Cartwright cont Rhem. in loc For if the Reward should be given according to works God should be a Debtor unto man But it is absurd to make God a Debtor to man 2. He speaketh not of that Reward that ignorant men challenge to themselves but of the Reward that God should in justice give if men had deseerved it by their works 12. Hemiâ—gius even a Lutheran supposeth the Argument to be thus Imputatio gratuita non est operantis merces justitia credentis est imputatio gratuita ergo justitia credentis non est operantis merces Major probatur per contrarium Merces operanti id est ei qui aliquid operibus promeretur datur ex debito Probatio haec per concessionem Rhetoricam intelligenda est Nequaquam enim Paulus sentit quod quisquam ex debito fiat justus revera sed quae sit natura rerum indicat Imputare est aliquid gratia conferre non ex debito tribuere Merces proprie est quod debebatur ex merito hoc est Debiti solutio Yea in his blow at the Majorists he confesseth the truth 8. Evertitur corum dogma qui clamant opera necessaria ad salutem quae salus cum à Justificatione separari nequit non habet alias causas aut merita quam ipsa Justificatio Hoc tamen fatendum est quod opera necessariò requirantur in Justificatis ut iter intermedium non ut causa aut merita 13. Mich. Ragerus a Lutheran in loc Imputatio fidei opponitur imputationi ex merito imputatio fidei fit secundum gratiam E. fides in negotio Justificationis non consideratur ut opus morale quid enim per modum operis imputatur secundum debitum meritoriè imputatur Et qui operatur sive operans renatus sit sive non dummodo eâ intentione operetur ecque fine ut mercedem reportet opera sua censorio Dei judicio opposita velit 14. In like manner Georg Calixtus a Lutheran in loc pag. 26.28 c. To these I might add many other Protestant Expositors and the votes of abundance of Polemical Divines who tell the Papists that in Pauls sense it s all one to be justified by works to be justified by the Law and to be justified by merits But this much may suffice for the vindication of that Text and to prove that all works do not make the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace but only meritorious mercenary works and not those of gratitude c. beforenamed Treat ibid. The second Argument may be from the peculiar and express difference that the Scripture giveth between faith and other graces in respect of Justification So that faith and good works are not to be considered as concurrent in the same manner though one primarily the other secondarily so that if faith when it s said to Justifie doth it not as a condition but in some other peculiar notion which works are not capable of then we are not Justified by works as well as faith Now it s not lightly to be passed over that the Scripture still useth a peculiar expression of faith which is incommunicable to other graces Thus Rom. 3.25 Remission of sins is through faith in his blood Rom. 4.5 Faith is counted for Righteousness Rom. 5.1 Galatians â— 16 c. Answer First This is nothing to the Question and deserves no further answer The Question is not now whether faith and works justifie in the same manner that 's but a consequent rightly explained of another thing in question your self hath here made it the question whether Works be Conditions of Justification And that which I affirmed is before explained I grant that if faith justifie not as a condition but proxime in any other respect then Faith and Repentance c. justifie not in the same manner so that the sameness of their Interest in the general notion of a condition supposeth faith to be a condition but if you can prove that it is not I shall grant the difference which you prove Now it is not our question here whether faith be a condition or an Instrument but whether other works as you choose to call them or humane acts be conditions Secondly Scripture taketh not faith in the same sense as my Opposers do when it gives it the peculiar expressions that you mention Faith in Pauls sense is a Belief in Jesus Christ in all the respects essential to his person and office and so a hearty Acceptance of him for our Teacher Lord and Saviour Saviour I say both from the guilt and power of sin and as one that will lead us by his word and spirit into Possession of eternal Glory which he hath purchased So that it includeth many acts of Assent and a Love to our Saviour and desire of him and it implyeth self-denial and renouncing our own righteousness and all other Saviours and a sense of our sin and misery at least Antecedents or concomitants and sincere Affiance and Obedience in gratitude to our Redeemer as necessary consequents And this faith is set by Paul in opposition to the bare doing of the works of Moses Law and consequently of any other works with the same intention as separated from Christ who was the end and life of it or at least co-ordinate with him and so as the immediate matter of a legal Righteousness and consequently as mercenary and valuable in themselves or meritorious of the Reward This is Pauls faith But the faith disputed for by my Opponents is the Act of recumbency or Affiance on Christ at Justifier or Priest which they call the Apprehension of Christs righteousness and this as opposed to the Acceptance of Christ as our Teacher and King our Husband Head c. further then these contain his Priesthood and opposed to Repentance to the love of our Saviour to denying our own righteousness confessing our sins and confessing Christ to be our only Saviour Thankfulness for free grace c. all which are called works by these men and excluded from being so much as Conditions attending faith in our Justification or Remission of sin The case may be opened by this similitude A Physitian cometh to a populous City in an Epidemical Plague There is none can scape without his help he is a stranger to them and they have received false informations and apprehensions of him that he is but a mountebank and deceiver though indeed he came of purpose in love and compassion to save their lives having a most costly receipt which will certainly cure them He offereth himself to be their Physitian and freely to give them his Antidote and to cure and save them if they will but consent that is if they will take him for their Physitian and thankfully take his medicine His enemies disswade the people from believing in him and tell them that he is a Deceiver and that if they will but stir themselves and work and use such dyet and medicines as they tell them of
as flat conditions of her continuing her enjoyments as the marriage Covenant was of first obtaining them To my second Answer you shew that Paul excludes works under any notion 1. From his opposition between faith and works where you say I contradict Paul and give a tertium To which I answer to distinguish of Pauls terms and explain his meaning in his own words is not to give a tertium or contradict but this is all that I do I distinguish of the word Works sometime it is taken more largely for Acts or Actions and so James takes it sometimes more strictly for only such Actions as a Labourer performeth for his Wages or which make the Reward to be not of Grace but of debt So Paul tells you that he understandeth or useth the term Rom. 4.4 usually therefore calling them Works of the Law Now he that excludes Works only under this notion doth not therefore exclude them under every notion Where you add that Pauls opposition is between Faith and any thing of ours I answer 1. Is not Faith ours as much Love c 2. Are not Knowledge Words Works ours by all which God saith we are justified 3. There is no such Scripture where Paul makes any such opposition but only he renounceth his own Righteousness which is of the Law Phil. 3.8 9. and any thing of our own that may be called Works in the stricter sence Your second is because Paul excludes Abrahams works c. Answer 1. You make my tertium to be works that are of Grace and here again works that flow from Grace and say Abrahams were not by meer strength of the Law But these are no words of mine nor is it candid to feign them to be mine but that I impute it to your haste I believe you remembred so well the words of Andradius Bellarmine and other Papists that they dropped from your pen in haste in stead of mine nor is my sence any whit like theirs for I speak not of the efficient cause of works Nature or Grace nor the meer command requiring them when I speak of Law and Gospel but the full entire Covenant or Law consisting of all its parts and so making our Acts the conditions of the Punishment or Reward as I have opened over and over in my Book 2. You ask Were Abrahams works in opposition to that c Answer 1. Paul excludes also works in co-ordination with Christ and so do I. 2. Yea and works supposed to be subordinate to Christ which are not capable of a real subordination 3. but not such as are truly subordinate from being such conditions as is before said 4. You seem to me to mistake Paul much as if he took it for granted that Abraham had such works which Paul disputeth against but could not be justified by them Whereas I doubt not to say that Paul contrarily supposeth that Abraham had no such Works which make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and therefore could not be justified by them Your third Argument is because imputing covering all is wholly attributed to God Answer I doubt not but that God is the only Principal efficient Cause and his Promise or Covenant the Instrumental therefore I cannot think as others that man is the efficient Instrumental by believing or that Faith is such But what Is all therefore attributed to God Even the performance of the Conditions on mans part Or are there no such conditions which man must perform himself or perish God only covereth sin imputeth Righteousness c. but to none who have not performed the Conditions Is Believing attributed to God or is it an act of man Or is it excluded When will you prove the Consequence of this Argument Your fifth Argument is because the Assertion is universal without works in general Answer 1. Doth not the Apostle contradict you by expounding himself in the very next verse before those you cite Rom. 4.4 That by works he means not simply good Actions as James doth but such as make the reward to be of debt and not of Grace Indeed such works are universally excluded 2. Therefore he excludes the very presence of works and saith to him that worketh not c. ver 5. But the presence of good actions you say is not excluded Your last Argument seems to me the same with the fourth and it forceth me to admire that you should think the consequence good Blessedness is when sin is forgiven therefore no work or good act performed by man is the condition of forgiveness either as begun or continued or consummate If this be not your consequence you say nothing against me if it be I assure you it is not in my Power to believe it nor to discern the least shaddow of probability of truth in it nor to free it from the charge of being the grossest Antinomianism si pace tui ità dicam And here I must needs tell you also my utter disability to reconcile you with your self for you before say they are media ordinata and here you say They are excluded under any notion As if to be a medium were no notion or the medium did nothing in or to the very justifying of the person To my next Answer If works be excluded under any notion then James his words cannot be true that we are justified by works You reply If there be justifying works how saith Paul true I answer This is a most evident Petitio principii It is undeniable that James includeth works under some notion and that Paul excludeth them under some other notion now therefore I might well ask How saith James true else Because my supposition cannot be denyed But you suppose that Paul excludeth works under any notion which is the very Question and is denyed When you ask how saith Paul true Paul saith true because he speaks of works strictly taken as is by himself explained James could not say true if works under every notion as you say be excluded Next you come to reconcile them by expounding James where you say Faith which in respect of its Act ad intra only justifies yet it works ad extra fides quae viva non qua viva I answer What 's this to the Question The Question is not whether Faith work Nor whether Faith justifie Nor what Faith justifieth But in what sence James saith we are justified by works and not by Faith only You answer by a direct contradiction to James if I can reach the sence of your Answer saying It is by Faith only and that not as it liveth c. So dare not I directly say it is not by works when God saith it is but think I am bound to distinguish and shew in what sence works justifie and in what not and not to say flatly against God that we are not justified by works under any notion but only by the Faith which worketh A denyal of Gods Assertions is an ill expounding of them To what you say of the
explicatory Propositions I Come now to prove the sum of the Affirmative Proposition together so far as they resolve the Question in hand viz. that works or acts of man have such an Interest in our Justificaon and are so far conditions as is here asserted My first proof is from those Texts of Scripture which expresly speak of Justification by such acts or works If we are justified By our words and works then are they no less then conditions of Justification But we are justified By them Ergo. c. The Consequence of the Major is plain first In that the Preposition By doth signifie no less then the Interest of some means but these Works can be no means but either a condition or a cause which is more A cause the persons that now I deal with will not affirm them to be If they do then they ascribe much more to them then to be a condition Secondly The Interest of faith it self is expressed by no higher terms then By that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so is the Interest of these other acts The Minor is express 1. Mat. 12.36 37. For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is at the day of Judgement in the great Justification 2. Jam. 2.24 ye see then how that By Works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man is justified and not by faith only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This speaks of Justification in this life When men argue against Justification by our words or works I desire 1. to understand whether it be the words or the sense that they argue against If the words then it is either against the use of them simply as being false or unmeet or else against unseasonable use of them For the former they have no ground for you see it is the express language of Christ himself and his Apostle And as to the later I easily grant that no Scripture phrase should be unseasonably used But if it be not the words but the sense that they blame why then do they harp so much on the words themselves and raise the most of the odium from thence And what is the unwarrantable sense I know not of any lower sense that they can put on these words then what importeth the Interest of a condition As for that of Mat. 12. they say little to it And as to that of James they interpret it differently among themselves First Some of them say that James speaks of Justification before men and others say he speaks of Justification before God The former are easily confuted as they restrain the text to that alone by the express words of the Text. For first ver 23. it expresly speaks of Righteousness by divine Imputation and of Gods accepting Abraham into friendship Secondly The text speaks of that Justification which concurreth with Salvation ver 14. can faith save him Thirdly It speaks of the Death of faith without works as to Profiting ver 16.17 which is different from manifestation Fourthly It instanceth in the secret act of Rahab and such an act of Abraham as we read of no men that then justified him for nay they were liker to condemn him Fifthly Men may justifie an Hypocrite as soon as the truly godly and can but conjecture at the faith by the works But the scope of the text shews that it is no such frivolous justification that is here meant Secondly They that say that it is justification before God that is here meant as no doubt it is have yet divers interpretations of the word Works Some say that by Works is not meant Works themselves indeed but a working faith To them I say first I deny it and wait for better proof then is yet brought Secondly The text nameth works expresly twelve times in a few verses which is not usual in speeches so tropicall as this is supposed to be Thirdly In many or most of the texts that interpretation would make the words non-sense as the perusall will declare Fourthly If the word works did emphatically signifie the working nature of faith or faith not qua fides but qua operans it will be all one as to the matter in question and yield what I desire Others say that by works is indeed meant the works themselves properly but then they say that the text speaks not of the Justification of the person by them but of faith by them for faith say they alone doth justifie the person and works only justifie faith Answer But first this contradicteth the express text for verse 14. It is the Salvation of the person that is denyed and ver 21. It it the justification of Abraham himself that is there mentioned and ver 24. it is the man that is said to be justified by works and not by faith only and verse 25. it is Rahab her self that is said to be justified by works Secondly The answer contradicteth themselves or granteth what I desire for if works justifie the faith they must needs justifie the person in tantum against any accusation of gross Infidelity and Hypocrisie Sometime the person is justified when his Action cannot be justified as in case of satisfaction and pardon but to justifie the action it self is the highest sort of justifying the person So that all other Interpretations being either overthrown or resolved into that which we maintain I need to say to more for the defending of it My next proof is from those texts that say we shall be Judged according to our works and rewarded according to our Labour c. 2 Cor. 5.9 10. 1 Cor. 3.8 1 Pet. 1.16 17. Matthew 16.27 c. If men shall be justified according to their works then those works are no lower then a condition of that justification But the Antecedent is true as I prove thus If men shall be judged according to their works therefore they shall be justified according to their works The reason of the Consequence is evident because judging is the Genus which comprehendeth Justification and condemnation as its species The reason also of the consequence of the former Argument is apparent because the term of judging according to works doth in the common use of men signifie ordinarily that which they call the Meritum causae but never any thing lower then a bare condition nor can any lower tolerable judiciary sense be put upon them as might easily be shewed if it were worth the standing on My next proof is from those texts that expresly promise the pardon of sin on condition of Repentance Confession c. If Repentance and other acts are made by the Gospel conditions of pardon and our first general Pardon then are they made conditions of our first admission into a state of Justification But the Antecedent is plain in Act. 2.38 Mar. 14. Luke 13.35 Isa 55.67 and 1.16 17 18. Ezek. 33.11 16. and 18.28 29 30 31 32. Prov.
object of faith The principal object is an ens incomplexum Christ himself but a subordinat Object is both the Doctrine Revealing what he is and hath done and the promise which offereth him to us and telleth us what he will do If a Princes Son redeem a woman from Captivity or the Gallows and cause an Instrument under his own hand and the Kings to be sent to her assuring her of pardon and liberty and honours with himself if she will take him for her husband and trust him for the accomplishment Is it not possible for this woman to be pardoned and delivered by the King by the Princes ransom by the Prince espoused and by her marriage with him and by the Instrument of pardon or conveyance You may be enriched by a Deed of Gift and yet it may be an ens incomplexum that is bestowed on you by that Deed and enricheth you too Your Money and your Lease both may give you title to your house The promise is Gods Deed of Gift bestowing on us Christ and pardon or Justification with him Treat Besides Abraham was Iustified and he is made the pattern of all that shall be Iustified Yet there was no Scripture-grant or deed of gift in writing declaring this God then communicating himself to Belivers in an immediate manner Answ Was there no Gospel-grant then extant no deed of Gift of Christ and his Righteousness to all that should believe Nothing to assure men of Justification by faith but immediate communications to Believers If so then either there was no Church and no salvation or a Church and salvation without faith in Christ and either faith in the Messiah to come for pardon and life was a duty or no duty If no duty then If a duty then there was a Law enjoyning it and that Law must needs contain or be conjunct with a revelation of Christ and pardon and life to be had by him I suppose that whatever was the standing way of Life and Justification then to the Church had a standing precept and promise to engage to the duty and secure the benefit I know not of duty without Precept nor of faith without a word to be believed But this word was not written True but what of that Was it ever the less a Law or Promise the Object of Faith or Instrument of Justification The promise of the seed might be conveighed by Tradition and doubtless was so Or if there had been no general conditional grant or offer of pardon through Christ in those times but only particular communications to some men yet would those have been nevertheless instrumental Treat Therefore to call this Grant or Conditional Promise in the Scripture Whosoever shall believe shall be justified a transient act of God is very unproper unless in such a sense as we say such a mans writing is his hand and that is wholly impertinent to our purpose Answ There are two distinct acts of God here that I call Transient The first is the Enacting of this Law or giving this promise If this were not Gods act then it is not his Law or promise If it be his act it is either Transient or Immanent I have not been accustomed to believe that Legislation Promising c. are no acts or are Immanent acts The second is the continued Moral Action of the Word which is also Gods Action by that Word as his Instrument As it is the Action of a written Pardon to Acquit and of a Lease to give Title c. And so the Law is said to absolve condemn command c. What it saith it saith to them that are under the Law And to say is to Act. Though physically this is no other Action then a sign performeth in signifying or a fundamentum in producing the Relation which is called the nearest efficient of that Relation Now either you think that to oblige the most essential act of Laws to absolve condemn c. are Gods acts by his Word or not If not the mistake is such as I dare not confute for fear least by opening the greatness of it I offend you If yea then either it is Gods Immanent act or his Transient The former I never to this day heard or read any man affirm it to be That which is done by an Instrument is no Immanent act in God To oblige to duty to give right to Impunity and Salvation c. are done by Instruments viz. the Word of God as it is the signifier of his will therefore they are not Immanent Acts. Moreover that which is begun in time and is not from Eternity is no Immanent Act. But such are the fore-mentioned because the word which is the Instrument was indited in time Lastly that which maketh a change on the extrinsick object is no Immanent act but such are these Moral acts of the Word for they change our Relations and give us a Right which we had not before c. therefore they are certainly transient acts A thing that I once thought I should never by man have been put to prove Treat pag. 130. It s true at the day of Judgement there will be a solemn and more compleat Justifying of us as I have elswhere shewed Answ You have very well shewed it and I take gratefully that Lecture and this Concession Treat pag. 131. Indeed we cannot then be said to be justified by Faith c. Hence this kind of Iustification will cease in heaven as implying imperfection Answ And I desire you to observe that if it be no dishonour to Christ that we be there through his grace everlastingly justified without his Imputed righteousness or pardon or faith pro futuro it cannot be any dishonour to him here that we should repent and believe and be sanctified nor that those should be conditions of further mercy and sufficient of themselves to justifie us against any false charge that we are Impenitent unsanctified Infidels If a perfect cure disgrace not our Physitian then sure an imperfect cure and the acknowledgement of it is no dishonour to our Physitian now Treat pag. 137. Thus all those Arguments If we be Justified by faith then by our own work and that this is to give too much to faith yea more then some say they do to works which they hold a condition of our Justification All these and the like Objections vanish because we are not justified by faith as Justification is considered actively but passively Answ 1. I yet think that I have said enough in my private Papers to you to confute the conceit of faith's being Passive 2. If I had not yet you yield me what I desire If faith act not but suffer to our Justification then is it no efficient Instrumental cause For all true efficiency is by Action And so you keep but a Metaphorical Instrument But of this more hereafter Treat pag. 141. We cannot call Remission of sin a state as we call Justification Answ I do not believe you and I can bring
said Causalitas quaedam which is terminus diminuens If quoad esse causalitatis it be terminus diminuens then the meaning is that I make them no causes But do you think any Reader will English Causalitas quaedam by no Causality But doubtless you mean that it is Terminus diminuens as to the quality or nobility of the cause But first I never heard before that quaedam was terminus diminuens and if no Readers must understand you but those that know this to be true I think it will be but few Secondly But what if that were so Did you not know that I denyed even all causality how diminute soever quaedam can express if it be but real Thirdly But you added Concurrence But it was in Concurrence with the several unjust passages before mentioned and sure the neighbour-hood of that word hath not force enough to make them all true Preface My Reverend Brother saith He vehemently disclaimeth all Causality of works in Justification surely his meaning is all Proper causal efficiency and so did I in the stating of it But to deny Causality in a large sense is to contradict himself Answer If so what hope of Justice Must I in paper after paper disclaim all true Causality and will you not only perswade the world of the contrary but persist in it whether I will or not and say I mean a proper causal efficiency Reader I have no other remedy left but to advise thee that if yet after this it be affirmed the next time that I disclaim not all true causality or mean not as I say thou believe not the affirmation Preface For in his Aphoris 74. Thes They both viz. Faith and Works justifie in the same kind of causality or mediate it should be media and improper causes or as Dr. Twiss causae dispositivae but with this difference Faith as the principal Obedience as the less principal Here is causality though improper Here is a causa dispositiva and yet shall I be blamed after I had removed Efficiency and Merit Answer This is but to add injustice When I have written at large that faith and works are no true causes of Justification and after tell you that a condition is commonly called causa sine qua non which is causa fatua and no cause at all but meerly nominal having by custom obtained that name and that Dr. Twiss calls this causa dispositiva when I say that they have only a causality improperly to called which indeed is no causality Is it justice for you still to perswade the world that I mean some causality though not efficiency The thing I renounce the name is not it that you only charge me with if you had I was not the maker of it It was called causa sine qua non before I was born I must comply with common language or be silent especially when I tell you I take it for no Cause You give me such justice as the hoast of the Crown Tavern in Cheap-side had who as Speed saith was hanged for saying merrily that his Son was Heir of the Crown and his exposition would not save his life I pray you hereafter remove more then Efficiency and Merit I take not works to be either the material or formal cause of Justification no nor the final though you in the words before cited affirm it such Who then gives more to works you or I The final cause is so called because it causeth us to choose the means to it Justification is not a means of our using but an act of God Therefore works are not properly the end of it as to us And yet let me say this to you lest you should mistake me As vehemently as I disown all true causality of works to our Justification I intend not to fall out with all men that call them causes As first Not with Piscator nor such other that call them causes of our final absolution and salvation Secondly Nor with those that call them meritorious in the same sense as the Fathers did though they unfitly use the word Thirdly Nor with those that will say that because they please God and so are the object of his complacency and will they may therefore speaking after the manner of men be called Procatarctike causes of his act of Justification and so that the Amiableness and desirableness of faith and holiness is the cause why he assigned them to this Noble place and office Fourthly Nor with them that say faith is a moral or a Metaphorical passive or active Instrument of Justification Though I say not as these men I will not quarrel with them Preface But I need not run to this for my Arguments militate against works at works justifying under any pretended Notion whatsoever Answer By the help of this I shall interpret all your Arguments And if so then they militate against the act of faith justifying under the pretended notion of an Instrument unless you will say that faith is no Act or Instrumentality is no pretended notion Preface And this maketh me admire how my learned Brother could let fall one passage wherein he may be so palpably and ocularly convinced to the contrary by the first looking upon my Arguments that which he saith is the strength of my Arguments lies upon a supposition that conditions have a moral efficiency There is no one of these ten Arguments brought against Justification by works as a Condition sine qua non that is built upon this supposition or hath any dependance on it only in the fourth Argument after their strength is delivered I do ex abundanti shew that a Condition in a Covenant strictly taken hath a moral efficiency Answer First you confess it is your Assertion that such Conditions have a moral efficiency Secondly I never said that you made that a Medium in all your Arguments nor that you intended that as their strength but that their strength lyeth on that supposition and if I have mistaken in that I will not stand in it But I think to shew you that without that supposition your Arguments have no strength which if I do then judge at what you marvailed But it s a farther act of injustice in you in alleadging me Apol. pag. 8. saying that some conditions are impulsive causes when I told you it is not qua conditions but only as materially there is somewhat in them that is meritorious I doubt not but the same thing may be the matter of a cause and a condition I shall now return to your Lect. of Justification and there speak to the other passage in your preface about justifying Repentance and Love c. Treat pag. 220. This therefore I shall God willing undertake to prove that good works are not a condition or a cause sine qua non of our Justification Answer But remember that it is Justification either as begun in constitution or continued or as pronounced by the Judges Sentence that the Question comprehendeth and not only the
in other places between faith and any thing of ours that he admits of no medium 2. He instances in Abrahams works and excludes them now were Abrahams works works done by the meer strength of the Law Did not Abrahams Obedience and other works flow from Grace Were Abrahams works in opposition to Christ Yet even these are excluded 3. He excludes all works under any notion by the opposition justifying covering all is wholly attributed unto God 4. The Assertion is universal The Apostle saith without works in general ver 6. And he works not ver 5. Lastly By the testimony he brings from the Psalmist that blessedness is where sin is not imputed whrere it is forgiven These reasons do evidence that he excludes works under all notions in the act of Justification though not from the person justified 3. You say how then saith James true But I ask if there be justifying works how saith Paul true But again James saith true for this faith which in respect of its act ad intra doth only justifie yet it works ad extra The old Assertion is fides quae viva not quo viva You speak of a seeming Antilogie among the orthodox in this reconciliation but though all go not eadem semiâ—â yet they do eadem viâ against works under any notion whatsoever in the act of Justification 4. You argue that faith as an Instrument is excluded Thus Bellarmine also apprehendere est opus therefore faith is excluded But non sequitur Faith is passive in its Instrumentality and although to believe be a Grammatical action its verbum activum yet its physicâ—n or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 passive A man by believing doth not operari but recipere As videre audire are Grammatical actions but Physical or natural passions now you cannot say thus of the exercises of other Graces this is the seeming strength of your Exceptions For Repentance is not excluded as qualifying but as recipient which is a fifth Exception As for your discourse whether Paul disputes what is our Righteousness or upon what terms it is made over to us it doth not much matter for indeed Paul speaks to both those only inclusively or collaterally as you say but that which he chiefly intends is to shew in what manner we are justified whether by believing or working and these he makes two immediate opposites not granting any tertium You speak of Faith taken relatively for Christs Righteousness but how can you find out such a figure for faith in your sence unless you will acknowledge Love or Obedience relatively for Christs Righteousness Indeed those that hold Faiâ—h instrumentally receiving the whole righteousness of Christ and no other Grace they often speak of faith taken relatively but so cannot you who hold that not only seeing this brazen Serpent but any other actions of sence will as well heal the wounded Christian You say you acknowledge the Assemblies definition of resting or receiving you cannot take in that sence as they declare it as the Scripture words which are Metaphorical do imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righseousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object now you make the Righteousness of Christ made over to us in any other exercise of Grace as well as this So that although you would willingly seem not to recede from others yet you plainly do and although you think your Assertions are but more distinct explications yet they are indeed destructive Assertions to what our Divines do deliver neither may you while you intend to dispute exactly build upon some homiletical or popular expression in any mans book You reply to a second part in my Letter whether a godly man dying may be affected according to your position and thereupon you instance in Hezekiah Paul and that no man can dye with comfort without the evidence of these works But is this the state of the question with us Do you think that I deny a godly life to be a comfortable testimony and a necessary qualification of a man for pardon You cannot think that you speak to the point in this But here is the question Can a godly man dying think the Righteousness of Christ is made his by working or believing Is it repent and Christs Righteousness is by this made yours and rest in Christ Certainly the dying Christian is in agonies directed to this resting on Christ to the eying of this brazen Serpent not to be found in any thing but the Righteousness by faith It s an act of Dependance not of Obedience that interests us in Christs Righteousness It s that puts on the robes of Christ that our nakedness may not appear And that is very harsh still which you express to expect the Righteousness of the Covenant of Grace upon the conditions fulfilled by your se lf through Gods workings I am unwilling to parallel this with some passages that might be quoted out of unsound Authors but that I am confident howsoever your Pen-writes you have a tutissimum est to rest only upon Christs Righteousness and that by bare resting and beleiving you look for a Righteousness As Philosophers say we see or hear intus recipiendo not extra mittendo otherwise Bellarmine argues consonantly enough that Love would justifie as well as faith but we say that Faith doth pati Love doth agere Not but that faith is an active grace only in this act it is meer recipient Sir I have not time nor paper to answer those many questions the most of which I conceive impertinent to this business and your Explication of your self how imperfections in our Graces are done away and yet the conditions of righteousness is to me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I cannot go any further What I have written with much love and respect to you I should account it a great mercy to be instrumental to bring you to the right way again If there be so much Joy for reducing a wandring sheep be not offended if I say there will be much more for an erring shepheard though I hope at last your error may prove in words rather then in sence with heartly brotherly love I have written this and so let it be received from your fellow-labourer who honours Gods gifts in you and is also sensible of his own infirmities and proneness to err Dear Sir IF you doubt of the truth of my bodily infirmity it is because you neither know my body nor mind The dispute at Bewdley as it was almost at home so I had the choice of the time and such strength vouchsafed from God which I cannot again expect much less promise my self I told you I have some lucida intervalla perhaps a few hours in a moneth but if upon such uncertainty I should draw you to a journey and then ten to one fail you I should be injurious But seeing you so far and freely condiscend
if God wil shew me so much Mercy as to enable this restless uncessantly-pained Sceleton to such a work I shall be bold to send you word and claim the favour you offer In the mean time it is my duty to let you know I have received your Letter and to return your hearty thanks for it though it be not that which I hoped for and shall now cease to expect I am convinced now as well as you that Letters are but a loss of time but your Arguments or direct answers to my Questions would have been for my advantage a precious improvement of it but seeing I may not be so happy I must rest content It still seemeth to my weak understanding to be no impertinency to prove that your self affirm Repentance Confession Turning Forgiveing others c to be more then signs i. e. to be conditions to qualifie the Subject to obtain forgiveness and to tell you that I say no more and to tell you still that you give more to faith and so to man then I but I give no more to works for ought I descern then you I am sure then our ordinary Divines do And if I do mistake herein you have little reason to suspect me of willfulness though of weakness as much as you please As for the state of the Question between us which you speak of I am a stranger to it and know not what you mean I never came to the stating of a Question with you nor did you state any to me in your letters but mentioned your vehement dissent from several passages in my book and therefore I had reason to think that you fell upon the Questions as there they were stated so that it is intime medullitùs pertinent to my question which is impertinent to yours You say the question is Whether the Gospel righteousness be made ours otherwise then by believing and tell me that I say by believing and obedience when I never stated such a question nor ever gave such an answer I suppose by Gospel Righteousness you mean Christs Righteousness given to Believers Now I have affirmed that those only shall have part in Christs satisfaction and so in him be legally righteous who do believe and obey the Gospel and so are in themselves Evangelically righteous But your phrase made ours doth intimate that our first possession of Christs Righteousness should be upon Obedience as well as Faith which I never affirmed But Christs Righteousness is continued ours on condition of obeying him though not made ours so and we shall be justified at Judgement also on that condition As it is not marriage duty but Contract which is the condition of a womans first Interest in her Husband and his riches but marriage duty and the performance of that Covenant is the condition of her Interest as continued And indeed it is much of my care in that Book to shun and avoid that question which you say is stated between us for I knew how much ambiguity is in the Word By which I was loth to play with I know we are justified By God the Father By Christs satisfaction By Christs absolution By the Gospel Covenant or Promise By the Sacraments By Faith By Works for I will never be ashamed to speak the words of the Holy Ghost By our words for so saith Christ Therefore if you will needs maintain in general that Christs Righteousness is made ours no otherwise then by beleiving nor otherwise continued ours you see how much you must exclude But to remove such Ambiguity I distinguish between justifying By as an efficient instrumental Cause and By as by a condition and I still affirm that Works or Obedience do never justifie as any cause much less such a cause but that by them as by a condition appointed by the free Lawgiver and Justifier we are finally justified And truly Sir it is past my reach at present to understand what you say less in this then I except you differ only about the word By and not the sence and think that it is improper to say that Pardon or Justification is By that which is but a condition You seem here to drive all at this and yet me thinks you should not 1. Because you affirm your self that conditions have a moral efficiency and then it seems when you say Repentance Confession c. are conditions you mean they are morally efficient which is a giving more to works then ever I did 2. Because you know it is the phrase of Christ and his Spirit that we are justified By our words and works and it is safe speaking in Scripture phrase 3. Because you say after that my Assertions are destructive of what Divines deliver but the word By if we are agreed in the sence cannot be destructive and except the phrase only By c. be the difference where is it When you say Repentance c. are conditions and I say they are no more and I have nothing from you of any disagreement about the sence of the word condition Lest you should doubt of my meaning in that I understand it as in our usual speech it is taken and as Lawyers and Divines generally do viz. Est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit Vel est modus vel causa quae suspendit id quod agitur quoad ex post facto confirmetur ut Cujacius And whereas Conditions are usually distinguisht into potestativas causales mixtas seu communes I mean conditiones potestativas Where you add that you say only faith is the condition justifying c. but I make a justifying Repentance c. And whereas heretofore we had only justifying faith now c. I answer 1. If by justifying Repentance c. you mean that which is as you say Faith is an instrument or efficient Cause I never dreamed of any such If as a Condition you confess it your self 2. If you speak against the sence we are agreed in that for ought I know If against the phrase then justifying Faith or Repentance is no Scripture phrase but to be justified By faith and By works and By words are all Scripture phrases You say you firmly hold that Repentance and other Exercises of Grace are antecedent qualifications and media ordinat◠in the use whereof only Pardon can be had but what is this to me c. I answer 1. Add conditions as you do in your Book and you say as much as I. 2. If by the other exercises of Grace you mean the particulars in your book enumerated or the like and if by Pardon you mean even the first pardon as the word Only shews you do then you go quite beyond me and give far more to those exercises of grace then I dare do For I say that Christ and all his imputed Righteousness is made ours and we pardoned and justified at first without any works or obedience more then bare faith and what is precedent in its place or concomitant and
that bona opera sequuntur justificatum non praecedunt justificandum in regard of our first justification I dare not say they are Antecedents or media ordinata Where you add what is that to you that make the righteousness of the Covenant of grace to be made ours upon our godly working c. I answer 1. I have shewed it is as much as I say if not more upon intending but a condition or medium ordinatum 2. I never said what you say I maintain in phrase or sense if the word made intend either efficiency or any causality or the first possession of Righteousness 3. You much use the harsh phrase of working as here Godly working as mine which I doubt whether ever I uttered or used And the term works I little use but in the explication of James For I told you that I disclaim works in Pauls sense Rom. 4.4 which make the reward not of grace but of debt You add If therefore you had spent your self to shew that faith hath no peculiar instrumentality in our justification but what other graces have then you had hit the mark Answ I confess Sir you now come to the point in difference But do you not hereby confess that I give no more to works then you but only less to faith Why then do you still harp upon the word works as if I did give more to them the task you now set me is to prove that faith doth no more and not that works do so much That faith is not an instrument and not that love or obedience are conditions And to this I answer you 1. I have in my book said somewhat to prove faith no instrument of justifying and you said nothing against it Why then should I aim at this mark 2. I think I have proved there that faith justifieth primarily and properly as the condition of the Covenant and but remotely as A receiving justification this which you call the instrumentality being but the very formal nature of the act and so the quasi materia or its aptitude to the office of Justifying And because I build much on this supposition I put it in the Queries which you judge impertinent 3. Yet if you will understand the word instrument laxely I have not any where denyed faith to have such an instrumentality that is receiving or apprehensiveness above other graces Only I deny and most confidently deny that that is the formal proper or neerest cause of faith's justifying But the formal reason is because God hath made it the condition of the Covenant promising justification to such receiving which else would have no more justified then any other act And therefore so far as others are made conditions and the promise to us on them they must needs have some such use as well as faith And that they are conditions you confess as much as I. 4. But what if I be mistaken in this point what is the danger If faith should deserve the name of an instrument when I think it is but a condition 1. Is it any danger to give less to faith then others while I give no less to Christ For if you should think I gave less to Christ then others I should provoke you again and again to shew wherein 2. I deny nothing that Scripture saith It saith not that faith is an instrument perhaps you will tell me Veronius argues thus But I mean it is neither in the letter nor plain sense and then I care not who speaks it if true 3. You make man an efficient cause of justifying himself For the instrument is an efficient cause And what if I dare not give so much to man is there any danger in it or should I be spoke against for the Doctrine of obedience as if I gave more to man then you when I give so much less 4. Those that dissent from me do make the very natural act of faith which is most essential to it and inseparable from it as it from it self viz. Its apprehension of Christs Righteousness to be the proper primary reason of its justifying What if I dare not do so but give that glory to God and not to the nature of our own act and say that Fides quae recipit Justificat sed non qua recipit primarily but as it is the condition which the free justifier hath conferred this honour upon is there any danger in this and will there be joy in heaven for reducing a man from such an opinion You say What more obvious then that there are many conditions in justificato which are not in actu justificationis The fastning the head to the body c. Answ 1. You said before that they are Antecedents Media ordinata and then they are sure conditions in justificando as well as in justificato 2. Your mention of the condition in homine vidente is besides our business and is only of a natural condition or qualification in genere naturae When we are speaking only of an active condition in genere moris The former is improperly the later properly called a condition 3. If this be your meaning I confess there are many natural or passive qualifications necessary which are no active or proper moral conditions in a law-Law-sense But this is nothing to the matter 4. The phrases of Conditions in justificato in actu justificationis are ambiguous and in the Moral sense improper Our question is whether they are conditions ad justificationem recipiendam Which yet in regard of time are in actu justificationis but not conditiones vel qualificationes ipsius actus And if you did not think that repentance is a condition ad justificationem recipiendam and so in actu justificationis how can you say it is medium ordinatum A medium as such essentially hath some tendency or conducibleness to its end 5. As obvious therefore as you think this is it is past the reach of my dull apprehension to conceive of your conditions in a judiciary sense which are in justificato for the obtaining of justification and not be both ad actum in actu justificationis for I suppose you are more accurate and serious then by the word condition to mean modum vel affectionem entis Metaphysicam vel subjecti alicujus adjunctum vel qualificationem in sense Physico when we are speaking only of conditions in sensu forensi And there are many thousand honest Christians as dull as I and therefore I do not think it can be any weighty point of faith which must be supported by such subtilties which are past our reach though obvious to yours God useth not to hang mens salvation on such School distinctions which few men can understand 6. And every such Tyro in Philosophy as I cannot reach your Phylosophical subtilty neither to understand that the fastning of the head to the body is not conditio in actu videntis though it be nothing to our purpose Indeed we may think it of more remote use
answer 1. Righteousness is but a relation And therefore a thing which is naturally uncapable of being of it self physically apprehended This is past doubt 2. If it be physically received then either as a principle and quality or as an object Not the former For so we receive our first and after grace in sanctification but none ever said so in justification Nor indeed can that righteousness which is formally but a relation dwel in us as a principle or quality If we receive it as an object then by an Act Or if the soul were granted to be passive in reception of an object I have shewed that 1. It is but in apprehensione simplici None pleadeth for more But faith is not such 2. And so it would receive Christ no otherways then it receiveth any object whatsoever it thus apprehendeth 3. And this is not to receive Christ or his righteousness but the meer species of it according to your own Philosophers and if righteousness be but a relation and a relation as Durandus Dr. Twiss and many another thin be but Ens Rationis then the species of an Ens Rationis is a very curious Web Knowledge as D'Orbellis saith in 2. sent Dis 3. q. 3. is twofold i. e. sensitive and intellective and each of these twofold Intuitive and Abstractive Intuitive knowledge is indeed de objecto ut in se praesens quando scilicet res in propria existentia est per se motiva Exemplum de sensitiva est ut visus videt colorem yet this is but Recepiendo speciem non rem and this is not it in question Exemplum de intellectiva est ut visio Divinae essentiae à beatis This is utterly denyed to be at all by Doctor Stoughton Camer and other solid Divines against the School-mens judgement And if it be yet doubtless as we know not how so it is not such as faiths apprehension which we enquire after Cognitio Abstractiva est quando species rei movet ad cognoscendum rem ipsam hoc siveres sit in se praesens sive absens sive existat sive non Exemplum in sensitiva est ut phantasia imaginatur colorem Exemplum in intellectiva est ut intellectus cognoscit quidditatem coloris medicante ejus specie So that if it be either of these it were at the utmost but a passive reaception of the species and not of Christ or his righteousness 2. By what physical contact faith doth receive this might be enquired and 3. By what physical act of the Agent to neither of which questions can I imagine what tolerable answer can be given in defence of this cause 2. And if faith be a passive physical instrument it must have a Physical Efficiency and what is that to justifie why even God himself in this life doth that but by a Moral Act by his word and not by a physical as to particulars 3. But that which driveth me to the greatest admiration is How faith should Efficere patiendo If I should rip up this or require a demonstration of it in respect to the justification at judgement yea or in this life yea or of any effect I should lay such an odium on it from its absurdities that in dealing with you modesty doth forbid me to insist on it 4. The fourth requisite will be enquired after in the next Question save one The fourth Question is Whether other Graces may not be as properly called physical passive Instruments as Faith is your sense And I doubt not but they may though its true of neither For 1. If there be no physical reception of Christs righteousness imaginable but that which is per modum objecti and if other gratious acts have Christs righteousness for their object as well as that which you call faith then other Acts do receive Christs righteousness as well as saith but both branches of the Antecedent are true therefore the consequence the bare knowledge or simple apprehension of Christs righteousness per modum objecti may better pretend to this then recombency or affiance Yea and love it self more fitly then affiance may be said to receive or embrace its object which is not therefore false neither because Bellarmine hath it and you know he brings Austines plain words affirming love to be the hand by which they received him c. I confess if I first renounce not the concurrent Judgement of Philosophers I cannot approve of the common Answer which our Divines give to Bellarmine in this viz. That Faith receiveth Christs Righteousness first to make it ours but Love only to retain it and embrace and enjoy it when first we know it to be ours For though this say as much as I need to plead for acknowledging Love to be as properly a physical Reception for retention as Faith is for first Possession yet if affiance be taken in any proper ordinary sence it cannot thus hold good neither for so Affiance must signifie some act of the will in order of nature after love or at least not before it I acknowledge that so much of Faith as lyeth in the understanding is before Love in order of nature sicut ipse intellectus est simpliciter prior voluntate ut motivum mobili activum passivo ut Aquin. 1. q. § 2. a. 3.2 and 12. q. 13. a. 1. C. For as he Intellectus est primum motivum omnium potentiarium animae quoad determinationem actus voluntas verò quoad exercitium actus Aquin 12. q. 17. a. 1. C. But for the acts of the will toward Christ I could give you but to avoid tediousness I must forbear at large the Testimony of Aquinas Tolet Gerson Camero Amesius Zanchius Rob. Baronius Bradwardine Ravio Viguerius c. That Love is not only the first of all the Passions but even the first motion of the Will towards its Object and little or not at all different from Volition diligere being but intensive velle I have much more to say to this which here I must pretermit But still I speak not of Love as a Passion but a true closure as it were of the will with its Object as Good and expect love to be proper to the sensitive and strange to the intellective soul we must make it the same with Velle For Amor gaâ—dium in quantum significant Actus appetitus sensitivi passiones sunt non autem secundum quod significant Actus appetitus intellectivi inquit Aquinas 1. q. 2. a. 1.1 The fifth Question is Whether Faith be any Instrument of our Justification Answer Scotus gives many sences of the word Instrument and so doth Aquinas Schibler and most Philosophers that meddle with it and they give some so large as contain all causes in the world under God the first cause In so large a sence if any will call faith an Instrument of Justification I will not contend with him though yet I will not say so my self as judging faith to be no kind of cause of it at
therefore I will call a moral Instrument the condition which we must perform I will not call a moral Instrument either of the Act which God performeth or yet of the effect which floweth from that act immediately Yet if any will say that it is properly and principally a condition and that it so justifieth and yet that it may be called an Instrument moral in an improper sence as it is a condition first or else in regard of its receiving use will stretch the word Instrument so wide as to apply it to it I will not contend for a word when we agree in sence And thus Mr. Wotton yieldeth as with an ill will to call it an Instrument proving it first to justifie as a condition But I am loth to give it any proper causality in justifying And now let us see whose sence is 1. More obscure I avoid and abhor all vain niceties in so fundamental a point as Justification is therefore I say plainly but That faith is the condition on which God hath bestowed Christ and all his benefits in the Gospel What woman cannot understand this at a word But your Doctrine what Oedipus is able to unfold for my part it is quite past my reach and most that I converse with are as silly as my self Can every poor man or woman reach to know what a passive Action or a passive Passion or a Passive Instrument is and how we receive Christ as a man takes a gift in his hand or to see through all the difficulties that I have discovered here in your Doctrine Even they that raise questions what one act of faith doth justifie whether of the Vnderstanding or Will Whether Assent or Affiance c. Do seem vainly and hurtfully curious to me much more those that reduce all to an unconceivable patâ— I plainly therefore asfiâ—m that faith is not any physical receiving as the hand doth receive money as you would afterward make me believe the Assembly mâ—â—ns but a Metaphorical moral receiving and that it is not by any one act of the soul much less a Passion but by the whole soul Understanding and Will the former beginning the later consummating it as Davâ—nant soundly And let us trye by common speech which of these is the more plain and probable sence Suppose a Prince will redeem a Turkish condemed slave and send him word I have bought thee and if thou wilt receive or take me for thy Redeemer Deliverer and Lord and for the future wilt serve me and be thankfull I will actually set thee free Here it would sure be a silly thing to fall a questioning what the Prince means by the word Receive or take Whether it be an act of this faculty or that Whether this or that act Or whether it is meerly Pati Though we are too wise to understand this now I warrant you the foolishest slave would soon understand it and know that to receive or take the Prince for his Redeemer is to believe him and consent and thankfully accept of him as he requires and of deliverance by him And he that should ask him Whether it were the bare act of affiance or whether gratitude or love were included in the term would seem but simple to him If a Prince will deliver a condemned woman from death and offer with all to marry her and give her himself and all he hath on condition she will receive or take him for her husband and accordingly be a faithfull wife to him till death He that should here step in and raise profound Scruples and enter difficult disputes whether this receiving were an act of the Understanding or Will Whether Affiance Recombency Assurance c. or whether a Passion would be well judged ridâ—culous when every man knows at the first word what it is for the woman to receive or take a man for her Husband even gladly and lovingly to consent and accept the offer and with all her heart deliver up her self to him accordingly So if a King of another Nation that hath right also to this but not possession should send to us to charge us to receive him for our King what a hard word is this to understand or doth it signifie any one act or the act of any one single faculty that the people of the land must perform Oh how too learned Divines or too unlearned have puzzled and amazed poor souls and muddyed the clear streams of the Doctrine of Christ in this so weighty and plain a point of justification In a word Sir I know there is never a one of my Hearers can understand your Doctrine of instrumentality Active or Passive nor have they the Logick necessary thereto and therefore I will not speak to them in such a language Even while I untye your knots I am thought a Barbaâ—iâ—n and not understood how much more if I spoke what I understand not my self nor am able though I set my wits on the tenter 2. And then let us see which is the truer and certaâ—ner your Doctrine or mine And 1. I have said somewhat already to weaken the credit of yours 2. And more from what is last said it is unlikely to me to be true because of the obscurity for I believe God hath spoke plainer in fundamentals and not laid folks salvation upon that which none but Scholars of a better or worse judgement then I can understand I know there is that kind of difficulty in Divine things which requireth the spiritual illumination of the understanding but not such in foundation points that necessarily requireth so much humane learning 3. Your way hath not one word of Scripture for it Where doth Scripture say in phrase or sense that faith Justifieth as an instrument or that it is such Active or Passive Or that it is this or that only Act But now for the Doctrine I teach 1. Neither your self nor any solid man denyeth it that faith is a condition and so justifieth and that it is a Moral receiving and by the whole soul esepcially the hearty consent and acceptance of the will most Divines teach as I could shew but for wasting time 2. I prove it further that it is but this plain Moral recepâ—ion thus As Christ is offered so he is received therefore the Assembly say as he is offered in the Gospâ—l But Christ is offered Morally in the Gospel and not Physically therefore he must be so received 3. Rejicere est noâ—le Ergo reciâ—ere est velle To reject Christ is the condemning sin of infidelity but that lies in an unwillingness to have him to be their Redeemer Saviour and especially Lord therefore receiving Christ is a willingness consent or acceptance of him for Redeemer and Lord Joh. 1.10 His own received him not What is that but they refused him and not that they wree not Passive physical receivers of Justice Luke 19.27 These mine enemies that would not I should reign over them bring hither and destroy c. Then willingness of his
was the Act of seeing which cured them without touching laying hold on apprehending resting on c. But you will not say so of justifying faith 3. The sight which was the condition of their cure was no actuall reception of the brazen Serpent but the species of that Serpent by the eye and so the eye did no otherwise receive the Serpent then it received every Object it behold even the Serpent that stung them But if you say that our receiving Christ is but per simplicem apprehensionem objecti and that it is a receiving of his species and so that we receive Christ no otherwise then we receive Satan or any Object of Knowledge I will not be of that opinion 4. Their cure was simul semel but our Justification is a continued Act as really in doing all our lives as at first 5 Therefore though one act finished their cure and there was no condition perscribed as requisite for the consummation or continuance yet when our Justification is begun and we truly justified there is further conditions prescribed for its continuance and consummation To conclude I am so far from saying that any other Act will as well heal the wounded Christian besides what God hath made the express condition of his cure that I flatly aver no other will do it But whether he hath made any one single act or Passion to be the whole of that condition I have elsewhere out of Scripture shewed you and you do not deny what I say My two last Answers to your exposition of Pauls words you are pleased to overpass the last of which the ninth being the main that I made use of viz. that Paul taketh the word Workâ— more strictly for such working as maketh the Reward to be not of Grace but of debt and in this sence I disclaim all works not only as you do from being receptive or instrumental or effective but from being concomitant why you said nothing to this my chief Answer I do not know You next tell me that I cannot take the Assemblies definition in that sence as they declare it or the Scripture words which are Metaphorical imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righteousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object c. Answer That the word Receiving and Resting are Metaphorical I easily grant you and wonder the more that you still insist on them and instead of reducing them to more proper expressions do here add Metaphor to Metaphor till all your definition be a meer Allegory when you know how much Metaphors do seduce But for the Assemblies Definition I embrace it unfeignedly in that sence as the words seem to me most evidently to import without using violence with them But I perceive by this that you will not think it enough in a man to subscribe to national Confessions and Catechisms in the obvious sence or that which he judgeth the plain proper sence except he also agree with you in the explication Some think it not enough that we subscribe to the Scripture because we may misunderstand it and therefore we must subscribe to national Confessions as more explicate which I like well so we add nothing to Gods word nor thrust our own Commentaries into the Text or obtrude out own Doctrines upon men as Articles of their faith or at least as the Bishops did the Ceremonies which they made indifferent in word but necessary indeed But now I perceive the matter comes all to one in the issue when you cannot make a definition of Faith in such Language as is any easier to be understood then the Scripture when you and I cannot both understand it and I find that many are of Bellarmines judgement Apol. c. 7. cited by Mr. Vines in his Sermon against Haeres pag. 50. That a man may be an Haeretick though he believe the Scriptures the three Creeds and the four great general Councils But for the sence of the Assemblies definition 1 I know not what you mean by the words as they declare it If any private declaration I am not to take notice of it nor do I know what it meaneth and could wish they would do or might have done as Mr. Vines desired in his Sermon Jâ—â— 28. 1645. that is To second their conclusions with the Reasons and Grounds of them which will do much to make them pass for currant seeing saith he the Gorgons head which struck all dumb in former times The Church The Church is not likely to have the same operation row in this seeing and searching age for though men be willing to be subject to Authority yet as they are men they will be slaves to Reason So that if there were any private exposition I would we had it But if you mean only what is declared in the words of the Definition I am most confident though I never was in the Assembly that I have hit on their sence far neerer then you seem to have done and I dare not think otherwise lest I be hainously censorious of so reverend an Assembly which I am resolved not to be 1. Their very words are a receiving of Christ and not immediately and primarily his Righteousness but himself and in the confession they say as I do that it is an accepting receiving and resting on Christ 2. And as Christ the anointed which Name signifieth the Offices which he is anointed to viz. King Priest c. 3. It maketh it to consist in no one act but several expressed in two phrases 1. Receiving Christ 2. Resting on him alone for salvation 4. It expresly saith that it is a receiving of him as he is offered in the Gospel and that is not as a justifier only but as a Lord and Prophet and that as immediately as the other and conjunct with it for he is no where offered as a justifier alone if he be shew where it is 5. And hence it is plain that they mean no Reception but moral by Willing Consenting Accepting as they expresly say in the confession of Faith For he is no otherwise offered to us in the Gospel He is not offered to our Physical Reception It is not his person in substance that is offered to the Contact of our Spirits much less of our flesh but his person as cloathed with his Relations of Mediator Redeemer Lord Saviour c. And can you receive a King as King who is personally distant or invisible by any other Reception then I have said If we do receive a King into England the only Acts of the soul are hearty consenting and what is therein and thereto implyed though bodily Actions may follow which as to Christ we cannot perform I think verily this is the plain sound sence of the Assembly and shall believe so till the same Authority that thus defined do otherwise interpret their own definition And for your phrase of Resting a burdened
soul on Christ for Righteousness I doubt not as it intendeth Affiance but it is as Perkins Dr. Downam Rob. Baronius c. say a fruit Of faith strictly taken rather then faith it self but if you take faith in a larger sence as the Gospel not seldom doth and against which I am no adversary so Affiance is part of faith it self But that it is the whole of that faith I shall never believe without stronger Arguments where you say Its the receiving Christ as the hand embraceth any Object I answer 1. I am glad you here grant Christ himself to be the Object 2. If you mean as verily as the hand c. So I grant it if a moral receiving may be properly said to be as true as a physical But if you mean By a Physical Contact and Reception as the hand doth c. then I am far from believing that ever Christ or our Assembly so meant or ever had so gross a thought Where you say I take it not the in sence as the Scripture words imply I answer When I see that manifested I shall believe it When it is said John 1. He came to his own and his own received him not 1. Is it meant they took him not in their hands or received not his Person into their houses the later is true But 1. Only in a second place but their hearts were the first Receptacle 2. Else those were no Unbelievers where Christ never came in person And that had no houses 3. And that receiving cannot belong to us that never saw him nor to any since his Ascension 2. Or is it the Intellective Reception of his species I trow not I have said enough of that before 3. Or is it a moral Reception of him as thus and thus related volendo eligendo consentiendo diligendo pardon this last it is but the qualification of the rest consequenter fidendo I think this is it If you can find a fourth way you will do that which was never done to my knowledge and then you will be a Novellist as well as I. For your next expressions I answer to them that you do truly apprehend that I am loth to seem to recede from others and as loth to do it but magis amica veritas And I cannot believe what my list nor like those that can By which you may truly know that I do it not out of affectation of singularity as he knoweth that knoweth my heart nor intend to be any instrument of division in the Church And if my assertions are destructive of what others deliver it is but what some men and not what all deliver Not against the Assembly nor many learned Divines who from several parts of the Land have signified to me their Assent besides all those great names that appear for me in print But you tell me that I may not build on some Homilitical popular expressions in any mans books Answer Let me again name to you but the men I last named and try whether you will again so entitle their writings The first and chief is Dr. Preston who was known to be a man of most choice notions and so Judged by those that put out his books and his credit so great in England that he cracks his own that seeks to crack it And his Sermons were preached before as judicious an Auditory at least as your Lectures and yet you defend your own expressions Yea it is not once nor twice not five times only but almost through all his Books that Dr. Preston harpeth upon this string as if it were the choisest notion that he intended to disclose Yea it is in his very Definition of faith as justifying and Dr. Preston was no homiletical Definer I can produce the like Testimony of Dr. Stoughton two as great Divines in my esteem as most ever England or the world bred Another is Mr. Wallis Doubtless Sir no homiletical popular man in Writing nor could you have quickly bethought you of an English Book that less deserves those attributes His words are these I assent not to place the saving Act of faith either with Mr. Cotton as his Lordship cites him in the laying hold of or assenting to that Promise c. nor yet in a particular application of Christ to my self in assurance or a believing that Christ is mine c. But I choose rather to place it in an act of the Will then in either of these forenamed acts of the Vnderstanding It is an Accepting of Christ offered rather then an Assenting to a proposition affirmed To as many as received him c. that is to them that believe in his name John 1. God makes an Offer of Christ to all else should not Reprobates be condemned for not accepting of him as neither the Devils are because he was not offered to them Whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely Rev. 22.17 Whereupon the believing soul replies I will and so takes him When a Gift is offered to me that which maketh it to be mine is my Acceptation c. If you call this taking of Christ or confenting that Christ shall be my Saviour a Depending a Resting or relying on Christ for salvation if you speak of an act of the Will it is all one for Taking of Christ to be my Saviour and committing my self to Christ to be saved is the same Both of them being but a consenting to this Covenant I will be your God and you shall be my People c. And if you make this the saving Act of faith then will Repentance so far as it is distinct from Faith be a consequent of it Confidence also c. Thus Mr. Wallis is clear that the Nature of Faith is the same that I have affirmed and in no popular Sermon but in his Truth tryed pag. 94 95. And on these grounds he well answers Bellarmines Dilemma which else will be but shiftingly answered The next is Mr. Norton of New England a man judged one of their best Disputants or else they would not have chose him to encounter Apollonius And will you call his very Definition of Faith in an accurate Catechism an homiletical popular expression What then in the whole world shall escape that censure His Words are Quest What is justifying Faith Answ It is a saving grace of the Spirit flowing from Election whereby the soul receiveth Jesus Christ as its Head and Saviour according as he is revealed in the Gospel I subscribe to this Definition from my heart The next cited was Mr. Culverwell not in any popular Sermon but in a solid well approved Treatise of Faith and not in common passages but his very definition of faith pag. 13.17 and after all concludes pag. 19. Thus we see that the very nature of faith consisteth in the true Acceptation of Christ proclaimed in the Gospel The next I cited about the Definition of faith was Mr. Throgmorton who in his accurate Treatise of Faith and not in any
of our sight to be our Saviour Soveraign by redemption and Husband even here in our native Country the match being moved to us by his Embassadors and imperfectly solemnized upon our cordial consent and giving up our selves to him by our Covenant but it shall be perfectly solemnized at the great Marriage of the Lamb. This is my faith of the nature of true justifying faith and the manner of its receiving Christ THE Reader must understand that after this I had a personal conference with this Dear and Reverend Brother wherein he still owned and insisted on the passiveness of Justifying faith viz. That it is but a Grammatical action or nominal and a physical or hyperpyhsical passion which also he giveth us again in the Treatise of Imputation of righteousness FINIS A DISPVTATION Proving the Necessity of a two-fold Righteousness to Justification and Salvation And defending this and many other Truths about Iustifying Faith its Object and Office against the confident but dark Assaults of Mr. Iohn Warner By Richard Baxter Acts 5.31 Him hath Gad axalted with his right hand a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins Rom. 4.22 23 24 25. And therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was Imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be Imputed if we Believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our Justification LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Book seller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard 1658. Question Whether Besides the Righteousness of Christ Imputed there be a Personal Evangelical Righteousness necessary to Justification and Salvation Affirm THough it hath pleased a late Opponent Mr. Warner to make the Defence of this Proposition necessary to me yet I shall suppose that I may be allowed to be brief both because of what I have formerly said of it and because the Question is so easily decided and Christians are so commonly agreed on it For the right understanding of what we here maintain its necessary that I explain the Terms and remove confusion by some necessary distinctions and lay down my sense in some Propositions that make to the opening of this To trouble you with the Etymologies of the words in several Languages that signifie Righteousness or Justification would be a needless loss of time it being done to our hands by so many and we being so far agreed on it that here lyeth no part of our present controversie The Form of Righteousness signified by the name is Relative as strait or crooked is For it is not the Habit of Justice by which we give every man his own that is the Subject of our Question but Righteousness in a Judicial or Legal sense 1. Righteousness is either of the cause or of the person Not that these are subjects actually separated but distinct the one being subordinate to the other The cause is the nearest subject and so far as it is just and justifiable so far the person is just and justifiable Yet the person may otherwise be just and justified when one or many causes are unjustifyable 2. Righteousness is denominated either from a Relation to the Precept of the Law or to the Sanction To be righteous in Relation to the Precept is to be conform to that Precept An Action or Disposition conform to the Precept is called a Righteous Action or Disposition and from thence the person being so far conform is called a Righteous person And so this Righteousness as to the positive precept is his obeying it and as to the prohibition it is his Innocency contrary to that guilt which we call Reatus culpae Righteousness as a Relation to the Sanction is either a Relation to the Commination and penal Act of the Law or to the promissory or Premiant Act. As to the former Righteousness is nothing but the Not-dueness of the punishment contrary to the Reatus poenae as it respects the execution and so A not being lyable to condemnation as it respects the sentence This is sometime founded in the persons Innocency last mentioned sometime on a free pardon or acquittance sometime on satisfaction made by himself And sometime on satisfaction by another conjunct with free pardon which is our case Righteousness as a Relation to the Promise or Premiant part of the Sanction is nothing but our Right to the Reward Gift or Benefit as pleadable and justifyable in foro Which sometime is founded in merit of our own sometime in a free Gift sometime in the merit of another conjunct with free Gift which is our case other cases concern us not This last mentioned is Righteousness as a Relation to the substance of the Promise or Gift But when the Promise or Gift or Testament or Premiant Law is conditional as in our case it is then there is another sort of Righteousness necessary which is Related to the Modus promissionis and that is The performance of the condition which if it be not properly called Righteousness Ethically yet civilly in a Judiciary sense it is when it comes to be the cause to be tryed and Judged whether the person have performed the condition then his cause is just or unjust and he just or unjust in that respect 3. Righteousness is either Vniversal as to all causes that the person can be concerned in or it is only particular as to some causes only and so but secundum quid to the person 4. A particular Righteousness may either be such as the total welfare of a man depends on or it may be of less and inconsiderable moment 5. When a cause subordinate to the main cause is Righteous this may be called a subordinate Righteousness But if it be part of the main cause it is a partial righteousness co-ordinate I will not trouble you with so exact a disquisition of the Nature of Righteousness and Justification as I judge fit in it self both because I have a little heretofore attempted it and because I find it blamed as puzling curiosity or needless distinguishing Though I am not of that mind yet I have no minde to be troublesome As for the term Justification 1. It either may signifie the Act of the Law or Promise or the sentence of the Judge or the Execution of that sentence For to one of these three sences the word may still be reduced as we shall have to do with it that is to constitutive or sentential or Executive Justification though the sentence is most properly so called To these Justification by Plea Witness c. are subservient 2. Justification is either opposed to a false Accusation or to a true 3. In our case Justification is either according to the Law of works or to the Law of Grace I think we shall at this time have no great need
Whether if Magistrates be Officers of Christ as King by Office they be not in his Kingdom and so Infidel Magistrates in Christs Kingdom contrary to Col. 1.14 4. If it be maintained That Christ died for every Child of Adam conditionally It would be well proved from Scripture that the procuring of such a conditional Law or Covenant was the End or Effect of Christs death and whether the so Interpreting Texts that speak of his dying for all will not serve for Evasions to put by the Arguments drawn from them to prove Christs Satisfaction aad Merit proper to the Elect. For if they may be Interpreted so He died to procure the conditional Covenant for every one this may be alledged justly then you can prove no more thence for that is the sense and then we cannot prove thence he died loco nostro c. It is a matter of much moment and needs great Circumspection Yours Sir BEsides what hath been formerly suggested to you these words in your Scripture proofs pag. 323. And where he next saith that in the aged several dispositions are required to fit a man to receive pardon and so justification viz Catholike faith hope of pardon fear of punishment grief for sin a purpose against sining hereafter and a purpose of a new life all which dispose the Receiver and I agree to him though all do not are so like the Doctrine of the Trent Council sess 6. c. 6. that it will be expected you declare whether by avowing that speech of Dr. Ward you do not join with the Papists contrary to Bishop Downam of Justification l. 6. c. 7. § 1.2 Mr. Pemble vindict fidei § 2. c. 3. And when you make Justification a continued Act upon condition of obedience it s to be considered how you will avoid Tompsons opinion of the Intercifion of Justification upon the committing of a sin that wasts the conscience refuted by Dr. Rob. Abbot but vented after by Moutague in his appeal and opposed by Dr. Preston and others As for Justification by Law-Title by the Covenant upon actual Believing without any other act of God consequent on Faith if it were so 1. Then it should be by necessary Resultancy But Justification is an Act of Will and no act of Will is by necessary Resultancy 2. If the Covenant justifie without any other Act of God then it Adops Glorifies Sanctifies c. without any other Act which is not to be said The reason of the Sequel is because the Covenant of it self doth in the same manner produce the one as well as the other 3. The Justification of the Covenant is only conditional therefore not Actual Actual Justification is not till Faith be put and then Posit â conditione it is Actual A conditional is only a possible Justification it s only in potentia till the Condition be in act Now the Covenant doth only assure it on condition as a future thing not therefore as actual or present 4 The Covenant is an Act past Tit. 1.2 Gal. 3.7 8. so not continued and consequently the Justification barely by it without any other Act must be past long since and not continued and he neither Justification Actual and in purpopse or virtual will be confounded or an effect shall be continued without the cause Jan. 17 1651. Yours I.T. Reverend Sir I AM more thankfull to you for these free candid rational Animadversions then I can now express to you yet being still constrained to dissent from you by the evidence of Truth I give you these Reasons of my dissent 1. First You think that the Scriptures cited are not to be intepreted of Justification in Title of Law because this is only an Act of God prescribing or promising a way of Justification not the Sentence it self and is general and indeterminate to particular persons c. To which I answer 1. That I am past doubt that you build all this on a great mistake about the nature of Gods Law or Covenant Promise the moral action thereof For you must know that this Promise of God 1. is not a bare Assertio explicans de futuro animum qui nunc est as Grotius speaks Nor yet that which he calleth Pollicitatio cum voluntas seipsam pro futuro tempore determinat cum signo sufficientè ad judicandam perseverandi necessitatem But it is Perfecta Promissio ubi ad determinationem talem accedit signum volendi jus proprium alteri conferre quae similem babet effectum qualem alienatio Dominâ—i Est enim aut via ad alienaâ—ionem rei aut alienatio particulae cujusdam nostrae libertatis c. Vid. ultra Grot. de jure Bellili 2. c. 11. § 2.3 4. 2. This Promise or Covenant of God is also his Testament and who knoweth not that a Testament is an Instrctment of proper Donation and not only a Prediction 3. Moreover this same which in one respect is a Covenant and Promise and in another a Testament is also truly part of Gods Law even the New constitution of Christ the Law-giver and King But â—ndoubtedly a Law which conferreth Right either absolutely or conditionally is the true and proper Instrument of that Effect and not only the presenting or promising away thereto The proper Effect or Product of every Law is Debitum aliquod Et de hoc debito determinare is its proper Act. Now therefore this Promise being part of Christs Law doth determine of and confer on us the Debitum or Right to sentential Justification having first given us an Interest in Christ and so to the Benefit of his satisfaction and this is Justificatio constitutiva You know a Deed of Gift though but conditional is a most proper Instrument of conferring the Benefits therein contained And is not the Promise undoubtedly Gods Deed of Gift And doth he not thereby make over as it were under his hand the Lord Jesus and all his Benefits to them that will receive him So that when you say that his Promise to justifie upon condition is not justifying You may see it is otherwise by all the forementioned considerations of the nature of the Promise You may as well say a Testament or deed of Gift conditional doth not give or a Law doth not confer Right and Title And in these Relative benefits to give Right to the thing and to give the thing it self or right in it is all one still allowing the distance of time limited for both in the Instrument It is all one to give full right to son-ship and to make one a Son or at least they are inseparable Yea which weigheth most of all with me it being the proper work of Gods Laws to give Duness of or Right to Benefits it cannot be any other way accomplished that is within our Knowledge I think For Decree Purpose and so Predestination cannot do it they being Determinations de eventu and not de debito as such And the sentential declaration presupposeth this Debitum or true Righteousness an
hereabout are such as if they were held practically and after the proper sense of their expressions would be a great hinderance to salvation if not plainly hazard it And therefore the question is not to be cast by as needless or unprofitable It is so neer the great matters of our Redemption Justification and the nature of faith that it is it self the greater And if Amesius say true that truths are so concatenated that every Error must by consequence overthrow the foundation then it must be so in this The consequents shall be mentioned anon in the Arguments where it will be more seasonable And in great matters it is not a contemptible Error which consisteth but in mis-naming and mis-placing them It is a very great help to the clear and full understanding of Truths to have right Notions and Methods And the contrary may prove dangerous to many others when the particular Patrons of those mistakes may be in no danger by them For perhaps their first Notions may be righter than their second and they may not see the consequents of their mistakes and yet when such mistakes in terms and methods shall be commended to the world other men that hear and read their words and know not their hearts and better apprehensions are like enough to take them in the most obvious or proper sense and by one disorder to be led to more and to swallow the Consequents as well as the misleading Premises And therefore I must needs say that this point appeareth of such moment in my eyes that I dare not desert that which I confidently take to be the Truth nor sacrifice it to the honor or pleasure of man For the explication of the terms it is needless to say much and I have neither time for nor mind of needless work By Justification here we mean not either Sanctification alone or sanctification and remission conjunct as making up our Righteousness as the Papists do though we deny not but sometime the word may be found in Scripture in some such sense For thus it is past controversie that our justification that is our sanctification as to all that followeth faith is as much if not much more from our belief in Christ as Teacher and King as from our belief in him as a Ransome But by Justification we mean that Relative Change which Protestants ordinarily mean by this word which we need not here define The Preposition By when we speak of being justified by faith is not by all men taken in the same sense First Sometime it s used more strictly and limitedly to signifie only an efficiency or the Interest of an Efficient cause And thus some Divines do seem to take it when they say that we are justified by faith in Christs blood and Righteousness and not by faith in him as a Teacher or a Lord which occasioneth the Papists to say our difference is wider then indeed it is For the word By hath an ambiguity and in their sence we yield their Negative though not their Affirmative in the last-mentioned conclusion Secondly Sometime the word By is used to signifie a Conditionality or the Interest of a condition only in special And thus we take it when we explain our selves in what manner it is that we are justified by faith and by these questioned acts in particular And therefore those Protestants that dispute against us who are for the Affirmative do if I understand them deny only the propriety of the phrase which we use but not the thing or sense which we express by it for they grant that these acts of faith are Conditions of our Justification when they have never so much disputed that we are not justified by them and so a small syllable of two letters is much of the matter of their controversie Thirdly sometime this word is used to signifie the Interest of any other cause as well as the Efficient and that either generally or especially of some one This Paper is white By the whiteness as the formal cause we are moved to a godly life By God and salvation as the final cause c. Fourthly Sometime the term By is taken yet more largely and fitly enough for all or any Means in General or the interest of any means in the attainment of the End And so it comprehendeth all Causes even those Per accidens and Conditions as well as Causes and all that doth but remove impediments And in this comprehensive sense we take it here in the Question though when we come to determine what is the special Interest of faith in Justification I take it in the second sense Take notice also That I purposely here use this phrase we are Justified by Believing or by Faith rather than these justifying faith or Faith doth justifie us And I here foretell you that if I shall at any time use these last expressions as led to it by those with whom I deal it is but in the sense as is hereafter explained The Reasons why I choose to stick to this phrase rather then other are First Because this only is the Scripture phrase and the other is not found in Scripture that I remember It is never said that Faith doth justifie us though it be said that we are justified by faith And if any will affirm that I may use that phrase which is not found in Scripture he cannot say I must use it And in a Controverted case especially about such Evangelical truths the safety of adhering to Scripture phrase and the danger of departing from it is so discernable and specially when men make great use of their unscriptural phrases for the countenancing of their opinions I have the more reason to be cautelous Secondly Because the phrases are not alwaies of one and the same signification The one is more comprehensive then the other if strictly taken To be justified by faith is a phrase extensive to the Interest of any Medium whatsoever And there are Media which are not Causes But when we say that Faith doth justifie us or call it justifying Faith we express a Causality if we take the word strictly Though this last phrase may signifie the Interest of a bare Condition yet not so properly and without straining as the former The Reverend Author of the seond Treatise of Justification is of the same mind as to the use of the terms but he conjectures another reason for the Scripture use then I shall ever be perswaded of viz. that it is because Credere is not Agere but Pati to Believe is to Suffer and not to Act that it is a Grammatic all Action but Physically a Passion Though I think this no truer then that my brains are made of a looking glass and my heart of marble yet is there somwhat in this Reverend mans opinion that looks toward the truth afar off For indeed it intimateth that as to Causality or Efficiency faith is not Active in the justifying of a sinner but is a meer condition or
to learn of Christ as a Master or to be ruled by him yet cannot be justified or saved by him Proposition 10. I easily grant that Faith qud Christum Prophetam et Dominum recipit doth not justifie but only fides quâ Christum Prophetam Dominum recipit quâ est promissionis Conditio praestita But then I say the same also of Faith in Christ as Priest or in his Righteousness Having explained my meaning in these ten Propositions for preventing of Objections that concern not the Controversie but run upon mistakes I shall now proceed to prove the Thesis which is this Thesis We are justified by God by our Believing in Christ as Teacher and Lord and not only by Believing in his blood or Righteousness Argument 1. My first Argument shall be from the Concession of those that we dispute with They commonly grant us the point contended for Therefore we may take it for granted by them If you say What need you then dispute the point if they deny it not whom you dispute with I Answer some of them grant it and understand not that they grant it us because they understand not the sense of our Assertion And some of them understand that they grant it in our sense but yet deny it in another sense of their own and so make it a strife about a syllable But I shall prove the Concession left some yet discern it not If it be granted us that Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Teacher is a real part of the Condition of our Justification then is it granted us that by this believing in him we are justified as by a Condition which is our sense and all that we assert But the former is true Therefore so is the later For the proof of the Antecedent which is all First Try whether you can meet with any Divine that dare deny it who believeth that Faith is the Condition of the Covenant Secondly And I am sure their writings do ordinarily confess it Their Doctrine that oppose us is That Faith is both a Condition and an Instrument but other Acts as Repentance c. may be Conditions but not Instruments And those that have waded so far into this Controversie seem to joyne these other Acts of Faith with the Conditions but not with the Instrument Thirdly They expresly make it antecedent to our Justification as of moral necessity ex constitutione permittentis and say it is the Fides quae justificat which is the thing desired if there be any sense in the words Fourthly They cannot deny to Faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher that which they commonly give to Repentance and most of them to many other Acts. But to be a Condition or part of the Condition of Justification is commonly by them ascribed to Repentance therefore they cannot deny it to these acts of faith So that you see I may fairly here break off and take the Thesis pro Concessa as to the sense Nothing more can be said by them but against our phrase whether it be proper to say that we are justified By that which is but a bare Condition of our Justification which if any will deny First We shall prove it by the consent of the world that apply the word By to any Medium And Dr. Twiss that told them contr Corvinum over and over that a condition is a Medium though it be not a cause and I think none will deny it Secondly by the consent of many Texts of Scripture But this must be referred to another Disputation to which it doth belong viz. about the Instrumentality of faith in justifying us which God willing I intend also to perform Argument 2. The usual language of the Scripture is that we are justified by faith in Christ or by believing in him without any exclusions of any essential part of that faith But faith in Christ doth essentially contain our believing in him as Teacher Priest and King or Lord therefore by believing in him as Teacher Priest and Lord we are justified The Major is past the denial of Christians as to the first part of it And for the second part the whole cause lyeth on it For the Minor also is past all controversie For if it be essential to Christ as Christ to be God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord then it is essential to faith in Christ by which we are justified to believe in him as God and man the Redeemer Teacher Priest and Lord. But the Antecedent is most certain therefore so is the Consequent The reason of the Consequence is because the act here is specified from its Object All this is past further question All the Question therefore is Whether Scripture do any where expound it self by excluding the other essential parts of faith from being those acts by which we are justified and have limited our justification to any one act This lyeth on the Affirmers to prove So that you must note that it is enough for me to prove that we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus for this Includeth all the essential acts till they shall prove on the contrary that it is but secundum quid and that God hath excluded all other essential acts of faith save that which they assert The proof therefore is on their part and not on mine And I shall try anon how well they prove it In the mean time let us see what way the Scripture goeth and observe that every Text by way of Authority doth afford us a several Argument unless they prove the exclusion First Mark 16.15 16 17. Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every Creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and these signs shall follow them that believe c. Here the faith mentioned is the believing of the Gospel and the same with our becoming Christians and therefore not confined to one part or act of saving saith That Gospel which must be preached to all the world is it that is received by the faith here mentioned But that Gospel doth essentially contain more then the doctrine of Christs Priesthood therefore so doth that faith Object It is not Justification but Salvation that is there promised Answ It is that Salvation whereof Justification is a part It is such a Salvation as all have right to as soon as ever they believe and are baptized which comprehendeth Justification And the Scripture here and everywhere doth make the same faith without the least distinction to be the condition of Justification and of our Title to Glorification and never parcels out the several effects to several acts of faith except only in those Qualities or Acts of the soul which faith is to produce as an efficient cause To be justified by faith or Grace and to be saved by faith or Grace are promiscuously spoken as of the same faith or Grace Secondly John 3.15 16 18. He that believeth in him
Receiveth it as the Subject and his faith is but a Condition or means of it Or you mean the Moral active Metaphorical Receiving which is nothing but Consenting that it shall be ours or accepting And this is neither part of Justification nor proper Cause but a Condition and but part of the Condition And therefore here your meaning must be one of these two Either That Act of Faith which is the accepting of Justification is not the â—ying of Dominion To which I reply First taking it largely as a moral Act it s not true for its comprehensive of both of which more anon but taking it strictly as one Physical Act its true Secondly But then it s nothing to the purpose For we are not more truly justifyed by that Act which is the accepting of Justification or Consenting to be justified then we are by the Accepting of Christ for our Lord and Master the reason of which you have had before and shall have more fully anon or else you mean as before expressed That Act of Faith which is our Consenting to Justification is the whole Condition of our Justification and not the eying of Dominion But of that before If I may Judge by your Doctrine elsewhere expressed you mean only That the act of Faith which accepteth of Justification is the only Instrument of Justification of which in its due place It may here suffice to say again that I affirm not that in question to the be Instrument of it Be not offended that I enquire into the sense of your ambiguous phrase which I truly profess is to me not intelligible till you have explained in what sense it is that you intend it and therefore my enquiry is not needless Ar. 3. If the Scripture doth not only by the specificke Denomination as was last proved but also by description and mentioning those very acts include the believing in Christ as our Lord and Teacher c. in that faith by which as a Condition we are justified then we are justified by believing in Christ as our Lord and Teacher c. not only as a sacrifice or Meriter of Justification But the Antetedent is true therefore so is the Consequent I prove the Antecedent by many Texts Rom. 10 4 6 7 8 9 10. For Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth But the Righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise Say not in thy heart Who shall ascend into Heaven that is to bring Christ down from above or who shall descend into the deep that is to bring up Christ again from the dead But what saith it The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of faith which we preach that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation Here it is evident that it is a Believing unto Righteousness that is mentioned and therefore it is the Believing by which we are justified And then it is evident that the faith here called a believing unto Righteousness is the believing in the Lord Jesus expresly Christ as Lord and Saviour is made the Object of it and is not confined to a believing in one part of his Priesthood only Also that God raised Christ from the dead is the expressed object of this faith And the Resurrection of Christ is no part of his sacrifice or meer Priestly Office Rom. 4.24 25. But for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Here it is evident that it is Justification it self that is the Benefit spoken of even the Imputing of Righteousness And that faith here is mentioned as the Condition of that Imputation If we believe And that this faith is described to be first a believing in him that raised Christ and not only in Christ Secondly A believing in Christ Jesus our Lord who is the express object of it and so his Lordship taken in and thirdly a believing in his Resurrection and not only in his blood or obedience So that I see no room left to encourage any doubting whether we are justified by believing in Christ as Lord and in his Resurrection and in God that raised him as the Condition of our Justification John 1.9 11 12. That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world He came to his own and his own received him not But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God to them that believe in his Name Here it is manifest First that it is the faith by which we are justified that is spoken of for its commonly agreed that Justification is here included in Adoption or at least that its the same act of faith by which we are adopted and justified Secondly Also that the object of this faith is Christ as the Light which is not his meer Priesthood Thirdly And that it is his person in his full office and not some single benefit Fourthly that it is called his Name and Believing in his Name is more then consenting to be justified by his blood and in scripture-Scripture-sense comprehendeth his Nature and Office and is all one as taking him as the true Messiah and becoming his Disciples Fifthly And it s much to be Noted that it is not by way of Physical efficacy by apprehension as I take Gold in my hand and so receive possession of it that faith hath its nearest Interest in our Adoption but it qualifieth the subject dispositively in the sight of God and so God gives men Power thereupon to become his sons So the forecited words Iohn 3.31 35 36. Where Life is given on Condition that we believe on the Son and that is expressed as the object of that faith as he is one that Cometh from Heaven and is above all and whom the Father loveth and hath given all things into his hands And so Iohn 5.22 23 24. He hath committed all judgement to the son that all men should honour the Son even as they honor the Father Verily verily I say unto you he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into Condemnation Here the faith mentioned is that which freeth men from Condemnation and therefore is it by which we are Iustified And the object of it is the Word of Christ and therefore not only his Priesthood and the Father as sending the Son even to his whole office of Redemption Moreover that faith by which our Justification is continued it is begun by this both they and we are agreed in though some yield not that any thing more is required to its continuance But the faith by which Justification is continued is the Belief of the Gospel
similitudes that have little or no similitude as to this The common similitude is A man that is oculatus heareth but not qua oculatus but qua auritus c. Repl. First If you take quà strictly the affirmative is not true For then à quatenus ad omne every man that is auritus would hear whereas he may stop his ears and be where is no sound c. And a man that hath eyes may wink and be in the dark c. Secondly If quà signifie the aptitude or causal interest I deny the similitude It is dissimile and the reason of the difference is evident for a mans eyes are Physical efficient causes of his sight and his ears of hearing naturally in their aptitude and potentiality determined to their proper objects but saith is no efficient cause of our Justification or of our interest in Christ at all much less a Physical efficient cause But the Interest it hath is Moral which dependeth on the Donors will and it is no higher then that of a condition and therefore the act that Physically hath least respect to the object may in this case if the Donor please do as much to procure a Title to it as that which hath the nearest physical respect to it As if you have a deed of Gift of a Countrey on Condition you will discover a Traitor or marry one that oweth it here the alien act hath more interest in procuring your Title then your Apprehending or treading on the soil or taking possession yea or accepting the deed of Gift it self So God hath made our Accepting of whole Christ to be the condition of life and pardon and consequently the Accepting him in other Relations in which he destroyeth sin advanceth God c. doth as much to our Justification as the accepting him at our Ransome Now to Mr. Blakes Reasons when he saith that this distinction would pass every where else as necessary he is much mistaken for as he doth not tell us at all what sort of distinction it is whether Realis Rationis Modalis Formalis Virtualis c. so I could give him an hundred instances in which it will not pass in any tolerable sense but what are his own select instances from a mans various Relations to the variety of his actions and their effects But is it Christ or the believer that you put in these various Relations It s plain that you mean Christ But that 's nothing to the question I maintain as well as you that Christ performeth variety of works according to the divers parts of his office and that he meriteth not Justification as King but as a Sacrifice as he effectively justifieth not as a sacrifice but as a King and he teacheth as a Teacher c. this was never denyed by me But the question is whether the Interest of the several acts of our faith be accordingly distinct which I deny and confidently deny In the works that Christ doth in these several Relations there is distincti◠realis and Christ is the proper efficient cause of them But though our faith must accept Christ in all these Relations and to do the several works in the several Relations yet it is no proper cause of the effects and as I said the interest it hath in the procurement is meerly moral and that but of a condition and therefore it is to be judged of by the will of the Donor But you say that only they that come to Christ as a Physician are cured by him Repl. Very true I never denyed it But not only By coming to him as a Physitian especially as the Worker of this one part of the cure You add Believers through faith go to Christ that heareth all ◠the Relations mentioned But as they seek satisfaction in his blood-shedding they are Justified Repl. Very true if by as you understand only the aptitude of the act to its office and the certain connexion of the effect otherwise it is not as they believe at all that they are justified but it is not only as they seek satisfaction in his blood but also as they believe in him as King Teacher Rising Interceding c. Though it be Christs blood and not his Dominion that Ransometh us yet his promise giveth the fruit of that blood as well on the condition of believing in him as King as of the believing in his blood Hitherto we have come short of your proofs which next we shall proceed to and freely examine Mr. Blake I shall take the bodlness to give in my Arguments to make good that faith in Christ qua Lord doth not justifie First That which the types under the law appointed for atonement and expiation lead us unto in Christ our faith must eye for atonement expiation and reconciliation this cannot be denyed These Levitical Types lead us doubtless to a right object being Schoolmasters to lead us unto Christ and shaddows whereof he is the substance As also to that office in him who is the object of faith which serves for that work But those types lead us to Christ in his Priestly office for the most part as sacrificing sometime as interceding John 1.29 2 Cor. 5.21 1 Pet. 1.18 A great part of the Epistle to the Heb. is a proof of it Reply I grant you both Major and Minor but the question is a meer stranger to the Just conclusion First it will not follow because our faith must eye Christ as Priest for Reconciliation that therefore it must eye him only as Priest for Reconciliation And if only be not in your exclusion of other acts of faith follows not Secondly No nor if it were in neither for ex perte Christs for Reconciliation only Christs Priesthood is to be eyed as the meritorious cause speaking in their sense that take the priestly office to comprehend not only Christ as Sacrificer but as sacrifice yea as obeying in the form of a servant the sicness whereoff now pass by but ex parte nostri the so eying him is not the only act of faith by which we are justified so that for is ambiguous and either signifieth Christs procurement of our Justification or ours In the former sense grant as aforesaid these Types shew us that Christ only as Priest and sacrifice doth satisfie for us But as to the procuring Interest of our faith these Types shew us not that only this act procureth our Interest Nor is there a word in the texts you mention to prove any such thing Jo. 1.19 saith that Christ the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world but it doth not say that only believing in him as the Lamb of God is the faith upon which we have part in his blood and are justified by him 1 Pet. 1.18 tels us we were Redeemed by his precious blood but it doth not tell us that only believing in that blood is the faith by which we have interest in it but contrarily thus describes that faith ver 21. Who by him
again I shall yield so far to their Importunity as to recite here briefly the state of the Controversie and some of that evidence which is elsewhere more largely produced for the truth And First We must explain what is meant by Works and what is meant by Justification what by a Condition and what by the Preposition by here when we speak of Justification by works And then we shall lay down the truth in several propositions Negative and Affirmative It seems strange to me to hear men on either side to speak against the Negative or Affirmative of the Question and reproach so bitterly those that maintain them without any distinction or explication as if either the error lay in the terms or the terms were so plain and univocal that the Propositions are true only on one part what sense soever they be taken in No doubt but he saith true that saith that Works are the Condition of Justification and he saith as true that saith they are not if they take the terms in such different senses as commonly Disputers on these Questions do take them And its past all doubt that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law and that it is not of Works but of Grace and it s as certain that a man is justified by works and not by faith only and that by their Words men shall be justified and by their Words they shall be condemned Gods word were not true if both these were not true We must therefore necessarily distinguish And first of Works First Sometime the term Works is taken for that in general which makes the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt Meritorious works Or for such as are conceited to be thus meritorious though they be not And those are materially either Works of perfect obedience without sin such as Adam had before his fall and Christ had and the good Angels have or else Works of obedience to the Mosaical Law which supposed sin and were used in order to pardon and life but mistakingly by the blind Unbelievers as supposing that the dignity of the Law did put such a dignity on their obedience thereto as that it would serve to life without the satisfaction and merit of Christ or at least must concur in Co-ordination therewith Or else lastly they are Gospel duties thus conceited meritorious Secondly But sometime the word Works is taken for that which standeth in a due subordination to grace and that first most generally for any moral virtuous Actions and so even faith it self is comprehended and even the very Receptive or fiduciall act of faith or less generally for external acts of obedience as distinct from internal habitual Grace and so Repentance Faith Love c. are not Works or for all acts external and internal except faith it self And so Repentance Desire after Christ Love to him denying our own Righteousness distrust in our selves c. are called Works Or else for all Acts external and internal besides the Reception of Christs Righteousness to Justification And so the belief of the Gospel the Acceptance of Christ as our Prophet and Lord by the Title of Redemption with many other acts of faith in Christ are called works besides the disclaiming of our own Righteousness and the rest before mentioned Secondly As for the word Justification it is so variously taken by Divines and in common use that it would require more words then I shall spend on this whole Dispute to name and open its several senses and therefore having elsewhere given a brief schem of them I shall now only mention these few which are most pertinent to our purpose First Some take Justification for some Immanent Acts of God and some for Transient And of the former some take it for Gods eternal Decree to justifie which neither Scripture calleth by this name nor will Reason allow us to do it but improperly Sometime it s taken for Gods Immanent present Approbation of a man and Reputing him to be just when he is first so constituted And this some few call a Transient Act because the Object is extrinsick But most call it Immanent because it makes no Alteration on that object And some plead that this is an eternal act without beginning because it is Gods essence which is eternal and these denominate the Act from the substance or Agent And other say that it begins in time because Gods Essence doth then begin to have that Respect to a sinner which makes it capable of such a denomination And so these speak of the Act denominatively formally respectively Both of them speak true but both speak not the same truth Sometime the word Justification is taken for a transient Act of God that maketh or conduceth to a change upon the extrinsick object And so first It s sometime taken by some Divines for a Conditional Justification which is but an act that hath a tendency to that change and this is not actual Justification Secondly Sometime it is taken for actual Justification and that is threefold First Constitutive Secondly Sentential thirdly executive First Constitutive Justification is first either in the qualities of the soul by inherent holyness which is first perfect such Adam once and the Angels and Christ had secondly or Imperfect such as the sanctified here have Secondly Or it s in our Relations when we are pardoned and receive our Right to Glory This is an act of God in Christ by the free Gift of the Gospel or Law of Grace and it is first The first putting a sinner into a state of Righteousness out of a state of Guilt Secondly Or it is the continuing him in that state and the renewing of particular pardon upon particular sins Secondly Sentential pardon or Justification is first by that Manifestation which God makes before the Angels in heaven Secondly at the day of Judgement before all the world Thirdly Executive Justification viz. the execution of the aforesaid sentence less properly called Justification and more properly called pardon consisteth in taking off the punishment inflicted and forbearing the punishment deserved and giving possession of the happiness adjudged us so that it is partly in this life viz. in giving the spirit and outward mercies and freeing us from judgements And thus sanctification it self is a part of Justification and partly in the life to come in freeing us from Hell and possessing us of Glory Thirdly As for the word Condition the Etymologists will tell us that it first signifieth Actionem condendi and then Passionem qua quid conditur and then qualitatem ipsam per quam condere aliguis vel condi aliquid potest hinc est pro statu qui factus est rem condendo deinceps pro omni statu quem persona vel res aut causa quoquo modo habet aut accipit But we have nothing to do with it in such large acceptions in which all things in the world may be called Conditions Vid. Martin in Nom. They
16 17. Because thou hast done this thing c. 4. It s not easie to conceive how any man can expect a Legal or Pharisaical Iustification by Evangelical works without a gross contradiction For example to be justified Legally by Evangelical faith desire love thanks joy self-denyal confession c. are all palpable contradictions And such a mans faith must be thus exprest I expect to merit Iustification legally by believing in Christ as the sole Meriter of my Iustification and salvation or by desiring Christ or by loving Christ as the sole Meriter of my salvation Or by thanking him or rejoycing in him as the Sole-meriter of my salvation Or I expect legally to merit Iustification by denying that I can merit it by any righteousness of my own or by confessing that I deserve damnation by my sins or by praying or seeking for salvation by free gift as merited only by Christ All these are palpable contradictions and no man can hold both that knoweth what he doth 5. Yet I will suppose that though no man can so trust to his works for legal Justification that are apprehended by him as Formally Evangelical yet perhaps he may do it by some works that are Materially Evangelical and fancied by him to be what they are not And so I still say that though it were Legal works that Paul did directly dispute against yet consequentially and indirectly he disputeth against works commanded only in the Gospel if men will do them to Legal ends and fancy them to be of the value legally to justifie them 6. I will therefore suppose some men to be so unreasonable as to expect a Legal Justification by their believing or confessing that Christ only can Legally justifie them and not themselves and so I will grant you that Paul doth consequentially exclude all works even Evangelical works from Justification But though he exclude all works yet not in every notion nor doth he exclude All interest of All works in our Justification All works as valuable offerings he excludes and so as meritorious not only in point of Commutative Justice but also in point of Legal worth and Legal Justice as the Pharisees supposed them meritorious All works he excludes from all proper Causality But he doth not exclude all works from having any Interest at all in subordination to Christ Do you verily believe that Repentance and Faith have no Interest in our Pardon in sub-ordination to Christ If you say No not any you contradict God and your self and all the Christian world If you say Yea but they justifie not qua works you say nothing to the controversie For I have over and over as loud as you professed that they justifie not formaliter as works If you say they have any Interest 1. Tell us better what it is 2. And then you confute your general assertion There 's no Christian that I know but will confess that the Gospel works have the interest of Declaring signs in our final Iustification And few will deny that Repentance hath the interest of a necessary qualification or condition to our first Justification Now would you perswade us that Paul excludeth this kind of Interest or opposeth faith to it If not against the signal interest of works then not against all Interest therefore if Pauls general exclusion will consist with your signal Interest then I shall maintain that it will consist with the fore-explained Conditional interest I will not therefore be guilty of your charge of limiting the Holy Ghost If he spake of all works I will believe he means All works But 1. If he over and over near an hundred times at least explain himself as speaking of the Law I will not shut my ears against that explication And 2. I will grant it is also all Evangelical Works at least by consequence But I need not therefore grant that because he excludeth All Work therefore he excludeth All kind of Interest of all works but only that sort which he disputeth against Besides all this I must distinguish of Justification Legal and Evangelical respective to the promises and threatnings of the Law and Gospel which do differ No works at all did justifie Abraham from the charge of the Law Thou art a sinner as being the Righteousness of the Law and the matter of that Justification Nor will any works at all so justifie us But it doth not follow that therefore no works will justifie a man from the false accusation of being an Impenitent Unbeliever and so having no part in Christ whose Righteousness must stop the mouth of the Law Or that no works are the matter of the righteousness required in this Constitution He that believeth shall be saved Repent that your sins may be blotted out Which are here required as the condition of our freedom from the Law by the righteousness of Christ In a word Paul bestows a large dispute to prove that no works of ours do answer the expectation of the Law and so cannot justifie us themselves from its Accusation It s an ill consequence that therefore Paul proveth that no works of mans do answer the special constitution or condition of the Gospel Repent and Believe in Christ c. and so are not the Condition of our interest in that perfect righteousness of Christ which is the only valuable cause of our foresaid Justification Treat 222. Again that works of all sorts are excluded is plain if you consider the Object of Iustification who it is that is here said to be justified and that is the ungodly By the ungodly is one meant that hath not a sufficient and adequate holiness so that Abraham though regenerated yet as to Iustification is ungodly he cannot stand before God or endure if all his imperfections be enquired after Now certainly he that fulfilleth the conditions of Iustification cannot be called ungodly for he doth all that is required Answ 1. Again I grant all works excluded but not in all their relations nor are all their Interests in Justification excluded 2. This Argument I should not have expected from you You confess that by ungodly is meant such though Regenerate and holy that have not an adequate holiness Adequate To what to the Law or to the constitution of the condition in the Gospel Marvel not if I deny the Consequence of your Argument and if I be unable to digest your reason for it You say He that fulfilleth the Condition of Iustification cannot be called ungodly But what Condition I confess he that fulfilleth the Laws condition cannot be called ungodly nor be unjustifiable by that Law But he that performeth the Gospel-Condition of liberation may be called ungodly in the sense you now mentioned that is unjustifiable immediatly for his works by the Law or one that hath not an holiness adequate to the Law Though indeed he cannot be called Evangelically ungodly I suppose you clearly see that your Argument makes as much against any Condition of Justification in us as against works
sin then I did but nominally and hypocritically take him for my Saviour To take him for my Teacher and become his Disciple importeth my Learning of him as necessary to the benefit And in humane contracts it is so Barely to take a Prince for her husband may entitle a woman to his honours and lands But conjugal fidelity is also necessary for the continuance of them for Adultery would cause a divorce Consent and listing may make a man your Souldier but obedience and service is as necessary to the Continuance and the Reward Consent may make a man your servant without any service and so give him entertainment in your family But if he do not actually serve you these shall not be continued nor the wages obtained Consent may enter a Scholar into your School but if he will not Learn of you he shall not be continued there For all these after-violations cross the ends of the Relations Consent may make you the subject of a Prince but obedience is necessary to the continuance of your Priviledges All Covenants usually tye men to somewhat which is to be performed to the full attainment of their ends The Covenant-making may admit you but it s the Covenant-keeping that must continue you in your priviledges and perfect them See more in my Confess pag. 47. 3. But I further answer you that according to the sense of your party of the terms faith and works I deny your consequence For with them Faith is Works And though in Pauls sense we are not at all justified by works and in Iames his sense we are not at first justified by works Yet in the sense of your party we are justified by works even at first For the Accepting of Christ for our King and Prophet is Works with them and this is Pauls faith by which he and all are justified Repentance is works with them And this is one of Gods Conditions of our pardon The Love and Desire of Christ our Saviour is works with them but this is part of the faith that Paul was justified by The like I may say of many acts of Assent and other acts Treat Lect. 24. p. 227. Argu. 4. He that is justified by fulfilling a Condition though he be thereunto enabled by grace yet he is just and righteous in himself But all justified persons as to Iustification are not righteous in themselves but in Christ their Surety and Mediator Answ 1. If this were true in your unlimited latitude Inherent Righteousness were the certainest evidence of damnation For no man that had inherent Righteousness i. e. Sanctification could be justified or saved But I am loth to believe that 2. This Argument doth make as much against them that take Faith to be the Condition of Justification and so look to be justified by it as a Condition as against them that make Repentance or Obedience the Condition And it concludeth them all excluders of the true and only Justification I am loth to dissent from you but I am loather to believe that all those are unjustified that take faith for the Condition of Justification They are hard Conclusions that your Arguments infer 3. Righteousness in a mans self is either Qualitaetive or Relative called imputed As to the later I maintain that all the justified are Righteous in themselves by an Imputed Relative Righteousness merited for them by Christ and given to them And this belief I will live and die in be the grace of God Qualitative and Active Righteousness is threefold 1. That which answers the Law of works Obey perfectly and live 2. That which answers the bare letter of Moses Law without Christ the sense and end which required an operous task of duty with a multitude of sacrifices for pardon of failings which were to be effectual only through Christ whom the unbelieving Jews understood not 3. That righteousness which answers the Gospel imposition Repent and Believe As to the first of these A righteousness fully answering the Law of nature I yield your Minor and deny your Major A man may be justified by fulfilling the condition of the Gospel which giveth us Christ to be our Righteousness to answer the Law and yet not have any such righteousness qualitative in himself as shall answer that Law Nay it necessarily implyeth that he hath none For what need he to perform a Condition for obtaining such a Righteousness by free gift from another if he had it in himself And as to the second sort of Righteousness I say that it is but a nominal righteousness consisting in a conformity to the Letter without the sense and end and therefore can justifie none besides that none fully have it So that the Mosaeical Righteousness so far as is necessary to men is to be had in Christ and not in themselves But the performance by themselves of the Gospel Condition is so far from hindring us from that gift that without it none can have it But then as to the third sort of righteousness qualitative I answer He that performeth the Gospel Condition of Repenting and Believing himself is not therefore Righteous in himself with that righteousness qualitative which answereth the Law of works But he that performeth the said Gospel Conditions is Righteous in himself 1. Qualitatively and actively with that righteousness which answers the Gospel Constitution He that believeth shall be saved c. which is but a particular Righteousness by a Law of Grace subordinated to the other as the Condition of a free gift 2. And Relatively by the Righteousness answering the Law of Works as freely given by Christ on that Condition This is evident obvious necessary irrefragable truth and will be so after all opposition Treat pag. 228. Yea I think if it be well weighed it will be found to be a contradiction to say they are Conditions and yet a Causa sine qua non of our Justification for a causa sine qua non is no Cause at all but a Condition in a Covenant strictly taken hath a Moral efficiency and is a Causa cum qua not a sine qua non Answ 1. You do but think so and that 's no cogent Argument I think otherwise and so you are answered 2. And Lawyers think otherwise as is before shewed and more might be and so you are over-answered A Condition qua talis which is the strictest acception is no Cause at all though the matter of it may be meritorious among men and so causal If you will not believe me nor Lawyers nor custom of speech then remember at least what it is that I mean by a Condition and make not the difference to lie where it doth not Think not your self sounder in matter of Doctrine but only in the sense of the Word Condition but yet do somewhat first to prove that too viz. that a Condition as such hath a moral efficiency Prove that if you are able Treat ib. If Adam had stood in his integrity though that confirmation would have been of
grace yet his works would have been a causall Condition of the blessedness promised In the Covenant of Grace though what man doth is by the gift of God yet look upon the same gift as our duty and as a Condition which in our persons is performed This inferreth some Moral Efficiency Answ 1. See then all you that are accounted Orthodox the multitude of Protestant Divines that have made either Faith or Repentance Conditions what a case you have brought your selves into And rejoyce then all you that have against them maintained that the Covenant of Grace hath on our part no Conditions for your Cause is better then some have made you believe and in particular this Reverend Author Yea see what a case he hath argued himself into while he hath argued you out of the danger that you were supposed in For he himself writeth against those that make Repentance to be but a sign and deny it to be a Condition to qualifie the subject for Iustification Treat of Iustif part 1. Lect. 20. And he saith that in some gross sins there are many Conditions requisite besides humiliation without which pardon of sin cannot be obtained and instanceth in restitution pag. 210. with many the like passages 2. Either you mean that Adams works would have been Causall quatenus a Condition performed or else quatenus meritorious ex natura materia or some other cause The first I still deny and is it that you should prove and not go on with naked affirmations The second I will not yield you as to the notion of meritorious though it be nothing to our question The same I say of your later instance of Gospel Conditions Prove them morally efficient qua tales if you can Treat ib. And so though in words they deny yet in deed they do exalt works to some kind of causality Answ I am perswaded you speak not this out of malice but is it not as unkind and unjust as if I should perswade men that you make God the Author of sin indeed though you deny it in words 1. What be the Deeds that you know my mind by to be contrary to my words Speak out and tell the world and spare me not But if it be words that you set against words 1. Why should you not believe my Negations as well as my supposed affirmations Am I credible only when I speak amiss and not at all when I speak right A charitable judgementi 2. And which should you take to be indeed my sense A naked term Condition expounded by you that never saw my heart and therefore know not how I understand it further then I tell you Or rather my express explication of that term in a sense contrary to your supposition â—ear all you that are impartial and judge I say A Condition is no Cause and Faith and Repentance are Conditions My Reverend Brother tells you now that in word I deny them to be efficient Causes but in deed I make them such viz. I make them to be what I deny them to be Judge between us as you see cause Suppose I say that Scripture is Sacred and withall I add that by Sacred I mean that which is related to God as proceeding from him and separated to him and I plead Etymologie and the Authority of Authors and Custom for my speech If my Reverend Brother now will contradict me only as to the fitness of the word and say that sacer signifieth only execrabilis I will not be offended with him though I will not believe him but should so good and wise a man proclaim in print that sacer signifieth only execrabilis and therefore that though in word I call Scripture Sacred yet in deed I make it execrable I should say this were unkind dealing What! plainly to say that a Verbal controversie is a Real one and that contrary to my frequent published professions What is this but to say Whatever he saith I know his heart to be contrary Should a man deal so with your self now he hath somewhat to say for it For you first profess Repentance and Restitution to be a Condition as I do and when you have done profess Conditions to have a Moral Efficiency which I deny But what 's this to me that am not of your mind Treat pag. 229. A fifth Argument is that which so much sounds in all Books If good works be the effect and fruit of our Justification then they cannot be Conditions or Causa sine qua non of our Iustification But c. Answ 1. I deny the Minor in the sense of your party Our first Repentance our first desire of Christ as our Saviour and Love to him as a Saviour and our first disclaiming of all other Saviours and our first accepting him as Lord and Teacher and as a Saviour from the Power of sin as well as the guilt all these are works with you and yet all these are not the effects of our Relative Justification nor any of them 2. As to External acts and Consequent internal acts I deny your Consequence taking it of continued or final Justification though I easily yield it as to our Justification at the first 1. All the acts of justifying faith besides the first act are as truly effects of our first Justification as our other graces or gracious acts are And doth it therefore follow that they can be no Conditions of our continued Justification Why not Conditions as well as Instruments or Causes Do you think that only the first instantaneous act of faith doth justifie and no other after through the course of our lives I prove the contrary from the instance of Abraham It was not the first act of his faith that Paul mentioneth when he proveth from him Justification by faith As it s no good Consequence Faith afterward is the effect of Iustification before therefore it cannot afterward justifie or be a Condition So it s no good Consequence as to Repentance Hope or Obedience 2. It only follows that they cannot be the Condition of that Justification whereof they are the effect and which went before them which is granted you But it follows not that they may not be the Condition of continued or final Justification Sucking the brest did not cause life in the beginning therefore it is not a means to continue it It followeth not You well teach that the Justification at the last Judgement is the chief and most eminent Justification This hath more Conditions then your first pardon of sin had yea as many as your salvation hath as hath been formerly proved and may be proved more at large Treat pag. 230. By this we may see that more things are required to our Salvation then to our Iustification to be possessors of heaven and than it should be to entitle us thereto Answ 1. It s true as to our first Justifying and its true as to our present continued state because perseverance is still requisite to salvation But it s not true as to
do use it as a means then what means is it Is Prayer any cause of Pardon say so and you say more then we that you condemn and fall under all those censures that per fas aut nefas are cast upon us If it be no cause of pardon Is it a condition sine qua non as to that manner of pardoning that your prayer doth intend If you say yea you consequentially recant your disputation or Lecture and turn into the tents of the Opinionists But if it be no condition of pardon then tell us what means it is if you can If you say it is a duty I answer Duty and Means are commonly distinguished and so is necessitas praecepti medii Duty as such is no means to an end but the bare result of a command Though all Duty that God commandeth is also some means yet that is not qua Duty And so far as that Duty is a means it is either a Cause near or remote or a Condition either of the obtainment of the benefit simply or of the more certain or speedy or easie attainment of it or of obtaining some inferiour good that conduceth to the main So that still it is a Cause or a Condition if a means If you say It is an Antecedent I say qua tale that is no means but if a Necessary antecedent that which is the reason of its necessity may make it a means If you go to Physical prerequisites as you talkt of a mans shoulders bearing the head that he may see c. you go extra oleas It s a moral means that we treat of and I think you will not affirm Prayer to be a means of physical necessity to pardon If it were it must be a Physical cause near or remote or a Dispositio materiae of natural necessity c. If you say that prayer for pardon is dispositio subjecti I answer that 's it that we Opinionists do affirm But it is a dispositio moralis and necessary ut medium ad finem and that necessity must be constituted by the Promiser or Donor and that can be only by his modus promissionis which makes it in some measure or other a condition of the thing promised So that there is no lower moral medium then a meer condition sune qua non that my understanding can hitherto find out or apprehend Treat ibid. Paul Judgeth them dung and dross in reference to Justification yea all things c. Answ 1. But what are those All things 2. And what Reference to Justification is it If All things simply in all relation to Justification then he must judge the Gospel dung and dross as to the Instrumental collation of Justification and the Sacraments dung and dross as to the sealing of it and the Ministry dung and dross as to the preaching and offering it and beseeching men to be reconciled to God and Faith to be dung and dross as to the receiving of it as well as Repentance and Faith to be dung and dross as conditions of it or Prayer Obedience as conditions of continuing it 2. It s evident in the text that Pauls speaks of All things that stand in opposition to Christ and that stand in competition with him as such and not of any thing that stands in a necessary subordination to him as such 3. He expresly addeth in the text for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this therefore is none of the all things that are dung for the All things are opposed to this And it containeth that faith which is works with the Opponents for this is more then a recumbency on Christ as Priest It is the Knowledge of him as Lord also I am confident I shall never learn to expound Paul thus I esteem All things even the knowledge of Christ Jesus as Lord and Prophet as dung for the Knowledge of him as Priest Also Paul here excepteth his suffering the loss of that All. I am confident that the All that Paul suffered the loss of comprehended not his Self-denyal Repentance Prayer Charity Hope c. 4. It is not only in reference to Justification that Paul despiseth All things but it is to the winning of Christ who doubtless is the Principle of Sanctification as well as Justification and to be found in him which containeth the sum of his felicity If a man should be such a self-contradicter as to set Repentance or Faith in Christ or Prayer in his Name or Hope in him c. against winning Christ and against being found in him or against the knowledge of him let that man so far esteem his faith hope prayer c. as dung If you should say I account all things dung for the winning of God himself as my felicity Would you have me interpret you thus I account the love of God dung and prayer to him and studious obeying him and the word that revealeth him c. even as they stand subordinate to him This same Paul rejoyced in the testimony of his conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity he had had his conversation among them and he beat or subdued his body and brought it into subjection lest he should be Reprobated after he was justified and he prayed for pardon of sin and tells Timothy In doing this thou shalt save thy self c. therefore these things thus used were none of the All things that he opposed to the knowledge of Christ as dung Treat pag. 234 235. Others would avoid this Objection by saying that Gospel graces which are the Conditions of the Covenant are reducible to the Law and so Christ in satisfying the Law doth remove the imperfections cleaving to them And they judge it absurb to say that Christ hath satisfied for the sins of the second Covenant or breaches which is said to be only final unbelief Answ As this is brought in by head and shoulders so is it recited lamely without the necessary distinctions and explications adjoyned yea without part of the Sentence it self and therefore unfaithfully Treat But this answer may be called Legion for many errours and coctradictions are in it 1. How can justifying faith qua talis in the act of Justifying and Repentance be reducible duties to the Law taken strictly Indeed as it was in a large sense discovered to the Jews being the Covenant of Grace as I have elsewhere proved Vindic. Legis so it required Justifying Faith and Repentance But take it in the sense as the Abettor of this opinion must do justifying faith and repentance must be called the works of the Law Answ It s easilier called Legion then faithfully reported or solidly confuted 1. Let the Reader observe how much I incurr'd the displeasure of Mr. Blake for denying the Moral Law to be the sufficient or sole Rule of all duty and how much he hath said against me therein and then judge how hard a task it is to please all men when these two neighbours and friends do publikely thus draw
flyeth too boldly in the face of Christ and many a plain Text of Scripture Christ saith John 15.10 If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept c. 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Mat. 7.21 Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven 23 24. Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them c. Mat. 5. throughout verse 20. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven 1 John 3.10 In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his brother An hundred such passages might be cited And will you meet all these with your objections and say How shall I know when I have the full number c. Know that you have sincere Faith Repentance and Obedience and you may know you perform that Condition of the Gospel else not Treat pag. 236. That if good works be a Condition of Justification then none are justified till their death because in every good work is required perseverance in so much that perseverance is that to which the promise is made Mat. 24.6 Heb. 10.38 Rev. 2.7 20. So that it is not good works simply but persevered in that is required and therefore no Justification to the end of our daies so that we cannot have any peace with God till then Neither doth it avail to say Justification is not compleat till then for it cannot be at all till then because the Condition that gives life to all is not till then Answ 1. And is not perseverance in faith as necessary as perseverance in obedience Read Col. 1.23 John 15.2 3 c. and many the like and judge Will you thence infer that none are justified till death 2. But a little step out of the darkness of your Confusion will bring the fallacy of your Argument to the light and there will need no more to it The Gospel conveyeth to us several benefits some without any Condition and several benefits on several Conditions 1. Our first Actual pardon and Justification and right to life is given on Condition of our first Faith and Repentance and not on Condition of External works of Obedience nor yet of the persevering in faith it self much less in that Obedience 2. Our state of Justification is continued on condition of the continuance of Faith and Repentance with sincere Obedience 3. Our particular following sins have a particular pardon on Condition of the Continuance of the habits and renewing of the acts of that faith and repentance for known observed sins 4. Our full Justification by Sentence at Judgement is on the same condition as Glorification viz. On perseverance in Faith Repentance Hope Love and sincere Obedience Prove now if you can that perseverance is the Condition of our first pardon Prove if you can that final perseverance is the Condition of our continuance in a justified state till now You say Justification and peace cannot be ours till the condition be performed But what condition of that gift or of another gift If of that it s granted but it s still denyed that perseverance is any of the Condition of our first pardon If of another gift it s no reason of your Consequence If you speak of final Justification and Salvation I grant you all thus far that you have no full Right of possessing them but on perseverance nor no Right at all or certainty of Salvation but on supposition of perseverance as necessary to the possession And therefore if you can prove that we have no certainty of perseverance I will yield that we have no certainty of salvation Treat Thus we have asserted this truth by many Arguments and though any one singly by it self may not convince yet altogether may satisfie Now to the great Objections Answ I heartily wish that wiser Readers may find more truth and satisfaction in them then I can do if it be there to be found and to that end that they make their best of them all Treat James saith Abraham was justified by works so that in outward appearances these two great Apostles speak contradictions which hath made some deny the Canonical authority of James 's Epistle Yea one said blasphemously Althameirius Mentiris Jacobe in caput tuum But this is to cut not untie the knot 1. The scope of the Apostle Paul is to treat upon our Justification before God and what is the Instrument and means of obtaining it But the Apostle James takes Justification for the Declaration and Manifestation of it before men Answ This is not the only sense of James as I have proved before to which I refer you no nor any part of the sense of the word Justification with him though he mention shewing faith by works to men as an argument for his main conclusion yet he nowhere expoundeth the word Justification by it James expresly speaks of Imputation of Righteousness by God and of that Justification which is meant in the words of Gen. concerning Abraham even the same words that Paul expoundeth and of that Justification which inferreth salvation Treat Paul informeth us that faith only justifieth and James what kind of faith it is even a lively working faith Answ I have answered this in the beginning of this Disputation Treat It s said They dare not go against the plain words of the Apostle But it s not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the words but the sense Answ Our Question is How the sense of James shall be known Will you say not by the words but by the sense The words are to express the sense and we must take heed of forcing them as much as we can As to your saying of the Anthropomorphites and Hoc est corpus meum I answer the Tropical sense is oft the plainest and in particular in these instances If any man point to several pictures and say This is Caesar and this is Pompey c. I shall by use of speech the interpreter of words take the tropical sense to be the plainest and not the literal viz. That this is Caesars Image and not that it is his person And so here 2. Give me any cogent Evidence that I must leave the plain sense and I am satisfied 3. Remember I pray you that it s not the words but the sense that you except against Do not you except hereafter against the saying that we are Justified by works and not by faith only as James doth but against the ill sense that you can prove to be put upon the words Treat pag. 238. Lastly They are forced to add to the Apostle for they say works justifie as the Condition of the Gospel which the Apostle doth not speak a
Word of Answ 1. We say not that Jams calls them a condition therefore we add not to him as his 2. Every Exposition and application is an addition of another sort but not as of the same 3. I use not the active phrase that Works justifie agreeing so far with you who note a difference between these sayings Faith justifieth and we are justified by faith for all that Mr. Blake despiseth the observation which perhaps he would scarce have done if he had known that you had being guilty of it also 4. Scripture supposeth Grammer Logick Physicks c. and no more is to be expected from it but its own part If James tell you that we are justified by works he doth not say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a verb and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a noun and so of the rest but he warranteth you to say so without any unjust addition supposing that Grammer so call them If the Scripture say that God created the Heavens and the earth it doth not say here in terms that God was the efficient cause but it warranteth you to say so If it say that Christ dyed for us and was a Sacrifice for our sins and hath obtained eternal redemption for us yet it saith not that he is the meritorious cause or the material cause of our Justification But it will warrant you to say so without the guilt of unjust additions If you may say as a Grammarian and a Logitian when you meet with such words in Scripture These are Paronyma and these Synonyma and these Homonyma and this is an universal that a singular that a particular and that an indefinite this is an efficient cause that a material formal or final this is a noun that a verb the other a participle or an adverb I pray you then why may not I say when I read in Rom. 10.9 that If thou confess with thy mouth and believe in thy heart c. that If is a conjunction conditional Is this adding to the Scripture unjustly If I did when ever I read that we are justified by faith collect thence that faith is an Instrumental cause as if by were only the note of an Instrument then you might have accused me of unwarrantable addition or collections indeed Lastly If you have a mind to it I am content that you say by the unscriptural names or additions as you speak of nouns pronouns verbs antecedents consequents efficient or material causes c. and I will lay by the name of a condition as you do of an Instrument and we will only use the Scripture phrase which is If you forgive men your Father will forgive you if we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive we are justified by faith without the works of the Law A man is justified by works and not by faith only By thy Words thou shalt be justified Every man shall be judged according to his works c. Let us keep to Scripture phrase if you desire it and you shall find me as backward as any to lay much stress upon terms of Art Having gone thus far I shall in brief give you a truer reconciliation of Paul and James then you here offer us 1. They debate different questions 2. And that with different sorts of persons 3. And speak directly of different sorts of works 4. And somewhat differ in the sense of the word Faith 5. And somwhat about the word Justification 6. And they speak of works in several Relations to Justification 1. The Question that Paul disputed was principally Whether Justification be by the works of the Mosaical Law and consequently by any mercenary works without Christ or in Co-ordination with Christ or any way at all conjunct with Christ The question that James disputed was Whether men are justified by meer believing without Gospel-Obedience 2. The persons that Paul disputed against were 1 The unbelieving Jews that thought the Mosaical Law was of such perfection to the making of men righteous that there needed no other much less should it be abrogate Where specially note that the righteousness which the Jews expected by that Law was not as is commonly imagined a righteousness of sinless obedience such as was required of Adam but a mixt Righteousness consisting of accurate Obedience to the Mosaical Law in the main course of their lives and exact sacrificing according to that Law for the pardon of their sins committed wherein they made express confession of sin so that these two they thought sufficient to justifie and lookt for the Messias but to free them from captivity and repair their Temple Law c. And 2. Paul disputed against false Teachers that would have joyned these two together the Righteousness of Moses Law and Faith in Christ as necessary to life But James disputed against false Christians that thought it enough to salvation barely to believe in Christ or lived as if they so thought its like misunderstanding Pauls Doctrine of Justification as many now do 3. The works that Paul speaks of directly are the services appointed by Moses Law supposed to be sufficient because of the supposed sufficiency of that Law So that its all one with him to be justified by the Law and to be justified by works and therefore he ofter speaks against Justification by the Law expresly and usually stileth the works he speaks of the works of the Law yet by consequence and a parity of Reason he may well be said to speak against any works imaginable that are set in opposition to Christ or competition with him and that are supposed meritorious and intended as Mercenary But James speaks of no works but Obedience to God in Christ and that as standing in due subordination to Christ 4. By Faith in the Doctrine of Justification Paul means our Assent to all the essential Articles of the Gospel together with our Acceptance of Jesus Christ the Lord as such and affiance in him that is To be a Believer and so to have faith is with Paul to be a Disciple of Christ or a Christian Though sometime he specially denominates that faith from one part of the object the promise sometime from another the blood of Christ sometime from a third his obedience And in other cases he distinguisheth Faith from Hope and Charity but not in the business of Justification considering them as respecting Christ and the ends of his blood But James by faith means a bare ineffectual Assent to the Truth of the Christian Religion such as the Devils themselves had 5. Paul speaks of Justification in its whole state as begun and continued But James doth principally if not only speak of Justification as continued Though if by works any understand a disposition to work in faith or conjunct with it as Dr. Iackson doth so his words are true of initial Justification also 6. The principal difference lyeth in the Relations of works mentioned Paul speaks of works as the immediate matter of a legal personal Righteousness
to punishment that obligation which is not cannot be taken off nor that man pardoned that was never guilty Your Question occasioneth me to be unmannerly in opening these easie things to you that I doubt not knew them sure twenty years ago and more Though I confess I had not the clear apprehensions of them seven years ago What ever I was then thought by others I confess I was ignorant and am glad that God hath in any measure healed my ignorance though with the loss of my reputation of being Orthodox Where you add that conditions have a moral efficiency either you mean all or some if all or if this whereof we are in speech though I am loth to contest with you in Philosophy yet I must confess I never read so much in any Author nor can force my self to believe it Causa sine qua non est causa fatua It is as Schibler and others a meer Antecedent The word Moral is ambiguous but if you mean it as I conjecture you do for an efficiency interpretative in sense of Law as if the Law would ascribe efficiency to him that fulfills the condition I utterly deny it in the present case or if you mean that our fulfilling the conditions hath an efficiency on God to move him to justifie us as an impulsive procatarctick cause I not only deny it but deny that any such cause is properly with God or hath efficiency on him nor can it have the operation of the final cause which some call moral seeing it is none of Gods end nor can any thing move God but God nor be his end but himself If you mean by moral efficiency any thing else which is indeed no efficiency I stick not on meer words Sir I should not have presumed to expect so much labour from you as to write a sheet for my satisfaction had I not perceived that others expect much more to less purpose and that your letters express that hereafter you intend more If you deny me your answer to this I will trouble you no more And because I would have your labour as short as may be I shall only desire your answer to these few Questions which I ground on both your Letters because the clear resolving of these will be the readiest way to satisfie me Quest 1. Hath the Covenant of Grace which promiseth Justification and Glorification any condition on our parts or none If it have Quest 2. What are the Conditions Is not Love and Obedience part of the Condition Quest 3. Must not those Conditions be fulfilled by our selves or hath Christ fulfiâ—led them by himself for any man Quest 4. If we must fulfill him why may not a dying man look on them Or what mâ—â—â— Paul to rejoyce in the testimony of his Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity he had his conversation c. And that he had fought a good fight and finished his courâ—â— c. And that in all good conscience c. and Hezekiah Remember Lord that I have walked before thee c. Quest 5. Can a man have any assurance ordinarily that death shall not let him into â—ell who hath no assurance that he hath performed these conditions and how should he have it Can he know that all shall work to him for good though he know not whether he love God or that there is no condemnation to him though he know not that he is in Christ and walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Quest 6. If our Love and Obedience have no tendency to salvation but as meer figures then is not the Antinomian Doctrine true that we may not Act for Salvation Q. 7. What do you mean your self when you write against those that deny Repentance to be a Condition to qualifie the Subject to obtain forgiveness but a sign Lect. 20. of Justification And when you say that Scripture limits Justification and Pardon only to those Subjects that are so and so qualified p. 171. where you instance in Repentance Confession Turning Forgiving others c. and make faith an Instrumental cause but say there are many qualifications in the Subject p. 172. And what mean you when you say p. 210. In some gross sins there are many conditions requisite besides humiliation without which Pardon of sin cannot be obtained where you instance in Restitution Besides those p. 148 149 150. Is it not safe when a man hath prerformed these conditions to look on them either living or dying Or what do you say less then I do here I know you are none of the men of contention and therefore will not recant your own Doctrine in opposition to me And if you did not mean that these are conditions of Pardon and Justification when you say they are who can understand you If those gross sins be in the unjustified you will not say that the conditions of his Pardon are no conditions of his Justification I know that you give more to faith and so to man then I do viz. to be the Instrument of his own Justification which I will not contend against with any that by an improper sense of the word Instrument do differ only in a term but what do you give less to Repentance and the rest then I do you say they are conditions and I say no more Qu. 8. And what do the generality of our Divines mean when they say that Faith and new Obedience are our conditions of the Covenant As I have cited out of Paereus Scharpius Willet Piscator Junius Aretius Alstedius who saith the condition of the new Covenant of Grace is partly faith and partly Evangelical Obedience or Holiness of life proceeding from faith in Christ Distinct Chap. 17. p. 73. And Wendeliâ— the like c. If it be said that they mean they are conditions of Salvation but not of Justification Then Quest 9. Whether and how it can be proved that our final Justification at Judgement which you have truly shewed is more compleat then this Justificatio viae and our Glorification have different conditions on our part and so of our persevering Justification here Quest 10. And whether it be any less disparagement to Christ to have mans works to be the conditions of his Salvation then to be the bare conditions of his ultimate and continued Justification Seeing Christ is a Saviour as properly as a Justifier and Salvation comprizeth all Quest 11. What tolearable sense can be given of that multitude of plain Scriptures which I have cited Thes 60. For my part when I have oft studyed how to forsake my present Judgement the bare reading of the 25 of Matthew hath still utterly silenced me if there were no more Much more when the whole Gospel runs in the like strain Quest 12. Is not the fulfilling of the conditions of the new Law or Covenant enough to denominate the party righteous that is not guilty of non-fulfilling or not obliged to punishment or guilty as from that same Law or Covenant And doth
not every man that is saved so fulfill the conditions of the new Covenant and so is Evangelically righteous The condition is not Believe and obey perfectly but sincerely Quest 13. If there be no such thing as a personal Righteousness necessary to salvation besides imputed Righteousness 1. What is the meaning of all those Scriptures cited Thes 22. that say there is 2. And of our Divines that say there is inherent Righteousness And 3. What real difference between the godly and the wicked the saved and damned Quest 14. Have you found out any lower place for Love and Obedience then to be bare conditions if you acknowledge them any way conducible to final Justification or Salvation If you have what place is it and how called and why hath it not been discovered unto the world To say they are qualifications of the Subject is too general and comprizeth qualifications of different Natures and it shews not how they are conducible to the said ends and why a man may not be saved without qualifications as well as with them if God have not made them so much as conditions Quest 15. Seeing I ascribe not to Evangelical Obedience the least part of Christs Office or Honor nor make it any jot of our legal Righteousness where then lies the error or danger of my Doctrine Quest 16. Do not those men that affirm we have an inherent Righteousness which is so pronounced properly by the Law of works accuse the Law of God for blessing and cursing the the same man and action And how can that Law pronounce a man or his action righteous which curseth him and condemneth him to Hell for that same Action It makes me amazed to think what should be the reason that Divines contest so much that it is the Law of Works that pronounceth them inherently righteous which they know condemns them rather then the Law of Grace or new Covenant which they know absolveth them that sincerely perform it When all Divines acknowledge an inherent Righteousness and that the Law of Works is fulfilled by none and that it pronnunceth none righteous but the fulfillers and when the condition of the new Covenant must be performed by all that will be saved and when the Holy Ghost saith that it was by faith and so pronounced and measured by the Law of faith that Abel the second Righteous man in the world offered the excellent Sacrifice and by it obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gift c. Heb. 11.4 Quest 17. Do not those Divines that will affirm that our inherent Righteousness is so called from its imperfect conformity to the Law of works and that it is the Law that pronounceth them righteous lay a clear ground for Justification by works in the worst sense for if the Law pronounce their works and them properly righteous then it justifieth them and then what need have they at least so far of Christ or Pardon yea and what Law shall condemn them if the Law of Works justifie them At least do they not compound their Righteousness as to the law of Works partly of Christs satisfaction and partly of their own Works Quest 18. Whether you should not blame Dr. Preston Mr. Norton Mr. Culverwel Mr. Throgmorton c. for laying by the good sound definition of Faith as you call it as well as me And is it not great partiality to let the same pass as currant from them which from me must be condemned And why would you agree to such a corrupt definition being one of the Assembly when theirs in the lesser Catechism and indeed both is in sence the very same with mine And why may not I be judged Orthodox in that point when I heartily subscribe to the National Assemblies Definition viz. that Faith is a saving Grace whereby we receive and rest on Christ alone for Salvation as he is offered to us in the Gospel Qu. 19. Do I say any more then the Assembly saith in the preceding Question What doth God require of us that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin Answ God requireth of us to escape the said wrath and curse c. Faith in Jesus Christ repentance unto life with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of Redemption And is not Justification one benefit And is not final Justification a freeing us from that Curse Quest 20. Which call you the good sound definition of Faith When our famous Reformers placed it in Assurance Camero and others in perswasion such as is in the understanding others in Assent as Dr. Downam c. Others in a Belief of Gods special Love and that sin is pardoned Others in Affiance or Recumbency Others in divers of these Some as Mr. Ball calling it a fiducial Assent Others an obediential Affiancce Did not each of these forsake that which by the former was accounted the good sound Definition And why may not I with Dr. Preston Mr. Wallis c. say it is an Acceptance or consent joyned with Assent or with the Assembly and the rest say it is a receiving which is the same in a more Metaphorical term Quest 21. If you judge as Melanchton John Crocius Davenant Amesius c. that Faith is in both faculties how can you then over-leap the Elicite Acts of the will which have respect to means Eligere consentive uti Quest 22. If the formal reason of justifying faith lie in a Belief or Perswasion that Christ will pardon and save us or in an Affiance or resting on him or Trusting to him only for Salvation or in an Acceptance of him as a Saviour meerly to justifie and save from Hell Why then are not almost all among us justified and saved when I scarce meet with one of an hundred that is not unfeignedly willing that Christ should pardon and justifie and save them and do verily trust that Christ will do it and the freer it is the better they like it If they may whore and drink and be covetous and let alone all the practise of Godliness and yet be saved they will consent If it be said that they rest not on Christ for Justification sincerely I Ans. They do it really and unfeignedly and not dissemblingly which as we may know in all probability by others so we may know it certainly by our own hearts while unregenerate So that it is not the natural but the moral Truth that is wanting And what is that And wherein is the Essential formal difference between a wicked mans resting on Christ for Justification and a true Believers To say it is seen in the Fruits is not to shew the Essential difference Quest 23. If resting on Christ for Justification be the only condition of final Justification What is the reason that Perkins Bolton Hooker Preston Taylor Elton Whately and all the godly Divines also yet living do spend most of their labour to bring men to obey Christ as their Lord
then some other and but propter aliud quasi conditio conditionis and if you say so of Repentance c. we should not disagree You say In other things I come off and so mollifie my assertions that you need not contend Answ 1. I would you had told me wherein I so come off For I know not of a word If you mean in that I now say obedience is no condition of our first attaining justification but only of the continuance of it c. I said the same over and over in my book and lest it should be over-lookt I put it in the Index of distinctions If you mean not this I know not what you mean 2. But if explication of my self will so mollifie and prevent contending I shall be glad to explain my self yet further Yea and heartily to recant where I see my error For that which you desire I demonstrate that its By love and Through love c. I have answered before by distinguishing of the sense of By and Through and in my sense I have brought you forty plain Texts in my book for proof of it which shew it is no new Doctrine To your argument from Rom. 4. Where you say that Abrahams justification is the pattern of all others I conceive that an uncouth speech strange to Scripture for phrase and proper sense though in a large sense tolerable and true Certain I am that Paul brings Abrahams example to prove that we are justified by faith without the works of the Law but as certain that our faith must differ from Abrahams even in the essentials of it We must believe that this Jesus is he or we shall dye in our sins which Abraham was not required to believe Our faith is an explicite Assent and Consent to the Mediators Offices viz. that he be our Lord and Saviour and a Covenanting with him and giving up our selves to him accordingly But whether Abrahams and all recited in Heb. 11. were such is questionable Too much looking on Abraham as a pattern seems to be it that occasioned Grotius to give that wretched definition of faith Annot. in loc that it is but a high estimation of Gods power and wisdom and faithfulness in keeping his promises c. yet I know he came short also of describing that faith which he lookt on as the pattern My first answer was that I exclude also any effective co-operation to which you say Why do we strive about words c. I see that mens conceivings are so various that there is no hopes that we should be in all things of one mind Because I was loth to strive about words therefore I distinguished between causality and conditionality knowing that the word By was ambiguous when we are said to be justified By faith c. now you take this distinguishing to be striving about words to avoid which you would bring we back to the ambiguous term again Whereas I cannot but be most confident that as guile is most in Generals so there would be nothing else between us but striving about words if we dispute on an unexplained term and without distinction Do you indeed think that to be an efficient cause of our justification and to be a bare condition is all one or do you think the difference to be of no moment You say I do not exclude works justifying as well as faith let the expressions be what they will Answ 1. You should have said Let the sense or way of justifying be what it will for sure the difference between an efficient cause and a condition is more then in the expression or else I have been long mistaken 2. I do not exclude God justifying Christ justifying the Word justifying c. and yet to distinguish between the way that these justifie in and the way in which faith justifies I take to be no striving about words but of as high concernment as my salvation is worth 3. Either you mislike my phrase or my sense if the phrase then you mislike the word of God which saith a man is justified by works and not by faith only If the sense then you should not fall upon the phrase and then to distinguish and explain is not to strive about words 4. If I do bring faith and obedience neerer in justification then others it is not by giving more to works then others but by giving less to faith And if in that I err you should have fallen on that and shewed it and not speak still as if I gave more to works then you I am sure I give less to man and therefore no less than you to Christ I perceive not the least disadvantage herein that I lye open to but only the odium of the phrase of justification by works with men that are carried by prejudice and custome 5. I will not quarrel about such a word but I like not your phrase of Faith justifying and works justifying for it is fitter to introduce the conceit of an efficiency in them then to say We are justified by faith and by works which are only the Scripture phrase and signifie but a conditionality To that you say out of Phil. 3.9 I believe Paul doth most appositely oppose the righteousness which is by faith to that which is by the Law But then 1. He means not By faith as an instrument of justification 2. Nor by faith which is but a meer affiance on Christ for justification or only as such 3. Nor doth he exclude Knowledge Repentance Obedience c. 4. But to say that righteousness or justification is by love or by obedience c. Without adding any more is not a convenient speech as it is to say that righteousness is by faith 1. Because the speech seems to be of the first receiving of righteousness wherein obedience or works have no hand 2. Because faith having most clear direct relation to Christ doth most plainly point out our righteousness to be in him 3. Because faith as it is taken in the Gospel is a most comprehensive grace containing many acts and implying or including many others which relate to Christ as the object also Even obedience to Christ is implyed as a necessary subsequent part of the condition seeing faith is an accepting of Christ as Lord and King and Head and Husband as well as a justifier 5. Yet Scripture saith as well as I that Christ shall justifie us By his knowledge and we shall be justified by our words and by works and me thinks it should be no sin to speak the words of God except it be shewed that I misunderstand them It is not so fit a phrase to say that a poor ignoble woman was made rich and honorable by her Love or Obedience or Marriage faithfulness and conjugal actions as to say it was by marriage with such a Noble man or consent to take him to be her husband For the marriage consent and Covenant doth imply conjugal affection action and faithfulness Yet are these last
14.9 And therefore when we are freely pardoned bought from hell it is equal that Christ should rule us who bought us and that his Covenant hang till the continuance of our Legal title to pardon justification and glory and so the full possession of them upon this perseverance in sincere loving grateful subjection to him that bought us and by him to the Father And thus Sir I have digressed and used many words on this which to you I think needless not only because I perceive that you acknowledge the conditionality of obedience in some sense but tell me not in what sense but lest you should not discern my sense who desire to speak as plain as I can that you may truly see wherein we differ And that I also may see it when you have as clearly opened your meaning of your term Qualifications And for your Question Whether a godly man can think the Righteousness of Christ made his by working or only believing I answer causally and efficiently by neither I think though you think otherwise I dare not so advance faith and so advance man I remember good old learned solid Gatakers words to Saltmarsh pag. 53 It is your self rather then any of us that trip at this stone when you would have faith so much pressed in the Doctrine of salvation in regard of the gloriousness and eminency of the grace it self which to assert is not sound sic in Animadv in Lucium part 1. § 9. v. 7. The righteousness of Christ is made ours by Gods free gift but faith and true subjection are conditions of our participation and what interest each hath in the conditionality and on what grounds I have shewed I fear you give too much to faith and man You ask Is it repent and Christs righteousness by this is made yours Answer It is oftimes Repent and be forgiven and repent and be baptized and repent and believe and be forgiven but not efficiently by repenting nor believing but on condition of both though in ordaining them conditions God might intend one but as preparative or subservient to the other and not one equal terms or to equal use immediately And when you say that the dying Christian is directed to the Resting on Christ and eâ—ing the brazen Serpent not to be found in any thing but a righteousness by faith I never durst entertain any doubt of this it is no question between us only in what sense it is called a Righteousness by faith I have shewed even in opposition to Works in Pauls sense which make the reward to be of debt and not of Grace Rom. 4.4 where you say It is an Act Dependance not of Obedience that interests us in Christs Righteousness I answer It is no one Act but many It is an act of Assent first and thence the whole hath the name of faith it being so hard a thing to believe supernatural things as it would have been to us to believe Christ to have been God when we had seen him in the shape of man had we lived in those times when the Doctrine of faith came not with those advantages as now it doth And then it is an act of willing consenting electing affecting which three are but a velle Respectivum and so in the act all one in this in order of nature goes before any act which you can in any reasonable propriety call Dependance and I doubt not are far more essential to justifying faith yet I am heartily willing to take your acts of dependance for those also are more then one in the next place But it confoundeth and abuseth us and the Church in this controversie that many learned Divines will needs shun the strict Philosophical names of the several Acts of the soul and overlook also the natural order of the souls motions and they will use and stil use the Metaphorical expressions as apprehension improper dependance relying resting recombency adherence embracing with more the like I know Scripture useth some of these but then it is not in strict disputing as Joh. Crocius tels Bellarm. We may use apprehend figuratively because Scripture saith apprehendite disciplinans and lay hold on eternal life But this would quickly end disputation or else make it endless Yet in the places cited who knows not the same word hath different senses in the former being used for to accept and stoop to in the later for an earnest pressing on and endeavouring after as a runner to catch the prize And they will be loth to say these are all and each of them the justifying acts And where you add that it s not an act of obedience I answer 1. I would you had first answered the many Scriptures to the contrary produced in my Aphor. 2. It s true of the first interest in Christ further then faith is called obedience but not of the further continued and consummate interest 3. Doth not Christ say Take my yoak learn of me to be meek and lowly that they may have ease and rest Ease and Rest From what Why from what they came burdened with and that was sure guile and curse and what ever is opposed to pardon and justification Mat. 11. And Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in c. Rev. 21.14 And he is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Heb. 5.9 And Mat. 25. is who'ly and convincingly against you And so is the second Psalm wholly which makes subjection to Christ as King the great part of the Gospel condition Kiss the son conteineth more then Recombency in my judgement and yet no more then that true faith which is the condition of justification But no word in your paper brings me to such a stand as your next where you say And that is very harsh still which you express to expect the Righteousness of the Covenant of Grace upon the conditions fulfilled by your self through Gods workings Answ Truly it is quite beyond my shallow capacity to reach what you here mean to be so harsh what should I imagine That there are conditions upon which the Tenor of the Gospel gives Christ Righteousness you acknowldge And that he that performeth them not the Gospel giveth him none of it I know you confess these And that we must needs perform them our selves through Gods workings i. e. both enablement and excitation and co-operation I know you doubt of none of these for you have wrote against the Antinomians and Mr. Gataker hath evinced the sottish ignorance or impudency of Saltmarsh in denying Faith Repentance and Obedience to be the conditions on which performed by us we must enjoy the things promised Pardon c. or else not Yea in this paper you yield to this conditionality What then is the matter Is it harsh when yet you never once shew the fault of the Speech It must be either the falshood or the unfitness but you have yet accused it of
to use any more distinctions then these few and therefore I will add no more about this Term. As to the term Evangelical Righteousness may be so called in a four-fold sense 1. Either because it is that righteousness which the Covenant or Law of Grace requireth as its Condition Or 2. Because its a Righteousness revealed by the Gospel Or 3. Because it is Given by the Gospel 4. Or because it 〈◊〉 ◠perfect fulfilling of the Precepts of the Gospel By a personal Righteousness we mean here not that which is ours by meer Imputation but that which is founded in somewhat Inherent in us or performed by us Necessity is 1. of a meer Antecedent 2. Or of a Means We mean the last Means are either causes or conditions I shall now by the help of these few distinctions give you the plain truth in some Propositions both Negatively and Affirmatively as followeth Proposition 1. It is confessed by all that know themselves or man and the Law that none of us have a Personal universal Righteousness For then there were no sin nor place for confession or pardon or Christ Prop. 2. And therefore we must all confess that in regard of the Preceptive part of the Law of works we are all unjust and cannot be justified by the deeds of the Law or by our works Prop. 3. And in regard of the Commination of that Law we are all under guilt and the Curse and are the children of wrath and therefore cannot be justified by that Law or by our works Both these are proved by Paul at large so that none have a personal Legal Righteousness Prop. 4. No man can plead any proper satisfaction of his own for the pardon of sin and escaping the curse of the Law But only Christs Satisfaction that fulfilled the Law and became a curse for us Prop. 5. No man can plead any merit of his own for procuring the Reward unless as actions that have the promise of a Reward are under Christ improperly called merits But our righteousness of this sort is only the merit and purchase of Christ and the free gift of the Gospel in him Prop. 6. We have no one work that is perfectly justifiable by the perfect precepts of the Law of works And therefore we have no legal personal Righteousness at all that can properly be so called but are all corrupt and become abominable there being none that doth good no not one Imperfect legal righteousness is an improper speech it is properly no legal righteousness at all but a less degree of unrighteousness The more to blame they that call sanctification so Prop. 7. No man can say that he is a Co-ordinate Con-cause with Christ in his Justification or that he hath the least degree of a satisfactory or Meritorious Righteousness which may bear any part in co-ordination with Christs righteousness for his justification or salvation Prop. 8. We have not any personal Evangelical Righteousness of perfect obedience to the Precepts of Christ himself whether it be the Law of Nature as in his hand or the Gospel positives Prop. 9. Even the Gospel personal Righteousness of outward works though but in sincerity and not perfection is not necessary no not as an antecedent to our Justification at the first Prop. 10. External works of Holiness are not of absolute necessity to Salvation for it is possible that death may suddenly after Conversion prevent opportunity and then the inward faith and repentance will suffice Though I think no man can give us one instance of such a man de facto not the thief on the cross for he confessed prayed reproved the other c. Prop. 11. Where sincere Obedience is Necessary to Salvation it is not all the same Acts of obedience that are of Necessity to all men or at all times for the Matter may vary and yet the sinecerity of obedience continue But some special Acts are of Necessity to the sincerity Prop. 12. If Righteousness be denominated from the Precept Christs Obedience was a perfect legal Righteousness as having a perfect conformity to the Law But not so an Evangelical Righteousness for he gave us in many Laws for the application of his Merits that he was neither obliged to fulfill nor capable of it If Righteousness be denominated from the Promise or premiant part of the Law Christs righteousness was in some sort the righteousness of the Law of works for he merited all the reward of that Law But it was principally the righteousness of the special Covenant of Redemption between the Father and him but not of the Covenant of Grace made with man he did not repent or obey for pardon and salvation to himself as a Believer If Righteousness be denominated from the Comminatory or penal part of the Law then Christs sufferings were neither a strictly legal or an Evangelical righteousness For the Law required the supplicium ipsius delinquentis and knew no Surety or Substitute But thus Christs sufferings were a Pro-Legal-righteousness as being not the fulfilling of the Threatening but a full Satisfaction to the Law-giver which was equivalent and so a valuable consideration why the Law should not be fulfilled by our damnation but dispensed with by our pardon So that the Commination was the cause of Christs sufferings and he suffered materially the same sort of Death which the Law threatened But most strictly his sufferings were a Righteous fulfilling his part of the Covenant of Redemption with the Father But in no propriety were they the fulfilling of the Commination of the Law of Grace against the Despisers or neglecters of Grace I mean that proper to the Gospel Prop. 13. Christs righteousness is well called our Evangelical Righteousness both as it is Revealed by the Gospel and conferred by it and opposed to the legal way of Justification by perfect personal Righteousness So that by calling our own personal righteousness Evangelical we deny not that Title to Christs but give it that in a higher respect and much more Prop. 14. No personal righteousness of ours our faith or repentance is any proper cause of our first Justification or of our entering into a justifyed state Though as they remove Impediments or are Conditions they may improperly be called causes So much for the Negative Propositions Affirm Prop. 1. That a Godly man hath a particular righteousness or may be Just in a particular cause there is no man can deny unless he will make him worse then the Devil for if the Devil may be falsly accused or belyed he is just in that particular cause Prop. 2. All Christians that I know do confess an Inherent Righteousness in the Saints and the necessity of this righteousness to Salvation So that this can be no part of our Controversie Prop. 3. Consequently all must confess that Christs righteousness imputed is not our only righteousness Yea that the righteousness of Pardon and Justification from sin is no further necessary then men are sinners and therefore the less need any
us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead So Jam. 2.23 Gal. 3.6 If any say that by Faith in all these Texts is meant Christs righteousness and not Faith I will beleive them when I take Scripture to be intelligible only by them and that God did not write it to have it understood But that Faith is imputed or accounted to us for Righteousness in a sense meerly subordinate to Christs righteousness by which we are justified I easily grant As to Satisfaction and Merit we have no righteousness but Christs but a Covenant and Law we are still under and not redeemed to be lawless and this Covenant is ordained as the way of making over Christ and his meritorious righteousness and life to us and therefore they being given or made over on Covenant-terms there is a personal performance of the conditions necessary and so that personal performance is all the righteousness inherent or propiae actionis that God requireth of us now whereas by the first Covenant perfect Obedience was required as necessary to life So that in point of meer personal performance our own Faith is accepted and imputed or accounted to us for Righteousness that is God will require no more as necessary to Justification at our own hands but that we believe in the righteousness of another and accept a Redeemer though once he required more But as to the satisfying of the Justice of the offended Majesty and the meriting of life with pardon c. So the Righteousness of Christ is our only Righteousness But nothing in Scripture is more plain then that Faith it self is said to be accounted to us for Righteousness and not only Christs own righteousness He that will not take this for proof must expect no Scripture proof of any thing from me Eph. 4.24 The new man after God is created in righteousness Many other Texts do call our first Conversion or state of Grace our faith and repentance and our sincere obedience by the name of Righteousness 2. And then that it may and that most fitly be called an Evangelical righteousness I will not trouble the Reader to prove lest I seem to censure his understanding as too stupid It s easie to try whether our Faith and Repentance our Inherent Righteousness do more answer the Precepts and Promise of Christ in the Gospel or those of the Law of works 3. And that this is a personal righteousness I have less need to prove Though it is Christ that purchased it and so it may be called the righteousness of Christ and the Spirit that worketh it in us yet it s we that are the Subjects and the Agents as to the act It being therefore past doubt that 1. The thing it self is existent and necessary 2. That righteousness is a fit name for it 3. All that remains to be proved is the Use of it Whether it be necessary to Justification and Salvation And here the common agreement of Divines except the Antinomians doth save us the labour of proving this for they all agree that Faith and Repentance are necessary to our first Justification and that sincere obedience also is necessary to our Justification at Judgement and to our Salvation So that here being no conteoversie I will not make my self needless work Obejct 1. But faith and repentance are not necessary to Justification qua justitia quaedam Evangelica under the notion of a righteousness but faith as an Instrument and repentance as a qualifying condition Answ 1. We are not now upon the question under what notion these are necessary It sufficeth to the proof of our present Thesis that a personal Evangelical Righteousness is necessary whether quâ talis or not 2. But the plain truth is 1. Remotely in respect of its natural Aptitude to its office faith is necessary because it is a Receiving Act and therefore fitted to a free Gift and an Assenting Act and therefore fitted to a supernatural Revelation And hence Divines say It justifieth as an Instrument calling its Receptive nature Metaphorically an Instrument which in this sense is true And Repentance is necessary because it is that Return to God and recovery of the soul which is the end of Redemption without which the following ends cannot be attained The Receptive nature of Faith and the dispositive use of Repentance may be assigned as Reasons Why God made them conditions of the Promise as being their aptitude thereto 2. But the nearest reason of their Interest and Necessity is because by the free constitution of God they are made conditions in that Promise that conferreth Justification and Salvation determining that without these they shall not be had and that whoever believeth shall not perish and if we repent our sins shall be forgiven us So that this is the formal or nearest Reason of their necessity and interest that they are the conditions of the Covenant so made by the free Donor Promimiser Testator Now this which in the first instant and consideration is a condition is in the next instant or consideration a true Evangelical Righteousness as that Condition is a Duty in respect to the Precept and as it is our Title to the benefit of the Promise and so is the Covenant-performance and as it hath respect to the sentence of Judgement where this will be the cause of the day Whether this Condition was performed or not It is not the Condition as imposed but as performed on which we become justified And therefore as sentential Justification is past upon the proof of this personal Righteousness which is our performance of the condition on which we have Title to Christ and Pardon and eternal life even so our Justification in the sense of the Law or Covenant is on supposition of this same performance of the Condition as such which is a certain Righteousness If at the last Judgement we are sententially justified by it as it is quaedam justitia a Righteousness subordinate to Christs Righteousness which is certain then in Law-sense we are justifiable by it on the same account For to be justified in point of law is nothing else then to be justifiable or justificandus by sentence and execution according to that Law so that its clear that a personal Righteousness qua talis is necessary to Justification and not only quo talis though this be beyond our Quest on in hand and therefore I add it but for elucidation and ex abundanti Object 2. If this be so then men are righteous before God doth justifie them Answ 1. Not with that Righteousness by which he justifieth them 2. Not Righteousness simply absolutely or universally but only secundum quid with a particular Righteousness 3. This particular Righteousness is but the means to possess them of Christs Righteousness by which they are materially and fully justified 4. There is not a moments distance of time between them For as soon as we believe and repent we are
made partakers of Christ and his Righteousness by a meer resultancy from the Promise of the Gospel 5. Who denyeth that we have Faith and Repentance before Justification Object 3. But according to this Doctrine we are justified before we are justified For he that is Righteous is constituted just and so is justifiable in Judgement which is to be justified in Law Answ Very true But we are as is said made just or justified but with a particular and not an universal Righteousness which will not donominate the person simply a Righteous or justified person we are so far cured of our former Infidelity and Impenitency that we are true penitent Believers before our sins are pardoned by the Promise and so we are in order of nature not of time first justifiable against the false Accusation that we are impenitent Vnbelievers before we are justifiable against the true accusation of all our sins and desert of Hell He that by inherent Faith and Repentance is not first justifiable against the former false charge cannot by the blood and merits of Christ be justifiable against the latter true accusation For Christ and Pardon are given by the Covenant of Grace to none but penitent Believers Object 4. By this you confound Justification and Sanctification for inherent Righteousness belongs not to Justification but to Sanctification Answ Your Affirmation is no proof and my distinguishing them is not confounding them Inherent Righteousness in its first seed and acts belongs to Sanctification as its Begining or first part or root And to Justification and Pardon as a Means or Condition But Inherent Righteousness in its strength and progress belongs to Sanctification as the Matter of it and to our final Justification in Judgement as part of the means or condition but no otherwise to our first Justification then as a necessary fruit or consequent of it Object 5. By this means you make Sanctification to go before Justification as a Condition or means to it when Divines commonly put it after Answ 1. Mr. Pemble and those that follow him put Sanctification before all true Justification though they call Gods immanent eternal Act a precedent Justification 2. The case is easie if you will not confound the verbal part of the controversie with the Real What is it that you call Sanctification 1. If it be the first special Grace in Act or Habit so you will confess that Sanctification goeth first For we repent and believe before we are pardoned or justified 2. If it be any further degrees or fruits or exercise of Grace then we are agreed that Justification goeth before it 3. If it be both begining and progress faith and obedience that you call Sanctification then part of it is before Justification and part after All this is plain and that which I think we are agreed in But here I am invited to a consideration of some Arguments of a new Opponent Mr. Warner in a book of the Object and Office of Faith What he thought it his Duty to oppose I take it to be my Duty to defend which of us is guided by the light of God I must leave to the illuminated to judge when they have compared our Evidence Mr. W. I now come to shew that both these kinds of Righteousness Legal and Evangelical are not absolutely necessary to Justification I do not undertake the Negative and will endeavour to prove it by these demonstrations Argument 1. If things in themselves contradictory cannot be ascribed to the sme person or action then both these kinds of Righteousness are not absolutely necessary to make up our Justification But things in themselves contradictory cannot be ascribed to the same person or actions Therefore The sequell is thus proved by Paul If it be of works it is no more of Grace if of Grace then it is no more of works What are therefore these two kinds of Righteousness but contradictory to each other And therefore it seemeth illogical Theologie to predicate them of the same person or act c. 12. pag. 154. Answ Reader I crave thy pardon for troubling thee with the Confutation of such Impertinencies that are called Demonstrations It is I that have the bigger part of the trouble But how should I avoid it without wrong to the Truth Seeing would you think it there are some Readers that cannot discern the vanity of such Arguings without Assistance 1. What a gross abuse is this to begin with to conclude that these two sorts of Righteousness are not necessary to make up our Justification when the Question was only whether they are necessary to our Justification Making up expresseth the proper causality of the constitutive causes matter and form and not of the efficient or final much less the Interest of all other means such as a condition is So that I grant him his conclusion taking Justification as we now do Our Faith or Repentance goeth not to make it up And yet on the by I shall add that if any man will needs take Justification for Sanctification or as the Papists do comprehensively for Sanctification and Pardon both as some Protestant Divines think it is used in some few Texts in that large sense our Faith and Repentance are part of our justifying Righteousness But I do not so use the word Though Philip Codurcus have writ at large for it 2. I deny his Consequence And how is it proved By reciting Pauls words Rom. 116. Which contain not any of the terms in the question Paul speaks of Election we of Justification though that difference I regard not Paul speaks of works and we speak of Evangelical Faith and Repentance In a word therefore I answer The works that Paul speaks of are inconsistent with Grace in Justification though not contradictory but contrary what ever Mr. W. say but Faith and Repentance are not those works and therefore no contrariety is hence proved Here is nothing therefore but a rash Assertion of Mr. W. to prove these two sorts of Righteousness contradictory Be judge all Divines and Christians upon earth Did you ever hear before from a Divine or Christian that imputed and inherent Righteousness or Justification and Sanctification or Christs fulfilling the Law for us and our believing the Gospel and repenting were contradictory in themselves Do not all that believe the Scripture believe that we have a personal Righteousness a true Faith and Repentance and must fulfill the Conditions of the Promise and that in respect to these the Scripture calls us Righteous as is before proved Mr. W. 2. If the person justified is of himself ungodly then Legal and Evangelical Righteousness are not both absolutely necessary to our Justification But the person justified considering him in the act of justifying is so therefore The Sequel is undenyable because he who is ungodly is not Legally Righteous and that the person now to be justified is ungodly is express Scripture Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth in him that just fieth the ungodly
of Grace Here there is no room to distinguish of their Acceptance as if the acceptance of pardon were the condition of pardon and the acceptance of riches were the condition of their Riches c. But it is the same acceptance of their Prince and his Act of Grace that hath relation to the several consequent benefits may be called pardoning honouring enriching in several respects It is the same marriage of a Prince that makes a woman rich honourable c. So it is the same faith in whole Christ as Christ that is sanctifying and justifying as it relateth to the several Benefits that is it is the condition of both so that their quâ justifiâ—ans doth either intimate this untruth that haec fides quae talis id est qua fides in Christum crucifixum justificat which is true neither of one act nor other and so begs the Question or else it saith nothing So that I shall never admit this quae justificans without an Exposition and better then yet I have seen from any that use it Mr. W. Argument 4. That which is the sum and substance of Evangelical preaching is the object of Justifying Faith But Christ as crucified is the substance of Evangelical preaching Ergo. Answ 1. When I come to look for the conclusion which excluded Christ as Lord Teacher c. from being the object I can find no such thing in any Argument that yet I see They have the same fate as Mr. Blakes Arguments had to conclude no more then what I grant that is that Christ as crucified is the object of justifying faith But where 's the Only or any exclusive of the rest 2. But if it be implyed then 1. I say of the term crucified that Christ crucified to purchase sanctification and salvation is the object of that faith which is the condition of Justification and not only Christ crucified to procure Justification 2. I deny the Minor if by sum and substance you exclude Christ as Lord Teacher Judge Head c. Surely Evangelical preaching containeth Christs Resurrection Lord-ship Intercession c. as well as his death or else the Apostles preached not the Gospel This needs no proof with them that have read the Bible Mr. W. Argum. 5. That which we should desire to know above all things is that Object of justifying faith But that is Christ crucified Ergo. Answ 1. Still the Question wanting in the conclusion Who denyeth that Christ crucified is the object of justifying faith 2. But if only be here understood really doth not this Brother desire to know Christ obeying Christ risen Christ teaching ruling interceding c I do Mr. W. Argument 6. That in Christ is the object of faith as justifying which being apprehended doth justifie us But the death suffering blood obedience of Christ to death is that Therefore it is the proper object of faith as justifying Answ 1. I distinguish of the term as justifying and answer as before No act of Faith effecteth our Justification and whole faith is the condition The being or Nature of no act is the formal or nearest reason of faiths Interest in Justification It justifieth not as this act nor as that 2. If only or some exclusive be not implyed in the conclusion I grant it still But if it be then both Major and Minor are false 1. The Major is false for it is not only the matter of our Justification that is the object of justifying faith To affirm this is but to beg the question we expect your proof 2. The Minor is false for besides the sufferings mentioned the very person of Christ and the active obedience of Christ and the Title to pardon given us in the Gospel c. apprehended by faith do justifie But the question is not what justifieth ex parts Christi but ex parte nostri Mr. W. Argument 7. That which the Gospel doth first present us with is the Object of faith as justifying But Christ is in the Gospel first presented as a Saviour therefore he is therein the object of faith as justifying Answ 1. Distinguishing as before of the as justifying I still grant the whole the exclusive and so the question is still wanting in the conclusion 2. But if he mean only then both Maior and Minor are false The Maior is false for that which the Gospel doth first present us with is but part of the object of justifying Faith For it presenteth us with the Articles to which we must Assent and to the Good which we must Accept by degrees and not all in a sentence or word The Minor is false because in order of nature the Description of Christs Person goeth first and of his Office afterward 3. The word Saviour comprehendeth both his Prophetical and Kingly Office by which he saveth us from sin and Hell as also his Resurrection Ascention Intercession c. And in this large sense I easily grant the Conclusion 4. If by a Saviour he mean only as his cause importeth a sacrifice for sin then as this is a strangely limited sense of the word Saviour so certainly the Incarnation Baptism Temptation Miracles Obedience of Christ are all exprest before this And if it were otherwise yet the consequence of the Maior is utterly groundless and vain Priority or Posteriority of any point delivered in the Gospel is a poor Argument to prove it the Object much less it alone of justifying faith Mr. W. Argument 8. That which the Lords Supper doth as a seal present to justifying faith that is the object of faith as justifying But the Lords Supper doth present us with Christ as dying Ego Answ 1. Still the question is wanting in the conclusion What a pack of Arguments are here 2. Do you believe in your conscience that Christ is presented and represented in the Supper only as dying Mr. W. Argument 9. If we have Redemption and remission of sins through faith in his blood then faith as justifying should only look upon that But we have redemption and remission of sins by his blood Col. 1. Answ Here 's one Argument that hath the question in the conclusion But 1. I deny the consequence of the Major as not by Christians to be endured The only followeth not Though we must be justified by his blood I have proved before that we are also justified by his Resurrection Obedience Intercession Judgement c. 2. Moreover the consequence is false on another account Justifying faith that is Faith the condition of Justification must look at more in Christ then that which purchaseth Redemption It justifieth not efficiently nor of its own nature but the Promise justifieth without faiths co-efficiency only it makes the condition sine qua non and this it may do by another Act of faith as well as that which apprehendeth the Ransom 3. The qua justificans I have spoke to Qua cannot here properly refer to the nature of the faith but to the Benefit And so faith qua justificans is
Lord. But such an accepting of him is not properly or in the account of God or in it self Faith or obedience Ergo. The Minor I prove if purposes intentions or verbal professions to believe or obey are not properly faith obedience then such an accepting is not faith or obedience The Minor proved That which is or may be found in Hypocrites or Reprobates is not true faith or obedience Bu Ergo. Answ The Lord pardon the hardness of my heart that hath no more compassionate sense of the miseries of that poor Church and the dishonour of God which such Disputes as this proclaim by Arguments as fit to be answered by Tears as by words 1. A little before he was proving Argument 12. that none could call Christ Lord but by the Spirit and therefore this act was after Justification And now he proveth that its common to Hypocrites Reprobates 2. Here he delivereth me from all the trouble and fallacy that the distinction of fides quae Justificat and fides qua Justificat hath been guilty of For if the act that we dispute about be no faith at all then it is not the fides quae And yet he often is upon the Qua Justificans himself forgetting this 3. Had I but delivered such a Doctrine as this what should I have heard Justifying faith hath three Parts ASSENT CONSENT and AFFIANCE which also have several acts or parts according to the divers essential parts of the Object ASSENT is but Initial and introductory to the rest as all acts of the Intellect are to those of the Will CONSENT is the same which we here call ACCEPTING which is but the meer VOLITION denominated from its respect to the offer and thing offered This as it is in the will the commanding Faculty so is it as it were the Heart of Faith the first act being but to lead in this and AFFIANCE the third being commanded much by this or depending on it For as it is seated in the Affections so far it is distinct from this Velle or CONSENT Now when ever we name Faith by any one of these three acts as the Scripture doth from every one we include them all though to avoid tediousness we stand not to name all the parts when ever by one word we express the whole And all these Acts have whole Christ in all the essentials of his Person and office for their object Now that this faith in Christ as Lord or accepting him should be said and that by a Christian Divine and that in the Reformed Church to be no faith at all to say nothing of his denying it to be obedience is no matter of honour or comfort to us How oft doth the Scripture expresly mention faith in our Lord Jesus Christ Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord Col 2.6 with other equipollent terms But I will not offer to trouble any Christian Reader with Arguments for such a Truth 4. But yet the man would be thought to have Reason for what he saith and to his proof I further answer 1. Purposes Intentions and verbal Professions were none of the terms or things in question but Accepting or Believing in Christ as Lord Teacher c. These are but concomitants the two first and the last a consequent 2. Is it the Act Accepting that this Brother disputeth against or is it the Object Christ as Lord as being none of the faith by which we are justified If it be the former 1. What Agreement then hath this Argument with all the rest or with his question 2. What Agreement hath his Judgement with the holy Scripture that calleth Faith a Receiving of Christ and maketh it equipollent with Believing in his Name John 1.11.12 Col. 2.6 3. What Agreement hath his Judgement with the Protestant Faith that maketh Christ himself as Good to be the Object of faith to be embraced or chosen or accepted by the will as well as the word as True to be Assented to by the understanding But if it be the Object that he meaneth then what force or sense is there in his Argument from the terms Purposing Intending Confessing Let him name what Act he please so it respect this Object and if it be an Act of faith indeed it s all one as to our present Controversie If he take Consent willing or Accepting of Christ to be no act of Faith let him name any other that he will own for I would quarrel as little as may be about words or impertinent things and let that be it 4. And how could he choose but see that his Argument is as much against Accepting Christ as Priest as against Accepting him as Lord to Justification No doubt but a man that had the common Reason to write but such a book as this must needs see this if he regard what he said And therefore I must take it for granted that his Argument is against both alike even to prove that Accepting of Christ as Lord or as Saviour is no faith or obedience at all But the Reader will hardly believe till he weigheth it that a waking man would reason thus upon such a Question as this in hand 5. Consenting that Christ shall be my Lord and Teacher and Head doth imply a consent and so a Purpose of future obeying learning and receiving from him And so consenting that Christ shall be my Righteousness Intercessor and Justifier doth imply a Purpose of Trusting in him for the future And yet this consent in both cases is Justifying faith 6. And its dolefull Doctrine were he a true Prophet to all Gods Church that Purposes and Intentions to believe and obey are no more then may be found in Hypocrites or Reprobates For though there are superficial uneffectual purposes and Intentions in them as there is an uneffectual faith in them yet if no Purposes and Intentions will prove men Saints then nothing in this world will prove them Saints For the Evidences of Grace are more certain to him that hath them in the Heart then in the outward Actions And in the Heart the very new Creature lyeth much in these two Desires themselves will prove true Grace Much more when they rise to setled Purposes Why else did Barnabas exhort the young beginners that with purpose of Heart they should cleave unto the Lord as intimating that their stability lay in this And Intentions are the very Heart of the New man For Intention is that act that is exercised about the End which is God himself Intendere finem is no more then Velle vel Amare Deum It is the Love of God above all And if this be common to Hypocrites and Reprobates what a case are we in then I hope I have given you a sufficient account of the Impertinency and vanity of Mr. Warners fifteen Arguments To which he adjoyneth a rabble of the words of Socinians Arminians and I know not who to assure you that we his new Adversaries do joyn with that company and plead their cause And he that
following exercitation And what think you is the happy Light that deserveth all this ostentation Why 1. On the Negative we are satisfied that he means not What fides qua fides can do And then we are secure that he means nothing that can hurt his Adversaries cause 2. The Light then is all but this That qua here is not taken Reduplicative but specificative when by the particle qua or quatenus there is some new or singular kind of Denomination added to the subject of the Proposition as when we say man as a reasonable creature feeleth In this latter sence saith he I believe the particle qua or quatenus is taken when we do not say faith as faith but faith as Justifying viz. as a Grace designed to this act or operation of Justifying looks on Christ as Saviour Answ This Chapter was worth the observing For if this be the Basis of all the Exercitation and the Light that Generated all the rest the dispatch of this may serve for all It seems by his words he had look't into Reebe's Distinctions in the end of Castaneus and meeing with Reduplicative and specificative admired the distinction as some rare Discovery and this pregnant fruitful Distinction begot a Volume before it was half understood it self Had he but read the large Schemes for explaining Qua or Quatenus in others its like it would have either begot a larger Volume or by informing or confounding him have prevented this First he disowneth the Reduplicative sence and then owneth the specificative But 1. He seeth not it seems the insufficiency of this distinction 2. Nor the meaning of it 3. Nor could well apply it to the subject in hand Of the first I shall speak anon The second appeareth by his Description his Instance and his Application He describeth it to be When there is some new or singular kind of Denomination added to the subject of the Proposition 1. And why may it not be added also to the Predicate as well as it may Reduplicatively as Motus est actus mobilis quatenus est mobile 2. There are many new kinds of Denominations that will not serve for your specificative Quatenus The instance you give is as when we say man as a Reasonable creature faileth This was but an unhappy Translation of Homo quatenus animal est sensibilis and it s true in the Latine how false soever in the English For the Application 1. You say you Believe its thus taken As if you did but Believe and not know your own meaning in the Basis of your Exercitation 2. Your Specificative Quatenus is Causal or signifieth the Reason of the thing either of the Predication or the thing predicate But so cannot your Basis hold good For faith doth not look on Christ as a Saviour as you please Metaphorically to speak because it Justifieth for its Nature is before the effect and therefore cannot the effect be given as the cause of it unless it were the final cause of which anon Qua or quatenus properly and according to the common use signifieth the proper reason of the thing or predication and is appliable only to that which is spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As to the terms sometimes there is a Reduplication of the same term sometimes that reduplication is of the matter but in other terms as in a definition or synominal words or it is implyed sometimes it is the terms of the Predicate or Attribute that is Reduplicate sometimes it is without a Reduplication And then sometimes it giveth a Reason from an Essential Part sometime from the Generical Nature sometime from the Specifick Nature sometime from an Accident and those are divers sometime from a Quality sometime from Quantity sometime from Relation and that is multifarious If we should run into all the sences of this Term which Mr. W. doth lap up in the word Specificative the words might exceed the profit And it s to be noted that usually the term is respective as to some other thing excluded which is contradistinct so we give sometimes a more Remote and General sometime a neerer and more special Reason by Qua or quatenus As if you mix a purging Electuary in your Drink I say that Purgeth quatenus medicated which is to exclude the Drink from being Purgative If I speak of the Electuary I may say that it purgeth quatenus Diagridiate to exclude many other Ingredients from being Purgative But if I speak of the Diagridium I may say that it Purgeth as having an Elective faculty c. to exclude other Reasons of its operation Now for the opening of the matter in hand let us try certain Propositions that may be supposed to be laid down concerning Faith 1. Faith as faith justifieth This is True taken laxely for the excluding of faith as a meer Physical act or meritorious c. but it is false strictly taken as signifying the formal or nearest reason So 2. Fades in Christum qua talis Justificat that is haec sides in specie is true taken Laxely and materially to exclude all other Faith q. d. It is not faith in Peter or Paul but faith in Christ as such that is the matter deputed to be the condition of Justification But it s false taken strictly deratione formali 3. So This faith as it is an Apprehension or Acceptance of Christ justifieth It s true Materialiter Remotius Laxly but false formaliter stricte de ratione proxima For this is the same in other terms with the second So 4. Faith justifieth as an Instrumental effitient cause of our Justification It s false in every tolerable sence So 5. Faith justifieth as an Instrument of receiving Christ It s true 1. taking the word Instrument Metaphorically and meaning only the Nature of this faith which is to Believe in and Accept Christ 2. and taking Quatenus remotely laxely and materially only q.d. Faith is the Elected matter of the condition or is chosen to be the condition of Justification for this Aptitude as or because it is a Reception or Acceptance of Christ But it s false 1. Taking an Instrument strictly and Logically 2. and speaking de ratione formali So 6. Faith as a believing in Christs sacrifice justifieth It s true Laxly Materialiter partialiter that is This act of faith is part of the matter of the condition But it s false formaliter de ratione proxima So 7. Faith justifieth only as it is a Believing in Christs sacrifice or Righteousness It s false both de materia de ratione formali So 8. Faith as Justifying is only a Believing in or Accepting Christ as our Ransom Here is darkness and either nonsence or false doctrine 1. As Justifying signifieth either as a justifying efficient cause 2. Or as the merit or matter of our Righteousness 3. Or as the means i. e. condition of our Righteousness of which Justification is a consequent and final cause In the first sense it is every way
reason but in the same sence there must be a frequent Justifying For as our Divines well conclude that sin cannot be pardoned before it be committed for then there should be pardon without Guilt for no man is Guilty of sin to come formally so is it as necessary to conclude that no man is justified from sin before it be committed that is from that which is not and so is not sin For then Justification should go before and without Legal Accusation and Condemnation For the Law accuseth and condemneth no man for a sin which is not committed and so is no sin It is said Acts 13. â—9 that by Christ we are Justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses Where as I desire you to observe that phrase of being Justified by the â—aw to shew it is an Act of the Law though sin maketh transgressors uncapable so you see it is a Scripture phrase to say we are Justified from sin And then either there must be some kind of particular Justification from particular sins after faith of the nature of our renewed particular Pardon or else what will become of us for them For sure if the Law be so far in force against the actions of Believers as to make and conclude them Guilty and Obliged to Punishment as much as in it lyeth and so to need a frequent pardon for pardon is a discharge from Guilt which is an Obligation to punishment then it must needs be in force to Judge them worthy condemnation and so to Accuse and as much as in it lyes to condemn them and so they must need also a particular Justification But then according to my Judgement 1. There is a sure Ground said of both in the Gospel or new Law or Covenant 2. And the said New Law doth perform it by the same Power by which it did universally justifie and pardon them at the first There needeth no addition to the Law The change is in them And the Law is said Moraliter agerâ— quod antea non actum erat because of their new Capacity necessity and Relation As if your Fathers Testament do give you a thousand pound at his Death and twenty shillings a week as long as you live after and so much at your marriage c. here this Testament giveth you these new sums after the first without any change in it and yet by new moral Act for it was not a proper gift till the Term expressed or the condition performed and if that term had never come nor the condition been performed you had never had right to it so I concieve Gods Gospel Grant or Testament doth renew both our Remission and particular Justification If Satan say This man both deserved death by sining since he Believed as David must we not be justified from that Accusation And here let me ask you one Question which I forgot before about the first Point Seeing you think truly that Pardon is iterated as oft as we sin by what Transient Act of God is this done Doth God every moment at a Court of Angels Declare each sinner in the world remitted of his particular sin for every moment we commit them If you once-see a necessity of judging the New Covenant or Promise Gods Pardoning Instrument I doubt not but you will soon acknowledge as much about Justification And sure a Legal or written Instrument is so proper for this work that we use to call it A Pardon which a Prince writes for the acquitting of an offendor Besides the Gospel daily justifieth by continuing our Justification as your Lease still giveth you Title to your Land Mat. 12.37 is of more then the continuance of Justification even of Justification at Judgement THe next Point you come to about the Nature and Object of Faith you are larger upon through a mistake of my words and meaning I know not therefore how to Answer your Arguments till I have first told you my sence and better stated the Question Indeed that in pag. 11. of Rest I apprehended my self so obvious to misconstruction that I have corrected it in the second Edition which is now printed Yet 1. I spoke not of faith as Justifying but as the condition of Salvation which contains more then that which is the condition of our first justification 2. I neuer termed those Gospel-Precepts which are not in some way proper to the Gospel And for the next words That subjection to Christ is an Essential part of faith I confess I do not only take it for a certain Truth but also of so great moment that I am glad you have bent your strength against it and thereby occasioned me to search more throughly But then if you think as you seem to do that by Subjection I mean Actual Obedience you quite mistake me for I have fully opened my mind to you about this in my Aphoris that speak only of the subjection of the Heart and not of the Actual Obedience which is the practise of it I speak but of the Acceptation of Christ for our Lord or the Consent thereto and so giving up our selves to be his Disciples Servants or Subjects This I maintain to be an Essential part of justifying Faith in the strict and proper sense of that word It s true that de jure Christ is King of Unbelievers and so of them that acknowledge him not to be their King But in order of nature the acknowledging of his Dominion and consent thereto and so receiving him to be our King doth go before our obeying him as our King As a woman in marriage-Covenant taketh her Husband as one whom she must obey add be faithfull to But that taking or consenting goes before the said Obedience as every Covenant before the performance of it Yea though the same act should be both an acknowledgement of and consent to the Authority and also an obeying of it yet it is Quatenus a consent and acceptance of that Authority and not as it is an obeying of it that I speak of it when I ascribe Justification to it as faith in the common sense is certainly an act of Obedience to God and yet Divines say it justifie not as it is Obedience but as an Instrument So that by Heart-subjection to Christ I mean that act by which we give up our selves to Christ as his Subjects to be ruled by him and by which we take him for our Soveraign on his Redemption-title But when I judge the word Faith to be taken yet in a larger sense comprehending obedience I never said or thought that so it is the condition of our first Justification nor will I contend with any that thinks the word is never taken so largely it being to me a matter of smal moment Now to your Objections 1. YOU say Faith worketh by Love c. Answ 1. Faith is sometime taken strictly for a Belief of Gods word or an Assent to its Truth 2. Sometime more largely for the wills embracing
also of the objec as an offered good besides the understandings Assent to the Truth of the word which offereth it The former is by the Apostle oft distinguished from Love and is said to work by Love as the lively acts of the understanding produce answerable motions in the will But the later is that faith which justifieth to wit The Receiving of an offered Christ And this comprizeth both the Act of the Understanding and Will as almost all Protestant Divines affirm But both these acts together are called Faith from the former which is most strictly so called because the great difficulty then lay in Believing the Truth of the Gospel and would do still if it were not for the advantages of Credit Education Custom c. therefore the whole work is thence denominated though yet the compleating of the work be in the Will and the Understandings Act but preparatory thereto 2. You must also distinguish between Love to Christ the Mediator and the Grace of Charity in general as it is extended al so to God as Creator to Saints to all men c. And between that first act of Love which is in our first receiving of Christ and the love which we afterwards exercise on him and so I answer you 1. That as the Apostle distinguisheth between Faith Hope and Love So do I. 2. Faith taken strictly for assent to Divine Testimony produceth love in every one of the forementioned senses of the word Love 3. Justifying faith comprizing the wills acceptance produceth both the grace of Charity as it is exercised on other objects and also the following acts of it towards Christ the Mediator And so I acknowledge that Faith worketh by Love and that Love is not faith But yet whether Love be not in some sense essential to justifying faith if you speak only of Love to Christ and that not as a distinct grace but as it is comprized in our Acceptance of him at first I shall leave to your consideration when you have first resolved these things 1. Whether justifying faith be not an act of the Will as well as the Understanding Few but Papists deny it and not all of them 2. Whether Christ himself be not the object of it Few Protestants will deny it 3. Whether Good be not the object of the Will and so Christ be not willed as Good None doubts of it 4. Whether this willing be not the same as Loving as love is found in the rational appetite Sure Aquinas saith so no man that I know contradicting it 5. Whether you can call Affiance or any other act of the will justifying faith excluding this willing or not principally including it For 1. This is the Wills first act towards it object and will you say that Love goes before justifying faith and so before Justification and such a Love as is distinct from justifying faith as being no part of it How then is Love the fruit of faith and as Divines say a consequent of Justification Yet it is beyond all doubt that this Velle or Love to Christ goes before Affiance on him or any other act of the Will vide Aquin. 1.2 Q. 23. a. 33. Et. 1. Q. 20. a. 1 Et Tolet de anima l. 3. cap. 9. Q. â—7 28 Et Ames contra Gravinchou pag. 16. 2. And can it be imagined that preceding assent and subsequent Affiance in Christ should be conditions of our Justification and yet the Velle Christum oblatum that Willing which we call Consent Election or Acceptance which goeth between assent and Affiance should be excluded as no part of this condition 3. Especially considering that Affiance contains divers acts whereof one is of the Irascible of the sensitive and so is but an imperate act of the Will and less noble then that elicite Act which I plead for as well as Posterior to it and if Aquin. be not out in his Philosophy when he so oft saith that fiducia is spes roborata then our Divines make Hope to justifie Yet for all this I have not espoused this saying that Love to Christ is Essential to justifying faith nor will contend with any man that thinks it unmeet if we agree in the things of moment I hate to quarrel about words Nor do I think it a meet phrase to say we are justified by Love though in the sense before mentioned I think it true because it is but a part or affection as it were of that reception by which we are justified and stands not in so full a relation to the object received And yet if I had said none of all this I see not that I need any more then to deny your consequence as being wholly ungrounded For it followeth not that if it be an essential part that therefore it must have the Denomination of the whole yea though the whole be said to work by that part The Brain and Heart are essential parts of the Body and yet not to be called the Body and it is more proper to say that the body works by the Brain or Heart or that the vegetative soul doth work by the natural heat and Spirits then to say the Body worketh by the Body or the vegetative soul by it self I will explain all together in my usual Similitude which is Dr. Prestons or rather Pauls A condemned Beggar is offered a Pardon and also to be made a Queen if she will but take the Prince for her Husband Now here put your Questions 1. Is Love any part of the Condition of her Pardon and Dignity Answer Yes An essential part for Consent is of the Essence of it and Love is essential to true consent to receive any offered good Not love as it is a Passion but as it is an act of the rational Appetite which is but Velle And Eligere Consentire Acceptare are nothing else but a respective Willing 2. But it is not Love as a Vertue in general or as exercised on any other object which is this essential part of the Condition but only love to him whom she marrieth And so her first love is necessary to her Pardon and Dignity as begun and her continued love and marriage-faithfulness is necessary to them as they are to be continued supposing the Prince to know the heart as Christ doth Qu. 2. Is it then a meet phrase to say that she is pardoned and dignified by loving such a Prince Answ It hath some Truth in it but it is not a fit speech but rather that it is by marrying him because Love is but a part or as it were an Affection of that Marriage Covenant or consent which indeed doth dignifie her Love may be without marriage but not Marriage cordially without Love So in our present case justifying faith is the very Marriage Consent or Covenant with Christ It is therfore fitter to say we are justified by it then by love because the former expresseth the full condition the latter not Qu. 3. If love be an essential part of the
Act. Again as I said the whole is denominated from the first leading and most difficult Act the Language of Scripture is much fitted to the times and temper of the persons to whom it was spoken Now the Jews did generally and gladly acknowledge that the Messias or Mediator must be Received Welcomed Honoured Loved submitted to but they could not Believe that Christ was he And this was foolishness to the Gentiles also as well as a stumbling-block to the Jews that one that lived and walked among them and seemed a poor contemptible man and at last was crucified should be God and the great Redeemer and Lord of the world I tremble sometimes to think if we had lived our selves in those times how hard it would have been even to us to believe so that when the great Difficult act is named the other Consent and Affiance are still implyed and included I will end with Amesius true observation to this purpose Medul l. 1. c. 3. Quamvis in scripturis aliquando Ascensus veritati quae est de Deo Christo Joh. 1.50 habetur pro vera fide includitur tamen semper specialis fiducia atque adeo omnibus in locis ubi sermo est de salutari fide vel praesupponitur fiducia in Messiam indicatur tantum determinatio vel applicatio ejus ad personam Christi vel per Assensum illum designatur tanquam effectum per suam causam Joh. 11.25 26 27. § 20. The second Argument which you answer lyeth thus If Faith be the work of the Heart and the whole Heart then it is not only in the Understanding but in the Will also But the former is the words of Scripture Act. 8.37 Rom. 10.10 Ergo c. Here you answer that the whole heart notes not every inward faculty but as often sincerity To which I Reply 1. The word whole I yield to Illyricus signifies the sincerity which is usually expressed by Integrity but the word Heart signifies the subject and is commonly taken for the Will and oft for the whole soul Vnderstanding and Will as most Fathers Schoolmen and Divines judge in the Point though the two former placed too much of it in the Assent but where and how oft do you find the word Heart used for the sole Intellect I pray shew the place 2. The proverbial speech with all the Heart is not used in Rom. 10.10 but only subject barely expressed with the Heart man believeth to Righteousness My third Argument as you place it was to another use which is of less moment As I judge Faith to be taken 1. sometimes more strictly for meer Assent to a Testimony so James takes it when he saith the Devils believe 2. And sometimes more fully for Assent and Acceptance or Consent so Paul takes it and so it Justifieth So 3. I suppose it is sometime taken most largely and improperly for the full performance of the conditions of the New Covenant If any deny this I have no mind to contend for it because it is but about a word and not the thing Your answer is twofold 1. that Heb. 5.9 speaks of obeying Christ but doth not call faith obeying Christ I Reply That Obedience which containeth the Condition of salvation by Christ whereof Justification is a part must needs include Faith But the word Obedience Heb. 5 9 containeth the condition of salvation by Christ therefore it includes faith He is become the Author of Eternal salvation to all them that obey him Your second answer is It may be obedience by Assent that Christ is the Messiah died rose c. Repl. 1. If Obedience of meer Assent be not made the condition of Eternal salvation in Scripture then it is not that obedience which is here mentioned But the former is true therefore the latter 2. The first Assent to these Gospel Truths is not in a full proper sence called Obedience to Christ at all therefore not here to be so understood As subjection so obedience is a term of Relation on supposing the Authority of a Superior the acknowledgement of that Authority A command from that Superior and that the action be therefore done because so commanded Now the first Assent to or acknowledgement of the Redeemers Office and Soveraignty must needs in order of Nature precede all obedience to him as a Soveraign I confess improperly a man may be said to obey when he yields to the Reason and perswasion of another but this wants the very form of obedience properly so called If it be true that the first Acceptance of Christ for our Soveraign as Redeemer by the Wills consent may be both the Reception of him for King and Obedience to him Yet in order of Nature it is respectively a Reception first though in time it is both at once But the first Assent to Christs Soveraignty cannot be an obeying him as Soveraign And for the understanding the Text when I find Christ give the world a systeme of Precepts and tell them that he is become the Author of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him I dare not without Reason restrain that obedience in the sence of it to some one or two acts Especially when I find that he hath made the like promise on condition of other acts of ours besides Believing as in many Text I have shewed in those Aphor Take my yoke and burden c. Learn of me to be meek and lowly c. and I will ease you and ye shall find rest Forgive and ye shall be forgiven He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy with multitudes of the like And Rom. 10. that is called Faith ver 14 17. which is called obeying the Gospel ver 16. And if the Gospel do as directly and urgently command Consent as Assent yea if it command love to Christ as of equal necessity with both I have reason to think that in this large sence Faith includes it Why should obeying the Gospel and obeying the Truth be made Synonima's with Believing as it is one single Act when the Gospel commands many other Acts as of aequal necessity and excellency Let me argue thus ex concessis from your self and others Most Divines affirm that the proper Reason why Faith justifieth is its Relation to Christ because it is a Receiving of him it justifies Relative i.e. A Christ received Justifies but Mr. Tombâ—s confesseth that other Graces receive Christ as well as Faith therefore other Graces justifie as well as Faith The Consequence is a Quatenus ad Omne What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import in their first signification is not to our business so much as in what sense they are commonly used No doubt they may signifie properly our yielding to perswasion improperly called Obeying but that they are put for proper Obeying usually in Scripture most Interpreters affirm You may therefore as well draw to your purpose the Latin Obedire because it is but quasi ob-audire Indeed the Obedience
to a Teacher as to Christ and his Ministers and of Scholars to their Master who useth both Argument and Authority is fully and fitly expressed in those words The word Gospel is principally spoken of the Doctrine of Good tidings or Mercy by Christ but sure not only of the Historical or Declaratory part but also yea principally of the Promise or Offer but the whole New Covenant or Law of Christ for so it is and so the Ancients unaminously call it containing Precepts and Threatnings also is called his Testament Covenant Gospel being so denominated from the more excellent part Heb. 7.18.19 22. The Testament of Jesus is opposed to the Commandments of the Law and called Better therefore it comprizeth Christs Commands proper to him And is it not Christs whole Law which is of force when he is dead and called his Testament Heb. 9.17 And when the Apostle saith They were made able Ministers of the New Testament doth he mean only of the History or the Precept of faith and not of Love Hope Repentance c. Let his preaching witness as the Expositors 2 Cor. 3.6 Or let Christ in giving them their Commission tell you what that New Testament is Mat. 28. Go Disciple all Nations c. teaching them to observe all things what ever I command And not to strive about words you know that New Law of Christ which is called his Testament Covenant Gospels c. hath all the Precepts in it which you mention Is it not Precepts as well as Narrations which Mark calls the Gospel Mar. 1.1 Was it not the Gospel which Christ and the Apostles preached And they preached Repentance and Faith and so commanded Duty If a man loose his Life for publishing or obeying Christs Precepts doth not the Promise belong to him Mar. 8.35 and 10 29 Or is that Promise to them only that suffer for the Declarative part only Is the Gospel that must be published among all Nations the History only Mar. 13.10 Was the Precept of Accepting Christ loving him in sincerity and obeying him c. no part of that Gospel to which Paul was separated Rom. 1.1 in which he served in Spirit ver 9. of which he was not ashamed ver 16. and which he was put in trust With 1 Thess 2.2 4. Was it only the Declaration of Christs Death Resurrection c. which is the Gospel according to which mens secrets must be judged Rom. 2.16 or according to which the Jews are enemies Rom. 11.28 compared with Luk. 19.27 Is not it larglyer taken 2 Cor. 8.18 And subjection to the Gospel implies it preceptive 2 Cor. 9.13 Peters withdrawing and separating from the uncircumcision and fearing the Jews and dissembling and Barnabas with him was A not walking according to the Truth of the Gospel Gal. 2.14 The false Apostles preached another Gospel and the Galathians turned to another Gospel when the former preached and the later received the Doctrine of the Necessity of being circumcised and keeping Moses Law Gal. 1.6 7. so that the word Testament and Gospel includes Laws or Precepts of Duty 4. To that of the sense of Gal. 3.12.23 about the largest extent of the word Faith it being as I said of so small moment I intend not to insist on it My meaning is but this that some other Graces are intended reductively and the chief named for all But by your answer I understand 1. That you take not faith to be the whole fulfilling of the condition of the New Covenant which concession shall satisfie me what ever you think of the sense of the Word of these Texts 2. but the rest of your Ans I am unsatisfied in You say by Faith only the condition of the Covenant concerning Justificaiion in this Life is fulfilled not concerning every benefit of the New Covenant Repentance is the condition of Remission of sins forgiveing others doing good to the Saints of entering into Life Repl. 1. You know that not Wotton and many great Divines of England only but of the most famous Transmarine do take Justification and Remission to be one and the same thing I have received Animadversions from divers learned Divines lately on these Aphorisms and three or four of them blame me for making any difference between Justification and Remission though I make as little as may be And can you think then that Remission and Justification have several conditions If they are not wholly the same yet doubtless the difference is exceeding small and rather notional then real The same Commination of the Law doth both condemn and oblige to punishment Remission is a discharge from the Obligation to Punishment and Justification is a discharge from the condemnation So much then as that Obligation to Punishment differs from the Laws condemnation which is nothing or so little as it is not obvious to be discerned so much doth Remission differ from Justification Yea even those Divines that in pleading for the interest of the active Righteousness to Justification do to that end make Justification to have two parts yet one of them they say is Remission of sin as the other is the Imputation of Righteousness And I pray how then can these two parts of the same Justification have two divers conditions so as one is appropriated to one and excluded from the other I remember no reformed Divines but they either make Justification and Remission to be all one or Remission to be part of Justification or else to be two Relations or other effects immediately and at once in order of time if not of nature resulting or proceeding from the same foundation materially or other cause Though Gataker and Bradshaw make them to differ it is but in this narrow and almost unconceivable way but in time to concur I must therfore differ from you in this that they have divers conditions and wait for your proof of it But it seems you will give us leave to say A man is not pardoned by faith only And yet he is justified by faith only and that as a condition Faith then it seems can do the whole but not one half as some judge or can do and not do the same thing as others 2. But do you think that Repentance is not necessarily Antecedent to Justification as well as to Remission If you say No the current of the Gospel Doctrine will confute you which usually putteth Repentance before Faith and those Divines that say it followeth after it do yet make them concur in order of time But if Repentance do necessarily precede Justification as I doubt not but you will yield then let me know to what purpose or under what notion or respect if not as a Condition Can you find any lower place to give it 3. But if you should mean that Faith and Repentance are the condition of our first Justification and Remission but afterwards only of our Remission I Answer 1. According to your Judgement who take Justification to be one act transient once only performed and
I know not of one that 's not essential to Christianity And I think if we had Hereticks among us that denyed Christ to be conceived by the Holy Ghost we should scarce take them for Christians But that man that shall deny or not believe that Christ is God that he is Man that he was no sinner that he dyed and that for our sins and that he was a Sacrifice or Ransom for us and that he Rose again is Glorified and will judge us that he hath offered us a pardon of sin that there will be a Resurrection of the body and life Everlasting by this our Redeemer I cannot see how he can be a Christian And for the number of Articles â— left out much of the ancient Creed it self the Belief in God the Father Creator c. in the Holy Ghost the Article of the Catholick Church the Communion of Saints of Christs burial Descent into Hell and more And yet do you think this too big to be essential to Christian Faith If so tell not any Heretick that denyeth any one of these that he denyeth an Essential Article of our faith But for the ignorant weak Christian I say 1. He knoweth all these Articles that I have named but 2. perhaps not with so ripe a manner of apprehension as is formed into mental words or which he can express in words to others I find my self in my studies that I have somtimes an apprehension of a Truth before I have ripened that conception for an expression 3. And perhaps they are not Methodical and Distinct in their conceptions and cannot say that there are just so many Articles Every sick man can understand what it is to desire and accept of such a man to be his Physitian and herein he first verily desireth health and secondly desireth Physick as a means to Health and thirdly desireth the Physitian in order to the use of that means and fourthly therein doth take him to be a Physitian and fifthly to have competent skill and sixthly to be in some measure faithful to be trusted and seventhly doth place some confidence in him c. all this and more is truly in his mind and yet perhaps they are not ripened and measured into such distinct conceptions as that he can distinctly tell you all this in tolerable Language or doth observe then as distinct Conceptions in himself and whether uno intuitu the eye and the Intellect may not see many Objects though ab objectis the acts must be called many and divers is a Controversie among Philosophers and as I remember Pet. Hurtad de Mendoza affirmeth it But if you your selves will form all these into distinct conceptions and ask your Catechist his judgement of them its like he can mak you perceive at least by a Yea or Nay that he understands them all The new formed body of the Infant in the Womb hath all the Integral parts of a man and yet so small that you cannot so easily discern them as you may do the same parts when he is grown up to manhood So the knowledge of every particular Essential Article of faith is truly in the weakest Christian in the very moment of his conversion but perhaps it may be but by a more crude imperfect Conception that observeth not every Article distinctly nor any of them very clearly but his knowledge is both too dim and too confused And yet I must say that it is not only such as some Papists call a Virtual or Implicite Faith or knowledge As to believe only the General Revelation and the formal Object as that the Scripture is Gods Word and God is true or that whatever the Church propounds as an Article of faith is true while they know not what the Church or Scripture doth propound for this is not actual Christian faith but such a part as a man may have that is no Christian And yet some Papists would perswade us that where this much is there is saving faith though the person believe not yea or deny by the probable Doctrine of seducing Doctors some of the foresaid Essential Articles Argum. 11. If the terms Faith in Christ receiving Christ Resting on Christ c. are to be understood as Civil Political and Ethical terms in a moral sense then must we suppose that they signifie many Physical acts and not any one only But these terms are to be thus morally understood Ergo. The Antecedent is proved thus Terms are to be understood according to the nature of the Subject and Doctrine But the Subject and Doctrine of the Gospel which useth these terms is Moral Political therefore the terms are agreeably to be interpreted The same term in Physick Law Mathematicks Soldiery Navigation Husbandry c. hath various significations but still it must be interpreted according to the nature and use of the doctrine Art or Science that maketh use of it The consequence of the Major is proved because it is the use of Ethicks and Politicks thus to interpret such phrases as containing divers Physical Acts. Marriage is one Civil act but it is many Physical Acts it containeth divers acts of the understanding concerning the Essentials of the Relation and divers acts of the Will in consenting thereunto and the outward words or signs of Consent for making the Contract So taking a man to be my King my General my Tutor Teacher Pastor Physician Master c. all signifie the acts of the Understanding Will and expressing Powers which the several parts of the Objects do require Argument 12. If there be many Acts besides Faith in Christ attendant on it and subservient to it which are none of the works which Paul excludeth and opposeth faith to then the Essential Acts of faith it self are none of those works But the Antecedent is true as I prove in some instances For a man to repent of sin to confess it to believe and confess that we are unworthy of any Mercy and unable to justifie our selves or make satisfaction for our sias and that we are in absolute necessity of Christ having no Righteousness Sanctification or Sufficiency of our own to take God for our Father reconciled in Christ and to Love him accordingly to forgive our Brethren from the sense of Christs forgiving us to shew our Faith by fruitfull works and words When Paul saith Rom. 4.4 5. To him that worketh the Reward is not of Grace the meaning is not To him that repenteth to him that denieth himself and his own Righteousness to his Justification to him that confesseth his sin that loveth God as a reconciled Father in Christ c and when he saith To him that worketh not but believeth the meaning is not to him that loveth not God to him that repenteth not that forgiveth not others c. but believeth Object But yet it may be to him that thinketh not to be justified by or for these but by Faith Answer 1. Concomitants and Subordinates may not be set in opposition faith supposeth the Concomitancy and Subserviency of these in and to Justification 2. Believing in Christs Ransom may as well be excluded too if men think to be justified for so doing meritoriously 3. He that thinketh to be Justified by any work in that way which is opposed to Justification by Grace and Faith must think to be justified by the Merit of them or without a Saviour which all these Graces forementioned contradict 4. God saith expresly that we must Repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out and repent that we may be forgiven and if we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and if we forgive we shall be forgiven and that by works we are justified and not by faith only and that by our words we shall be justified So that Pauls works which he opposeth faith to are neither Jame's works nor any of these particulars mentioned for these are made necessary conditions or means of pardon and of some sort of Justification such as Pauls works could not contribute to which were falsly imagined by the doers to make the Reward to be not of Grace but Debt Object There is but one faith Eph. 4.3 Answer But that One faith hath many Physical Acts or Articles There is but one true Religion but it hath many parts There is but one Gospel but that one contanieth many particular Truths COnsect 1. To be justified by Faith is to be justified by Faith in Christ as Christ and not by any one part of that Faith excluding any of its Essential parts 2. To be justified by Faith in Christ as Christ and so as Rising Teaching Pardoning Ruling Judging as well as satisfying i.e. as the Saviour that hath undertaken all this is not in Pauls sense to be justified by works therefore it is the true Justification by Faith 3. It is therefore unsound to make any one Act or part of Faith the fides qua Justificans and the other Essential parts to be the fides qua justificat when no more can be said of any but that it is fides ex qua justificamur and that may be said of all 4. Though Faith be an Acceptance of Christ and Life as offered in the Gospel so that its very Nature or Essence is morally Receptive which may tolerably be called its Metaphorical Passive Instrumentality yet are we not justified by it qua talis that is qua fides and so not quatenus Instrumentum tale Metaphoricum vel Acceptatio vel Receptio moralis but qua conditio Testamenti vel faederis prastita 5. Therefore it is not only the Acceptance of Righteousness by which we are justified much less the Affiance in Christ as dying only but the Belief in Christ as the Purchaser of Salvation and as the Sanctifier Guide and Teacher of our souls in order thereunto hath as true an Interest in our Justification as the believing in him for Pardon And so far as any other holy act doth modifie and subserve faith and is part of the Condition of Justification with it so far by it also we are justified FINIS
all but in the proper ordinary sence as an Instrument signifieth Causam quae influit in effectum per virtutem inferioris rationis as Suarez Stierius Arnisaeus c. Vel Instrumentum est quod ex directione alterius principalis agentis influit ad produceâ—dum effectum se nobiliorem ut Schibler c. So I utterly deny Faith to be an Instrument But I will first question whether it be a physical Instrument 2. Whether a moral 1. And for the first I have done it already for seeing our acute Divines have ceased to lay any claim to it as an active Instrument but only as a Passive therefore having disproved what they claim I have done enough to that 2. Yet I will add some more And 1. If it be a physical active Instrument it must have a physical active Influx to the producing of the Effect but so hath not Faith to the producing of our Justification Ergo c. The Major is apparent from the common definition of such Instruments The Minor will be as evident if we consider but what Gods Act in Justification is and then it would appear impossible that any act of ours should be such an Instrument 1. At the great Justification at Judgement Christs act is to sentence us acquit and discharged and doth our Faith activè sixae influere ad hunc effectum Doth it intervene between Christ and the effect and so actively justifie us Who will say so 2. And the act by which God justifieth us here is by a Deed of Gift in his Gospel as I Judge Now 1. That doth immediately produce the effect only supposing Faith as a condition 2. And it is but a moral Instrumental cause it self and how faith can be a Physical I know not 3. Nay the act is but a moral act such as a Statute or Bond acteth and what need Faith to be a physical Instrument 2. My second Reason is this It is generally concluded that Tota instrumenti causalit as est in usu applicatione It ceaseth to be an Instrument when it ceaseth to be used or acted by the principal cause But faith doth most frequently cease its action and is not used physically when we sleep or wholly mind other things Therefore according to this Doctrine faith should then cease its Instrumentality and consequently either we should all that while be unjustified and unpardoned or else be justified and pardoned some other way and not by faith All which is absurd and easily avoided by discerning faith to be but a Condition of our Justification or a Causa sine quae non 3. If Faith be a physical Instrument then it should justifie from a reason intrinsecal natural and essential to it and not from Gods meer ordination of it to this office by his Word of Promise but that were at least dangerous Doctrine and should not be entertained by them who truly acknowledge that it justifies not as a work much less then as a Physical reception which they call its Instrumentality The consequence of the Major is evident in that nothing can be more intrinsecal and essential to faith this faith then to be what it is viz. a Reception or acceptance of Christ or his Righteousness therefore if it justifie directly as such then it justifieth of its own Nature 4. It is to me a hard saying that God and Faith do the same thing that is Pardon and justifie and yet so they do if it be an Instrument of Justification For eadem est Actio Instrumenti principalis causae viz. quoad determinationem ad hunc effectum ut Aquinas Schibler c. I dare not say or think that Faith doth so properly effectively justifie and pardon us 5. It seems to me needless to feign this Instrumentality because frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora 6. Yea it derogateth from the work for as Scotus saith in 4. dist 45. q. 1. pag. mihi 239. D. Actio sine instrumento est perfectior quà m actio cum instrumento 7. And this Doctrine makes man to be the causa proxima of his own Pardon and Justification For it is man that believes and not God God is the causa prima but man the causa proxima credendi and so of justifying if Faith be an Instrument Or at least man is a cause of his own Pardon and Justification Yea faith being by Divines acknowledged our own Instrument it must needs follow that we justifie and forgive our selves Dr. Amesius saith Bellar. Enervat To. 4. li 6. p. mihi 315. Plurimum refert quia sicut sacramenta quamvis aliquo sâ—nsu possint dici Instrumenta nostra c. proprie tamen sunt Jnstrumenta Dei sic etiam fides quamvis possit vocari Instrumentum Dei quia Deus justificat nos ex fide per fidem proprie tamen est Instrumentum nostrum Deus nos baptizat pascit non nosmet ipsi Nos credimus in Christum non Deus Whether faith may be a moral Instrument I shall enquire when I have answered the next question which is Q 6. If faith were such a Physical Passive or Active Instrument whether that be the formal direct reason of its justifying and whether as it is it do justifie directly and primarily quatenus est apprehensio Christi justitioe vel Justificationis And this is it that I most confidently deny and had rather you would stick to in debate then all the rest for I ground many other things on it I affirm therefore 1. That faith justifieth primarily and directly as the condition on which the free Donor hath bestowed Christ with all his benefits in the Gospel-conveyance 2. And that if it were a meer Physical apprehension it would not justifie no nor do us any good 3. And that the apprehension called the receptivity which is truly its nature is yet but its aptitude to its justifying office and so a remote not the direct proper formal cause These three I will prove in order 1. And for the first it is proved 1. From the Tenor of the justifynâ—g Promise which still assureth Justification on the condition of Believing He that believeth and whosoever believeth and if thou believe do plainly and unquestionably express such a condition upon which we shall be justified and without which we shall not The Antinomians most unreasonably deny this 2. And the nature of Justification makes it unquestioinable for whether you make it a Law-act or an act of Gods own Judgement and Will determining of our state yet nither will admit of any intervening cause especially any act of ours but only a condition 3. Besides Conditions depend on the will of him that bestoweth the Gift and according to his Will they succeed but Instruments more according to their own fitness Now it is known well that Justification is an act of Gods meer free Grace and Will and therefore nothing can further conduce to Gods free act as on our part but by way