brings them to condemnation But because Mr. Baxter and his disciples may be angry if we hear not what so great a Master saith for our own safety we will attend to hear what Scriptures he alleageth The first he brings from the prayer of Solomon 1 King 8. 30 39. Hear Lord thy servants when they shall pray towards or in this place and forgive them and give to every man according to his wayes What will hence follow either ergo whosoever prayeth in or towards Solomons Temple in Jerusalem shall be forgiven so far as forgivenesse consisteth in giving to every man according to his ways or shall be forgiven as to the famine and pestilence c. ver 38. mentioned so as he pray caeteris paribus though he be never forgiven as to hell fire or ergo there was a time when prayer for pardon was a condition of forgivenesse viz. when the Temple stood at Jerusalem if prayer were made in it or towards it but now since the desolation of the Temple this condition for the space of 1600. years hath been out of force Let him conclude better for himself from these premises if he can I can conclude no better thence to the maintenance of his assertion And it is worthy of consideration to take notice how extremely the Apostles logick and Mr. Baxters logick do differ From the like promise of salvation made in Scriptures to them that pray for it the Apostle concludes that we are justifyed and saved by faith thus
of his labors that he had beleeved nothing nor witnessed or taught any thing save what is written in the law of Moses and the Prophets Acts 24. 14. 26. 22. That whatsoever Churches he had planted were built by him upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. Nothing here of Aristotle and Plato but of the Prophets and Apostles i. e. the Doctrine which Christ had revealed to them and by them laid to support the Churches in the Faith of Christ That he had utterly exploded all humane wisdom Arts and inventions as incompetent with the Gospel of Christ That whether he laid in the hearts of men the principles and beginnings of Christ having to deale with such as were but yet in converting or else but babes in Christ he totally abstained from the words of mans wisdome from intermingling any of the artificiall disputes of the Philosophers that their faith might not stand in the wisdome of men but in the power of God or whether he treated with them that were perfect i. e. grown to a high stature in the knowledg and faith of Christ even when he spake wisedom delivered doctrines of the greatest depth and misteriousness to them yet was it not the wisedome of this world i. e. neither was the matter thereof the doctrine of the profound Philosophers and Disputers that were held the Princes of the world for wisdome but the mysterie of Christ Neither for the confirmation thereof did he use the words which mans wisedom teacheth i. e. that way of philosophicall and dialectical disputation whereof the Philosophers give their precepts but in the words which the holy Ghost teacheth c. 1 Cor. 2. 1. 13. Now if neither Christ nor his truly inspired Ministers ever used or would use this kind of learning in Gospel-matters the conclusion will necessarily follow that it was never of Gods ordination For Christ was faithfull in his house the Church Heb. 3. 2 6. and finished the worke which his Father had given him to do Joh. 17. 4. And the like may be truly affirmed and confirmed of the faithfulnesse of all those truly inspired Ministers of Christ according to their measure that with Paul they were stewards of God and studied so earnestly to be found faithfull that they knew nothing by themselves to accuse themselves of falshood or neglect 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 4. That they kept back Act. 20. 20. 26 27. nothing which was profitable to the people but declared to them the whole Counsell of God therefore were pure from the blood of all men so that it must follow that either the use of the aforesaid humane learning in Gospel-matters is no ordinance of God and at the best unprofitable or else that Christ and his Apostles not using it yea rejecting the use of it were not faithfull But all will deny the latter therefore must grant the former A second Reason to prove it not to be an ordinance of God c. I may draw from the slighting abasing and invective terms which the Holy Ghost in Scripture useth against it The wisedom of the Holy Ghost doth in no wise slight any ordinance of God qualified and blessed by him to Gospel-ends But the use of those humane pieces of learning whereof I am speaking is much slighted and abaâ—ed by the H G as impotent and unusefull to Gospel-work and ends Ergo c. That the H G doth thus slight it in Scripture to omit what the Lord Christ speaks against the traditionary learning of the Jewish Rabbies Mat. 15. 1. 9. 23. 13 c. 11. 25 26. Joh. 9. 29-41 I shall mention only how contemptuously the H G by the Apostles pointing directly to this Gentilizing learning speaks of it They became vain in their imaginations saith he and their Rom. 1. 21-23 foolish heart was darkened Professing themselves wise they became fools and changed the glory of God into a corruptible image c. What more to the abasing of their learning he calls it at the best the very froth of light fancies and imaginations the darknesse of foolish hearts a profession of such wisedom as made them grosse fools that as it acted about religion and the way to happinesse it made both it and them a very abhomination to the Lord. Again The preaching of the Crosse is to them that perish foolishnesse As it is written I will destroy the wisedom of the wise bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world hath not God made foolish the wisedom of this world For after that in the wisedom of God the world by wisedom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that believe c. 1 Cor. 1. 18-21 c. How differing is the spirit of our Sophisters from the Spirit which wrought in the Apostle He pronounceth this Sophisticall learning to be so far from being a furtherance to the only true which is the Gospel-way of salvation as that it is an enemie to it rejects it as foolishnesse 2. Them that follow it as their rule and authority what to believe and do that they may be saved to be in a perishing condition in the ready way to damnation They that perish account the simplicity of the Gospel without the fulture or rather tainture of their Arts foolishnesse 3. He affirms God to be an enemy to it to detest any patronage from it to his mysterious Doctrine of the Gospel He hath left it upon record to curb wanton wits that he will destroy the wisedome c. 4. That according to his threat he hath executed and will still fulfill therefore challengeth the Sophisters to give answer from their own experience at last whether God hath not doth not alway so curse this wisedom of theirs that it turns to ruine and foolishnesse Where is the Scribe where the Disputer c. Hath not God c. 5. That it is a knowledg by which men know not God which while they pursue they lose utterly the saving knowledg of God 6. That in contempt of this secular learning God will by the simplicity and foolishnesse of Gospel-preaching save them that believe leaving the Disputers to reason themselves into Hell It pleased God c. Unto this I shal add but two Testimonies more the one when the Apostle hath to do with a company of Christians dwelling among the Philosophers in great jealousie fear of them he cryes out Beware ye be not spoiled with Philosophy Col 2. 7. vain decit He speaks of no possibility of any good that there should accrew unto them by the help of Philosophy but of great danger to be spoyled and corrupted by it and when is there such hazard of being corrupted by it he answers when men intermingle this learning which is but of humane invention and tradition after the Rudiments of the world
understand not the points which they teach much less can produce any Scriptures surely and soundly to confirm them I answer that the Scriptures are very full and punctuall against taking upon trust of meer men any doctrine to be believed to salvation Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Mat. 23. 10. q. d. Dare not any of you to suffer any to take up matters in Religion upon your trust or authority For there is but one unerring Mr. whose authority is authentick Christ Jesus If Paul or an Angell from heaven preach any other Gospel to you c. let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. therefore not trusted Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5. 21. Believe not every Spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God For many false Prophets are gone forth into the world 1 Joh. 4. 1. When the Holy Ghost saith Prove all Try all he implyedly forbids to take up any thing on trust from men My sheep hear my voyce the voyce of a stranger they will not hear for they know not i. e. own not the voyce of strangers Joh. 10. 4 5 27. They know and own the voyce of Christ alone If any preach with another voyce another doctrine than that which is originally from Christ they fly from him explode him Here is nothing taken upon trust but from Christ himself They are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone Eph. 2. 20. A more noble foundation than the trust and authority of men I might annex many like testimonies of divine Scripture to the same purpose but to what purpose They are Deceivers such as the Apostle numbreth among grievous wolves speakers of perverse things i. e. perverters of the Gospel of Christ that seeke to draw Disciples after them i. e. to settle men in a Faith upon the authority of their learning wisedom and holiness Acts 20. 29 30. But Mr Baxter and his peers are necessitated thus to do if in teaching such doctrines they will draw after them Disciples For being destitute of the authority of God and his word if they should not urge men to a credulity upon the authority of men their doctrine would be hissed at as having no authority To conclude then the doctrine which Mr. Baxter here more than obscurely holds forth is 1 Against Christ and all the Reformed Churches which condemn it borrowed of and owned by the apostatized Synagoue of Rome only 2 Against the Scripture as hath been manifested 3 It is a doctrine that brings with it an unsetledness and instability in Faith and Religion Whosoever takes it up from Mr. Baxters credit must be always learning and never know be whirled hither and thither with doubts and uncertainties without any firm station never attaining rest For he that taketh upon trust from his Teachers what to believe and do to be saved will one day be of Paul another of Apollo and a third of Cephas as his fancy tels him this or that Teacher is most worthy to be trusted In great probability Mr. Baxters predecessor taught not the same Justification with Mr. Baxter and he that shall succeed him will hold out the same grounds and way of justification with Christ and his Apostles which Mr. Baxter declineth And I know not but either of them may be as worthy of Trust as himself In what a maze must that people then be led by what turnings and returnings must they be dragged forward and backward who are taught to take up doctrines on the trust of their Teachers what joy in believing can they ever have whose rule in believing is to be never setled in their faith but to be still wavering His Disciples must needs be meer weather-cocks tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning crafâ—inesse whereby they lay in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. 4 It is a doctrine that makes way for all Heresie Blasphemy and Impiety into the hearts of the people For when Religion is taken upon trust from the Teachers Satan will transform himself into an Angel of light and his Ministers themselves into Ministers of Righteousness to gain credit and opinion of wisdom and holiness above others among the people that upon their trust at last the people may swallow all falshoods under the name of Truth whatsoever they shall commend to them 2 Cor. 11. 13-15 See whither the Galathians were carryed by taking upon trust from their seemingly Angelical Teachers doctrines of faith Christ is become of no effect to you ye are faln from grace saith the Apostle to them Gal. 5. 4. Surely the doctrine of Mr. Baxter is the same in generall and substance with theirs that corrupted and seduced Galatia The Lord avert the like success from Kederminster 5 It is a Doctrine pernicious in it self and brings a curse upon them that receive it in the very receiving of it For cursed is man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm whose heart departeth from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. If so in earthly much more in spirituall things So much of this point in which having found what Mr. Baxter is before his entrance upon the bulk of his work we may easily conjecture what a one we shall find him being entred CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters Sophisticall way and Method of dispute to obscure and not to cleer the truths of the Gospel discovered And that therein he imitates the Papists IN the former Chapter we have found Mr. Baxter before his entrance upon his Treatise somewhat discovering with whom he joyns in opinion so far that we may discern and guess ex ungue leonem by one little piece of the man what he is in his whole bulk and frame It contents him not to be one and the same with the Papists in his judgment but that he will next also discover himself to be the same with them in their slights and artifice to bring all others into the same judgment and opinion with them That generation of the Popish Schoolmen are fitly likened by Sir Francis Bacon in his Advancement of learning to Spiders which spin out their webbs out of their own bowels So these spinn all their doctrines in religion out of their own brains their own reason naming Christ sometimes therein but rather hiding and darkning the authority of his word than following it as their leading threed in all their doctrines All their writings about Evangelicall and saving points of knowledg are but as so many webs of their fancy to catch and carry away from the purity of Christs Gospel not so many well-ordered threeds of sacred Scriptures to guide and bring us to him Who is there of all that have but cursorily read their works that finds them not consisting of large heaps of needless and superfluous questions to obscure the light of the word and to bring all to the tryall of reason yea sophisticall and sophisticated
and to make his authority the greater to deceive 6. Whether he offends not here and elsewhere against the rule of the Apostle who enjoyneth upon all to take heed of high thoughts of themselves and to be wise to sobriety Rom. 12. 3. i. e. not to mount above their reach and measure And what shall be accounted a wisedom without and against sobriety if not that which intrudeth it self into the things of God which it hath pleased him not to reveal pretending an ability with the key of secular learning to unlock the Cabinet of â—ods Counsells to which the most glorious Angels never dared to approach The Christian Spirit is the meek and modest Spirit where the Scripture is not the instructor contents it self to be ignorant concluding with Tertullian Quis revelabit Tert. lib. de Anima fere in Principio quod Deus texit unde sciseitandum est unde ignorare tutissimum est Praestat per Deum nescire quia non Revelaverit quam per hominem scire quia ipse presumpserit i. e. Who shall reveal what God hath covered whence in such case shall we make enquiry â—ea hence to be ignorant is most fafe It is better not to know by the will of God because he hath not revealed it than to seem to know by man because he hath presumed 7. Whether he doth not cross another precept of the Apostle 1 Tim. 6. 20. peculiarly appropriated to all Ministers under the name and person of Timothy O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoyding prophane and vain bablings and oppositions of science falsly so called He cannot none can deny the thing committed to Timothies trust to be the Gospel in its verity purity and simplicity This therefore he is charged to keep to make it his business to preserve it alive and inviolated within him to keep and hold himself closely to it without deviating to any other studies as helpfull to salvation Therefore to avoid vain bablings and oppositions of science falsly so called Neither will Mr. Baxter deny and all Commentators affirm the thing to be avoyded here to be sophisticall and philosophical disputes which if intermixed with the Doctrine of the Gospel are here termed prophane and vain babling which hath the name and opinion of science or wisdom in the opinion of men but is falsly so called and reputed Doth not Mr. Baxter here see himself set aside by the Holy Ghost for a prophane and vain babler and his learning and wisdom exploded as shady and false having nothing of substance and truth in it 8. Whether he doth not by this way of disputing as much as in him is uncanonize and make void the word For if he hold with the Apostle that the holy Scripture is sufficient and able to make men wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 3. 15. why doth he not stick to it what els doth his so oft and foul digressions from it to fetch ayd from his sophistry but argue that he holds the Scripture to be invalid to save and that there is either an equall or greater power in his sophistry to make men wise and perfect to salvation 9. Whether it doth not bewray his Cause to be naught that he knows it to be naught therfore seeks to bear it up with such slights feats as a good Cause needeth not When we see a house propped up on every side at every end with posts stakes and pillars who concludes not surely it is a ruinous and rotten building that needs so many supporters It is not for the maintenance of the Aphorism or Doctrine which Mr. Baxter doth here pretendedly explicate that he doth tye knots and unty them bind and loose with such a hurry of questions and distinctions This doctrine stands firm enough upon its own bottom Conscious he is therefore of a rotten building which he means in the following part of this Treatise to erect and therefore furnisheth himself with so many posts and stakes to under-prop it It is well observed by Mr. Pemble out of Erasmus Malè res agitur ubi opus est tot remedijs It is a certain Pemb. of Justis Sect. 2. Cap. 1 p. 37. sign of an untrue opinion when it must be bolstered up with so many distinctions And if the Cause be naught and the defender know it yet persists to defend it then are the Cause and the man both alike 10. Whether this kind of Argumentation doth not declare Mr. Baxter to be of another spirit from Christ and his Apostles Christ came into the world to preach the Gospel to the poor Lu. 4. 18. to give sight to the blind that they which see not might see Joh. 9. 39. And Paul discended low nurslike with flattering speech unto the weak as to babes in Christ feeding them with milk and not with meat untill they became capable to digest it 1 Cor. 2. 1. 4 3. 1 2. likewise also the rest of the Apostles But this man soareth on high unto the upmost region of the Airy element above the kenn and reach of weak Christians such as he acknowledgeth them for the greatest part to be for whose sake chiefly he wrote this speaking not to the comprehension of any save of such windy ones as himself at least to the delight of no other so elevated seems he with the vain-glory of his own excellencies And do not these contrary operations somwhat argue a contrary spirit moving him I mean contrary to that which moved in Christ and his Apostles 11. Whether it tends not to the quenching of the comfort and hazzarding of the salvation of weak Christians 1 to the quenching of their comfort For when from the pure word of God not sophisticated with the intermixture of mans wisedom and inventions they have attained to believe and joy in believing and living by faith in Christ rejoyce in the grace and light of Gods countenance shining upon them thorow him meeting with Mr. Baxters work and finding therein so holy so incomparable a man for learning and piety scattering so many doubts and puzling questions about the very beginning foundation of our redemption that himself cannot answer himself otherwise than by conjectures peradventure it may be thus and it may be it is so The poor souls are apt to fall foul upon themselves for that they have been so audacious to believe any thing seeing now so many doubts and uncertainties and to account all their former joyes in Christ to be a delusion and being unable to make out the mystery of their redemption to themselves in his sophisticall way they lye down and sink under the burthen of their sorrow as hopeless It tends to the hazzarding of their salvation also For while he goes about to make them philosophicall Christians Popish and Socinian Christians to live not by faith but by sense not by the word of Gods mouth but by reason so far only to believe as they see reasons
concludeth that Christ must sit at the right hand of God having and executing all power in heaven and in earth untill he hath brought all his enemies under his feet Here if 1 We consider that death as the other enemies that are to be subdued is spoken of as an Enemy to Christ we must conclude that the Apostle speaketh not at all of death as a Curse For death is no more a Curse to Christ glorified than the other enemies wicked and reprobate men that are to be brought under his feet 2 A reason is here given why death must be the last Enemy destroyed viz. Because Christ must bring all his enemies under foot Now as long as there shall remain upon the earth enemies to Christ and his Gospel succeeding one another in their generations so long death in its fulnesse of the curse and wrath of God is usefull to seize on them at the Lord Christ shall destroy and bring them under its power so that as long as there is any other Enemy remaining death is not to be abolished in regard of its usefulnesse in respect of the other Enemies But when the end is come and the enemies all destroyed and no one more remaining to be seized on but that all shall be raised from this first to be sentenc'd unto and hurled into the second death hell and brimstone I mean all the enemies of Christ now death also it self shall be destroyed there being no further use of it That this is the proper meaning of this Text a blind man may see and consequently see it to be sinfully wrested by Mr. Baxter forcing it seemingly to prove that the Saints are yet liable to the Curse because subject to death To his plain case of our Corruption which he addeth I have spoken before To the tenth which is the last Every one will expect to find the sweet at the bottom and that the last stroke should drive the nail home to the very head Attend we to it therefore considerately and we shall find it if not the strongest yet the most portentous of all The whole stream of Scriptures saith he makes Christ to have now the sole disposing of us and of our sufferings Ergo because we are in Christs arms and under his dispensation we must needs be liable to the Curse For the Scripture affirms him saith he to have prevented the full execution of the Curse and to manage that which lyeth on us for our advantage and good but no where doth it affirm that he suddenly delivereth us Which of Mr. Baxters admirers would not have censur'd it in Bellarmin a most prodigious impudency if not blasphemy thus to father his conceits upon the holy Scriptures If Mr. Baxter had found but one least rivulet of that whole stream of Scriptures which he mentioneth to have been for his turn would he not have directed us to it or cited it to us If he took the holy Scriptures for any thing els then one of his Fathers once termed it to Cardinal Bembus Fabulam de Christo he would not dare so much to slander wrest and corrupt it While his dispute is wholly taken up about the Curse to bring believers under it he would fear that Curse denounced against himself all plagues upon him that shall add any thing to it and the taking away his part from the book of life whosoever shall take from it Rev. 22. 18 19. what less doth Mr. Baxter in pronouncing the whole stream of Scriptures to teach that which no drop of Scripture hath a relish of is not this adding And when the Scripture pronounceth Christ to have delivered us from the curse of the Law that there is no condemnation c. and he comes with his glosse he hath delivered us from the Curse i. e. hath prevented the full execution of the Curse There is no condemnation i. e. none is condemned to the Curse in its full rigour among all the beleevers is not this to take away from the word of God yea to enervate and emasculate it and make it of no vigour And further doth not his Arguing here tend to the abasing annihilating and even un-Christing of Christ What an absurdity is it to think that he who was God and accounted it no robbery to be equall with God should in overflowing love towards us make himself of no reputation take to him the form of a Servant humble himself to the death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2. 6. 8. and himself bear our sins in his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2 24. and all to this end that having disabled Law and Sin from all power to Curse without him to purchase to himself the Monopoly of Cursing or inflicting the Curse upon his own friends yea his own Body and Members that none henceforth should curse them but from by and under him Who but one that is ambitious to be his Vicar would make of Christ such a Pope Yea how is the glory of Christs grace and merits veiled nay extinguished by teaching that Christ is ascended into the Heavens and sit down at the right hand of God to manage the Curse to the tormenting yet if Mr. Baxter be heard for the advantage of his Saints on Earth The Scripture tels us of other and most glorious ends of his Resurrection Ascension and sitting at the right hand of God viz. to receive a Kingdom for himself and those that believe in him Lu. 19. 12 15. to prepare for them places and Mansions in it that coming again he may receive them to himself that where he is there may they be also John 14. 2 3. that being ascended on high and having led our captivity captive he may powre gifts upon his Saints even gifts greater than the whole world That he might be a blessing-giver to us that we might be blessed with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Christ Ephes 1. 3. to free us from the Curse and condemnation by making intercession for us Rom. 8. 34. But no where doth the Scripture make him a Curse-monger But with what impudence doth he close up all that he he hath to say upon this subject in a known falshood telling us that the Scripture no where affirmeth that he suddenly delivers us from the curse when the Scripture contrarywise affirmeth that he hath delivered us from the Law hath delivered us from sin hath delivered us from the Curse and that we are thus delivered already and already is a step before suddenly Thus abusive is he both to the Scriptures and to the Lord Christ CHAP. VII How manifoldly evill and hurtfull such sceptick and distinctionary disputes are and how farr Mr. Baxter and the Papists agree in the matter and form of this dispute I Have been large in answering these Arguments yet it hath proceeded not onely from my naturall slownes and uncapablenes of Concisenes but partly also from Mr. Baxters purposed Concisenes whose common slâ—ght it is here and elswhere under a pretence
uncertain without any assurance of Faith or certainty of their perseverance and future glory untill their very last gasp But because from meer Negatives no affirmative can be regularly and soundly deduced I leave this but as probable and conclude it not as certain We have found Mr. Baxters dispute here to be first against Scripture 2 Antichristian and wholly Popish in severall points There are many allegations more wherewith it may be justly charged viz. that 3 It is scandalous to the Grace and Mercy and Love of God that are the most sweet and amiable of all his Attributes So doth he paint out terror in the very Love and Grace of God and Cruelâ—y in his tender mercies making flames of fury to break out from the very bowels of his Compassion that poor souls beleeving what he saith will be apt to fly from God as from a Satan and from his Gospel dispensations as from death and hell it self When they hear him to be so bloudy to take delight in cursing crushing rending taring and tormenting in soul and body unto death and after death his own sonnes and daughters and that under a profession of grace and love to them what difference can they conceive to be between such a God and the Devill If there be such bitternes in his love who will desire the least draughts thereof If his armes of embracing be such Lions pawes who will not shunn all union all drawing nigh to him so doth he scandalize Gods love c. making it terrible which is amiablenes and life it self that none might desire him 4 It is slanderous to the justice of God 1 By accusing it there to inflict the curse wrath and judgements where he imputeth no sin 2 By charging it to receive ful satisfaction for our debt from Christ our surety and afterward when all is paid to require satisfaction from us too A piece of injustice so odious to the light of nature it self that Mr. Baxter would account him a prodigie of Nature a Devillized man that should so do yet hath the face to charge the most righteous God whose wayes are all equall yea equity it self therewith 5 It is injurious to Christ and his Mediation Charging him and it with insufficiency With the want I mean either of insufficient merit to free us from the whole curse and wrath of God because he could not do it or want of sufficient love to us that having all power given him in heaven and earth yet will not do it But in both these the Scripture testifieth Christ to be all-sufficient without the least defect either of merit or love to us that in the infinitenes of his merit he hath purchased all and by the infinitenes of his love he dispenseth this liberty in the fulnes of it to us Therefore is Mr. Baxter ungratefully injurious to our blessed Saviour in denying it and arguing against it 6 It tends to the advancing of mans vain-glory and boasting in being at least in part a self-saviour that his satisfactions have wrought with the Lord Christs in the procurement of his Justification and salvation This by the sequele of this work appears to be the main thing to which Mr. Baxter driveth For yeelding himself up to be the Disciple of men to see and judge onely by the light of mans reason he seems to me to be so left of God destitute of his Spirit that he can see no farther than a meer naturall man in spirituall things and so following the letter and scarce the letter without the Spirit of the word he can think of no other way to happines but that which the very instinct of nature suggesteth namely a mans own willing running and procurements To this end he laies a foundation here of humane satisfaction by sufferings perceiving well that if mans suffering of the curse of the Law be once granted to be effectuall by way of satisfaction to purge the soul from sin then much more the righteousnes of workes done in obedience and conformity to the Law by the help of the Spirit will and must be granted to be more powerfull to the same end Therefore seeks he thus to depress the grace of God and merits of Christ that upon the ruines thereof he might erect a Temple dedicated to mans righteousnes 7 It subverteth all the joy and consolation of Christians which the Holy Ghost requireth of them in their sufferings from Christ or for Christs sake How can we according to the precept of Christ Rejeyce and be exceeding glad when we suffer Matth. 5. 12. And with Paul Glory in tribulation Rom. 5. 3. and Rejoyce in our sufferings Col. 1. 24. And after the rule of James Account it all joy when we fall into many temptations Jam. 1. 2. If these be the curse of the Law the effects of Gods wrath and heavie displeasure Can a good childe rejoyce and glory in his fathers anger and in the curses and strokes of his fathers wrath which he hath justly deserved It is enough to add despair and death to the sorrow of the Saints in their afflictions to possesse their Consciences with an apprehension that all comes from their fathers wrath and hath the curse upon it 8 It holds poor Christians upon a rack of torment and under the spirit of intolerable bondage all their life-time For let Mr. Baxter though he were sworn against Christ to Antichrist deny if he can that when the Apostle Gal. 3. 10. saith As many as are of the works of the Law are under the Curse his meaning to be that they are in the state and under the power of damnation or that the curse and damnation are not in Scripture phrase the same thing I know he will not deny it lâ—st he should declare himself to haue taken at once his farewell of divine truth and of naturall reason also If then to be under the curse is to be under damnation then by affirming beleevers to be under the Curse he affirmes them to be under damnation consequently them that are in Christ to be so much the children of wrath and hell as the very reprobates 9 It inureth upon Christ a brand of evill which St James pronounceth detestable in a wicked man What that out of the same James 3. 9 10 11 mouth should proceed blessing and cursing saith he Yet Mr. Baxter makes the same Christ at the same time to blesse and to curse to absolve and to sentence to save and to damn the same person 10 Let Mr. Baxter consider whether while he labours so vehemently to fasten the curse upon them whom God hath blessed with faithfull Abraham Gal. 3. 9. He doth not pluck the curse upon himself which God hath denounced Gen. 12. 3. I will bless him that blesseth thee and curse him that curseth thee A word more I shall add by way of digression to some Ministers who by a faulty inadvertency speak in this point almost the same things with Mr. Bacter though in
5. 24. 6. 35 40. 47. 7 38. 11. 25 26. 12. 46. Act. 10. 43. Rom. 3. 26. 4. 5. 5. 1 10. 4 10. 1 Jo. 5. 15. Mar. 1. 15. 6. 12. Luk. 13. 3. 5. 24. 47. Act. 5. 31. 11. 18. 20. 21. 2. 38. 3. 19. 8. 22. 26. 20. Rev. 2. 5 16. Heb. 6. 1. 2 Pet. 3. 9. Mr. Br having as he thinks laid prostrate the whole generation of Christ and antipapisticall beleevers under the Curse under the wrath of God sticks as close to them as the vulture to the carkas or the beetle to the doung or the flesh-fly to the sore For here again he concludes that the very Tenor of the New Covenant is that notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction made to the law they must remain unjustified unpardoned under sin under vengeance to the end and then possibly after many hundreds and it may be thousands of yeers wherein their bodies have laid under rottennes and their souls under all hell-torments which the law can inflict they shall be justified And this very probably shall be about that time when Origens reprobates and devills shall arise from hell and fly away thence all at once and together to heaven For whosoever is not justified and pardoned here in this life shall surely not attain it untill that St Nevers day of Origen But to this it hath been answered already He seems now to bring some new thing and that which every beleeving soul gaspeth to hear made out in its fullnes viz. What the Tenor of the New Covenant is viz. That whosoeve will repent and beleeve to the end shall be justified after the end When the Serpent hath got his head into the hole the body also by little and little followes Erewhile it was he that beleeveth to the end now it is he that repenteth to the end and beleeveth to the end that shall be after all ends and worlds justified Yet this is but the head and neck of the Serpent The bulk and belly are behinde and the same full of all the qualifications and good works that Mr. Br can devise or all the herds of Monks and Jesuits have devised to his hands These all must be according to Mr. Baxters Gospel as effectuall as faith or Christ himself to Justification I should but preoccupate a dispute here to examine whether repentance be one of the many thousand conditions of Justification which Mr. Br in the sequele of this Treatise holds necessary to Justification I shall therefore leave the handling thereof to its due place Onely by the way if by repentance Mr. Br here meaneth any thing heterogeneous or specifically distinct from faith I affirm and shall in its place make good that this his assertion is totally Popish against the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles As for the Scriptures which he doth here roll out in a Crowd without rank or file to prove it partly because he neither alleageth the words nor shews how he would argue from them partly because his shuffling them together in Clusters tends onely to make the labour of his answerer almost intolerable to shew particularly how little each Scripture makes for him and how much many of them against him partly because he doth still reserve to himself whatsoever be said in answer an advantage to evade by telling us that the force of that Scripture doth in another way and not in that to which we have answered prove for him but principally because he quotes the same Scriptures over and over again in another place more proper where it shall be more pertinent to answer them I shall therefore here forbear to speak to them lest I should there be forced to omit it or to say over again what had been here said before Nay himself will not have them to be answered here for he speaks so ambiguously that he will not have his meaning understood telling us onely that upon these Conditions forsooth performed we shall be justified in another world but doth not let us know from him whether upon performance of them we may be justified in the present world But he passeth to the explication Explication Bax. Christs satisfaction to the Law goes before the New Covenant though not in regard of its payment which was in the fullnes of time yet in regard of the undertaking acceptance and efficacy There could be no treating on new terms till the old obligation was satisfied and suspended I account them not worth the confuting who tell us that Christ is the onely party conditioned with and that the New Covenant as to us hath no conditions so Saltmarsh c. The place that they alleage for this assertion is that Jer. 31. 31 32 33. cited in Heb. 8. 8 9 10. Which place conteineth not the full tenor of the whole New Covenant but either it is called the New Covenant because it expresseth the nature of the benefits of the New Covenant as they are offered on Gods part without mentioning mans conditions that being not pertinent to the busines the Prophet had in hand Or els it speaketh onely what the Lord will do with his elect in giving them the first Grace and enabling them to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant and in that sense may be called a New Covenant also as I have shewed before p. 7 8. though properly it be a prediction and belong onely to Gods will of purpose and not to his legislative will But those men erroneously think that nothing is a condition but what is to be performed by our awn strength But if they will beleeve Scripture the places before alleaged will prove that the New Covenant hath Conditions on our part as well as the old Some benefit from Christ did the condemned here receive as the delay of their condemnation and many mere mercies though they turned them all into greater judgements but of this more when we treat of generall redemption I shall here propound some questions to Mr. Baxter about his own words to be answered by some of his Chaplains or Disciples For I am not so ambitious as to expect his stooping in person to so low an office 1 Whether Christs satisfaction to the law were undertaken and so virtually made without an agreement between the Father and the Son that the Son should give and the Father accept such satisfaction Mr. Br so great a Master of reason who hath sacrificed all his religion to reason can judge whether this could rationally if possibly be done 2 If by agreement whether this agreement was not by way of Covenant between the Father and the Son and so whether the whole busines of mans justification were not transacted and concluded upon first between the Father and the Son 3 Whether Christ undertook to give satisfaction or the Father to accept it for any other besides those that in time have or shall have the full benefit thereof I mean besides the elect whom
act absolved the conscience there followeth also the sense of our remission and justification So that besides this sense and apprehension there are two things in our justification by faith over and above that which was in our eternal justification in Christ viz. 1. A total diffidence and denyal of our own righteousnesse and a trusting and adhering wholly and onely to Christ for pardon and justification 2. Gods act upon our consciences declaring and assuring us that our debt is paid by Christ and we discharged upon the satisfaction which our surety hath made so that the obligation is cancelled and we depart with a full and general acquittance in our consciences Neither of these were there in the former justification i. e. in the justification in the former sense before mentioned and so that there is more than the bare knowledge of our justification in our being justified in the latter sense is evident Whatsoever else is conteined in the doctrine of the Protestant divines about this question we shall have occasion to adde in examining what Master Baxter saith here and afterwards to oppugn it But the chief thing is yet behind may some say viz. the proof of these positions by sound Arguments or by evidencing Scriptures and the main thing to be proved is that there is such a justification as is an immanent and eternal act in God It is Master Baxters lowd challenge pag. 93. Let all the Antinomians shew but one Scripture that speaketh of justification from eternity I will be so charitable as to conceive he expects not that we should produce Scriptures that say in those very words but that which is the Tantundem that say it in sense and substance else if he reject the matter and stick to words I shall challenge him to produce one sentence of all the sermons which Christ preached and in the whole doctrine that he personally delivered which speaketh at all of justification by faith But in words equipollent to Master Baxters the Scripture delivereth this doctrine which he opposeth viz. justification from eternity First What lesse is to be gathered from 2 Tim. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our workes but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the World began What can be said more fully to Master Baxters challenge He will not deny that the word saving doth include in it justifying for so should he both contradict himselfe and lose elswhere more than he can gain here by denying it It will then run thus that we are justified and called of God with a holy calling not according to our works these words destroy the end of Master Baxters opposing the eternity of our justification if our own qualifycation and workes may not come in collaterally with Christ to constitute us justified he little regards whether the act be immanent or transient but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began and that is from eternity See the grace of justification and salvation was given us in Christ from eternity Object Master Baxter may probably object that the grace was indeed given us in Christ from eternity that is God had decreed from eternity to justifie us in Christ when we should come to beleeve in him to justifie or save us in time as to call us in time For the grace here mentioned given us in Christ before times is as much affirmed to be the grace of our vocation or calling as of our saving and justifying But our calling must therefore our justification also must be in time And thus by the grace given must be understood Gods gracious purpose and decree to give us salvation and justification So Mr. Baxter I know God hath decreed to justifie his people from eternity But it is done in time page 93. Sol. 1. That Covenant justifying or the declaring of us in our own Consciences to bee accepted as just in Christ is not denyed to be an act accomplished in us in time Nor yet that God decreed from Eternity to declare us in our consciences Righteous when wee should beleeve But the granting of all this nothing advantageth Master Baxters cause For neither doth this Act of God in time terminate upon our conscience nor his eternal decree so to justifie us beleeving in our selves deny that wee were justified in God and in Christ from Eternity 2. It appears not that the Apostle here speaketh of our calling to the participation of Christ and of justification and sanctification by him in time but rather of that calling mentioned Rom. 4. 17. That God calleth those things that be not as though they were As he called Abraham the father of many Nations when he was yet either childlesse or at least was in reference to the strength of nature without having without hope to have that child from whom those nations should issue and accrew to him as their father So God is said to have called us with a holy calling i. e. to have called and reputed us in Christ his pardoned accepted and adopted children even before we had any actual being in our selves Dedit qui erat accepit qui non erat Quis antem hoc facere potuit nisi qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt Aug. de verb. Apost Sect. 3. If by Calling it be pertinaciously maintained that we must understand that which is done by the Ministry of the Gospel yet all this helps not Master Baxter at all in regard of the exclusive clause following not according to our workâ— where our salvation and justification as well as our vocation are denyed to have any dependance upon our own workes and qualifications as conditions thereof And the whole end of Master Baxters dispute against justification as an immanent Act in God is because if that be granted there will be no place for footing our works and qualifications as necessarily precedent conditions of justification And these fall to ground as well as if we were justified without them though in time as if wee were justified from Eternity 4. But how and whether we can truly and properly be said to have received Grace in Christ before all worlds whereby we are saved and justified and yet not to be saved and justified in Christ before the world was will come to bee examined in drawing forth the sense of other Scriptures which I shall annex In the interim this remaines unquestioned that although the Apostle speak here of Justification in our selves in time yet he affirmes it to be according to the Grace given us in Christ before the world so it was in Christ for us before though not in our selves till we beleeve Againe when the Scripture speaking of the Sonnes of Isaac saith of them while yet unborn and consequently having neither done good nor evill Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated Mal. 1. 2 3. Rom. 9. 11 13. And
elswhere pronounceth of men that when they lay in their blood in their nakedness then hee made it the time of love sayd to them live spread his skirt over them and covered them entred into Covenant with them and made them his Ezek. 16. 6 8. God of his great love wherewith hee hath loved us even when we were dead in sins and trespasses hath quickned us c. Ephes 2. 4 5. God commendeth his love to us that when we were yet sinners when enemies we were justified by Christs blood and reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5 8 9 10. Here it is evident to all men that the love of God justifying and reconciling us to himself goeth before our Faith and Workes was then in its power and operation when wee were yet sinners in all our pollution enemies dead in sinne therefore without any spirituall motion or operation to our own cleansing or happiness I demand now when this love of God so justifying us beganne Not when we beleeved and first obeyed the Gospel for it went before it was then acted toward us when wee were enemies dead c. Or when wee beganne to be sinners Then it seems our sinne begat this love in God and then let the Atheists Aphorism stand as an impregnable Principle let our sinne abound that the grace and love of God may abound Or was there ever an hatred of us as a contrary affection in God before which is now expelled that love might succeed in its place And hath God now changed his hating of us to condemne us into a love to justifie and save us This were to accuse God of mutableness and change For God is Love 1 Iohn 4. 8. and the Love of God is God himselfe loving and to affirme where wee finde the Love of God at present that there was a time when this Love was not in God and a time when God beganne to love is no other but to affirme that there was a time when God yet was not and a time when he beganne to bee God the will of God being God himselfe And the volitions or willings of God being God himself willing And the acts of Gods Love and Hatred being acts of Gods Will yea of God himselfe and no more subject to change because immanent in God then God himselfe So that these Scriptures which affirme Gods love to us when sinners doe affirm also consequentially his love to us before we were either in being or just or sinners even from eternity Thirdly when the Lord saith to his people I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jerem. 13. 3. Doth hee not mean a love which is from everlasting to everlasting Or is there a Love of God to everlasting which was not from everlasting Or was it not the Love of accepting and approbation of them unto Righteousnesse and Salvation whereof hee there speaketh And when the Apostle Iohn tels us that the glory of Gods love doth herein shine forth Not that we loved him but that he loved us 1 John 4. 10. making not our love or any fruits thereof the foundation of Gods love to us but the love of God to us to goe before and prevent our love is not this a doctrin universally true of all the Saints that are or have been that Gods love to them prevented and was antecedaneous to their love toward him if so then consequently before mans being as well as before his loving and if before mans being then from eternity was this grace given us that we were loved of God in Christ to justification and salvation It is that which the Lord Christ speaketh and that not obscurely in his prayer before his passion where having interceded and craved sundry blessings for his Elect he adds this reason why he craved those blessings in their behalfe viz. That the world may know that thou hast sent me and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me Jo. 17. 23. How is that in the next verse he explaineth himself thus Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world what doth follow hence but that as Christ so they that are Christs were loved of God unto life before the foundation of the world why will not Master Baxter acknowledge what Christ hath prayed that all the world may know Object 1. Or will it be objected that God loving the Elect in Christ before the foundation of the world is to be understood onely in this sense that before the foundation of the world God decreed in himselfe to love them in Christ afterward in time Then must we so conclude of Christ also that God loved Christ before that is decreed before the foundation of the world to love Christ in after time not that he loved him from eternity for as hee loved Christ so he loved them in Christ But he actually loved Christ as the head of the Church before the foundation of the World therefore also he loved the Elect in Christ as the body and members of Christ before the foundation of the world Yea to decree from eternity to love them afterward in time and untill the time came to hate them or not to love them in Christ was to decree mutablenesse and change in his own will i. e. in himselfe which is wholly repugnant to his nature that cannot change by receiving augmentation unto or diminution of the acts of his Will which were in him from eternity Object 2. But perhaps Master Baxter may object with his friends of the Netherlands the Arminians whose ghosts have much infested us within this Nation these many years that this love of God from Eternity that which he shed abroad upon the Elect when they were yet sinners enemies and dead in sin is to be understood onely of Gods universal common love his love to all the creatures which he hath made or at the uttermost his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his love unto mankind which he extends to all alike Making the raine to descend and his Sun to shine upon the just and unjust and fills the hearts of all with food and gladness Sol. But how then was Jaakob loved and Esau hated when Esau partaked more of this common love than Jaakob or was it a Common love by which God doth justifie and reconcile sinners to himselfe then all shall be reconciled justified and saved Or when the Apostle termes it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the much or great love of God out of which when he quickned us yet dead in sinnes and trespasses Eph. 2. 4. was this the common love extended to all the Sonns and Daughters of Adam without difference Then also for God loved us as he loved Christ the love of God to Christ was a common love in nothing supereminent to the love wherewith he loved Cain and Judas Lastly when God saith I have not beheld iniquity in Jaakob nor seen perversnesse in Israel Num. 23. 21. it will I doubt not be granted that the meaning was that God did
by him elswhere That no advantage is to be given to the Papists in the point of Justification To say that the last sentence of judgement shall declare to Men and Angels that the Elect were justified in this life by faith in him is according to the voice of the Word But to say that they shall be then fully Justified as if their Justification had not been before compleated is to out-throw the Bar two foot beyond the Papists for the maintenance of their self-justifying and to speak more for them then they had wit or gracelesnesse to speak for themselves Hence it is that in the beginning of his Explication pag. 183. he forbears to mention other distinctions which are common in others and may be found in Mr. Bradshaw Mr. John Goodwin and Alstedius because saith he they are not so necessary and pertinent to my purposed scope which is to destroy Justification by Grace and erect in place thereof Justification by Works It is a superlative praise that he giveth these men how wel deserved by some of them I know not that they are travelling another way from him their faces are toward Jerusalem and he cannot obtain a word of direction from them but must trust to his own Compass to guide him to Rome What he hath more in the Explication is but the interpretation of his own dream And I have not superstition enough to keep me awaked and attentive to dreams and their interpretation Neither is there any thing else in his 38 Thesis and its Explication but a further forming of the same Chimaera and notional Nothing created out of his brain in the former Position and its Explication Or if there be any thing besides it hath been examined in the precedent Chapter With no lesse silence might I also passe by the 39 Thesis and its Explication as being of the same nature with the former saving that there are two things that wee may glance our consideration upon before we passe further lest that we should seem to look aside from any thing that hath an appearance of weight and strength in it to confirme his doctrine of a Justification or pardon of sin in sentence of Judgement contradistinct from that which he maketh to consist in Title of Law To make evident that besides the Justification here there shall bee another Justification in the day of Judgement hee addeth these two things unto what he had before said 1. An explication of the form of future Justification and Pardon 2. Another Text of Scripture besides the former to evince it The former he hath in these words of that his Thesis That it shall be an acquitting of the sinner at Gods publique Bar. B. From the accusation and condemnation of the Law pleaded against him by Satan For pag. 189. in the Explic. the accusation of his guilt will be managed against him by Satan hereafter from which accusation he shall be then acquitted Who is there now that can doubt of a Justification after this life when he hath heard so graphicall a description of it But how came Satan and Mr. Baxter to be of so great acquaintance that either shall know the others purpose about the Judgement to come I had thought the Devill had made known onely to his friends not to his adversaries what he means to do to morrow much lesse what hee meanes to doe in the day of Judgement I should have conjectured that he is more taken up with the horror of torments that he shall suffer then with the thought of further actings in that terrible day Neither did I until now finde that Satan should be an accuser of others having not what to say for the defence of himself being accused by others as the author of their sinne and misery in the day of Judgement Neither can I find yet that the Scripture teacheth any such thing that Mr. Baxter should be able to say he hath received from the Lord what he doth here discover to us It must be from some Apocrypha's or out of the left side of the Romish Legend that hee hath borrowed this doctrine where I shall leave him to dig out more traditions to maintain his bold assertions that have no pillarage from Scripture to sustain them The latter vizt the Text of Scripture which he alleageth to the same end wee have in the beginning of the Explication thus B. There is also a twofold pardon as well as a twofold Justification one in Law the other in sentence of Judgement So Act. 3. 19. Repent that your sins may be blotted out when the time of Refreshing comes c. Lo here a Justification or pardon of sin in or after our glorification begun But Mr. Baxter knows that Erasmus and the old translation otherwise render this Text making the latter clause thereof Ecliptick or unperfect which is thus to be supplyed Repent c. that your sins being blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come forth from the presence of God What then wee must supply Ye may have your part in the eternall refreshing and joy This rendring of the Text even the most solid Expositors that follow the other reprove not but speak honourably of it much more those that take it up And if we so understand the Text it hath no shew of affirming a forgiveness of sin but glorification onely after the judgement day Yea I have found none untill Beza's new Translation of the Testament that otherwise understood the text or since this translation that hath reprehended the former as faulty but all both before and since making that the sense of it Yea the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translation renders when both Beza and all the Orthodox Expositors render fo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after thus reading the Text not when but after the times of refreshing shall come And this Mr. Baxter will not deny to be the proper meaning of the phrase And will he notwithstanding say that the times of refreshing that is of everlasting joy come first and then the forgiveness of sinne follows Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the original may be as properly rendred have or are come as shall come And so many learned Translators and Expositors of this Text have understood it viz. of Christs first coming in the flâ—sh And then without any supplement the Text is full in it selfe and runneth thus Repent c. that your sins may be blotted out seeing that the times of refreshing are come forth from the presence ef God Let Mr. Baxter cite any one either Scripture or Greek Writer in which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth when otherwise I cannot see the least ground upon which hee can blame this or uphold that Translation which he taketh up 3. The translation which a learned and godly friend gives rendring the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to this end that bears great force with me as best agreeing
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
further to take his pastime in his Logicall and Metaphysicall learning which may possibly please him but never justifie or save him and partly by shewing the weaknesse of the objection to gull his unwary reader with an opinion of the weaknesse of their cause who are forced with such Egyptian reeds for lack of better pillars to sustain it It is one of the Jesuits principles to fetch armes indifferently either from heaven or hell to storm the Church and truth of Christ and to promote the holy mother harlot of Rome But I am weary following him while he brings nothing but the Socinians right reason to be judge of the Mysterious doctrines of Christ and fear whether it be answerable before God to spend time in answering his babble with babble again for the truth of Christ doth neither stand nor fall by what can be said for it or against it out of the principles or learning of abused Aristotle Let Mr. Baxter call to minde what he hath read as elsewhere so in his adored Schibler in the second book of his Metaph. Cap. 3. in his interserted oration a little before the end of that book pa. 211. of the book printed at Oxford concerning the sophister convinced by an unlearned Confessour after his almost victorious disputes against all the Doctors of the Nicene councell many dayes together If he take it for a truth it may help to convince him that God is more effectually present in disputations about Evangelicall matters when they are totally confined to the Word then when they are handled after the rule and in the Predicament of carnall reason It argues that he undertakes a businesse not for God but against him else would he not cast away spirituall and take up fleshly arms to maintain it But fith Mr. Baxter is Mr. Baxter we shall crave leave to speak the lesse to him henceforth where we find him to have little of the word and reserve our selves to speak more largely where the man for his recreation vouchsafeth to abase himself so low as to meddle with Scriptures B. Quest But though faith be not the instrument of justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ who justifyeth us Ans I do not so much stick at this speech as at the former yet is it no proper or fit exprâ—ssion neither For 1. The act of faith which is it that justifyeth is our actuall receiving of Christ and therefore cannot be the instrument of receiving To say our receiving is the instrument of our receiving is a hard saying 2. And the seed or habit of faith cannot fitly be called an instrument For 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument it being the soul it self and not any thing really distinct from the soul nor really distinct from each other as Scotus Dr. Orbellus Scaliger c. Dr. Jackson Mr. Pemble think and Mr. Ball questions 2. The holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument For 1. It is nothing but themselves rectifyed and not a being so distinct as may be called their instrument 2. Who ever calleth habits or dispositions the souls instruments The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument of it You may as well call a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ I have before expressed in what sense we make or at least hold faith to be mans instrument in applying Justification to himself And 2. have manifested the testimonies and authority of the Scripture herein so that Mr. Baxter if he list as it listeth him to cavill cavils not so much against all godly Protestant writers whom he opposeth as against the holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Christ himself and his Apostles whom thorow the loins of those he smites at It is not the first time that he hath accused Christ and the holy Ghost in this manner of impropriety and unfitnesse of expressions in Scriptures And why because they speak not enough logically and in all probability never read thorow Aristotles Metaphysicks But let us hear what he can say here to prove the unpropernesse of that language which calleth faith an instrument of receiving Christ and justification in and by him His reasons are above in his own words rendered To the first I answer Mr. Baxter makes and layes his own principles of Religion and from them as from an impregnable mount he battereth Christ and his doctrine Should we grant him that faith is the receiving of Christ yet 1. How shall it appear otherwise then by Mr. Baxters own Magisteriall dictates that justifying faith is nothing else but the receiving of Christ 2. Why else doth he make it simply and only a quality or act of the soul without the adjection of its originall from above but to ingenerate into the minds of men an opinion that it hath its emanancy and rise from nature from freewill that every man may have and act it if and when he will and that it is not infused of God to be instrumentall by his appointment for the producing of any spirituall effect 3. How doth he prove that onely the act of faith justifyeth Yet 4. If all these dubious things were granted to him his own words therein tend to the confirmation rather then the infirming of the main conclusion which he opposeth that faith is the instrument of justification For if the act of faith be the receiving then must faith it self so acting be the receptrix or that by which we receive Christ but that by which man receiveth Christ is instrumentall to his receiving of justification for Christ is made of God to us righteousnesse he that hath Christ hath life specially this will follow upon Mr. Baxters principle of Christ and justification given to all universally to none in particular he must be made ours therefore by receiving him and if faith doth receive how doth it receive but as an instrument or whereas the well is deep and we have nothing of our own to draw with what shall be the instrument of drawing and receiving if faith be not it 5. And in this lyeth Mr. Baxters Sophism that he puts the act of faith for faith actuated Though the act of faith were the receiving of Christ yet faith actuated and acting is that by which we receive Christ and to say that by which we receive is the instrument of our receiving is not a hard but a proper saying The act of Mr. Baxters hand was the writing of these lines To say that his writing was the instrument of his writing is a hard saying but to say his hand acted in writing was his instrument of writing it is not a hard saying To the second It is wholly Sophisticall For when he saith 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument because it is the soul it self what is this to the purpose
untill the day of Judgement after Mr. Baxter and what may fall out as touching the apostasie of their souls before that day is uncertain And it being not known of those that should come after him who or whether any would beleeve and persevere in beleeving If of Gods justifying us in our selves i. e. declaring and evidencing us justified we do in some cases acknowledge that God hides his face and evidenceth not his love in Christ in the same degree to all beleevers but in God and in Christ they are still justified and their salvation is sure But Mr. Baxter shakes off this Act of Justification in disdain therefore the absurdities which follow in his conditions in respect of one of the former cannot be avoided I forbear to enlarge my self further in this kinde here having spoken to it before and finding a necessity of speaking more afterward But it will be expected that Mr. Baxters Arguments be rather answered then his conclusion denyed and opposed let us therefore examine them as far as I can finde they are in number two by which he proveth faith to be the condition of justification 1. It is plain and undenyable This I acknowledge is a Noli me tangere strikes dead in the place renders the respondent as mute as a fish Let a wiser man undertake it is past my skill to answer 2. The whole tenor of the Gospel shews that specially such Scriptures as give their testimony of our justification in Christ before faith entred to purifie our hearts When we were without strength when sinners when enemies we were reconciled to God by the death and justified by the bloud of his Son Rom. 5. 6 8 9 10. While we were in our blood polluted Ezek. 16. 6. While yet unborn and had done neither good nâ—r evil Rom. 9. 11. 13. When yet of the world and not served from the common masse of mankinde Joh. 3. 16. God loved us to salvation While yet dead in sins and trespasses he hath quickned and saved us by grace Ephes 2. 5. Blotting out the hand-writing c. forgiving all our trespasses unto us in Christ while yet hanging on the Crosse Col. 2. 13 14 15. making us accepted in Christ the be loved Ephes 1. 6. putting away our sin and perfecting us for ever by the sacrifice and blood of Christ i. e. in Christ offering himself and his bloud in sacrifice Heb. 9. 26. 10. 14. and all this before we had a being who now live much more before we were in a capacity of having any condition in our selves of Justification As also such Gospel Scriptures as affirm this remission or justification unreversible calling it an eternal redemption Heb. 9. 12. a perfecting of us for ever Heb. 10. 14. so that there is no more condemnation Rom 8. 1. no more remembrance of iniquity Heb. 10. 17. no more separation from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 39. and other many such testimonies before in part quoted and partly remaining to be alleadged if occasion shall require all which do concur in one harmony to evince Justification once obtained to depend upon no conditions but to be absolute and indefeasable that if any fall away it is because they only seemed but never were in the number of the truly justified 1 Joh. 2. 19. Whosoever layeth all these together and will not be convinced that Faith in Mr. Baxters sense is the condition of Justification but will beleeve the Gospel it self more then what Mr. Baxter speaketh of the Gospel for any thing that I know he may remain the Disciple of Christ and unconvinced still In the Appendix in the answer to the six and seven Questions or Objections pag. 41. to the 46. Mr. Baxter makes it his task again to prove the justification of the New Covenant to be conditionall and not absolute But so poorly doth he there handle his dispute so unlike Mr. Baxter who when Scriptures fail him is elsewhere wont to play his game with Sophistry which here doth very little help him that unto a discreet man nothing can more breed a suspicion of the goodnesse of the cause then the hard shifts confusednesse contradictions and other weak devices and extravagancies to which so accomplisht a scholar is put even when he hath no opponent but a meer question to make it seem probable How doth the man put himself here into a wood or wildernesse seeking but finding no certain way out acting his wit and study to the highest to expedite himself in a cleer way that might be visible and plain to himself and others and not finding it he at last doth what may be done in such a labyrinth trusteth to groping for what he cannot see And first he seems to have found in the dark a two-fold Covenant of Grace one absolute and the other conditional First then he follows the absolute Covenant if that will or can lead him with certainty to any safety or shew of reason what to speak of it as he makes it contradistinct to the Conditional Covenant or Justification that the former which he cannot deny may stand as a cipher but this be the Numeral and only in power and force here he is carryed in a maze of doubts and rovings not finding where to pitch 1. Pag. 41. Sect. the 42. he would shake off this absolute Justification as a Prophesie and promise made only to the Jews not extending to us but here the Apostle meets him in the way Heb. 8. 8 9. otherwise expounding the Scripture that holds it forth so that this shift fails him 2. He questions whether the Apostle mention it as an absolute promise or else in an opposition to he knows not what but foreseeing what would herein be answered he lets fall this too pag. 42. 3. He brings something which he thinks will hold water that this absolute Covenant of Justification is made with the Elect and not with mankinde in generall What is this to the purpose He is here treating of the New Covenant as it respecteth Justification And what one Scripture can he produce that tels us of all mankinde and not of the Elect only justified In what a straight is the man that in stead of distinctions which were ever wont to be his Egyptian Reed to succour him he is forced to fly to confusions for help For so he confounds together here the promulgation of Justification with Justification in its beeing or with the being of it when these are different As well might he pronounce the rich glutton to be no lesse blessed in seeing then was Lazarus by being in Abrahams bosome as to pronounce all mankinde justified because Christ is conditionally offered to all for Justification We have granted before the promulgation and offer of Justification by the Gospel to be conditionall but the gift and beeing of it to be absolute Neither is there any thing in this offer to our Justification in Christ which is absolute before and without any promulgation
would have passed currantly We cannot so suppose for one absurd supposition being granted a thousand more will follow after Mr. Baxter begins too low in his suppositions Let him here advance a stair higher with us and suppose first a truth before he supposeth that which is false and unpossible in respect of that truth that must necessarily be presupposed viz. That God before his Covenanting with man had decreed within himself Salva Justitia without obscuring at all his Justice to make known on the vessels of mercy i. e. in justifying and saving miserable sinners whom he had before prepared to glory the riches of his glory i. e. the praise of the glory of grace Rom. 9. 23. Ephes 1. 6. that himself and his free grace should be all and man nothing to his justification and salvation and to the end that his justice might appear still in all its lustre had taken full satisfaction from his own Son here to manifest the freenesse of his grace the all to our happinesse residing in his meer mercy and the nothing in our selves I see not what other condition or means besides faith God could have put out of which mans proud heart would not have arrogated something to himself to have swoln therewith and so the glory of Gods grace should have been obscured Or doth Mr. Baxter see farther then the Apostle He tels us It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4. 16. If by other means it might have been and yet by grace there would be a notable flaw in the Apostles arguing which limits it to faith that it might be of grace To the same purpose are those many Scriptures in which he affirms it to be by faith that all mans boasting may be excluded implying that if it had not been only by faith there would have been something of man in it clowding the glory of Gods grace and giving to man occasion of boasting that there is something of his own to his justification and so to glory partly in himself and not wholly in the Lord. So Mr. Baxters arguing If God had put some other condition no doubt it would have justified is one and the same with this If God had acted against his own purpose and betrayed the glory of his Grace no doubt it had been betrayed But the former supposition is no lesse absurd then the latter And almost so much at the full Mr. Baxter either to toll on his Reader into more snares which afterward he layeth by his magnificent elogies of Gods grace or from the throws and checks of an accusing conscience speaketh in the following part of this Section Yet so that he cannot cease from the interweaving of mans works with Gods grace unto Justification which because he doth more fully and grossely in the following part of this Tractate I shall here forbear to anticipate what there is to be said by way of answer to him The next Position is of neer cognation with this his words are these B. Thesis 58. The ground of this is because Christs righteousnesse doth not justifie us properly and formally because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by divine donation or imputation This is plain in it self and in that which is said before How this is plain in that which is said before we have before examined how it is plain in it self we are here to examine To omit how after Mr. Baxters Principles the righteousnesse of Christ can be said to be ours by divine donation and imputation when he holds it no otherwise by Gods donation ours then the wilde Goose is his his if he can catch her and as long as he can hold her so his as it is every ones else as well as his if they can take and hold her For she is the worlds Goose and proper to no one before one hath taken her and no longer that ones then while he holds her if he let her go she is the worlds Goose again If Mr. Baxters righteousnesse be stablished upon such a law donation and imputation let it be his not mine I shall not contend with him for a share in it because the Lord offers me a righteousnesse of a better Covenant established upon better promises Heb. 8. 6. But to let this passe When M. Baxter saith the ground of this is what meaneth he by this That no doubt that went before in the former Position But in it are many things and which of them is plain upon this ground in his meaning I cannot easily judge because to my understanding no one of them is upon this ground plain Nay upon this ground no man living is justified in this world For it is not ours saith he by beleeving and receiving it but by divine donation And this donation he will not have to be confirmed untill all the conditions be compleated and that is not untill the world be ended But to give my best conjecture of his meaning I think he will be understood that the two last clauses of his former Thesis are plain upon this ground viz. 1. That Faith doth justifie properly as a condition c. 2. Improperly as it doth receive Christ The ground saith he is this because c. Here by the way we may take notice of the mans subtilty and sophistry in shifting from one tearm of Art to another Thes 57. he tels us that faith doth properly justifie thus and improperly thus but in the Explication he foysteth in the word formally and formall pag. 230 231. and here Thes 58. puts both together properly and formally as if there were no other proper cause and reason but the formall cause and reason of a thing and that every proper cause were the formall cause And thus whatsoeverr Scripture saith illiterately Christ himself after Mr. Baxters proper language should not be a proper cause of our justification And who sees not the end of this his project If he be put to it he layes a ground for the diverting of the whole dispute from the Scriptures unto Philosophy Logick and the Metaphysicks where there may be a cavill about the nature of the formall cause so long untill both sides be out of breath and in the end both parties be as wise to Justification as in the beginning This is the calamity of the Church in these times that they which hold themselves the chief Doctors and eminent lights thereof darken every sacred truth with the mist of humane Learning cast upon it in stead of clearing it to the comprehension of Gods babes and sucklings No marvel then if the justice of God hath stirred up among us so many Earth-born and Earth-bred Meteors persons of no learning Ranters and Enthusiasts I mean like Balaams Asse to rebuke the madnesse of these Prophets And doubtlesse either by these or some other the Lord will prevail against them if they shall not cease to pervert with Elymas the plain ways of God Now to the matter it self about which
what Scriptures our Divines bring to prove justification to be only by faith and to deny all cooperation of works therein And herein I shall put limits to my self not letting out all that they produce for so should I offend with immoderate length but some particulars that the weakest reader may see what Mr. Baxter would not give him to see that our Churches are not destitute of strong grounds for the bearing up of their faith and assertions And when this is done I shall descend to examine the force of those Scriptures quoted by Mr. Baxter to see whether they make for him and against us I shall begin from the reasoning of the Apostle Rom. 3. 20. c. having before proved both the Jews by and under the Law and the Gentiles without the Law to be guilty before God he concludes Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justifyed c. and ver 21. The righteousnesse of God viz. to justification is manifested without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets to wit a righteousnesse which the Law is ignorant of the righteousnesse or life which is by faith From this righteousnesse the tenour of the Law or legall Covenant turns aside telling us he that doeth them shall live in them Gal. 3. 11 12. ver 22. Even the righteousnesse of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve Lo here it is denyed to be by the most righteous works which the most perfect Law of God himself prescribeth and attained by faith only ver 24. Being justifyed freely by his grace through the redemption which is by Jesus Christ what can be said more fully It shall not be impertinent to annote briefly out of Zanchy what he hath upon Hier. zanch De natura Dei Lib. 4. Cap. 2. Th. 2. this verse more largly when the Apostle saith we are justifyed by his grace Per Gratiam intelligit gratuitum Dei favorem omnibus nostris exclusis sive naturalibus sive supernaturalibus dignitatibus saith he i. e. by Grace the Apostle meaneth the free love or favour of God excluding all parts and pieces of our worth both naturall and supernaturall and addeth that the Apostle still opposeth grace to all our works and to all our inward vertues wrought in us by the holy Ghost himself as well as to our legall and morall righteousnesse yea to faith it selfe as it is a work as is manifest to every one that hath with any consideration read this Epistle Therefore saith he he excludeth all works that he may conclude our Justification to be by grace alone Yea more the Apostle saith he not contented to say we are justifyed by grace addeth thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace that is by the grace which is in God not by any gift of grace infused by him into ourselves that it might be wholly of God and not of our selves at all in the least part Yea not contented with all this he addeth freely to notifie that there is not required any work or qualification on our part to put us into the possession thereof for so it should not be wholly by the free and naked favour of God as he tearms it And lastly he addeth by the redemption which is by Jesus Christ by this work of Christ excluding all ours hitherto that profound Zanchius Neither cannot it be freely by the redemption of Christ if our qualifications and conditions be brought to interesse us to it for so should we be in some kinde purchasers and not receive it freely The Apostle proceeds ver 25. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins c. The whole thing of Gods ordination to make the redemption propitiation and remission of sinnes which is by Christ actually ours to our comfort is here assigned to be saith in his blood and not any foregoing concomitant or subsequent vertue or duty of ours annexed to it and all to declare his righteousnesse Ver. 26. His righteousnesse he saith again that he may be just and the justifyer of him that beleeveth in Jesus If Mr. Baxters fancy stand of the Legall righteousnesse in Christ and the Evangelicall righteousnesse in us the Apostles assignation of the end of Gods justifying us by Christ should be maimed For he should have said To declare to declare I say his righteousnesse and our righteousnesse that he might be just and a justifyer and we might be just and justifyers of our selves And then we are to expunge the next verse Where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith For boasting should not be at all excluded if our works should bear a part with faith in justifying so should we have matter of glorying in our selves still How full is the Apostle here in the confirmation of Justification by faith without works had he seen what the Papists and Mr. Baxter over their shoulders would have objected against it he could not have spoken more punctually Yet as I know what the Papists say for themselves so I am not ignorant what Mr. Baxter will except for himself But I reserve the Examination thereof for another place where he goeth about to purge his doctrine from all contrariety that it hath to the doctrine of the Apostle and from any derogation from the Grace of God A second Testimonie or authority from Scripture we may draw from Rom. 4. 1 c. I shall be short in it The Apostle here denies 1 Our father Abraham the father of the faithfull himself to have been justifyed by works for then he should have whereof to glory ver 2 3. But as Abraham was so all the faithfull are justifyed by faith without works or to render the words of the Text By faith and not by works Here Mr. Baxter hath no evasion as in the former Chapter viz. that the works of the Law only are denyed for Abraham was under the promise not under the Law nether was the Law then given and the promise under which he was was without all condition of works so that the Apostle here excludeth works indefinitely I mean not good and evill works for no man ever brought evill works as evill to be thereby justifyed But good works whether Legall or Evangelicall all acts and deeds both of naturall and infused righteousnesse and holinesse 2 In affirming of him that worketh i. e. that seeketh justification by works that the reward is reckoned of debt to him that he requires it as due and shall not receive it if it be not found due in Justice but to him that worketh not but beleeveth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith is imputed to righteousnesse i. e. as hath been already evinced Christ by faith apprehended is of the free grace of God made righteousnesse to him When Mr. Baxter therefore claps his bundle of works upon
imforming and giving life and vertue to it an act apprehending Christ as its object in whom all its vertue lyeth the cloud or darknesse in which Christ dwelleth as God was formerly in a cloud or darknesse upon mount Sinai and in the Temple or as all our Divines say the hand by which we receive Christ made of God righteousnesse to us and in us Gal. 3. 27. 1 Cor. 1. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 21. That the life of justification consisteth not in works at all nor in faith considered in a sense divided from Christ but in Christ our life living in us so that the life which we live is by the faith of the Son of God by the recumbency of our souls by faith upon the Son of God which is our life and that this is to live by faith Gal. 2. 20. Col. 3. 4. Gal. 3. 11. That Christ with all his righteousnesse to remission and salvation is given us freely of God not sold as by Judas to his enemies and so made ours without money without price without fine or rent In the Covenant of grace there is nothing smelling of a Simoniacall contract it is wholly of Gods giving not in the least particle of our purchasing Isa 9. 6. Joh. 3. 16. Isa 55. 1. That the life and justification which are by the second Adam descend to us in the same manner with the sin and condemnation from the first Adam But these descended by our naturall union and communion with the first Adam not by our imitation of him For death reigned from Adam over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam Therefore also righteousnesse and justification descend to us by the union and communion which we have with the second Adam Christ Jesus and not from our imitation of him and configuration to him for when we were yet enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Not but that every one to whom the sin and condemnation of Adam once descended are thenceforth imitators of and configured to Adam or that they to whomsoever the righteousnesse and justification of Christ have descended do not thenceforth become imitators of and are configured to the image of Christ but that these imitations and configurations do follow and not goe before such union and communion declaring not producing the sin and condemnation which are from Adam or the righteousnesse and justification which are from the Lord Christ Rom. 5. 11. 19. And this is a sound Argument which the Apostle bringeth to prove that works can in no respect justifie or save For we are Gods workmanship saith he created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained before that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 9 10. where we may take notice that good works are Gods end in saving or justifying us from sin But the means do alway in order of nature go before and not follow the end in execution I mean though not in intention That we are first in Christ the justifyer and in possession of the justification that is by him and then being new created in Christ to the image of God are inabled to do good works That God hath ordained before that we should walk in them being saved or justifyed not that we should be saved or justifyed by them That the righteousnesse of God by which we are justifyed is from faith to faith not begun by faith and ended in works which according to the Apostle is a beginning in the spirit and a seeking to be perfected by the flesh Rom. 1. 17. Gal. 3. 3. Should I proceed so far as the Scriptures as a leading thread would guide me for the confirmation of justification without works I should be taken as exorbitant For the rest I shall refer the reader to such writers as have handled the point of justification against the Papists or to the disputations of the Apostle himself against the false Apostles who taught the same doctrine with Mr. Baxter though not expresly in the same words They taught that we cannot be saved by Christ by faith in Christ alone except we be circumcised and keep the Law or do the works which the Law commandeth Act. 15. 1 24. Mr. Baxter teacheth in this his 60. Thesis that B. The bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that condition If we take together with his words that which in the precedent Chapter we have manifested to be his meaning in these words and that by the bare act of beleeving he understands faith without and in opposition to works for himself knoweth that it is his Pontificall-Arminian-Socinian not our Protestant Evangelicall doctrine which holds out justification by beleeving as either a bare or a cloathed act or work then he teacheth the same doctrine for which the Apostle anathematized the false Apostles and arch-church-troublers in his time Gal. 1. 7 8 9. 5. 12. And what the Apostle hath against them is against Mr. Baxter their own son I will not say in the faith but in perverting the faith and Gospell For neither did they deny faith but Mr. Baxters bare faith faith without works to be effectuall to justification Against this assertion common to him and them if there were no other Scriptures contradicting but what I have alleaged no arguments brought by our Divines to subvert it and to establish the contrary doctrine but what have been here expressed and implied al which are scarce a drop of their ful bucket yet doth Mr. Baxter declare any finglenesse of heart or sincere aime to advance the glory and truth of God in suppressing all this and all the rest in silence so to beguile his more Logicall then Theologicall readers whom he knowes to be more acquainted with Sophistry then Divinity with exotick scriblings then Canonicall Scriptures with an opinion that the stream of Scriptures runne all to his Mill and that we have nothing from the Word favouring our cause Neither let any object that our Churches do only deny the merit of works not the necessity of them as a condition to justification Herein I shall have a fit place to speak afterward as to Mr. Baxter and as it is his plea to lenifie his self-arrogating assertion In the interim to manifest the simplicity of our gudgeons that are apt to swallow the most portentous errours if offered to them involved in fine terms of logicall notions among whom some that erewhile did prosecute with bel book and candle some to death some to banishment some to sequestrations whom they thought but to smell a little of the perfumes of the purple whore These very same men now having inriched themselves with the spoyles of them whom by their outcries they erewhile pursued are mad to drench themselves with the very dregs of the cup of fornication which is in the hand of the whore and kisse the lips of Mr. Baxter which hath blessed with plausible words the doctrine
land of Canaan again The same is evident from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy where Moses having in the name of God pronounced the many blessings and whole confluence of secular happinesse to the obedient and to them that after much transgression and many curses for their transgressions should repent and turn and denounced curses upon curses a whole deluge of judgements and temporary afflictions one on the neck of another against as many as should disâ—bey the Commandements c. cap. 28. cap. 29. he doth cap. 30 15 19. Call heaven and earth to witnesse that he had done his duty in setting before them life and death good and evill blessing and cursing inplying the life and death here mentioned consisted chiefly in outward prosperity and adversity stroaking and striking That these were the apples and the rods to allure and terrifie them yet in their minority and under a paedagogie untill faith should come and the Sun of tighteousnesse shine in its splendor that they might walk by faith and not by feeling act from love and not from fear from the Spirit of adoption and not of bondage so that this shadie life promised to a legall repentance is nothing to the life of justification but so far beneath it that it is in no capacity to be used as a proofe about it These therefore serve not at all to drive on Mr. Baxters conclusion In the second place Those Scriptures which he quotes that offer life upon condition of Evangelicall repentance doe not make for him any more then the former For Gospell repentance is taken either in a large or strict sense in the more large sense it is the same with conversion or regeneration and oft times equipollent and the same thing with faith though some little consider it to be so And this is as oft as repentance is put for the one and whole thing required on our part to put us into the actuall and sensible possession of the grace and life of the Gospell as Mat. 3. 2. Mark 6. 12. Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand The summe of their preaching was Repent so Luk. 13. 3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish 24. 47. and many other of the Scriptures which he quoteth In all these places repentance containeth primarily the change of our relation and but secondarily of our qualifications and manners It is a quidam motus in which acti agimus being moved by Gods Spirit we move the terminus a quo in this motion is self our self-righteousnesse and self-confidences from which we turn no lesse then from our polluted self sinfull self and sinfull wayes The terminus ad quem is God the grace of God inviting us The medinm per quod is the Lord Christ through whom we have accesse to the Father for remission first and then for sanctification also And as the scope of the Gospell requires us to understand in such Scriptures repentance in this sense so neither do the two Greek words rendered in Latine Resipiscâ—ntia in English Repentance refuse this sense For what is that change of the mind of the judgement wisdome and will when it is taken for a Theologicall vertue but a change of these in reference to happinesse A renouncing of and departing from natures groaping and erring directions by our own works and righteousnesse to seek for blessednesse and a cleaving to the directions of the Gospell pointing out Christ as the alone way to it For instance Paul while yet impenitent and unconverted walked by the light of his naturall conscience as it was informed and awaked by the Law and by this rule walked as a strict Pharisee touching the righteousnesse which is in the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 5 6. and looking as Mr. Baxter doth upon the doctrine of free grace and righteousnesse freely imputed as upon a licentious doctrine was carried with full sails of zeal totally to destroy it I verily thought with my self saith he that I ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus c. which thing I also did c. Act. 26. 9 10. Now when the Lord Christ met him in the midst of his raging madnesse so working upon his heart that he now beleeved in Christ whom he had erewhile persecuted received him and rested on him for righteousnesse whom he had erewhile blasphemed What will ye call this obedience to the faith this closing of his heart with Christ in stead of further dashing against him was it not his conversion his repentance or is the promise of life I mean the life of justification made to any other repentance besides this In this sense therefore repentance is not a quid distinctum a thing distinct from but one and the same with justifying faith or if it be objected that it is somewhat larger then justifying faith I shall not contend but acknowledge that it comprehends whole faith both qua justificat qua sanctificat to justification and to sanctification Yet this hinders not but that these two phrases repentance to life or remission of sins and faith to life and the remission of sins are in the language of the holy Ghost one and the same Where repentance is taken in a stricter sense and some of the Scripture which he quotes seem to promise remission of sins or life to it we must necessarily understand of every such Scriptures that it speaketh of the repentance which is actuated in our first conversion and calling or after it That which is in our first conversion or calling when it is taken in a strict sense is not as in the former sense put as the whole thing required on our parts but seems in words a coordinate with faith to interest us in the righteousnesse and life which are by Christ Such are these Scriptures Repent and beleeve the Gospell repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ Mark. â— 15. Act. 20. 21. and many other But in these repentance and faith together make up no more then in other Scriptures either faith alone or repentance alone in their large sense import and so repentance is taken for self-denyall self-abhorring self-subduing and faith for embracing Christ both these are repentance or faith in their larger sense To no other end doth repentance cast and empty out self but to be filled with Christ nor doth faith receive Christ untill self be let out and evacuated that it may receive him See we it in Paul his casting away his Phi. 3. 8 9. own righteosnesse as dung and losse and putting on of Christ to win and wear him for righteousnesse were two concurrent acts either of one faith or one repentance for we may use after the holy Ghost either term indifferently and repentance here is no distinct thing from faith nor faith from repentance and in naming these two the holy Ghost nameth not two gifts of grace but two acts of the same gift of grace in us so that hitherto the
she loved Christ much how good was it to be possessed of a whole legion of such white Devils that breathed into the soul possessed such strong love of Christ But why then said Christ to her Thy faith hath saved thee ver 50. did her faith only save her but her love justifie her This is one piece of Mr. Baxters new Divinity and with him I leave it Let him learn modesty and truth from Soarez himself a Prelate among the Papists Oportet advertere in hoc quod dicitur quoniam dilexit multum non prius dilexisse multum magnam dilectionem causam fuisse tantae remissionis sed vice versa quoniam remissa sunt ei peccata multa ideo dilexisse multum Soarez in locum He addes Mat. 5. 44. Luk. 6. 27 45. Love your enemies c. That ye may be the children of your heavenly Father c. What will Mr. Baxter hence conclude but that our love c. is the cause or ground of our Adoption That we love God first and then he us afterward That not his grace but our righteousnesse makes us his Children and him our father But contrariwise Christ here exhorteth the children to be like the father directs his words to the already Adopted so to put on the image and resemble the nature and operations of their heavenly Father that they may be i. e. declare themselves to be the children of the heavenly Father Like that of Joh. 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love c. And that of 1 Joh. 3. 10. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devill he that loveth not is not of God c. So love on our part doth not make but manifest us to be the children of God But remarkeable is his next quotation Joh. 15. 12 17. This is my commandement that ye love one another ergo love justifyeth as good as if I should argue Christ commanded Peter to angle and take a fish ergo Peters angling and catching a fish justifyed him As if whatsoever Christ commanded he commanded to justification And as full to his purpose is 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. what the Lord hath laid up for them that love him ergo my love was the condition of Gods laying up for me as if God had not laid up for me before I loved him How agrees this with that which after he annexeth Mat. 25. Inherit the Kingdome prepared for you before the beginning of the world and Rom. 8. 28. All things shall work together for good to them that love God who are they such as are called according to his purpose if called then justifyed and who denyeth the riches of Gods grace dispensing all things for the good of his justifyed ones that love him But what is this to loves justifying And rare logick from the next two Scriptures Grace be with them that love the Lord Jesus Eph. 6. 24. And he that loveth him not let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16. 22. Ergo love to Christ justifyeth in rank and life with faith when I make my love the ground or condition of Gods grace and cease to make the grace of Christ the foundation of my love to Christ then will I expect that Mr. Baxter will justifie me untill then I shall be in his account Anathema maranatha Again God hath promised the Crown the Kingdom to them that love him Jam. 1. 12. 2. 5. Ergo Justification is a Crown and Kingdom and love will then justifie when it brings us to the Crown and Kingdome untill then we are unjustifyed He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father Joh. 14. 21. Ergo our love to Christ begets love in the Father and ergo the love of the Father is our justification and what else Mr. Baxter will for he concludes quidlibet e quolibet I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall finde me Prov. 8. 17. Ergo God doth not love us untill we love him nor seek us till we seek him and so God is moved by us not we by him and perhaps justifyed for of this he speaketh by us before we are justifyed by him That I may cause them that love me to inherit substance and I will fill their treasures ver 21. Ergo our justification is in our chests and purses and our love prevails upon God and Christ to fill them up to the brim with this golden justification I know not whether I may lawfully follow him in his non sequiturs and playing with the sacred Oracles of God surely neither Lucian nor Corn Agrippa with his Asse could ever treat of holy things more ludibriously or expose the sacred word of God to more scorn then this man doth were it out of weaknesse that he doth it he were to be pittied But who knoweth not if Mr. Baxter knoweth not what validity or invalidity there is in every Argument to prove Where was conscience then in quoting so many Scriptures which are no more proper to prove that to which they are applyed then they are to demonstrate a world in the Moon he knoweth the most of them have neither sound nor shew that way and those that have some shew have but a shew and being thoroughly urged to his present purpose would neither prove what he would have here proved but contrariwise crush in pieces some of his former assertions which are the pillars of the whole structure made in this book and falling will necessitate the ruine of the whole fabrick All this he saw therefore stopped at the quotation without alleadging or applying the Scriptures quoted If the man were no more happy in in his Philosophy then in his Theology he should have very little thanks from Rome And it is to be doubted his esteem will be the lesse there for his pretending to be a Scripturist and over-turning or at least shaming with his fingering of Scriptures the specious frontispice which he had erected by his Sophistry Unlesse possibly this may advantage him that he shewes the same genius and spirit in arguing from Scriptures with those holy Fathers and Fryers for so profoundly do we find them arguing Thou art Peter and upon this rock c. Mat. 16. Ergo the Pope is Christ vicar and vicegerent c. Master or Lord Here are two swords Luk. 22. 38. Ergo the Pope hath both swords of Ecclesiasticall and Civill power committed to him God made two lights the greater to rule the day the lesser the night Gâ—n 1. Ergo the Popes power is so much more excellent then Kings and Emperors as the glory of the Sun surpasseth that of the Moon I beat down my body and keep it in subjection 1 Cor. 9. Ergo we must doe penance and whip and scourge our backs when there is occasion Every mans work shall be tryed by fire 1 Cor. 3. Ergo there is a purgatory of fire to be
And at such arguing Agelastus that laught only once when he saw his horse eat Thistles would be tickled into a second laughter And no more weight is there in his former reason Because faith is the principall condition and the other lesse principall And as a whole County c. Here 1 I would demand in what respect according to Mr. Baxter Mr. Baxter can make faith the more principall and the rest qualifications and duties the lesse principall conditions Not in respect of their nature for if one be all are spirituall and Divine Nor in respect of priority in time for if not all yet many of the rest are of the same age and birth with faith Nor in respect of durance for many of them survive faith as justifying Nor in its instrumentality to justification for he denyeth any such thing to be in faith Nor in office for in it he confounds all together Nor in the amplitude of its object for herein love as in other things requires the preeminency Nor in order of operation for he makes many of them Antecedents to faith Nor in the perfection of its effect for he affirmes the rest to perfect what faith hath but begun In what respect then is faith the more principall Mr. Baxter shewes not because according to his principles it is beyond my principles to conceive that he can shew Yet he saith it because it serves his turn here to say it degrading faith at one place and enthroning it in another at his pleasure for his own ends 2 But if it be the principall condition c. what will follow hence for Mr. Baxters advantage This he makes to follow That as the whole Country hath oft its name from the chief city so may the rest duties from faith why doth he not speak plain it may be saith he but is it so where doth the Scripture give this name to faith it self much lesse to other duties in faith implyed Neither is the question about the name but the offices of all these It is rare that the Country takes its name from the chief City yet this is not in question but whether the whole Country partake of the priviledges and charter of the chief City This may indeed be where potentates that have the absolute Lordship of both grant to both the same priviledges Yet then the priviledges and dignities of the chief City are not its alone being common to the whole Country with it 3 But to the very thing in hand without painting and dawbing When the Lord hath rejected Mizpah Shiloh Dan Bethel and all other the Cities and Country of Israel saving Jerusalem alone there to vouchsafe his presence and to be sought unto it is then a rejection of God to set up Gods name and worship elsewhere saving at and equalize any other place with Jerusalem the Metropolis Hence is that complaint of God Israel hath forsaken Hos 8. 14. his maker and buildeth temples So when God hath consecrated faith alone and qualifyed it for the receiving of Christ to justification having rejected all our own righteousnesse and works from being priviledged together with it to this office and worke it is no lesse then a forsaking of God and of Christ to performe the most holy duties or to produce the most Celestiall qualifications in the least part to justifie us 4 All that Mr. Baxter dares to conclude hence is that works and duties may be not that they are conditions of justification But how from these reasons he will bring about that these all are the conditions or condition and yet faith the alone condition if he had so many eyes as Argus to guide him and so many hands as Briareus to work with by that guidance he shall be never able to effect Yet in the explication pa. 239. Mr. Baxter to charme his overly reader into a delusion pretends a proof of this Thesis by two similitudes which I forbear to transcribe because they are not worthy of so much labour For First Similies do illustrate not prove He should first have proved and then illustrated Secondly They are not adequate or fitted to the question speak only to a part of and not to the whole Thesis conclude at the best only that faith may in some case imply many other duties but in no wise that when faith is said to justifie other duties are implyed under the word faith as justifying together with it much lesse that all other duties justifie yet faith alone justifyeth If he would reason by them home to his position he must reason to this Tenour In the former suppose a King or State give to me by commission the government of such an eminent City or Castle but with this proviso and upon these articles that I disband the Army by which before I laid siege to it remove from me all my Regiments quit my self of all my Souldiers and so enter into the possession and government and all the honour and profits thereof by my self alone and one Counsellour to serve and assist me in the managing of the said government If now by vertue of this Commission I enter not having disbanded the said Army but carry it in with me some under a pretense of guarding my person others as my individuall adherents from whom I cannot be separated others to retain the Citizens within the bounds of due loyalty to me and the rest under a pretext of propagating the dominion of that power that hath so invested me with the government No man will doubt but I enter as a Traytor not as a loyall Trustee to the power which hath deputed me Who will not laugh at it as a sophisticall or rather ridiculous plea when he hears me maintaining that I entred with that one Counseller alone for all the rest are implyed in him some as his right some as his left hand some his parents some his children some his friends some his servants c. and so I have but him alone in having so many thousands with him So the new Covenant gives me Christ with justification and blessednesse in him with this Commission and proviso that I disband my own strength and righteousnesse the whole Army of my works by which before I laid siege to it to make all mine by my own winning and to enter into possession with faith alone apprehending all from the hand of free grace Shall I not be a Traytor if I carry the whole Army of works to take and hold possession for me though I make never so golden a pretext of faith only to which all these are reducible The same is the tenour of the redemption of the galley slave if you will not run from the Scripture in stead of following it in making comparisons But unto it I shall have a more proper place to speak afterward when we come to Mr. Baxters great adored Argument of receiving Christ as our Lord as well as Saviour or if there be not occasion offered there in the interim the
be further opposed Now let us hear what Mr. Baxter hath to say against us or for the proof of his Assumption B. Pa. 255. That Christ as a Saviour only or in respect of his Priestly office only is not the object of justifying faith But that faith doth as really and immediately receive him as King and in so doing justifie this I prove thus If he mean otherwise then I have before declared to be the judgment of Protestants and as he terms them godly and learned Divines of singular esteem in the Church of God pa. 53. and one of them to be of more authority then many writers and readers Appen pa. 12. he feigneth an Adversary and beats the winde But against our Assertion as I have explained it or for his Assertion setting up the commands of duty by Christ together with the sacrifice of Christs death to be the object of faith as justifying if he say any thing we are to examine it As for the rest which he speaks besides the purpose we shall look on it and neglect it B. 1. The Gospell doth not reveal Christs offices as separated but as they are revealed so they must be beleeved This makes not against us but against himself We make Christ in his offering himself for us our Melchisedek King Priest and Prophet he divides in restraining the Kingly office only to giving of Lawes c. and not at all acting mediatorily in his death B. 2. Neither doth it offer Christ in his Pristly office only as separated form his Kingly though it may sometimes presse the acceptance of him in one respect and sometimes in another but as he is offered so he must be received We grant him all but what hence will result to his use B. 3. Scripture no where tyeth justification to the receipt of him as our Priest only therefore we must not do so Scripture every where affirmeth Gods justice to be satisfyed by the blood of Christ and sends our faith to that fountain alone for purging therefore we must do so B. 4. How commonly doth Scripture joyn his offices together calling him our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Hath Mr. Baxter in a dream met with any bug-bear that doth otherwise B. 5. If we receive him not as King we receive him not as entire Saviour for he saveth us not only by dying for us but also by reducing us really into communion with God and guiding us by his Lawes and protecting and perfecting us by his government and subduing our enemies 1 The husband is in some sense said sometimes to save the wife and the wife to save the husband and the Ministers to save themselves and others 1 Cor. 7. 16. 1 Tim. 4. 16. Must therefore the husband or wife or Minister be made the object of saving or justifying faith as such â— The question is not here how many acts of Christ of men of our selves are instrumentall to our salvation but what act of Christ hath satisfyed for our sinnes by the application whereof we are constituted actually righteous are pardoned and justifyed before God This we maintain to be Christs offering himselfe to God for us and let Mr. Baxter disapprove it 3 We deny not that Christ hath other operations by which to perfect and sustain the justifyed to eternall life yea to prevent our faith infusing it and directing it to himself crucifyed and satisfying for us and to follow it by supporting it and holding us fixed by faith to himself thus satisfying for us and to stabish his Kingdome within us in peace righteousnesse and joy in the holy Ghost yea that in these Christ must be made the object of our faith for our confirmation dependence and comfort But as justifying and fetching from him the matter of justification or rather the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed it must know nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed as before hath been proved and we wait to hear from Mr. Baxter or any of his disciples one Scripture to confute it B. 6. His Kingly office is a true part of his entire office of Mediatourship Now the sincerity of acts in Morall respects lyeth in their true suitablenesse to the nature of their objects As God is not truly loved except he be loved entirely so neither is Christ truely received except you receive him entirely It is a lame partiall faith and no true faith that taketh Christ only in the notion of a deliverer from guilt and punishment without any accepting of him as our Lord and Governour though I beleeve that the hope of being pardoned and saved is the first thing that moveth men to receive Christ yet doe they being so moved receive him as their Lord also or else they do not receive him sincerely Sound without substance no more to his purpose then if he had said nothing What one Protestant ever held it a sincere faith that apprehends Christ to justification and not for illumination and sanctification also will it then follow that illumination and sanctification are justification or that faith as these wayes acting doth justifie Then also my hand in feeding clothes me and in clothing feeds me B. 7. The exalting of his Kingly office is as principall an end of his dying and becoming Mediator as is the saving of us and exalting of his Priestly office see the 2. Psalme Rom. 14. 9. To this end he both dyed rose again and revived that he might be the Lord both of the dead and the living and therefore the receiving of him as Priest alone is not like to be the condition of our justification An invincible argument he that will not be swayed by it let him continue in his wits still As if whatsoever thing God had an end to exalt by Christs death must be the object of faith as justifying God intended by it to exalt his elect are the elect therefore the object of justifying faith Besides we say not that the receiving of Christ as Priest alone justifyeth B. So that if Christ put both into the condition we must not separate what he hath joyned Himself as I have shewed separateth we joyn them together in Christs passion and in the rest of his acts and benefits B. But the main ground of their errour who think otherwise is this They think acceptance of the mercy offered doth make it ours immediately in a naturall way as the accepting of a thing from men and so as if he that accepteth pardon should have it and he that accepteth sanctity should have it c. But Christ as I have shewed establisheth his office and authority before he bestoweth his mercies and though accepting be the proper condition yet doth it not confer the title to us as it is an accepting primarily but as it is the Covenants condition If we we should take possession when we have no title in Law God would quickly challenge us for our bold usurpation and deal with us as with him that intruded without the wedding garment There
all hearts witnesse for him that no good will to Popery in generall provoked him to trouble the Church with his doctrine I will not judge But if good will to this part of Popery that consists in justification by works unto which if all the rest garbage of Popery be compared it is insufficient to counterpoise it in mischief did not provoke let him shew what hath provoked him to it Is it in hatred to the Papists that he hath laboured so stoutly to maintain their Kingdome Is not this the pillar of all Popery and if this be demolished what is there of all their heresies but will fall after 3. As to his sincerity in this businesse in following conscientiously his judgment I know I finde in my self the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately evill who can finde it out I search only my own not anothers heart that is out of my orb and beyond my fathom But I should give the more credence to Mr. Baxter speaking of his own sincerity in this businesse did I not see him forsaking the fountain and digging to himself cisterns deriving from every puddle of Papists Arminians Socinians and Atheists both his tenents and all fallacious Sophistry to maintain them leaving the pure word of God and tossing it either from him or for himself at his pleasure 4. As for his prayer if presented to God after his own principles as an Act helping to justifie him and no further through the mediation of Christ then as the same mediation take efficacy as to him from his own works and worth no marvell if the justice of God flung it back as dirt in his face and left him to that de luding spirit which worketh by those false Apostles whom he had studied so many years having spent but a few days upon the Scriptures as himself confesseth So the Pharisee after his praying departed from the presence of God unjustifyed unregarded Such devout Protestations may possibly take impression upon the weak and ignorant But Satan in the vizzard of an Angell of light and Satan in his own ghastly visage is to them that are strong in the faith the same Satan and alike shunned Besides when men rest not satisfyed with the sacred truth of the Word but will as it were rake the very dung of Gods enemies for quaintifies of knowledge which the Word hath not if they are blacked no marvell for their delight is to dwell with Colliers And God hath threatned to send them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie c. 2 Thes 2. 10 11 12. Yeelding them up to waxe worse deceiving others being themselves deceived or self-deceivers 2 Tim. 3. 13. He promiseth some proofs of what he saith and one argument he puts in this explication thus B. If faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant and obedience be also part of the condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved An Herculean Argument as soon may a man wrest the Club out of Hercules his hand as make void the conclusion which is inserred by this Argument If my eye discerneth colours upon condition it look diligently upon them and my hand doth inrich me upon condition that it stretcheth forth it self to receive a Princes beneficence and my heel be put into the same condition with my eye and my hand then my heel doth discerne colours in the same way with my eye and enrich me in the same way with my hand But both parts of the Antecedent are as firmly proved before as the both parts of Mr. Baxters antecedent Ergo the conclusion is as very a blank as Mr. Baxters If Mr. Baxters oft saying of the same thing doth prove the thing to be true then this cannot be denyed to be a truth For who can number the times that he hath kissed and spit in the mouth of this Ashteroth Condition setting it up cheek-mate with Christ himself in justifying us For Thes 56. he yoaks together Christ and faith in the same way of causality to justification and here and every where faith and obedience or works so that Christ faith and works are collaterals in justifying how as they meet together in this one Great Colossus condition or causa sine qua non Christ is the condition even in his satisfaction and faith is the condition and works is the condition so that Condition it seems by him justifyeth more then works or faith or Christ for neither works alone nor faith alone nor Christ alone doth justifie But this mouth-almighty Condition when like Bel and the Dragon she hath eaten up and swallowed into her bowels Christ faith and works doth of and by her self alone justifie such a Justifyer and such a Justification I should speak more seriously if Mr. Baxter had ministred to me more serious matter whereof to treat Chaffe is wont to be exposed to the winde when the Wheat as more substantiall is allotted to a more substantiall handling The rest of his Arguments which he brings in other Theses I shall examine by themselves CHAP. VI. The fift Argument answered and the dispute of St. James Cap. 2. opened and the Reasons drawn thence to prove justification by works refuted THe former was Mr. Baxters great Argument the fift in number is like to it yet not so much hugged and honoured by him as the former because that was his own born of his own brain This he takes up as fully formed by the Papists to his hand and use so that he is not to have the entire honour of it but every petty Monk and Sacrificer will challenge his part therein This is indeed their great and sole Argument against the Protestants The rest they bring is unworthy the hearing This therefore Mr. Baxter here that the Popish cause may stand and ours fall Atlas-like puts his shoulder and whole strength under to support B. Thes 75. pa. 292. The plain expression of St. James should terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21 24 25. c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justifyed by works and not by faith only Eusebius Hierom. I mean not here to seek an evasion by pleading that this Epistle in the primitive times of the Church before the controversie about justification by faith or by works and faith was in agitation was questioned by some and denyed by others to be of divine authority Or that * Erasmus Luther Musculus Cajetan a Cardinall of the Romish some great Divines of these latter times have not received it into the Canon or that among those that embrace it as Canonicall it is much disputed what James is the Authour of it For besides the Syriac interpreter that weakly attributes it to James the brother of John who in the cradle of the Church was slain with the sword by Herod Act. 12.
reason or ground of their glorification because the Grace of Christ mentioneth them is to lay the honour of Christs Grace in the dust They that shall be glorified even when Christ of his infinite Grace extolleth their service done to him shall depresse themselves that the entire prayse may bee his Lord when did wee thus and thus minister to thee what ever did we of any worth that thou shouldest owne it as a service to thee what thou imputest is no otherwise our observance but in thy acceptance It is therefore denyed that the justifying sentence as Mr Baxter termes it shall passe in the last day either for or according to works otherwise than hath beene before granted And if wee shall not at last be glorified according to and for our workes but that Mr. Brs. proofes in this particular faile Then is his labour lost in going about to prove the second particular that the reason hereof is because they are parts of the condition It must first appear that it is before wee trouble our selves to know in what respect it is so So that we will not contend about the second particular with him to deny what he concludeth that workes concurre in the same concausality with Faith to our glorification 1. Not to evidence the truth of our Faith nor secondly as the righteousnesss which the Law requireth not thirdly as a meer signe by which God doth discern our Faith nor fourthly as a mere sign to satisfie the justified person himselfe nor fiftly to satisfie the condemned world of the sincerity of our Faith All this we grant and further adde in the sixt place nor as a condition in Mr Baxters sense of our glorification And because none of these or other wayes therefore not at all The Scriptures which he brings pa. 322. n. 5. that seeme to hold forth the promise of glorification for our workes are of the same nature with those examined in the former Chapter alleaged by him and all as those gathered by the Papists to his hand and either do conclude no more than what a little before we have in this Chapter granted or pertaine to some of those ends of such promises of life which God maketh to our obedience specified in the former chap. I shall therefore here pretermit to speak to them because Mr Baxter alleageth them to another end here viz to prove that the mention of these works to judgement is more than to signifie their sincerity to the condemned world as in the end of that Section he expresseth himselfe And this we deny not So that it were impertinent to examine the premises where the conclusion is granted CHAP. IX Whether according to Mr. Baxter Doe and live be the voice of the Gospel as well as of the Law The question stated and resolved whether and in what respects Believers must act or work from life not for life IN the eighth place as naturall motions are strongest when they come neerest to their period and center so at the conclusion of his Aphorismes pag. 3. 4. and so onward to the end he multiplies Argument upon Argument or rather twisteth many arguments together in one under the notion of Queries The substance of all may bee gathered together into this one Syllogisme That Doctrine which by necessary consequence draweth after it many intolerable absurdities mischiefs and soul-damning evills must needs be a falsâ— doctrine But so doth the Doctrine of justification by Faith or by Christ instrumentally received by Faith without the addition of works in a concausality with Fâ—â—â—h or Christ Ergo It is a false doctrine The Proposition is granted him The Assumption hee goeth about to cleer and make good by enumerating the particular absurdities and mischiefs that are consequentiall to this Doctrine And this he doeth by way of interrogations bearing the force of strong Affirmations I shal examine them in order The first query he puts in these words B. Doth it not needlesly constraine men to wrest most plaine and frequent expressions of Scripture A simple negation would here best suit with so untoward and audatious a question Neither shall I say any more to it but admonish the Reader to take notice that hee doth in these words frame an enditement against Christ his Apostles and all that beare the name of Protestants for sacriledge in wresting the holy Scriptures And that 1. Though he doth not and why but because he cannot bring any one Scripture which they have so wrested 2. And thereby affirmeth plaine enough to the capacity of every understanding reader that the Papists and Arminians alone have purely and truely interpreted the Scriptures as to the point of justification whom himselfe therefore followeth as their obedient disciple And 3. shewes us no reason therof but leaves us to conjecture what his meaning is viz that the Scripture is no farther Canonicall than after the interpretation and sense which the holy Mother Church alloweth it Nay we retort the argument upon him Iustification by works constraines the assertors thereof not onely to wrest many Scriptures but also to destroy and nullifie the whole Gospell and Salvation of Christ Therefore it is false doctrine This first query was but a warning peece but who can stand to beare the force of the second The man as if hee had newly come forth of Vulcans shop is all fiery spits out nothing but lightening and thunderbolts blowing into the bottome of Hell all that stand in his way How formidably he layes about him they that dare to come so neer may finde partly in this second querie it selfe but principally in his Appendix pag. 76. c. and in the highest strength of his wrath pag. 83. and onward to the end of pag. 98. First his querie here runs in these words B. pa. 324 and 325. 2 Qu Doth it not uphold that dangerous pillar of the Antinomian doctrine that we must not work or perform our duties for life and salvation but only from life and Salvation That we must not make the attaining of Justification or salvation an end of our endeavours but obey in thankefulnesse onely because we are saved and Justified A aâ—ctrine which I have else where confuted And if it were reduced to practise by all that hold it as I hope it is not would undoubtedly damn them for he that seeks not and strives not to enter shall never enter Now if good workes or sincere obedience to Christ our Lord be no part of the condition of our full justification and salvation who will use them to that end For how it can procure justification as a meanes and not by way of condition I cannot conceive In what part of the world Mr. Baxters elsewhere lyeth in which his confutation of this doctrine is to be found I know not I am not inquisitive to know I have enough in this and desire not to fish in any more of his foule waters But in pronouncing this doctrine of working and performing duties not for life buâ— from
of Promise how can it bee sayd properly this Doctrine tends to drive out obedience from the World Can it drive out of the World that which is not in it Had he sayd it tends to drive out the Formality and outside Morality and base Hypocrisie from the World wee might have considered of it But to tell of driving out obedience that which God accepteth and alloweth as true Obedience from such as would never bee drawne to it implies a kinde of contradiction 4. If hee meane Spirituall and Gospel Obedience the obedience of Faith which consisteth in the deniall of our owne righteousnesse and our owne strength and cleaving to Christ alone for Justification and Sanctification and that this Doctrine doth not drive it out of the World but hinder the World from pertaking of it how doth the Wisedome of Christ and the Wisdome of Mr. Baxter heerein dash eyther against other God so loved the world saith Christ that hee gave his onely begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have life everlasting Jo. 3. 16. He that believeth in mee out of his belly shall flow Rivers of living water Jo. 7. 38. If I bee lifted up from the Earth I will draw all men to me Jo. 12. 32. Come unto me all that are weary and heavy layden and I will refresh you Mat. 11. 28. Goe preach the Gospel to every Creature hee that beleeveth shall be saved Mark 16. 15 16. This is a faithfull saying c. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief 1 Tim. 1 15. They that receive abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousnesse shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ and hundreds more the like Scriptures in which the fulnesse of grace and righteousnesse offered to the world to the chiefe sinners of the world freely to be given to as many as will receive and believe in Christ is made an attractive to obedience and not as Mr. Baxter slandereth this Doctrine a hinderance to it 5. If there be any of the world that are so offended at this Doctrine as to make it a stone of stumbling to them and an hinderance to the obedience of faith they are the worst people of the world Jewes or of a Jewish spirit Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites who having made cleane the outside of the cup and platter though the inside be unpurged from its guilt think themselvs the alone holy and righteous persons will not enter into the Kingdome of Grace unlesse their owne worth and righteousnesse shall usher them into it and the Publicans and Harlots bee barr'd out â—â— unworthy rend their cloaths and cast dust in the aire like mad-men if mention bee made of admitting with them the unclean Gentiles Acts 22. 21 23. If the Prodigall sonne be entertained refuse in great wrath any more to meddle in their Fathers house and service Luke 15. 28 30. And will not hearken though earnestly entreated These many years have I served and never transgressed and shall now this companion of harlots be here with mee and these last that came in at evening bee made equall with us that have borne the burthen and heat of the day Mat. 20. 12. They had their owne Farmes Oxen Wives Therefore as happy enough at home they would not come to pertake of the Lords Fâ—ast but left it to the poore blinde and laâ—â— c. But against such the Lord hath sworne that they should not taste of his supper Luk. 14. and the misery of this doome wee see lying heavy upon that Nation to this day Is it not enough to Mr. Baxter that hee hath not himselfe taken heed of this Leaven of theirs but that hee must seeke to sowre us with it tco that we might incurre the like vengeance 6. If there bee such as turne this Doctrine into licentiousness that because good works are not appointed of God to be the condition of their justification will therefore relax their diligence the fault is not in the Doctrine but in the corruption of their hearts They ought to conclude from Grace to duty and not to carnall liberty If they do otherwise it is not because they have but because they have not effectually drank into themselves this Doctrine Else if all the means of Grace which carnall men abuse should bee guilty of their abuse then the death of Christ and preaching of the Gospel must be anathematized because he is laid as a stone at which some will stumble and as well for the fall as the rising of many in Israel and that is to some the savour of death as well as to others the savour of life The children must not lose their bread for feare the doggs should catch after it to satisfie their rapine The Apostle had delivered a sacred doctrine of Gospell truth Where sinne abounded Grace abounded much more Ro. 5. 20. Hee seeth easily this doctrine would be abused by sensuallists therefore annexeth an Objection Shall we continue in sinne that Grace may abound Ro. 6. 1. This use some might make of it Doth hee therefore recall his doctrine Nothing lesse Better many wretches to wantonize to their ruine than one soule for which Christ hath died lose such a prop of consolation 7. The truly beleeving saints cannot so reason or abuse the grace of God or relax their obedience as for other reasons so specially for those alleadged by the Apostle in the following part of that 6. Chapter to the Romans 8. Wee doe not by the Preaching of this Doctrine open a door to prophanenesse but following the guidance of the Scripture make use of it as the strongest obligation to obedience as in Answer to the next of Mr. Baxters Queres shall be manifested Lastly Mr. Baxters Doctrine of justification by Works is guilty of as many other crimes so of this also wherewith hee chargeth ours 1. By instilling into men a supposition of a possibility and necessity of attayning such a righteousness of their owne and worthiness of their works by the worth and merit whereof they may deserve Christ and justification by him The selfe-righteous Justiciaries will greedily swallow downe this bait and then little regard the obedience of faith Will not come in to Christ but upon their owne Terms and Articles For the whole need not the Physitian but the sicke Proofe enough heereof we have in the Scribes and Pharisees who if they might not be admitted as the only sons of God wholly rejected the Kingdome of God The very Publicanes and Harlots entring before them Such pride is there naturally in mans heart that if they have any thing of their owne faire though but in appearance they thinke the Gospel of Christ more credited by their profession of it than themselves benefited by it 2. By blunting the edge of mens desires after Christ If it must be their owne works and righteousness that must mediate their interest in Christ and justification by him despaire of attainment strikes them
an opinion that he and the Papists his Masters have the whole body of the Scriptures on their side to prove Justification by works But that the Protestants can only catch here and there a sentence of Scripture that hath a seeming and scarce a seeming to speak for them It is a Maxime of Mr. Br. himself that men are seldom bold with Scripture to force it but they are first bold with Conscience to force it pag. 297. Yet here he is bold not only to force but to stifle Scriptures When himself quoteth a Scripture to maintain his Popish Justification see how he improves it in the same page If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it were to be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter c. no whiâ— dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scripture say what it will to the contrary Lo what a mountain he can make of a mole-hill and bring all Scriptures into the belly of one making that one of what dimension he listeth all the rest to say what he commands them when he is to plead for the Papists But here when he is â—o produce what the Protestants have to urge against the Papists what mincing and mayming doth he use forcing the whole body of the Gospel into a Cherristone it is but here and there a sound without substance that they beguile themselves with Did the man as he pretends seek to apprehend to himself and sincerely to make out unto others Scripture Tâ—uâ—h we should find him faithfully alledging what the Churches of Christ have cited against Antichrist His false dealing herein declares his hatred of the Truth that he will not have the Scriptures shine upon it in their full splendor that it may not be known and embraced Nay we have the main body of the New Testament speaking for us specially almost all the Doctrinal part of the Epistles to the Romans Galathians Ephesians Colossions Hebrews all the four Evangelists specially St John as I have before shewed A breviate of Scriptures which our Divines have urged to this purpose I have before given and it would be useless here to rehearse 3. Even these few Scriptures which he quoteth affirm that man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law that if he were justified by Works he had whereof to glory and boast himself that if they which are of the Law be heirs Faith is made void and the promise of no effect That it is of Faith that it may be of Grace that it is by Grace through Faith not of Works Were there nothing else is there not a strong appearance of Contradiction in these Scriptures to Mr. Brs. doctrine that we are justified by Faith and Works together 4 But see we how he evades these Scriptures and all other Testimonies of the Apostles viz. That his dispute is what is the Righteousness which we must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which we are justified as the proper Righteousness of the Law and this hee well concludeth is neither works nor faith but the Righteousness which is by Faith i. e. Christs Righteousness But St. James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by this Righteousness of Christ whether Faith only or Works also so farr Mr. Baxter Must not Mr. Br. needs be happy that hath learned so perfectly that which he cals else-where the Papists Feat of making the Scriptures a nose of wax and turning them into his own complexion Let any one now alledg against him that of the Apostle Gal. 1. 8. If Paul or an Angell from heaven shall preach to you any other Gospel than what you have received let him be accursed Cannot he as prettily and solidly shift the Curse from him and retort it upon the denouncer as he doth these Scriptures upon the alledgers True may hee say but I am not Paul nor an Angell from heaven therefore the Curse cannot fall on me Nay I have made Paul to preach another Gospel since his death thatn what he preached in his life Therefore Paul is accursed As good grounds hath he for this as his former arguing But let us see whether his interpretation of these Scriptures be so solid as pretty To that of James I have spoken before therefore shall say little here Onely I cannot omit how unsufferable his audacious confidence is that he thinks it enough to say without shewing or endeavouring to shew it from the Context or otherwise this is the meaning of Pauls and that the scope of James his dispute No such immodesty is oft there to be found in the very Jesuits Socinians and Arminians They when they go about to pervert in stead of expounding any Scripture labour stoutly from the Context and from a seeming Coherence of other Scriptures to make such a perverting exposition either probable or plausible This man doth all pro Imperio Sic volo sic jubeo c. I say it what man or Angell dares to deny it Doth hee think all the world to be his Diocess that he may force what he hath or saith he hath upon his Kederminsterians upon the consciences of all men an implicit Faith that all must believe when and because he saith it Is the infallible spirit gone out of Zedechiah 1 King 22. 24. or out of Bellarmine or Arminius inâ—o him Or doth he execute the office of the Popes Legate speaking to us only that which is decreed in his unerring Chair or hath hee gotten a monopoly of Socinus his Right Reason which is infallible what else can hee alledg that his word must be taken for a Law without dispute Or is it indeed because he finds Gods word will yeeld him no succour therefore he must proprio Marte militare act in his own name because God is not with him So indeed it seemeth for neither God nor reason nor any thing els but a high conceit of himself will be accessary to his reasonless Conclusions viz. that James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by Christs Righteousness when James in his whole dispute there neither expresly nor implyedly utters a word of Christs righteousness or if Mr. Brs Jesuito-Arminian condition nor any thing that can easily be reduced to Christ himself Or where doth Paul dispute only of the righteousnes proper to justification and not also of the way and means by which this righteousness may be applyed to us and made ours Or in which of his quoted Scriptures or any other of the Apostles writings when he excludes works doth he exclude Faith also from its subserviency to justifying Such peremptory dreams of a haughty brain cannot be more fitly answered than with contempt and â—ilence Thus should I do were it not in respect to some
seduced and they all but damned in him their principall and leader Would not Mr. Br be one of the first that would cry out at such an Arguing as absurd and not Logicall Yet because he is a man made up of the very spirits of Reason and brings his Reasons that his Assertion agrees with right reason according to the tenor of the Gospel I shall produce two or three in steed of many Gospel Scriptures and lay by them his Reasons to see how pertinently they will agree as a Commentary with the Text. The Holy Ghost tells us Eph. 2. 8 9. We are saved by Grace through faith not of works lest any man should boast Mr. Br. Comments upon this Text thus i. e. Principally by Faith least any man should boast principally of himself But not of works principally to exclude this principall boasting yet lesse principally of works also that man may also boast lesse principally of himself Or thus according to his second reason Of Faith and not of works unreducible to Faith lest any should boast yet of works also that by some relation or cognation are reducible to Faith that of such works we might boast Shall we call this a hatchet or a Comment upon the Text. Which of these Explications is the more absurd Or as if in this latter that runs more smoothly then the former we might not conclude so wisely of any morall vertue or duty When we are said to be justified by any or all good qualifications and works we are said to be justified by Mercy or Chastity or Wisdom onely because all other vertues and works are reducible to this by some one or other kind of relation or cognation Again Rom. 4. 16. It is of faith that it may be of grace the Antithesis whereof is given ver 4. Not of works that it might not be of debt The Comment which Mr. Brs first reason gives to this Text is Nay it is both of Faith and works works are comprehended in Faith as the lesse principall in the principall So that the meaning of the Text is that it is principally of Faith that it may be principally of Grace but lesse principally of works that at least less principally it may be of debt also His second reason thus Comments It is of Faith that is of Faith and works reducible to Faith that it may be of Grace not of works unreducible to faith such as are murther witchcraft Sodomy blasphemy c. that it may not be of debt Again Tit. 3. 5. Not by works of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us i. e. saith Mr. Br. Not principally by our works but according to his mercy Yet lesse principally by our works and not according to his mercy Or not by works of righteousnesse done by us that are not but according to Gods mercy that is reducible to Faith What else to make of it when he hath taught me I may divulge I might annex many Texts of the same nature upon which these two reasons of his set as Comments will speak out so much of sense as the Commentator doth in them of Conscience But I have fully both examined and anâ—wered before all that is comprised in this Thesis where I took occasion to weigh every branch thereof under the notion of his second Argument which he brings to prove Justification by works To it I refer the reader for fuller satisfaction B. 2 That he doth not derogate from faith in yoking works with it in the joynt procurement of justification because he doth not ascribe to works an equall part with it in this office or businesse but makes faith the more principall and works but the lesse principall part of the Condition granting our first Justification to be chiefly by faith and the second Justification onely by Obedience and ascribing the beginning or first point of Justification to faith alone and but the continuance and consummation thereof to works Aphor. Thes 74. p. 302 311 312. And in many other parts of his Book All this hath been fully and oft answered before Here onely I shall intreat the reader to retein in mind what hath been before pointed at 1 That the Gospel mentioneth not knoweth not any such distinction of a first and second Justification by Christ but speaks onely of one justification That this doubling of Justifications is but a juggling fancy of the Papists by them first created and by Mr. Br. licked into a finer mode and form for the pillaring up of their Justification by works which hath no proppage from the word 2 That according to Mr. Brs principles who caseth both together in one kind of causality it cannot be discerned how otherwise then by bare and glozing words any pre-eminence can be given so as duly to belong to Faith above and before works in this businesse 3 That even where and in what respects Mr. Br. gives a pre-eminence it belongeth more properly to works then to Faith Because the consummation and perfitting of Justification is so far more excellent then the beginning thereof as that which is perfect then that which is unperfect And herein he equalizeth and in som phrases seems to prefer works to Faith in their operation to perfect what is begun 4 That the Scripture affirms not onely the first but also the last point and period the consummation as well as the beginning of Justification to be by Faith By the Gospel the righteousnesse of God viz. which he giveth us to Justification is revealed from Faith to Faith saith the Apostle he saith not from Faith to works but from Faith to Faith that is omitting other Interpretations partly ridiculous and partly invalid and besides the scope of the Apostle from Faith inchoat to Faith growing and consummat or coming neerer and neerer to consummation This Exposition the choicest of our Divines give as both properly agreeing with the drift of the Text and as owned and patronized by the like phrase in other Scriptures From strength to strength Psal 88. 7. From glory to glory 2 Cor. 3. 18. which even all acknowledge to be understood from one to another from a lesser to a greater degree of strength and glory So also of this phrase from faith to faith And thus not onely the beginning but also the increase and consummation of Gospel Justification in our own Consciâ—nces before God is here attributed to Faith which as it groweth to more and more strength by apprehending more and more revelations of the Gospel so it more and more declareth and evidenceth to the soul the certainty of our Justification to the continuall stablishment and increase of our peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And thus the Magis and Minus is in us not in God and whatsoever of increase there is is from Faith not from works Nay the same Apostle tels us it is a most unglorious task which this uncomparably wise and profound man undertakes viz. to teach them that are wise
the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 20. 24. If Mr. Br. had been taught of God as the truth is in Jesus I should think he would not have put at least upon deliberation left in print such a question and bold Cavill against the Apostle yea against Christ himself Object But if good works will neither justifie nor save me why should I do them and not take the liberty to do what I list Answ The voyce of a Rebel against God who if hee may not serve God to his own ends will not serve him at all and professeth openly that he doth all that he doth in Gods work not for Gods sake but for his own sake An Objection more deserving to be answered with a Thunder-bolt than with Scripture-reason Yet may there be alledged many other most holy and honourable ends for which we are to do good works though we be not justified and saved by them These I had thought here to have particularized but the work is swoln already to a bignes and dimension never intended at first And this Task hath been already so fully performed by so many of our Protestant Writers in answer to the Papists that I should but glean after them to say a little but begin a new work if I should say all that they have sayd and might be said to this purpose I therefore transmit the Reader for his full satisfaction to read Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 16. Zanch. Confess Fidei pro se sua Familia bound with his Miscellan Vrsin Catech. Quest 91. Catech and his Quest 5. upon that Question Tylenus Synt. part 2. disp 46. Th. 8 9 10 11. where is to be read too short an abbreviation of the three former But M. Perkins in one of his works I remember though at present I am bereaved of them all hath the very same words of Zanchy translated into English in answer to this question And since these whole hundreds both of English and forreign Divines have after Zanchy and Perkins delivered the same things in substance with them though some more largely some more compendiously so that to the exercised Reader it will be superfluous for me to write any thing upon the same subject I shall conclude all in the words of Augustine as more needing his Apology than himself where he useth it Lib. de Spir. Litera Cap. 35. Haec egi libro isto loquacius fortasse quà m sat est Sed contra inimicos Gratia Dei paraeùm mihi dixisse videor Nihil que mihi tam multum dicere delectat quam ubi mihi Scriptura ejus plurimum suffragatur id agitur ut qui gloriatur in Domomino glorietur in omnibus gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro sursum corda habentes unde a patre luminum omne Datum optimum omne donum perfectum est that is These things have I treated of in this Book it may be with more than enough plenty of words and language But I seem to my selfe to have spoken little against the Enemies of the grace of God And I take delight to be large in speaking about nothing else so much as when both the Scripture doth most give its testimony with me and the question treated on is that hee which glorieth may glory in the Lord and that in all things we may give thanks to God having our hearts lifted up to the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect gift discendeth He it is that freely justifieth us by his Grace To him be the praise and glory of all and let his Kingdom come and be speedily inlarged throughout the world that from all parts thereof there may be a joyfull acclamation of Saints Amen Amen FINIS A TABLE of the Generall and Chief Heads of Doctrine Treated of in this Booke A WHether the To credere or Act of beleeving be that by which we are justified part 1. p. 164. and onward to p. 181. p. 363 364 Mr. Br. to shew that both Papists and Arminians are met together in his owne brest teaaheth both that it is our justifying Righteousnesse and imputed to us for Righteousnesse his Reasons to prove it examined ibid. p. 166 c. More of Act viz. Immanent and Life A short Animadversion upon Mr. Brs dispute of Christs Active and passive righteousnesse in order to Justification Part 1. p. 21. to 25. Afflictions befalling the Saints not parts of the Curse but fruits of Gods Love Part 1. p. 35. to 37. What they are in their nature ib. p. 44 45 Antinomians their first rise originall and what their Tenets then were part 1. p. 263 264. Their growth and what hath been in these latter yeers charged on them as errours ib. 264 266. What of all wherewith they have been charged is errour indeed ibid. p. 267. to 271. 273. Who are such in Mr. Brs Kalender Pref. p. 7 8. part 1. p. 271 272. His Fraud under this Nick-name to make odious the Gospel and all true Protestants Pref. ibid. part 1. p 274. In the midst of his Invectives against imaginary he hath more then all men besides honoured the reall Antinomians part 1. p. 162 163. and declared himself really one of them p. 277. Exotick Arts how far usefull in Divinity Pref. p. 14. to the 17. They are incompetent to be Rules and Judges in purely Gospel matters ibid. and in some following pages and part 1. p. 341. What evils have followed such use and abuse of it Pref. 24 c. How abasingly the Scriptures speak of it as so abused Pref. p. 22 23. More viz. Sophistry Authority of men viz. Faith B Bellarmine and Mr. Br. speak the same things in the point of Justification part 2. p. 25. 31. Bullingers judgment of mingling prophane Arts in teaching with the Gospel pref p. 42 43. C Mr. Brs new Modell of the Causes of Justification and Salvation examined part 1. p. 314 c. And 1 of the principall efficient Cause ib. p. 316 317. 2 Of the instrumentall Cause ib. p. 317 318. 3 Of th◠procatarctick Causes ib. p. 318. to 321. 4 Of the naturall Cause and the Protestant doctrine defended against his cavils ib. p. 323. to 327. 5 Likewise of the formall Cause ib. p. 327. 329. The Protestant doctrine that Faith is the Instrument or Instrumentall Cause of Justification viz. Gods effective and mans receptive Instrument largely defended against Mr. Brs Sophisms ib. p. 330. to 348. Whether Faith be the Causa sine qua non ib. p. 356 357. Works cannot be the causa sine qua non part 2. p. 110 111. Charity the Rule of judging one another and by what evidence it must judge part 2. p. 93 94. What it is to take half and what to take whole Christ to justification part 2. p. 184 186. What to make Christ our All in Preaching part 2. p. 291. More viz. Grace 293. Whether Justification run upon Conditions
Part 1. p. 277. to the 286. More of Justification see Bellarmine Repentance Faith Works Condition Scripture Lord Prayer Forgiving Love Easie Christ Papists Paul Cozen Grace Causes Reconciliation Degrees K. The kingdome and pardon of God and of Christ are one and the same Part 1. p. 228 229. L. VVhether beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works largely discussed against Mr. Br. part 1. p. 61 to 97. Protestants reasons for the Negative ibid. p. 62-66 Mr. Brs Sophistry in stating the question ibid. p. 66-70 The Law not repealed as a Covenant of Works to any but in a right sense nulld to beleevers part 1. p. 71-74 The vanity of the distinctions fallaciousness of the Arguments which Mr. Br brings to prove the Affiâ—mative ibid. p. 75. to the 97 Many abuse the Law in preaching it first not onely to kill but then also to make alive again Pref. p. 11 12. Distinguishing the same works into works of the Law and works of the Gospel viz Paul and Moral Law-giver vid. Lord. Legal or Law teacher vid. Gospel Secular Learning see Arts Sophistry Tertullion Bullinger The doctrine of Faith gives not the Reins to carnall Liberty Part 2. p. 286. to the 295 The doctrine of Mr. Br so accusing it doth se ibid. p. 170 171 c. Do and Live whether and in what respects the voyce of the Gospel and in what sense to work for Life not from Life or from Life not for Life are either and both sound doctrine Part 2. p. 137. to the 153. 158. Part 1. p. 179. Whether Christ Justifie as our Lord and Law giver and that it follow thence we are justified by works as well as by Faith Part 2. p. 64. to the 84. How farr and in what sense onely the affirmative may be granted ibid. p. 79. The question stated ibid. p. 65. Mr. Baxters Arguments to prove the affirmative answered ibid. p. 71. to 84. VVhether Love cooperate with Faith in Justifying Part 2. p. 37. 40. Our Acting from Love to God denieth not a regular Love to our selves Part 2. p. 293 294. M. Mr. Brs Magisteriall and usurped Authority in saying without proving Part 2 p. 252 253. Marks vid. Evidences Metaphysicks see Arts. Mr. Brs doctrine of Merits examined in which he shews himself as high-flown a Papist as any of the Jesuits Part 1. p. 186. to the 194. An Admonition to such Ministers as inconsiderately suck up Mr. Brs doctrines Part 1. p 59 60. What the Moral Law is as considered in it self and in what sense taken Part 1. p. 197-199 VVhat Relation it hath to the severall Covenants ibid. p. 201 202 c. Why the Gospel continues it as a Rule and that it can be no more repealed or abrogated than God un-Godded ibid. p. 199 200 203-206 N. Novelty or Newnes of words and phrases used oft for the Vshering in of errors Part 1. p. 128 129. O. Obscuring see Darkening How all the Offices of Christ concur in our Justification yet nothing concludible thence for Justification by works Part 2. p. 63 64. Origen how great a Scholar and how great an abuser of his Learning and corrupter of the Gospel Pref. p. 33 34. P. VVhether our doctrine by excluding works from justifying be a stumbling block to Papists hindering their conversion and an occasion given to many learned men to turn Papists and therefore unsound Part 2. p. 188 to 197. Mr. Brs doctrine compared with the worst of the Papists and found one and the same with theirs Part 2. p. 215. to p. 222 His doctrine compared with such of the Papists as write more moderately found worse than theirs ibid. p. 223. to the 229. VVhether his doctrine contradicts Pauls or not ibid. p. 234. to the 258. His first Reason refuted viz. that Pauls question was what is the proper Righteousness by which we are justified but his own by what means we may attain this Righteousness though they answer differently to these differing questions they consent in Judgements ibid. p. 239 to the 250. His 2 reason that Paul excludes the works of the Law not of the Gospel vain and Popish ibid. p. 251. to the 257. His 3 reason that Paul under the word Faith implyeth works and obedience vitious in the same kinde with the former ibid. p. 257 258. It is no sound reason that Christ commands not the Perfect Righteousness of the Law because Mr. Br seeth no Reason why he should require what he enableth no man to perform Part 1. p. 215. 217 VVhat Reasons thereof may be given ibid. p. 216 217. Perfect See Sincere and Righteousness Person vid. Work Philosophy vid. Arts. Whether Mr. Brs doctrine be as he contendeth free from Popery Part. 2. p. 209 to 215. VVhether it be possible for us to perform a Righteousness perfect to Justification Part 1. p. 194. 196. Whether and in what sense Praying for pardon may be said to be a condition of pardoning and justifying Pa. 2. p. 31-33 Promises see Qualifie Punish and Punishment vid. Curse and Affliction VVhether Mr. Br hold for Purgatory Part 1. p. 54-56 Q. Promises of life made to persons so and so Qualified describe the Justified but demonstrate not for what they are justified Part 2. p. 40 41. 269. Rules given by our Divines for the right understanding of such promises to persons of such qualifications P. 2. p. 112 c. Quotations without the words of Scripture or shewing how he would argue thence why so frequent with Mr. Br. P. 2. Cha. 2 3 in the beginning thereof R. Whether ReconciliatioÌ„ denotes the same thing with or different from Remission and Justification Part 1. p. 227 228 308 309. VVhether and in what Respects sin may be Remitted before it be committed Part 1. p. 310. to the 313. Whether and in what sense Repentance may be said to officiat in Justifying Par. 2. p. 26. to the 31. Scripture seemingly asserting it examined ibid. What Legal Repentance is ibid. p. 26. What the life promised and death threatened under the Law to this legal Repentance are ibid. p. 26-28 What Gospel Repentance is and how manifold ibid. p. 29-31 Sometimes one with Faith ibid. p. 29 30. In what sense life is promised to it ibid. Repentance either in its large or strict sense how it giveth life ibid. p. 28 29 30. Mr. Brs doctrine of a twofold Righteousness absolutely necessary to Justification the one Legal the other Evangelical this in our selves that in Christ and his Reasons to make good 1 his phrase 2 his matter examined and refelled Part 1. p. 119. to p. 143. His dispute that his doctrine is not derotory to Christ and his Righteousness proved fallacious and false Part 2. p. 259. to the 265. VVhether Righteousness be a Reall Being or else but a Modification of a Being Part 1. p. 149 150. 159. to 161 VVhether the Scripture call men Righteous only for performing the Cnnditions of the New Covenant Part 1. p. 144. to 163.