besides their imputed Righteousness only because their Sanctification and good Works have some imperfect agreement to the Law of Works As if it were a streight line which is in one place streight and another crooked much less that which is in every part crooked in some degree I have been sorry to hear many learned Teachers speak thus most they say to maintain it is in this simple objection If we are called holy because of an imperfect Holiness then why not righteous because of an imperfect Righteousness Ans. Holiness signifieth no more but a Dedication to God either by separation only or by qualifying the subject first with an aptitude to its Divine imployment and then separating or devoting it as in our Sanctification Now a person imperfectly so qualified is yet truly and really so qualified and therefore may truly be called holy so far But Righteousness signifying a Conformity to the Rule and a Conformity with a quatenus or an imperfect Rectitude being not a true Conformity or Rectitude at all because the denomination is of the whole Action or Person and not of a certain part or respect therefore imperfect Righteousness is not Righteousness but Unrighteousness It is a contradiction in adjecto Object But is our personal Righteousness perfect as it is measured by the New Rule Ans. Yes as I shall open to you by and by I could here heap up a mulitude of orthodox Writers that do call our personall Righteousness by the title of Evangelicall as signifying from what Rule it doth receive its Name The second sort that shew their gross ignorance of the nature of Righteousness are the Antinomians and some other simple ones whom they have misled who if they doe but hear a man talk of a Righteousness in himself or in any thing he can do or making his own duty either his Righteousness or conducible thereto they startle at such Doctrine and even gnash the teeth as if we preached flat Popery yea as if we cryed down Christ and set up our selves The ignorant wretches not understanding the difference between the two sorts of Righteousness that of the old Covenant which is all out of us in Christ and that of the New Covenant which is all out of Christ in our selves though wrought by the power of the Spirit of Christ. Quest. But how then is Ahabs and Nineve's humiliation accepted and such other works of those that are not in Christ seeing they are yet under the Law Ans. 1. No man is now under the Law as Adam was before the new Covenant was made that is not so under the Law alone as to have nothing to do with the Gospel or so under the old Covenant as to have no benefit by the new 2. So that wicked men may now find that tender and mercifull dealing from God that even those works which are less unjust and sinfull and draw neerest to the rectitude required by the Gospel shall be so far accepted as that for their further encouragement some kind of reward or suspension of wrath shall be annexed to them and God will countenance in them that which is good though it be not so much as may denominate it a good work 3. But yet the best of an unregenerate mans works have more matter in them to provoke God then to please him and he never accepteth them as Evangelically Righteous for they that are in the flesh and are without faith cannot possibly so please God Rom. 8. 8. Heb. 11. 6. As their righteousness is but a less degree of unrighteousness and therefore is most improperly called righteousness so their pleasing God is but a lower degree of displeasing him and therefore but improperly called pleasing him THESIS XXIII IN this sence also it is so far from being an error to affirm that Faith it self is our Righteousness that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know that is Faith is our Evangelicall Righteousness in the sence before explained as Christ is our Legall Righteousness EXPLICATION THis Assertion so odious those that understand not its grounds is yet so clear from what is said before that I need to add no more to prove it For 1. I have cleared before that there must be a personall Righteousness besides that imputed in all that are justified And that 2. The fulfilling of the conditions of each Covenant is our Righteousness in reference to that Covenant But Faith is the fulfilling of the conditions of the new Covenant therefore it is our Righteousnes in relation to that Covenant I do not here take Faith for any one single Act but as I shall afterward explain it Quest. In what sence then is Faith said to be imputed to us for righteousness if it be our Righteousness it self Answ. Plainly thus Man is become unrighteous by breaking the Law of Righteousness that was given him Christ fully satisfieth for this transgression and buyeth the prisoners into his own hands and maketh with them a new Covenant That whosoever will accept of him and beleeve in him who hath thus satisfied it shall be as effectual for their Justification as if they had fulfilled the Law of Works themselves A Tenant forfeiteth his Lease to his Landlord by not paying his rent he runs deep in debt to him and is disabled to pay him any more rent for the future whereupon he is put out of his house and cast into prison till he pay the debt his Landlords son payeth it for him taketh him out of prison and putteth him in his house again as his Tenant having purchased house and all to himself he maketh him a new Lease in this Tenor that paying but a pepper corn yearly to him he shall be acquit both from his debt and from all other rent for the future which by his old Lease was to be paid yet doth he not cancel the old Lease but keepeth it in his hands to put in suite against the Tenant if he should be so foolish as to deny the payment of the pepper corn In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed to the Tenant as if he had payed the rent of the old Lease Yet this imputation doth not extoll the pepper corn nor vilifie the benefit of his Benefactor who redeemed him Nor can it be said that the purchase did only serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper But thus A personall rent must be paid for the testification of his homage he was never redeemed to be independent as his own Landlord and Master the old rent he cannot pay his new Landlords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn Do I need to apply this in the present case or cannot every man apply it Even so is our Evangelicall Righteousness or Faith imputed to us for as reall Righteousness as perfect Obedience Two things are considerable in this debt of Righteousness The value and the personall performance or interest The value of Christs
production of the Effect under the chief Cause And so you may call Faith an Instrument Quest. But though Faith be not the Instrument of Justification may it not be called the Instrument of receiving Christ who Justifieth us Answ. I do not so much stick at this speech as at the former yet is it no proper or fit expression neither For 1. The Act of Faith which is it that justifieth is our Actuall receiving of Christ and therefore cannot be the Instrument of Receiving To say our Receiving is the Instrument of our Receiving is a hard saying 2. And the seed or habite of Faith cannot fitly be called an Instrument For 1. The sanctified faculty it self cannot be the souls Instrument it being the soul it self and not any thing really distinct from the soul nor really distinct from each other as Scotus D'Orbellis Scaliger c. D. Iackson Mr. Pemble think and Mr. Ball questions 2. The holinesse of the Faculties is not their Instrument For 1. It is nothing but themselves rectified and not a Being so distinct as may be called their Instrument 2. Who ever called Habits or Dispositions the souls Instruments The aptitude of a Cause to produce its effect cannot be called the Instrument of it you may as well call a mans Life his Instrument of Acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives Instrument as to call our holiness or habituall faith the Instrument of receiving Christ. To the sixth and last Question I Answ. Faith is plainly and undeniably the condition of our Justification The whole Tenour of the Gospell shews that And a condition is but a Causa sine quâ non or a medium or a necessary Antecedent Here by the way take notice that the same men that blame the advancing of Faith so high as to be our true Gospell Righteousnesse Posit 17. 20. and to be inputed in proper sence Posit 23. do yet when it comes to the triall ascribe far more to Faith then those they blame making it Gods Instrument in justifying 1. And so to have part of the honour of Gods own Act 2. And that from a reason intrinsecall to faith it self 3. And from a Reason that will make other Graces to be Instruments as well as Faith For Love doth truly receive Christ also 4. And worst of all from a Reason that will make man to be the Causa proxima of his own Justification For man is the Causa proxima of believing and receiving Christ and therefore not God but man is said to beleeve And yet these very men do send a Hue and Crie after the Tò credere for robbing Christ of the glory of Iustification when we make it but a poor improper Causa sine qua non And yet I say as before that in Morality yea and in Naturality some Causae sine qua non do deserve much of the honour but that Faith doth not so I have shewed in the 23. Position Some think that Faith may be some small low Impulsive Cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick Objective Cause I shall not contend THESIS LVII IT is the Act of Faith which justifieth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it's self any excellency in it above other Graces But 1. In the neerest sence directly and properly as it is The fulfilling of the Condition of the New Convenant 2. In the remote and more improper sence as it is The receiving of Christ and his satisfactory Righteousnesse EXPLICATION 1. THat the habit of Faith doth not directly and properly justifie appeares from the tenour of the Covenant which is not He that disposed to beleeve shall be saved But he that believeth 2. That Faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other Graces or any more usefull property may appear thus 1. Then the praise would be due to Faith 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority 3. Then Faith would justifie though it had not been made the Condition of the Covenant Let those therefore take heed that make Faith to justifie meerely because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall effentiall property 3. That it is Faith in a proper sence that is said to justifie and not Christs Righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From the necessity of two-fold righteousness which I have before proved in reference to the two-fold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant Phrase of Scripture which saith He that beleeveth shall be justified and that we are justified by Faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the Holy Ghost to have said that Christ onely is imputed or his righteousnesse onely or Christ onely justifieth c. If he had so meant He is the most excusable in an error that is lead into it by the constant expresse phrase of Scripture 3. From the nature of the thing For the effect is ascribed to the severall Causes though not alike and in some sort to the Conditions Especially me-thinks they that would have Faith to be the Instrument of Iustification should not deny that we are properly justified by Faith as by an Instrument For it is as proper a speech to say our hand and our teeth feed us as to say our meet feedeth us 4. That Faith doth most directly and properly justifie as its the fulfilling of the Condition of the New Covenant appeareth thus 1 The new Covenant onely doth put the stamp of Gods Authority upon it in making it the Condition A two-fold stamp is necessary to make it a current medium of our Justification 1. Command 2. Promise Because God hath neither Commanded any other meanes 2. Nor promised Justification to any other therefore it is that this is the onely condition and so only thus Justifieth When I read this to be the tenour of the New Covenant Whosoever believeth shall be justified doth it not tell me plainly why Faith Justifieth even because it pleaseth the Law-giver and Covenant-maker to put Faith into the Covenant as its condition 2. What have we else to shew at Gods barr for our Justification but the New Covenant The Authority and Legality of it must bear us out It is upon point of Law that we are condemned and it must be by Law that we must be Justified Therefore we were condemned because the Law which we break did threaten death to our sin If we had committed the same Act and not under a Law that had threatned it with death we might not have dyed So therefore are we Justified because the New Law doth promise Iustification to our faith If we had performed the same Act under the first Covenant it would not have Iustified As the formall Reason why sin condemneth is because the Law hath concluded it in its threatning so the formall Reason why Faith justifieth is because the New Law of Covenant hath concluded
Christ onely received our infirmities and Originall Disease and not the contempt of him and his Law Expounded by Dr. Twisse against Dr. Iackson pag. 584. His meaning in my judgement is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfections of our Faith and holinesse although we continue therein untill death But he hath not made satisfaction for the contempt and hatred of his Word c. in case men doe continue therein unto death Alstedius Distinct. Theol. c. 17. pag. 73 The condition of the Covenant of Grace is partly Faith and partly Evangelicali obedience or holinesse of life proceeding from Faith in Christ. Idem ibid. cap. 23. Christ is our Righteousnesse in a causall sense but not in a formall sence Sadeel advers human satisfact pag. 213. Christs satisfaction is to them profitable to whom it is truly applied The way of application is this that the merits of Christ be imputed to us This imputation is done when the Holy Ghost begetteth in us a true faith which receiving the benefit of Christ doth at once also produce in us the true fruits of our Regeneration Rivetus in Disput. de Satisfactione God was not bound to accept the satisfaction performed by another although sufficient unlesse which he could not man had satisfied himself and had born the punishment due to his sin therefore there was a necessity that a Covenant should intercede and God himself propound a Mediator That there must an agreement intercede on his part who was satisfied I have proved without which the satisfaction had been in vain Ibidem Ibidem ibid. Thes. 4 5 6. The Act which in satisfaction God performeth it is of a supreme Judge freely relaxing his own Law and transferring the penalty on another So that in this relaxation Gods supreme dominion may be observed For how could God have relaxed his Law if he had not been the supreme Rector or had been under a Law himself And by the transferring the penalty from the sinner exacting it of the surety the relation of a party offended as such is removed from God c. Iam. 4. 12. So he proceedeth to prove that God could and did relax his Law as being positive and so relaxable that it is abrogate not expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what of it was relaxable and what not c. Bellarmine confesseth l. de just cap. 7. that our opinion is right if we mean that Christ merits are imputed us because they are given us and we may offer them to God the Father for our sins because Christ undertook the burden of satisfying for us and reconciling us to God Which Rivet approveth Disp. de justific Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. l. 2. par 2. crim 3. §. 6. I confesse salvation and so pardon and adoption are offered to all and singular men on condition they beleeve c. And so I deny not that Redemption is so farre obtained for all and every man Dr. Twisse against Cotten pag. 74. Still you prove that which no man denyeth viz. That God purposed life to the world upon condition of obedience and repentance provided that you understand it right viz. that obedience and repentance is ordained of God as a condition of life not of Gods purpose Dr. Twisse Consid. of Tilenus Synod dort Arles reduced to prac pag. 61. Ger. Vossius interpreteth the will of God touching the salvation of all of a conditionall will thus God will have all to be saved to wit in case they beleeve which conditionall will in this sence neither Austin did nor doe we deny Idem pag. 143 144. I willingly professe that Christ dyed for all in respect of procuring the benefit of pardon and salvation conditionally on condition of their faith So also pag. 154 161 165 170 194. And Discovery of Doctor Iacksons vanity p. 527. 551. Iunius Parallel l. 3. Heb. 5. 9. For the promise of salvation is made to obedience and be queathed to it in the Testament of Christ himself dying Paraeus in Hebr. 5. 9. To obey Christ is not onely to professe his Name but to acknowledge him the onely perfect Redeemer to cleave to him in true affiance and to live worthy the Gospell This condition in the whole Gospell is required in those that shall be saved Universall Grace belongeth onely to the obedient Piscator in Heb. 5. 9. Christ is not the Author of salvation to all men but onely to those that obey him that is who beleeve his Promises and obey his Precepts Aretius in Heb. 5. 9. The benefit of Redemption is universall and indeed belongs to all in generall so be it we obey him Calvin in Luk. 1. 6. We must so expound whatsoever the Scripture speaks of the Righteousnesse of men that it overthrow not the forgivenesse of sins whereon it resteth as a building on its foundation They who simply expound it that Zachary and Elizabeth were righteous by Faith because they were freely accepted of God for the Mediatours sake do wrest the words of Luke to a strange sence And as to the matter it self they say something but not the whole I confesse indeed that the righteousnesse which is ascribed to them ought to be acknowledged as received from the Grace of Christ and not to the merit of works yet the Lord because he imputed not to them their sins doth dignifie their holy life with the title of Righteousness The folly of the Papists is easily refelled who oppose this Righteousness to the Righteousness of Faith when as it flowes from it so it ought to be placed in subordination to it that so there be no disagreement between them Perkins Vol. 1. p. 662. The true Gain And lest any should imagine that the very act of Faith in apprehending Christ justifieth we are to understand that Faith doth not apprehend by power from it self but by vertue of the Covenant If a man beleeve the Kingdome of France to be his it is not therefore his yet if he beleeve Christ and the Kingdome of Heaven by Christ to be his it is his indeed Not simply because he beleeves but because he beleeves upon commandment and promise For in the tenour of the Covenant God promiseth to impute the obedience of Christ to us for our righteousness if we beleeve Perkins Vol. 1. p. 476. on Hab. 2. 4. Justice mentioned in the word is two-fold the justice of the Law and the justice of the Gospell The justice of the Law hath in it all points and parts of justice and all the perfection of all parts and it was never found in any upon earth except Adam and Christ. The justice of the Gospell hath all the parts of true justice but it wants the full perfection of parts And this kinde of justice is nothing else but the conversion of a sinner with a purpose will and endeavour to please God according to all the Commandments of the Law Thus was Noah just Iob Zachary Elizabeth and thus must the just man be taken in this
not serve to denominate the person Righteous according to the Law of Works And that these joyned with Christs Righteousness do not make up one Righteousness for us is plainthus The Righteousness which we have in Christ is not of the same sort witht his pretended partial Righteousness For this pretendeth to be a Righteousness in part of the first kinde mentioned formerly viz. Obedientiall consisting in conformity to the Precept Now Christs Righteousness imputed to us being only that of the second sort viz. By satisfaction for nonconformity or for our disobedience cannot therefore possible be joyned with our imperfect Obedience to make up one Righteousness for us I acknowledge that some actions of ours may in some respects be good though that respect cannot denominate it strictly in the sence of the old Covenant a good Work I acknowledge also that so far it is pleasing to God yet the Action cannot be said to please him much less the person but only that respective Goodness Also that Christ dyed only to satisfie for our actions so far as they were sinfull and not in those respects wherein they are good and lawfull Yet that these good works so commonly called can be no part of our Righteousness I think is fully proved by the fore-going Argument Though I much question whether they that stand for the imputation of Christs moral Righteousness in the rigid rejected sence as if as if in him we had paid the primary proper debt of perfect obedience can so well rid their hands of this objection THESIS XIX THe Righteousness of the new Covenant is the only Condition of our interest in and enjoyment f the Righteousness of the old Or thus These onely shall have part in Christs satisfaction and so in him be legally righteous who do beleeve and obey the Gospel and so are in themselves Evangelically Righteous THESIS XX. OVr Evangelicall Righteousness is not without us in Christ as our leg all Righteousness is but consisteth in our own actions of Faith and Gospel Obedience Or thus Though Christ performed the conditions of the Law and satisfied for our non-performance yet it is our selves that must perform the conditions of the Gospel EXPLICATION THe contents of these two Positions being of so neer nature I shall explain them here together though they seem to me so plain and clear that they need not much explication and less confirmation yet because some Antinomians do down-right oppose theÌ„ and some that are no Antinomians have starâ—led at the expressions as if they had conteined some self-exalting horrid doctrine I shall say somthing hereto Though for my part I do so much wonder that any able Divines should deny them that me thinks they should be Articles of our Creed and a part of Childrens Catechisms and understood and believed by every man that is a Christian I mean the matter of them if not the Phrase though I think it to be agreeable to the matter also That there may be no contention about words you must take my phrase of Legall and Evangelicall Righteousness in the sence before explained viz. as they take their name from that Covenant which is their rule and I know not how any righteousness should be called Legall or Evangelicall in a sence more strict and proper nor whence the denomination can be better taken then from the formall reason of the thing Yet I know that the observance of the Law of Ceremonies and the seeking of life by the works of the Law are both commonly called Legall Righteousness but in a very improper sence in a comparison of this I know also that Christs Legall Righteousness imputed to us is commonly called Evangelicall Righteousness but that is from a more aliene extrinsecall respect to wit because the Gospel declareth and offereth this Righteousness and because it is a way to Justification which only the Gospel revealeth I do not quarrel with any of these forms of speech only explain my own which I knew not how to express more properly that I be not mis-understood The Righteousness of the new Covenant then being the performance of its conditions and its conditions being our obeying the Gospel or beleeving it must needs be plain That on no other terms do we partake of the Legal Righteousness of Christ. To affirm therefore that our Evangelicall or new Covenant-Righteousness is in Christ and not in our selves or performed by Christ and not by our selves is such a monstrous piece of Antinomian doctrine that no man who knows the nature and difference of the Covenant can possibly entertain and which every Christian should abhor as unsufferable For 1. It implyeth blasphemy against Christ as if he had sin to repent of or pardon to accept and a Lord that redeemed him to receive and submit to for these are the conditions of the new Covenant 2. It implyeth that Jews and Pagans and every man shall be saved Do not say that I odiously wring out these consequences they are as plain as can be expected For if any be damned it must be either for breaking the first Covenant or the second If the former be charged upon him he may escape by pleading the second fulfilled If the latter the same plea will serve so that if Christ have fulfilled both Covenants for all men then none can perish If they say that he hath performed the new Covenant conditions only for the elect 3. Then this followeth howsoever That they are righteous and justified before they beleeve which what Scripture doth speak 4. And that beleeving is needless not only as to our Justification but to any other use For what need one thing be so twice done If Christ have fulfilled the new Covenant for us as well as the old what need we do it again Shall we come after him to do the work he hath perfected Except we would think with the Socinians and as Sir Kenolm Digby That Christ was but our pattern to follow and but set us a copy in obeying according to right Reason 5. That the saved and the damned are alike in themselves but the difference is only in Election and Christs intention For the saved have broke the old Covenant as well as the damned and if it be not they but Christ that fulfill their conditions of the new then the difference is all without them 6. It confoundeth Law and Gospel it overthroweth all the Laws Precepts of Christ by removing their end it contradicteth the whole scope of the Scripture which telleth us That Christ was made under the Law not under the Gospel fulfilled the Law but not the Gospel Covenant bore the curse of the but not of the Gospel and which imposeth a necessity of fulfilling the conditions of the Gospel themselves upon all that will be justified and saved To quote the Scriptures that assert this would be to transcribe almost all the doctrinall part of the New Testament What unsavory stuff then is that of Mr. Saltmarsh of free Grace pag. 83.
Satisfaction is imputed to us instead of the value of a perfect Obedience of our own performing and the value of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personall performance of homage therefore the personall performance of Faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment as if we had paid the full rent because Christ whom we believe in hath paid it he will take this for satisfactory homage so it is in point of personall performance and not of value that Faith is imputed THESIS XXIV THis personall Gospell Righteousness is in its kind a perfect Righteousness and so far we may admit the doctrine of personall Perfection EXPLICATION OUr Righteousness may be considered either in regard of the matter and the acts denominated righteous or else in respect of the form which gives them that denomination Also our Faculties and Actions are considerable either in regard of their Being or of their Quality 1. The perfection of the Being of our Faculties or Acts is nothing to our present purpose as falling under a physicall consideration only 2. In regard of their Quality they may be called perfect or imperfect in severall sences 1 As Perfection is taken for the transcendentall perfection of Being so they are perfect 2. And as it is taken for the compleat number of all parts it is perfect 3. But as it is taken for that which is perfect Efficienter or Participaliter that is for a work that is finished for the Author so our holiness is still imperfect here 4. And as it is taken for accidentall perction so called in Metaphysicks when it wants nothing which beyond the Essence is also requisite to the integrity ornament and well being of it so our holiness is here imperfect 5. As perfection is taken pro sanitate for soundness so our holiness is imperfect 6. And as it is taken pro maturitate for ripeness so it is imperfect 7. In respect of the admixture of contrary qualities our holiness is imperfect 8. But whether all this imperfection be privative and sinfull or meerly negative and only our misery whether it be a privation physicall or morall is a question that will be cleared when I come to shew the extent of the Commands or Rule But not any of these kinds of perfection is that which I mean in the Position Holiness is a quality may be intended and remitted in creased decreased but it is the relative consideration of these qualities of our faculties and acts as they are compared with the Rule of the new Covenant so it is not the perfection of our holiness that we enquire after but of our righteousness which righteousness is not a quality as holiness is but the modification of our acts as to the Rule which is not varyed secundum majus minus See Schibl Metaph. li. 2 c. 9. Tit. 7. Art 2. Therefore our Divines usually say That our Justification is perfect though our Sanctification be not and then I am sure our Righteousness must be perfect A two-fold perfection is here implyed 1. A Metaphysical Perfection of Being 2. A Perfection of Sufficiency in order to its end 1. The being of our Righteousness formally consisting in our relative conformity to the rule either it must be perfect or not at all He that is not perfectly innocent in the very point that he is accused is not innocent truly but guilty Sincerity is usually said to be our Gospel-Perfection not as it is accepted in stead of perfection but as it is truly so for sincere Faith is our conformity to the Rule of Perfection viz. the new Covenant as it is a Covenant yet as it is sincere Faith it is only materially our Righteousness and Perfection but formally as it is relatively our conformity to the said Rule 2. Our Righteousness is perfect as in its Being so also in order to its end The end is to be the condition of our Justification c. This end it shall perfectly attain The Tenor of the new Covenant is not Believe in the highest degree and you shall be justified But believe sincerely and you shall be justified so that our Righteousness 1. formally considered in relation to the condition of the new Covenant is perfect or none 2. But considered materially as it is holiness either in reference to the degree it should attain or the degree which it shall attain or in reference to the excellent object which it is excercised about or in reference to the old Covenant or the directive and in some sence the preceptive part of the new Covenant in all these respects it is imperfect I speak not all this while of that perfection in Christs Satisfaction which is also our perfect Righteousness because few will question the perfection of that THESIS XXV YEt is it an improper speech of some Divines That Christ first justifieth our persons and then our duties and actions And except by justifying they mean his esteeming them to be a fulfilling of the Gospell Conditions and so unjust it is unsound and dangerous as well as improper EXPLICATION 1. IT is improper in the best sence 1. Because it is contrary to the Scripture use of the word Iustifying which is the acquitting of us from the charge of breaking the Law and not from the charge of violating the new Covenant 2 It is against the nature of the thing seeing Justification as you shall see anon implyeth Accusation but the esteeming of a righteous action to be as it is doth not imply any accusation 3. This speech joyning Justification of Persons and Actions together doth seem to intimate the same kinde of justification of both and so doth tend to seduce the hearers to a dangerous error 2. For if it be understood in the worst sence it will overthrow the Righteousness of Christ imputed and the whole scope of the Gospell and will set up the doctrine of Justification by Works For if God do justifie our Works from any legall Accusation as he doth our persons then it will follow That our Works are just and consequently we are to be justified by them There is no room for Scripture-justification where our own Works are not first acknowledged unjustifiable because there is no place for Satisfaction and Justification thereby from another where we plead the Justification of our own Works in respect of the same Law Justification of Works is a sufficient ground for Iustification by Works seeing the justness of his dispositions and actions is the ground of denominating the person just and that according to the primary and most proper kinde of Righteousness as is expressed in the distinction of it pag. 98 99. THESIS XXVI 1 NEither can our performance of the conditions of the Gospel in the most proper and strict sence be said to merit the reward seeing there is nothing in the value of it or any benefit that God receiveth by it which may so entitle it meritorious neither is there any
and the Causa sine quâ non 3. Why I make not Christs Righteousness the materiall Cause 4. Why I make not the Imputation of it the formall Cause 5. Why I make not Faith the Instrumentall Cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine quâ non To the first Question As a Lease or Deed of Gift is properly a mans Instrument in conveying the thing leased or given and as the Kings Pardon under his Hand and Seal is his proper Iustrument of pardoning justifying the Malefactor so is the new Covenant Gods Instrument in this case or as it were his Mouth by which he pronounceth a beleever justified To the second Question Christs Satisfaction hath severall ways of causing our Justification 1. That it is the Meritorious Cause I know few but Socinians that will deny 2 That it is besides properly a Causa sine qua non cannot be denyed by any that consider that it removeth those great Impediments that hindered our Justification And what if a man should say that because impulsive and procatarcticall Causes have properly no place with God that therefore the greatest part of the work of Christs Satisfaction is to be the Causa sine qua non principalis But because my assigning no more to Christs Satisfaction but merit and this improper causality doth seem to some to be very injurious thereto I desire them so long to lay by their prejudice passion while they consider of this one thing That we are not in this business considering which cause hath the preheminence in regard of physicall production but which in morall respect deserveth the highest commendation In point of Morality the greatest praise is seldom due to the greatest naturall strength or to the strongest naturall causation In Physicks the efficient hath the greatest part of the glory but in Morals the Meritorious Cause hath a singular share As Diogenes said Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium The like may be said of some Causes sine qua non That they deserve far greater praise in morall respect then some that have a proper causality do It is agreed that removens impedimentum quâ talis is Causa sine quâ non And doth not the greatest part of a Phisitians skill lye there That which taketh away the offending humor and clenseth out the corruption and removeth all hinderances shall have the greatest share in the glory of the cure of any artificiall cause Suppose a man be condemned by Law for Treason one payeth one thousand pound for his Pardon and thereby procured it under the broad Seale hereby he suspendeth and afterward disableth the Law as to the offender This man is the efficient of those happy effects from which the justification of the Traytor will follow But as to his justification it self he is but the Causa removens impedimenta taking away the force of the Law and the offence of Majesty and whatsoever els did hinder the justification of the offender And yet I think he deserveth more thanks then either the Laywer that justifieth him by Plea or the Judge that justifies him by Sentence So here If you had rather you may call it a necessary Antecedent Or if any man think fitter to call these Causes by another name I much care not so we agree concerning the nature of the thing To the third question Christs Righteousness cannot be the materiall cause of an Act which hath no matter If any will call Christs Righteousness the matter of our Righteousness though yet they speak improperly yet farre neerer the truth then to call it the Matter of our Justification To the fourth Quest. That Imputation is not the Form is undenyable The form gives the name especially to Actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct Acts And how then can Imputing be the Forme of Justifying Though I mention not Imputation in the Definition nor among the Causes here yet it is implyed in the mention of Satisfaction which must be made ours or else we cannot be Justified by it Though therefore the Scripture do not speak of imputing Christs Righteousnesse or Satisfaction to us yet if by Imputing they mean no more but Bestowing it on us so that we shall have the Justice and other benefits of it as truely as if we had satisfied our selves in this sence I acknowledge Imputation of Christs satisfactory Righteousness But I beleeve that this Imputing doth in order of nature go before Justifying And that the Righteousness so Imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated Legally righteous and consequently why the Law cannot condemn us It is a vaine thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the Causes of Justification if we agree in the matter To the fifth Question Perhaps I shall be blamed as singular from all men in denying Faith to be the Instrument of our Justification But affectation of singularity leades me not to it 1. If Faith be an Iustrument it is the Instrument of God or man Not of man For man is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God For 1. It is not God that believeth though its true he is the first Cause of all Actions 2. Man is the Causa secunda between God and the Action and so still man should be said to justifie himselfe 3. For as Aquinus The Action of the principall Cause and of the Instrument is one Action and who dare say that Faith is so Gods Instrument 4. The Instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect of the Principall cause by a proper Causalitie And who dare say that Faith hath such an influx into our Justification Object But some would evade thus It is say they a Passive Instrument not an Active To which I Answer 1 Even Passive Instruments are said to help the Action of the principall Agent Keckerm Logick pag. 131. He that saith Faith doth so in my judgement gives too much to it 2. It is past my capacity to conceive of a Passive Morall Instrument 3. How can the Act of Believing which hath no other being but to be an Act be possibly a Passive Instrument Doth this Act effect by suffering Or can wise men have a grosser conceit of this 4. I believe with Schibler that there is no such thing at all as a passive Instrument The examples that some produce as Burgersdicius his Cultor gladius belong to Active Instrument And the Examples that others bring as Keckermans Iurus instrumentum fabricationis mensa scamnum accubitus terra ambulationis are no Instruments except you will call every Patient or Object the Instrument of the Agent The Instrument is an Efficient Cause All efficiencie is by action and that which doth not Act doth not effect Indeed as some extend the use of the word instrument you may call almost any thing an Instrument which is any way conducible to the
or melancholly maketh you not know your own minde or else you do but dissemble in pretending trouble and sad complaints If you be indeed unwilling I have no comfort for you till you are willing but must turn to perswasions to make you willing I should answer The Condition of the Covenant is not the Perfection but the sincerity of Faith or Consent which way goes the prevailing bent or choyce of your will If Christ were before you would you accept him or reject him If you would heartily accept him for your only Lord and Saviour I dare say you are a true Beleever Thus you see the comfortable use of right understanding what justifying faith is and the great danger and inconvenience that followeth the common mistakes in this point THESIS LXX FAith in the largest sence as it comprehendeth all the Condition of the new Covenant may be thus defined It is when a sinner by the Word and Spirit of Christ being throughly convinced of the Righteousness of the Law the truth of its threatening the evill of his own sin and the greatness of his misery hereupon and with all of the Nature and Offices Sufficiency and Excellency of Iesus Christ the Satisfaction he hath made his willingness to save and his free offer to all that will accept him for their Lord and Saviour doth hereupon believe the truth of this Gospell and accept of Christ as his only Lord and Saviour to bring them to God their chiefest good and to present them pardoned and just before him and to bestow upon them a more glorious inheritance and do accordingly rest on him as their Saviour and sincerely though imperfectly obey him as their Lord forgiving others loving his people bearing what sufferings are imposed diligently using his means and Ordinances and confessing and bewailing their sins against him and praying for pardon and all this sincerely and to the end EXPLICATION THis is the Condition of the new Covevenant at large That all this is sometime called Faith as taking its name from the primary principall vitall part is plain hence 1. In that Faith is oft called the Obeying of the Gospell but the Gospell commandeth all this Rom. 10. 16. 1 Pet. 1. 22. 4. 17. 2 Thes. 1. 8. Gal. 3. 1. 5 7. Heb. 5. 9. 2. The fulfilling of the Conditions of the new Covenant is oft called by the name of Faith so opposed to the fulfilling the Conditions of the old Covenant called works But these forementioned are parts of the Condition of the new Covenant and therefore implyed or included in Faith Gal. 3. 12 23 25. Not that Faith is properly taken for its fruits or confounded with them but as I told you before it is named in the stead of the whole Condition all the rest being implyed as reducible to it in some of the respects mentioned under the 62 Position It may be here demanded 1. Why I do make affiance or recombency an immediate product of Faith when it is commonly taken to be the very justifying Act I answer 1. I have proved already that Consent or acceptance is the principall Act and Affiance doth necessarily follow that 2. For the most of my Reasons that Affiance is a following Act and not the principall they are the same with those of Dr Downame against Mr Pemble and in his Treatise of Justification whither therefore I refer you for Satisfaction 2. Quest. Why do I make sincerity and perseverance to be so near kin to Faith as to be in some sence the same and not rather distinct Graces Answ. It is apparent that they are not reall distinct things but the Modi of Faith 1. Sincerity is the verity of it which is convertible with its Being as it is Metaphysicall Verity and with its Vertuous or Gracious Being as it is Morall or Theologicall Sincerity 2. Perseverance or duration of a Being is nothing really distinct from the Being it self Suarez thinks not so much as a Modus THESIS LXXI 1 THe sincere Performance of the summary great Command of the Law To have the Lord only for our God and so to love obey believe and trust him above all is still naturally implyed in the Conditions of the Gospell as of absolute indispensible necessity 2 and in order of nature and of excellency before Faith it self 3 But it is not commanded in the sence and upon the terms as under the first Covenant EXPLICATION 1 THis Command need not be expressed in the Gospell Conditions it is so naturally necessary implied in all As the ultimate End need not be expressed in directions precepts so as â—he meanes because it is still supposed consultatio est tantum de mediis 2 Love to God and taking him for our God and chiefe Good is both in excellency and order of nature before Faith in Christ the Mediator 1. Because the End is thus before the meanes in excellency and intention But God is the ultimate End and Christ as Mediator is but the meanes Ioh. 14. 6. Christ is the way by which men must come to the Father 2. The Son as God-man or Mediator is lesse then the Father and therefore the duties that respect him as their Object must needs be the lesse excellent duties Ioh 14. 13. The glory of the Son is but a means for the glory of the Father Ioh. 14. 28. My Father is greater then I therefore the Love of the Father is greater then the Love to the Son c. So also in point of necessity it hath the naturall precedency as the End hath before the means for the denying of the End doth immediately cashiere and evacuate all means as such He that maketh not God his chief Good can never desire or Accept of Christ as the way and meanes to recover that chief Good The Apostle therefore knew more reason then meerely for its perpetuity why the chiefest Grace is Love 1. Cor. 13. 13. Though yet the work of Justification is laid chiefely upon faith 3 That this Love of God is not commanded in the sence and on the termes as under the Law is evident For 1. The old Covenant would have condemned us for the very imperfection of the due degree of Love But the Gospell accepteth of Sincerity which lyeth in loving God above all or as the chiefe Good 2. The old Covenant would have destroyed us for one omission of a due Act of Love But the Covenant of Grace accepteth of it if a man that never knew God all his life time doe come in at last Yet the sincere performance of it is as necessary now as then THESIS LXXII AS the accepting of Christ for Lord which is the hearts subjection is as Essentiall a part of Iustifying Faith as the Accepting of him for our Saviour So consequently sincere obedience which is the effect of the former hath as much to doe in justifying us before God as Affiance which is the fruit of the later EXPLICATION I Know this will hardly down with
many But I know nothing can be said against it but by denying the Antecedent viz. That Faith as it Accepteth Christ for Lord and King doth Justifie But that I have proved before If it be one Faith and have the Object entirely propounded as one and be one entire principall part of the Covenants Condition then sure it cannot be divided in the work of Justifying This may be easily apprehended if men will but understand these three things 1. That Faith is no Physicall or naturall proper Receiving of Christ at all But meerly a morall Receiving though performed by a Physicall Act of Accepting For thy Will doth not naturally touch and take in the person of Christ That is an impossible thing whatsoever the Transubstantiation men may say Though the Essence of the Godhead is every where 2. That this accepting which is a Morall Receiving doth not nor possibly can make Christ ours immediately and properly as it is a Receiving But mediately and improperly onely The formall cause of our interest being Gods Donation by the Gospell Covenant 3. That this Covenant maketh a whole entire Faith its Condition A Receiving of whole Christ with the whole soul It is as Amesius Actio totius hominis And if the Covenant doe make Christ as King the object of that Faith which is its Condition as well as Christ as a Deliverer or Priest Then may it be as fit a Medium for our Justification as the other That Obedience is as neere a fruit of Faith as Affiance is evident if you take it for the Obedience of the Soul in Acts that are no more remote from the heart then Affiance is And so is the Obedience of our Actions externall in its formall respect as Obedience though not in its materiall because the imperate Acts are not all so neer the fountain as the Elicite I take it here for granted that Dr Downames arguments in the place fore-cited have proved Affiance to be but a fruit of the principall justifying Act of Faith THESIS LXXIII FRom what hath been said it appeareth in what sence Faith only justifieth and in what sence Works also justifie viz. 1. Faith only justifieth as it implieth and includeth all other parts of the condition of the new Covenant and is so put in opposition to the Works of the Law or the personall Righteousnes of the old Covenant 2. Faith only justifieth as the great principall master duty of the Gospell or chief part of its Condition to which all the rest are some way reducible 3. Faith onely doth not justifie in opposition to the Works of the Gospell but those Works do also justifie as the secondary less principall parts of the condition of the Covenant THESIS LXXIV SO that they both justifie in the same kinde of causality viz. as Causa sine quibus non or mediums and improper Causes or as Dr Twisse Causae dispositivae but with this difference Faith as the principal part Obedience as the less principall The like may be said of Love which at least is a secondary part of the Condition and of others in the same station EXPLICATION I Know this is the doctrine that will have the loudest out-cries raised against it and will-make some cry out Heresie Popery Socinianism and what not For my own part the Searcher of hearts knoweth that not singularity affectation of novelty nor any good will to Popery provoketh me to entertain it But that I have earnestly sought the Lords direction upon my knees before I durst adventure on it And that I resisted the light of this Conclusion as long as I was able But a man cannot force his own understanding if the evidence of truth force it not though he may force his pen or tongue to silence or dissembling That which I shall do further is to give you some proofs of what I say and to answer some Objections Though if the foregoing grounds do stand there needs no more proof of these assertions 1. If Faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the Condition of the new Covenant and Obedience be also part of that Condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as Faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved The other proofs follow in the ensuing Positions and their Explications and Confirmations THESIS LXXV THe plain expressions of Saint James should ternifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21. 24 25 c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justified by Works and not by Faith only THESIS LXXVI NEither is there the least appearance of a contradiction betwixt this and Paul's doctrine Rom. 3. 28. If men did not through prejudice negligence or wilfulness overlook this That in that and all other the like places the Apostle doth professedly exclude the Works of the Law only from Iustification but never at all the Works of the Gospell as they are the Condition of the new Covenant EXPLICATION IN opening this I shall thus proceed 1. I will shew the clearness of that in Iames for the point in question 2. That Paul is to be understood in the sence expressed 3. How this differeth from the Papists Exposition of these places and from their doctrine of Justification by Works 4. And how from the Socinian doctrine 1. The ordinary Expositions of St. Iames are these two 1. That he speaks of Justification before men and not before God 2. That he speaks of Works as justifying our Faith and not as justifying our persons or as Mr. Pembles phrase is the Apostle when he saith Works justifie must be undestood by a Metonimy that a working Faith justifieth That the former Exposition is falfe may appeare thus 1. The worlds Justification freeth us but from the Worlds Accusation to which it is opposed And therefore it is but either a Justifying from the Accusation of humane Lawes Or else a particular Justification of us in respect of some particular facts or else an usurped Judgement and Justification For they are not constituted our Judges by God And therefore we may say with Paul It is a small thing with me to be judged of you or of mans Iudgement And so a small thing to be Justified by men from the Accusations of the Law of God But the Justification in Iames is of greater moment as appeares in the Text. For 1. It is such as salvation dependeth on vers 14. 2. It is such as followeth onely a living Faith but the world may as well Justifie us when we have no Faith at all I therefore affirme 1. The World is no lawfull Judge of our Righteousness before God or in reference to the Law of God 2. Neither are they competent or capable Judges They cannot possibly passe any certaine true sentence of our Righteousness or unrighteousnesse 3. If they could yet Works are no certain medium or evidence whereby the world can know us to be Righteous For there is no outward work
remission the Law would seem to lose much of its authority and the Law-giver be esteemed mutable 3. Besides as no good Lawes are lightly to be reversed so much lesse such as are so agreeable to order and the nature of God and so solemnly enacted as this was 4. Though GOD did dispense with his Law as to our impunity because else mankind would have utterly perished and because he is abundant in mercy and compassion Exo. 34. 7. Psal. 103. 8. III. 4 5. 145. 8. Isa. 55. 7. Ier. 31. 20. Luk 6. 36. Rom. 2. 4. yet he is also holy and just and a hater of sinne and how would those his Attributes have been manifested or glorified if he had let so many and great sinnes goe wholly unpunished Prov. 11. 20. Psal. 5. 5. 45. 8. Heb. 11. 2. Rom. 1. 18. 5. It would have encouraged men to sin and contemne the Law if the very first breach and all other should be meerly remitted but when men see that God hath punished his Son when he was our surety they may easily gather that he will not spare them if they continue rebells 6. The very end of the Law else would have been frustrated which now is fulfilled by Christs satisfaction For Proxima sunt idem tantundem 7. Besides the exceeding love of God that is manifested in this suffering of his Son and the great engagemens that are laid upon the sinner They that will avoid all the supposed inconveniencies of this Doctrine of Gods dispencing with his Threatnings must needs affirme that the offenders do suffer as much and the same which was threatned 8. Whether we are justified onely by Christs Passive Righteousnesse or also by his Active is a very great dispute among Divines By his Passive Righteousnesse is meant not onely his death but the whole course of his humiliation from the Assumption of the humane nature to his Resurrection Yea even his Obedientiall Actions so far as there was any suffering in them and as they are considered under the notion of Suffering and not of Duty or Obedience By his Active Righteousnesse is meant the Righteousnesse of his Actions as they were a perfect obedience to the Law The chiefe point of difference and difficulty lyeth higher How the Righteousnesse of Christ is made ours Most of our ordinary Divines say that Christ did as properly obey in our roome and stead as he did suffer in our stead and that in Gods esteem and in point of Law wee were in Christ obeying and suffering and so in him wee did both perfectly fulfill the Commands of the Law by Obedience and the threatnings of it by bearing the penalty and thus say they is Christs Righteousnesse imputed to us viz. his Passive Righteousnesse for the pardon of our sins and delivering us from the penalty his Active Righteousnesse for the making of us righteous and giving us title to the kingdom And some say the habituall Righteousnes of his humane nature instead of our own habituall Righteousnesse yea some adde the righteousnes of the divine nature also This opinion in my judgement containeth a great many of mistakes 1. It supposeth us to have been in Christ at least in legall title before we did beleeve or were born and that not onely in a generall and conditionall sense as all men but in a speciall as the justified indeed we are elected in Christ before the foundation of the world but that is a terme of diminution and therefore doth not prove that we were then in him Neither Gods Decree or foreknowledge gives us any legall title 2. It teacheth imputation of Christ Righteousnesse in so strict a sense as will neither stand with reason nor the Doctrine of Scripture much lesse with the phrase of Scripture which mentioneth no imputation of Christ or his Righteousnesse to us at all and hath given great advantage to the Papists against us in this Doctrine of Justification 3. It seemeth to ascribe to God a mistaking judgement as to esteem us to have been in Christ when wee were not and to have done and suffered in him what we did not 4. It maketh Christ to have paid the Idem and not the Tantundem the same that was due and not the value and so to justifie us by payment of the proper debt and not by strict satisfaction And indeed this is the very core of the mistake to think that we have by delegation paid the proper debt of Obedience to the whole Law or that in Christ we have perfectly obeyed whereas 1. It can neither be said that we did it 2. And that which Christ did was to satisfie for our non-payment and disobedience 5. So it maketh Christ to have fulfilled the preceptive part of the Law in our stead and roome in as strict a sense as he did in our room beare the punishment which will not hold good though for our sakes he did both 6. It supposeth the Law to require both obedience and suffering in respect of the same time and actions which it doth not And whereas they say that the Law requireth suffering for what is past and Obedience for the future this is to deny that Christ hath satisfied for future sinnes The time is neere when those future sins will be past also what doth the Law require then If we doe not obey for the future then we sin if we sin the Law requires nothing but suffering for expiation 7. This opinion maketh Christs sufferings by consequence to be in vain both to have been suffered needlesly by him and to be needless also now to us For if we did perfectly obey the Law in Christ or Christ for us according to that strict imputation then therere is no use for suffering for disobedience 8. It fondly supposeth a medium betwixt one that is just and one that is guilty and a difference betwixt one that is just and one that is no sinner one that hath his sin or guiâ—t taken away and one that hath his unrighteousness taken away It is true in bruits and insensibles that are not subjects capable of justice there is a medium betwixt just and unjust and innocency and justice are not the same There is a negative injustice which deneminateth the subject non-justum but not injustuÌ„ where Righteousness is not due But where there is the debitum habendi where Righteousness ought to be is not there is no negative unrighteousness but primative As there is no middle betwixt strait and crooked so neither between Conformity to the Law which is Righteousness and Deviation from it which is unrighteousness 9. It maketh our Righteousness to consist of two parts viz. The putting away of our guilt and the Imputation of Righteousness i. e. 1. Removing the crookedness 2. Making them streight 10. It ascribeth these two supposed parts to two distinct supposed causes the one to Christs fulfilling the Precept by his actual Righteousness the latter to his fulfilling the threatning by his passive Righteousness As
if there must be one cause of introducing light and another of expelling darkness or one cause to take away the crookedness of a line and another to make it streight 11. The like vain distinction it maketh between delivering from death and giving title to life or freeing us from the penalty and giving us the reward For as when all sin of omission and commission is absent there is no unrighteousness so when all the penalty is taken away both that of pain and that of loss the party is restored to his former happiness Indeed there is a greater superadded decree of life and glory procured by Christ more then we lost in Adam But as that life is not opposed to the death or penalty of the Covenant but to that of the second so is it the effect of Christs passive as well as of his active Righteousness So you see the mistakes contained in this first Opinion about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us The maintainers of it beside some few able men are the vulgar sort of unstudyed Divines who having not ability or diligence to search deep into so profound a Controversie do still hold that opinion which is most common and in credit If you would see what is said against it read Mr Wotton Pareus Piscator Mr Bradshaw Mr Gataker and Mr. Io Goodwin The other opinion about our Participation of Christs Righteousness is this That God the Father doth accept the sufferings and merits of his Son as a full satisfaction to his violated Law and as a valuable consideration upon which he will wholy forgive and acquit the offenders themselves and receive them again into his favour and give them the addition of a more excellent happiness also so they will but receive his Son upon the terms expressed in the Gospel This Opinion as it is more simple and plain so it avoydeth all the fore-mentioned inconveniences which do accompany the former But yet this difference is betwixt the maintainers of it Most of them think that Christs Passive Righteousness in the latitude before expressed is the whole of this Satisfaction made by Christ which they therefore call Iustitia Meriti and that his Actual Righteousness is but Iustitia Personae qualifying him to be a fit Mediator Of this judgment are many learned and godly Divines of singular esteem in the Church of God the more to blame some of the ignorant sort of their adversaries who so reproach them as Hereticks I have oft wondered when I have read some of them as M. Walker c. to see how strongly they revile and how weakly they dispute Sure if those two famous men Paraeus and Piscator beside Olevian Scultetus Cargius learned Capellus and many other beyond Sea be Hereticks I know not who will shortly be reputed Orthodox and if they be not mistaken all antiquity is on their side beside Calvin Vrsine and most other modern Divines that writ before this Controversie was agitated and sure they are neither unlearned nor ungodly that have in our own Country maintained that opinion witness Mr Anthony Wotten Mr Gataker Mr Iohn Goodwin and as I am informed that excellent Disputant and holy learned judicious Divine Mr Iohn Ball with many other excellent men that I know now living Some others though few do think that though Christs Righteousness be not imputed to us in that strict sense as the first Opinion expresseth but is ours under the fore-explained notion of Satisfaction only yet the Active Righteousness considered as such is part of this Satisfaction also as well as his Passive and Iustitia Meriti as as well as Iustitia Personae and though the Law do not require both obeying and suffering yet Christ paying not the Idem but the Tantundem not the strict debt it self but a valuable Satisfaction might well put the merit of his works into the payment The chief Divines that I know for this Opinion as it is distinguished from the two former are judicious and holy Mr Bradshaw and Grotius if I may call a Lawyer a Divine And for my own part I think it is the truth though I confess I have been ten years of another mind for the sole Passive Righteousness because of the weakness of those grounds which are usually laid to support the opinion for the Active and Passive till discerning more clearly the nature of Satisfaction I perceived that though the sufferings of Christ have the chief place therein yet his obedience as such may also be meritorious and satisfactory The true grounds and proof whereof you may read in Grotius de Satisfact cap. 6. and Bradshaw of Justification in Preface and cap. 13. The chief Objections against it are these 1. Object Christs Passive Righteousness being as much as the Law required on our behalf as satisfaction for its violation therefore the Active is needless except to qualifie him to be a fit Mediator I answer This objection is grounded upon the forementioned Error That Christ paid the Idem and not the Tantundem whereas it being not a proper payment of the debt but satisfaction therefore even his meritorious works might satisfie Many an offender against Prince or State hath been pardoned their offence and escaped punishment for some deserving acceptable service that they have done or that some of their predecessors have done before them And so Rom. 5. 19. By the obedience of one many are made righteous 2. It is objected That Christ being once subject to the Law could do no more but his duty which if he had not done he must have suffered for himself and therefore how could his obedience be satisfactory and meritorious for us I answer 1. You must not here in your conceivings abstract the Humane Nature which was created from the Divine but consider them as composing one person 2. Nor must you look upon the Works of Christ as receiving their valuation and denomination from the Humane Nature alone or principally 3. Nor must you separate in your thoughts the time of Christs servitude and subjection from the time of his freedom before his incarnation and subjection And so take these Answers 1. Christ Jesus did perform severall works which he was not obliged to perform as a meer Subject Such are all the works that are proper to his office of Mediator his assuming the Humane Nature his making Laws to his Church his establishing and sealing the Covenant his working Miracles his sending his Disciples to convert and save the world enduing them with the Spirit his overcoming Death and rising again c. What Law bindeth us to such works as these And what Law to speak properly did binde him to them Yet were the works in themselves so excellent and agreeable to his Fathers Will which he was well acquainted with that they were truly meritorious and satisfactory 2. Some works he performed which were our duty indeed but he was not bound to perform them in regard of himself Such as are all the observances of the
Righteousness Here carefully observe That this Law hath two parts 1. The Precept and Prohibition prescribing and requiring Duty 2. The Promise and Commination determining of the reward of Obedience and penalty of Disobedience As the Precept is the principall part and the Penalty annexed but for the Precepts sake so the primary intent of the Law-giver is the obeying of his Precepts and our suffering of the Penalty is but a secondary for the attaining of the former So is there accordingly a two-fold Righteousness or fulfilling of this Law which is the thing I would have observed the primary most excellent and most proper Righteousness lyeth in the conformity of our actions to the precept The secondary less excellent Righteousness yet fitly enough so called see Pemble of Iustificat pag. â— is when though we have broke the precepts yet we have satisfied for our breach either by our own suffering or some other way The first hath reference to the Commands when none can accuse us to have broak the Law The second hath reference to the Penalty when though we have broke the law yet it hath nothing against us for so doing because it is satisfyed These two kinds of Righteousnesse cannot stand together in the same person in regard of the same Law and Actions he that hath one hath not the other he that hath the First need not the Second There must be a fault or no satisfaction this fault must be confessed and so the first kind of Righteousnesse disclaimed before Satisfaction can be pleaded and Satisfaction must be pleaded before a Dilinquent can be justified This well understood would give a clearer insight into the nature of our Righteousness and Justification then many have yet attained The great Question is of which sort is our Righteousness whereby we are justified I answer of the second sort which yet is no derogation from it for though it be not a Righteousness so honouring our selves yet is it as excellent in Christ and honourable to him And this first kinde of Righteousness as it is in Christ cannot retaining its own form be made ours And to that the Papists arguments will hold good The Law commanded our own personall obedience and not another for us We did not so personally obey we did not really obey in Christ and God doth not judge us to do what we did not If we had yet it would not have made us just for one sin will make us unjust though we were never so obedient before and after Therefore if we had obeyed in Christ and yet sinned in our selves we are breakers of the Law still And so our Righteousness cannot be of the first sort This Breach therefore must be satisfied for and consequently our Righteousness must be of the second sort seeing both cannot stand in one person as beforesaid Christ indeed had both these kinds of righteousness viz. the righteousness of perfect Obedience and the righteousness of Satisfaction for Disobedience But the former only was his own personall Righteousnes not communicable to another under that notion and in that form of a Righteousness by obeying The latter was his righteousness as he stood in our room and was by imputation a sinner and so is also our Righteousness in and through him Yet the former as I have proved before c. is ours too and our Righteousness too though many Divines think otherwise but how Not as retaining its form in the former sence but as it is also in a further consideration a part of the Righteousness by Satisfaction seeing that Christs very personall obedientiall righteousness was also in a further respect satisfactory I intreat thee Reader do not pass over this distinct representation of Righteousness as curious or needless for thou canst not tell how thou art righteous or justified without it Nor do thou through prejudice reject it as unsound till thou have first well studied the Nature of Righteousness in generall and of Christian Righteousness in speciall THESIS XVII THerefore as there are two Covenants with their distinct Conditions so is there a twofold Righteousness and both of them absolutely necessary to Salvation EXPLICATION AS Sin is defined to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Trangression of the Law 1. Ioh. 3. 4. So Righteousness is a Conformity to the Law Therefore as there is a twofold Law or Covenant so must there be accordingly a two-fold Righteousness whether both these be to us necessary is all the doubt If the first Covenant be totally repealed then indeed we need not care for the righteousness of that Covenant in respect of any of our personall actions but only in respect of Adams first and ours in him But I have proved before that it is not repealed otherwise the righteousness of Christ imputed to us would not be of a very narrow extent if it were a covering only to our first transgression I take it for granted therefore that he must have a two-fold Righteousness answerable to the two Covenants that expecteth to be justifyed And the usuall confounding of these two distinct Righteousnesses doth much darken the controversies about Justification THESIS XVIII OVr Legal Righteousness or righteousness of the first Covenant is not personall or consisteth not in any qualifications of our own persons or actions performed by us For we never fulfilled nor personally satisfied the Law but it is wholly without us in Christ. And in this sence it is that the Apostle and every Christian disclaimeth his own Righteousness or his own Works as being no true legall Righteousness Phil. 3. 7 8. EXPLICATION Object 1 DOth not the Apostle say that as touching the Righteousness which is in the Law he was blameless Phil. 3. 6. Ans. That is He â—o exactly observed the Ceremoniall Law and the externall part of the Morall Law that no man could blame him for the breach of them But this is nothing to such a keeping of the whole Covenant as might render him blameless in the sight of God otherwise he would not have esteemed it so lightly Object 2. There are degrees of Sin He that is not yet a sinner in the highest degree is he not so far Righteous by a personall Righteousness Christ satisfied only for our sin so far as our actions are not sinfull so far they need no pardon nor satisfaction And consequently Christs righteousness and our own works do concur to the composing of our perfect Righteousness Ans. Though this objection doth puzle some as if there were no escaping this Popish self-exalting Consequence yet by the help of the fore-going grounds the vanity of it may be easily discovered And that thus 1. An Action is not righteous which is not conformable to the Law if in some respects it be conformable and in some not it cannot be called a conformable or righteous Action So that we having no actions perfectly conformed to the Law have therefore no one righteous action 2. If we had Yet many righteous Actions if but one were unrighteous will
of Pardon Justification doth then absolutely pardon and justifie us when we perform the Condition Hence is the phrase in Scripture of being Iustified by the Law which doth not only signifie by the Law as the Rule to which men did fit their actions but also by the Law as not condemning but justifying the person whose actions are so fitted In which sence the Law did justifie Christ or else the Law should not justifie as a Law or Covenant but only as a Direction which properly is not Justifying but only a means to discover that we are Justifiable As the Word of Christ shall judge men at the last day Ioh. 12. 28. So doth it virtually now And if it judge then doth it condemn and justifie So Rom. 2. 12. Iam. 2 12. We shall be judged by the Law of Liberty Gal. 5. 3. 4 23. In the same sence as the Law is said to convince and curse Iam. 2. 9. Gal. 3. 13. it may be said that the Gospell or new Law doth acquit justifie and bless Rom. 8. 12. The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Iesus hath made me from the Law of Sin and Death As the Law worketh Wrath and where is no Law there is no Transgression Rom. 4. 15. And as sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. and the strength of sin is the law 1 Cor. 15. 56 So the new law is the strength of Righteousness and worketh Deliverance from Wrath and were there no such new Covenant there would be no Righteousness inherent or imputed Ioh. 7. 51. So that I conclude That this transient Act of God pardoning and justifying constitutive is his Grant in the new Covenant by which as a Morall Instrument our Justification and Pardon are in time produced even when we beleeve the Obligation of the Law being then by it made void to us And this is the present apprehension I have of the nature of Remission and Justification Si quid novisti rectius c. yet I shall have occasion afterwards to tell you That all this is but Remission and Justification in Law and Title which must be distinguished from that which is in Judgment or Sentence the former being vertual in respect of the Actuality of the latter 2. The second kinde of Gods Acts which may be called Justifying is indeed Immanent viz. his knowing the sinner to be pardoned and just in Law his Willing and Approving hereof as True and Good These are Acts in Heaven yea in God himself but the former sort are on earth also I would not have those Acts of God separated which he doth conjoyn as he ever doth these last with the former But I verily think that it is especially the former transient legall Acts which the Scripture usually means when it speaks of Pardoning and constitutive Justifying and not these Immanent Acts though these must be looked on as concurrent with the former Yet most Divines that I meet with seem to look at Pardon and Justification as being done in heaven only and consisting only in these later Immanent Acts And yet they deny Justification to be an Immanent Act too But how they will ever manifest that these celestiall Acts of God viz. his Willing the sinners Pardon and so forgiving him in his own brest or his accepting him as just are Transient Acts I am yet unable to understand And if they be Immanent Acts most will grant that they are from Eternity and then fair fall the Antinomians Indeed if God have a Bar in Heaven before his Angels where these things are for the present transacted as some think and that we are said to be justified only at the bar now then I confess that is a transient Act indeed But of that more hereafter 7. I add in the definition That all this is done in consideration of the Satisfaction 1 made by Christ 2. Accepted 3. and pleaded with God The satisfaction made is the proper meritorious and impulsive cause 2. So the Satisfaction as pleaded by Christ the intercessor is also an impulsive cause 3. The Satisfactious Acceptance by the Sinner that is Faith and the pleading of it with God by the sinner that is praying for pardon are but the Conditions or Causae sine quo But all these will be fuller opened afterwards THESIS XXXVII IVstification is either 1. in Title and the Sence of the Law 2. Or in Sentence of Iudgment The first may be called Constitutive The second Declarative The first Virtuall the second Actuall EXPLICATION I Will not stand to mention all those other Distinctions of Justification which are common in others not so necessary or pertinent to my purposed scope You may finde them in Mr Bradshaw Mr Iohn Goodwin and Alstedius Distinctions and Definitions c. The difference between Justification in Title of Law and in Sentence of Judgment is apparent at the first view Therefore I need not explain it It is common when a man hath a good cause and the Law on his side to say The Law justifieth him or he is just in Law or he is acquit by the Law and yet he is more fully and compleatly acquit by the sentence of the Judge afterward In the former sence we are now justified by faith as soon as ever we beleeve In the latter sence we are justified at the last Judgment The title of Declarative is too narrow for this last For the sentence of judiciall absolution doth more then barely to declare us justified I call the former virtuall not as it is in it felf considered but as it standeth in relation to the latter All those Scriptures which speak of Justification as done in this life I understand of Justification in Title opf Law So Rom. 5. 1. Being justified by faith we have peace with God Rom. 4. 2. Rom. 5. 9. Being now justified by his blood c. Iames 2. 21 25. c. But Justification in Judgment as it is the compleating Act so is it most fitly called Justification and I think the word in Scripture hath most commonly reference to the Judgment day and that Justification in Title is called Justification most especially because of its relation to the Justification at Judgment because as men are now in point of Law so shall they most certainly be sentenced in Judgment Therefore is it spoken of many times as a future thing and not yet done Rom. 3. 30 Mat. 12. 37. Rom. 2. 13. But these may be called Justification by Faith for by Faith we are justified both in Law Title and at Judgment THESIS XXXVIII IVstification in Title of Law is a gracious Act of God by the Promise or Grant of the new Covevant acquitting the Offender from the Accusasation and Condemnation of the old Covenant upon consideration of the Satisfaction made by Christ and accepted by the sinner EXPLICATION HEre you may see 1. That pardon of sin and this Iustification in Law are not punctually and precisely alone 2. And yet the difference
is very small The chief difference lyeth in this That the Terminus a quo of Remission is the obligation to punishment but the Terminus of Iustification or the evil that it formally and directly doth free us from is the Laws Accusation and Condemnation Now though the difference between these two be very narrow and rather respective then reall yet a plain difference there is For though it be one and the same Commination of the Law by which men are both obliged to punishment accused as guilty and condemned for that guilt yet these are not all one though it is also true that they all stand or fall together That pardon is most properly the removing of the Obligation and that Iustification is the removing of Accusation and Condemnation in the Law will be evident to those that have read what Divines have written at large concerning the signification of the words especially such that have skill in Law which is a great advantage in this doctrine of Iustification Therefore as Mr. Wotten and Mr. Goodwin do a little mistake in making pardon of sin to be the formall cause of Iustification though they are far neerer the mark then their opposers So Mr. Bradshaw doth a little too much straiten the form of it making it to lye only in Apology or Plea It consisteth in both the Acts 1. Apology in oppositioÌ„ to AccusatioÌ„ thus Christ our Advocate doth principally justifie us 2. In Sentence virtuall or actuall so it is opposed both to Accusation and Condemnation so Christ the Mediator as Iudge and the Father as one with him and as the supream Iudge doth justifie But this latter is the chief Act. The rest of the Definition is sufficiently opened under the foregoing Definition of Pardon and will be more after THESIS XXXIX IVstification in Sentence of Iudgement is a gracious Act of God by Christ according to the Gospel by Sentence at his publique Bar acquitting the sinner from the Accusation and Condemnation of the Law pleaded against him by Satan upon the consideration of the Satisfaction made by Christ accepted by the sinner and pleaded for him EXPLICATION THere is also a two-fold Pardon as well as a two-fold Iustification One in Law the other in Sentence of Iudgement So. Acts 3. 19. Repent that your sins may be blotted out when the time of refreshing comes c. But pardon of sin is usually mentioned in respect to this life present as being bestowed here because a man may more fitly be said to be fully quit from the Obligation of the punishment commonly called the guilt in this life then from the Accusation of that guilt which will be managed against him by Satan hereafter or from the Condemnation which he must then most especially be delivered from The difference betwixt this Iustification and the former may easily be discerned by the Definition without any further Explication THESIS XL. WHen Scripture speaketh of Iustification by Faith it is to be understood primarily and directly of Iustification in Law title and at the bar of Gods publique Iudgment and but secondarily and consequentially of Iustification at the bar of Gods secret judgment or at the bar of Conscience or of the World EXPLICATION 1. THat Justification by Faith is in foro-Dei and not in foro conscientiae primarily see Dr. Downam's Appendix to Covenant of Grace against Mr Pemble Conscience is but an inferiour petty improper Judge The work must be transacted chiefly at a higher Tribunall View all the Scriptures that mention Justification by Faith and you shall finde by the Text and Context that they relate to the bar of God but not one directly to the bar of Conscience It is one thing to be justified and another thing to have it manifested to our Consciences that we are so 2. That it is not directly at the bar of the World all will acknowledge 3. That it is not directly at the bar of Gods secret Judgment in his own brest may appear thus 1. That is not a bar at which God dealeth with sinners for Justification or Condemnation in any known or visible way No Scripture intimateth it 2. We could not then judge of our Justification 3. They are immanent Acts but Justification is a transient Act Therefore Dr Downame in the place before mentioned hath proved against Mr Pemble that Justification is not from Eternity And as I judge by his following Tract of Justification Mr Pemble himself came afterwards to a sounder Judgment in the nature of Justification 4. God dealeth with man in an open way of Law and upon Covenant terms and so will try him at a publique Judgment according to the Tenor of his Covenants There secrets of his brest are too high for us By the word will he judge us That must justifie or condemn us Therefore when you hear talk of the Bar of God you must not understand it of the immanent Acts of Gods Knewledg or Will but of his Bar of publique Judgment and in the sence of the Word Some think that Justification by Faith is properly and directly none of all these yet but that it is a publique Act of God in heaven before his Angels I think this opinion better then any of the three former which would have it at the Bar of Gods secret Judgment or of Conscience or of the World and I know no very ill consequence that followeth it But that God doth condemn or justifie at any such Bar. I find no Scripture fully to satisfie or perswade me Those places Rom. 2. 13. Heb. 9. 24. Luke 12 8 9. 15. 10. which are alledged to that purpose seem not to conclude any â—â—ch thing as that to be the Bar where Faith doth most properly justifie Yet I acknowledge that in a more remote sence we may be said to be justified by Faith at all the four other Bars viz. Gods Immanent Judgment and before the Angels and before Conscience and the World For God and Angels do judge according to Truth and take those to be just who are so in Law and in deed and so do our Consciences and Men when they judge rightly and when they do not we cannot well be said to be justified at their Bar. Therefore I think they mistake who would have Works rather then Faith to justifie us at the Bar of the World as I shall shew afterward when I come to open the conditions of Justification THESIS XLI THat saying of our Divines That Iustification is perfected at first and admits of no degrees must be understood thus That each of those Acts which we call Iustification are in their own kind perfect at once and that our Righteousness is perfect and admits not of degrees But yet as the former Acts called Iustification do not fully and in all respects procure our freedom so they may be said to be imperfect and but degrees toward our full and perfect Iustification at the last Iudgment THESIS XLII THere are many such steps toward our finall and
so as Idolatry is that violation of the law of Nature which doth eminentér containe all the rest in it So is Unbeliefe in respect of the Law of Grace And as the formall Nature of Idolatry lyeth in disclayming God from being God or form being our God or from being our alone God Even so the formall nature of Unbeliefe lyeth in disclaiming Christ either from being a Redeemer and Lord or from being Our Redeemer and Lord or from being Our onely Redeemer and Lord. This being well considered will direct you truly and punctually where to find the very formall being and nature of Faith Not in beleeving the pardon of sin or the favour of God or our salvation nor in Affiance or recumbency though that be a most immediate product of it Nor in Assurance as Divines were wont to teach 80. yeares agoe Nor in Obedience or following of Christ as a guide to Heaven or as a Captaine or meere Patterne and Law-giver as the wretched Socinians teach But in the three Acts above mentioned 1. Taking Christ for a Redeemer and Lord which is by Assent 2. Taking him for our Redeemer Saviour and Lord which is by consent 3. Taking him for our onely Redeemer Saviour and Lord which is the Morall sincerity of the former And the essentiall differencing property of it Not whereby Faith is differenced from Love or joy c. But whereby that faith in Christ which is the Gospell condition is differenced from all other Faith in Christ. So that as Corpus Anima Rationale doe speake the whole essence of man Even so this Assent Consent and Preference of Christ before all others do speak the whole Essence of Faith For the common opinion that justifying Faith as justifying doth consist in any one single Act is a wretched mistake as I shall shew you further anon THESIS LXV SCripture doth not take the word Faith as strictly as a Philosopher would doe for any one single Act of the soul nor yet for various Acts of one onely Faculty But for a compleat entire Motion of the whole Soul to Christ its Object THESIS LXVI NEither is Christ in respect of any one part or work of his Office alone the Object of Iustifying Faith as such But Christ in his entire office considered in this Object viz. as he is Redeemer Lord and Saviour THESIS LXVII MVch lesse are any Promises or benefits of Christ the proper Object of justifying Faith as many Divines do mistakingly conceive THESIS LXVIII NOr is Christs person considered as such or for it self the object of this Faith But the person of Christ as cloathed with his Office and Authority is this Object EXPLICATION I Put all these together as ayming at one scope I shall now explain them distinctly To the 65. First that Faith is not taken for any one single Act I prove thus 1. If it were but one single Act I mean specifically not numerically then it could not according to the common opinion of Philosophers be the Act of the whole Soul But Faith must be the Act of the whole Soul or else part of the Soul would receive Christ and part would not and part of it would entertain him and part not Some think the soul is as the body which hath a hand to receive things in the name and for the use of the whole But it is not so Christ is not onely taken into the hand But as the blood and spirits which are received into every living part Though I intend not the comparison should reach to the manner of receiving Neither is the soul so divisible into parts as the body is and therefore hath not severall parts for severall offices 2. The most of our accurate studious Divines of late doe take Faith to be seated in both faculties Understanding and Will But if so according to the common Philosophie it cannot be any one single Act. Neither Secondly is it in various Acts of one single faculty For 1. It will in my judgement never be proved that the soul hath faculties which are really distinct from it self or from each other These Faculties are but the soul it self able to doe thus and thus from its naturall being Vide Scaliger Exercit. 107. Sect. 3. Understanding and Willing are its immediate Acts And perhaps those very Acts are more diversified or distinct in their objects then in themselves The souls apprehension of an objects as true we call Understanding in regard of its Metaphysicall Truth it is a simple apprehension as we receive this Truth upon the word of another it is Assent and Beliefe as this Object is considered as Good our motion toward it is called Willing if absent Desiring Hoping if present Complacency Joying when we Will a thing as Good any thing strongly and apprehend its Goodnesse any thing cleerely this we call Love c. But whether all these be really distinct kinds of Acts of the Soul is very doubtfull Much more whether they proceed from distinct Faculties As I am not of my Lord Brook's minde concerning the Unity of all things So neither would I unnecessarily admit of any division especially in so spirituall and perfect a piece as the Sould knowing how much of Perfection lyeth in Unity and remembring the Pythagorean curse of the Number Two because it was the first that durst depart from Unity frustra fit per plura c. 2. But if it were proved that the Souls Faculties are really distinct yet both these Faculties are capable of receiving Christ and Christ is an Object suited to both and then what doubt is it whether Faith be in both 1. For the Will no man will question it that it is capable of receiving Christ and Christ a suitable Object for it 2. And for the Understanding it doth as much incline to Truth as the Will to Goodness and as truely receive its Object under the notion of True as the Will doth receive its Object as Good If you would see it proved fully That Assent is an Essentiall part of justifying Faith read Dr. Downame of Iustification on that Subject and his Appendix to the Covenant of Grace in Answer to Mr. Pemble Where though his Argument will not reach their intended scope to prove that Assent is the onely proper Act of justifying Faith yet they do conclude that it is a reall part And he well confuteth his opposer though he do not well confirm that his own opinion 3. Consider further that Christ doth not treat of Faith in sensu Physico sed morali Politico not as a Naturall Philosopher but as a Law-giver to his Church Now in Politicks we doe not take the names of Actions in so narrow and strict a sense as in Physicks and Logicke If a Town doe agree to take or receive such a man for their Mayor or a Kingdome take or receive such a one as their King The words Take or Receive here doe not note any one single Act of soul or body alone but a
unbelief and not receiving Christ all one Ioh. 1. 11. and beleeving and receiving Christ all one Ioh. 1. 12. So it proclaims this as the great work of the Gospell to Take Eat Drink c. 2. The Gospell is the offer of Christ and his benefits to them that first accept himself Therefore Faith must be the accepting of the thing offered Both these are plain in Rev. 22. 17. Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely There is the free offer upon condition of coming and taking or accepting 3. The will is the commanding faculty of the soul therefore its act is the principall act and that is accepting 4. Christ is presented to us in the Gospell as a Suitor beseeching us by his Spirit and Embassadors and wooing us to himself and the enjoying of him which this driveth at is called our Marriage to him and we his Spouse and he our Husband Now you know that which tyeth the knot of Marriage is Acceptance or Consent 5. Yea the very nature of a Covenant requireth this Consent maketh it a compleat Covenant Therefore I said before pag. 219. That Acceptance Consent Heart-Covenanting and Self-resigning are the proper essentiall Acts of this Faith For all these are the Wills acts to this their object which are of flat necessity to the very tying of the Covenant or Marriage knot Rom. 10. 10. With the heart man beleeveth unto Righteousnesse And here let me minde you of one usefull observation more The Covenanting on our part is a principall part of the Conditions of the Covenant Though this may seem strange that a Covenanting and performing Conditions should be all most all one But that is the free nature of the Grace of the Covenant As if you marry a poor woman that hath nothing you will give her your self and all you have meerly upon Condition that she will Consent to have you And that Consent is all the Condition on her part for obtaining present possession I say Acceptance Consent Covenanting Self-resigning which are in a manner all one thing But because the end of the marriage is the faithfull performance of Marriage duties though meer Consent were the onely Condition of the first possession and the continuance of her Consent is the chief Condition of continuing her possession yet the performance of those Marriage duties and not going into others is part of the Condition also of that continuance So it is in the present case of Justification 5. Let me here also tell you that I take love to Christ as our Saviour and Lord to be essentiall to this Acceptance and so some degree of Love to be part of Justifying Faith and not properly a fruit of it as it is commonly taken My reasons are 1. The Wills serious apprehension of a thing Good which we call at earnest Willing it and Accepting it is in my judgement the same thing as Love in an other name Love is nothing but such an earnest Willing choosing and Accepting it as it is Good It is generally acknowledged that the Affections are but the Motions or Acts of the Will And if Love be an Act of the same Will and have the same Object with Consent Election Acceptance c. Why should it not then be the same Act Onely Acceptance considereth its Object as offered Election considereth it as propounded with some other competitor Consent considereth it as we are perswaded and invited to it But all these are extrinsecall considerations They all consider their Object as Good and so doth Love You may object 1. Then Desire and Hope may be essentiall to Faith I Answ. That Love which they imply in them is but Desire and Hope as such do properly consider their object as absent which this Justifiing Faith doth not 2. Object Scripture oft distinguisheth Faith and Love Answ. 1. Sometime Faith is taken for Historicall faith or Faith of Miracles and then it may be distinguised 2. Sometime true Faith is taken in the strictest sence and sometime larglier as I shall shew anon 3. But especially so do I distinguish of Love as it is considered by it self and as it is an essentiall part of this Acceptance Love respecteth its Object meerly as Good in it self and to the Lover But Consent and Acceptance have severall other respects as is expressed And yet there may be Love in all such Acceptance though not properly Acceptance in all Love Object 3. Then Love Justifieth as well as Faith I Answ. When it is thus considered in Faiths Acceptance it is not called by the name of Love but loseth its name as a lesser River that falleth into a greater therefore it is not said that Love Justifieth but Faith that worketh even in its essentiall work of Accepting by Love Object But Love is the greater Grace and shall out-live Faith and Faith should rather then be swallowed up in Love Answ. Love considering its object onely as Good shall continue for ever because the Goodness of its object shall so continue But Acceptance Consent c. have other additionall considerations in their Objects which will vanish But which is the chiefest Grace in it self is not the question but which is the chiefest in the present work Now seeing Consent Acceptance c. are the chief as to Justification that Love which is essentially in them may well lose its name here seeing in the businesse of Justifying it is considered but as an essentiall part of the main duty My next-Reason is because Christ doth propound it in the Gospel as of the same necessity with the same promises annexed to it Io. 16. 27. For the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and beleeved c. Joh. 14. 21. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and shew my self to him Jam. 1. 12. 2. 5. The Crown and Kingdom is prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 16. 22. If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha Ephes. 6. 24. In a word Faith is a comprehensive duty containing divers Acts whereof this seemeth to me to be part Neither can I yet conceive how there can be a cordiall Acceptance of Christ as our only Saviour and Love not to be an essentiall part of that Acceptance but if a finer wit can apprehend the difference better yet as I said Faith being considered here in Morall and Politick respects and not in its strict naturall quiddity may essentially be an Affectionate Acceptance for all that If any think fitter to make a wider difference between the nature of Faith and Love to Christ I will not contend for the matter is not great that both are necessary to Justification is doubtless and that they are concurrent in apprehending Châ—â—â— And that Love is a part of the Condition of the Covenant is also undoubted and therefore will have some hand in the business of Justification as I shall further clear 6. I put in the word
c. are implyed in the Covenant expressed as the necessary for future therefore if there be no conjugall actions affections or fidelity follow the Covenant is not performed nor shall the woman enjoy the benefits expected It is so here especially seeing Christ may dis-estate the violaters of his Covenant at pleasure This sheweth us how to answer the Objections of some 1. Say they Abrahams Faith was perfect long before Answ. Not as it is a fulfilling of the Covenants Condition which also requireth its acting by Obedience 2. Abraham say they was justified long before Isaac was offered therefore that could be but a manifesting of it Answ. Justification is a continued Act. God is still justifying and the Gospell still justifying Abrahams Justification was not ended before 3. Mr Pemble thinks that as a man cannot be said to live by Reason though he may be said to live by a reasonable soul and as a plant liveth not per augmentationem si per animam auctricem So we may be said to be justified by a working Faith but not by Works I Answ. Both Speeches are proper And his simile doth not square or suit with the Case in hand For Justifying is an extrinsecall consequent or product of Faith and no proper effect at all Much lesse an effect flowing from its own formall essence as the life of a man doth from a Reasonable soul and the life of a Plant from a Vegetative I hope it may be said properly enough that a Servant doth his work and pleaseth his Master by Reason as well as by a reasonable soul And a Plant doth please the Gardiner by augmentation as well as per animam austricem So that a man pleaseth God and is Justified by sincere Obedience as well as by a working Faith 3. How this differeth from the Papists Doctrine I need not tell any Scholar who hath read their writings 1. They take Justifying for Sanctifying so do not I. 2. They quite overthrow and deny the most reall difference betwixt the Old Covenant and the New and make them in a manner all one But I build this Exposition and Doctrine chiefly upon the clear differencing and opening of the Covenants 3. When they say We are Justified by VVorks of the Gospell they mean only that we are sanctified by Works that follow Faith and are bestowed by Grace they meriting our inherent justice at Gods hands In a word there is scarce any one Doctrins wherein even their most learned Schoolmen are more sottishly ignorant then in this of Justification so that when you have read them with profit and delight on some other subjects when they come to this you would pitty them and admire their ignorance They take our Works to be part of our Legall Righteousness I take them not to be the smallest portion of it But onely a part of our Evangelicall Righteousness or of the Condition upon which Christs Righteousness shall be ours 5. But what difference is there betwixt it and the Socinian Doctrin of Justification Answ. In some mens mouths Socinianisme is but a word of reproach or a stone to throw at the head of any man that saith not as they Mr. Wotton is a Socinian and Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Gataker and Mr. Goodwin and why not Piscator Pareus c. if some zealous Divines know what Socinianisme is But I had rather study what is Scripture-truth then what is Socinianisme I do not think that Faustus was so Infaustus as to hold nothing true That which he held according to Scripture is not Socinianisme For my part I have read little of their writings but that little gave me enough and made me cast them away with abhorrence In a word The Socinians acknowledge not that Christ had satisfied the Law for us and consequently is none of our Legall Righteousness but onely hath set us a copy to write after and is become our pattern and that we are Justified by following him as a Captain and guide to heaven And so all our proper Righteousness is in this obedience Most accursed Doctrine So farre am I from this that I say The Righteousness which we must plead against the Lawes accusations is not one grain of it in our Faith of Works but all out of us in Christs satisfaction Onely our Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience are the Conditions upon which we must partake of the former And yet such Conditions as Christ worketh in us freely by his Spirit 6. Lastly let us see whether St. Paul or any other Scripture do contract this And for my part I know not one word in the Bible that hath any strong appearance of Contradiction to it The usuall places quoted are these Rom. 3. 28. 4. 2. 3. 14. 15. 16. Gal. 2. 16. 3. 21. 22. Ephes. 2. 89. Phil. 3. 8. 9. In all which and all other the like places you shall easily perceive 1. That the Apostles dispute is upon the question What is the Righteousness which we must plead against the Accusation of the Law or by which we are justified as the proper Righteousness of that Law And this he well concludeth is neither Works nor Faith But the Righteousnesse which is by Faith that is Christs Righteousnesse But now St. Iames his question is What is the Condition of our Justification by this Righteousness of Christ Whether Faith onely or Works also 2. Paul doth either in expresse words or in the sence and scope of his speech exclude onely the works of the Law that is the fulfilling of the Conditions of the Law our selves But never the fulfilling of the Gospell-Conditions that we may have part in Christ. Indeed if a man should obey the Commands of the Gospell with a Legall intent that it might be a Righteousnesse conform to the Law of Works this Obedience is not Evangelicall but Legall obedience For the form giveth the name 3 Paul doth by the word Faith especially direct your thoughts to Christ beleeved in For to be justified by Christ and to be justified by receiving Christ is with him all one 4. And when he doth mention Faith as the Condition he alwayes implyeth obedience to Christ. Therefore Beleeving and obeying the Gospell are put for the two Summaries of the whole Conditions The next will clear this THESIS LXXVII THat we are justified by sincere obedience to Christ as the secondary part of the Condition of our Iustification is evident also from these following Scriptures Mat. 12. 37. Mar. 11. 25. 26. Luk. 6. 37. Mat. 6. 12. 14. 15. 1 Joh. 1. 9. Act. 8. 22. Act. 3. 19. 22. 16. 1 Pet. 4. 18. Rom. 6. 16. 1 Pet. 1. 2. 22. THESIS LXXVIII OVr full Iustification and our everlasting Salvation have the same Conditions on our part But sincere Obedtence is without all doubt a Condition of our Salvation therefore also of our Iustification EXPLICATION THe Antecedent is manifest in that Scripture maketh Faith a Condition of both Iustification and Salvation and so it doth
them off which made their unbelief not to be finall and damning Many a man that lived not half so long in rebellion did yet prove a finall condemned rebell so that they did deserve that God in the time of their infidelity should have cut off their lives and so have let their infidelity be their destruction But supposing that God would not so cut them off and so their unbelief should not be finall which is the case and so they are condemned or threatened by none but the first Law or Covenant which Christ did satisfie But as for the second Law or Covenant it condemneth them not so that Christ need not bear the condemnation of that Covenant for them for He doth not fetch any man from under the condemning sentence of it but only in rich mercy to his chosen He doth prevent their running into that condemnation partly by bearing with them in patience and continuing their lives for into the hands of the purchaser are they wholly committed and partly by prevailing with them to come in to him by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit so that considering them as unbelievers who were to be converted and so they were neither the proper subjects of the Promise of the new Covenant nor of the threatening and condemnation of it Promise they had none but conditionall such as they had not received and so were never the better for and so they were without the covenant and without hope and without God and strangers to all the priviledges of the Saints But yet not those to whom the Law or Covenant saith You shall surely dye except they had been such as should never have believed And for that wrath Eph. 2. 3. which they were children of by nature it must needs be only the wrath or curse of the first violated Covenant and not the wrath or curse of the second for no man is by nature a child of that But I perceive you think it a strange saying That a man by the greatest grossest actuall sin may not be said to violate this Covenant so as to incur its curse but only for finall unbelief Do not the godly sometimes break Covenant with Christ Answ. I have two things to say to the helping of your right understanding in this viz. a two-fold distinction to minde you of which you seem to forget 1. Either the gross sins which you speak of are such as may stand with sincerity of heart or such as cannot If they be sins of really godly men then certainly they violate not the Covenant so as to make them the subjects of its curse For the Covenant saith not He that sinneth shall be damned nor he that committeth this or that great sin shall be damned But he that beleeveth not shall be damned Object But is not this Antinomianism which you so detest Is it not said that no whoremonger or unclean person or covetous person c. shall enter into the Kingdom of Christ or of God Rev. 21. 8. 22. 15. and Eph. 5. 5. that for these things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Answ. I pray you remember that I have already proved that Faith is the consenting to Christs Dominion and Government over us or the accepting of him for our Lord that we may obey him as well as for our Saviour that we may have affiance in him And consequently Unbelief in this large sence in which the Gospell useth it in opposition to that faith which is the condition of the Covenant containeth in it all Rebellion against Christs Government I could prove this to you out of many plain Scriptures but the plainness of it may spare me that labour Even in the Text objected the word translated Children of disobedience doth signifie both Vnbelief and Disobedience or obstinate unperswadeable men that will not be perswaded to beleeve and obey 2 Thess. 1. 8. Christ shall come in flaming fire to render vengeance to them that obey not his Gospell Certainly those are unbeleevers Or if you will have it plainly in Christs own words what is the damning sin opposed to Faith see it in Luk. 19. 27. But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring them hither slay them before me It is not then for every act of those fore-mentioned sins that the everlasting wrath of God doth come upon men for then what should become of David Noah Lot Mary Magdalen and all of us But it is for such sins as do prove and proceed from a considerate willfull refusall of Christs Government or an unwillingness that he should reign over us and that not every degree of unwillingness but a prevailing degree from whence a man may be said to be one that would not have Christ reign c. Because this is real unbelief it self as opposite to that Faith which is the condition of Life which is the receiving of Christ for Lord as well as Saviour Yet it is true that temporall judgements may befall us for particular sins as also that each particular sin doth deserve the eternall wrath which the first Covenant doth denounce but not in a Law-sence that which is denounced in the second Covenant Every great fault which a subject committeth against his Prince is not capitall or high Treason Every fault or disobedient act of a Wife against her Husband doth not break the Marriage Covenant nor loose the bond but only the sin of Adultery which is the taking of another to the marriage bed or the choosing of another husband and actuall forsaking the Husband or renouncing him And you need not to fear lest this doctrine be guilty of Antinomianism For their Error which many of their adversaries also are guilty of lieth here That not understanding that receiving Christ as Lord is an essentiall act of justifying Faith nor that the refusall of his Government is an essentiall part of damning unbelief they do thereupon acknowledge no condition of Life but bare Belief in the narrowest sence that is either Belief of Pardon and Justification and Reconciliation or Affiance in Christ for it so also they acknowledge no proper damning sin but unbelief in that strict sence as is opposite to this faith that is the not beleeving in Christ as a Saviour And upon the common grounds who can choose but say as they that neither drunkennesse nor murther nor any sin but that unbelief doth damn men except he will say that every sin doth and so set up the Covenant of Works and deny his very Christianity by making Christ to dye in vain so great are the inconveniences that follow the ignorance of this one point That justifying faith is the accepting of Christ for Lord and Saviour and that sincere obedience to him that bought us is part of the Condition of the new Covenant I have been sorry to hear some able Divines in their confessions of sin acknowledging their frequent violation of this Covenant yea that in every sinfull
believed but matter of internall sense or to be known by the reflex act of the understanding 3. Also God should else set his seal to my part or condition of the Covenant as well as his own and seal to the truth of my word as well as to the truth of his own for a justifying and saving us is Gods condition which he undertaketh to perform so believing or accepting Christ is our condition which we there professe to perform So that it is doubtlesse that a Sacrament as it is Gods engaging sign or seal doth not seal to the truth of my faith or sincerity of my heart in Covenanting It were a most grosse conceit to imagine this But withall you must understand that as there is in the Sacrament reciprocall actions Gods giving and our receiving so is the Sacrament accordingly a mutuall engaging sign or seal As it is given it is Gods seal so that as in this full Covenant there is a mutuall engaging so there is a mutuall sealing God saith to us here is my Sonne who hath bought thee take him for thy Lord and Saviour and I will be thy reconciled God and pardon and glorify thee And to this he sets his seal The sinner saith I am willing Lord I here take Christ for my King and Saviour and Husband and deliver up my self accordingly to him And hereto by receiving the offered elements he setteth his engaging sign or seal so that the Sacrament is the seal of the whole Covenant But yet you must remember that in the present controversie we meddle not with it as it is mans seal but onely as it is Gods So then it is clear that as it is Gods seal it sealeth the major proposition and as it is ours to the minor But yet here you must further distinguish betwixt sealing up the promise as true in it self and sealing it with application as true to me And it is the latter that the Sacrament doth the delivery being Gods act of application the receiving ours so that the Proposition which God sealeth to runs thus If thou believe I do pardon thee and will save thee 3. But the great Question is Whether the Sacrament do seal to the conclusion also That I am justified and shall be saved To which I answer No directly and properly it doth not and that is evident from the arguments before laid down whereby I proved that the Sacraments seal not to the minor For 1. this conclusion is now here written in Scripture 2. And therefore is not properly the object of Faith whereas the seals are for confirmation of Faith 3. Otherwise every man rightly receiving the seals must needs be certainly justified saved 4. And no Minister can groundedly administer the Sacraments to any man but himself because he can be certain of no mans justification and salvation being not certain of the sincerity of their Faith And if he should adventure to administer it upon probabilities and charitable conjectures then should he be guilty of prophaning the ordinance and every time he mistaketh he should set the seale of God to a lye And who then durst ever administer a Sacrament being never certaine but that he shall thus abuse it I confesse ingenuously to you that it was the ignorance of this one point which chiefly caused mee to abstaine from administring the Lords Supper so many yeeres I did not understand that it was neither the minor nor conclusion but only the major proposition of the foresaid Argument which God thus sealeth And I am sorry to see what advantage many of our most learned Divines have given the Papists here As one errour drawes on many and leadeth a man into a labyrinth of absurdities so our Divines being first mistaken in the nature of justifying faith thinking that it consisteth in A Beliefe of the pardon of my owne sinnes which is this conclusion have therefore thought that this is it which the Sacrament sealeth And when the Papists alledge that it is no where written that such or such a man is justified we answer them that it being written That he that beleeveth is justified this is equivalent A grosse mistake As if the major proposition alone were equivalent to the conclusion or as if the conclusion must or can be meerly Credenda a proper object of Faith when but one of the promises is matter of faith the other of sence or knowledge The truth is the major He that believeth shall be saved is received by Faith The minor that I do sincerely believe is known by inward sence and self-reflexion And the conclusion therefore I shall be saved is neither properly to be believed nor felt but known by reason deducing it from the two former so that faith sense and reason are all necessary to the producing our assurance So you see what it is that is sealed to 2. Now let us consider how it sealeth Whether absolutely or conditionally And I answer It sealeth absolutely For the promise of God which it sealeth is not conditionally but absolutely true So that the summe of all I have said is this which answereth the severall questions 1. The Sacrament sealeth not the absolute Covenant or Promise but the conditionall Believe and live 2. It sealeth not the truth of my Covenant as it is Gods seal or it sealeth not to the truth of my faith 3. It sealeth not to the certainty of my justification and salvation 4. But it sealeth to Gods part of the conditionall Covenant 5. And sealeth this conditionall promise not conditionally but absolutely as of undoubted truth 6. And not only as true in it self but true with application to me So that by this time you may discern what is their meaning who say that the Sacraments do seal but conditionally that is as it sealeth to the truth of the major which is the promise so thereby it may be said to seal conditionally to the conclusion for the conclusion is as it were therein contained upon condition or supposition of the minor proposition He that saith All Believers shall be saved saith as much as that I shall be saved it being supposed that I am a Believer And so you must understand our Divines in this Yet this speech is lesse proper For to speak properly it doth not seal to the conclusion at all yet it is very usefull to help us in raising that conclusion and to be perswaded that we are justified because it so confirmeth our belief of that promise which is one of the grounds of the Conclusion For your inference in the last words of your objection then let all come that will If you mean All that will though they come to mock or abuse the ordinance then it will no way follow from the doctrine which I have now opened But if you mean Let all come that will seriously really or apparently enter or renew their Covenant with Christ. I think that to be no dangerous or absurd consequence If Christ when he offereth himself
and the thing signified do say Let him that is athirst come and whoever will let him take the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. Why may not I say so of the sign and seal to those that seriously professe their thirst Sure I shall speak but as Christ hath taught me and that according to the very scope of the Gospel and the nature of the Covenant of free grace And I wonder that those men who cry up the nature of free grace so much should yet so oppose this free offer of it and the sealing the free Covenant to them that lay claim to it upon Christs invitation To the tenth and eleventh Objections YOur 10. and 11. objections you raise upon my exceptions against the book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity And first you mention the Doctrine and then the Book 1. You think that Do this and live is the voice of the Law of works only and not of the Law or Covenant of Grace and that we may not make the obtaining of life salvation the end of duty but must obey in meer love and from thankfulnesse for the life we have received To all which I answer 1. By way of explication and 2. of probation of my assertions 1. Do this and live in severall senses is the language of both Law and Gospel 1. When the Law speaketh it the sense is this If thou perfectly keep the Laws that I have given thee or shall give thee so long thou shalt continue this life in the earthly Paradise which I have given thee But if once thou sinne thou shalt dye 2. When the Gospel speaketh it the sense is thus Though thou hast incurred the penalty of the Law by thy sinne yet Christ hath made satisfaction Do but accept him for Lord and Saviour and renouncing all other deliver up thy self unreservedly to him and love him above all and obey him sincerely both in doing and suffering and overcome persevere herein to the end and thou shalt be justified from all that the Law can accuse of and restored to the favour and blessings which thou hast lost and to a farre greater Thus the Gospel saith Do this and live That the Gospel commandeth all this I know you will not question and that this is doing you must needs acknowledge But all the question is whether we may do it that we may live I have fully explained to you in this Treatise already in what sense our doing is required and to what ends viz. not to be any part of a legall Righteousnesse nor any part of satisfaction for our unrighteousnesse but to be our Gospel righteousnesse or the condition of our participation in Christ who is our legall Righteousnesse and so of all the benefits that come with him In these severall respects and senses following the Gospel commandeth us to act for life 1. A wicked man or unbeliever may and must hear the Word pray enquire of others c. that so he may obtain the first life of grace and faith This I now prove Isa. 55. 3. 6 7. Ionas 3. 8 9. 10. Pro. 1. 23 24. 25. Amos 5. 4. Act. 2. 37. Isa. 1. 16. Mat. 11. 15. 13. 43. Luk. 16. 29. 31. Ioh. 5. 25. Act. 10. 1 2. 22. 23. Rom. 10. 13. 14 1 Tim. 4. 16. Heb. 3 7. Rev. 3 20. Yet do not I affirm that God never preventeth mens endeavours he is sometime found of them that sought him not Nor do I say that God hath promised the life of Grace to the endeavours of nature But their duty is to seek life and half promises and many encouragements God hath given them such as that in Joel 2. 12 13 14. who knoweth but God will c So Zeph. 2. 3. Exod. 32. 30. And that in Act. 8. 7. 2. Pray therefore if perhaps the thoughts of thy heart may be forgiven thee 2. That a man may act for the increase of this spirituall life when he hath it methinks you should not doubt if you do see 1 Pet. 2. 1 2. 1. 22. 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7 8. 3. 18. And the Parable of the Talents Mat. 25 26 27. 28. 30. 3. That we may and must act for the life of Reconciliation and Iustification and Adoption is beyond dispute How oft doth Scripture call on men to Repent to Believe to Pray to forgive others and to reform that their sinnes may be forgiven them I have quoted the Scriptures before when I opened the conditions of justification Isa. 1. 16 17 18. Isa. 55. 6 7. Act. 8. 22. Iam. 5. 15. And we are still said to be justified by faith which is an act of ours 4. That we may act for to obtain assurance both of our justification and sanctification is undeniable 2 Pet. 1. 10. 2 Cor. 13. 5. c 5. That we may act for eternall life and salvation methinks he that beareth the face of a Christian should not deny and that both for 1. Title to it 2. Assurance of our enjoying it 3. for possession it self I shall but quote the Scriptures for brevity sake desiring you to read them and save me the labour of transcribing them Rev. 22 14. Iohn 5. 39 40. Mat. 11. 12. and 7. 13. Luke 13. 24. Phil. 2. 17. Rom. 2. 7 10. 1 Cor. 9. 24. 2 Tim. 2. 5 12. 1 Tim. 6. 12 18 19. Phil. 3. 14 Mat. 25. 1 Cor. 15. last 2 Cor. 4. 17. and 5. 10 11. 2 Pet. 1. 10 11. Luke 11. 28. Heb. 4. 1. Luke 12. 5. 1 Cor. 9. 17. These last places shew that the escaping hell and damnation is a necessary end of our actings and duties as well as the obtaining of heaven If when you have read and weighed these Scriptures you be not convinced that we may act or do for life and salvation and so that Do this and live is in some sense the language of the Gospell I shall question whether you make the Scripture the Rule of your faith or be not rather one of them that can force upon themselves a faith of one or others making Object But it is not the most excellent and Gospel-like frame of spirit to do all out of meer love to God and from Thankfulnesse for life obtained by Christ and given us Answ. 1. If it come not from love to God it is not sincere 2. Yet doth not the Gospell any where set our love to God and to our own souls in opposition nor teach us to love God and not our selves but contrarily joineth them both together and commandeth us both The love of our selves and desire of our preservation would never have been planted so deeply in our natures by the God of nature if it had been unlawfull I conclude therefore that to love God and not our selves and so to do all without respect to our own good is no Gospell frame of spirit 2. Thankfulnesse for what we have received either in possession title or promise must be a singular spur to put us on
believe a lye to make it a truth Also doth not the Scripture bid us Repent believe and be baptized for the remission of sinnes but not first to believe the Remission of our sinnes I have proved already that justifying Faith is another matter and this which he calleth Faith is properly no Faith at all but the knowledge of a conclusion one of whose permises is afforded by Faith and the other by Sense If therefore the Preacher had said that he would not have men accept Christ and so believe for Remission before their lives be reformed then I should have subscribed to this mans censure of him 2. I desire him to tell me whether he can prove that any mans sinnes are pardoned before they have accepted Christ for their Lord that is before Faith If not 3. Whether this be not the subjection of the soul to Christ to be governed by him and so a heart-reformation 4. Whether the reformation of the life doth not immediately even the same moment follow the hearts reformation And if all this be so as I know it is then the ignorant Preachers doctrine must stand good that Reformation of life must go before the belief or knowledge of pardon though not before justifying Faith Many other intolerable errours I could shew you in that Book as his making the New Covenant to threaten nothing but present Afflictions and losse of our present communion with God page 208. and that we may pray for no other kind of pardon pag 206 210. contrary to Mar. 16. 16. Heb. 10 26 27 28 29 30 31. Heb. 2. 3. Ioh. 15. 2 6. and many other places so his affirming that we sinne not against the Covenant of works which I have confuted in the Aphorismes So his making the Law of Christ and the Law of Faith to be two Lawes or Covenants when that which he calleth the Law of Christ is but part of the matter of the New Covenant But this is not my businesse only because you urged me I have given you a grain of salt wherewith to season some passages in your reading that and such like Books And that passage in M. Shepheards Select cases page 96 102. that no unregenerate man is within the compasse of any conditionall promise had need of a grain too To the twelfth Objection WHat you object concerning my making a necessity of publick covenanting I wholly acknowledge And I heartily wish that instead of our large mixt Nationall Covenant and instead of the Independants Politicall Church-making Covenant we had the Gospel or New Covenant conditions formally in publick rendered to all the people of this Land that the same being opened to them they might knowingly and seriously professe their consent if they subscribed their names it would be more solemnly engaging and this before they receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper This 1. would take off most Arguments which are brought for a necessity of Re-baptizing 2. And would tend much to engage men to their obedience to Christ when they have so solemnly promised it under their hands 3. And I think that as an unfeigned heart covenanting with Christ is true faith and of the Essence of our Christianity so is this publike covenanting of our visible Christianity Though other mens promises on our behalfe may be of use to infants yet when we come to age we are bound of absolute necessity to a personall Faith and covenanting This also would answer the ends of the ancient custom of Confirmation And to this end is it that the Church hath still used to rehearse the Greed or Articles of Faith and to require the people to stand up to signifie their Assent and Consent which for my part I think not onely a laudable custome but for the substance of it a matter of necessity so we do but carefully keep away that Customarinesse ceremoniousnesse and formality which spoileth the most necessary and weighty duties I could wish therefore that this practice were established by Authority And for my self I do administer the Sacrament to none that do not solemnly professe their assent to every fundamentall Article of Faith expresly mentioned to them and their consent that Christ shall be their Lord and Saviour and that they will faithfully and sincerely obey his Scripture Lawes To the thirteenth and fourteenth Objections YOur 13. and 14. Objections which charge me not with errour but only with singularity I will answer together And I am the lesse carefull to answer you in this matter because I resolve to stand or fall to the Judgement of Scripture only And to tell you the truth while I busily read what other men say in these controversies my mind was so prepossessed with their notions that I could not possibly see the truth in its own nature and naked evidence and when I entered into publick disputations concerning it though I was truely willing to know the truth yet my mind was so forestalled with borrowed notions that I chiefly studied how to make good the opinions which I had received and ran further still from the truth yea when I read the truth in Doctor Preston and other means writings I did not consider and understand it and when I heard it from them whom I opposed in wrangling disputations or read it in books of controversie I discerned it least of all but only was sharpened the more against it till at last being in my sicknesse cast far from home where I had no book but my Bible I set to study the truth from thence and from the nature of the things and naked evidence and so by the blessing of God discovered more in one week then I had done before in seventeen yeares reading hearing and wrangling Not that I therefore repent of reading other mens writings for without that I had not been capable of those latter studies So that as I fetched not this doctrine from man So you must bear with me if I give you the lesse of man to attest it Yet that you may see I am not singular as you conceive I will shew you the concurrent judgements of one or two Mr. Wallis a man of singular worth I am confident by his own writing though I know him not in his answer to the Lord Brook pag. 94. saith That Faith is an accepting of Christ offered rather then a believing of a Proposition affirmed But because I will not fill my pages with other mens words I will alledge but one more and that one who is beyond all exception for piety Orthodoxnesse and Learning even Dr. Preston 1. That Faith containeth severall acts 2. That it is both in the understanding and will 3. That the principal act is accepting or consent 4. That it is the accepting of Christ for Lord as well as Saviour 5. That the object is Christ himself and not his benefits but in a remote sence and secondarily 6. That Faith consisteth in Covenanting or Marriage contract All these he is so plain and full in that
I find him speaking my own thoughts in my own words and begun to think when I read him that men would think I borrowed all from Dr. Preston Read him in his Treatise of Faith pag. 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 89 97. Also Of Effectull Faith pag. 40 41. 87 And Treatise of Faith pag. 14 15 16 20 21. 56 57 58. 7. But especially the chief point that I stand upon am like to be opposed most in he handleth so fully and asserteth so frequently as if it were the choicest notion which he desired to divulge viz. That justifying faith as such is a taking of Christ for Lord as well as for Saviour Of so many places I will transcribe two or three And first his definition of the active part of faith is the very same with mine Of Faith pag. 44. It is to Believe not onely that Christ is offered to us but also to take and receive him as a Lord and Saviour that is both to be saved by him and to obey him Mark it saith he I put them together to take him as a Lord and Saviour for you shall finde that in the ordinary phrase of Scripture they are put together Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour therefore we must take heed of disjoyning those that God hath joyned together We must take Christ as well for a Lord as a Saviour let a man do this and he may be assured that his faith is a justifying faith therefore mark it diligently if a man will take Christ for a Saviour onely that will not serve the turn Christ giveth not himself to any upon that condition only to save him but we must take him as a Lord too to be subject to him and obey him and to square our actions according to his will c. pag. 45. So of Effectuall Faith pag. 92. Now faith is nothing but this We come and tell you that Christ is offered if you will be content to let all these things go and to turn your hearts to him then the whole bent of a mans mind is turned the contrary way and set upon Christ this is such Faith indeed c. Now iâ— we were not mistaken in it there would be no question of this We think that faith is nothing but a perswasion that our sins are forgiven a perswasion that the promises are true and the Scripture true a perswasion that Christ died for my sins And thence it is that men are apt to be deceived in it If they took Faith as it is in its self a Marriage of our selves to Christ with all our heart and affections when he hath given himself to us as in Marriage and we are given to him in doing this we should never be deceived So in his Treatise of the New Covenant pag. 458. you must know that the Covenant is then dissolved when that is dissolved that did make the Covenant Lock what it is that puts a man into the Covenant of Grace at the first when that is taken away then the Covenant is disannulled between God and us but till then the Covenant remaines sure Now what is it that makes the Covenant Mark it This is that which makes the Covenant when Jesus Christ offereth himself to us and makes known his consent c. when we again come and take him and give our consent to make him our Lord and we subject our selves to him to be his when we say to the promised seed He shall be my God and my Governour and I will be among his people and be subject to him I say when the heart gives a full consent to this c. now the Covenant and contract is made between them Now as long as this union continues between Christ and us the Covenant is not disannulled So that in a word the Covenant is never nullified till thou hast chosen to thy self another husband till thou hast taken to thy self another Lord c. pag. 459. So that here you see 8ly that every infirmity breaks not the Covenant See also Treatise of Love pag. 147. 9 That there is a Gospel curse following the breach of the Gospel Law and that it is unrepealable and more terrible then that of the Law pag. 19 20. 10 What near conjunction love hath with Faith in justifying See Treatise of Effectuall Faith 41 42. 11 That the promise and offer of Christ is generall see Treatise of Faith pag. 9 10. I will transcribe but one more Treatise of the New Covenant pag. 317 318. You must know there is a two-fold Covenant one of works another of grace c The Covenant of grace runs in these termes Thou shalt believe thou shalt take my Sonne for thy Lord and thy Saviour and thou shalt likewise receive the gift of Righteousnesse which was was wrought by him for an absolution for thy sinnes for a reconciliation with me and thereupon thou shalt grow up in love obedience towards me Then I will be thy God and thou shalt be my people This is the Covenant of grace c. In this you see also 12ly That love and sincere obedience are parts of the condition of the New Coveuant Thus you see I am not in these 12. points singular and in more could I also prove his context though in some things I confesse he differeth as in making Faith an instrument in our justification pag. 54. Of Faith But as I take that to be a small difference so it is apparent by the forecited places that he took Faith to justifie as the condition of the Covenant and so the difference is but verball yet speaking in the common phrase put him upon that absurdity pag. 56. Treatise of Faith viz. to say That reconciling and justifying are acts of Faith If he had said but that they are effects of Faith it had been more then in proper strict sence taken can be proved To the fifteenth Objections TO your fifteenth Objection I answer 1. The Apostle in those places dealeth with the Jews who trusted to works without and against Christ This is nothing against them that set not up works in opposition nor coordination but onely in subordination to Christ. 2. If I affirmed that works are the least part of that Righteousnesse which the Law requireth and which must be so pleaded to our justification then I should offend against the freenesse of grace But when I affirme that all our legall Righteousnesse is onely in Christ then doe I not make the reward to be of debt or lesse free 3. The Apostle in the same verse Rom. 4. 5. saith that his Faith is counted for Righteousnesse and I have proved before that subjection is a part of Faith 4. The Apostle plainly speaketh of that Righteousnesse whereby we are formally righteous and which we must plead that we may be justified from the accusation of the Law and this is neither in Faith nor works but in Christ But he nowhere speaketh against that which is only the condition of our
the place against Grotius which you referre me to addeth some more As 1. By death he deliver us from death Answ. Not immediately nor absolutely nor by his Death alone but by that as the price supposing other causes on his part and conditions on ours to concurre before the actuall deliverance 2. He saith The Elect are said to dye and rise with him Answ. Not in respect of time as if we dyed rose at the same time either really or in Gods esteem Nor that we dyed in his dying rose in his rising But it is spoken of the distant mediate effects of his death the immediate effects of his Spirit on us rising by regeneration to union and Communion with Christ. 3. He saith Christ hath redeemed us from the curse being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. Answ. I explained before how farre we are freed by Redemption He hath redeemed us that is paid the price but with no intent that we should by that Redemption be immediately or absolutely freed Yet when we are freed it is to be ascribed to his death as the meritorious cause but not as the onely cause 4. He saith The hand-writing that was against us even the whole obligation is taken out of the way and nailed to his Crosse. Answ. 1. By the hand-writing of Ordinances is especially meant the Law of Ceremonies 2. If it be meant also of the curse of the Old Covenant then it cannot be so understood as if the Covenant it self were abrogate for the reasons I have before given in the Treatise 3. Nor yet that any are absolutely discharged from the curse till they perform the condition required for their discharge 4. But thus farre the Law is taken down that our Redeemer hath bought us from that necessity of perishing that lay upon us for our transgressing that Law so that no man is now condemned for the meer violation of that first Covenant and so he hath taken the Law into his owne hands to charge only upon those that break the conditions of the New Covenant 5. And so he hath taken downe the condemning power of the Law as it standeth by it selfe and not as it is under the Covenant of grace And hee hath freed us from the curse conditionally and the condition is easie and reasonable 6. So that quoad meritum the work is done All the satisfaction is made and price paid and therefore in Heb. 1. 3. it is said to be done If a man where a 1000 l. in debt and had tryed all meanes and had no hope left to procure his discharge And if a stranger to him goe to the Creditor and buy the Debtor who is in prison into his owne hands by paying all the debt yet resolving that if he refuse his kindnesse hee shall have no benefit by it but lye and rot there May it not be fitly said that the debtor is delivered because the great difficulty which hindered is removed and the condition of his freedome is so reasonable that common reason supposeth he will not stick at it and if he doe it is utterly against reason and humanity for hee may be freed if he will Therefore it is no unfit phrase to say the man is freed as soon as his debt is payed But yet he is not absolutely freed nor actually neither in point of personall right nor of possession And for his humane refusall of the kindnesse of his Redeemer may lye and perish there and be never the better but the worse for all this 7. Yet it being the absolute purpose both of the Father and Mediator to cause all the Elect to perform this condition of their discharge therefore Redemption is a cause of their certaine future discharge and a linke in the inviolable chaine of the causes of their salvation But to the rest of the world it is not so But I doe not well understand the meaning of the Author you referre me to For he saith That Christ did actually and ipso facto deliver us from the curse and obligation yet we do not instantly apprehend and perceive it nor yet possesse it but only we have actuall right to all the fruits of his death As a prisoner in a farre Countrey who is ransomed but knoweth it not nor can enjoy liberty till a Warrant be produced c. But 1. Whether a man may fitly be said actually and ipso facto to be delivered and discharged who is not at all delivered but onely hath right to deliverance I doubt 2. Knowledge and posiession of a deliverance are farre different things A man may have possession and no knowledge in some cases or if he have both yet the procuring of knowledge is a small matter in comparison of possession 3. Our knowledge therefore doth not give us possession so that the similitude failes for it is the Creditors knowledge and satisfaction that is requisite to deliverance And our Creditour was not in a farre and strange countrey but knew immediately and could either have made us quickly know or turned us free before we had knowne the cause 4. Nor can it easily be understood how God can so long deny us the possession of Heaven if wee had such absolute actuall Right as he speaketh so long ago which seemeth to expresse a jus ad rem in re If it be said wee are yet in our minority and not fit for present possession I answer That this fitnesse and our maturity is part of the deliverance or benefit which he saith de facto we had right to And so we should have had that also in present possession 4. But if he doe meane onely a right to future possession for such there is yet I confesse it is beyond my conceiving how in regard of the relative part of our deliverance that right and the possession should stand at so many yeeres distance To have right to Gods favour and acceptance and to have possession of that favour to have right to the remission of sinne and adoption to have possession of these do seeme to me to be of neerer kin Except he should think that possession of favour is nothing but the knowledge or feeling of it and that possession of pardon is the like that Faith justifieth us but in foro conscientiae But I will not censure so hardly till I know it Indeed there is a justification by publike declaration at the great judgement which much differeth from a meer Right But our justification by faith here is but a justifying in the sence of the Law or giving us right to that full justification So that To have right to it and to have possession of it in point of Law or Right is to me all one For what doth Faith give us possession of in its justifying Act but this legall right 5. And indeed it seemeth to me a full definition of all pardon and justification which is here to bee expected which he layeth downe Hee saith Christ did deliver us from
and as cautelous a proceeding as most have used for you know my former Judgement and that I never administred the Sacrament till within this year and that I was then invited to it by an eminent wonder of providence I say I advise you to beware how you deny to men the seales till you have tried with them this way prescribed by Christ Christ is free in entertaining and so must wee Christ putteth away none but them that put away themselves and then doth he call after them as long as there is hope of hearing as one that is grieved at their destruction and not delighted in the death of sinners but had rather they would returne and live And even thus must we do too Lazinesse is the common cause of separation when we should go with words of pitty and love and with teares beseech sinners to return to theit duty and shew them their danger we neglect all this to save us the labour and the suffering that sometime follows this duty wee will plead that they are no Church-Members and so not the Brethren that we are bound to admonish and so lazily separate from them and say as Cain Am I my Brothers keeper or as the man to Christ who is my Neighbour And thus when we have made his sinne our owne by our silence and not reproving him then we excommunicate him for it out of our society and from the Ordinances and so judge our selves out of our own mouths Or we separate from him for the neglect of some duty when wee our selves have neglected both to him and others this great and excellent duty of faithfull admonition It is more comfortable to recover one soule then to cast off many by separation Though I know that the avoiding communion with wilfull offendours who by this due admonition will not be reclamed is a most necessary usefull duty too But do not execute a man before he is judged nor judge him before you have heard him speak fully proved that obstinacy is added to his sinne except it be to suspend him while he is under this legall triall But perhaps you will object that we have no discipline established so no Authority to do thus and the means are vain which cannot attain their end To which I answer 1. You have divine authority 2. And may do as much as I presse without a Presbitery First you may admonish privately Secondly before witnesse Thirdly you may bring your Congregation to this that the parties offended may accuse them openly The Presbyterians deny not to the Congregation the audience and cognizance of the Fact but onely the power of judiciall sentencing And here you may admonish them before all Fourthly if yet they prove obstinate you may by your Ministeriall Authority 1. Pronounce against him by name what the Scripture pronounceth against such sinners particularly that he is unfit to be a Church-Member as openly denying obedience to the known Lawes of Christ 2. You may charge the people from Scripture to avoid familiarity with him 3. You may also acquaint the Magistrate with his duty to thrust him out if he violently intrude into Communion or disturb the Ordinances 4. You may forbear to deliver the Sacrament particularly to his hands 5. You may enter and publish your dissent and dislike if he intrude and take it himself All this I could most easily and beyond doubt prove your duty as you are a Christian and a Minister And if there be any more that a Classis may do yet do you do this in the mean time only be sure you try all means in private if the fault be not in publick before you bring a man in publick And be sure you do it in tendernesse and love and rather with wary then passionate reproaches And be sure that you do it only in case of undeniable sinnes and not in doubtfull disputable Cases And be sure that the matter of Fact be undoubtedly proved And that no man be suffered to traduce another publickly in a wrong way Or if he do that he be brought to acknowledgement The word Excommunication comprizeth severall Acts Those before mentioned belong to you as a Minister and are part of your proper Preaching declarative power which you may perform by your Nuntiative authority The power of Classes and Synods I think doth differ onely gradually and not specifically from that of every minister I am ashamed that I have contrary to my first purpose said so much of this unpleasing controversy But when you are next at leisure privately I shall undertake to prove all this to you from Scripture and that the Keyes are put by Christ into the hands of every Minister singly and that with sobriety and wisdome you may thus name the offendours publickly as all Scripture Ministers have been used to do And if you question whether our ordinary Congregations are true reall Churches where such works may be managed I shall prove that they are by giving you a better definition of a Church then that which you gave me and then trying our Churches by it In the mean time this is not matter to intermix here BUt you cannot it seems digest Mr. Blakes assertion that the Sacraments do seal but conditionally Answer I have not Mr. Blakes book by me and therefore how he explaineth himself I cannot tell But I remember he hath oft said so in conference with me But let me tell you two or three things 1. That I question whether you well understand him 2. Or whether you be able to confute it as thus to except against it 3. That Mr. Blake is as truly conscientious whom he admitteth as you But for the Controversy you must consider it a little more distinctly before you are like to understand it rightly It is in vain to enquire whether the Sacraments do seal absolutely or conditionally till you first know well what it is that they seal Let us first therefore resolve that Question what they seal and then enquire how they seal You know a Christian doth gather the assurance of his Justification and Salvation by way of Argumentation thus He that believeth is iustified and shall be saved But I believe therefore I am justified and shall be saved Now the Question is which of the parts of this Argument the Sacrament doth seal to Whether to the Major the Minor or the Conclusion To which I answer 1. That it sealeth to the Truth of Gods promise which is the Major proposition is unquestionable But whether to this alone is all the doubt 2. That it sealeth not to the truth of the Minor Proposition that is to the truth of our Believing I take also for to be beyond dispute For first it should else seal to that which is now here written For no Scripture saith that I do believe 2. And then it should be used to strengthen my Faith in that which is no object of Faith For that I do believe is not matter of Faith or to be