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A26883 Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,; Catholick theologie Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1675 (1675) Wing B1209; ESTC R14583 1,054,813 754

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37. Sect. IV. Of the Law of Grace or New Covenant in the last Edition The Nature Conditions and yet free Donations of it pag. 42. Sect. V. Of the giving of the Holy Ghost His common and special Works The extent of the New Covenant Of the state of those that have not the Gospel And what Law they are under pag. 45. Sect. VI. How far Christ died for all and how far not pag. 51. Sect. VII The antecedent and consequent Will of God explained Of Justification by Faith What faith it is and what it doth pag. 54. Sect. VIII Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed The false sense of Imputation opened and fully confuted The true sense asserted Whether Christ paid our Idem or Tantundem Whether he made his Satisfaction to God only as to a Rector or as Dominus vel pars laesa or how pag. 59. Sect. IX Of the sorts of Justification And first of constitutive Justification Of Righteousness How far it is or is not in our own habits or acts What Right the Covenant giveth the baptized to following helps and degrees of Grace Further what must be in our selves Mans holiness is no dishonour to Gods Grace How far Christ strippeth us of our own Righteousness More against the false sense of Imputation Objections answered pag. 69. Sect. X. Of Merit The case plainly and briefly decided The Gospel-Condition or Merit is but the accepting a free Gift according to its nature Whether we may trust to our own Faith Repentance Holiness The last Argument for the false sense of Imputation answered pag. 79. Sect. XI How Faith justifieth whether as an Instrument pag. 82. Sect. XII How far Repentance is a Condition of the Covenant And what it is Whether Faith or it be first How Faith and Love differ pag. 83. Sect. XIII Of the degrees of Pardon and Justification Whether losable And whether future sins be pardoned pag. 85. Sect. XIV Of Justification by Sentence of the Judge What it is ibid. Sect. XV. Of initial executive Pardon or Justification in Sanctificati● How far necessary yet imperfect pag. 86. Sect. XVI Of assurance of Pardon Of doubting Whether it be D●●● Faith to believe ones own Justification or Salvation The Sp●● Testimony pag. 88. Sect. XVII Of love to God as the end of Faith and foretast of He●●● pag. 91. Sect. XVIII Of Perseverance and its certainty in order to the comfort●● certainty of Salvation Few certain of Justification and ●●●● of Perseverance The words of the Synod of Dort The ●● ther 's Judgment about certainty of perseverance pag. 93 Sect. XIX Of mortal Sin or such as will not stand with the love of G●● and a state of Justification pag. 103. Sect. XX. What Repentance for particular sins is necessary to par●● pag. 106. Sect. XXI Some solution of all the former difficulties in twenty Prop●●ons 108. Sect. XXII Few certain of Salvation The reconciling consequents of ●●● pag. 112. Sect. XXIII The case of Perseverance further opened and applied pag. 113. Sect. XXIV The sum and scope of this Discourse of Certainty pag. 116. Sect. XXV Degrees of falling and danger pag. 118. Sect. XXVI Of final Justification at Judgment More of the Agreem●●● Paul and James about Justification by Works pag. 119. Sect. XXVII Of the number of the glorified and the damned pag. 123. A PREMONITION MY work at present is but to lay down so much of the Christian Doctrine briefly as is necessary to be understood for the reconciling of the Controversies about Predestination Providence Grace and Free-will And therefore pass over ●any other weighty Points and must not stand largely to prove all ●s I go which carrieth its own evidence The true nature of the first ●aw or Covenant deserveth a more accurate discussion than I can here ●ake and much passeth as certain with some which hath but little ●roof And here I meet with these different Opinions 1. Some say that the ●ondition of the first Covenant was not Innocency but sincerity And ●at Innocency was only a Duty necessary necessitate praecepti but not ●edii or that it was ut medium necessary ad melius esse or to some cer●●in degrees of felicity whereof it was a condition but not to felicity it ●●lf And that the Covenant of Grace doth herein agree with it both ●f them damning man only for mortal sin and punishing them tempo●●lly only for venial sin And he seemeth to be of this mind who saith ●●at Do this and live or Innocency or Works was the Condition only ●f Moses Law but that Adhere and Vanquish was the Condition of the ●rst Covenant But these are ambiguous unsatisfactory terms If the ●eaning be Adhere to God and his Law by perfect Innocency and van●uish all temptations to Sin this is the same with that Innocency which ●e say was the Condition But if he mean only Adhere to me sin●erely by love as thy Ultimate End and vanquish all temptations which ●ould draw thee from me to another Ultimate End or God this is ●he same with the first opinion which many Papists seem to hold 2. But the more common Opinion is that which I assert That Inno●ency was the Condition not only of Life eternal but of all the be●efits of Gods Covenant and the least sin the forfeiture of all They that are for the first Opinion think that if Adam had committed ●ut a small or venial sin as a sinful thought or desire after the forbidden ●ruit without the act or full consent it had been against Gods natural Goodness and Justice to have condemned him to Hell for it And con●quently that Christ died not to pardon the pains of Hell as due for such ●●ttle sins but only temporal smaller punishments But God best knoweth his own Nature And nature telleth us That ●ll sin deserveth punishment And he that sinneth so far removeth his ●eart from God and forfeiteth his Spirit or Grace And he that hath ●nce so turned from God in the least degree cannot of himself return ●or heal himself and had no promise of Gods Grace to do it And ●herefore it is not to be supposed that he should sin no more but such a ●inute sin for greater will come in presently at that breach unless God ●ecover him which he was not in Justice bound to do And no one know●th so well as God how much malignity is in the smallest sin And it was as ●asie for sinless Adam to have continued sinless as for carnal men now ●o forbear gross sin And he that sinneth deserveth not Heaven or Life ●nd there are divers degrees of punishment in Hell according to the degrees of Sin And Christ died for all our sins therefore they d● every one deserve death which consisted not with a right to Life therefore not with a right to Heaven And an immortal Soul was not naturally to be annihilated therefore to live in some punishment as separated And Rom. 3. 9. all were under Sin yet all had not gross S●●
justified by Faith it connoteth and includeth that we are justified by Christ and his Sacrifice Merits and Covenant respectively believed in But yet it is not Christ nor his Sacrifice or Merits or Promise that is meant by the word Faith It was a gross abuse of the Text so to expound it Faith connoteth the Object but it is not Christ that is called Faith 140. But the meaning is that man having forfeited Life Christ's Righteousness habitual active and passive hath merited that it shall be given us as a free Gift but yet regularly under a Law But the Law maketh nothing but believing acceptance the condition of our Right and he that doth that much shall without perfection be esteemed and used as righteous for the sake of the said Righteousness of Christ So that in point of Merit as to the value of the thing Christ's Righteousnes● is instead of our Innocency But as to the order of collation something being still to be required of us as a condition of Right so our Faith now is instead of our Innocency as being all that is laid on us instead of ●● that we may have right to Justification And to assign this condition o● our part Paul saith That Faith is imputed to us for righteousness To deny this sense is to use violence with the Text. 141. Christ's Righteousness is made ours as our Sins were made his which is not in themselves as is aforesaid God forbid we should think that Christ was ever reputed by God to be a Sinner a Blasphemer a Murderer an Enemy to God and Goodness one that had Satan's Image and was his Servant a Persecutor of himself c. But only our sin was imputed to him as to the punishment deserved that is he assumed the Reatum poenae the punishment and a dueness occasioned by our sin but made his own by his voluntary sponsion But never had he the rea●um culpae in its self but meerly as aforesaid respectively to the punishment Even so we have the Righteousness of Christ not in its self as Proprietors of it but in relation to the effects that is we have the effects even our Justification and other benefits as purchased by it and for its sake And as our guilt or obligation to punishment was not Christ's till his voluntary sponsion or consent did make it so Even so his Righteousness is not ours in the effects till our voluntary consent accept it Because i● is not a natural but a contracted Relation that is between Christ and us And as it is not a strict propriety in Christ's Righteousness that we have so it is much less a plenary and absolute propriety nor have we it in the Relation of a meritorious cause to all uses as if it had been fully our own but only limitedly to those uses which God accepted it for and hath assigned to it in the Gospel that is it is but a certain sort and measure of mercies that are given us from it in Gods time and way 142. To the asserting of the rigid sense of Imputation they are necessitated to say that which supposeth Gods repute of the matter to be false that is that he reputeth us to have done that in and by Christ which we never did by him But God judgeth nothing to be otherwise than it is that he judgeth Christ to have been the Sponsor and Mediator and in that person to have done and suffered as he did is because it is true But he judgeth him not to have been the legal Person of the Sinner and as many persons as there be redeemed Sinners in the world because that is not true 143. They say that what the Surety doth the Debtor doth in Law-sense and to judge so is not to err But there are several sorts of Sureties much more of Instruments in paying a Debt 1. There be free Sureties who are not obliged to the Debtor as his Dependents and these either by counter-security or by right of the thing may recover all of the Debtor again And therefore the Law supposeth not the Debtor to have payed the Debt by them but that the Creditor made them both Joynt-Debtors for his own security 2. There are Sureties antecedently and Sureties consequently One that before the Debt doth conditionally make himself a Joynt-Debtor in case the Principal pay it not And there is a Surety more properly called an undertaking-Friend who after payeth the Debt being disobliged before Christ was not a Surety of the first sort in Law-sense And if you call Gods Decrees which are his Essence Suretiship your liberty of words changeth not the case 3. There is a Surety who payeth the Debt in the name and person of the principal Debtor And he is not properly called a Surety but an Agent or Substitute And Christ was none such nor is any proper Surety such And there is a Surety which by the Creditors consent doth pay the Debt in his own name agreeing that the chief Debtor shall have no benefit by it but from him as he shall give it on certain terms And this was Christ's case 4. There is a Surety that payeth the same debt that was due from the Principal And there is a Surety or Friend that undertaketh only to make the Creditor satisfaction because the Debtor cannot pay And this is the case 5. Lastly There is a pay-master that is the Debtors Instrument whether Servant Delegate or whoever at his command or request doth pay it in his name and person And this is not the case And there is a proper Surety who is a third person and no Instrument and payeth it in his own name though for another This as I said is the case and therefore it is not we that paid it Therefore to the Objection I say that to judge Christ such an Instrument or Delegate of ours or Surety that did all in our legal person is to misjudge and err as is proved which God cannot do 144. Christ did and suffered in the common nature of man though not in the person of each Sinner And mans nature is so far redeemed by him that for the meer Original Sin of nature alone no man shall perish unless he add the rejection of Grace of which somewhat is said before But yet as Nature existeth only in persons so it is all persons who have this much benefit and more But that he merited and satisfied in our Nature is a proper speech and truer than that he did it in our persons 145. But all this similitude of a Creditor and Debtor is to be limited in the application according to the great difference of Sin and Debt which will infer a great diversity in the consequents which may easily be collected by the Reader 146. As to the great and weighty question whether Christ died for How far Christ died for sins against the Law of Grace sins against the New Covenant or only for those against the old I answer Distinction is here notoriously
him or that i● any part of righteousness but it is all out of us in Christ and therefore they are as justifiable as any But Conscience will not let them believe it as they desire 185. It is arrogant folly to divide the praise of any good act between God and Man and to say God is to have so many parts and Man so many For the whole is due to God and yet some is due to Man For man holdeth his honour only in subordination to God and not dividedly in co-ordination And therefore all is due to God For that which is Mans is Gods because we have nothing but what we have received But he that arrogateth any of the honour due to God or Christ offendeth 186. If all had been taken from Gods honour which had been given to the Creature God would have made nothing or made nothing Good Heaven and Earth and all the World would derrogate from his honour and none of his Works should be praised And the better any man is the more he would dishonour God and the wickeder the les● But he made all Good and is Glorious in the Glory and honourable in the honour of all And to justifie the holiness of his Servants is to justifie him 187. If these Teachers mean that no man hath any power freely to specifie the Acts of his own will by any other help of God besides necessitating predetermining premotion and so that every man doth all that he can do and no man can do more than he doth They dishonour God by denying him to be the Creator of that Free-power which is essential to man and which God himself accounteth it his honour to create And they feign God to damn and blame all that are damned and blamed for as great Impossibilities as if they were damned and blamed for not making a world or for not being Angels 188. Thus also such men teach that Christ strippeth a Christian of two things His Sins and his Righteousness Or that Two things must be That all that are saved have inherent Righteousness or Holiness none of us all deny nor yet that in tantum we are Righteous by it Nor that a man accused as being an Infidel Atheist Impenitent ungodly an Hypocrite c. must be justified by pleading all the contraries in himself or else perish And all agree that this inherent Righteousness is imperfect and in us found with sin and therefore that no man can be justified by it without pardon of sin nor at all against the charge of being a sinner and condemnable by the Law of Innocency And what remaineth then but to trouble the world with contending de nomine whether this imperfect Righteousness shall be called Righteousness and the giving of it called Justifying or making us righteous so far cast away for Christ Sins and Righteousness But they should speak better if they would not deceive nothing is to be cast away as evil but Sin Righteousness truly such is Good and never to be cast away If it be no Righteousness why do they falsly say that we must cast away our Righteousness To cast away a false conceit of Righteousness is not to cast away Righteousness but Sin only Indeed besides Sin we are said justly to cast away that which would be the Object and Matter of Sin And the phrase is fitlyer applyed to a thing Indifferent than to a thing necessary least it seduce There is nothing so Good which may not be made the object of Sin not Christ or his Righteousness or God himself excepted But we must not therefore say that we must cast away God or Christ because we must not thus objectively abuse them So Holiness and true Righteousness Inherent or imputed may be objects of sinful pride and boasting But it is not edifying Doctrine therefore to say that we must cast away Inherent and Imputed Righteousness But yet true self-denyal requireth that we deny our Righteousness Inherent or Imputed to be that which indeed it is not And so when men accounted the Jewish observations to be a Justifying Righteousness in competition with and in opposition to Christ Paul counteth it as loss and dung and nothing in that respect when yet elsewhere he saith I have lived in all good Conscience to this day And Christ himself fulfilled that Law and Righteousness So if a man will conceit that his common Grace will justifie him without Holiness or his Holiness without Pardon and the Righteousness of Christ he must deny this Righteousness that is he must deny it to be what it is not and must cast away not it but the false conceits of it And so if any Libertine will say that Christs Righteousness imputed to him will justifie him without faith or be instead of Holiness to him he must deny Imputed Righteousness thus to be what indeed it is not 189. When we tell them that If we had fulfilled all the Law reputatively More against the wrong sence of Imputation confuting many Sophisms by Christ as our Legal person we could not be bound to further obedience to it They answer that we are not bound to obey to the same ends as Chhist that is for Righteousness or Justification or merit but in Gratitude But this is but to give us the cause and ignorantly to destroy At quis unquam e nostris nos per justitiam Christi imputatam formaliter justificari asseruit Prideaux Lect. 5 de Just cap. 4. their own For 1. This is but to say that when a man is reputed to have fulfilled all the Law yet it is to be reputed unfulfilled as to certain ends As if he fulfilled all the Law that fulfilled it not to all due ends 2. Or as if the Law obliged one man to fulfill it twice over for the same lifes time once simply and in all its obligations and another time for other ends 3. Or as if the Law required any more than absolute perfection 4. Or that absolute perfection had not been in Christ's holy The Papists concur with them that feign a middle state between Just and privatively unjust viz. not just negatively so Brianson in 4. q. 8. Cor. 3. fol. 145. at large But they can give us no instance but in a stone or other incapable creature that is not obliged And we confess that if a man can be found that is not obliged to be Just he is neither just nor Privatively but Negatively unjust But what 's this to our case And the Papists commonly joyn with them that say that God remitteth not only the Reatum vel Obligationem ad poenam but also the Reatum culpae in se But when they come to open it they mean but that God is not displeased with or hath not a punishing Will against the Sinner As if they knew not that as Gods Love is our chief reward so his displeasure is our chief punishment And that Remission doth make no change in God but by taking away Guilt of Gods
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Cam●ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial ●cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness ●an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
Righteousness is it but Christs that is said to be imputed to us P. It is none but what we have from Christ But the phrase of Imputing supposeth it ours And the meaning is no more but that we are reputed Righteous And the causes are not included in the phrase of Imputing righteousness to us but in the words before and after As Imputing sin to us and not Imputing it is but to Repute reckon or judge us sinners or by sin guilty of punishment or not guilty so is it here So that it is supposed 1. That Righteousness that is This Relation of being Righteous is the thing imputed 2. Christs Righteousness is the meritorious cause 3. The Gospel Donation is the instrumental Cause 4. Our Faith in Christ is the condition and as such the subordinate matter necessary on our parts And that faith is imputed for Righteousness plainly meaneth but this that Christ having merited and satisfied for us all that is now required on our part to denominate or primarily constitute us Righteous is to be true Believers in him or true Christians And I further ask you Do you thus paraphrase the words Faith that is Christs Righteousness is imputed to us for righteousness Lib. Yes I do so because the act is put for the object P. Were it so said but once and otherwise oft you had some colour for this But when it is never said Christs Righteousness is imputed to us and so oft said Faith is imputed for righteousness how shall ever the Scripture be understood at this rate if still by faith it mean not faith at all but Christs righteousness And why must not all other places that mention faith be so understood also But read the Texts and set all together and see what sense thus will be made of it Rom. 4. 3. What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it that is not his believing but Christs Righteousness was Imputed to him for righteousness Is this a sober and modest paraphrase or a shameless violence Doth not it refer to believing God before mentioned Vers 4 5. To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned or imputed of Grace but of debt But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith that is not his faith but Christs righteousness is counted for righteousness Is this a modest Exposition Vers 10 11. We say that Faith that is not faith but Christs righteousness was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness How then was it that is not his faith but Christs righteousness reckoned In uncircumcision And he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the fiath that is not of the faith but of the righteousness of Christs righteousness which he had being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of them that believe that righteousness that is Christs might be imputed to them also who walk in the steps of that faith which Abraham had c. doth faith here also signifie no faith Vers 13. When the promise is said to be through the righteousness of faith and Vers 14. faith made void is it no faith that is here also meant by faith And Vers 16. It is of faith to that seed which is of the faith of Abraham is not faith indeed here meant by the word faith So Vers 18 19 20 21. Who against hope believed And being not weak in faith he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able to perform is it no faith that is meant in all these words yea or no act of faith but accepting the righteousness of Christ So next Vers 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness that is Not his faith but by It is meant only Christs Righteousness though it was faith that was over and over mentioned as the antecedent So Vers 23 24. It was not written for his sake only that it that is not faith but Christs righteousness was imputed to him But for us also to whom it that is not faith shall be imputed if we believe is not that faith neither on him that is God the Father that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead which is a distinct act from Consenting to have his righteousness who was delivered to death for our offences and was raised again for our Justification Is the meaning that we are justified by the Imputation of Christs Resurrection so to us as that in Law sense we rose again in him and by Rising fulfilled the Law of Innocency I will not for shame and weariness thus go over other such Texts but I must be so faithful as to say that if good men and wise men and men that cry down the Papists and others for adding to Gods Word and corrupting it and calling it a Nose of Wax and introducing new Articles of faith will yet own such Expositions as these and accuse those that own them not they are as great Instances as most I remember except the defenders of Transubstantiation how far education or custom or humane dependance or faction and partiality and prejudice may blind the reason of professed Christians and godly men And that man that dare lay his comforts and hopes of justification and life upon such expositions of Gods Word should be modest in crying down the false hopes of others and reproving them that build upon the sand Lib. You have made a long discourse to make us odious upon a false supposition We do not say that in all or any of those Texts by faith is not meant faith but only that it is not faith as faith or as an act of ours but as connoting its object the Righteousness of Christ P. 1. Alas a great number of better men than you have too oft and plainly said without distinction that Faith is not imputed to us for righteousness I hope they meant better than they spake but I would it could be hid from the world that these words are not only in the Independents Savoy Confession but even in the Confession of the Westminster Assembly cap. 11. Not by imputing faith it self the act of believing or any other Evangelical obedience to them as their Righteousness but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to them So also in the larger Catechism Not as if the Grace of faith or any act thereof were imputed to him for his Justification How well soever they may mean Gods oft repeated Word should rather have been expounded than denyed 2. But what mean your cloudy words It is not faith as faith but as connoting the object They that cannot speak clearly seldom clearly understand what to speak The Question is Whether it be really and properly Faith that is meant in all these Texts or whether it be only Christs righteousness If you say that It is both in several respects you grant then that it is saith it self in one respect that is
imputed to us for righteousness If it be only the object and not faith why is it so often called faith believing being perswaded c. Will you say that It is not faith as an act of ours only Whoever dreamt it was For à quatenus ad omne If as an act then every act even plowing and walking and sinning would justifie us Will you say that It is not Faith as a Moral Virtue or Good act only Who saith it is For then every moral good act would justifie men Do you say that It is not by faith as faith in genere It is granted you For else à quatenus ad omne any act of faith would justifie even believing that there is a Hell Will you say that it is not any other species of faith besides our baptismal faith We grant it you But if you will also say that It is not this species even the Christian faith neither that is meant but only the object of it then 1. Why say you that it is Faith as connoting the object contradicting your self for if be not faith at all it is not faith as connoting that which is not doth not connote 2. And why say you that it is not faith it self essentially Is not the object essential as an object to the act in specie Is it not essential to our Christian faith to be a Believing in Christ 3. But what sober unprejudiced Christian that readeth the Text throughout and hath not been instructed to pervert it can choose but see that it is Faith it self that the Apostle speaketh of and that it is our personal Relation of Righteousness that it is said to be imputed for And who can believe that this is the sense Abrahams faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness or this either His faith that is Christs Righteousness and not his faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness Undoubtedly by faith is meant faith and by Righteousness is meant our own Relation But it is most easie to discern that the plain sense is Christ being presupposed the Meriter of our Justification and Salvation which he hath given the world conditionally by a Law of Grace or Covenant Donation by which now he ruleth and judgeth us all that this Covenant Gift or Law requireth on our part to make us Righteous and entitle us to the Spirit and everlasting life is that as P●nitent Believers we accept Christ and life according to the nature ends and uses of the gift and this also by his grace Reader hold close to this plain Doctrine which most of the lower sort of Christians know who have not faln into perverters hands and you● will have more solid and practical and peaceable truth about this point than either Dr. Thomas Tullie or Maccovius or Mr. Crand●● or Dr. Crispe or the Marrow of Modern Divinity * Written by an honest Barber Mr. Fisher as is said and applauded by divers Independent Divines or Paul Hobson or Mr. Saltmarsh or any such Writers do teach you in their learned Net-work Treatises by which being Wise or Orthodox overmuch being themselves entangled and confounded by incongruous notions of mans invention they are liker to entangle and confound you than to shew you the best method and grounds for the peace of an understanding dying man Christs Righteousness is Imputed or Reckoned to be as it is the total sole Meritorious Cause of all that Grace and Glory given us in and by the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and of our Grace for performance of the Conditions and it needeth nothing at all of ours to make it perfect to this use nor hath our faith any such supplemental Office But this condition of our part in Christ and of our Right to his Covenant-gifts must be performed and the sentence of Absolution or Condemnation life or death must be passed on us accordingly it being not Christ but we by this very Law that are to be Judged Justified or Condemned And this is the Condemnation that light is come into the World and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil But to as many as Received him he gave Right to become the Sons of God even to them that believe in his name And there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For being perfected he is become the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that obey him And it is not they that cry Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of our heavenly Father For Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of that to come CHAP. X. Whether Gods justifying those to day that were yesterday unjustified signifie any change in God P. IX OF this also I have said so much in my Apologie to Dr. Kendall and in the two first parts of this Book before that I shall now put you off with this short notice 1. There is nothing changed or new in God That which on his part is in God the Cause of our Justification is his eternal simple essence 2. But Gods Essence Understanding or Will considered simply in it self is not to be called Mans Justification But the effect produced by it And partly the extrinsick object as terminating Gods act and so by extrinsick denomination or connotation Gods Essential Intellect and Will is said de novo to justifie But it is only man that is really changed 3. The New effect in man from which God is said de novo to justifie him is 1. A new Right or Relation to Christ pardon and life and to the Father and the Holy Ghost 2. A new objective termination of Gods estimation acceptance and complacency And 3. A new heart hereupon at the same instant given us I think none of this is from eternity And that as God did de novo make the world and judge it existent and love and order it as existent without any change in him as also millions of creatures proceed from his simple Unity so is it here And this needeth no more words with knowing or teachable men And to others there is no end CHAP. XI Whether a Justified man should be afraid of becoming unjustified L●b THis fear of losing our justification which you teach men is most injurious to Gods free grace and immutability and a rack for Conscience to destroy mens peace P. I have said so much of this before about Perseverance and Assurance as forbiddeth me tedious repetitions Here needeth no more but this explication of the matter which you confound 1. Fear is either Causeful or Causeless 2. Fear is either such as hindereth comfort or such as helpeth it 3. Fear is either a Duty or an unavoidable natural passion or a sin of unavoidable infirmity or a more deadly or heinous sin 4. It 's one thing to cause and cherish Fear and another thing to teach men that cannot avoid
to sin entertained we must go as far from sin as we can But poor deceived souls run into it under the conceit of going far enough from it and sometimes into greater than they avoid S. What sin have such Protestants run into in their opposition to Popery P. I will tell you some I. In Doctrine and II. In the consequent● and practice I. It is more than one injudicious Protestant Divine that hath printed such unfound Opinions as these in opposition to Popery for want of judgement 1. While they plead against the Romish false Tradition they have weakned faith by denying that necessary use of Historical Tradition of Scripture which Christianity doth suppose As others have denyed the necessary use of Reason unto faith 2. They have wronged the Church by undervaluing the Tradition of the Creed and the Essentials of Christianity by many means besides the Scriptures 3. They have much wronged the Protestant Cause by denying the perpetual Visibility of the Church and almost given it away as I have shewed against Johnson 4. And their d●nyal of its Universality and confining it long to the Waldenses and such others is an exceeding injury to the Church and Truth 5. And so is some mens over-doing as for the Scripture who teach men that they can be no surer of Christianity as delivered many years in Baptism before any of the New Testament was written than they are that there is no one error in all the Bible by the carelesness of the Scribes and Printers nor any humane frailty in the phrase 6. And also their feigning the Scripture perfection to consist in its being a particular determiner of all those circumstances of which it is only a general rule 7. And those that make every form of prayer or Ceremony to be Antichristian 8. And those that make Justifying faith to be a certainty or full perswasion that we are elected and pardoned and shall be saved 9. And those that say that To believe that I am justified is to believe Gods Word or ●ides divina either as most say because one of the premises is in Scripture or as excellent Chamier saith because the Witness of the Spirit is Gods Word 10. And those that say All that have true faith are sure they have such as Keckerman and too many others 11. Those that deny Christ to have made any Law 12. And those also that assert Imputation of Christs Righteousness in that sense which I have proved to subvert the Gospel 13. And those that deny Faith it self to be Imputed for righteousness 14. And those that deny that there is any personal Evangelical Righteousness in our selves that is any way necessary to our Justification 15. And those that lay all the stress of Faiths Justifying us on the notion of Instrumental efficiency 16. And those that say we are Justified by no act of faith but its receiving Christs Righteousness and all other acts of faith are the Wor●s by which none is justified 17. And those that say that Evangelical obedience is not meritorious as it signifieth only Rewardable in point of Paternal Evangelical Governing Justice and as all the antient Fathers used that word because we merit not by Commutation 18. And those that say that man hath no free-will at all of any sort to spiritual good 19. And those that say that Christ was in Gods reputation the greatest sinner or wicked man Adulterer Murderer hater of God in all the world 20. And those that say that he suffered in soul Pain altogether of the same kind with those that the damned suffer in H●● 21. And those that in opposition to the Popish Government Confession Austerities and several acts of Worship do run into the con●rary extream against due Government Confession Austerities c. And those that from dark uncertainty or à minus noti● do gather many conclusions against known truth I pass by such as the Antinomians who as I have proved subve●t the Gospel it self by running into the contrary extream from Pope●●● S. You are as ●ad as Parker or the Debate-maker that th●s l●y s●●ndal on the Reformers themselves If these were their faults you ●●●● cover them and not open them This had been enough for ● Romish R●bshakeh P. You know not what it is that you say This is to a●ho●●●●●●tance and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God yea to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion lest the erro● of ●●●● be shamed But all men are lyars that is fallible and God is ●●●● He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy but he that hideth it shall not prosper Are there not with you even with you also saith the Prophet sins against the Lord our God Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants and fome● them to such open Confessions Did Paul wrong Peter and ●●●● Gal. ● or the Ministry when he said All seek their own thing● and no●e the things of Jesus Christ or did the Evangelists wrong all ●he Disciples by saying that They all forsook him and fled or James all C●●stians saying In many things we offend ●ll I think the Prou● Impe●itence of many Professors that will not confess sin nor endure to be ●●led to it lest Religion be dishonoured is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for When such evils have ●●●● held and done as our age hath known either it must be said that they are not evil or that they are If we deny it and say they are God ●●●● and m●ns duty we feign God and Scripture and Religion to be for all that evil which is to blaspheme If we say It is evil we must sa●● that we are the guilty causes of it God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it S. I think you would fain perswade us that Protestants are as bad as Papists and perswade us into the Roman Tents P. That is but your pievish inference But little do you know how much of Popery it self you have while you think that you hate it more than I. S. You would make me believe any thing if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party only They to their Sect and You to yours 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters only they excommunicate and burn them and you deny them your communion and reproach them But their charity extendeth much further than yours and you condemn more dissenters than they do 3. Do you not agree with them in
still have heard Obey and live or Sin and die And if Adam ●ad obeyed till his translation to Glory or confirmation in the Reward I find not in Scripture any Promise that this should have been im●uted to his Posterity as the full performance of the Condition of their Life or confirmed Happiness but that still their own sinning would have been a possible thing and death would have been the wages of their Sin You seem not to set Adam's Merits and imputed Righteousness any ●igher than Christ's And I am too sure that the justified Members of Christ do sin and must ask daily pardon And whether or not they be confirmed against total Apostasie I am sure few if any of them are confirmed against the possibility or existence or futurity of Sin And if you say that Adam's Posterity though confirmed should have sinned too but should have been pardoned as we are It would be another presumptuous addition and contradiction of Scripture to assert Pardon without a Saviour and a pardoning Covenant 3. Adam's Obedience would have justified his next issue from this false Accusation You are born of a sinful Parent or not of a righteous Parent But it would have justified no man against this Accusation You are personally a Sinner or have not personally loved God and obeyed him Therefore it would have justified any man against this Charge You are to be condemned for Adam's sin But it would have justified no man against these Charges You are to be condemned for your own personal Sin or you have no right to Glory by Gods Promise to the adult which maketh their personal Obedience the Condition 4. And though I cannot again here have time to deal with Confounders who think that Imputation or Justification are words which have but one sense I must say that even so Christ's Righteousness is not so imputed to any man as to be to him in stead of his personal Obedience to the Law or Covenant of Grace which he is under But it will justifie any Believer from these Accusations You must be cast into Hell for breaking the Law of Innocency or you must be shut out of Heaven because you deserved it not by perfect Obedience or you have no perfect or sufficient Saviour or you are such as God cannot pardon without wrong to his Truth Wisdom or Justice It will justifie no man from any of these Charges You are Sinners you deserve condemnation by the first Law you are Impenitent or Unbelievers or Hyp●crites or have not performed the conditions of life in the Law of Grace The two first we must confess and not justifie our selves by a denial And against the last we must be justified by our own Repentance Faith and sincere Obedience He that will say to the Accuser that chargeth him with final Infidelity Impenitency or Unholiness I am justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness will but add to his sin 5. There are all these differences between our Justification according to the first Law had we been capable of it and that which we now have 1. One would have been by God as Creator and Legislator to the Innocent The other by Christ as Redeemer and Legislator to the sinful World 2. One would have been for personal perfect persevering Obedience The other for Christ's Merits as purchasing a free Pardon Grace to penitent Believers and upon our own Faith and Repentance as the Conditions of the new Covenant 3. One would have been without pardon and the other chiefly or much by pardon In one if our Publick Root had perfectly obeyed we must also have perfectly obeyed or die In the other because our Publick Root did perfectly obey Faith and sinceere Obedience to the end is all that is required of us to ou● Glory 4. In one the personal matter of worthiness or merit must have been all that perfection which God in justice could require of man In the other it is only The acceptance of a free Gift according to its nature and use and after the thankful use and improvement of it with other such differences § 34. M. S. What Christ did as surety is imputed to us but not his Suretiship or being a publick Person Ans This is true if you understand Imputation in Scripture sense or soundly and not in their sense who presumptuously say That God reputeth us to have done all by Christ which he did for us in his Obedience to the Law § 35. M. S. Christ did not all that he did as Surety but only that which answered the Law An. I suppose you mean that which the Law requireth of us But the word Surety is ambiguous and after here explained and whether you understood it sano sensu I know not He did all that he did as the Mediator and Sponsor for mans Redemption And we are pardoned and justified by the merit of all his own Covenant-keeping with the Father even of such acts as the Law required not of us And some which the Law required of many he did not because it required them not of him § 36. M. S. The Law said not That Christ must be a holy Husband or Father c. The Imputation of one Act of Christ's Obedience is sufficient to our Justification and Merit of life though it need not be curiously set in this or that part of his life § Still more presumption 1. Where saith the Scripture so 2. You must not assert absurdities or presumptions and then think to put off the detection of them by calling it curious If this be true doubtless it was Christs first act of Obedience which merited Glory for us And so it is that first only that must be imputed to us to that end And who ever thought so before you The Fryars have some of them said That minima guttula sanguinis Christi One drop of his blood was enough to redeem all the World And our Divines say Why then was the rest shed So I ask you 1. Why did Christ do all the rest of his Obedience after the first Act Hath none of it the same end and use 2. How shall we be sure that a Sinner must not plead or trust to any of Christ's Righteousness but the first act for his Justification and Reward or must he trust for it to that which was never by Christ intended for it 3. This is contrary to the Scripture which layeth our Justification on his whole Righteousness as meritorious and on his Obedience to the Death and on his rising again and on other parts first Rom. 4. 24. 5. throughout c. 4. Sure they that are so curious as to tell us which physical act of Faith justifieth in specie numero for some say only the first instantaneous act doth justifie will not think it curiosity to enquire which one Act of Christs Obedience justifieth us when according to your Doctrine it is evident that it must be the first And they that say It is Justification by Works to
If in any of these points men of less accurateness use not the same words take not therefore the old way of proclaiming them Hereticks till you have tryed how far they erre indeed Most of our lower Divines of all parties would be made Hereticks for want of Skill in the denominations allowable or not allowable by the Communication of idioms if the Schoolmens accurateness must be the test e. g. If the question were whether the Humanity be part of Christ or Christ be compounded of a Divine Nature and Humane c. ●●●● would affirm it that mean well But saith Alliac Camerar 3. q. Neque persona neque natura divina est composita nec ●●●● est compositus ex duabus na●●●is divina scilicet humana sive ex tribus rebus Corpore scilicet anima divinitate sed ●●●● ex duabus secundum humanitatem scilicet corpore anima essentialiter ex infinitis partibus quantitativis integraliter ●● non est concedendum quod humanitas sit Pars Christ● Nam ficut homo non est compositus ex albidine substantia 〈…〉 est Compositus ex humanitate persona divina How many have gone for Hereticks for want of the Language of ●●●● and the Schoolmen his Soul the deep sense of Gods displeasure with Sinners and of his ●●●● of sin though no sence of Gods hatred to himself For it is conceiveable how Christ being the Lover and surety or Sponsor for Sinners and undertaking to suffer as a Sacrifice for their sins and in their stead might have on his own Soul the sorrowful sense of Gods hatred of sin and wrath against Sinners though not properly terminated on himself and so he bore the sorrow of our transgressions and was so far forsaken of God for that time and not further 52. The true Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ's sufferings was that they were a most apt means for the demonstration of the Governing Justice Holiness Wisdom and Mercy of God by which God could attain the ends of the Law and Government better than by executing the Law on the world in its destruction as in general was before intimated 53. The measure of the satisfaction made by Christ was that it was a full salvo to Gods Justice and demonstration of it that he might give Pardon and Life to Sinners upon the new terms of the Covenant of Grace and give what he after gave 54. The matter of Christ's meritorious Righteousness was his perfect fulfilling the Law given him as Mediator or the performance of the Conditions of his mediatorial Covenant From which resulted the Merit so the Dueness of all the Benefits which God had promised in that Covenant as to Christ though mostly for men This was the Righteousness of Christ for man and hence arose his Merit for us 55. The matter of his Law of Redemption required of him was threefold 1. That he should by habitual and actual perfect Holiness fulfil the first Law of Nature or Innocency which Adam broke not just as it obliged Adam in every point but as it was common to man and belonged to Christ as Man 2. That he should fulfil all the Law of Moses given only to the Jews 3. That he should perform the great things peculiar to himself as Mediator which were to be a Sacrifice for Sin to do his Miracles to teach the Church as its Head to Rule it and to appoint Orders and Officers for it to rise again to conquer Satan Death and Sin c. 56. That Christ did not fulfil all the Law in our persons so as that we did it in and by himself and are thereby justified is further evident in that he did not all the Duties which the Law bound us to perform and for not doing of which we are truly Sinners He did not do any of the proper Offices of a Husband to a Wife or of a Wife to a Husband of a Father to Children of a Servant or a hired day-labourer to a Master of a Magistrate King Judge c. to Subjects of a Captain to Souldiers or Souldiers to their Captain of a Landlord to Tenants of such as have great riches towards the poor of the sick the imprisoned and abundance such like Besides the personal Laws given to Adam in the Garden to Noah to Abraham to David ●●●●●olomon the Prophets and such others Christ did not these same ●●●● for us nor we fulfilled not these particular Laws in him 57. The Disputes whether it be Christ's Divine his habitual his active or his passive Righteousness that is made ours to our Justification seemeth to be but the Off-spring of the error of the undue sense of Christ's personating or representing us in his Righteousness And the parcelling out the uses and effects that one is imputed to us instead of habitual Righteousness another instead of actual and the third pardoneth our Sins is from the same false supposition It 's well that they suppose not that his Divine Righteousness is imputed to our deification But the case is plain 1. That Christ's whole Humane Righteousness habitual active and passive are meritorious for us not as being the very same things all which we should have done and suffered and had as if we had did and suffered them our selves by one that had did and suffered them in our persons in a law-Law-sense But as being the parts of that one Righteousness of Christ as Mediator which consisteth in the full performance of the Law of Redemption or of his own Covenant with his Father undertaken for our sakes Having been and done and suffered what he promised he is Righteous 2. And his Divine Righteousness by virtue of the hypostatical Union dignifieth his Humane to its meritorious value 58. By his Satisfaction or Sacrifice and this Merit Christ did procure all that Pardon Life and Benefits whatsoever that consequently are given us of God And so is the true meritorious cause of all 59. That Sacrifice and Obedience Righteousness and Merit which was directly given to God for man by performance of Christ's undertaking may yet be consequently said to be given unto man In that it was given to God for man and in that the Benefits merited are given to man and so relatively as to those Benefits the Sacrifice Obedience Righteousness and Merit may be said to be given us As the Ransom is given to the Captive which is given for him because the liberty purchased by it is given him Of which more after SECT IV. Of the New Covenant or the Law of Grace in the Second Edition 60. The New Covenant is Christs Law of Grace his Instrument by which he giveth Title or Right to the Benefits promised and conveyeth Right to the Fruits of his Sacrifice and Merits And his Law by which he governeth the Church as a Saviour in order to Recovery and Salvation It hath greatly scandalized the Papists against us to find some old Pr●testants deny Christ to be a Law-Giver and
Grace And how oft the Resolution of the will may change without the loss of holy habits The te●●pter will say to David or Peter If once why not twice If twice why not thrice And who but God can say just how oft And yet to set no bounds confoundeth the just and unjust good and bad and maketh Sanctification but a name And to say that Peter's Faith did totally fail or that he was holy deprived of wholly love or saving Grace is rash and an unlikely thing 302. And it must be remembred that the Will is always in the time of sinning more for the committing the Sin than against it actually or else it would not be committed And in omissions it is not prevalently for the Duty else it would be done And if it were Habitually so too as to a holy or a sinful life the person were unholy And when the will known by the practice is sometime actually more for a gross Sin than against it and daily actually more for some small Sins than against them it is wonderous hard here to discern certainly that the contrary habit is our state 303. And it addeth to the difficulty that it is hard to be sure whether the Habit of Love and Holiness may not be predominant and yet the very Habit of some one Sin as well as the act be stronger than the contrary habit For a daily use of the acts seemeth to prove a prevalent Habit. As a Habit of Anger of vain jeasting c. And if a very Habit of one Sin may be prevalent though not of all others it will be hard to say either how great that Sin may be and so whether a Habit of Lust of Pride of Covetousness may stand with Grace in that prevalency or yet how many Sins may be so habitually prevalent in a sanctified man But if no one what shall those think of themselves that live in the daily act of smaller Sins before-mentioned And that they erre who tell us that all Sin is equally mortified in the Habit common experience fully proveth But such men use not to distinguish between the General habit of Love to Good and Hatred to evil which is as the trunk of the Tree to the branches which may have their particular Cankers and Diseases and is indeed Virtually a Habit of all Good and against all Evil and the particular Habits of Good and Evil which are also found in every Soul 304. Yea the difficulty is yet greater by our ignorance of the very nature of a Habit of the will or of that Inclination of it to Good or Evil which is antecedent to the Act which he that hath read the Schoolmen and Metaphysicks or ever well studyed it himself will discern to be tantum non out of the reach of our understandings That it is a Dispositive promptitude to Act we feel But whether that Disposition be it self a secret unobserved Immanent Act disposing to the more open perceptible Act for the Soul is never out of Action and certainly hath at one instant several Acts of which that de fine is oft unobserved and yet most powerful As a Traveller that is taken up with other thoughts and talk would never hold on his way if the end were not actually intended though he feel it not or whether it be the Natural Inclination of the Will corroborated and what that Inclination is whether it lie much in a Receptive disposition of the acted faculties by which they are still ready to receive the Active motion of the Agent power as the Receptivity of the fuel causeth the greatness and constancy of a flame or the opening of the window the shining in of the Sun or the composition of the adapted wheels causeth the Clock or Watch to be easily and truly moved by the poise or spring or what else it is that we call a Habit is not so easily known as unstudied confident Disputers think So that judicious Mr. Truman Tract of Impaten Nat. Mor. seemed to despair of clear understanding it And whether an Infants Principle of Holiness be Quid morale which never came from any act nor is the particular Habit of any act any more than the Inclinatio naturalis ad bonum qua bonum with abundance of other difficulties about Habits These all make our case the harder to be resolved SECT XXI The solution of all the former difficulties in part 305. Of all these difficulties I have no better solution besides what is aforesaid than as followeth 1. That a Dispositive Inclination of the Will to God and actual Holiness is like to the Inclinatio naturalis ad bonum foelicitatem saving that it is not ours ab origine in our lapsed state and that it is more moveable and separable from the Soul And so is quiddam naturae though not quaedam natura called The Divine and new nature in us and is to the Soul what Health is to the man And is the great Moral Principle within us and is acceptable to God as being the Rectitude of his noble creature * * * As to the Papists continual calumnies that we call men just whose continued wickedness is but hid and not imputed and without inherent justice we abhor both their confusion and their calumny and distinctly give them this short account 1. We hold a conditional universal pardon of all 2. But no actual pardon of the destructive punishment nor non-impuration of Sin till men are truly converted from a wicked heart and life to the love of God by Faith and Repentance 3. And then all Sin inconsistent with the prevalent love of God and a holy just and sober life is mortified and ceaseth 4. But such infirmities as you call Venial Sins continue and all our Goodness is culpably imperfect 5. Though the destructive punishment be pardoned the Reatus culpae in se continueth for ever that is It is an everlasting truth that we once sinned 6. Our pardon and our Renovation are freely given us by Grace for the sake of the satisfaction merits and intercession of Christ whose perfect Righteousnesse fulfilled that Law that man had broken 7. In which sense his perfect Righteousness is said by Protestants to be Imputed to us because he did it and suffered for us in the person of a Mediator and so it was the Meritorious cause of all our Justification Grace and Glory And what hath any Papist or other wrangler against any of this Ye● we reject their loose Doctrine that say as Pot. as Joseph Theol. Spec. l. 4. c. 10. p. 511. De potentia absoluta Gratia habitualis potest simul esse i● eode● subjecto meaning in a predominant degree cum peccato mortali sive actuali sive habituali For as I said before against Okam and Scotus on that point they are incon●istent contraries as life and not-living light and darkness and their proofs of the contrary are frivolous See Scot. in 4. d. 16. Aliac in 1. 99. Greg. Armin. in 1.
Mercy and Christs Redemption as Protestants use to do fol. F. Fide in Christum sola quis etiam citra quaevis opera justificatur Nam si propriis operibus quis justificatus fuerit is habet unde glorietur apud se gloriari enim potest de operibus suis quibus justificatus est Caeterum qui non suis operibus sed fide justus effectus est huic de se neutiquam est gloriandum sed de Deo qui fidem ei dedit qua justificatur Introducit itaque Scripturam Paulus quae non per opera sed per fidem Abrahae justificationem imputat nimirum ut ita non sibi sed Deo totam referat gloriam Ecce quia credidit Abraham ideo per fidem justificatus est Nam si per opera sua justitiam fuisset consecutus jam non gratis ei Justitia fuisset dat● sed magis operum respectu Si justificatio propter opera conferatur jam ex debito confertur potius quam gratis hoc est quam per gratiam ex gratuita Dei liberalitate Caeterum è diverso quando citra opera quis ob id tantum quod credat in Christum qui justificat impium justificationem adeptus est jam so●a fides sua illi ad justificationem imputatur Ecce jam hic audis cui jam fides ad justitiam imputatur ei viz. qui non operatur sed credit in eum qui justificat impium solâ fide Et ●ol G. passim H. Per fidem in illum sic expurgaremur ut ille nostra peccata ferret nos ejus justitiam assequeremur Non dicit factum fuisse illum Peccatorem nos justos per illum sed illum Peccatum nos Justitiam Dei See the rest Nec est ut quisquam secum haesitet num pro suis peccatis Christus seipsum tradiderit Immo credat securus sit ad eorum se catalogum pertinere pro quorum peccatis Christus semetipsum donavit Nam si istud non crediderit plane sejunctus est ab eorum consortio fides enim ea res est qua nos agglutinamur ita Christo ut meritorum ejus facti simus participes per hanc constituti sumus una cum eo filii Dei pariter cohaeredes fol. I. Hoc tu quisquis es peccator persuasissimum habeas quod si resipueris ac in Christum constanter credideris jam Christum induisti jam ejus spirit● donatus es ●am denique communem cum illo patrem nactus es See the rest Et fol. I. 5. Nam satisfaciente pro nobis hoc potentissimo sanguine quotquot in Christum credimus à peccatis omnibus abluimur justificamur insiti Christo atque in unum cum ipso ferruminati sic ut omnia mala nostra per ipsum deleta sint bon● vero ipsius cuncta nobis effecta sint communia Is not this high enough Fol. K. L. Is corde accedit quem veteris vitae poenitet Quare fides in Christum una cum resipiscentia te justificat ab omn● peccato Fol. M. Gratis confertur nobis ista redemptio non ●llis meritis nostris Namque ante quodvis Meritum justi constituimur nimirum ut inde prodeant opera nostra justa fiunt utique opera nostra justa per justitiam fidei Quisquis igitur peccator fueris nihil moror quo● quantaque quam gravia peccata tua fuerint si teipsum vere converteris ad Deum teque ipsum in ejus misericordiam totum projeceris credens Jesum Christum pro te mortuum jam haud dubie primam istam Justificationem adeptus es Sed cave te fallas te conversum simulans quum non integre convertaris Is quidem integre convertitur qui toto corde peccatis renunciat fiduciam plene suam collocans in Deo What think you of all this Do you differ from it L. I will not be so malignant as to disown the truth because a Papist speaketh it But still you shall give me leave to believe that so many Protestants would never have said so much against their Doctrine in this point if they had indeed held what these words import which are as much as any Protestant herein saith And you your self in your Confession cite abundance of them speaking for mans Merits R. 1. I cited them as using commonly the term Merit which I told you I had rather because of mens misunderstanding were disused so we could agree of some fitter safer word 2. And I told you that one Rom●us foolishly pleadeth for Merit in point of Commutative Justice which the most reject 3. And I told you that the paltry phrase of Merit ex proportione operum is used by some and rejected by others And some that use it it 's like have an unsound meaning in it and others mean but that different degrees of Glory or Reward shall be given according to different degrees of holiness which Protestants approve But as I justifie those Protestants who reprehend the unsound asscrtions of any Papists Writers so I must advise you to charge nothing on any Sect or party of men upon the words of particular men but what that party owneth nor to charge men with opinions because others have so done before you without finding what you charge them with in their own words L. Would you have me so uncharitable as to suspect so many Protestant Writers of Calumny R. 1. It is no Calumny to charge that on some Papists which those some do hold 2. It is perverse charity to receive unproved accusations of others for fear of suspecting the accusers of calumny By that rule all the false reports that now fly about in London should be received if a good man or woman specially many have once spoken them 3. And tell me whether you would have others observe the same rule towards you For instance you may see in Tolet a Cardinal Jesuit on the Romans that he chargeth the Hereticks as he calleth us with holding that God doth only Hide or forget our sins and not impute them to us but doth not mortifie them Whereas we all hold that he Remitteth actual sins past by Pardoning them as to the punishment but that he mortifieth the present habits of sin and preventeth the Reign of future sin called Moral sin by them in such as shall be saved Which is the same in sense as they hold themselves So he chargeth us as holding that we have no Inherent Righteousness after Justification no not Imperfect but only Christs Righteousness imputed and that we hold obedience unnecessary as to our final or continued Justification All which are false And shall all the unlearned Papists believe this of us for fear of an uncharitable suspicion of their Teachers Multitudes of their Writers falsly charge us with these same errors L. The Papists are Lyars and therefore to be suspected but so are not our Divines R. If once you fall upon such Rules
better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus Who made himself of no reputation 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 12 13 14. Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement For it hath been declared to me of you brethren that there are contentions among you that every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paul I thank God that I baptized none of you c. 1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3 4. I could not speak to you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal as to babes in Christ For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men See Eph. 4. 1 c. after John 17. 20 21 22 23. I pray for them which shall believe on me that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in Thee that they also may be One in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me Matth. 5. 9. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God Rom. 12. 18. If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men 2 Cor. 12. 20 21. I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults Lest God will humble me among you and I shall bewail many c. Gal. 5. 19 20. The works of the flesh are manifest hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions heresies envyings 1 Cor. 14. 33. God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace as in all Churches of the Saints Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Phil. 1. 15 16. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will The one preach Christ of contention not sincerely Rom. 16. 17 18. Now I beseech you brethren Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Luke 9. 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The Angelical Gospel of the Ends of Christs Incarnation Luke 2. 19. GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST ON EARTH PEACE GOOD WILL TO MEN or WELL-PLEASEDNESS IN MEN. John 20. 26. Peace be unto you Grace Mercy and Peace with all that are in Christ and Love Gal. 6. 16. Eph. 6. 23. 1 Pet. 1. 2. 5. 14. 2 Pet. 1. 2. 1 Thess 5. 13. 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally brethren farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind Live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you Amen 1. Assert THe BAPTISMAL COVENANT expounded in the antient CREED is the summ and Symbol of Christianity by which Believers were to be distinguished from unbelievers and the outward Profession of it was mens Title to Church-communion and the Heart-consent was their Title-condition of Pardon and Salvation And to these ends it was made by Christ himself Matth. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 16. 2. All that were baptized did profess to Believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and devoted themselves to him with profession of Repentance for former sins and renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil professing to begin a new and holy life in hope of everlasting glory 3. This form of Baptismal Covenanting and Profession begun with Christianity and called our Christening or making us Christians hath been propagated and delivered down to us to this day by a full and certain tradition and testimony and less alterations than the holy Scriptures 4. The Apostles were never such formalists and friends to ignorance and hypocrisie as to encourage the baptized to take up with the saying I believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost without teaching them to understand what they said Therefore undoubtedly they expounded those three Articles And that exposition could be no other in sense than the Creed is And when Paul reciteth the Articles of Christ 1 Cor. 15. and mentioneth the Form of sound words we may be sure that they all gave the people one unchanged exposition as to the sense Christianity was one unchanged thing 5. Though I am not of their mind that think the twelve Apostles each one made an Article of the Creed or that they formed and tyed men to just the very same syllables and every word that is now in the Creed yet that they still kept to the same sense and words so expressing it as by their variation might not endanger the corrupting of the faith by a new sense is certain from the nature of the case and from the Agreement of all the antient Creeds which were ever professed at baptism from their dayes that cited by me Append. to the Reformed Pastor out of Irenaeus two out of Tertullian that of Marcellus in Epiphanius that expounded by Cyril that in Ruffinus the Nicene and all mentioned by Usher and Vossius agreeing thus far in sense And no one was baptized without the Creed professed 6. As Christ himself was the Author of the Baptismal Creed and Covenant so the Apostles were the Authors of that Exposition which they then used and taught the Church to use And they did that by the Holy Ghost as much as their inditing of the Scripture 7. Therefore the Church had a Summary and Symbol of Christianity as I said before about twelve years before any Book of the New Testament was written and about sixty six years before the whole was written And this of Gods own making which was ever agreed on when many Books of the New Testament were not yet agreed on 8. Therefore men were then to prove the truth of the Christian Religion by its proper Evidences and Miracles long before they were to prove that every word or any Book of the New Testament was the infallible perfect Word of God 9. Therefore we must still follow the same Method and take Christs Miracles to be primarily the proof of the Christian Religion long before the New Testament Books were written 10. Therefore if a man should be
tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that Book words or reading it followeth not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith 11. A thousand Texts of Scripture may be not known and understood by one that is Justified but all the Baptismal Articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved 12. Those Church-Tyrants Dogmatists or superstitious ones who deny the sufficiency of this Test and Symbol made by Christ and his Spirit to its proper use to be the Symbol of such as in Love and Communion we are to take for Christians do subvert the summ of Christs Gospel and Law and do worse than they that add to or alter the lesser parts of the Word of God 13. Therefore our further Additional Confessions must be only to other subordinate ends As 1. To satisfie other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the faith 2. To be an enumeration of Verities which Preachers shall not have leave to preach against though they subscribe them not 14. Object Hereticks may profess the Baptismal Creed Answ 1. And Hereticks may profess any words that you can impose on them taking them in their own sense All the Councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing Hereticks We must not make new Symbols Rules and Laws as oft as Knaves will falsly profess or break the old ones there being none that may not be falsly professed and violated 2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures that yet are Hereticks 3. Church Governours are for this to cast out those or punish them who preach teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess Judicatures are not to make new Laws but to punish men for breaking Laws A heart-Heretick-only is no Heretick in foro Ecclesiae He that teacheth Heresie must be proved so to do and judged upon proof which may be done without new additional Symbols Rules or Laws of faith So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the Baptismal Creed as the Symbol of Christian Love Communion and Concord I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the Epistle to convince men of the true terms of Union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of Adding and Corrupting overdoers that divide us THE PREFACE AGAINST CLERGIE MENS Contentions AND Church-distracting Controversies THAT the Churches of Christ are dolefully tempted and distracted by Divisions no man will deny that knoweth them That the Clergie is not only greatly culpable herein but the chief cause cannot be hid But which part of the Clergie it is and what be their dividing Errors and Crimes and how they should be cured is indeed easie for the truly faithful and impartial Spectators to perceive but exceeding hard as experience tells us to make the Guilty throughly know and harder to do much effectually for the cure For the error and sin which is the true cause is its own defence and repelleth and frustrateth the Remedies And so each party layeth it from themselves on others and hate all that accuse them while they are the sharpest and perhaps most unjust accusers of the rest I shall here freely tell the Reader the History of my own Conceptions of these matters and then my present thoughts of the Causes of all these Calamities and the Cure I. I was born and bred of Parents piously affected but of no such knowledge or acquaintance as might engage them in any Controversies or disaffect them to the present Government of the Church or cause them to scruple Conformity to its Doctrine Worship or Discipline In this way I was bred my self but taught by my Parents and God himself to make conscience of sin and to fear God and to discern between the Godly and the notoriously wicked For which my Parents and I were commonly derided as Puritans the Spirit of the Vulgar being commonly then fired with hatred and scorn of serious godliness and using that name as their instrument of reproach which was first forged against the Nonconformists only And the Clergie where I lived being mostly only Readers of the Liturgie and some others that rather countenanced than reproved this course I soon confined my Reverence to a very few among them that were Learned and Godly but Conformists and for going out of my Parish to hear them my reproach increased About eighteen or nineteen years of age I fell acquainted with some persons half Conformists and half Non-conformists who for fear of severities against private Meetings met with great secresie only to repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and by Pious Conference edifie each other Their Spirits and Practice was so savoury to me that it kindled in me a distaste of the Prelates as Persecutors who troubled and ruined such persons while ignorant Drunkards and Worldlings were tolerated in so many Churches yea and countenanced for crying down such persons and crying up Bishops Liturgie and Conformity Before I was aware my affections began to solicite my understanding to judge of the Things and Causes by the Persons where the difference was very great But yet my first Teachers kept my judgement for Conformity as Lawful though not Desirable had we Liberty till I was ordained But soon after a new acquaintance provoked me to a deeper study of the whole Controversie than I had undertaken before which left me perswaded that the use of Liturgie and Ceremonies was lawful in that case of necessity except the Baptismal use of the Cross and the subscription to all things c. But in 1640. the Oath called Et Caetera being offered the Ministry forced me to a yet more searching Study of the case of our Diocesane Prelacie which else I had never been like to have gainsaid At a meeting of Ministers to debate the case it fell to Mr. Christopher Cartwrights lot and mine to be the Disputers and the issue of all that and my studies was that I setled in the approbation of the Episcopacy asserted by Ignatius yea and Cyprian but such a dissent from the English frame as I have given account of in my Disputations of Church Government My genius was inquisitive and earnestly desirous to know the truth my helps for Piety were greater than my helps for Learning of which I had not much besides Books sickness helpt my seriousness keeping me still in expectation of death All my reverenced acquaintance save one cryed down Arminianism as the Pelagian Heresie and the Enemy of Grace I quickly plunged my self into the study of Dr. Twisse and Amesius and Camero and Pemble and others on that subject By which my mind was setled in prejudice against Arminianism without a clear understanding of the case whereupon I felt presently in my mind a judgement of those that were for Arminianism as bad or dangerous adversaries to the Church and specially of the then ruling Bishops which yet I think I had not-entertained had I not taken them withal for the great Persecutors of Godly able
the Synod of Dort and been as far from Tyranny as they should have been matters had never come so oft to Blood or Tumult among them as they have done nor Grotius and the Arminians had so much to say against them I will not meddle with the matters of this Island in our times seeing they sufficiently speak themselves But how cometh this Clergie Tyranny to be so common so long and so powerful in the World to make Parties and draw Princes into Wars 1. It must be remembred that true Godliness is not common in the World Too many take up Christianity as in the Eastern parts the posterity of the old famous Christians are now Mahometans 2. The Gospel and true Spirit of Christianity is contrary to the minds and worldly interests of carnal ambitious covetous voluptuous men So that they profess a Religion which their own hearts abhorr as to its serious practice 3. Every unrenewed man hath such a worldly fleshly nature and is voluptuous proud and covetous And none of them love to be reproved or crossed in their way 4. Church Honours Dignities and great Revenues and Clergie-ease in an idle life are a great bait or temptation to a carnal mind And the worse men are the more they will desire and seek Church preferments and make all the friends they can to get them And the more self-denying men will not do so but perhaps avoid them 5. The diligent seekers are liker to obtain and find than the neglecters and avoiders And so the Churches to be usually in the power of the worser sort of men and Religion to be under the Government of its enemies 6. Men in power and the Major Vote have great advantage to execute their own wills and to put Laws on others and bring them under what Characters they please and so to affix the names of Hereticks or Schismaticks on them if they fulfil not all their wills yea to silence them and suppress their Writings and make them to be little understood in the World yea or by their neighbours round about them 7. The Vulgar as they are for the Conquerour in the Wars so usually are for the upper and stronger side in peace that have Power to hurt them and have the Major Vote And also easily believe them and think men that suffer are like to be guilty of what they are accused 8. Godliness being against a worldly mind and interest and the Rabble usually for it hence ariseth a Conspiracy of carnal Clergie-men and the Rabble against those that are most seriously Godly as if they were their enemies and a surly proud intractable sort of people As Sulpitius Severus describeth Ithacius and his followers and even Mr. Hooker out of him Eccl. Pol. Praefat. 9. Such men in Power never want flatterers at their ears to praise all that they do and to exasperate them by slandering and reviling sufferers 10. The long possession since the dayes of Constantine of Great Places and Power by the Clergie within the Roman Empire now the Greek and Latine Churches doth seem to justifie mens Usurpations and Tyranny and make all dissenters seem singular and Schismatical which was and is the Papal strength against the Reformed 11. Too many of the Secular Rulers of the World have much of the same Spirit And find also their interests so twisted in shew with the Papal Clergies that they dare not cross them 12. The faults of those that suffer by them in doctrine and imprudent carriages use to give them great advantage and make all their odious characters and names of them believed and received as the case of the Waldenses and of the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany too fully prove II. The second Rank of Church-disturbers are DOGMATISTS or men that profess exceeding zeal for ORTHODOX Opinions or Theological Knowledge And thus three instances tell us of the Cause of our Calamities 1. That of Gnostick and Heretical persons who account every new Conceit of theirs to be worthy the propagating even at the rate of Theological Wars and Church Confusions and cry out But the Truth and sell it not when it is some error of their own or some unprofitable or unnecessary notion 2. The case of the Romanists to say nothing of all the old contentious Bishops and Councils and the controversies about Persona and Hypostasis and about many words and forms of speech What do the Roman Councils for many hundred years last but on pretence of preserving the faith uncorrupted multiply divisions and new Articles of faith quoad nos And while they cry down most of Christs Church as Heretical or greatly erroneous they have run themselves into the grossest errors almost that humane nature is capable of even to the making it necessary to salvation to deny our own and all the sound mens senses in the World in the case of Transubstantiation 3. The case of the Schoolmen and such other Disputing Militant Theologues who have spun out the Doctrine of Christianity into so many Spiders Webs and filled the World with so many Volumes of Controversies as are so many Engines of contention hatred and division And I would our Protestant Churches Lutherans and Calvinists had not too great a number of such men as are far short of the Schoolmens subtilty but much exceed them in the enviousness of their zeal and the bitterness and revilings of their disputes more openly serving the Prince of hatred against the Cause of Love and Peace O how many famous Disputers in Schools Pulpit and Press do little know what Spirit they are of and what reward they must expect of Christ for making odious his Servants destroying Love and dividing his Kingdom How many such have their renown as little to their true comfort as Alexanders and Caesars for their bloody Wars But how cometh this Dogmatical Zeal so to prevail Consider 1. Nature it self is Delighted in Knowing much Else Satan had not made it Eves temptation Without Grace even Theological Speculations may be very pleasing to mens minds Morality and Holiness is principally seated in the Will 2. Satan hath here a far fairer bait than worldly Wealth and Pleasures and Honours to tempt men and steal away their hearts from that Love and Practice which is Holiness indeed All men are bound to Love Gods Word and his Truth must be precious to us all and now it is easie for the hypocritical Dogmatist to take up here and make himself a Religion of Zeal for those opinions which he entitleth God to And O that I could speak this loud enough to awaken the Learned World of Disputers to so much jealousie of their own hearts as is necessary to their own safety as well as to the Churches peace This thing called Orthodoxness Truth and Right-believing precious in it self if it be what it is called is made by Satan an ordinary means to deceive Learned men and keep them from a holy and heavenly mind and life when grosser cheats would be less effectual
sinned by Omission 3. But that Law giving life eternal only to Obedience to the end of his time of trial he merited not that life by initial Obedience This was initial imperfect Righteousness wanting perseverance but not a medium between Just and Unjust except as Just signifieth the merit of Life by persevering Righteousness to the last And so I never denied but in a disobliged Subject there is a medium Adam was not bound to do a years work the first hour and so was neither just nor privatively unjust as to the future years work but as to what he was presently obliged to he was either Righteous or a Sinner Here you come short of necessary accurateness Perseverance is a part of our Condition of Glorification Yet he that is not dead is just if he be a Believer and obedient And if God now call him by death he shall be glorified But he hath not now done all that is to be done till his death if he live longer So that his Right to the present possession of Glory before death is not justifiable but his Right in case he now die is § 41. M. S. Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere cannot be put in exchange for fac hoc and therefore justified only as it relateth to him who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him An. 1. Exchange is an ambiguous word Here is no proper exchange Faith is not a fulfilling of the Law of Innocency nor so reputed by God Christ did both satisfie for our not-fulfilling it and also by that and by fulfilling it himself not in our persons but his own did merit the free Gift of Life to us to be ours upon new Covenant terms and Faith and Repentance are the Conditions of that New Covenant and so are that Duty which is laid on our selves to do instead of perfect Obedience supposing Christ's Satisfaction and Merits which are instead of it quoad precium or principally as our said acts are instead of it as to what is necessary in our selves And the Apostle who so oft saith Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness doth neither by Faith mean Christ nor mean that Faith is imputed as a fulfilling the Law of Works But that having no such merit of our own or Righteousness our believing in him that hath satisfied and merited for us is reckoned to us instead of a Righteousness or Merit as being all that now is necessary to our Justification in our selves our persevering Obedience being afterward necessary to our Glory 2. No doubt Faith relateth to Christ and here connoteth him as its Object It were not Christian Faith else But it is also related to the New Covenant as its Condition and in that form hath its place to our Justification which cannot be denied Therefore you untruly say Only as relating to Christ and your words confute your self You say Who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him You speak either of secret Decree and that giveth no Right or of Covenant Donation And to say He and his benefits are given in Covenant to all that will receive him is all one as to say The Covenant giveth them on condition that we receive him which is true § 42. M. S. 5. It is impossible that the terms of the Covenant of Grace can be any other than they are because nothing but receiving him can make him mine An. 1. That proveth not that Faith is not the Condition but that it needs must be so 2. It is impossible now the Covenant is so made viz. ex necessitate existentiae But that God could have made it no otherwise is not a thing for man to say 3. Confound not passive Reception with active moral Reception Justificari is passively to receive Justification and to be first related to Christ as mine or to be one that he is given to is passively to receive Christ Active moral receiving is the Wills consenting thus to have him on all his terms and is the means of the other It is this and not the other that is Faith And could not God possibly have made Christ ours by any alteration of the terms sure they that confine Faith to the receiving of Christs imputable Righteousness will grant that God could possibly have put one act more of Faith into the Condition or on● act of Gratitude Desire Love or Repentance And Dr. Twisse thinks he could have given a man a Right to Life without Christ's Satisfaction and to Christ without Faith and that so he doth to Infants § 43. M. S. There is no Righteousness in point of Justification but only in conformity to the Rule Do this that only brings a man under the approving Will of God An. 1. But what is the Do this that you mean Adam's Law said Do this and live Moses Law said Do this and live The Law given to Christ said Do and suffer this and I will give thee Power over all Flesh to give eternal life to as many as I give thee and believe The Law of Christ to Sinners saith Do this and live This is the work of God that ye believe c. But all these Doings are different for all that It 's an unknown Faith or Repentance which is no Act or Duty 2. There is no Righteousness but the conformity to the Rule of Righteousness if you speak only of that Righteousness which is of that species But there is another sort He that is justifiable is just so far If Satan say Thou art conde●nandus to be damned to Hell and shut out of Heaven for breaking the Law of Works I must deny it not by saying I did not break it but keep it by another or I did not deserve damnation but by alledging He that is pardoned is not to suffer any pain of sense or loss I am pardoned by the New covenant through the Merit of the Satisfaction and perfect Righteousness of Christ Adam's Law will not justifie you nor Moses's Law neither The Law requireth personal perfect Obedience It never said Thou or another for thee shalt obey It knoweth no Surety To give a Surety and to accept his suretiship is the act of the Law Giver as above his Law not fulfilling that Law but securing the ends of Government and of it by another way To pardon a Sin and Penalty is not to fulfil the Law that threatened it but to dispense with it which Justice can do upon a valuable consideration securing the ends of Government And Veracity is not impeached by it For 1. The sense of silius mortis is Death shall be thy due and so it was 2. And death was actually inflicted on man himself though not all that which he deserved If the Law of Innocency justifie you you need no Redeemer you need no Pardon you need no New Covenant to justifie you nor can it do it 3. We are justified by Doing though not by our fulfilling the Law of Works by our selves or another We are justified
by two sort● of Doing Principally by the Merit of Christ's perfect Righteousness and subordinately by our fulfilling the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace which Baptism celebrateth 4. Gods Will approveth of all that is good so far as it is good It approveth of habitual Holiness in Adam and would have done in his Infants had he stood and doth so in all Christians now And I will believe that Christ before he actually obeyed was under Gods approving Will. But not as one that had merited by Obedience For God doth not suppose any to do that which they do not nor oblige them to do to-morrows work to-day § 44. M. S. The issue in a word is 1. Suffering for Sin is not doing nor equivalent in point of Justification 2. Nor can God having satisfaction for what was done cross to his Law lay aside that in order to the conveying of Life and substitute believing instead of it Therefore Faith justifieth ratione objecti only Now we Do in another Christ instead of doing in our own persons An. I doubt this is another Gospel than the Apostles delivered us though I hope that practically we meet in one 1. To the first I answer It 's true but you do ill to intimate that we think otherwise Suffering by the Sinner never satisfieth because it must be everlasting Suffering by Christ satisfieth not meerly as suffering but as the voluntary suffering of God-Man aptly glorifying Justice and Love and securing the ends of Government This Satisfaction is not equivalent to doing in Justification For Doing all required would have justified us against this Charge Thou art a Sinner by Omission and Commission and thou hast deserved Death and hast not deserved Life according to the Law of Works Against this Charge I look for no Justification but confess it is all true But Christ's Satisfaction justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee by paine of loss and sense or else he is not just because thou hast deserved it And Christ's perfect Righteousness also justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee and deny thee life because thou didst not merit it by perfect Obedience The Justifier says No because Christ's Merit in Doing and Suffering hath glorified the Law and Justice of God instead of my Merit and hath procured us Pardon and Life given by the New Covenant 2. To the second I answer 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant but man by sin did lay it aside by making the Condition impossible 2. You overturn the Gospel too much by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues To say that the sense of Adam's Law was Thou or another Christ for thee shalt obey And that we are justified by that Law is to confound Law and Gospel and make a Gospel of that Law and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us or both to condemn and justifie and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased God saith now to no man living Be innocent and so merit life that thou maist live And God doth not repute us innocent at all 3. To the third I answer It is notoriously untrue that Faith justifieth only ratione objecti unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all which is true For we are justified by it also ratione foederis because that which is materially Faith in Christ a justifying Saviour and so connoteth its Object as the meritorious Cause of the free Gift and Pardon is by reason of this aptitude made the Condition of that New Covenant or Gift which is its nearest interest or reason of our being justified by it And it is the Law of Grace by which we must be judged and justified And at that Bar the question which Life or Death dependeth on will be supposing Christ's Merits whether we are penitent Believers or impenitent Unbelievers and so have part in Christ or not And if Satan accuse us as being impenitent Unbelievers and the question be whether we have true Faith or not my Opinion is that we cannot be herein justified by pleading the Object when the Act is questioned and saying That Christ fulfilled that Law unless you could prove that he justifieth impenitent Infidels and as Saltmarsh said repented and believed for us But the grand Case remaineth Whether we are justified by the Law of Innocency by fulfilling it and meriting in another without any sort of doing of our own by our selves Mr. Wotton Mr. Gataker and abundance more have long ago said much to confute your Error besides Mr. Bradshaw whom you name But I add I. I have before proved that by the deeds or sentence of the Law of Adam or Moses no man can be justified 1. He that hath sinned against it cannot be justified as not having sinned For factum infectum fieri is impossible to God himself 2. The Law that condemneth us doth not justifie us 3. What Paul Rom. 3. 4. frequently saith against Justification by the Law of Moses will hold here a fortiori And Christ keeping Moses Law as far as he was capable of Obligation that also would else have been imputed and so we should have been justified by that Law also which the Scripture copiously denieth He that saith He hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar and the truth is not in him And the Law of Adam justifieth no man that hath sin II. We did not fulfil it and merit in Christ But Christ did in the Person of a Mediator voluntarily undertaking it on his Fathers terms and not as our Instrument or in our Persons I have else-where given abundance of Arguments against that which I must not here repeat This Author took notice of my Objection that he that is reputed perfectly Innocent and Obedient is uncapable of Pardon and needeth no satisfaction or remitting or rewarding Covenant besides that which he kept but answereth it not This subverteth the Gospel and Religion Quer. If there be no Reward nor Life but of Justice and no Reward but for Christ's Merits and all Believers equally merited in Christ as fulfilling all the Law 1. Whence cometh the inequality of Grace and Glory 2. How come any Believers to be left long under sins and weakness of Grace and temporal punishments III. The Merits of Christ have procured us the New Covenant sealed in Baptism by which we have a new Rule offiicii judicii for such is every Law Christ is not the only Subject of God He made us not lawless or Rebels God still ruleth the Church by a Law or Covenant This is the Law or Covenant of Grace Deny this Covenant and you deny the Gospel This Covenant or Law obligeth us to Duty And it promiseth and giveth Pardon and Life in and with Christ This Covenant hath Conditions various conditions of various Benefits Our first true consent which Baptism celebrateth that is
or after the performance a proper Cause of Gods Will which pardoned us For Gods Will in it self can have no cause But they were Causes 1. Of the Thing willed and 2. Also of the extrinsecal denomination of Gods Will from the object and effect of which anon 41. Christ did not take upon him strictly and properly the Natural or Civil person of any Sinner much less of all the Elect or all Sinners But the person of a Mediator between God and Sinners Of which more afterwards 42. Christ was not our Delegate Deputy Minister or Instrument to do what he did in our names by representing our persons as a man's Servant payeth his Masters debt by his command or doth some work which he was to do by himself or by another Nor did God or his own consent put him into any such Instrumental Relation in our Civil persons 43. Yet did he in the person of a Mediator not only merit and suffer ●ro nobis nostro bono but also voluntarily as part of his Mediato●ial work suffer the penalty nostro loco in our stead Not by a full ●epresentation of our persons nor as if we could hence truly say that we ●id in sensu Legis vel Civili Suffer in Christ or satisfie Gods Justice our selves by Christ nor that God or the Redeemer do reckon it to us or ever will to be a thing done by us in our own Civil person though ●y Christs Natural person nor will ever give us all the fruits of it on that reason and account as supposing us so by Christ to have satisfyed for or Redeemed our selves But he suffered in the stead and place of Sinners to satisfie Gods Wisdom Truth and Justice and to procure pardon and life for Sinners to be given out by himself on his terms and in his way 44. Much less did Christ in our persons and we in and by him in a civil sence become habitually holy and perfectly fulfill all righteousness Nor doth God ever repute us to have our selves in our own civil persons thus fulfilled the Law and been holy in and by Christ or will justifie us on such a supposition 45. Christ is said to be made sin for us in that he was made a Sacrifice for sin But never was a Sinner indeed or in Gods esteem For God judgeth not falsly Nor did he ever take to himself the Guilt of fact or fault in it self but the punishment and the guilt only in relation to punishment the Reatum poenae non culpae qua talis But if any will call the Reatum poenae by the name of Reatum eulpae quoad poenam tantum because of the relation and connotation I strive not against the Name so we agree of the thing But safest words are best especially seeing that obligatio ad poenam is it that is most usually and eminently called guilt But Christ never undertook to be reputed of God one that was truly and formally wicked or a sinner but only one that was a sponsor who consented to suffer for Sinners that they might be delivered And they are ill words of them that say Christ was by imputation the most wicked man the greatest Thief Adulterer Murderer or Sinner in the world Though such men may mean well it were better speak in the Scripture phrase and not so far overgoe it Had God imputed our sins so to him as to have esteemed him a Sinner or guilty of our habitual and actual sin as sin even our hatred of God and all our wickedness God must necessarily from the perfection of his Nature have hated him as a wicked enemy yea more than he hated any other man as being guilty of a world of wickedness Whereas God was still well pleased with him and never hated him 46. The satisfaction which Christ made to the justice of God was full and perfect and so was his merit by his perfect Righteousness 47. The perfection of Christ's satisfaction consisteth not in its being in stead of All the sufferings due to all for whom be dyed so that none should therefore be ever due to the persons themselves For death afflictions and the want of Grace and withholding of the Spirits further help c. must be suffered even by the Elect But it consisteth in its full sufficiency to those Ends for which it was designed by the Father and the Son 48. The very Nature and Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ's ●●●ferings was not in Being the very same either in Kind or in Degree which were due to all for whom he suffered For they were not such Of which more afterwards 49. They could not be the same which was due by the Law For the Law made it due to the Sinner himself And anothers suffering for him fulfilleth not the Law which never said Either thou or another for the shalt dye But only satisfied the Law-giver as he is above his own Law and could dispense with it his Justice being satisfied and saved D●●alius solvit aliud solvitur 2. And sin it self though not as sin as ●● before opened was the greatest part of the Sinners punishment To ●● alienated from God and not to love him and delight in him but to be corrupted and deluded and tormented by concupiscence 3. And the immediate unavoidable consequents resulting from sin it self we●● punishments which Christ did never undergo As to be Hateful or ●● pleasing to God as contrary to his Holy nature to be related as Criminal to lose all Right to Gods favour and Kingdom c. 4. And no●● of the further punishments which supposed real faultiness could fall ●● Christ as the torment of an accusing Conscience for rejecting and offending God for casting away our own felicity and running into hell c. the sense of Gods hatred of us as real Sinners 5. Much less the de●●tions of the Spirit of Holiness to be left without goodness in a state of sin and to hate God for his justice and holiness which will be the damneds case The blind zeal of them that think they wrong the sufferings of Christ if they make them not thus of the s●me ki●● with all that we deserved doth lead them to the intollerable Blasph●ming of our Saviour which if understood they would themselves abhor 50. Nor could Christ's sufferings be equal in Degree intensively and extensively to all that was deserved by the world As is easily dis●●●nible by perusing what is now said seeing our deserved suffering lay i● things of such a Nature as to be left in sin it self destitute of God● Image and Love and Communion under his hatred tormented in C●●science besides the everlasting torments of hell which are more th●● these upon all the millions of Sinners which were redeemed 51. Yet did Christ suffer more in Soul than in Body being at the present deprived of that kind of sense of Gods Love and Joy therein which was no part of his holiness or perfection but no other and having o●
he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn But then it must be understood that this distinction i● not applyed to the Will of God as he is meerly an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor but as he is the King or Rector of the world and so his Legislation is his Antecedent Will and his Judgment is his Consequent Will And no man of Religion can deny either that Gods Law is the signification of his Will or his Will signifyed or that his Judgment and ●●cution is his Will declared or that Gods Law of Grace doth conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man's performance or rejection of the condition or that God condemneth Infidels consequently to their Infidelity The Law Antecedently to Mans part acted saith He that believeth shall be saved and the Sentence consequently to his fact saith Judas an unbeliever or impenitent shall perish And thus the distinction hath no doubt or difficulty 103. God by commanding faith and repentance and making the● necessary conditions of Justification and by commanding perseverance and threatning the Justified and Sanctified with damnation if they f●● away and making perseverance a condition of Salvation doth thereby provide a convenient means for the performance of his own Decree of giving Faith and Repentance and perseverance to his Elect For he effecteth his ends by suitable moral means and such is this Law and Covenant to provoke man to due fear and care and obedience that he may be wrought on as a man 104. To be justifyed by Faith in general agreeth to the ages before Of Justification by Faith c. Christ's Incarnation and those since But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justifyed For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justifyed by to them that are under the last edition of the Covenant of Grace than was or is to them that were under the first alone Abraham believed not all our essential Articles of faith 105. To be justified by faith in Paul's sence is all one as to be justified What that Faith is by becoming Christians To be a Believer a Disciple and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sence 106. The faith by which we are justified as is aforesaid is best understood The Controversie between the Papists and us about Justification is agitated i● vain till we agree of the sence of the words Justification and Remission As I said elsewhere they take not only Justification for a qualitative change such as we call Sanctification but Remission of Sin for they know not what themselves most of them talk as if it were a putting away the Sin in its essence which can be meant of nothing but the Habit for the fact cannot be infectum Others seem to take it for remitting the punishment also with that change Malderus most plainly in 1. 2. q. 113. a. 1. and p. 567. saith that Remission of Sin is Ablatio Reatus culpae At esse longe aliud quam Nolle illud punire non enim tantum facit Hominem non puniri sed etiam non esse Poena dignum Minus tamen est quam in amicitiam recipi though yet no man is in a middle state neque D●i amicus neque inimicus yet cogitations possunt seterari Peccata Remittere idem est quod non imputare si hoc non accipias pro dissimulare sed pro desinere esse offensum cum per Remissionem Deo non imputante est quasi non fuerit By this you may see that these Papists hold the same with those Protestants whom they seem most to resist and cannot hide it But 1. It will be true to eternity that Peter sinned 2. To say so is to blame him 3 His sin deserv'd death 4. The Law and the nature of sin past are the same after pardon as before 5. God doth not change his mind of sin 6. Gods offence or displeasure is not a passion or mutable but his essence as denomina ed from the object to be his Velle punire and Justice that must punish 7. For God to be appeased and no more offended is but his Nolle punire peccatorem and not to be obliged in Justice to punish him but by his Covenant related to him as one that will not punish 8. This change is in the sinner becoming not punishable 9. That is not worthy of it in the Gospel-sence though worthy by the Law of Innocency 10. All this is but that the Reatus p●na culpae quantum ad poenam is remitted but not the Reatus culpae simpliciter in se And thus we are all agreed by the Baptismal Covenant and is essentially a Believing Fiducial consent to our Covenant relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Reconciled Creator and Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer connoting the forsaking of all inconsistents For it must needs be the same faith by which we have right to the benefits of that Covenant and by which we are justified because we have our remission and justification by the Instrumental donation of the Covenant it being one of the benefits given by it But Practical Faith or Believing-consent is our condition of receiving our Covenant right to all the benefits in general therefore to Justification in particular 107. The Phrases of Justifying faith and Faith justifying us are humane and not Scriptural at all And though they may be well used with explicatory caution as being well meant yet they are more lyable to mislead men than the Scripture phrase that we are justified by Faith Because the former phrases are apter to insinuate an Efficiency than the other whereas faith is no efficient cause of our Justification nor any other act of Man And the Scripture that speaketh of Justification by Faith sometime useth the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which no more signifyeth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex operibus And though sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used it is to signifie no more than that God hath appointed it to be the Medium of our Justification as a condition but not as any efficient cause 108. The Faith by which we are justified as I touched before hath God the Father for its object as essentially as Christ the Saviour as the said Baptismal Covenant sheweth and that not only secondarily as Christ being the Mediator and way to the Father our faith in Christ connoteth the final object but also directly and primarily as the Father is the first in Trinity and as Creator first related to us and as the end is first in our intention Joh. 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent Joh. 13. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me 109. And as essential is it to this Faith to believe in Christ as the Purchaser of Holiness and Heaven as to
deceive themselves We hold it neither de facto nor de possibili and they hold it de possibili and not de facto viz that bare pardon and non imputation may put away the very being of sin and may save men Of which more afterwards But many others deny that sin can be remitted by extrinsick condonation See Cacer's Sum. The. 22. c. 2. They ordinarily take Remission for destroying the sin it self or passive as it 's called is not given us or made ours truly and properly in the thing it self but in the effects as was aforesaid for neither the same matter nor the same form is strictly ours 1. That neither of them is ours in a physical sence is undeniable If the Divine Righteousness were so ours we were Gods And a Habit an Act and a Passion materially cannot be removed from one subject to another nor the same be in divers subjects These are as palpable contradictions as Transubstantiation is And the Relative form is founded in the matter or subject and can no more be removed The paternity of a Generator and the paternity of an Adopter are not the same but two And a Relation is an accident also which perisheth when removed from the subject and in another is another 2. If it be said that both are ours Morally or Imputatively I answer It is true But that phrase is of large and doubtful signification 1. If the meaning be that The Covenant of Grace doth as certainly pardon or justifie us in the way and degree promised by it for the merit of Christs Righteousness in performing his Mediatorial Covenant with the Father as our own merit had it been possible would have done or our Innocency would have Justifyed us by the Covenant of Innocency this is true 2. But if the meaning be that Christs merit and satisfaction by perfect holiness and obedience and suffering are supposed or Reputed by God to have been inherent in us or done by us in our civil person in Christ or that in a sence natural or Legal we did all those things our selves or that God judgeth us so to have done by Judging Christ and us to be the same civil person or else that all the Benefits of Christs Righteousness shall as fully and immediately be ours as if we had been and done and suffered merited and satisfyed in and by Christ All this is false 120. For if this were so we could need no pardon for he that is reputed to be Innocent by fulfilling all the Law is reputed never to have sinned by omission or commission And he can have no pardon of sin who hath no sin to be pardoned Therefore such an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us would make his satisfaction null or vain or certainly neither imputable to us nor useful for us 121. Some to avoid this do divide the Time of our Lives and suppose Christs sufferings to have satisfied and purchased pardon of our sins for all the Time before our Believing and his Righteousness to be imputed to us for the Time since our Believing But this is a humane fiction For our sins after believing must have pardon too by Christ's satisfaction And some distinguish of our Time and State under the two Covenants and say that Christ's satisfaction was for the pardon of our sins under the first Covenant which continued but till the promise made to Adam Gen. 3. 15. And so was for none but Adam's sin imputed to us and that after that all being under the new Covenant it condemneth none but the finally impenitent who scape not and so that Gods pardoning men since the new Covenant is but his preventing their need of pardon or else pardoning temporal punishments only But this is contrary to the Gospel which tells us that Christ dyed for our sins even all that ever are forgiven and that all are forgiven to believers and not the necessity of forgiveness prevented and not only Adam's sin as ours Nor only the temporal but the perpetual punishment And even temporal punishment is not due to the innocent 122. Some distinguish only of Actions and not of Time and say Christ's Sacrifice satisfyed for all our sins that they may be forgiven and his righteousness is imputed to us that we may be also accounted just But this is but either ambiguity or the fore-detected gross contradiction For if by Justice they mean Reputed sinlessness or perfecti●● then these two cannot stand together For he that is supposed a Sinner is supposed not sinless or perfect And he that is supposed sinless cannot be supposed pardonable 123. Some think to avoid the contradiction by distinguishing only the moments of Nature and double respect of the same mans actions They say that we are first in order of Nature supposed to be Sinners and pardoned and then to be such as moreover need the reputation of Innocency or Righteousness which is added to pardon But 1. He that is pardoned all sins of omission and commission is accounted Innocent and Righteous as to any Guilt of punishment either of sence or Loss 2. And he that is after accounted Innocent and Just from his first being to that hour is judged never to have needed pardon And so they make God come with an after act and condemn his own foregoing act of error and injury or at least to contradict it and in the first instant to say I pardon this Sinner and in the second to say I now repute him one that never sinned or needed pardon 124. But the commonest way of such Divines is to say that Christs Righteousness is first imputed that is we are reputed to have perfectly obeyed and been habitually holy in Christ and then sin is next pardoned as a fruit of the merits of this But this is still but the oft detected contradiction that we are first accounted sinless and therefore our sins are forgiven us 125. Some say that the Law since the fall obligeth us both to obey and to suffer and not to one only else a Sinner bound to suffer should not be bound to obey Therefore Christ must do both for us But this is too gross for any man to utter that ever knew what Law and Government is Do they mean that as to the same Act and time the Law bindeth us to obey and suffer or for divers acts and instants of time Do they mean that the Law bound man both to perfection and suffering for perfection or to suffering for sin No man doubts but when one sin is committed and punishment deserved the Law is still the Law and bindeth men still to obey or suffer more the next moment and again to obey or suffer more the next moment But this concerneth not our question Did the Law bind Adam to obey and to suffer before he sinned Did it bind him both to obey and suffer for his new sin the next instant It 's true it bound him to suffer for his old sin but not for the next before it is
person or as fully representing us all the Gospel is over-turned There is no room for Repentance none for the satisfaction of Christ none for Faith in his blood nor for Pardon or prayer for Pardon or any Grace Act Duty or Ordinance Sacraments Confession or any thing which supposeth Sin To say that Adam's Law meant Do this by thy self or by Christ and thou shalt live is a Humane fiction not found in Scripture confounding the Law of Innocency with the Gospel And to say that the New Covenant maketh us one Person with Christ and then the Law of Ad●● doth justifie us is a double error We are not reputed one Person with Christ nor doth the first Covenant justifie any but the Person that performeth it But we maintain as well as they that the same Righteousness of God in himself is manifested in both Covenants and the same holy love of perfect Obedience and the ends of the first Covenant are secured by the second But the tenour and terms are not the same nor the Righteousness of the subject as denominated from those terms It is not the same Law which condemneth us and justifieth us nor that justifieth Christ and us nor is it the same Habits or Acts which are the immedi●●e fundamentum of the Relation of righteous in Christ and in us ●ough his Righteousness be the meritorious cause of ours And there●●re not the same with the thing merited 130. The Truth which they grope after and must reconcile them ●●●● is as followeth Christ in his Sufferings did stand in the room of ●●ners as their Sponsor and satisfied Justice as was said before And ●●d had other ends yet to accomplish It was meet that the perfection ●his Law should be glorified by a perfect fulfilling of it by Christ ●en we had failed Satan was hereby confounded God pleased and ●noured Man shewed what he should have been and yet should do ●ns nature in Christ was thus actively and habitually perfected By all ●s Christ performed his Obedience to the mediatorial Law and his Herveus Natal quodlib 4. q. 14. could speak thus much better than many Protestants Sicut meritum Christi quantum ad actum quem exercuit non transit in alios transit tamen in alios quantum ad effectum illius meriti illis qui applicantur ad Christum mediantibus Sacramentis vel mediante fide propria Qui quidem effectus est Gratia quae est c●ntraria culpae quae reddit hominem dignum vita aeterna Ita etiam demeritum Adae licet non transeat in alios quantum ad actum quem exercuit tamen transit quoad effectum culpae originalis quae est contraria gratiae reddit dignum poenae aeterna indignum vita aeterna How doth this differ from the soundest Protestants as to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us or Adam's sin ●venant of Redemption and so acquired a right first to himself of giving ●t the purchased Benefits to Sinners by a new Law or Covenant of Grace ●●d according to it By which Covenant only as his Instrument the ●her and Son give us Right to them in an Order there established ●●●● that is there given to us Christ purchased for us by performing his ●n Covenant first with the Father by perfect Holiness and Obedience ●en in his Sacrifice on the Cross and by all that he undertook to do as Redeemer antecedently The Purchase was made for this Donation ● its end and is commensurate to it just so much as Christ hath given ●●●● as to matter manner terms degree time c. he did purchase and ●rit for us and no more Had he antecedently done all that he did ●●●● our person and we in him in Law sense the thing it self with its separable consequents and effects had been all ours ipso facto before and ●thout the donation or conveyance of a new Law or Covenant nor ●d they been ever given us upon terms and conditions when they were ●●●● own before without those terms But now what is given us by the ●ew Covenant we have title to on this account because it was pur●ased by the perfect Merit and Saerifice of Christ and so given us by ●m and by the Father So that it is ours as sure as if we had merited it ●r selves but not ours in the same order and measure and time and ●ms as if we had merited it our selves in our natural or legal per●ns For then it would have been all ours at once ipso facto even ●e merit it self and the fore-said effects We deserved punishment ●nd Christ was punished in our stead that we might be forgiven not ●mediately but on Covenant-terms we had forfeited Life by sin And ●hrist merited Life for us by his Perfection not in our persons but in ●e person of a Mediator which Life was to be given to us by the said ●ovenant The antecedent benefits such as the Covenant it self he ●veth absolutely and antecedently to any act of ours God reputeth all his Satisfaction and Merit of Christ to be as meet and effectual to pro●ure us all these Benefits to be thus given as if we our selves had done and ●ffered And in this sense Christ's Righteousness is given us and made ours ●●●● that it is given for us and we have the said benefits of it Not that God doth give us the very habits of Holiness which were in Christ nor ●he transient acts which he performed nor the very Sufferings which he ●nderwent nor the Relation of righteous satisfactory and meritorious as ●●●● was that numerical Relation which immediately resulted from Christ's ●wn Habits Acts and Sufferings For such a translation of accidents is ●●●● contradiction But God giving us all the effects or Salvation merited ●n it self properly is said also not unfitly to give us the Merit or Righteousness which procured them that is as it was paid to God for us to procure them even as he is said to give Christ himself antecedently ●● our Faith to the World as a Saviour And thus Christ's Righteousness Merit and satisfaction may be said to be imputed to us in that it ●● thus given us and thus truly reputed ours 131. But when the Text saith Rom. 4. 24. Righteousness is imputed ●● us the meaning is no more but that God reputeth or judgeth us righte●●● though we have not the Righteousness of Innocency or of the Law ●● Works which indeed is done for Christ's meritorious Righteous●●●● procuring it But the Text speaketh not of Christ's personal Righteous●●●● in matter or form imputed to us as being it self our own Impu●●●● Righteousness to us is a consequent Act after Faith of God as Jud●● and not an antecedent donation 132. And it is true that formaliter non-punire praemiari ●●●punish and to Reward are not all one And in some cases a man may ●● freed from punishment who is not rewarded But it is as true as is a●●● said 1. That Gods Salvation and
reject and resist Gods Grace and break his Covenant he forfeiteth Gods further Grace And I have noted 1. That most Children which I have seen very early wicked have been such whose Parents grosly neglected their Duty and Covenant as to a holy prudent careful Education of them as if God must needs save their Children because they were the Children of Believers who thus betrayed them 2. And those that were well educated by their Parents usually shew hopeful signs at first till their own lusts grow up and deceive and overthrow them The nature of the mutual Covenant and the sad experience of the case of many baptized Children maketh me incline to this Opinion which I do not peremptorily assert but humbly propose to better judgments with submission ●ut what-ever we say of the Parents I doubt not but to the person at age future benefits have future conditions 174. Though Gods Decree is that his Elect shall persevere yet I conceive with submission to better information that the Baptismal-Covenant as such doth not absolutely promise or give right to so much Grace as shall certainly cause the baptized to persevere that is all that are rightfully baptized even coram Deo as well as coram Ecclesia have not perseverance secured to them by baptism But only the Holy Ghost is given to them by Covenant to be their Sanctifier and carry on his work to their Salvation if they will use those means which God hath appointed and doth enable them to use in attendance on his Spirit Though Election infer the certainty of perseverance I never saw their assertions proved who say 1. That if Adam had once obeyed say some or overcome that one Temptation say others God promised confirmation to him and all his Posterity 2. That the Baptismal-Covenant promiseth confirmation and certain perseverance to all the baptized regenerate or justified What God doth I am not now questioning but what in that Covenant he promiseth to do 175. It is plain in the Scripture that when men are converted and baptized the particular helps of Grace are promised them upon further particular conditions And that the continuance of Pardon and Right to Life is promised them upon the continuance of their Faith and use of means And that actual Glorification is promised them on condition of overcoming and persevering And therefore that we must use and take all these as conditions 176. It is ordinary with some Writers and Preachers to tell men What must be in our selves that no part of their Righteousness is in themselves and with others that at least none which they are justified by in any part is in them and that it is all in Christ only And that nature is loth to yield to this but thinketh it a fine thing to have some little part of the honour to it self And as to the honour of a good Action if it be but 999 parts that it ascribeth to God and taketh one part of a thousand to our selves it is a dangerous arrogation we must have none This well explained may be made sound But thus grosly delivered it is but a popular cheat under the taking pretence of self-abasement and giving Christ all The Devil is as willing as any one that you should have nothing honourable or praise-worthy in you and be as vile as he can make you It is God who honoureth those that honour him and praiseth his Saints as the excellent on Earth and his Jewels and peculiar Treasure adorned with his own lovely Image and partakers of the Divine Nature and members of Christ as his own Flesh And it is Satan and wicked men that vilifie and dishonour them And I have oft lamented it that these very men that hold this kind of Doctrine of self-abasement as having no part of Righteousness nor share at all in any good work are yet too oft so proudly conceited of their own goodness even for holding that they have none for which they are praise-worthy as that their pride is no small trouble to the Churches and all about them 177. What-ever is of God is good and what-ever is good is laudable or praise-worthy and meriteth to be esteemed as it is 178. All the sanctified are inherently righteous But with an imperfect righteousness which will no further justifie them in Judgment save only against this Accusation that they are unholy 179. There is no Righteousness which will not justifie him that hath it in tantum so far as he is righteous For the contrary is a contradiction For to be just is to be justifiable He that gave but six pence to the poor is justifiable against this Accusation that he did not give it 181. All the Righteousness which formally justifieth us is our own or on our selves where it justifyeth us For to be made just or justified in the I would here cite the words of B●za Paraeus Dr. Field Bonhaus B●llinger Alberius Zanchy Aepinus Spang●●bergius Brentius Co●fess Augustan c. Asserting that Justification is oft used as Sanctification in Scripture and that plenary Justification hath three parts 1. Pardon 2. Accepting us into favour and life 3. The gift of the Holy Ghost or inherent righteousness but that Guil. Forbes hath largely done it Consid Pacific 2 Thes 1. 9 10. first sence constitutively is nothing else but to be made such as are personally themselves just Pardon of sin is made our own Right to Christ and Glory is made our own Though Christ's Righteousness was the only meritorious cause of all this which therefore is and may be called our Material Righteousness as that which meriteth it is the matter 182. He that is no cause of any good work is no Christian but a damnable wretch and worse than any wicked man I know in the world And he that is a Cause of it must not be denyed falsly to be a cause of it Nor a Saint denyed to be a Saint upon a false pretence of sel●denyal 183. As God is seen here in the Glass of his works so he is to be loved and praised as so appearing Therefore he that dishonoureth his work dishonoureth God and hindereth his due love and praise And his most lovely and honourable work on earth is his holy Image on his Saints And as Christ will come to be admired and glorified in them at last so God must be seen and glorified in them here in some degree And to deny the Glory of his Image is the malignants way of injuring him and that in which the worst will serve you He that will praise God as Creator and Redeemer must praise his works of Creation and Redemption And is it the way of praising him as our Sanctifyer to dispraise his work of Sanctification 184. Those poor Sinners of my acquaintance who lived in the grosse●● sins against Conscience as Drunkenness Whoredom c. have been glad enough of such doctrine and forward enough to believe that there is nothing in man that in any part can justifie
really all is but a Thankful Accepting of the mercy of the new Covenant according to its nature and use as it is offered 196. It is a great question whether a man may Trust to his own Faith Of Trusting in our own faith repentance holiness c. Repentance or Holiness But some men still trouble the world with unexplained words where no sober men differ No wise man can dream that we may Trust to these for more than their proper part as that we may Trust them to do any thing proper to God to Christ to the Spirit to the Promise c. And to use the phrase of Trusting to our own faith or Holiness when it soundeth absolutely or may tempt the hearers to think that they may Trust them for Gods part or Christ's part and Of which see more in my Life of Faith Tollit gratia Meri●um non quod omnino nihil agamus sed quia non satisfacimus legi procul absumus a perfectione Melancth in Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. not only for their own is a dangerous deceiving course But that really they may be Trusted for their own part and must be so no sober person will deny For so to believe obey pray to God c. and not to Trust to them in their place that is not to think that we shall be ever the better for them is unbelief and indeed distrusting God and saying It is in vain to serve him and what profit is it that we call upon him And such diffidence and despair will end all endeavours Let every man prove Gal. 6. his own work and so shall he have rejoycing in himself and not in another This is our Rejoycing the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity 2 Cor. 1. 12. and Godly sincerity we have had our Conversation in the world If we are Justified by faith we may Trust to be Justifyed by it But the rare use of such a phrase in Scripture and the danger of it must make us never use it without need As if we were disputing whether the Popish or Protestant Religion be that which a man may trust for his Salvation or the like And when ever it 's used it implyeth our Trust in God and our Saviour only for their part 197. To conclude this great point of Imputed and Inherent Righteousness The last objection of the mistakers of Imputation To save me that much labour of citations I desire the Reader to see in Guil. Forbes Consider Pacific the Concessions of Vega Pighius Stapleton and other Papists about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as granting us all that Protestants mean as Bellarmine expresly doth as Davenant Nigrinus Joh. Crocius and many others have observed it may be objected that The same man may well be judged a Sinner deserving hell never fulfilling the Law nor satisfying Justice nor deserving Heaven in himself that is in his Natural person and yet be Judged one that never sinned but fulfilled the Law is perfectly holy and righteous and merited Heaven in his Legal or Civil person in and by Christ To which I answer One man is but one and hath but one person But if you take the word Person equivocally as signifying another that is made like him in some respects or that hath his Nature or doth somewhat in his stead and for his benefit as a second person say so and we will strive with no man about words If you will say we are now on earth in our Natural persons and are in Heaven in Christ or that we are Redeemed in our Natural persons but Redeemed our selves in Christ or that you are sick in your Natural person and well in your person in Christ c. I like not your language but there are scarce any words so bad which a man may not put a good sence on But we would be understood and plainly ask whether Christ was properly every sinners or believers person in Law-sence so that ipso facto God accounteth us to have been habitually and actively perfect in Him and to have merited and satisfied in him If so the Law can look on one man but as one And he that paid a debt by his Servant or any other as his Legal person cannot be required to do it again in his Natural person unless you will say that God loveth our Legal person and will save it and may hate our Natural person and damn it The Scripture useth no such contradictory subtleties as these SECT XI How faith Justifieth 198. The common saying that faith justifieth as an Instrument might pass as tolerable if too many did not strain it to a wrong sence and raise Note that when we call faith an Accepting it relateth to the Donation of the Covenant and the Donatum which is a Jus ad beneficia Renovation is effected by faith as a second cause but Pardon is Accepted by it And we fully grant the Papists that Renovation and pardon go together whatever they call them And some of themselves do speak just as we de Remissione Macula which others are confounded about Vid. Wotton's citations out of the Schoolmen de Macula de Reconcil pec And Brianson saith in 4. q. 8. fol. 116. that sin as ●emitted or guilt is Tantum quaedam Relatio rationis in quantum est objectum intellectus Voluntatis divinae Quia postquam commissit peccatum Dei voluntas ordinat ipsum ad poenum correspondentem peccato Intellectus praevidet pro omni tempore donec poena debita sit soluta Videre peceata Dei est ad ●oenam imput●re Avertere faciem est ad poenam non reservare August Ergo ni● aliud est post actum c●ssantem p●●catis off●nsa Macula reatus nisi ista relatio rationis S●d hujus Ordinatio ad ●oenam ut est disconveniens ipsi animae dicitur ejus Macula ut autem est obligatio formaliter ad istam poenam dicitur R●atus Et ut est divinae voluntatis c. dic●tur Offensa Nil n aliud est Offendi vel Irasci in Deo quam v●lle Vindicare ista poena But he after owneth that the culpa is another thing unwarrantable Doctrines from it and harden the Papists by unwarantable Answers A Justifying Instrument properly is an efficient Instr●mental cause of Justification which I have elsewhere too largely proved that faith is not either Gods Instrument or ours Physical or Moral no● any way efficiently justifieth us But justifying is one thing to Receive justification is another thing and to be justified is a third Faith i● no justifying act But faith is in its Essence the Acceptance of an offered God Christ Spirit for Life This Acceptance is by the Covenant made the condition of our passive true Reception and Possession of Right before opened To be such a Condition performed is to be a removens prohibe●s of the said Reception which is strictly to be Dispositio materiae recipienti● And so it
may be called 1. A Receiving Cause 2. And a medi●● or dispositive Cause of the effect Justification as Received but not as Given As I said Dr. Twisse chooseth to call it But this causa Dispositiva is p●● of the causa Materialis viz. Qua disposita A cause or more properly a condition why I receive Justification and by receiving it am Justified which is their meaning who call it A Passive Instrument that is A ●●ceiving Instrument 199. The plain easie truth is that Faiths Nature which is to be ●●lieving Acceptance of Christ and Life offered on that Condition being ●● very essence is but its Aptitude to the office it hath to our Justification by which the Question is answered why did God promise us Christ and Life ●● the Condition of faith rather than another Because of the congruity of its Nature to that office But the formal Reason of its office as to our Justification is Its Being the performed Condition of the Covenant And if God had chosen another condition a condition it would have been Now the true notion in Law being a Condition Logicians would call this improperly a Receiving cause and more properly A Receptive Disposition of the matter reducing it to Physical notions But the most proper term is the plainest We are justified by that faith which is the Believing Practical Acceptance of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as Given us on that condition in the Baptismal Covenant because or as it is made by God the condition of his Gift thereby Understand this plain doctrine and you have the plain truth 200. They that say contrarily that Faith justifieth proximately as it is an Instrument or a Receiving Accepting act and not as a Condition of the Covenant do evidently choose that which they vehemently oppose viz. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere justifieth For the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the ●●●● of Faith is to be an Acceptance of Christ given But if they will to avoid this say that By Faith they mean Christ believed in then they say that by Receiving Christ they mean not the receiving of him but Christ himself And why then do they not say so but trouble the world with such unintelligible phrases But to open the senselessness and co●sequents of that Doctrine would but offend All know that Chri●●●● the object is connoted as essential to the act of Faith SECT XII How Repentance is joyned with Faith 201. Repentance is a Dispositio materiae recipientis too and a part of the condition of the Covenant And so far a Material or dispositive Receiving Cause But not an Acceptance of the Gift formally in its averting act 202. Faith and Repentance are words used in Scripture in divers significations Saith Malderus Gu. Amesius a parte recedit ab antiquo Calvinismo quiae requirit ad justitiam bonae oper● tanquam conditionem praerequisitam quod ●tiam extendit ad ipsam ●lectionem See here how little the Papists understand us As Faith is sometimes taken for bare Assent as Jam. 2. and usually for Affiance or Trust and always when it denominateth a Christian or Justified Believer as such it essentially includeth all the three parts Assent Consent and Affiance but yet denominateth the whole by a word which principally signifieth One act which commonly is Affiance as including the other two so Repentance is sometime taken comprehensively for the whole Conversion of a Sinner to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and so it includeth Faith in the narrower sence and is the same thing as Faith in the larger sence but express'd under another formal notion Sometimes it is taken more narrowly and that 1. As to the Act. 2. As to the Object 1. As to the Act and so the word Repentance signifieth only the Aversion of the Soul from evil by sorrow and change of mind And this is the strict formal notion of the word though usually it be taken more largely as including also the Conversion of the Soul to Good which is the usual Scripture and Theological sense though the word it self do chiefly signifie the Averting act 2. As to the Object 1. Repentance sometime signifieth the Turning of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God And so Repentance towards God is distinguished from Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ 2. And sometimes it signifieth only the turning of the Soul and life from some particular Sin 203. Repentance as it is the turning of the Soul from sin and Idols * The Papists take Repentance it self to be part of the Remission of Sins And let the Reader note for the fuller opening of what I have said of their darkness thereabouts that Jansenius Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. maketh four things to be inseparably conteined in Remission though distinguishable 1. The Conversion of the Soul to God 2. The abstersion of the Macula or filth 3. Reconciliation or the remission of Gods offence 4. The relaxation of the aeternal punishment That all these are then at once given us we are all agreed But whether the name Remission or Pardon of sin ●e meet for them all we disagree Is it not visible then how unhappily we strive about words whe● we talk like men of several Languages But all is but removation and remitting the penalty of which Gods offense is the first part And Macula is either the sin it self or the relative consequents to God is the same with Faith in God in the large Covenant-sence and includeth Faith in God in the narrower sence Repentance as it is our Turning from Infidelity to Christianity is the same with Faith in Christ in the large Covenant-saving-sence and includeth Faith in Christ in the narrower sence as it is meer Assent Repentance as it is a Turning from the Flesh to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer is the same thing as our Faith in the Holy Ghost in the large Covenant sence and includeth Faith in the Holy Ghost in the narrower sence But when they are the same thing the ratio nominis or formal notion is not the same As man's mind is not so happy as to conceive of all things that are one by one entire single Conception so we are not so happy in our language as to have words enough to express things entirely by one name but we must have several words to express our inadequate conceptions by And so that is called Repentance as the Souls motion from the Terminus a quo which is called sometimes Faith or Affiance and sometimes Love from the motion of the Soul to the Terminus ad quem though the Motus be the same But when Faith and Repentance are distinguished as several parts of the Condition of the new Covenant the common sence is that Repentance signifieth the Conversion of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God which is or includeth Faith in God And Faith signifieth specially Faith in Christ as the Mediator and way
to God And so Faith is below Repentance as a means of it 204. By this the question whether Faith or Repentance be first may partly be resolved and partly cast out as founded in confusion As they are both one thing neither can be first any otherwise than the same Motus ut a termino a quo ut ad terminum ad quem But as they signifie divers things they have each of them div●r● acts and in respect of each are before each other The Assenting act of Faith in general must needs be always before Repentance as it is an Act of the Will But the consenting Act of faith is also part of Repentance and must folow that part of Repentance which is a change of the understanding But whether the Repentance as towards God or Faith in Christ be first or Love to God and Faith in Christ I have discussed as accurately as I can in my Christian Directory Par 1. cap. 3. pag. 182. and therefore thither refer the Reader 205. And how Faith and Love differ I have there also opened and therefore shall now only say that Faith as it signifieth meet How Faith and Love differ Assent differeth from Love as the act of the Intellect from Volition And Love formally taken presupposeth the Assent and doth not contain it But Faith taken largely in the sence of the Baptismal Covenant containeth in it Consent which is the Wills Volition and therefore must needs have some initial Love in it as it acteth i● Desire This Faith in God hath some Desire and Volition of God and Faith in Christ which is the Souls Practical Affiance in him hath some Love to Christ in it But the denomination is not from the same ratio formalis in each It is eminently called Faith when giving up our Souls to Christ to be saved in practical Affiance is the great work of the Soul though it have something of Love essential to it And it is eminently called Love morally when the Complacency of the Soul in Christ thus trusted and in God our end is the great work or business of the Soul 206. This Holy Love as a fixed habit and employment of the Soul and our Relation to the Holy Ghost to work it in us is it that is promised and Given quoad jus in the Baptismal Covenant of which Faith though it have somewhat of actual Love or Volition in it is the antecedent condition which also I have so fully opened as afore cited that I refer the Reader to it for this also And somewhat was said of it before SECT XIII Of the degrees of Pardon or Justification 207. Some men lest they should yield that Justification is not one perfect finished act done but once do feign that it is only the first act of Faith by which a man is justified Indeed it is only the first act by which he ●s changed from an unrighteous to a righteous state But to think that therefore we are never after justified by Faith and so have no actually justifying Faith all our lives but for one instant only is fitter for a Dreamer than a theological Discourser 208. Our first constitutive Justification being in its nature a right to ●mpunity and to Life or Glory * * * ●●●● tells us that 〈…〉 which 〈…〉 by Rege●●ra ●● and Just ●●●● on ●u● what they mean by R●●nission they cannot tell themselves as a ●oresaid Pardon of the gu●● they mean not or else they mean several things in one word is a Relation which must be continued to the end and therefore must have the true causes and condition continued and would cease if any of them ceased 209. As to the question therefore whether Justification be lossable and ●ardon reversible I answer that the grant of them in the Covenant is unalterable But mans will in it self is mutable and if he should cease believing by Apostacy and the condition fail he would lose his Right and be unjustified and unpardoned without any change in God But that a man doth not so de facto is to be ascribed to Election and special Grace of which afterward 210. Though all our past sins are pardoned at our first Faith or Conversion or as the Ancients speak in Baptism yet it is most certain that Pardon or Justification is not perfect at first no nor on this side death And the saying of many that Justification is perfect at first and Sanctification only by degrees is a palpable error as I have else-where oft shewed For that is not perfect 1. Which is not continued and brought on to its end but upon continued conditions and diligent use of means to the ●ast * * * Neque enim peccati sui veniam impetravit Adam ut a morte temporali immunis esset Twiss contr Corvin pag. 343. col 2. 2. Which leaveth many penalties unremoved which have further means to be used for their removal and further Right to it to be obtained To have more and more Grace and less and less Sin and to have ●earer communion with God are blessings as to the degrees which we must by degrees attain a further Right to and the privation of them are ●ore penalties to be removed 3. We have new sins to be pardoned every day 4. Our remaining Corruption is such as needeth a continued Pardon till it be perfectly done away 5. The Day of Judgment is not come for which the most perfect Justification is reserved SECT XIV Of Justification by Sentence of the Judge 211. The second sort of Justification which is by Sentence is done by Christ as Judge and so is an act of his Kingly Office 212. Therefore were it true as it is not that justifying Faith were only the receiving or believing in Christ as a Justifier of us it would not be a believing in him in his Priestly Office only but in act For he merited our Justification as a humbled Servant and a Sacrifice He giveth it us in Right by his Covenant or Law of Grace as King and Benefactor He promulgateth it as Prophet He passeth the Sentences as King and Judge He executively taketh off the penalty and glorifieth us as King and Benefactor There is no Justification by a partial Faith 213. Though the estimation of a man as just called the Sententi● judicis concepta as distinct from the sententia prolata be said to be ●● immanet act of God and therefore from eternity yet it is a mistake For though it be not transient effectivè and do nihil efficere ad extra ye● it is transient objectivè and doth presuppose the existence of the qualified Object For though Gods Knowledge and Will in genere or as such are his eternal Essence yet Gods Knowledge and Love of John or Peter ●● Believers are terms which signifie not his Essence as such but as trans●● and terminated on those existent persons relatively So that the extrin●●cal denomination from the existent Object is temporary as it is 214.
I believe I grant it if 1. This be in it self as evident 2. And as certain to me as Gods Word is otherwise I deny it 236. Obj. A man cannot believe and not know that he believeth Ans But a man may sincerely believe and yet through ignorance either of the Scripture or himself be uncertain that indeed his Faith is sincere and not such as is common to the justified 237. Some Protestants by erring in this point and saying that justifying Faith is a certain perswasion or belief that we are justified and that it is Gods own Word that I or you are actually justified or are sincere Believers and that the believing it is properly fides Divina have greatly scandalized and hardened the Papists to our disgrace 238. And so have those that say that in the Creed the meaning of I believe the Remission of Sin is I believe that my sins are remitted actually And that all must thus believe 239. Some say that the Spirit within them saith that they are sincere Believers and the Word of the Spirit is the Word of God and to believ● it is to believe God Ans This is the Enth●s●asts conceit which if true all such have prophetical Inspiration For the Spirit to bring any new word from God is one thing and to give us the Understanding Love and Obedience to such a Word is another thing The Spirit doth indeed assure us of our sincerity but not by a new Word from God to tell us so but 1. By giving us that sincere Faith it self 2. By acting it and increasing it 3. By helping us to know it 4. By giving us the love of God and other Graces 5. By giving us the comfort of all But the reception and perception of these internal Operations is not properly called a Belief of the Word of God Else when we make Gods Word the adequate Object of Faith we shall be still at an uncertainty what that Word is 240. Yet this perswasion that we are sincere and justified is divine where the Spirit causeth it but not a divine Faith Yea it is participatively of divine Faith because Gods Word is one of the premises though the weaker must denominate the conclusion * * * Of this see Albertinus's Disp at large 241. Obj. A Reprobate or Devil may believe all the Articles of Faith without application but justifying Faith applieth Christ and his benefits to our selves Ans It 's true But this application is not a certainty nor a perswasion nor a believing that I am justified no more than that I am glorified no nor that I shall be so neither But it is an accepting of Christ offered that I may be justified and saved So that here are all these applying acts in it 1. I believe that Christ as the Saviour of the World is my Saviour as he is all other mens and is not the Devils that is that he hath done that for me which he hath done for all mankind 2. I believe that he is offered to me personally in the Promise or Covenant of Grace on condition of believing-acceptance and that with and for all his purchased benefits and so for my Justification 3. I believe that if I so accept him I shall be justified 4. By true consent I do accordingly accept him to justifie sanctifie and save me But when all this is done 1. I do not believe that God hath said in his word that I am justified nor that my Faith is sincere 2. And my Faith is so weak that I may long doubt of that sincerity which I have and so of my Justification 3. And when I come to be certain of my Faith it is not by believing God as saying that I do certainly believe but by experience of its sincerity upon just trial by the Spirits help 242. No man can be sure that his Faith is sincere and saving who is not assured that it will help him to love God as God above all yea already doth so and that it mortifieth selfishness and will prevail with him to deny even life it self and all the world for Christ and Salvation So far as a man doubteth of any of this he must needs doubt of his own sincerity 243. So weak is Faith in most that are sincere and so little kept in exercise and so strong is sense and self and flesh and worldly b●its and interest and Satan's temptations that in my experience who have conversed with as many that are careful of their Souls as most have done I think it is a very small number that I could ever hear say I am certain of my Justification and Salvation But a great number who have lived in holy confidence hope and peace and some in great joy but most in tollerable fears and doubting and some few oppressed by those doubts So that certainty of Salvation is very rare 244. When Bellarmine saith that our assurance more belongeth to Hope than Faith and that it is but moral certainty by signs that we have of our Justification Sincerity and Salvation he so little differeth from the sense of almost all godly Protestants that were it not through other distances and partiality we had never read in Luther's days that for this one point alone we have cause enough of our alienation from the Romanists 245. They err on one extream who say that all are commanded to believe that they are justified or any as if it were Gods Word And they err on the other hand who command doubting or commend it as if it were a duty or a benefit And they speak the truth who say that our doubting of our own Sincerity and Justification if we are sincere is a sin of Infirmity and a Calamity proceeding from weakness of Faith Hope Love and Self-acquaintance which we should use all possible diligence to overcome But they that are not sincere are bound to know it And first to seek and get sincerity and then discern it 246. It is by the Spirit that all Christians must come to their assurance But not by the Spirit as speaking this in us as a word from God Thou art justified or shalt be saved or art sincere But by the aforesaid Acts The Spirit in us is first Christ's Agent Advocate and Witness to assure us that he is the Saviour of the World And next he is our Witness to assure us that we are Gods adopted Children which he doth by being in us Gods Mark and the Pledge First-Fruits and earnest of our heavenly Inheritance by effectual habituating our Souls to the predominant love of God and Holiness and Heaven Where-ever this Sanctification is there is the Evidence and Witness of our Adoption He that findeth by the Fruits that he hath the Spirit findeth the certain proof of his Justification and earnest of Glory SECT XVII Of Love as the end of Faith 247. This predominant Love of God and Holiness is so proper a Cui non unus idemque vit● scopus est hic
elect and should persevere So that they denied all certainty of Salvation by ordinary means And that none of all the Greek or Latin Fathers then or long after went further from the Pelagians than Augustine did I think I need not perswade any that hath read them 259. This historical Truth is useful to be known From whence I infer that it is possible for Christians to live in setled peace and comfort in respect to their heavenly Felicity without a certainty of perseverance and Salvation For to think that no Papists no Greeks no Arminians no Protestant Lutherans nor any of the ancient holy Doctors nor any of all the Martyrs or other Christians of their judgment did attain to such holy peace and comfort is unreasonable and contrary to all Church-History and to experience 260. And though it were a far more joyful state to have proper certainty yet reason and experience in other cases tell us that without certainty a man may live a joyful and peaceable life where probability is strong enough to remove all reasonable cause of fearfulness though there be a possibility of the worst As we see that men in youth and health though they may possibly die or fall into torments the next hour yet do not therefore cast off comfort and live in such trouble as they would do if they had probable cause to expect it There is no wife living is certain that her own Husband will not murder her the next night nor no Child certain that the Parents will not cast them off or kill them nor no Friend certain that his dearest Friend will not do so And yet few but melancholy people will therefore take up sorrow and cast away all their comfort in life and peace and in these Friends Even these persons are their trust and joy There is no man sure but he may be executed among Malefactors And yet while there is no reason to expect it a man may live a comfortable life There is no man certain that he himself shall not fall into a particular crime of Murder Theft Perjury or the like And yet we live not therefore uncomfortably For mens affections follow the powerfullest cause 261. Hence also I conclude that certainly the denial of certainty of persevering and Salvation is not a thing that should break the love peace or concord of the Christian Churches or for which they should cast off or revile each other For what sober man could do so by all those that I have instanced in 262. It is a shameful self-delusion of some Disputers who think when they have once believed that certainty of Salvation may be had that they are then certain themselves or next to certain of their own Salvation But he that hath no more certainty to be rich or healthful tha● to believe that Health and Riches may be got is far from having them 263. Who was more full of confidence and joy than Luther who speaketh more against the Papists commanding men to doubt of the pardon of sin who speaketh of a higher Faith than he on Galat. Yet he with Melancthon and all the first Protestants in the August Confess Art 11. saith They damn the Anabaptists who deny that those that are once justified can again lose the Holy Ghost 264. If Adam in Innocency had neither solid comfort or cause of such the state that we fell from was not so good as we commonly believe But Adam had no assurance of his perseverance in that state For he fell from it 265. No man as is said is certain that he shall not fall into such a Vid. Judic Theol. Palat. de persever in Synod Dord p. 1. pag. 208. pr. 3. hainous sin as Peter David c. did 266. The Synod of Dort saith By such enormous sins they greatly offend God they incur the guilt of death they grieve the Holy Ghost they interrupt the exercise of Faith they most grievously wound Conscience sometimes they lose the sense of Grace for a time till by serious Repentance returning into the way Gods fatherly countenance again shine upon them And the Brittish Divines in their Synodic Explic. say They contract damnable guilt and lose their present aptitude to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Adding So that while they remain in that state of Impenitence they neither ought nor can perswade themselves otherwise than that they art obnoxious to death Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die For they are bound in a capital Crime by the desert whereof according to Gods Ordination they are subject to death though they be not yet delivered to death nor shall be if we respect Gods fatherly love but shall be pluckt out of this sin that so they may be pluckt out of the guilt of death Lastly For their present condition they lose their aptitude to enter into Heaven c. And Thes 4. p. 193. Gods unmovable ordination requireth that a Believer thus exorbitant do first return into the way by renovation of Faith and the act of Repentance before he can be brought to the ways end which is the heavenly Kingdom By the Decree of Election the faithful are so predestinated to the end that they can no otherwise be brought to it than by Gods instituted means as by the Kings high way And Gods Decrees of the means and of the end and order of events are as firm and certain as those of the end and of the events themselves If any man therefore go on in a way contrary to Gods Ordination as the broad way of uncleanness and impenitence which directly leadeth to Hell he can never come that way to Heaven Yea if death surprize him wandering in Luk. 13. 3 5. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Heb. 12. 14. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Act. 27. 31. that out-way he cannot but fall into everlasting death This is the constant and clear voice of the Scripture As Paul said of those in the Ship c. Act. 27. 31. It is certain that David and Peter Gods Elect Servants were to come to Heaven But it is as certain that if one had remained impenitent in his Adultery and Murder and the other in his denial of Christ and perjury neither of them could have been saved Providence and Mercy unty this knot by providing that no elect person die in that state in which according to any Ordination of Gods Will he should have been shut out of Heaven And Thes 5. In that interspace which is between the guilt of sin contracted by a grievous sin and the renewed act of Faith and Repentance such a Sinner standeth a person to be damned by his own desert but by Christ's Merit and Gods firm purpose a person to be saved but not before by excited Faith and Repentance he hath obtained pardon is he actually absolved But in such guilt the condition of the Faithful and of the Wicked is not the same To the Unbelievers is wanting the inward principle of Faith without which the
mind with Augustine and Prosper If this had not been Augustine's Doctrine the predeterminant Dominicans had never maintained it as his against the Jesuits which you may see in Alvarez Disput 107. and many others Much less would Jansenius * * * Yea and Bradwardine who speaketh more harshly than Alvarez and yet asserteth falling away from true Grace though not Predestination● or Gods Will to save And Jansenius● To. 1. li. 5. c. 22 23. p. 126 127 128. proveth that the difference between Augustine and Pelagius lay not about free Pardon or infused habits of Grace which Pelagius confessed though many charge him with the contrary who understand him not But that Pelagius confessed not the necessity of that actual Adjutorium Gratiae specialis to keep us from future sin and to do our duty besides pardon of former Sin and infused habitual Grace By which it appeareth that Aug●sti●● and he agreed that Remission of Sin and infused habits may be lost and that Augustine said perseverance upon Gods Will or Election and his actual help or adjutorium conservans the zealous Follower of Augustine so perfectly acquainted with his Works have so thought and said and so propugned it See him at large in his Augustin de Grat. Christi lib. 9. cap. 7. pag. 392 393 c. lib. 3. c. 20. pag. 163 164. Though I make no doubt but our Divines at Dort knew this to be Augustine's professed judgment yet in their Judic de Persever I find three Sentences cited by them out of Augustine as making for the contrary by which I suppose they intended to prove him doubtful or wavering But 1. Three doubtful passages as to the sense are not to be set against a mans open frequently professed judgment thus expounded and followed by all his Disciples 2. Let us examine the Texts 1. The last of the three is de Correp Grat. cap. 9. But though Davenant be that Divine whom I honour for judgment above all or almost all since the Apostles days yet I must say that in this they all dealt very negligently or partially For in that place Augustine professedly distinguisheth of Sons of God predestinate and not predestinate and saith Nec nos moveat quod filiis suis quibusdam Deus not dat istam perseverantiam Absit enim ut i●a esset si de illis praedestinatis essent secundum propositum vocatis qui vere sunt filii promissionis Nam isti cum pie vivunt dicuntur filii Dei sed quoniam victuri sunt impiè in eadem impietate morituri non eos dicit filios Dei praescientia Dei And expounding ex nobis exierunt sed non erant ex nobis c. ait Quid aliud dicunt nisi non erant filii etiam quando erant in professione nomine filiorum Non quia justitiam simulaverunt sed quia in ea non permanserunt Neque enim ait nam si fuissent ex nobis veram non fictam justitiam tenuissent utique nobiscum sed si fuissent ex nobis permanissent utique nobiscum In bono illos volebat proculdubio manere Erant itaque in bono sed quia in eo non permanserunt non erant ex nobis non erant ex numero filiorum Nam non perit filius promissionis sed filius perditionis Filiis suis non praedestinatis Deus perseverantiam non dedit Et rursus quos dicimus inimicos ejus vel parvulos filios inimicorum ejus quoscunque eorum sic regeneraturus est ut in ea side quae per dilectionem operatur hanc vitam finiant jam antequam hoc fiat in illa praedestinatione sunt filii ejus dati sunt Christo filio ejus ut non pereant sed habeant vitam aeternam Quia ergo non habuerunt perseverantiam sicut non vere Discipuli Christi ita non vere filii Dei fuerunt etiam quando esse videbantur ita vocabantur Apud cum hoc non sunt cui notum est quod futuri sunt id est ex bonis mali Propter hoc Apostolus cum dixisset scimus quoniam diligentibus Deum omnia co-operantur in bonum sciens nonnullos diligere Deum in eo bono usque in finem non permanere mox addit His qui secundum propositum vocati sunt c vid. reliqua Now the words which our Divines cite are these afore-cited which say They were not the Sons of God that fell away When nothing can be plainlier uttered by the pen of man I think than that Augustine affirmeth them to be Sons as to their sincerity of Faith which worketh by love but not to be Sons by predestination And that not all that are sincere in Faith and Love are Sons in the most eminent sense but that part of them who are predestinated to perseverance and the inheritance and that nothing but predestination and perseverance was wanting to their Salvation He that doubteth whether this was Augustine's sense when he hath read him may doubt of almost any thing which he is unwilling to believe The next Text is cited as Cont. Adult I suppose they mean Adversarios and it 's false printed Legis et Prophet l. 2. c. 2. But I can there find nothing of any such Subject much less sense The only Text therefore of all cited by them out of Augustine remaineth which giveth any shew of favour to their Theses and that is cited contra Julian Pelag. l. 5. c. 3. In cap. 4. I find the words viz. Istorum reproborum neminem adducit Deus ad poenitentiam salubrem et spiritualem qua homo in Christo reconciliatur Deo This is all that I find dubious in him Now whether these few words better declare his judgment than whole Chapters and Discourses you may judge And whether the constant tenour of his Doctrine do not direct us to conclude that this is here his sense viz. that he calleth that poenitentiam salubrem which effectually bringeth men to Salvation and which endureth to the end as such And by a man in Christ means not as aforesaid a man given to Christ with a decree to save him and by reconciliatur Deo he mean not one that is so reconciled as to be a predestinate Son decreed to Glory Historical Truth must not be denied nor doth doctrinal Truth need historical falshood for its defence nor can agree with it This undoubtedly was Augustin's mind Only one more Text they cite out of Ambrose de Jacob vil● beata li. 1. cap. 6. But Ambrose is of his Disciple Augustine's mind The words are Quis audeat accusare quos electos divino cernis judicio Nunquid Deus Pater ipse qui contulit potest dona sua rescindere quos adoptione suscepit eos a paterni affectus gratia relegare But 1. There Ambrose expresly speaketh of the Elect only 2. And if he had not such words as these are usualy spoken by the Fathers
our tongues from accustomed vain words to restrain strong passions upon great provocations especially to forsake Sins of privation and omission such as are unbelief as mixed with a weak Faith and fears mixed with hopes and coldness of desire and prayer and sluggishness of labour and endeavour c. A man may be truly willing to be stronger in all Grace and to do all duty better and to forsake all such Sins as these when yet through the meer weakness of his Graces or Spiritual life he cannot so exactly watch nor so diligently labour nor so patiently hold out as the case requireth Though it be not a Physical but a Moral power which he wanteth and that culpably yet such Sins may more consist with true Grace than the former and therefore are called ●●●s of Infirmity 317. 13. When Ignorance of Truth Duty or Sin cometh from an ●willingness to know it or an unwillingness to use the known means ● help us to the knowledge of it the neglect of such an unknown ●ruth or Duty and the committing of such an unknown Sin is to be ●dged of according to the measure of the foresaid willingness or ●nwillingness 318. 14. For he is not sincerely willing to know a Truth to do a ●uty to forsake a Sin who is not willing to use the known necessary ●eaus appointed for these ends For he vilifieth God and Holiness who ●inketh them not worthy the seeking by such means To say would love God and please him and be saved if I could do it ●ith a wish or without these means is no saving desire 119. 15. And to desire to be delivered from Sin and to hate it ● Sin and yet to love it for the pleasure so much more as that the ●terest of God and Heaven in us is not strong enough to make us ha●●tually willing both to leave it and to avoid the temptations and ●se the pleasure but men had rather keep it than leave it on these ●rms this is no sincere repentance nor sign of a holy heart or life 320. 16. Even the Habit of a particular lesser Sin as of jeasting ●●le words idle thoughts c. may be stronger than the contrary par●●cular habit I think and thereby a man may habitually and actually live ●●d die in the Sin and yet that habit not prevail against the radical ●●bit of Holiness of Faith Hope Love and Obedience in the ●●ain 321. 17. A present full Resolution against Sins that are Great and of ●ie desertion to a willing mind is essential to Repentance as is also a ●●esent Resolution for great and necessary Duties and to forsake some ●●aller Sins though it be necessary necessitate praecepti I think is not ●●sential to saving Conversion and Repentance and necessary necessitate ●edii to Salvation 322. 18. He that committeth a Gross sin that is a Sin evidently ●reat and in the power of a willing mind to forbear so often as ●oth shew that habitually he more loveth it than hateth it and had ●ther keep it than leave it doth shew thereby that all his professed ●epentance for it is unsound and his heart unsanctified and that he ●ath yet no actual pardon from God 323. Therefore those among the Papists who absolve such from their ●ns who commit Fornication or Drunkenness once a month at least ●r once in many months or often and come between and say I Repent ●o but delude them For the nature of those Sins is such that he that ● converted to an habitual hatred of them more than he hath a love ●o them cannot return to them so oft And he that doth not so hate ●hem doth not truly repent And even their Hildebrand Greg. 7. ●● a Council at Rome expresly saith that neither false Baptism nor false ●a feigned and unsound Repentance do put away Sin 324. 19. The chief tryal of a man's Holiness and Repentance is by ●he main scope and business of his life especially in the positive part ●nd next in the oppositive when a man is conscious that God and Ho●iness and Heaven are his great end which are dearer to him and more ●owerful with him than all things sensible and the interest of the flesh ●nd when he can and doth deliberately forsake all when they stand in ●pposition to or competition with God and Glory and so as to the course of his life doth live by Faith and not by sense this is the true evidence of true Conversion and no Sins are damning which consist with this 325. 20. But because the truth of this must be discerned not only by present Sense and Resolution but by practice to prove that Resolution true therefore no man can be certain of the sincerity of his own heart and resolutions and repentance but by the practice of willing universal obedience forsaking gross and wilful Sinning performing ●●cessary duty striving to overcome infirmities and heartily desiring perfect Holiness upon terms of Mortification Self-denyal and dilig●● use of means 326. Therefore much sinning will at least breed much doubtfulness and uncertainty of Justification and Salvation and till it be forsaken no such certainty will be had SECT XXII Few certain of Salvation The Consequents of this in order to our Concord herein 327. I conclude therefore that certainty of Justification and sincerity is not the lot of the weakest or weaker sort of Christians but of the strong confirmed Christians only By weak Christians I mean not those that have weakest natural parts and common gifts as Learning Memory Utterance c. But those that have the weakest Faith Hope Love Humility c. For Grace is not certainly discernable 1. In the least degree 2. When it is little in action 3. When it is much clouded and oft I wonder that worthy Deodate and Tronchinus in their suffrages at Dort say pag. 49 50. Notitiam sensum certitudinem istius Decreti Deus electis in hac vita largitur modo mensura tempore quo ipsi placet Ncc ullus est electus qui aetate rationis capace non ante mortem certissiman istius decreti persuasionem per Spiritum Sanctum accipiat I hope they mean but an effect objectively certain The many Texts cited by them else prove it not conquered by its contrary But only when 1. It is strong and in a good degree 2. And much in act 3. And conquereth opposition 328. Therefore few Christians have Assurance at the first or of a considerable time because few are strong at first 329. Yea therefore few ever attain to certainty who are sincere because most are still weak and few come to strength and a great degree and to much activity and great conquest of all the contrary Sins of heart and life 330. This being the case about certainty of Justification as to the certainty of perseverance might a man judge by the conveniencies of the truth it would draw us to think that the middle way of the Dominicans and some others were the right viz. 1. That
can do no more than this nor this but by the Power given him of God § 7. Vainly therefore do the Dominicans pretend that it is a Deifying of the Will of man to say that God can enable it to Cause the various ORDER of mans Actions by meer moral helps without Gods predetermining premotion to that order For this is to cause no Real being And he that is moved to the Act in genere needeth no more premotion from God to the disorder and sinfulness of the Act. § 8. And they that will call the production of faith a Creation in the strict and proper sense do not understand that Creatio est Rerum non ORDINIS rerum jam creatarum vel existentium An Act is of it self improperly said to be created in a pre-existent Agent That is not called created which is educed è potentia materiae nor that which is produced by the Potentia Activa prae-existentis forma Faith is an Act of the same Natural Power or faculty which we had before And Grace or rather Nature usually suscitateth that faculty to the Act as an Act in genere And Grace doth cause us to ORDER that act aright as to the due object and other circumstances But if any will call it a Creation I contend not about the name § 9. But the whole state of the Man Habitual Relative and Practical set together is called in Scripture a New Creature and the New Man tropically but not unfitly Partly because we are really new though not by another Humanity or Species of Natural Essence yet by many Accidents And partly because those Accidents are so great and make so great a change of our state as that they emulate a natural Essence and we use to say in common things that when an unlearned man is made learned and a poor man a Prince and a dying man healthful he is another man § 10. Though God be one and the same and Christ the same and the Law and Word and many Antecedent means the same to many on whom they have different effects This difference may be caused many wayes The Causes of difference As 1. By the diversity of other inferiour or concomitant second causes 2. By the diverse Disposition of the Receivers a common cause of varieties in the World 3. By the diversity of Impediments and temptations And many other wayes § 11. * * * I know that Bradwardine li. 2. c. 32. Cor. p. 612. saith that Deum non dare scientiam eratiam aut perseverantiam seu quodlibet munus suum creatur● capaci est causa quare ipsa non accipit non habet non è contra Et p. 614. Quicquid obex dicatur potest illa resp●nsio corripi cum nullus possit hunc obicem tollere nisi Deus vel per Deum prius praetollentem si ipse cum voluerit tollere irresistibiliter tollitur Auferam cor lapideum c. The great question is How far the diversity of Receptive Dispositions is from God Answ 1. God made all equal at first in Adam 2. All were equal in sin by his fall 3. Cain and Abel differed from several causes and not one alone Abel differed from Cain in faith and obedience by Gods grace as the chief cause and his own will and agency as the second cause Cain differed from Abel by unbelief and sin by his own will and Satans temptations 4. The sins of later parents as of Cain Cham Esau Achan Gehezi c. make a further difference by depriving their posterity of some means helps or grace which else they had been equally capable of with others 5. It is certain that man hath much to do about his own heart by which he is to be the second cause of his own Receptive disposition and if he fail is the only cause of his indisposition § 12. Difference is but Dissimilitude And an alteration of one of the subjects which soever will make it dissimile or to differ from the other When the good Angels stood and the evil fell if you ask Who made the difference It was the Devils by forsaking their first estate Though Constitutively both their sin and the Angels obedience made the dissimilitude If you suppose Cain and Abel equally under grace at first and ask Who made the difference I answer Constitutively Cains sin and Abels righteousness maketh or is the difference But as to Reputative efficiency Cain made the difference by rejecting grace So if you should suppose two equally qualified with common grace and one of them to lose it the efficience of the difference is Imputable to him But if you suppose two equally lost in sin and one converted and not the other the Constitutive Causes of the difference are ones sin and the others repentance But the Imputable efficiency is Gods grace and mans repentance or will that is recovered § 13. But when Paul doth ask Who made thee to differ he meaneth Who gave thee that good by which thou differest and expoundeth it by What hast thou which thou hast not received And no doubt but all good is received from God And this would have held true if God had by equal operation done as much on the other which had been uneffectual by his indisposition or rejection § 14. Nature and Scripture perswade us that the same measure of help or influx is not enough to make one repent or believe which is enough to make another For the difference of souls and temptations and impediments plainly prove it The same strength will not move a Mountain which will move a Feather nor the same Teaching make an ignorant Sot to understand which serveth a prepared person § 15. Bodily aptitude or ineptitude do much to vary receptivities which are usually Gods punishments or rewards for Parents actions And oft-times for mens own Some by fornication gluttony drunkenness sports and idleness make themselves even next to Brutes § 16. But we have great Reason from Scripture to believe that though Gods Laws be equal and his Judgements where men do not make an inequality yet as a free Lord and Benefactor he dealeth not equally with all that are of equal merit Though he do no man wrong nor deny any what he promised in his Word but keep perfect Justice as a Governour yet he may do with his own as he list and he will be specially good to some though others see it with an evil eye § 17. Whether all that are elect have at first a greater measure of the Divine help and impress than any that are not converted no man can say of which more anon But certainly all the elect were fore-decreed by Gods will to that certain conversion which others were not so decreed to SECT VI. Of the Limitations of Gods Operations on the Soul § 1. THat which sticks in the minds of many is that God being Omnipotent all his operations must be equally unresistible and efficacious because none can conquer God But they must
that have a mind to contend about names § 20. Though a meer Indifferent faculty be as Dr. Twisse saith rather to be called Nature than Grace yet it is Grace 1. Which giveth a gracious object to that faculty though thereby it be still but an undetermined Power 2. And it is more Grace which taketh off some vicious Ill-dispositions of the soul and giveth it some more Disposition to believe though but so much as common grace doth give § 21. It is not a meer Power that God giveth men to Repent and believe But a Power accompanied with many Gracious help● and means to determine it aright of which before § 22. He that will not use such Power and means doth thereby forfeit further grace * * * Brianson in 4. q. 8. Cor. 3. fol. 152. maintaineth i. Quod ad obtinendam eratiam necessario ex parte hom●nis praecedit aliqua dispositio 2. Quod talem dispositio●em homo per selpsum potest si vult in se inducere praesuppositâ influentiâ g●n●ali D●i 3. Quo l talis dispositio ex parte hominis nullam inducit necessitatem introductionis gratiae ex parte Dei sed totum fit merâ gratuitâ Dei voluntate But the second must be done by common preparing Grace However God doth not alwayes take the forfeiture and will not of his elect to their destruction but doth pardon them § 23. By all this it appeareth 1. That all men have a natural power or faculties enabled to all that is necessary to salvation so far that it is not the want of a proper natural power that shall necessitate them to sin and perish 2. That this Power is by vice undisposed to believe c. 3. That it hath some Indisposition to all that virtue or moral good which tendeth to salvation 4. That it is not equally undisposed to all such Good 5. That it's Indisposition to some means of Recovery is no greater than what may be overcome by Gods commoner sort of Grace 6. That this commoner Grace is not herein ever so effectual as that all that receive it do all the good that they can do by it even in a moral sence nor all that some others do that have no more help But the wilful negligence of the receiver or his diversion or resistance frequently frustrateth it though not alwayes 7. That the right use of this commoner grace in the use of the foresaid means is a way appointed by God himself and not in vain by and in which men may be made fit to receive that special Grace which will call them savingly to believe 8. That no man is denyed that special grace that deserveth it not by the abuse of Common grace How the ca●e of Infants dependeth on the Parents I must not instance as oft as the exceptions of wranglers require it 9. And therefore no man is condemned for want of natural Power as such but only for want of stirring up his natural power by those helps of grace by which he might have done it and for want of that further Good faith love obedience which by the helps rejected he might have been brought up to had he not wilfully neglected the power and helps which he had 10. Yea usually God long waiteth patiently on sinners with the tenders of mercy while they reject it before he utterly forsake them SECT XIV Whether the giving of faith be an Act of Omnipotency and a proper Creation and a Miracle § 1. THe Reader must pardon me for troubling him with such frivolous questions about names seeing unhappy Theologues have made it necessary An Act of Omnipotency hath several senses Creation is an ambiguous word Pet. de Alliaeo in 4. q. 1. G. telleth us of four Ordinary senses of the word 1. Facere aliquod esse post non esse 2. Facere aliquid esse post non esse ab illo agente quod potest hoc sine causali influxu materiae vel subjecti 3. Facere aliquid esse post non esse sire concursu causali seu influru materiae vel subjecti sine subjecto praesupposito ex quo illud fiat 4. Facere aliquid esse post no● esse absque agente se solo causante sine concursu alterius causae efficient● Malderus 1. 2. qu. 113. a. 9. p. 578. ex Tho. August Justificatio impii est maximum opus Dei. Secundum quantitatem tam magnum est Angelos justos c●eare sed secundum quantitatem proportionis majus est impios justificare quia major est di●properti impii ad gratiam quam justi ad gloriam sicut ex plebeio creare ducem quam ex duce regem Aug. Tr. 72. in Joh. Justis create impios justificare aequalis potentiae hoc autem major is misericordiae est 1. If the meaning be Whether Omnipotency be the Agent Principle it is past dispute For it 's all one as to ask Whether it be an Act of God God hath no Power but Omnipotency that is perfect power 2. If the meaning be Whether the Giving of faith be an Adequate effect of Omnipotency it is also negatively past doubt Though those that take God to be but Anima Mundi say that Either the World is Infinite or that God is not Infinite as thinking the World to be his adequate effect yet Christians are commonly agreed that God hath no adequate effect Even the making of the universe the Giving of Christ and the Glorifying of the Church which are the highest effects of his Power Wisdom and Love are not adequate effects For nothing but another God can be an adequate effect of God And another God is a contradiction § 2. 3. But if the sense of the question be only comparative As 1. Whether Omnipotency be more eminent in the giving of faith than Wisdom and Love or Goodness 2. Or whether Omnipotency be more eminent in giving faith than other works of God they are both needless questions And to the first I say No To the second those other works of God must be named and compared by the presumptuous that have no safer work to do § 3. 4. If the question be Whether the giving of faith be so great a work that no Power below Omnipotency could suffice to do it I answer it is a presumptuous paltry question of rash men But yet if it must be answered it must be negatively Because as Omnipotence is more illustrious in the making of the world than in causing a man to believe so Christians agree that the world it self as I said is not an adequate effect of Omnipotency Which maketh so many of the subtilest Schoolmen conclude that God could not be proved to be Omnipotent by the whole Creation ●as such were it not further to be gathered from the notices of his perfection Which were false if by Omnipotence they meant only a Power that can do all that is done But they mean An Infinite Power which they say must be so seen in
doctrine of faith and Law and promises of Christa●e the Means which the Spirit useth in operating our Faith Love and Obedience And it is not two Covenants that give these two but as soul and body make one man so the Word of Christ and his Spirit make up one total cause of our sanctification The Spirit causeth us to believe that which the Word revealeth and to love the good which it proposeth and to obey the Precepts of the Word Therefore the Gospel is Grace and the Spirit is Grace that is a free gift of God to miserable sinners for their recovery and inward holiness is the effect of both And to feign that all obedience as it is performed to Christs Law upon its proper motives is therefore not of the Spirit or is our own Righteousness opposed to Christs because our own reason and free-will is exercised in it is Phanaticism and subverteth the Gospel and the Prophetical and Kingly Office of Christ II. God never gave a Law no not to the Jews only to convince them that they could not keep it but to be the Rule of their obedience And the Just did keep it in sincerity But the Law of Moses as separated by the ignorant Jews from the promise and grace of Christ could not be kept by any to Justification To say that Christs Laws now have no higher end than to tell us that we cannot keep them is Antichristianity Are we commanded to repent believe love God only to tell us that we cannot do it It 's true that without the Spirits help we cannot But it 's as true that the Command is the Rule of our duty and all the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is the means of exciting us to our duty by which the Spirit worketh in us faith repentance love and obedience But saith Jansenius the Law of Christ is to humble men in the sense of their disability and drive them to seek to Christ for his grace I answer 1. Is not humbling men and driving them to Christ a good effect If so then his Law is the means of all that good 2. Were the Gospel and all the Apostles Epistles written only to drive men to Christ and not to edifie them and make them perfect to salvation Were not the Precepts of Love and Holiness means of working Love and Holiness in men Is not the Word the seed that begetteth men to eternal life and is not the receiving of this seed into good and honest hearts made by Christ the cause of holiness and salvation Were not the Disciples clean by the word that Christ spake to them and doth he not say that his Word was spirit and life as being the concause of the Spirits vivification He that never received more benefit by Christs Doctrine Law and Gospel than to be convinced that he cannot believe repent obey or love God hath not yet the benefit which they are principally intended for But suppose that by Law he had meant the meer penal part or threatning as some words would make a man suspect 1. It 's a strange description of a Law to exclude the precept and premiant part and include only the penal part which is the last and least 2. As it is the same Man that hath Love and Hatred Hope and Fear so it is the same Law of Christ which hath precept and prohibition promise and penalty And it is the same Holiness or New Creature which is a conformity to all together Of which more anon III. He can never prove that all unbelievers have no Power to ●●e any means which tendeth to ●aith by a preparatory grace nor that the use of all such means is Impossible to them XIII His distinction of Natural and Moral Impotency is good But then that Moral Impotency it self must not be made the same with the Natural else there will be the same reason for excusing sin by it If mans Will had been made by God such as could not possibly love him or holiness it would not have left a man unexcusable in judgement that his enmity was Voluntary It is reason enough for a man to kill a ●oad or Serpent as malum sibi naturale because it is a hurtful creature But this is no Moral Evil in them nor is their death their punishment nor yet in any ravenous creature which preyeth on the rest that are innocent And so would it be with bad men if God had made them bad Indeed if Adam have made them all bad and God have given no Saviour Grace or Remedy they are con●emnable and unexcusable as they were virtually in Adam if judged only by the Law of Innocency as made to Adam But they are excuseable if judged by Christ by the Law of grace which condemneth no man meerly as not innocent or a sinner but as a rejecter of grace These things are so plain and weighty that Ja●senius should not joyn with the Antinomians in opposing them XIV While he confesseth that Christ so far dyed for all as to procure them all the mercy which he giveth them I have no further quarrel with him but to prove that a Condition pardon of sin and grant of Life eternal with much means and help to make men perform the Condition which is but a suitable Acceptance is indeed mercy XVI That Christs grace is Love or Complacency in good is a truth which I highly value but with all these exceptions to his doctrine 1. It is the Heart of the new Creature and that which must communicate it self to all the rest or else they are lifeless and unacceptable For the will is the man in Gods account And complacency or love or appetite is the first act of the will which is it that he calleth with Augustine Delectation Grace lyeth principally in a Placet But the man hath more parts than his Heart And all other parts of sanctification are graces of Christ in their several places and not love only 2. Though no man is to love himself as God nor instead of God nor above God nor as the noblest ultimate object of his love yet all men are necessitated by nature to love themselves and therefore to desire their own felicity in loving God next to God as the final object of that love And so our end is finis amantis vel amicitiae which includeth mutual complacency and union though not in equality And to such an end grace causeth us to use the means And Christ is proposed to us as our Saviour and all his grace as for our good and all Gods commands as necessary for our happiness and sin is described to us to be hated as our o●● evil and destruction and against our good as well as against Gods will and honour And with us this is denyed scarcely by the Antino●ians themselves Much less by any judicious Christians 3. It is past the reach of any of us to prove that our actual love is the first effect of the sanctifying Spirit on the soul
pleased or displeased in them yea I told you that these may oriri de novo without change in God And whether his judicial Will to condemn men as Judge have the same conditions we shall enquire further hereafter I have already manifested that the Objects of it have their proper qualifications The seventh Crimination A. At least you make Election absolute if not Rejection and say that God electeth men to Salvation without respect to any goodness in * To the question An electio ad beatitudinem praecesserit praedestinati●nem meritorum The affirmative is held by Cajet and most Thomists by Scotus in 1. d. 41. q. 1. Durand q. 1. n. 8. Aegid ibid. q. 1. a. 2. Major 1. d. 4. q. 2. Sotu● in Ro● ● Cordub li. 1. q. 56. ●pin ● inquit Vasquez in 1. Tho. q. 23. disp 89. c. 1. But Vasquez holdeth the contrary with Os●rius Turrian and many others maintaining that Augustine held Electionem ad gloriam esse e● meritis gratia pr●visis And no doubt but God decreed Glory to be given per modum praemii if that be all them B. I have said enough to this already 1. Do you think that men are good before they are elected when they are not men You do not certainly 2. Do you think that God fore-seeth any good in men when he willeth to them their first good no doubt you do not 3. Do you think that God fore-seeth in men any second third or following degrees of goodness before he intend to give it them what need he purpose to give it them if he fore-see that they will have it without his Gift 4. Do you think that God fore-seeth any power to do good in men but what he intendeth to give them or any good act but what proceedeth from that power which he giveth them and from his concourse or co-operating influx I dare say that you do not 5. And do you think that we imagine that God giveth or purposeth to give any following mercy to him that hath not the necessary antecedent mercy As to glorifie any that is not justified or to justifie any that is not called 6. You see then that it 's necessary if you will quarrel that you distinguish of Election as before said Though Gods Will in it self as was now said have no proper suspending condition yet 1. The effects of Gods Will have 2. And the Objects of Gods Will have their necessary qualifications 3. And some of Gods Volitions are thence extrinsically denominated conditional Now 1. God giveth Salvation to no Unbeliever but on condition of Faith And God actually glorifieth none but penitent persevering Believers And both these he accordingly decreed or willeth And can you say then that Election hath no respect to the persons goodness It hath not only respect to the good intended him but to that good which is a necessary qualification found in him that is necessary to the benefit to which he is elected God decreeth to give glory to none but persevering Saints nor perseverance to none but the Holy nor justification to none but Believers But I will confess to you that we hold 1. That God absolutely willed to give Christ and the New Covenant to the World 2. That he absolutely willeth or decreeth to give the Gospel and common Grace in a greater degree to many a one that is no more worthy of it than others that are past by and to give it to none but the unworthy 3. That he absolutely decreeth to give Faith and Repentance to many that have long resisted him and are as great Sinners as those that have them not and to none but the unworthy in proper sense And dare you deny any of this your self The eighth Crimination A. Thus you bring presumption into the World and encourage men to Marlorate as from Calvin saith in Joh. 15. 2. Certum decretum Dei a nemine infirmari posse Stat igitur firma sententia Quemcunque Deus ante conditum orbem elegerit cum non posse perire Quem vero rejecerit cum non posse salvari etiamsi omnia sanctorum opera fecerit An ill supposition which Episcopius citeth with distast But Brentius ibid. cited by the same Marlorate saith Haec sententia occurrit c●riositati carnis quae s●let arg●te magis quam reveren●●r de praedestinatione disserete pro suo ingenio colligere nullum a domin● ad vitam a●●rnam electum posse damnari eti●●si pessi●● vivat nullum item a Domin● ad ignem aeternum deputatum posse salvari eti amsi optime vivat s● i●aque velle pro sua libidin● vivere sin If once they be elect let them do what they can they are sure to be saved for they are certain that Election will not change B. 1. You are leading us towards the question of Perseverance before the time 2. Do you think your self that Election changeth Is not this as much imputable to you as us or do we differ here Do not you say that God fore-knoweth who will be saved And can God be deceived or shall not all certainly be glorified that are so fore-known Nay do you not say that at least upon that fore-knowledge God decreeth each persons certain Salvation that shall be saved And can that Decree which is upon fore-knowledge be frustrate Do not you then as much encourage presumption by a certain unchangeable Election as we 3. It is factious perverseness reflecting on your selves as much as us which puts in that word Let them do what they will or live how they will or sin they never so much For it falsly intimateth that God electeth men to Glory that live impenitently in wickedness according to our Doctrine Whereas we say 1. That if the word Election be taken partially for the act of Gods Decree to glorifie them none but fore-seen persevering Saints are the Objects And a wicked Saint is a contradiction Or if it be taken for Gods Decree to convert a man we say that this is true that let the World live never so wickedly God doth decree to convert some of them from that wickedness but not all Do you question this 2. But if the word Election be taken comprehensively then mens Holiness Repentance and Faith is part of the Salvation But Brentius ibid. cited by the same Marlorate saith Haec sententia occurrit curiositati carnis quae solet argute magis quam reverenter de praedestinatione disserere pro suo ingenio colligere nullum a domino ad vitam aeternam electum posse damnari etiamsi p●ssim● vivat nullum item a Domino ad ignem aeternum deputatum posse salvari etiamsi optime vivat se itaque velle pro sua libidine vivere which they are elected to And to say that God absolutely electeth Peter to live and die a Saint let him after Conversion live and die never so wickedly this is a putid contradiction such paultry dealing faction causeth what do you differ from
this to their own sense And do they not use such violence with Gods Word and their Consciences as that on these terms they may make their own Religion and believe what they list Do they not plainly shew that they take not their Faith from God but from their Teachers and believe as the Church believeth which they joyn with Had it been but one or two Texts or had they been obscurely uttered a good man might have thought that he must reduce their sense to the many and more plain But to oppugn the plain Gospel it self hath no ex●use B. You are sharp against other mens Errors and other men against yours But I have proved to you that the Synod and the generality of the Protestant Churches in their Confessions deny not any thing which these Texts say They hold a common Redemption as well as you our very Children are taught in their Catechism distinctly to believe 1. In God the Father who made them and all the World 2. In God the Son who redeemed them and all Mankind 3. And in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth them and all the Elect People of God This is the good old Doctrine plain and true and that which Austin taught A. I am sure many of their Writers expresly oppugn common Redemption and even Jasenius the Papist who joyneth with them denieth it and saith that Augustine denied it Therefore we stand not to his authority B. 1. As for Augustine and some Protestants they oft deny that Christ redeemeth any but the Faithful because the word Redemption is ambiguous and sometimes taken for the price or ransome paid and often for the very liberation of the captive Sinner And when ever Austin denieth common Redemption he taketh Redemption in this last sense for actual deliverance But he asserteth it in the first sense that Christ died for all Yea he thought his death is actually applied to the true Justification and Sanctification of some Reprobates that fall away and perish though the Elect only are so redeemed as to be saved Read your self Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius and you will see this with your own eyes 2. I have oft told you it is our Protestant Confessions and not some singular or private Writers that you must know their Doctrine by 3. Even those few Writers differ more from you in terms than in sense For 1. Many of them will confess all the same benefits by Christ to men in common which you assert Few of them will deny that Salvation is tendered to all mens acceptance and brought to the choosing or refusing of their own Wills And you seem to them to say no greater matters as for the Elect. But they say that Christ purchased Faith it self for the Elect only of which in due place 2. And so with them the Controversie is 1. About Gods Decree or Intent of saving men by Christ 2. And of giving them Faith Tell me one word that you except against in the Synod in this Article A. I except against sect 8. where they say that Fuit hoc Dei patris liberrimum consilium gratiosissima voluntas atque intentio ut mortis pretiosissimae filii sui vivifica salvifica efficacia sese exereret in omnibus electis ad eos solos fide justificante donandos per eam ad salutem infallibiliter perducendos hoc est voluit Deus ut Christus per sanguinem crucis quo novum foedus confirmavit ex omni populo gente tribu lingua eos omnes solos qui ab aeterno ad salutem electi a patre ipsi dati sunt efficaciter redimeret fide donaret ab omnibus peccatis sanguine suo mundaret ad finem usque fideliter custodiret tandem absque omni labe macula gloriosos coram se sisteret B. Very good This is all in the Canons that you can except against And 1. You see that this is only about Gods Intention or Decree And so you differ not at all by your own confession in the Article of Redemption as distinct from that of the Decrees 2. Is it the inclusion of the Elect in this Intention that you except against So will no sober Jesuite Do you think that Christ was resolved certainly to justifie and glorifie no man at all The Semipelagians will not say so You say not so your selves Only some of you say it is but upon fore-sight of Faith and by the consequent will of which I have said enough before But do you think that Christ when he was on the Cross had no full purpose to save those infallibly * Episcopius in Institut Theol. li. 4. cap. 5. pag. 410. confesseth that the opinion of Election may consist with that of universal Grace which he propugned who he fore-knew would believe yea and to cause some men to believe Those that come to him are drawn by the Father and Faith is the Gift of God Ephes 2. 8. Who giveth us all things pertaining to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1. 3. Even to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. To some it is given to believe Phil. 1. 29. But of this enough before 3. But I suppose it is only the word Solos in all the Canons that you except against And dare or will you say that God did absolutely intend and decree to sanctifie and glorifie all men by Christ or any one that is not glorified A. But their meaning is that all the rest which are most of the World are left out of Gods Election even unto sin and damnation meerly because God would so have it and not from any ill desert of theirs any more than was in the Elect which appeareth in that as Episcopius noteth † Instit Theol. l. 4. cap. 5. sect 5. p. 410. They that say the Fall or Sin is quid praevisum fore-seen in Reprobation yet deny that it is any * The Jesuites themselves as Vasqu●z and many others ordinarily say that nothing in man can be any cause of Gods Decrees cause of Reprobation And then all cometh to one whether God reprobate a Sinner or an innocent person as to the cause B. You have nothing about Redemption I perceive still to controvert but about Gods Decrees If we must go back to them review your words and see how you cheat your selves into distast of you know not what by meer confusion for want of accurate Scholastick Heads I except not Episcopius himself notwithstanding men of his own measure think otherwise 1. Whereas you talk of leaving out either you mean non-Election or positive exclusion If the last it 's false not only the Scotists but some Protestants as Ferrius in Scholast Orthodox and others assert but a negation here And Davenant and the Synod assert but a negative Decree quoad objectum which is but as much as Arminius propugneth who while he maintaineth that God decreeth not sin but only his own permission of sin which is the Synods sense
believe so that Faith is a fruit of the Death of Christ in a remoter secondary sense And in all this Name me any Christian Churches that are disagreed C. To bring it only to a mans free will whether he will believe or not is not to give him Faith and to purchase no more is not to purchase it B. Do you not perceive that here you divert to the Controversies of the Decrees and of effectual Grace Of the first we have said enough already of the other after in due place The sixth Crimination C. They feign Christ to purchase only a conditional Pardon Justification and Salvation and so to leave it uncertain to the corrupt Will of man whether any shall be saved or not B. This also concerneth the Decrees and is fully answered before 1. That Christ hath purchased and God given a conditional Act of Oblivion or Pardon and Life to all is the very Gospel it self and to be questioned by no Believers 2. None of them all do suppose Christ to die at uncertainties as to the success for they suppose that he fore-knew the success from eternity 3. They suppose not that the success was undecreed For they that presuppose fore-sight of mans concurrence yet assert an * Episcop Instit Theol. l. 4. sect 5. cap. 6. Certum est posito decreto conditionato omnes ac singulos qui vel ad vitam electi sunt vel ad mortem reprobati recte ab aeterno praedestinatos dici posse debere eternal Decree of his Conversion upon such fore-sight And it is not on the fore-sight of Faith that they say God decreeth to give men Faith but on fore-sight that the will of the Sinner will concur or not obstinately resist the Spirit that is drawing him to believe And the Jesuites and Arminians by their Scientia media do hold God to be the chief cause of mens believing For they say That God foreseeing that man will believe if he have such a measure of help and such means and circumstances doth freely decree to give him that help of the Spirit and those means by which he knoweth it will be done So that here is no uncertainty but different thoughts of the ascertaining decrees and ways 4. And lib. 1. I have shewed you that not only the Schoolmen but Bellarmine Ruiz Suarez and many of the most famous Jesuites do assert effectual Grace to be such both ex voluntate operantis and ex vi operationis absolutely And where then is this feigned difference The seventh Crimination C. They make Christ to do no more for Peter than for Judas for those in Heaven than for those in Hell while they say that he died equally for all B. * Vasq in 1. Thom. q. 23. a. 8. disp 94. c. 2. Perantiqua Theologorum sententia quam ego Catholicam existimo est non solum Christum nobis meritum ut a Deo diligeremur praedestinaremur per gratiam ejus ad gloriam sed etiam ut eligeremur ex massa perditionis electione gratiae suae Note that he speaketh only of the effect of Gods Decree and so it is all one as to say that differencing Grace is merited by Christ which is that which you would have Equality here is meant either of his Intention or of the benefits given Those benefits are of several sorts 1. No doubt but they err who feign God equally to decree and Christ to intend the eventual absolute Salvation of all 2. And they err that say that he bestoweth equal benefits on all even in this life yea antecedently to mans Will But the New Covenant or conditional Promise doth equally as to the tenor of it give Pardon and Right to Life to all But who is it that holdeth this equality of Intention or Benefit Not the greater part of the School-men or other Papists no not the learnedst Jesuites Not the Lutheran Churches But some few Arminians that run into one extream as you do into the other Nay how can they hold an equality of Intention when they confess that upon foreknowledge of their Unbelief the condemnation of many was eternally decreed C. Yes they hold that antecedently to fore-sight Gods Intention is equal B. 1. That fore-sight it self is from eternity 2. Who can frame out Orders of antecedency in the mind of God between his fore-sight and his Will without confessing great darkness and impropriety of Speech 3. And he that first giveth man to believe and will doth not first foresee that he will believe and will before he decree to give it him The eighth Crimination C. They make Christ's sheep to know him before he know his sheep that is to believe before he decree to give them Faith B. This is but the same in sense with what is before answered And it belongeth to the controversie of Gods Decrees They all say that God decreeth to give them sufficient Grace to enable them to believe before he fore-seeth their belief And most say more as is aforesaid The ninth Crimination C. Some of them say that Christ's Death did actually deliver * Vid. Episcop Resp ad qu. 64. qu. 38. supposing the Salvation of all that die in Infancy all men in the World from the guilt of Original Sin and so that none perish for Original Sin because what Adam did Christ undid B. You can name no Church that doth hold such Doctrine And we have nothing to do with singular odd Persons 1. Millions were unborn when Christ died and were not guilty of Original sin till afterwards and therefore were not capable of Pardon 2. The Papists who damn unbaptized Infants cannot be of that Opinion 3. What Adam brought upon us Christ did deliver us from upon his terms and in his way and by his degrees but not immediately He hath given all men a conditional Pardon of Original Sin as he hath done of Actual and no other The Unregenerate are under the guilt of all Sin whatsoever 4. But it is certain that no man except Infants doth perish for Original Sin alone For all men at age have other sins And it being certain that God offereth all men a recovery or remedy mediately or immediately it is certain that Infants perish not meerly for Adam's sin i●puted as a remediless evil but that their non-liberation or not being pardoned and saved is long of their Parents Unbelief and not entering them into the Covenant of God who is the God of the Faithful and their Seed The tenth Crimination C. They make Christ to have died for the Serpents Seed against whom the enmity is proclaimed when the new Covenant was first made Gen. 3. 15. B. 1. If by the Serpents Seed you mean such as are Gods Enemies no doubt but Christ died for them Rom. 5. 1. to 12 c. What need reconciliation else 2. If by the Serpents Seed you mean Reprobates as such you can never prove it to be the meaning of the Text. 3. If you mean fore-seen final
stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Grat● saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
And the sum of his opinion about the nature and cause of our holy actions is 1. That Gods universal influx or causation is necessary on our will to make them acts 2. That Free-Will is the cause that they are these particular acts about this object rather than another 3. That Gods particular or special influx of Grace is the cause that they are supernatural acts And that preventing Grace doth give men good thoughts and the first motion of the affections before deliberation and choice or liberty as Vasquez also saith which seemeth the same with the Doctrine of Ockam Buridane and the rest of the Nominals who call it Complacency as antecedent to Election yea and Intention To be pleased with the thing simply on the first apprehension they call a necessary natural act Though the Scotists say that quoad exercitium actus vel libertatem contradictionis even that is free And it seems the same which Augustine and Jansenius call primam aelectationem But converting Grace it self Molina takes to be a habit wrought by Gods special help in and with the word or means His words are of men that are hearing Gods Word or thinking on it Influit Deu● in ●easdem notitias in●lux● quodam particulari ac supernaturali quo cognitionem illam adjuvat tum ut res melius dilucidius expendatur pe●etret ●um●etiam ut notitia illa jam limites notitia supernaturalis ad finem supernaturalom in suo ordine attingat Inde oritur in voluntate motus affectionis c. Yet no Jesuite is supposed to go further from the Calvinists than this man In truth I cannot perceive but that Jesuites Arminians Lutherans and all such are willing to ascribe as much to Gods Grace as they think consistent with mans Free-will and Gods not being the cause of sin which is the same thing that the Calvinists also endeavour though●hey seem not to hit on the same names and notions to do the thing desired save themselves and those that hear them 1. Tim. 4. 16. And that he that converts a sinner doth save a soul from death James 6. ult And that the word is the immortal incorruptible seed by which we are begotten again and which remaineth in us Are you now in doubt of this C. It is one thing for God to work with the Word and another thing to work by the Word The first we confess But if God work by the Word then he must operate first on the Word which is the Preachers act and so by that Word on the soul and not immediately Therefore I rather think that the word is a concomitant than an instrumental cause B. 1. You wrong your self and Christ in that you will not believe him John 3. that we mortals know not the way and manner of the Spirits accesses and operations on the soul any more than the cause of the wind whose sound we hear Do you not know that you do not know how Gods Spirit moveth our intellect and wills and how he maketh use of instruments except secundum quid in some particles revealed 2. An hundred Texts of Scripture which I omit lest I be tedious tell us that the Word is a means or subordinate cause to God of his informing and reforming operations on mens souls And it 's dangerous to dream of any second cause that is so concomitant as to be but co-ordinate with the first cause and not subordinate to it And the word is not only subordinate to God as Instituter by Legislation and Declaration but also to God as efficient operator 3. God can work two ways by the Word which are within our reach besides others 1. As it is the act of the speaker by exciting and illuminating him 2. As it is the species as they call it received by the senses and imagination which God can by his power set home to the attainment of the due effect 4. And yet I know not any or many of your Adversaries that deny that besides this Divine operation by the VVord God hath another immediately on the soul exciting it to operate upon the VVord as the vis plastica vitalis materna operatur in semen jam receptum But I will here forbear to trouble you with the physical difficulties whether the VVord heard be only objectum intellectus or also causa efficiens as light is both to the eye And whether it be operative on the intellect or only terminative with other such like C. Well I must grant you that all Infused Faith as to the act is Acquired But all Acquired Faith not Infused but infusion is added to our own endeavours like the creation of the humane soul B. I am glad that we are got so far on towards peace But Quest. 4. What mean you by Infusion Is it not a Metaphor C. Yes and we mean that immediate perswasion of God which you even confess to be besides his operation by the Word and by our Cogitations Even a Creation of an act or habit B. Quest. 5. Is it the name Infusion or the thing that you plead for C. The name though I confess Metaphors must not be used unnecessarily in Disputes is yet convenient but that I leave indifferent B. Quest 6. Do you not think that the act of Faith is the act of mans own Intellect and Will or Soul and that immediately C. Yes that cannot be denied B. If so then when you say that our act is Infused I hope you will confess the term to be none of the plainest and you only mean that Gods Grace doth so operate on the faculty as to excite it so to act and consequently that the thing first and properly infused is not the act of Faith it self but the vis impressa facultatem before described by which the act is caused And so in a secondary sense the act may be called Infused but not most immediately C. I confess it is the habit which we commonly take to be Infused and therefore we use to distinguish habitus infusos ab habitibus acquisitis rather than actus infusos ab actibus acquisitis B. Is that Habit before the Act or after it C. You know that it is a Controversie among our selves Mr. Pemble saith it is before and the common opinion is that it is after the first special Act. B. 1. I once received that from Mr. Pemble ignorantly But that cometh to us by not distinguishing the vis impressa or first received influx of the spirit from a Habit when as Amesius well saith it is fitter called semen fidei vel dispositio quaedam than a Habit of Faith For 1. no man can prove such an antecedent habit and therefore none should assert it 2. The true nature of a Habit consisteth in a promptitude to perform that special act with facility But that we should have such a promptitude and facility not only while we are Infant Christians but no Christians as having not yet believed in Christ is not probable according to our
never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more increased for not performing these acts And again page 170. It is true there is a Faith infused by the Spirit of God in regeneration But who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a Faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation C. I am amazed at this especially his supposing that no man ever said that which I thought no man of us had denied B. I would think that his meaning is that men are not condemned for want of Gods infusing act but their own believing act or for the privation of Infusion but for the privation of Faith or of Faith not quatenus infused but as they ought to have believed without infusion But he was not so wanting in accurateness but that he knew how to have exprest himself had that been his meaning And then I know not how his words will consist with this sense I never read that any mans damnation was the more increased for not performing these acts where changing their own hearts is one And whoever said that any man was damned because he did not believe with such a Faith Here it is the Faith as such which is supposed spoken of the privation whereof is not the meritorious cause of damnation And indeed though the power of this Faith would have been in us had there been no Sin or Saviour yet there would have been no obligation to believe in Christ as Mediator And therefore if the Law of Innocency had stood alone even the want of an acquired Faith in Christ would have been no sin But this is the unhappiness of such as must read Controversial Writings There is no end of searching after the Writers meaning But the thing it self I think is plain c. that only an effectual special Faith will save us and it is such a Faith of which Christ speaketh Mat. 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned though he believe with any other Faith whatsoever which he calleth acquired Perhaps this his opinion hath some dependance on what he saith before ibid. He punisheth the disobedient with eternal death True but according to what Covenant Not according to the Covenant of Grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according to the Covenant of the Law the Covenant of Works Woful error and confusion The Covenant of the Law is almost as bad a phrase as the Covenant of the Covenant 1. Gods Law of Innocency was a Law and Covenant in several respects 2. So was the Jewish Law which Paul meaneth by the Law of Works 3. So is the Christian Law of Christ and of Grace No man is now condemned by the Jewish Law of Works as such it being ceased and never did it bind the Gentile world The Law of Nature and of Innocency indeed condemneth the disobedient but the Law or Covenant of Christ or of Grace doth condemn them to much sorer punishment Luke 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should reign c. Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 25. throughout But this confounding of the Covenants I must not here rectifie But yet I hope he meant only that men suffer not for want of Gods Regenerating Infusing Act but for want of their own act of Faith The fifth Crimination C. I find Dr. Twisse ibid. alibi saepe charging it on them as holding that Grace is given according to Works which is Pelagianism For they think that God looketh at some preparation in the Receiver and giveth it to some because they are prepared for it and denieth it to others because they are unprepared whereas it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in him that of his meer good pleasure sheweth mercy B. There is enough said of this after about differencing and effectual Grace But if we must say more I ask you Quest. 1. Do you by this phrase according to Works mean to urge the Scripture that speaketh in that phrase in its proper sense or do you Vulgatum illud facient● quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam intelligitur de faciente ●● gratia auxilie Pet. ● S. Joseph Thes Univers de auxil pag. 83. Idem pag. 90. Nequidem ipsius Christi opera fuerunt actu meretoria citra promissi●nem Dei usi ex se essent valoris in●●●iti which needeth explication only use the phrase in some other sense of your own C. I use Scripture phrase in Scripture sense because I rest on its Authority B. Quest 2. Are we not also saved without Works in Scripture sense And would it be contrary to Paul to say we that we are saved by Works yea or according to them in that sense that he speaketh of them See James 2. 14 c. Tit. 3. 5. Ephes 2. 5 8 9. Gal. 3. 2. 5. 10. Acts 15. 11. c. and 16. 31. Rom. 5. 10 And yet saved according to Works in another sense James 2. 14 c. Phil. 2. 12. Gal. 6. 4. Rom. 20. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 10. C. In several senses of Works we deny it not B. Quest 3. At least you will grant that we are not justified by Works and yet that we are justified by Faith yea in another sense by Works Quest 4. Is not believing and repenting in order to Justification and all holy obedience in order to Salvation as truly op●● a work and in a far nobler sense than preparation for Faith is C. That cannot be denied B. Then you cannot affirm that the phrase not according to Work● which excludeth not Faith Repentance holy Obedience to justification and salvation doth intend the exclusion of all preparation in order to Conversion or Faith in Christ when by Works excluded it meaneth the same thing or sort in all C. But saith Dr. Twisse ibid. page 154. Pardon and Salvation God doth confirm only on condition of Faith and Repentance But ●● for Faith and Repentance doth God confer them conditionally also If so whatsoever be the condition let them look to it how they can avoid the making of Grace to wit the Grace of Faith and Repentance to be given according to Works B. I know he frequently saith the same But 1. I speak now only of the sense of that Scripture and say that this goeth upon a most false and dangerous supposition that Justification and Salvation are given according to Works though Faith and Repentance be not whereas in the sense of Works there meant by Paul no man can be justified by Works And though Christ saith This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom the Father hath sent yet it is not that which Paul meaneth Let not therefore Scripture words be abused to mislead mens understandings 2. But as to the matter of the Controversie I spoke to it enough
a long answer B. Not as Paul meant it but as our troublesome Contenders use it in Even those that found the infallibility on scientia media make congrous Grace ex proposito convertendi to be the cause of the difference So Malderus 1 2. q. 111. a. 3. p. 517. Quod hic credat prae alio indubie venit de misericordia Dei ipsum si● vocantis ut accomodet assensum misericordia inquam qua nos in C●risto elegit Totum est miserentis Dei ipse vocat ipse facit ●t vocatus veniat ipse ●t currat ipse nolentem praevenit ut velit volentem subsequitur n● fr●fira velit vi sua Gratia it a sibi aptat liberum arbitrium ut a n●llo d●ro corde resp●●t●r quod dici●●s provenire ex ●o quod meris in●●●abilibus occultis modis noverit Deus ita hominis ●over sensum ut accomodet assensum Fatemur Dei omnipotentiam Dominium quod habet in voluntates hominum manifestari in gratiae eff●catia Et consensus homi●is est don●m Dei descendens a Patre luminum ●llumque consensum De●● vult ●acit quia facit ●ominem virib●● grati●●acer● Ye● he yieldeth to ●radwardines Doctrine supposing him only to intend necessitatem quandam consequentiae necessarium esse hominem libere velle ill●d ipsum quod Deu● cuju● omnipotentia quaecunque voluit facit praevoluit ipsum ville libere Item gratiam efficacem der● intuit● meritorum Christi non tantum quatenu● est sufficiens●sed etiam quatenus est e●●i●ax dum seeundum propositum ●●●● ●●●m cura D●● non est aqualis do omnibus another sense the answer must be suited to the question And here note that really it is the state of both parties compared and not of one of them that constituteth the dissimilitude as is said And the efficient causes of both states are the causes of the difference And so truly the cause of Nero's unbelief and the causes of Paul's Faith which are many as aforesaid all set together are the causes of the differences or rather all make up one cause of it This no Logician can deny But yet in vulgar speech we use to say that that person or thing is the cause of the difference 1. Which is the cause of the singularity 2. Or which causeth the state of the second person compared supposing the state of the first person to be already existent And so you will find yet several senses of the question C. Explain it by some instances B. 1. As to the cause of singularity If one man be born an Ideot or a Monster when we ask what made him differ from other men though really the causes of the dissimilitude be to be assigned on both parts yet we mean only on his part why is he not like others So if one Child be unlike to all his brethren or one Scholar in the School be much better or much worse than all the rest or if one in a Family be sick he that asketh what maketh him differ doth mean what made him sick c. 2. And so as to Posteriority of State if you suppose one of the dissimiliar parts pre-existent and ask what maketh the other to differ from it as if you ask why the Scholar writeth not like his Copy why the Son is so unlike to the Father why this age is so unlike the last c. We mean only what causeth the difference ex parte subsequente C. Apply it to the case in hand B. If you ask what made the difference between the Devils and the persevering Angels In the full and proper answer you must assign the reason on both parts But according to the usual sense of the question you must say The wilful sin of the Devils made the difference For the equal state of uprightness went before the difference So if you ask what made the difference between the world after the fall and before it vulgarly we must say sin because that came last So if you ask what made the difference between Noah and the world between Lot and Sodom Ans Indeed that which made one part sinful and the other righteous But according to the vulgar sense of the question it was the Righteousness of Noah and Lot and the causes of that righteousness So what made the difference between Judas and the eleven Apostles Ans Judas his wilful sin and Wickedness though indeed the cause is on both sides So what maketh the difference between Believers and the Unbelieving world Really the unbelief of the world and the Faith of Christians with their causes But it 's like the speaker meaneth only ex parte credentium And then the cause of their Believing is the cause of their differing But now if it hold true that God giveth a sufficiency of Grace ut causa universalis ex parte donantis antecedently to mens accepting or rejecting equally then if one ask what maketh the difference you would understand him why have not unbelievers Faith as well as others And then the answer would be wilful resisting or refusing Grace or the moral special indisposition of the Recipients makes the difference or else all would be alike believers But note that we ask not What maketh the difference between Believers and unbelievers but do particularize the subject and ask what maketh the Believer differ from the Unbeliever or what maketh the unbeliever differ from the believer It is then supposed that we mean only ex parte nominata And thus in the vulgar sense the questions what maketh the believer differ from the Infidel and what maketh the Infidel differ from the believer must have various answers C. I understand you thus in brief 1. You say that constitutively it is Faith that is the difference on Paul 's part and unbelief on Nero ' s. 2. The causes of the said Faith and unbelief are the causes of the difference As the causes of the whiteness of one wall and of the blackness of the other cause their difference 3. That to ask why the Believer differeth from the Unbeliever is but to ask why he is a Believer when the other is not 4. Here you say the two Relations of dissimilitude in two ubbjects make the questions two in one viz. 1. Why or whence is Paul a Believer 2. Whence is it that Nero is an Unbeliever 5. You say that Nero is an Unbeliever through his own wilfulness and illdisposition resisting Grace Satans temptations concurring And that Paul is a Believer from many conjunct causes 1. Gods Grace by his Spirit 2. Christs Merits 3. Christs donation of that Spirit 4. The means by which he worketh 5. The concurse of Pauls will To which efficients you add in most a competent Receptive disposition in genere caus● materialis both passive and active 6. You say that in all this Gods Grace is incomparably the greater cause than man's will 7. But yet not the sole cause and that some free-not-necessitated concurse of mans
made a Janizary A third the Parents dying leave to such as educate them vitiously And some the Parents apostatizing educate in Heresie or unpiety themselves 3. He oft casteth their lot under different means for their Edification One is set Apprentice to a Godly Master and another to an ungodly one One is cast under a Holy able Minister and another under an ignorant Seducer One is cast among Godly Companions and another among lewd Seducers idle wanton voluptuous unclean malignant scornful or other such tempting persons as that a great deal more grace or help is necessary to their preservation 4. One for ought we see of equal commerit is impelled or occasioned to go to Church just when an apt Sermon is prepared for him and another occasioned to be absent A Minister or Friend is sent as Philip to the Eunuch though by ordinary means to meet with one and speak suitably to his case and not to the other 5. One falleth under some great affliction which taketh him down and awakeneth him to seriousness and another swimmeth down the violent and dangerous stream of prosperity and constant health 6. One seeth some notable Judgments on others or some convincing Providences or hath some strange deliverance himself which another never hath 7. One Nation or Kingdom of equal ill desert hath the Gospel and powerful Preachers sent to them while others are left as the most of the world without it yea as the poor Islanders Laplanders Brasilians Soldanians and Canibals A thousand ways God hath to fulfil his Will which we know not of But besides all these in point of Means we see that under the same Means or Sermon or Family helps there is not the same success Not only because the unbelievers make the difference by sinning against sufficient universal Grace but because God doth especially touch the hearts of some by such Grace as he giveth not to others Thus did he open the heart of Lidia Act. 16. C. Methinks you should lay all on this Internal changing Grace and not on the difference of means B. Certain Experience telleth us that most usually God giveth extraordinary differing means where his Grace shall work different effects Christ himself who was to bestow extraordinary Grace after his Incarnation was himself to be an extraordinary means He must work Miracles raise the Dead rise from the Dead c. as the Means The Apostles that were to do extraordinary things in calling the unbelieving world to Christ were to do it by miracles and extraordinary means The 3000 Act. 2. must have the Apostles miraculous gift of tongues to be the means of their Conversion Cornelius must have both an Angel and Peter Paul must be strucken down and blind and hear Christ speak from Heaven and after have Ananias's Ministry The Eunuch must have Philip. The Jaylor Act. 16. must have an Earthquake and so of others And to this day we see how little God doth where there is no Ministry or Means And how much the success of able holy skilful Ministers doth differ from that of wicked or Ignorant sots And how usually in all the world the success goeth according to the means and that the instances of contrary are unusual rarities Therefore separate not what the wisdom of God hath conjoyned C. But do you think that God ever ascertaineth the Effect meerly by such Moral Differencing helps or means annexed to his universal Gracious Efflux or aid without a special degree of that Immediate Efflux it self on the Soul B. 1. We little know when God worketh Immediately and how far His Efflux or Action ex parte agentis I oft tell you hath no degrees being himself The degrees are in the Received Impress on the Soul And it 's like this special differencing Grace consisteth in a special degree of Impress But when that Impress is made by the Spirit without the Instrumentality of Means we know not God can make our own Imagination and spirit and inward temperament a means undiscernably to us 2. If I have proved to you that even the universal Grace it self with common means may attain the effect and doth in many who dare question whether All yea One extraordinary or special Means added by God to that Common Influx with a will of success may ascertain the effect It were Blasphemy to say that God hath not Wisdom enough thus to attain his ends by a series of adapted means in conjunction with that Grace C. But methinks you spin too fine a thred when you talk of an Impress of the Spirit on the Soul as the first Effect of God alone or God and the Means antecedent to faith or the Act of man as the second effect of God and Man together I find not that our Curiousest School Wits do talk much of such an Impress B. 1. You will find the same sence in the Thomists and many of the Schoolmen And methinks it is clear in it self The Act of Faith is done by us Our Souls have need of some Grace to be the Cause or it The Cause goeth before the Effect This Cause must not be out of us but within us Grace therefore must be first within us as a Cause before it is within us as the effect of it Yea Action being nothing but Modus Agentis is not a fit recipient it self immediately of a vis impressa It is the Soul or faculty that must Act and to say that Gods Influx is not on the Soul or faculty as the recipient but on the Act of that faculty aloue seemeth to be unintelligible if not absurd It is our Act or our Soul that needeth help or Grace If not the Soul but the Act then we have need of none at all For the Act is yet future that is is no act and nothing and so hath no need 2. But if really you will hold to the opinion that our Act it self is the first Effect of Gods Influx or Will then take notice that all our controversie here between you and the Arminians what Grace is sufficient and what effectual is at an end And it is on your part and for the truth that I spin that thred which you account too fine C. How do you manifest that B. Most plainly For if we have nothing to enquire after between Gods agency ex parte sui and the Act of Faith it is a ridiculous question to ask what Grace is sufficient and what effectual and what difference between the one and the other and what is that which maketh efficiently the difference For either your Question is of the Cause or the Effect If of the Cause it is besides the second Causes nothing but Gods Essence even his essential Activity Wisdom and Will And do you think that Gods essence is diversifyed as little and great more or less sufficient and effectual Do you enquire for Diversity in simple unity That which worketh all effects in the world is one Cause that hath in it self no real difference of parts kinds
as in many other Points and therefore not the same consent and concord among the learnedest Divines and the godliest Christians And in my Observations most on each side are more moved to their Opinion in this from the congruity that they think it hath with other Verities or the Analogy of Faith than from the proper plain sense of the Texts which they themselves alledge So that though no doubt the Truth is to be found in the Scriptures yet not with such ease and certainty as will allow us to make the decision of this Point any part of the terms of our necessary Concord THE Tenth Days Conference Between B. and C. OF PERSEVERANCE B. You have now some advantage for your censure of Dissenters See Ruiz de Praedes d. b. Sect. 4 5 6. Proving that Faith and certain Perseverance of all the Elect proceed from Gods decrees or predefinition and that all things work for their good c. This the Jesuites acknowledge where the difference is real But I am loth you should make it greater than it is or make as hot and contentious work about it as Marbachius and Zanohy did How odious soever Thompson and Bertius have been made by our side and Jovinian Calvin and his followers by the other though I wish there were no difference at all I undertake to prove that the difference is not of so great moment as is commonly on both sides pretended And no greater than should consist with true Love and Communion even between the Members yea the Pastors of the same Church who are therein of differing opinions But first let me hear what you have to aggravate it The first Crimination C. Their Crime is that they overthrow the comfort of Believers by denying them any certainty of Salvation * Paraeus himself maketh such an Intercision of Justification in Believers as I cannot own in Bellarm. de Amiss Grat. l. 1. c. 7. Fides tunc dicitur Justificare quum actum proprium accipiendi remissionem peccatorum exercet Hinc vero actum non exercet neque exercere potest fides aegra saucia sordibus carnis oppressa peccatorum compedibus quasi ligata Justificati● la●●i● D●●● non imputat peccata nempe resipiscentibus Ante resipiscentiam certe imputat infligendo poenas temporales imputarit ●tiam ●●fligendo poenas aeternas nisi resipiscerent Tunc igitur fides in lapsis habitualiter tantum ●ane●s proprie Justificans dici aut cos Justificare non potest But his reason is bad For faith is not called Justifying for the Reason which he giveth The like say the Polonian Protestants in Colloq Thorun de Grat. Sect. 2. n. 11. Falso accusamur quasi statuamus semel justificatos Dei Gratiam ●jusque certitudinem ipsum Spiritum Sanctum non posse amittere quamvis in peccatis pro lubitu volutentur Cum contra potius doceamus ipsos etiam renat●s quoties in peccata contra conscientiam recidunt in iisque aliquandum perseverent nec fidem veram nec Dei gratiam justificantem nedum ejus certitudinem aut Spiritum Sanctum pro tempore retinere sed novum irae ac mortis aeternae reatum incurrere Ac propterea nisi Speciali Dei gratia excitante quod in electis fieri non dubitamus ad resipiscentiam iter●m renoventur reipsa etiam damnandos esse This is the same with the Doctrine of Augustine and Musculus or near it Yea both Ursine and Pareus seem to come as far Catech. de Peccat actuali Peccatum regnans est cui peccans non repugnat ideoque fit obnoxius aeternae morti nisi c. Propter quod non tantum ex ordine justi●iae Dei sed ex reipsa aeternarum poenarum reus est qui illud habet Talia sunt omnia peccata in non renatis quaedam etiam in renatis ut error in fund●mento fidei lapsus contra conscientiam cum quibus fiducia remissionis peccatorum consolatio vera non consistit donec resipiscant Quod enim etiam renati poss●t cadere in peccatum regnans satis ostendunt tristissimi lapsus Sanctissiomrum hominum ut Aaron●s Davidis c. Rob. Baronim in his excellent little Treat de Pec. Mort. veniali saith that by Mortal Sins the regenerate may 1. Be excluded from that Grace and favour of God by which he before loved them ye● he incurreth Gods hatred and displeasure so far c. 2. Their Prayers Thanks Obedience yea nothing that proceedeth from them is then acceptable to God 3. In that state God cannot forgive them and give them peace of Conscience and joy B. To be absolutely certain of Salvation no doubt would be a very great comfort But let us enquire I. What number will be by this Doctrine hindered from this certainty II. In what degree this tendeth to their discomfort 1. And by the first enquiry I doubt we shall find that you also hold Doctrines that hinder most men from concluding themselves certain of Salvation and yet perhaps be very true These Questions therefore I crave your answer to Q. 1. Do not you grant that we must take no comfort but what God giveth us and on his terms and that the false comforts of presumption are worse than none or not desirable And that all Doctrine is not true that were it true were comfortable C. Yes none will deny it you B. Q. 2. Do you not find by experience being a Pastor who hath discoursed with your Flock man by man about their state that of those that you account truly Godly persons there is not one of fifty yea of an hundred yea of many hundreds that will say that they are certain of their Salvation properly and fully certain C. I suppose your question implyeth your own observation which I contradict not B. Q. 3. And as for the multitude of more careless and loose Christians do not you think that whatever they say their certainty is less than these Godly persons C. Yes no doubt for their evidence is less or none B. Q. 4. Do you not think that it must needs be so that certainty of Salvation must be exceeding rare considering that all these things must go to it 1. There must be a certainty that Gods promises are true whereas the faith of most is weak 2. There must be a certain understanding both of the meaning of the promise and what are the true Conditions of it and the difference between true saving Grace and all that is but counterfeit or common Whereas most are uncertain and dark herein if not mistaken 3. There must be these Evidences in the person himself not only in reality but in ascertaining-discernableness which cannot be unless it be 1. Much and strong for that which is small is so like to the common and counterfeit that it is seldom certainly discerned 2. It must be in Activity For Grace out of Act is not discernable 3. It must be powerfully operative without and in the
Justification Quest 2. Shew me how many of these six hundred Texts do not speak of such Inherent or Performed personal Righteousness as is distinct from such as you describe in your sense of Imputation Try whether one of twenty or forty or an hundred have such a sence Lib. Not if such false teachers as you must be the expositor of them P. Let us try some of them and be you the expositor 1 Joh. ● 29. every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 1 Joh. 3. 7 10. he That personal Righteousness is necessary that doth Righteousness is righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God Lib. You choose out those texts which countenance your own ends P. My question is but Whether Gods word talk of any Righteousness which consisteth in any thing that is in or of our selves Lib. Yes that cannot be denyed But not in order to our Justification P. Of the use we must speak ●non Quest 3. I next ask you then W●●●ther all these texts be not True and whether we may not speak 〈…〉 Lib. Yes We question not the Truth but the meaning of the 〈…〉 P. Quest 4. Is this Righteousness a● such in that 〈…〉 have it abominable to God Doth not God command it and require●● to obey his Laws sincerely And doth he hate the obedience of his ●●●● Is not Holiness his Nature and Image in us And doth he hate his Image and the Divine Nature Is it not the mark of a Malignant to be a Hater of Holiness yea of the Devil himself And can you think that God ●●●● Hater of Holiness What I he that hath said Be holy for I am ●●●● and Without Holiness none shall see God Lib. If you were not an unholy deociver you would not intimate by such questions as if I took God to be a Hater of Holiness P. Is it not Holiness which the Scripture and we mean by Inherent Righteousness Lib. But God hateth it not as Holiness but as mixt with sin P. Do you Believe and Love God sincerely and Love the Godly or not Lib. Better than such as you do or else wo to me P. And doth God Hate all your Faith and Love because it is mixt with sin If he do What difference between it and wickedness or between you and a wicked man God can but hate what they do and doth he so by all that you do also Why then may not your Neighbours imitate God and hate all that you do why may they not then deride and persecute you for that which is hateful to God For shame never more blame then your scorners or persecutors Lib. I do not say that God hateth my Faith Love Humility and patience as such but as mixt with sin Therefore properly it is sin that God hateth and not my Faith and Love it self P. And is all come to this What mean you then to rail at us that say the same We all say that God hateth our sin and the faulty imperfection of our holiness and obedience and what say you more Lib. But you say not that God hateth your Righteousness for the sin that cleaveth to it though not for it self as we do Your Goodness is like an Apple faln into the dirt or poysoned and you are for wiping it and keeping it but God and wise men abhor it for the filth and cast it away P. Then it seems you cast away all Love to God and man all faith all honesty and obedience chastity and temperance because sin cleaveth to it Lib. By casting it away I do not mean giving over to Love God and obey him and turning wickedly to the contrary but I mean that I count it dung in order to my Justification P. I perceive by Teaching me you are but Learning to speak your self I further ask you Doth not God Love the Faith Love Obedience and Holiness of his servants notwithstanding all their faults and imperfections Joh. 16. 27. The Father himself loveth you because you have Loved me and believed c. 2 Cor. 9. 7. God loveth a cheerful giver Psal 11. 7. The righteous Lord Loveth righteousness with many the like passages Doth he not Love his Image Lib. That is because we are in Christ and our persons and graces and duties are accepted all in him being perfumed with his righteousness and all our sins and imperfections pardoned and covered thereby And as our Graces are the works of the holy Ghost and not primarily as ours P. Are you come so far already All this is held not only by us but by the Papists also You confess then that for the merits of Christs Righteousness our sins are pardoned and not only our persons but our faith Love and obedience accepted and loved though culpably imperfect and mixt with sin And so all your noise is come to nothing and you say as we II. But having found that we must have Inherent Righteousness let us Of Reward and Wor●thiness or Merit next consider What use we may make of it and how far it may and must be valued and trusted to And Quest 1. Tell me whether God hath made any promise of a Reward to it or not Turn to the word Reward in your Concordance if you remember not the Texts and see Lib. Your Legal principles and spirits makes the Scripture a snare and a stumbling block to you as Christ himself is When God talketh of Reward metaphorically you take it properly as if we could merit any thing of God P. I only ask you Whether God hath promised us a Reward Lib. Yes But it is a Reward properly to Christ by whose grace we live and not to our selves P. When Christ saith Great is your Reward in Heaven and your father shall reward you openly Matth. 5. 12. 6. 4 6. and you shall not lose your reward and Heb. 11. 26. he had an eye to the recompence of reward and Heb. 11. 6. God is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him c. is the meaning Great is Christs Reward in Heaven and God will reward Christ openly and is a Rewarder of Christ only as diligently seeking him c. Lib. You would make me ridiculous I mean that it is for Christs Merits or Righteousness which he did himself and not for any thing in us or done by us that we are rewarded P. Say you so Doth diligent seeking him Heb. 11. 6. and praying and giving alms in secret Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4. and suffering for Christ Matth. 5. 11 12. and feeding visiting c. Christ in his members Matth. 25. c. mean only that which Christ did and not we Is it Christs prayers and almes and charity and sufferings that the text meaneth Look over many such texts and judge Lib. Still you would make my words contemptible It is our duties that are rewarded but it is not for themselves or any worth that is in them but for the merits of Christ only P. If God have no respect
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by