Catholic Theology Plain Pure Peaceable
§. 22. M. S. Arg. 2. Unchangeable misery would have been the reward of one sin: Ergo, &c.]
An. I deny the consequen • e: Misery was threatened to one sin; Glory was not promised to one act of Obedience. Obedience, during life, is certainly due from Man to God: He that denieth it him in one act, denieth him his due: But he that giveth it him in one act, giveth him but little of his due. Your Argument is like these: The Soldier that is a Traitor in one act, deserveth death: Therefore he that watcheth or fighteth but once deserveth all his wages and honor. The Son that curseth his Father once, deserveth punishment▪ Therefore he that obeyeth him once deserveth the Inheritance. He that is bound to pay an hundred pound forfeiteth his Bond if he leave a penny unpaid: Therefore he forfeits it not if he pay but a penny: The Servant that is hired for a day or year, doth forfeit his wages if he be idle or rebel an hour or a day: Therefore he deserveth his wages, if he do Service but an hour or a day: The disease of one part may kill a man: Therefore the health of one part only will keep a man alive. He that is hired to build a House or a Ship well, forfeits his wages for one hole, or gross defect: Therefore he deserveth his wages if he lay but one Brick or Board. But bonum est ex causts integris.
§. 23. M. S. His Sin is more his own than his Obedience. Ans. The assistance of the Spirit could not take place in the first act, because not deserved: And his Obedience would have been as much his own as his Sin.
An. This is quite beyond the Jesuits: 1. It's true that the rewarding gift or help of the Spirit (for confirmation) was not given Adam to his first act: But it's not true that he had no help of the Spirit: If you will not call God's necessary Grace, which you said did sanctify all his powers, by the name of the Spirits help; you must say, It was the help of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; without which he could have done nothing. 2. But can you think that God did as much to his Sin, as to his Sanctification; and caused it as much as he was ready to cause his first Obedience? Should he have been no more beholden to God for his Holiness than for his Sin? This is too indifferent a Liberty, and not Gibieufs Amplitude. It is not possible for a Creature to have anything that's good but of God, nor any good from God but by mere free Gift, as to the Good or Value; though it be by rewarding Justice quoad ordinem conferendi, and comparatively, why this man hath it rather than that.
§. 24. M. S. There is no stinting or determining, unless you stop here (at the first act.)
An. I deny it: There are three Opinions more that are all more probable. The first which supposeth the Reward of life eternal due upon the over▪ coming of the Devils first temptation, which would have drawn from the Love of God; And so [Love and Conquer once] was the Condition. The second which supposeth that the Condition was the Conquest of this particular Temptation, to eat of the forbidden Fruit, and the after eating of the Tree of Life. The third which supposeth the only Condition of life eternal to the personal, perfect, perpetual Obedience, or perseverance, till God of his own pleasure should translate Adam, and end his life of trial. I take this last to have far most probability, for all the Reasons before given: I am sure that the tenor of the Law of Nature made it Adam 's Duty still to love God, and obey him, and resist all that was against it: And I find no Promise that his Nature, or the Law of Nature should be changed, for this or that act, or for conquering someone temptation. I find that Christ's own Covenant-Condition was more than one act: And the Condition of our Glory is overcoming, and being faithful to the death, and continuing in Christ. And I will not add to the Covenant of God.
§. 25. M. S. Arg. 4. From the nature of an obediental act: which includeth the approving of the whole Law.
An. 1. Approving the things that are excellent, is made consistent with wickedness, Rom. 2. But I will suppose you to mean a full consent to the Covenant of Innocency. But 2. How prove you that such consent was the whole condition of life, and that it might not be fallen from? and that Adam never did consent before his Fall? and yet not sin▪ 3. All the godly approve of God's Law, and consent to it, and love it, and yet merit not as keepers of it; for they break it, Rom. 7. 4. Yea Covenant-keeping to the last, as well as Covenant-consent the first moment, is now to us the condition of immutable Glory.
§. 26. M. S. Adam would not obey at first, but suspend while he looked about the World, to see if there were any good sufficient for him below God: Therefore he sinned not then.
An. This is before confuted: He could not in that Integrity, and after such divine Revelation, be unresolved one hour whether he must first love and obey his Maker, without sin.
§. 27. God cannot freely give eternal life to a Creature without Reward for doing, because the reasonable Creature was made for the Glory of Justice.
An. 1. You may say, that God will not to man, but not that he cannot, nor that he doth not to any Angel. For man was not made only for the Glory of Justice, but of Power, and Love, or Goodness also. 2. It's certain, that God as a free Benefactor giveth many good things freely, and •• as a Reward for doing: As 1. He so freely made all things good in the Creation, and gave man all his antecedent good: He so gave Ad •• his primitive Holiness, and Helps, and Paradise, and all the Creature • . 2. He so gave Christ to the World, without desert: and so far pardoned the first sin, as that cometh to. 3. He so far gave man the Covenant of Grace. 4. He so gave all Christ's Miracles, Resurrection, Doctrine, the Scripture, &c. 5. He so gave Apostles and Ministry to the World. 6. He so sendeth the Gospel to some Nations and Persons above others. 7. He so giveth to many the first special Grace, as he did to Paul. 8. He so giveth to many Kingdoms and Persons Wealth, and Health, and Strength, and such other mercies above others. 9. He so giveth greater measures of Grace to some than to others. 10. And it seemeth that he so (in part) giveth the same Glory to some that came in but at the last hour of the day. It is certain, that all in quantum tale, is from God only as a free Benefactor, or as the Amor primus: And the order of distributing it is twofold: Some antecedent to man's merit or acts, and independent on it: And this is no Reward, (though sometime it is an antecedent act of Justice, such as is the making of a good Law or Promise.) And some consequent juxta morman legis; And these are Rewards: And though God hath assured us now, that no man shall have Heaven but by rewarding Justice, yet that may be, because he thought meet to place man first on Earth in a life of trial, and undetermined Liberty: But that he hath no Angel that was made Immutable, or that Christ was not made immutably holy, let them say that can prove it, for I cannot.
§. 28. M. S. It's like that the Angels that stood and they that fell had unequal help: for unequal Effects are of an unequal Cause. But Adam and the Devils had sufficient Grace, and God forsook them not till they forsook him.
An. 1. This last I accept as true, and more than some will grant. 2. The first is above our reach: only we can say, both that God giveth more Grace to some than to others freely. 3. And yet he himself is simple and immutable in causing of various and mutable Effects.
§. 29. M. S. By Christ's passive Obedience imputed we are pardoned and • ustified, and by his active imputed we deserve the Reward, and are under God's approving Will.
An. 1. By the merit of his habitual, active and passive, that is, of his performing all his mediatorial Covenant with the Father, we are pardoned, and justified, and adopted to eternal life, principally as a Reward to Christ (not to us as meriting by him) and subordinately, according to Gospel-Justice or Order, as a Reward to Believers for their Faith and Obedience; by him who will Reward every man according to his Works, and will be glorified in his Saints, and admired in Believers, because they believed, 2 Thess. 1. 6, to 12. We are under God's approving Will, principally as united to Christ, reconciled, justified, adopted; and subordinately as sanctified and obedient. For the Father loveth us, because we have loved Christ and believed, Joh. 16. 27. And it is life eternal to know the Father and the Son, Joh. 17. 3. And because we do those things that are pleasing in his sight, whatever we ask we receive, 1 Joh. 3. 22.
§. 30. M. S. By Christ's imputed suffering we are but where we were: For the Law to have nothing against us will not justify us, unless it have something for us.
An. This great question needeth distincter handling: Adam 's Law doth not justify us, but condemn us, nor Moses 's neither; nor any but the Law of Grace. Your foundation is unsound. 2. The imputing of Christ 's Suffering, is not God's Language, but your own, and may be well or ill understood. 3. If the Law have nothing against us, it hath no Sin of Omission against us: Therefore not our omission of Love and Obedience. And then we are reputed such as had perfect Love and Obedience. 4. But indeed it is not so. By the deeds of the Law no Flesh can be justified: The Law still hath this against us, that we have sinned; which he that denieth is called a Lyar, 1 Joh. 1. The Reatus Culpae in se, or the Reality of this, that we have sinned, is impossible to be done away. But the Reatus poenae, & culpae ut ad poenam is done away: But not by the Law, but by the Redeemer and new Covenant. The Law doth not say, We are sinless, or deservers of life: But the Gospel saith, We are pardoned, and adopted, and sanctified, through Christ's perfect meritorious Righteousness.
§. 31. M. S. Else Sin and Punishment should be the cause of life: for Sin is the cause of Suffering, and that of Pardon.
An. This is the grossest passage in this Book; A palpable fallacy. You may as well say that Lazarus 's dying and being buried were the causes of his reviving; because antecedent evils from which he was revived: Or that the Jews killing Christ were the causes of his Resurrection; Or that Peter 's cutting off Malchus Ear was the cause that Christ cured him; Or that Peter 's denying Christ was the cause that Christ pardoned him. Sin deserveth Punishment; but Punishment as such deserveth not Pardon or Life: They in Hell deserve not Heaven. If God had threatened but a temporal Punishment; As a years sickness, &c. this had not deserved the following impunity, or peace, but only interrupted peace, the Sin deserving this and no more. A Malefactor's scourging deserveth not his after peace. And Christ's Suffering merited not our Pardon as reputed our suffering, nor merely as suffering; For had we suffered, we had not been pardoned. But the voluntary Suffering of so glorious and innocent a Person, to demonstrate Justice, deserved our impunity and more, because God would have it so, and it was a means most apt for this excellent end, to save lost man, and to vindicate and glorify the Wisdom, Truth and Justice of the Universal King, and to demonstrate the Goodness and Love of our great Benefactor. But sufferings as such do mer •• nothing; even Christ's own Sufferings merit but as they are the fruits of Obedience and voluntary consent, on the foresaid accounts; much less do the sufferings of the Sinner merit: For he is supposed involuntary in them; and it is God the Judge that is the Author of them as such.
§. 32. M. S. Else the Law should be laid by, and life given without it.
An. The root of all your Error is, That God giveth us life by the Law of Innocency or Works, and that we are justified by that Law • which is not true. God laid none of it by; but man by sin made the promissory part (which gave life on condition of perfect Obedience and Innocency) to be impossible, or null: It ceased cessante capacitate subditorum, by man's mutation, and not by God's: But the preceptive part remaineth still, as far as it reacheth materially the state of Sinners. But man having made it impossible to be justified by the deeds of the Law, God made us a new Law or Covenant, according to which he judgeth Sinners, and by which he first giveth Righteousness, and then according to it sentenceth men as Righteous.
§. 33. M. S. Justification of the Posterity of Adam should have been the same for substance as of Believers by Christ. Adam's one Act should have confirmed all his Posterity in him as a public Person: The Covenant of Works and of Grace agree in justifying by imputed Righteousness: but out of a Head by Generation, the other by a divine Person.]
An. This is presumptuous adding to God's Word, in the very substance of the Covenants; yea and a flat contradiction of it 1. What Scripture telleth us, That all Adam 's Posterity should have been confirmed in immutable Holiness, if he had obeyed?
2. What Scripture saith, That one Act should have done this?
3. What Scripture saith, That his Righteousness should have been imputed to all his Posterity? and they all accounted to have fulfilled the Law in him? The Scripture tells us nothing of God's purpose to make so sudden a change of his Law, as if he made it but for one man, yea for o •• Act, and then would make another to Rule the World by ever after: The Law said (in sense) [Obey perfectly and live; Sin and die]. Now if the Condition had been performed by one Act, or one man, for all the World that ever should come of him to the last, and they all be born in the fixed possession of the Reward, then the Law which giveth that Reward still but conditionally hath no more place. As in Hell, God doth not say to the damned, Obey and live, so neither doth he say to them in immutable Glory, I give you immutable Glory if you will obey. The means cease so far as the end is either attained, or desperately lost. He that saith, Run well, and you shall have the prize: Fight well, and you shall be crowned; Overcome, and I will give you a Kingdom; will not say the same to them, when after running, fighting, overcoming, they have received the Prize, the Crown, the Kingdom; (though possibly they may have the continuance on condition still if that continuance was not also promised on the first condition alone.) So that you feign God's Law to be incredibly mutable, if God said by it to Adam, Obey in one Act (o • obey thyself) and thou and all thy Posterity for that shall have the Reward: For then he can never be supposed to say the same again to Adam, or to any man: And yet you think you stand so much for the • mmutability of that Law, as that we must all be justified by it to the • nd.
Nay it seemeth that after one Act of Obedience, all the World should have been under no Covenant anymore; or no promissory conditional Law, but only fixed by necessitating Light and Love, as those in Glory • re: For when this Condition was fully performed, this Law or Covenant as conditional must needs cease: And you imagine not, I suppose (at▪ least mention not) any other conditional Covenant that should • ucceed it. And necessitation is not a Moral Law, suited to such as you call cause consilio in this life. You would make all the World after one • ct, to be if not lawless, yet Comprehensors and not Viators; Professors of life eternal, and not seekers, in a life of trial.
But I find not but that all Adam 's Posterity should have been born and • ived under the same Law that he was made under: And all of them • hold 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 Apostasy, 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 Savior 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 God's 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 instead of his personal Obedience to the Law or Covenant of Grace which he is under: But it will justify 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 Savior; or you are such as God cannot pardon without wrong to his Truth▪ Wisdom or Justice.] It will justify 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 justify ourselves 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 Public Root had perfectly obeyed, we must also have perfectly obeyed, or die. In the other, because our Public 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 Suretyship, or being a public 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 man's 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 Christ's 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 whoever thought so before you? The Friars 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 justify,) will not think it curiosity to inquire which one Act of Christ's 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 be justified by any act of Faith in specie, besides the recumbency on his Righteousness to be imputed to us, or by any numero besides the first, will likely say that it is Justification by another Righteousness than that which the Scripture saith is imputed to us, to be justified by the Imputation of any but the first Act of Christ's Obedience. Or else that (if all be imputed) we have a redundancy of Righteousness, and deserve many Heavens, or one oftener than needs. But when men have received some unsound Principles, all things must be forced to comply with them.
§. 37. M. S. Towards the end, the M. S. summeth up my Assertions, and setteth down some as contrary to them. In reckoning up mine, he showeth candor and ingenuity, and a good memory, having not the Book at hand: But I must advertise his Readers, 1. That he taketh all from my Aphorisms, the first Book I wrote, in my youth, when my Conceptions of these things were less digested; wherefore I have above twenty years ago retracted that Book, till I had leisure to correct it, and have since more fully opened my judgment in my Confession, and in my Dispute. of Justification and other Writings, and most fully in my Methodus Theology unpublished. 2. That he over-looketh my asserting our Adoption to be by the Merits of Christ's Active Obedience, yea and our Justification too, as well as by his Passive. 3. That reciting my words, that it is by God's Will in the form of his Donation or Covenant that Faith hath that use to Justification which is nearest it, viz. the formal Reason of a Condition, he leaveth out my other assertion, that Faiths material disposition or aptitude to this form or office, is the very nature of it, as fitted to that use about its Object, Christ, which God's design and our case required.
His Assertions as against me are as followeth.
§. 28. M. S. 1. There is no way to Life but by Doing: It is not enough that the Law be not dishonored, but it must be glorified.
An. Doing is a word of doubtful sense: It's one thing to Do all that the Law of Innocency required; and another thing to do all that the Law of Grace maketh necessary to life: It's one thing to Do all ourselves, and another thing for a Mediator to merit Pardon and Life (to be given conditionally by a new Covenant) by Doing all in kind (and much more than all that we should have done) for us (though not in our persons). The way to Life now hath many parts, 1. Christ's perfect, habitual, active and passive Righteousness, (fulfilling the Law of Innocency, and the Law of Moses, and the peculiar Law of the Mediator,) to merit Pardon, Spirit, Adoption and Glory to be given by the New Covenant on its terms. 2. The said New Covenant as the donative Instrument and Law of Life, and Pardon, and Adoption by it. 3. Our doing or performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by Grace. But our personal Doing all according to the Law of Innocency really or reputatively, to be justified by that Law, is none of the way of Life, which you think the only way. (And I hope we shall both meet there).
§. 39. M. S. It's clear as the light of the Sun, that their fundamental distinction is absurd, to make sinning and suffering equivalent to doing: because he that hath born the utmost penalty, hath done no more towards living, than he that never sinned or suffered: else Adam in Innocency should have been sentenced worthy of life. If a Servant instead of his Service steal, and restore it, he meriteth not his wages, &c.]
An. 1. It's certain that you mistake and wrong us: I never put sinning among the things that are equivalent to doing or meriting: Of this before. 2. I doubt you noted not sufficiently that no Creature can merit commutatively as a Proprietor of God, as a Servant doth his wages; nor can have anything of God but what (in respect of such merit and the value of the thing) is an absolute free Gift: free as to commutation: And that all God's Laws of Life, are but a prescription of the wise Order in which he will give his free benefits; As a Father will give Lands to the Son that will behave himself decently and thankfully, and not to the contemptuous Rebel: So that as to commutation no Man or Angel hath other merit, than not to commerit the contrary (perdition): God is never the better for our Doing. If you dream of meriting commutatively from a Proprietor by work for wages, I can soon tell you what we set up instead of such merit: I hope you had no such thoughts, but want of due distinguishing. But as to Doing and Merit in respect to Paternal Justice, that which I set instead of fulfilling the first Law is a • aforesaid, (not sinning and suffering, but) 1. Christ's Satisfaction, and the Merit of his complete Righteousness. 2. The Gift of Pardon and Life by a new conditional Covenant merited and made by him. 3. Actual Pardon of all sin thereby. 4. Actual Adoption. 5. Our fulfilling the Condition of that Covenant, that these may be ours.
And thus the Law was dishonored by our Sin, but is glorified by Christ's Obedience and Satisfaction; And Gospel-Justice, but specially Mercy, glorified in our personal Obedience to the Gospel: without such Doing indeed (Christ's as Principal in fulfilling the Law in the Person of a Mediator, and ours as subordinate in obeying the Gospel,) there is no Glorification. And I think this is plain truth.
But in your instance of a Servant deserving his wages, you seem to look at Commutative Justice, when we have to do only with governing (Paternal) Justice: And you should have remembered that if the Servant do not his Work, in order of governing Justice, it is his crime: And if he have no fault, he hath no fault of Omission: And he that hath no Sin of Omission hath done all his Duty, and so deserved the Reward. As for Adam. 1. In the first instant of his life he was bound to no present Duty, before he could do a moral Act. 2. But afterward I think he merited in tantum & pro tempore; and had not the Condition of the Promise been of further extent than one act, he had merited life: But a Reward for a years Duty is not merited by an hours.
§. 40. M. S. There is a medium between just and unjust: He was nonjustus; He was not actually just, though habitually: He had done nothing for which the Law could justify him: else why did he not live forever?
An. 1. Habitual holiness fits a Soul for Glory, where no more is due (as if one die immediately.) And so it would have done Adam, had God translated him instantly, and made him no Law of actual Duty. 2. But afterward that Adam in Innocency did that for which the Law would justify him in tantum, for that time, He fulfilled all the Law for so long: else he had 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, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 satisfy 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 ourselves 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 ourselves: 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 ourselves, (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 yourself: 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 Christ's 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 alleging, 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 justify 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 suretyship, 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 justify you, you need no Redeemer, you need no Pardon, you need no New Covenant to justify you, nor can it do it.
3. We are justified by Doing, though not by our fulfilling the Law of Works, by ourselves 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. God's 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▪ God's 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 ration 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 merely 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 pain 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 justify, 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 mayest live.] And God doth not repute us innocent at all.
3. To the third I answer, It is notoriously untrue, that Faith justifieth only ration objecti, unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all, which is true. For we are justified by it also ration foederis, because that which is materially Faith in Christ (a justifying Savior) 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 ourselves?
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 justify 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 liar, 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, our first believing and repenting is the condition of our first Union with Christ, and our Pardon, and Adoption, and the Spirit. Our sincere Love and Obedience to the end, and overcoming, is the further condition of our final Justification at Judgment, and our Glory. This Covenant we are now under, and by this we must be finally judged, justified, or condemned. No man shall be saved, unless (if at age) he personally perform the conditions of this Covenant: And everyone shall be saved that doth. Faith, Repentance, Love to our Redeemer, Gratitude, Prayer, sincere Obedience, are all such Doing, as by this Covenant are made the necessary means of Glory: But not such Doing as Paul opposeth to the Jews, as maketh the Reward not of Grace, but of Debt. The Author of this Law is just: His Justice will give to the performers of the Condition all that he hath promised.
The Scripture oft useth all these Titles; 1. That of Reward, as being the state of the benefits retributed. 2. That of Justice, as being the principle of Reward. 3. That of Works, as being the matter rewarded; even our personal Works wrought by Grace, and not only those which Christ did. 4. That of worthiness or merit, as being the relation of the Work and Person to the Reward. 5. That of Righteousness, as being the state of the Person performing these Works, as pronounced by the New Covenant. If I prove not all these by express Scripture, believe your new Gospel.
I. It is Reward, Heb. 11. 6. He that cometh to God, must believe that God is, and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him. It's he second Article of Faith, Prov. 13. 13. Mat. 6. 4. Himself shall Reward thee openly, and verse. 6. 18. Prov. 25. 22. Mat. 16. 27. Then shall • e reward every man according to his Works; even Christ when he cometh • n Glory with his Angels: If you say, He meaneth his Works done by Christ, read Mat. 25. and believe it if you can. So Rev. 22. 12. 2 Joh. 8. Heb. 11. 26. Col. 3. 24. Ye shall receive the Reward of the Inhe • itance. Col. 2. 18. 1 Cor. 9. 17, 18. 1 Cor. 3. 8, 14. Luke 6. 35. Mat. • . 12, 46. & 10. 41, 42. Prov. 11. 18. Psal. 19. 11. & 58. 11. Heb. 10. • 5.
II. Gospel paternal Justice rewardeth men (supposing Christ's Merits) • Tim. 4. 8. A Crown of Righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me, and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing. Rom. 2. 5. The righteous Judgment of God, who shall give to every man according to his Works. To them that by patient continuance in well-doing, &c. 2 Thess. 1. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Psal. 67. 4. & 46. 10. Psal. 11. 7. Gen. 18. 23, 24, &c. And multitudes of other places, Heb. 6. 10. God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. 1 Joh. 1. 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, &c. Isa. 45. 22.
III. The thing rewarded is called Works done by man (not legally • ustifiable, but evangelically) Mat. 16. 27. Rev. 2. 26. Rev. 14. 13. & 20. 12, 13. Jam. 2. 21, 24, 25, 26. Rev. 2. 2, 9, 13, 19. & 3. 1, 2, 8, 15. Heb. 6. 10. Rev. 22. 12. 1 Cor. 15. last. And it's called Doing, 2 Thess. 3. 13. and Gal. 6. 9. Rom. 2. 7. 2 Cor. 5. 10. Heb. 10. 36. Mat. 25. 21, • 3. & 12. 50. & 7. 22, 23. & 6. 1, 2. Luke 8. 21. Joh. 13. 17. Col. 3. 23, 24. Heb. 13. 21. Rev. 22. 14. And keeping his Word or Commandments, 1 Joh. 3. 22. and 1 Joh. 2. 3. and Joh. 15. 10. & 14, 15, 16. Dan. 9. 4. Eccles. 12. 13. Prov. 4. 4. Exod. 20. 6. Deut. 5. 29. Ezez. 18. 21, &c. And Obeying, Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that obey him. Acts 5. 22. Rom. 6. 16. Obedience unto Righteousness, &c.
IV. The Relative aptitude of the Work for the Reward is called Wor • hiness, or Merit, and the performer Worthy (evangelically not legally). And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 primarily signifieth that which preponderateth in the balance; but cannot note here any worth or merit by commutation, but that aptitude which resulteth from the goodness of the action as related to the Promise, Rev. 3. 4. A few—which have not defiled their Garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 2 Thess. 1. 5, 6. The righteous Judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you suffer. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense—to you that are troubled, rest with us—. 11. That God would count you worthy of this calling. Luke 20. 35. They which be counted worthy to obtain that World—. 21, 36. That ye may be accounted worthy to escape—and stand before the Son of Man. So Eph. 4. 1. Col. 1. 10. 1 Thess. 2. 12. Mat. 10. 37, 38.
V. The title of Relation given to the Works and Persons evangelically is Righteousness, or Justice, 1 Joh. 3. 7. He that doth Righteousness is righteous. Matth. 25. 46. The righteous into life eternal: 21. Well done good and faithful Servant; v. 35. For I was hungered, and ye, &c. Mat. 13. 43. Mat. 10. 41. Ezek. 18. 20, 24. & 33. 12, 13, 18. Rom. 6. 16. & 8. 10. 1 Cor. 15. 21. Eph. 5. 9. & 6. 14. 2 Tim. 4. 8. Heb. 11. 33. 2 Cor. 9. 9. And the godly are called Righteous, in relation to their Hearts and Doings near an hundred times (if not much more) in Scripture, though but in subordination to Christ's meritorious Righteousness, and but secund •• quid, and not simpliciter.
See the Texts further recited in my Confession of Faith.
And now he that (considering all this) believes, 1. That Christ is no King, 2. Or we no Subjects, 3. Or that he hath no Law of Grace or Covenant, which we are under, 4. Or that this Law, or Covenant, will not justify them that perform that Condition, (from legal-executive damnation, by giving them Pardon, and Right to Life, for the Merits of Christ): 5. And that Faith, Repentance, and persevering holy Obedience, will not materially justify any man that hath the • from the charge of having no part in Christ, because of Infidelity, Impenitency, Unholiness or Apostasy; 6. Or that he that performeth the Gospel-Conditions shall not be judged rewardable, or evangelically worthy of the promised Reward; 7. Or that the same thing which as Good and a Benefit is a Gift absolutely free against commutative Merit, is not yet quoad ordinem conferendi & recipi • ndi a true Reward. 8. And so that we have no Reward for any Works but what Christ did in his own Person. 9. And that the Judgment-Day will be to try whether Christ did his part or not, and so to judge him, and not to try whether we have part in him, and did our parts or not, by repenting, believing, loving, obeying and overcoming, and so to justify us, primarily by his Merits and Covenant, and subordinately by our performance of the Conditions; And 10. He that believes that instead of all this, we ourselves did by Christ as our legal Person both keep all the Law of Works from first to last, and merit Life, and also satisfy God's Justice for not keeping the Law, and so redeem ourselves, or suffer in Christ for our own Sins, and purchase Pardon and Salvation for ourselves: 11. Or that God accounteth us so to have done, what we did not: 12. And so that it is the Law of Works and Innocency by which we ourselves are justified: 13. And that for meriting in Christ we are fixed presently in the immutable state of eternal life, which is the Reward: 14. And that this is not a Reward to Christ only, but to us as Meriters in him; He that can believe all this, with abundance more of the Libertine new Gospel-Doctrine (commonly called Antinomian) which dependeth on it; doth quite differ from my Faith, who believe that Christ suffered, satisfied, fulfilled the Law, and merited in the Person of a free Mediator only; fulfilling all his own mediatorial Law or Covenant, and receiving his Reward, and freely upon these Merits, and his Power received, making a Deed of Gift of Himself and Life (Pardon, Adoption, Spirit and Glory) to all that truly consent to his Covenant, and overcoming do persevere therein, and perform sincere Obedience to the last: by which Law or Covenant he will judge men at last, that is, will justify or condemn them: And this short and plain Doctrine of Faith is it, which I am constrained by the full and plain testimony of the Scriptures to embrace: And I never yet saw anything against it, which is not easily confuted, though my life is not like to be long enough, nor am I idle enough, to write against all that have written against me.
In conclusion, I must give notice to the Reader, that there are many great and weighty Points of great difficulty concerning our LOVE to GOD, and the order of it in respect to Faith, Repentance, the love of ourselves and our felicity; and our love to Creatures, &c. which I pass by in this Treatise, as having spoken with some care of them in my Christian Directory, in the Appendix to the Chap. Of loving God, in Tom. 1. And if that seem too intricate to any, as being too long; in brief, I suppose that the Thomists grossly err in placing beatitude chiefly in the Intellect, and their Reasons (especially as Medina useth them) are very weak; and the Scotists are more sound, who place it in the Will, and those other most sound who place it in the perfection of the whole man actively; but objectively in God: And most plainly that very plain judicious School-man Aegidius Romanus Quodlib. 3. Qu. 18. p. 187, 188. who saith in short, 1. That God is the final Object simply; 2. That the love of God (or velle) is the final act; or beatitude formaliter: 3. That beatitude (or rather the ratio finis) is principally in the Object, and next in the Act: 4. That subserviently or quodam genere the visio Dei is the Object, and the velle videre Deum the Act. See also Aegidius, Quodl. 4. qu. 11. clearly proving three ways that we must love God above ourselves, yea and not (properly) for ourselves, but for himself, and ourselves and all things for him.
But 1. I think he mistaketh in saying that the Act of the Will is not the Object of the Will, and so that Visio and not Amor are felicity objective: For as Ames saith, Dicimus omnium gentium consensu volo velle; and one Act may be the Volition of the next; and a complacency in that past: And what doth a Believer will more than perfectly to love God, next to God himself? And Amo Amore is an Act that we have full experience of. 2. And I am past all doubt; that Beatitudo nostra qua talis is not the principal end of man, but God, 1. In his own Perfection or God-head; 2. The fulfilling or pleasing of the Divine Will; 3. The Glory of God's Image or Perfections as shining, 1. In the Universe, 2. And therein most eminently in the glorified Society, 3. And therein most eminently in the Person of Christ, 4. And next in all those that are most excellent in their Order, 5. And among them in ourselves, our holiness and felicity: And this but in our own rank and place: For our Perfection and Unity with Christ and the glorified, will end all that narrow corrupt selfishness, which now maketh men dream that they are chiefly their own ends, (that is, their own gods) and that their Beatitude is the highest final notion, as if God were to be loved chiefly for ourselves, as the means of our Beatitude: It being worth the considering, whether it be not a wrong to God to love him at all sub ration medii to ourselves as an end, though we must love him as the first Efficient of all our Good, and our Great Benefactor, ourselves and benefits being but means to Him, though yet (not He, but) many of his Gifts, may be loved as means to our Happiness, and that and all things for God himself.
Among the Scotists, Rada well openeth this Case; and the worst of them all (in 4. Sent. de Beatitude.) is far better than Dr. Stern, the Dublin Physician, in his Medela Animae, and too many more novel immature Disputers, who would make our Happiness the chiefest end both of our selves and God, merely because that God can have no addition of Felicity: A reason vainly excluding such other respects, as men that write of such Subjects should not be ignorant of: especially when they reproach the School-men, and save themselves the labor of understanding them; (when though they are too presumptuous and curious, yet) one Rada, one Aegid. Column. Rom. one Joseph Angles, &c. hath more clear explication of such Difficulties as they presumptuously tamper with, than an hundred of our late Oratorical Novelists, who are proud of their undigested new Philosophy, and their unripe daring Wits.
THE Second Part. OF GOD'S GOVERNMENT, AND MORAL WORKS.SECT. I. The first Law.
1. GOd the free Creator, Lord and Benefactor of the world, was pleased to make his Creatures of various ranks; and among the Rational to make Man a free undetermined self-determining Agent, not fixed by Necessity in Love and Obedience, but left with a Power of Loving and Obeying, which he could use or not use; that so he might be a fit subject of God's Moral Government by Laws, and persuasions in this world, in order to a more fixed state of holiness. Not but that Angelical Confirmation had been better for us; But it pleased not God to compose the universe of Creatures only of the noblest order.
2. When God exerciseth only a Moral not-determining operation upon this world of Free Agents, it is not any dishonor to his Will or Power as if he could do no more; But it is his Delight thus to govern the creature according to the nature and rank which he hath made it in; and his non-volitions and non-operations of a higher sort, are agreeable to his Perfection, Wisdom and Liberty▪ Higher action being used on higher creatures.
3. Yet hath God placed and kept these free Agents, not only under his Moral Government, but also under his Dominion and disposal; so that he will do with them as his own, what he lift, and none shall frustrate his disposing Will.
4. It pleased him first to make man perfect under a Law of Perfection, making innocence or perfection the only condition of Life, and the contrary of Death.
5. When Man had sufficient Grace to have kept this Law (not sufficient to ascertain the event, but sufficient Power to have stood, that is▪ as much Grace as was necessary to his standing, sine qua non esse potuit▪ & cum qua esse potuit) he broke it, and sinned against that sufficient, Grace, before God either denied him anything necessary, or withdrew any from him.
6. From whence it is clear that the Nature of Man's Will is such, as that it is made to use a Power which doth not necessitate, or determine itself, or is determined necessarily, but freely: And that it is no Deifying of the Will, nor extolling it above its Nature, to say that it can act or determine itself, without God's pre-determinating premotion; or by that same measure of help which at another time doth not determine it. Though its Nature, and its Act as such be of God, yet so is its Liberty too; and therefore by the Power and Liberty given by God, the Will can act or not act, or turn itself to this object or to that, without more help than the said natural support and Concurse: And this Power and Liberty is its Nature, and God's Image.
7. From hence also it is evident that there is such a thing (or operation of God) as Grace Necessary called sufficient, which is not effectual. For God took no Grace away from Adam before he sinned, nor let out any temptation upon him which he was not able to resist; nor did he sin for want of necessary Grace; but by that same degree of help might have overcome.
8. God passing Sentence on fallen Man for sin, would not forgive him the temporal death, nor common calamities of this life, but cursed the creatures which he was to use, as part of his penalty.
9. But the Great evil which sin brought on man, was the loss of God's approbation and complacency, and of his Spirits saving Communion and help, and of God's Image on man's Soul, and of Communion with God herein; and also his right to life eternal. All which man's own sin cast away, and man was both the Deserver and Executioner▪ without any change in God.
10. Yet was all this privation penal, in that God made Man such a creature, as that his own sin should become his punishment or ruin if he committed it, so that all Punishment is not determinatively of God, though God's Antecedent Will did make that which by man is made a Cause. As in argument, God saith antecedently [If thou sin, thy own sin shall be thy torment and misery] and man saith [I will sin] Therefore it is Man that is the determining Cause of the Conclusion [My own s •• , shall be my torment and misery]: So it is in Causation, God antecedently to man's sin, doth resolve [I will make Man such a Creature, with such a Mind, Conscience and Will, as that his Holiness shall be his Health, and Joy, and his immediate Receptive capacity of my favor and of his Communion with me, and of his title to my spirit and Glory: And that if he forsake me and his Holiness, in the very Nature of the thing, he shall lose all this Life, Light, and Love, Joy and Communion, and title to my Grace, and shall feel the torments of his own Conscience telling him of his sin and loss.] This is God's Antecedent Law: Nay, this is God's Antecedent Creation, to make man such a Creature. Now if man sin, his ow • sin doth ipso facto become his misery, and yet is not caused at all by God's But yet that his Nature was made such as sin should prove a misery to▪ was God's Work. And from that Antecedent Creation or Constitution the Relative form of a Punishment resulteth to the Sinner. Even as God saith [If thou Murder it shall be thy sin] or [Thou shalt not Murder] And man doth Murder: Here the Act that is sin is of man; but that the Relation of sin belongeth to that act, resulteth partly from the Law which forbiddeth it; and yet God is not the Cause of sin; though he Antecedently decreed, [Murder shall be sin if thou commit it.] So is it also with this sort of Punishment which is either sin itself, or the effect or result o • sin immediately.
By which we see that when sin and punishment are found in one thing, God is the Cause (Antecedently) of the formal Relation of a Punishment, without being a Cause of the sin: yea, antecedently is some cause of the formal relation of the sin, by his Law, without causing any of the sin itself, as the author of it.
As if God make man of such a temper, as that surfeiting, drunkenness, lust, will make him sick, and hazard his life; Here God did no otherwise punish him than by making him such a man; which he turned to his own destruction by his sin. If a man make a thorn Hedge about his Garden, that men may not steal his fruit, and those that will shall • rick themselves, it is they that prick and punish themselves. If God say, He that will leap into the fire shall be burnt, or into the water shall be drowned; it is they that do it that cause the evil; and yet some formal relation of penalty may result to it from God's conditional antecedent Law. I say not that God executeth no other kind of punishment: But these are the most common.
11. Man having thus cast away God's Image and his Innocency, could beget a Child no purer, holier or better than himself: For he could not communicate that which he had lost. So that our Nature is vitiated with Original sin, and unhappy in the miserable effects. Bradwardine hath a shift which serveth them that say man could do no good in Innocency without supernatural Help, viz. Making that Help to be God's Will that it shall be done: But is not God's Will called our natural Help when it is the foundation of Nature, working by natural means? It's true that free will without God's Will could do nothing.
12. The promisory part of the Covenant or Law of Innocency became null or ceased with man's first sin, cessante subditorum capacitate; and so the Condition which is its modus. So that no man ever since was under the Obligation of that Law as a Covenant of life, saying [Be Perfect or Innocent and Live], nor obliged to perfect personal perpetual obedience as the condition of Life; for it was become naturally impossible. And God maketh not Promises and Covenants upon Natural impossibilities, whatever we say of Moral ones. If the Devils before their fall were under this Covenant [Be Perfect and Live.] Yet now they are not under it.
Here some worthy Divines go into both extremes: Some say that all the Law of Innocency is ceased, Precept, Promise, and Threatning. Others say that all still are in force or being. The Truth I think is between them as followeth.
1. God still commandeth perfect obedience, so far as that the least violation of his Law is sin.
2. This Law bindeth us as the Creator's Law: but not as mere Creator: But as put with Nature into the hand and power of the Redeemer, to whom all Power or Government is committed, and so all Laws are now both the Creators and Redeemers.
3. These Precepts bind us not now in so full a sort as they did Adam, even to obedience; Though the Law be as perfect: Because there is some Dispositio Recipientis necessary to the effecting an Obligation upon us: And where any Natural Impossibility hath befallen us, though by sin, it will make some alteration in the obligation.
4. The Commination of the said Law is so far still in force, as to make Punishment (even perpetual) to be our desert for every sin, and so far to oblige us to Punishment, that if we are not pardoned, we shall not escape; for it is natural for sin to deserve Punishment.
5. This obligation is not only Remediable or pardonable, but conditionally (as well as by the Fundamental Merit of Christ) Remedyed and pardoned to all men immediately; and actually pardoned to penitent Believers.
6. The Promissory Covenanting part was not (properly) Abrogatedly God: For he was not the Changer.
7. The Promissory part is now really ceased, and is No Promise, no • •• Covenant of God: And this was done by Man's ceasing to be a capable subject; which because some few worthy Divines deny, I prove.
1. If it be yet a Promise, it is Absolute (which none saith) or Conditional: And if so, either the Condition is quid praeteritum, quid praesen • , vel quid futurum: But none of these; 1. A Past and Present Condition are not proper Conditions of the thing, but forms of speech: And either that Condition already is, or is not; If it be; the Promise is absolute in sense: If it be not; the Promise is No Promise i • sense, but equivalent to a Negation, as common reason as well as the civil Law confesseth. If it be quid Ignotum, the notice may be Conditional still, but not the proper Donation. But here it is quid notissimu • , and God is feigned to say, If Adam and his Posterity have no sin, I will justify and bless them; which is equivalent to [I will not]. If the Condition be supposed Future, e. g. [If Adam and his seed sin no more, they are just] it is false, because they are already guilty.
2. The essence of a Condition is to suspend the effect, till performed. But here the effect is not suspended: Ergo there is no conditional promise, Total loss is no suspension.
3. When the Condition is once totally violated and become impossible, all sense and civil Law saith, Res transit in judicatum, & Lex in Sententiam; and the Promise ceaseth Cessante capacitate Promissarit: And so it is here.
4. That which is a Promise is also a Law, and is essentially the Expression of God's Will for the Government of his Subjects, and for a conditional Rule of Right to the thing promised: This is its very definition▪ But it is unworthy of God, to say that he doth ever since the fall, tell the world, [If you are not fallen or Sinners, you shall be justified] or [on condition that you be such as never did sin, you shall live]. This were to threaten or condemn us ironically or with derision, under the name of a Promise, or Covenant, or Law.
Yet the change as I said is made by man, who hath made himself uncapable to be the object of such a Promise, or subject to such a Law.
And I know that it is a Question of no small Difficulty, whether any proper promise of life was made to Adam himself, and so whether this was properly a Promising Covenant? But I can presume to say no more than I can prove; which is, 1. That as Natural there seemed to be in it an intimation of the Will of God, to give Adam perpetual felicity if he obeyed, 1. In that God made his Soul Immortal: Not such as could •• t cease to be; but such as in its Nature was fitted to perpetuity. And a perpetual Soul must be perpetually happy or unhappy: And God would not subvert the Nature of Spirits, nor make Souls unhappy for nothing. 2. Because Holiness itself would be and infer Happiness to a perpetuated Soul. To love God perfectly is to be perfectly happy. And God would not have taken away man's holiness from him. 3. Because God having voluntarily become man's Rector, that Justice which consisteth in doing as a Rector ob fines regiminis, secundum mores subditorum, seemeth to be a virtual Promise, that it shall go well with the obedient. 4. Because God put into man's Soul a natural inclination to its own perpetual felicity. 5. And also a holy Inclination perpetually to Love his God, and to know him. 6. And God commanded Man in the very Law of Nature (and positively) certain means to be used, no doubt in order to such felicity as the end which man by nature was obliged to intend. And doubtless God would not do all this in vain; His command to seek Life, is a kind of Promise, that faithful seekers shall obtain it. 7. And as Nature made Punishment due to the sinner; so it seemeth implied in that very threatening of Nature, that the obedient shall speed better.
Whoever is angry with me for it, I must say, that these Natural Evidences are no inconsiderable persuaders of my judgment, and directors of it about the certainty and nature of the Promise to Adam.
2. But besides these, though the Scripture be very silent here, yet the same seemeth implied, 1. In the threatening of death to Adam. 2. In the titles of [Redemption Reconciliation Remission,] &c. given in the Gospel to the acts of our Salvation by Jesus Christ: which seem to import that they restore us into that state of Heavenly hope, which we fell from in Adam; when we all sinned and came short of the Glory of God, Rom. 3.
SECT. II. The first Edition of the Law of Grace.
13. When God judged man for sin, at once he promised him a Savior, and through him as promised, made a new Law of Grace with man.
14. This Law giveth pardon of the Spiritual and Eternal Punishment, and of all save what was excepted in the Sentence foregoing: But pardon, not to be absolutely and immediately received, but by degrees and upon certain terms: And with pardon a free gift of Life Spiritual and Eternal, and so of the Spirit and Communion with God, on the said conditions.
15. The Promise Gen. 3. 15. is plain as to Mercy and Salvation, and darker as to the promised seed, and his mediation; and dark as to the Condition on man's part: But (by Sacrifices, &c. ) it is like that Adam had it more explained to him, than those short words make it to us: But this is clear that by this new Covenant God becometh man's Merciful Redeemer and Pardoner, and Ruler on terms of Grace in order to recovery and Salvation; And that man was to Believe in God as such, and accor • ingly to devote himself in Covenant to him.
16. This Law or Covenant was made with all Mankind in Adam: For all were in his loins; and God hath given us no more proof that the first Covenant was made with Adam as the Father of Mankind, than that the second was so made.
17. God's dealings with Mankind are a certain confirmation of this truth, and an exposition and promulgation of this Law and Covenant of Grace as extended to all Mankind. For God doth not use them according to the rigor of the violated Law of Innocency, but giveth them abundant mer • ies and means which tend to their Repentance and recovery, and obligeth them all to Believe that he is merciful and their case is not desperate, and to Repent and use his means and mercies in order to their return to God and their Salvation. There are no Nations in the world that even to this day are not under such mercies, means, and ob •• gations; and therefore none that are left as the Devils in Despair, under the unremedyed Covenant of Innocency alone.
18. But though the Law of Grace made to Adam be it which the world was then put under, and to be Ruled by, and the tenor of it extended to all Mankind; yet those that would partake of the Blessing • of it, were to consent to it as Covenanters with God, and to Belie •• in and obey God their Redeemer pardoner and restorer, in the thankful sense of all this mercy; which because the ungodly did not, they and their posterity fell under a double guilt and curse, both as violate •• s of the Law of Innocency and of Grace: and therefore incurred a spec ••• penalty: Cain and his offspring being first thrust out further from the believing obedient people of God, and at last the whole world except eight persons perishing in the deluge.
19. Noah with his house being saved to be the Root of all Mankind that should succeed him, God renewed with him and Mankind in him, the same Law or Covenant of Grace which he had made with us in Adam, with some additionals: To show us that though the wicked and their seed had forfeited the benefits, yet the Covenant was not altered, but stood in its first sense in force to all, and would pardon and save all true Consenters.
20. Cham for his transgression brought a new Curse on himself and his posterity, besides the mere fruit of Adam 's Sin. So that though • God altered not his Law of Grace, yet they became a cursed Generation.
21. By multiplied transgressions, the Sons of men did still more degenerate and revolt from God, till Nimrod and others by wickedne •• and presumptions brought down the new and grievous penalty of confounded tongues, (the great hindrance of the propagation of the truth to th •• day) And at last, the most fell to odious Idolatry, not knowing the true God, but given up to sensuality and wickedness.
22. Abraham being faithful and escaping the Idolatry and wickednest of the world, was eminently favored and beloved of God, and be ••• ving and trusting God in his promises and in the great trial of his S •• , is honored with the name of the Father of the Faithful: And God renewed with him the Covenant of Grace which he had made to all men in Adam and Noah, with special application to his comfort; and added • special peculiar Promise to him, that his Seed should be a holy Nation chosen out of all the world to God, and that of him the Messiah should come, of both which Promises (the common and the special) Circumcision was a Seal.
23. Yet this was no repealing of the Law of Grace which had been made to all the world, nor was it an excommunicating or rejecting of all others, or a confining of God's Grace and Church to him and his posterity alone; but only an exalting them above all others in these peculiar dignities and privileges. For at that time holy Sem was living, and long after, who in all likelihood was a King, and its like that the Posterity of him and Japheth were not all fallen away from God; and Melc •• zedek was such a King of Righteousness and Peace and Priest of the most high God as was a great type of Christ's own Heavenly Priesthood; and therefore it's like had some Subjects that feared and worshipped God The Scripture giving us the History of the Jewish Nation, and affairs •• the principal, and of the rest of the world but a little on the by, we cannot know by it the full state of all other Nations, nor what Religion and Worshippers of God were there. But the History of Job and his Friends, the probability that all the Children of Ishmael, of Keturah, of Esau, forsook not God (for they were circumcised and therefore were Covenanters) with the Case of Nineveh after; and Abraham 's thoughts that even a Sodom had at least had fifty righteous persons in it, &c. assureth us that the Jews were not God's only Church, but a peculiar people, and a Nation holy above the rest. And as the Covenant of Grace was still the Governing Law to the rest of the world, (though most rejected it by rebellion) so it is not to be thought that none consonted to it and were faithful.
24. The special promise to Abraham of the Messiah to be his seed, which was more than was made to Adam and Noah, as it belonged not to Mankind in general, so was it not promulgate or known to them, but only to the Jews, and the few that conversed with them. Therefore the rest of the world, were not obliged to know and believe it, who never heard of it.
25. What Conditions of pardon and life were necessary to all Mankind then in general, is most probably gathered out of these Texts of Scripture. Exod. 34. 6, 7. And the Lord-proclaimed the Name of the Lord—.The Lord, the Lord God, Merciful and Gracious, long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth, keeping Mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children, and to the Children's Children unto the third and to the fourth Generation. This is the description of God given by his own mouth, as he is to be Believed in, and as they were to be subject and devoted to him: And what mouth can surelier reveal him. And Heb. 11. 6. Without faith it is impossible to please God; for he that cometh to God must believe that God is, and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Act. 10. 34, 35. Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. And John 's and Christ's Preaching were, Repent; And Except ye Repent ye shall all perish: And Christ was a Prince, and a Savior to give Repentance to Israel and Remission of Sins.
26. The belief of the pardoning Mercy of God to the penitent, and the recoverable state of Souls, and the duty of Repenting, and seeking pardon and mercy of God, in order to Salvation, in opposition to despair and neglect of all endeavors for recovery, is so common to all Mankind, that (though self-love may make them hope inordinately for that which they would have to be true; yet) it is most apparent that it proceedeth from some Natural notion of God, and is to be numbered with the Notitiae Communes; which are past controversy with all Mankind.
27. Therefore though the Law of Innocency was the Law of Nature in the first and eminent sense, yet this Common notice of God's pardoning Mercy, and man's duty to Repent, hope and seek Salvation may well be called, The Law of lapsed Nature, as the other is the Law of Innocent Nature. For the Nature of God, and the nature of Man, with all circumstant Natures, and the course of natural Providence running so much in the way of great restoring mercy, do certify mankind of the foresaid hopes and duties.
28. For it is not (as some have said) an absurdity, but a certain Truth, that the Law of Nature is as far mutable as Nature itself is mutable. For the Law of Nature (commonly mis-described) is nothing else but the Nature of Man and all other Creatures of God, so far as per modum sign • they notify to us God's Will appointing what shall be Due from us and To us, as the instrument of God's Government of Mankind. Now this Notification is most by the Resultancy of duty from the Nature of Man compared with God and all the Creatures that he hath to do with. And the very variety of circumstances (as in the case of Adam 's Children's Marriages and ours, &c.) may alter Nature's signification, obligation and Law.
29. That which is called the Covenant of Nature or Innocency, was in the Main the very Law of Innocent Nature in all the parts of it. 1. Nature being perfect, revealed Man's Duty perfectly to obey. 2. Nature declared Punishment to be due to sin; yea to all sin. And this punishment to be suitable to the nature of the Offender compared with the God offended, and the injury done. Especially that if men will undo themselves, by forsaking Life and Love and Joy, and casting themselves into darkness, diseasedness and misery, when it is foreshewn them, God is not bound to hinder or recover them. 3. Nature telleth man that God who made his Soul a simple Intellectual spirit, and Life itself (though created and dependant) intended not to annihilate it; and that its noble faculties, fitted to know God, and Love him, and Live to him perfectly in Immortality, were made for this employment in Immortality, and not in vain. And that he that Naturally maketh it man's duty to hope and seek for Immortal happiness, hath not made this hope or duty in vain: Nor will fail or frustrate or destroy them that forfeit not their hopes. So that the Covenant depends not alone upon supernatural Revelation.
30. But that which Nature revealeth about the penalty, is 1. Not that God of necessity must punish the loss of Innocency as highly as he may do. 2. But that he may justly punish the Sinner in rigor, by temporal, spiritual and eternal miseries. 3. And that the Ends of Government (the honor of his Wisdom, Goodness, Power, Truth and Justice, and the order of the human world) do require that sin scape not free, but some exemplary punishment be a Vindication of God, and a warning to Man: which our death, afflictions, and spiritual sufferings manifest in part, and the sufferings of Christ more fully. So that pardon, and dispensing in part with his Right to punish us according to the Law first broken, is no falsehood in God, nor any injustice, nor any violation of his Law of Nature.
31. The Law which God put all mankind under after the fall, and the world without the Church is under still, is the Preceptive part of the Law of Innocent Nature as de futuro, the promise of it being ceased, and the penalty not totally nullifyed, but made remedyable by an act of oblivion or Conditional Covenant of Grace. q. d. [Thou shalt perfectly obey me, for the time to come; and every sin shall deserve everlasting punishment, so far as that I might justly inflict it, and will do it if it be not remitted: But all thy sin shall be forgiven thee, and thou shalt have the free gift of pardon and salvation, if thou Believe in me thy merciful Savior, and repent and give up thyself to me to be saved, and to be Mine by sincere obedience and Love.]
32. The deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt by Moses, and their imbodying into a new Common-wealth, with a Theocratical Government in a peculiar manner, and a new body of Divine Laws, were all done in performance of God's Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, separating their seed as Holy from all the world. Not as if no other were Holy in the world; but as the Priests and Levites were sanctified to stand nearer to God than the people, and so specially Holy; even so Israel was a Holy Nation, as being nearer God by separation than the rest of the Nations of the world.
33. The entire Law of God which the Israelitish Nation was under had all these parts. 1. The remaining preceptive and directive part of the Law of Nature. 2. The Universal Covenant of Grace made with all mankind in Adam and Noah, and personally renewed to Abraham for himself and his posterity. 3. The special promise to Abraham and his seed as a peculiar people of whom the Messiah should come. 4. The body of the Law of Moses as a Law for that Common-wealth or Politie (which was not so given to any other Common-wealth or Nation.)
1. The first of these undoubtedly is still in force.
2. The second is turned into the perfect edition of the Covenant of Grace, to those that have the Gospel: And it continueth to the rest of the world unrepealed, as to the substance of the mercies of it, (further than men deprive themselves of them by forfeitures, as wicked men here do as to the mercies of the Gospel) But as it is a promise of Christ's future incarnation, it ceased by his coming.
3. The third is ceased by performance and by the Jews apostasy: Though some think still that it is in force, and that a national conversion shall perform that promise to the full. But Mr. Calvert (a Learned young man) hath lately written to prove that no such national conversion is to be expected, but only such additions of particular men's conversion to the Catholic Christian Church, as are of that kind which hath been more fully done on the Jews already.
4. As to the rest, it hath troubled Divines how far Moses 's Law is abrogated or ceased; partly as to the Judicials, and chiefly as to the Decalogue. And that we may not be too forward to call one another Legatists or Antinomians for this difference (those now called Antinomians being rather Libertine deniers of the Law of Christ) I will notify to those that know it not, that it is as much a difference among the Papists greatest Doctors, who yet bear with one another in it, and the Pope decideth it not. Some say that the Decalogue now obligeth not as the Law of Moses, but only as the Law of Nature, and of Christ: So Soto de Instit. li. 2. q. 5. ar. 4. concl. 2. Medina 1. 2. q. 103. ar. 3. quem aliqui moderni sequntur, saith Suarez, de Leg. l. 9. c. 11. p. 761. and Tolet. in Rom. 3. Anot. 15. Salmer. ad Rom. 7. disp. 6. Victor. Relict. de Matrim. 2. p. n. 3. Barrad. To. 1. li. 2. c. 21. Valent. To. 2. disp. 7. q. 7. punc. 7. To whom Suarez joineth himself; confessing (pag. 764, 765.) that if (as some hold) Moses Law had been only a Declaration of the Law of Nature, and not de novo preceptive, it could not be said to cease. But he truly holdeth it to be constitutive or preceptive also to those that it was by Moses delivered to: And of this opinion I profess myself (notwithstanding all that on other points I have written against the Antinomians) Believing that Christ now is the Universal Law-giver; and that the very Law of nature (as Nature itself) is now His Law, and that he hath taken it in to his Gospel administration, and so the Decalogue is materially in force, but not formally as part of the proper Mosaical Law, save only that as Declarative and ex paritate rationis, we may collect that God who for such reasons so bound them, doth bind us to the same things by the same natural Reasons.
But there are other Papist Doctors that hold that as to the Morals Moses Law as preceptive is still in force, even as then by him delivered, and that to all Christians, so Bellarm. de Justif. li. 4. c. 6. Lorin. in Act. 15. Vasquez who with Durand Paludan. Paul. Burgens. And Suarez saith that Alph. a Castro and most so speak: And Vasquez denieth the Law of Nature as such, to have properly a Divine Obligation, saith Suarez, which he confuteth de Leg. l. 9. c. 11. p. 764, 765. But this controversy when examined, containeth not much more than verbal disagreement, and so their mutual forbearance doth confess.
34. The Jews instead of excelling in Holiness proportionably to their privileges, did grow carnal and proud, and 1. Much neglected the Law of Nature. 2. Much overlooked the spiritual Covenant of Grace, made with them and all the world. 3. And misunderstood the chief part of the special Promise made to Abraham, not understanding commonly the high, spiritual or universal Office and Kingdom of the Messiah, but dreaming that he was but to be their Monarch, to make them great, and to subject the world to them. 4. And they misunderstood the Law of Moses or Covenant on Mount Sinai; as if the design of it had been but by its special holy excellency to justify the doers of it, by and for the doing, and to pardon all the spiritual and perpetual punishment of Sin, upon those terms which it appointed for a Political pardon, and to give life spiritual and eternal, upon those bare conditions on which their Law gave them Political benefits. Over-looking the great causes of Justification and life in the Messiah, and the common Covenant of Grace, and Promise of the Messiah made to Abraham. And this is the error which Christ and his Apostles found them in. Yet proudly boasting of their Law and Political privileges, and despising all the rest of the world, as outcasts in comparison of them.
35. Though the behavior of all the rest of the world, till Christ's coming be little notifyed to us, yet this much is sure, that they were commonly more Ignorant and Idolatrous than the Jews, that yet they retained the common notices of nature; that they remembered by Tradition those intimations of the necessity of propitiatory Sacrifice, so as to keep up the custom of Sacrificing among them: That many of them with exceeding diligence sought to find God, or know him in the works of Nature and Providence, and attained to great and excellent understanding, especially in Greece and Rome: And many of them lived very strict austere and laborious lives, in great Justice and Love, and in the practice of many excellent Precepts towards God: For the Heavens declared the Glory of God, and the firmament shown his handy-work: Day unto day uttered speech, and night unto night shown knowledge; There was no speech or language where their voice was not heard: Their li • e went through the earth, and their words to the worlds end, Psal. 19. 1, 2, 3, 4. For all God's works do praise him, and the Lord is good to all, his tender mercies are over all his works: Psal. 145. 9, 10, 17. He is King in all the earth. He was not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also. Rom. 3. 29. Because that which may be known of God was manifest in (or to) them, for God had shown it to them. For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his Eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, Rom. 1. 19, 20, 21. God left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave men rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness, Act. 14. 15, 16. Seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all Nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after him and find him: though he be not far from everyone of us: For in him we live and move and have our being; For we are also his offspring, Act. 17. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved: But have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world— Rom. 10. 12, 13, 18. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance? Who will render to every man according to his deeds. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honor and Immortality, Eternal life—Glory, honor and peace, and to every man that worketh Good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek; For there is no respect of persons with God—For not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law, these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves; which show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their Consciences also bearing witness; and their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel—If the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the Law, shall not his uncircumcision, be counted for circumcision? He is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God, Rom. 2.
SECT. III. Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption.
36. In the fullness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law. Rom. 4. 4. But not them only; for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Joh. 3. 16. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, being made a Curse for us. For he is the Savior of the world, and the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. He is the Propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world: 1 Joh. 2. 2. For he tasted Death for every man, Heb. 2. being the Savior of all men, but especially of those that believe, 1 Tim. 4. 10. For if one died for all, then were all dead; And he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again, 2 Cor. 5. 14, 15.
37. As the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father in his Divine nature only, was the interposing Redeemer by undertaking, before his Incarnation, and governed the fallen world by the fore-described Law of Grace; so upon his Incarnation initially, and upon his performance plenarily all things are delivered into his hands; even all the world so far as it was defiled and cursed by Man's sin; Man as the Redeemed, the Creatures as his utensils, and goods, (and Devils as his and our Enemies:) All Power in Heaven and Earth was given him, Matth. 26. 19. Joh. 13. 1, 3. and 17. 2, 3. All judgment was committed to him; and the Father judgeth no man (but by him): But hath given him to have life in himself, and to raise the dead, Joh. 5. 22, 23, 24, 25. For he hath made him Head over all things to his Church, Eph. 1. 22, 23. And for this end he died, rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living, Rom. 14. 9, 10. For God hath exalted him and given him a name above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should • ow, Phil. 2. 7, 8. And as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, 1 Cor. 15. 22.
38. Christ upon his Incarnation performed but what God had Decreed, before the foundations of the world, and had obscurely and generally promised after the fall, at the first making of the Covenant of Grace. Which Decree of God, is after the manner of men called by some a Covenant between the Father and the Son; especially because the Prophets have sometimes (as Isa. 53.) described it by way of prediction as a Covenant between the Father and Christ incarnate. If we conceive of it properly under the notion of a Decree first, and a Promise after unto the world, so the Will and Mercy of God the Father and Son (with the Holy Spirit) are the cause of man's Redemption, Pardon and Salvation, even the fundamental Principal total Cause: And the Promise was man's security; and Christ as promised was the primary great mean • , which was to procure us the rest, by doing that, upon the fore-sight and fore-decree whereof, God did beforehand pardon and save Sinners. But if you had rather mention it as in the form of a Covenant, (which before the Incarnation, must be improperly taken, being only of God to himself, or a promise of and to Christ as to be incarnate) then the undertaking of the Father, and the Son herein must be carefully distinguished and described. The Father giveth up to Christ as Redeemer the whole lapsed cursed reparable world, (the several parts to several uses) and especially his chosen to be eventually and infallibly saved, and promiseth to accept his Sacrifice and performance, and to make him Head over all things to his Church, and by him to establish the Law of Grace (in its perfect Edition) and to give him the Government respectively of the Church and world, and to Glorify him for this work with himself forever. And the second person undertaketh to assume man's Nature, to do and suffer all that he did, in perfect obedience to his Fathers Will, and Law of Redemption, to fulfill all Righteousness, conquer Satan and the world, to suffer in the flesh, and be a Sacrifice for sin, and to conquer Death, and teach, and rule, and purify, and raise, and justify and glorify all true believers.
39. Before the Incarnation, Christ's future death and obedience being not existent, were no real existent Causes in themselves of men's Justification: But that Wisdom which foresaw them, and that Will of God which Decreed them, as such (and not they without that fore-sight and Decree as existent) were the cause.
40. Nor were they either before or after the performance a proper Cause of God's Will which pardoned us; For God's Will in it self can have no cause. But they were Causes, 1. Of the Thing willed, and 2. Also of the extrinsical denomination of God's 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 satisfy God's Justice ourselves 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 Christ's 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 satisfied for, or Redeemed ourselves. But he suffered in the stead and place of Sinners, to satisfy God's 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 sense, become habitually holy, and perfectly fulfill all righteousness: Nor doth God ever repute us to have ourselves in our own civil persons, thus fulfilled the Law, and been holy in and by Christ, or will justify 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 God's esteem: For God judgeth not falsely: Nor did he ever take to himself the Guilt of fact, or fault in itself, 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 instead of All the sufferings due to all for whom be died, 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 another's suffering for him▪ fulfilleth not the Law (which never said, Either thou or another for the shalt die) 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 itself, 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 God's favor 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 God's 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 intolerable Blasph • ming of our Savior; 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 itself, 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 God's Love, and Joy therein, which was no part of his holiness or perfection, (but no other) and having o • his Soul the deep sense of God's displeasure with Sinners and of his •••• of sin, though no sense of God's 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 God's 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 God's 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-laborer to a Master; of a Magistrate (King, Judge, &c.) to Subjects: of a Captain to Soldiers, or Soldiers 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 Human 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 ourselves by one that had, did and suffered them in our persons (in a 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 Human 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 Christ's 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 Savior, 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 in his Gospel to have a Law. The case is sad, that any in opposition to others should run into such an Antinomian extreme: They are unlike to be good Preachers of Christ's Law, who maintain that he hath no Law: And there can be no sin against it, nor expectation of being judged by it, if he have none. And he is no King and Ruler, if he have no Law. But yet let the Papists forbear i • •• ing, and remember that the true meaning of most of them is no more, than to assert what Suarez himself propugneth, viz. that besides Revelations, and the Duties thence naturally resulting, (by natural Law) and the Sacraments, Christ hath no other Laws. And both Suarez and they are here to blame (for the Papists that are by some accused for calling the Gospel a Law, do also give too little honor to Christ's Laws); It beseemeth none of them to use such ill Language, whatever they mean. If they should say that the King is no Law-Giver, and hath no Laws, they would wrong him by that Language (as denying his Royalty) how well soever they should interpret it. For the Legislative-Power is the principal essential part of Sovereignty. But if any really deny Christ to be a Law-Giver, and when he hath done reproacheth the Papists and Arminians for contradicting it; it is but as the blind reproaching the purblind for seeing; when they that give most to the Laws of Christ (among these Contenders) do give too little.
The Baptismal-Covenant, is a Law as imposed, and as imposing the Covenant-Duties, and as determining the conditions of Life and Death, according to which men must live and shall be judged: yea it is the most famous Law, which Conscience hath to do with; Though it be a Covenant as consented to, in the contract. That Sinners have terms of Life and Death, and offered Remedies against all their Guilt and greatest Punishments, and Means prescribed, and Duties commanded in order to their recovery, when the Law of Innocency condemneth them; especially the obeying of the Ministry, and Word, and Holy Spirit of Christ, prescribing them his way of cure as their Physician, all this is a Law of Grace; even the Law of Liberty, and the Law of the Spirit of Life, which freeth us from the Law of Sin and Death. Christ's Law consisteth of two parts: (as is said) 1. The Law of Nature (called by many moral) as commanding the love of God and its attendent Duties, not now to an innocent man, but to a condemned-recovering Sinner, as the health to which his Physician doth restore him. 2. And the remedying Law which is more proper to the Redeemer called the Law of Faith; which appointeth us the terms and means of our recovery: which is, 1. Supernatural as to the Revelation of the matter and reasons of it, and the foundation of all in Christ's Work of Redemption and his Legislation: 2. But as to the obligation or efficiency of man's duty, it is both natural and supernatural at once: that is, when it is presupposed that Christ hath done, suffered and offered to our acceptance, all that is so asserted of him in the Gospel; 1. Nature obligeth us to believe it (upon evidence of credibility) and to accept it, and thankfully improve it: 2. Christ as the Fathers Administrator, and our King, hath positively commanded us the same.
Were it not for wearying the Reader, and myself, I would here answer all that Suarez saith, (de Legib. li. 10. c. 2.) to prove that no praeceptum positivum morale is added by Christ: And I would easily prove that as some parts of Nature are unalterable, and accordingly natural Duty, so some things of Nature are mutable, and so is that natural Duty which is founded on them: And Christ hath by supernatural Performances and Revelations made such changes in the nature of things, as inferreth new natural Obligations. Were the Devils redeemed, and Grace now offered them, nature would make it their duty to accept it.
In sum, it is a sufficient confutation of all Suarez 's Reasons, to say, that they run upon this false supposition, that Nature and supernatural Precept may not both oblige man to the same duty, and that God cannot lay two Obligations on us to the same action. For all that he laboreth, is to prove that supposing the Revelation, Nature bindeth us to believe all the Christian Articles, to preach, and hear, and pray to God by Christ, to love our Redeemer, and be thankful, &c. and that the Gospel is thus fitted to lapsed Nature, as the first Law was to innocent Nature. All which I like very well, and take it for a great honor to Christ and the Gospel, that it is so suited to the natural necessity and state of fallen and miserable man, and may be called the Law of sinful Nature. But Suarez himself had before proved that Moses 's Decalogue was both a Declaration of what Nature bound men to, and yet also the matter of a new Precept of God: And why could he not see the same of the Gospel, it being so evident, that it containeth Christ's Commands? And the very sum of our Ministry is, 1. To disciple and baptize all Nations, &c. 2. And then to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded. And indeed Suarez confesseth (p. 816.) That Christ did by new commanding add new Obligations to the duties of Nature, though he deny that Christ added any positive Precept as to the moral matter commanded by the Law of Nature—.
And by this instance you may see how near some men agree, that seem much to differ. But as to them that insist on it, that the Gospel and New Covenant are no Laws, and that we have none from Christ but the Decalogue and Old Testament; were I to write against them to purpose, I would plentifully prove them Subverters of Christianity itself, and give full evidence against them, to any that believe the holy Scriptures. And contrarily I would prove, that there are no Divine Laws but what are truly the Laws of our Redeemer, now in the world, and that all Infidels are ruled, and shall be judged by a Law of Grace, though not of the last evangelical Edition; and that he that feareth not breaking the Laws of Christ, shall hear at last; Those mine Enemies that would not that I should Reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me, Luk. 19. 27.
As to the question, Whether Christ's Law be exterior insignis (vocal and written) or in the Heart by the Spirit, Suarez truly saith, That lex imperans is in signis (in Scripture words) but lex impellens is the Spirit; which though here the chief, yet is not properly but metaphorically called a Law, (pag. 819. & li. 1. in principio.) Though he add, that it was eight years before the Gospel was written by Matthew, and longer by the rest, and that all that time and since it is written in the Heart. But memory may retain a vocal Law, before the Heart (by love and subjection) do receive it.
61. In this Law or Covenant is made a free universal Deed of Gift of Christ first, and of Pardon, Spirit and Glory in and by him to all Mankind without exception, who will believingly accept it in its true nature, as it is offered therein; Or [If they will so accept it as Believers.]
62. This Covenant is to be preached by Christ's Ministers, and men invited to believe and consent: And all that so do, are to profess that consent by a solemn Covenant in their Baptism, and so to give up themselves devotedly to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; renouncing the Devil, Flesh and World.
63. For Faith in God the Father is as essential a part of that Faith which we must profess in Baptism, and is called commonly justifying, as Faith in Christ is: And so is Faith in the Holy Ghost in its place. For it is not possible to believe in Christ, without believing first in God, to whom he is the way, and with whom he is our Mediator; nor to believe in him fully as Christ, unless we believe in him, as giving us the sanctifying Spirit.
64. This Covenant is nevertheless free (as to the donation of the Gifts,) for being conditional: For the Condition is not the purchase, procurement by efficient causality, or any way a proper cause of the Gift as given, but only a dispositive cause of our reception of it, and of the Gift as received: It is a removens prohibens. The Condition as imposed, and as the mode of the Promise, is only a suspension of the Donation and Right till it be performed: The Condition as performed is a removing the suspension: And so it is a receiving cause; which is but dispositio materiae receptivae (of which more in due place.)
65. And the Gift is nevertheless free, because the Condition is but such as is morally- antecedently -necessary to the reception of free Gifts. For though physical Donation oft make its own way, and pre-require not such Conditions as these at least; yet moral Donation by Deed of Gift, supposeth that the person will receive it, and despising, or unthankful refusal, or turning it against the Donor, nullifieth such a Donation in the Civil Laws of men.
66. And the Benefits are nevertheless conditionally given, though the Spirit of Christ cause us to perform the Condition: For they are called conditional from the mode or form of the Covenant, which giveth men Right to Christ and Life expressly on condition of believing.
67. Though this believing be sometimes described as the assent of the Intellect, and sometimes as the consent of the Will, and sometime as a practical affiance, trusting Christ as a Savior, to save us, with Soul and Body, to the renouncing and letting go all other trust; Yet when ever Justification and Life is promised to Faith, all these three are the essential parts of it.
68. The clearest discovery of the true nature of God's Covenant with man, and of that Faith by which we partake of the benefits of it, is in Baptism itself, which hath ever been the entrance of men into God's Covenant as consented to, and mutual, and so into a visible state of Christianity and membership of Christ and the Catholic Church. And therefore it is happy for us, that Christ so expressly delivered the form of the Baptismal Covenant, and the Universal Church hath so safely in her practice kept it.
69. This Baptismal Covenant which is conditional, and the consent to which doth make us Christians, must be still distinguished from the Covenant between the Father and Christ, or his Law of Redemption: And God promiseth not to us, all that he promiseth to Christ for us; nor giveth all to us which he giveth to him.
70. And it must be distinguished from God's mere Predictions concerning his Elect (that he will call them, renew them, and save them,) or if those Predictions run in the form of a Promise, either as they are promises to Christ concerning the Elect, or as promises to the Church in general, how God will perfect it, still they give no man a Law-Title or Right to any of the Benefits, till he is a Believer: They justify and pardon no man: And so they must not be confounded with the Baptismal Covenant, which is God's stated Instrument of Justification and of Government, and the Law by which he will Judge us at the last.
71. This Baptismal Covenant is the character and test, by which we must judge who are Christians, and members of the Catholic Church of Christ, and not by their Subjection to a pretended vicarious universal Monarch. And this is the character (with consent to his relation there) by which every man's fitness for membership in a particular Church must be judged of; And not by other Covenants (besides that consent) and proofs of Conversion, not here included. And this containeth the true Characters, by which every man may know himself whether he be a true Christian, and must judge of his sincerity and right to Christ, Justification and Salvation, as he is or is not a sincere consenter to it truly understood in the essential parts.
SECT. V. Of the Gift and Works of the Holy Ghost.
72. There are three sorts of Operations of the Holy Ghost, one common, and two proper to them that shall have, or already have Justification.
1. The first is preparing common Grace, which maketh men fitter for special Grace, which yet they may have that perish.
2. The second is that Grace of the Spirit by which we perform the first Act of special Faith and Repentance, called commonly by Divine • Vocation, which goeth before any special habit; but not before any holy seed; Because the very influx of the Spirit on the Soul is as a seed, which exciteth the first act before a habit, though not ordinarily before some preparations. This Faith is commanded us as our duty first, and made necessary to us, as the Condition of the Covenant; And when we know it to be thus required of us, and hear in the Gospel the Reasons which should perfwade us, then the Holy Spirit moveth us by his Influx to believe and consent, where God and man are conjunct Agents; but man subordinate to God.
3. The third sort is the Spirits Operation of the habit of Divine Love, and all other Graces in the Soul, which is called his In-dwelling, and Sanctification; This is that Gift of the Spirit (besides Miracles of old) which is promised to Believers: To this, Faith is the Condition: To this, upon believing it is that we have Right given us by God's Covenant; and thus it is that by Baptism our right to the Spirit, as an in-dwelling Sanctifier and Comforter is given us.
73. This third Gift or Work of the Spirit eminently so called, is in the same instant of time given us as the second, (but not of nature) or at least immediately thereupon when we believe: But yet they are not to be confounded on many accounts.
74. But yet though some degree of the Spirit be presently given to every Believer, it is usually but a spark at first; And there are further means and conditions appointed us for the increase, and actual helps from day today: And he that will not wait on the Spirit in the use of those means, doth forfeit his help according to his neglect.
75. Hence it is that most, if not all Christians have lower measures of the Spirit than otherwise they might have, and that judicially as a punishment for Sin; However God is free herein, and if he please may give more even to them that forfeit it.
76. This Covenant of Grace, being a conditional pardon of all the world, is universal in the tenor or sense of it; It is of all Mankind without exception that Christ saith, If thou confess with thy mouth, and believe i • thy heart, thou shalt be saved: No person antecedently is excluded in the world.
77. And as to the promulgation of it, Christ hath commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world, and to every Creature: So that to the utmost of their power they are to offer and publish it to the whole world. And Princes and people are all bound in their several places to assist them, and to help to propagate the Gospel throughout all the Earth: So that the restraint of it is not by the tenor of the Law.
78. Those Nations which despise and refuse the Gospel are justly deprived of it, penally for that rejection.
79. Those Nations that live inhuma • ely and wickedly against the means and mercies which they have, do forfeit their hopes of more.
80. As God in all Ages hath visited the sins of the Fathers on the Children, as the instances of Cain, Cham, Nimrod, and others commonly show, and hath proclaimed it as his Name, Exod. 34. and put it in Tables of Stone in the Second Commandment (and not only of Adam's sin); so may he justly deal by the Posterity of the Despisers of the Gos • el, in denying it them. Though he may freely give it the unworthy when he pleaseth.
81. All the rest of the world who have not the Gospel, and the Covenant of Grace in the last Edition, are left by Christ in as good a state • at least, if not better) than he found them at his Incarnation. He took • way no mercy from them, which they had.
82. Therefore, as it is before proved that before Christ's time, none of the world were left desperate, under the mere violated Covenant of • nnocency, but that the tenor of that New Covenant, as made to Adam • nd Noah, extended to them all, so are they still under all the Grace of • hat Edition of the Covenant, further than they are penally deprived of •• for violating it. The Law of Grace in that first Edition is still in force, • nd the Law by which the world shall be governed and judged; They • re all Possessors of Mercy which leadeth to Repentance, and bound to use • he means afforded them in order to Repentance and Salvation, and it is • heir sin that they do not: For which it is ultimately that they are con • emned. Though wickedness harden men against the Law of Grace, • hat changeth not God's Law to them, but brings them under the penalty. Not that any are bound to expect a Christ to come, but to perform the • ommon Conditions of that Covenant before described.
83. Therefore no man is now condemned for Original Sin alone; Though it is pardoned to no man, till he perform the condition of it, in • he pardoning Covenant. For God having brought all men under terms • f mercy tending to recovery, they shall be judged as they use that reco • ering mercy, according to that Law of Grace which they are under, • hither of the first or last Edition.
84. The exception which some make of Infants is vain: Because as • ar as God hath revealed his mind about them to us, he esteemeth them • nd useth them as parts of their Parents and Owners, and if he condemn • hem, it is not for Adam 's sin only, but also ultimately for their Parents • ejection of recovering Grace, and not devoting them to God in his Cove • ant. And though God will not condemn the Children for the Parents • in; that is, when they themselves repent and turn to God. But the Scrip • ure is most plain and frequent in expressing our guilt of our nearer Pa • ents sins against Grace, which is a part of our Original Sin: and ought • ot to be so slighted as usually it is. However, 1. It is an incredible • pinion, That God should rule and judge all the rest of the world by a • awe of Grace, and leave only poor Infants without any mercy, under the • eer Law of Innocency, and judge them only by another Law, than he • oth all the world. 2. And it is the trick of a Deceiver to argue ab • gnotiore, and carry his Cause into the dark. And Infants Case is left to • s in Scripture much darker than that of the adult.
85. Therefore it seemeth plain to me, that though Christ's Church be • ow incomparably happier than the Jewish Church was, (in magnitude, • ight, and grace, and excellency of privileges,) far above all the rest of the world, and so excelleth the state of Heathens far more than the Jewish Church excelled them; Yet the rest of the world stand now in much like relation to God and the Christian Church, as before Christ's • ncarnation they did to God and the Jewish Church, who were his pecu • iar (but not his only) people; the foedus peculiaritatis was theirs only; but not foedus gratiae: So are we much more, as a holy Nation, a royal Priest • ood to stand nearer God than the rest of the world: But whether the Jews were all God's people on Earth I have before discussed, and proved • he negative.
85. But certainly in no Nation under Heaven, there is no coming •• God, or pleasing him without Faith; nor seeing him without Holiness▪ nor any Name given under Heaven by which men can be saved, but by Christ; nor any Sanctification but by Christ's Spirit; nor any coming to the Fath •• but by the Son; nor any Pardon and Life but by a Covenant of Grace, ••• by the Merits and Purchase of Christ. But how far he giveth this S ••• and Grace where he is not known himself as Incarnate, is all the difficulty: (As to Infants and Adult).
86. Though God hath said less to us of their case that hear not the Gospel, than of Believers and Unbelievers (privative, that hear it) because it less concerneth us to know it, and to be busy in judging the Servants of another, yet in this point are men's confide ••• and opposition most vehement.
On the other side, if I do but open the undeniable Mercies of God to all, which all the world hath experience that they possess, and that Covenant of Grace which the whole current of Scripture proveth the • under, some men that are so very wise in their own eyes, as hardly to suspect anything to be an error which they have long held, and that build much of their Religion and Theological Reputation, in adhering to the Opinions of those whose communion they think most honoreth them, and out of a blind zeal for that which they account Orthodo • , will presently without impartial consideration, or friendly debate, •• gisterially pass their judgment among those that reverence them, and backbite those that they cannot confute, and say,
87. The question whether any besides Christians are put into a possib • lity of Salvation is easily and certainly resolved in the affirmative from what is said: But the question whether any or how many are actua •• y saved, doth depend on the resolution of the question, whether any of them are truly sanctified, that is, [do truly love God and Holiness, ab ••• the Pleasures, Profits and Honors of this world.] For nothing is mo •• certain in God's Word, than that all that do so shall be saved: For a ••• to live in Hell with the predominant love of God, is as great a contradiction, as for a man to be sick in health, and both in the greater degree. God cannot damn or forsake a Soul that loveth him and is holy, (in sensu composito.)
88. And whether any or how many without the Christian Church, do truly love God, is a question which dependeth as to probability upon the foresaid grounds, but as to the certainty of the fact, upon that heartknowledge of other men) which belongeth to God only. 1. How can I that live in an obscure corner of England, know whether any love God in Siam, China, Japon, or Persia, or at the Antipodes. 2. If I were with them all, and acquainted with every person in the world, I could have but a probability of the affirmative of any one, because I am not acquainted with the heart. But when the Scripture assureth us that it is the Law of Grace, and not only that of Innocency, which all the world is governed by, and shall be judged by, and so that their Sanctification and Salvation is possible; there is so great a probability, that this Covenant, and the mercies of it, are not in vain to all of them that are under it alone, and that the thing that is possible to so many millions, doth come to pass with some, that an impartial considerer of God's Nature and Government, may easily see what to think most probable.
89. Those therefore that teach the Church, that it is a certain truth, that no one in the world (Infant or Aged) is saved from Hell fire, but Christians only, and that this is not only certain to such great understandings as their own, but must be so to all true Christians, do but discover that they over-value their own understandings, and that siding hath contracted their thoughts and charity into a sinful narrowness, and that the Opinions of men, counted Orthodox, prevaileth more with them than the evidence of truth, and I think that they are to be numbered with those that by over-doing, do dangerously undermine the Christian Faith.
90. The Texts urged by them for this pretended certainty, are all abused some of these ways: 1. Either someone difficult Text is expounded contrary to the current of the whole Scripture. 2. Or the words that are spoken only of privative Unbelievers who hear the Gospel, are expounded of negative not-Believers who never heard it, nor could do. 3. Or that which is said against Unbelievers in general, is ex • pounded as against the non-Believers of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are superadded since Christ's Incarnation in special; As if all the Apostles before they believed Christ's Sacrifice, Resurrection, Ascension, &c. were Infidels in a state of damnation. 4. Or else they suppose (without proof) that the Spirit and Grace of Christ can extend itself to none that know him not as incarnate, crucified, risen, glorified, &c. (and so that the Apostles had no Grace till the Resurrection). Some such fallacy is in all these particular textual arguments, easily discernible.
91. Were it not evident in Scripture, that the world is under the Law of Grace as the norma officii & judicii, (as it is) yet could no man truly say that he is certain, that no one of them should be saved. For if they were all under the Law of Innocency, yet there is this great difference between it, and the Law of Grace, that whereas the sentence of the latter is peremptory, excluding all hope of Dispensation and Pardon, to the final Rejecters of its Grace, forever; yet the former was a Law whose penalty was remissible, and it did not pass a peremptory sentence of dispair. Though it gave no hope of Pardon, yet it took not away the hopes of it: that is, It had a threatening-dispensable: (as Dr. Twisse and many other say, Without a Savior had God so pleased; And as others say, Through the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice even to them that know him not.) For the commination of that Law (which threatened not the death of a Surety, but of the Sinner,) was actually dispensed with in our Justification. And what God can do, they ought not to say, that they are certain that he never will do it, unless he had first said so himself.
92. If in all Human Judgments Nature dictateth that in doubtful cases, the Judge should rather propend to the better interpretation, and favorable Judgment; why should it not be so in our judgment of God and man? The Nature of God is infinitely good; He hath proclaimed his Name, as aforesaid, even in the terrors of Mount Sinai, to be a God gracious, merciful, longsuffering, pardoning, &c. He hath protested or sworn, that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, •••• rather that he repent and live: and so that he first seeketh the Glory of his Mercy; and exerciseth justice in man's destruction, but as his second work: He that saved no man (but Christ himself glorified) upon the terms of Innocency, but all by Grace, and never else took one Soul to Heaven, who had not first deserved Hell, doth surely first seek the Glory of his Grace. And we know that 1. All Judea was a small Country, like England; An inconsiderable point or spot of the Earth, as to its magnitude. 2. That most of the worlds duration in likelihood was over (as Bishop Usher reckons, 4000 years) before Christ's death, and the second Edition of the Covenant. So that if none but Jews were saved all that while, the number was comparatively next to none. 3. That no man that I know of hath presumed to say, that before Moses time, none but the Seed of Abraham were saved. 4. That the Covenant made by Moses at Mount Sinai, and the inclosure of the Jews, was no casting off the rest of the world into a worse condition than they were before. 5. That none yet have presumed to say, they are certain that all the Seed of Keturah, of Ishmael, of Esau were damned: much less that Sem and all his Subjects, Japheth and all his Subjects (and Posterity till then) or that Job and his Friends, and Melchizedek and all his Subjects, were certainly damned. 6. That the Jews themselves were for the most part so wicked, that seeing few even of that little Country were saved, if you are sure that no others were saved, they were but a few in the world indeed. 7. That the Apostles (as is said) were in a state of Salvation, when under Christ's own teaching, they believed not many great Articles, now essential to the Christian Faith. So that all set together, will tell us, that the conclusion of the certain damnation of all without the Jewish and the Christian Church, seemeth not very desirable either as to the Glory of the good and gracious God, nor as to the good of Mankind; And therefore we should not propend that way in a case of doubtful arguing. And I desire the Reader impartially to consider, though Abraham knew not till God told him how bad Sodom was, yet when he asketh of God to spare it if there were but fifty Righteous in it▪ whether he do not imply that he thought most other Cities of that bigness had at least fifty righteous, if not more? For when God told him▪ that he would destroy it for the cry of their sins, he must needs judge it worse than ordinary? And was Abraham more ignorant than we? the Father of the Faithful? a Prophet that saw Christ's day and rejoy • ed?
93. It is a certain truth, that as God the Creator, so Christ the Redeemer doth extend his mercy farther than he himself is known: And as the S •• sendeth some light to the world before it riseth and is seen itself, so doth Christ send many excellent Gifts of his Grace, to those that know him not as Incarnate. And when all the world is delivered into his hand, we have reason to believe that the mercies which Philosophers, and all others in the world had, were communicated by him, (as the second Person, or Wisdom and Word undertaking man's Redemption, first, and as the Word Incarnate after.)
94. Those ancient Fathers of the Church, who lived near the Apostles times, (as Clem, Alex. &c.) who believed that some without the Church were saved, were never condemned for it as Heretics, no not by the busy condemning Ages.
SECT. VI. Of Universal Redemption.
95. By what hath been said, it appeareth how far Christ may be said to have died for all. Certainly (de re) all that Christ giveth to all, which is the fruits of his Death, he procured for all by his death: whatever we say of conditional Intentions, he certainly intended to give all that he giveth. But all these following particulars are given by Christ, either to all, or to more than the Elect.
1. The Human Nature, common to all, is advanced and brought nigh to God, in Christ's Incarnation. 2. Christ's Sacrifice for Sin, and his perfect Holiness, are so far satisfactory and meritorious for all men, as that they render Christ a meet Object for that Faith in him which is commanded men, and no man shall be damned for want of the satisfactoriness of Christ's Sacrifice, or for want of a Savior to die for him, and fulfil all Righteousness, but only for the abusing or refusing of his Mercy. 3. Christ's conquest of the Devil and the World, hath made man's conquests of them the more easy or possible. And his Victory over Death and his Resurrection, hath procured a Resurrection to all the World. 4. All men are his Subjects by Obligation, as he is the Redeemer, and so are under his healing, saving kind of Government. 5. A clearer revelation of Life and Immortality, is made by him, even to those that perish. And they have far greater helps than else they would have had, to set their hearts on a better World. 6. Especially a Law of Grace is made by Christ for all the world; (In the last Edition to all that hear the Gospel, and in the first to all the rest.) By the Promise of which, as by an Act of Oblivion, or Instrument of Donation, God hath Enacted and Given a full Pardon of all Sin to all Mankind, with Reconciliation, Adoption, and Right to Christ and Heaven, on condition of their acceptance of it, as offered them. So that men are pardoned and justified by that Instrument or Gift, if they will believe, and will not unthankfully reject their Mercies. 7. Apostles and ordinary Ministers were appointed to preach this Gospel to all the World, and make the Offer of Christ and Life to all men without exception. 8. The execution of the violated Law of Innocency is forborne to all men, in the greatest part; Judgments kept off; and they kept out of Hell, while they have time and means to prepare for their Salvation. 9. Many and great Mercies which signify God's goodness, and lead towards Repentance, are given to all the world; even mercies forfeited by sins against the Law of Innocency, and given by the Grace of our Redeemer. 10. It is made all men's duty, to believe (the Revelation made to the • ) to repent, to accept more mercy, and to seek their own Salvation. And such duty is not the smallest mercy. 11. He hath recorded his Word and Grace in the holy Scriptures, which all are allowed to use for their good. He hath filled his Doctrine or Gospel with such powerful convincing Reasons and Perswasions, which have a tendency to convince men, and convert them. 12. He secondeth his Word by many such Providences (in his Works, his Mercies, his Afflictions,) as greatly tend to win men's Souls. 13. He hath left his excellent Example to the world, which greatly tendeth to men's Conviction and Salvation. 14. He hath appointed several Church-Ordinances, which are mercies to more than the Elect; as is the visible communion also which they have with the Upright, and their examples, prayers, &c. 15. To all these he addeth an obligation on all Christians, to do their best to convert and save all others. 16. And the Office of Magistrates under Christ, is appointed for these saving uses, to promote the Salvation of the people. 17. Death itself is now turned into a medicinal means, by the prospect of it to convert and save men. 18. Usually God's patitience alloweth men time of Repentance, and taketh them not at the first denial, that they may consider and correct their former error. 19. Remedies are offered men fetched from Satan and Sin itself. The Tempter (by the malice of his temptations) oft detecteth his ow • fraud and men's danger. A natural enmity against Devils, and all that is known to be of them, is put into all Mankind: And Sin hath a sting to the Flesh itself, and is mad • such a misery to Sinners even in this life, as may much tend to alienate and deter them from it. And the world itself is made such a palpable vanity, and smart vexation, as tendeth to drive men to look out for a better, and not to love it above God. 20. Lastly, To all these means, there are certain internal motions, and strivings of the Spirit of Christ, which he commonly vouchsafeth m •• in some degree, and which irritate Conscience to do its office; and which if men will but so far yield to as they can, have a tendency to th ••• recovery. All these twenty sorts of means and mercies Christ giveth to all, or to more than the Elect.
96. It being certain de re that Christ so far died for all, as to procure them all such Benefits as he giveth them, the question remaining i • de nomine, whether it be a fit phrase to say that Christ died for all? And this is put out of question by the Scripture, which frequently useth it, as is proved by the fore-cited Texts. We may well speak as God ordinarily there speaketh.
97. There are certain fruits of Christ's death which are proper to the Elect, (or those that are in a state of Salvation). As 1. Grace eventually effectual working them to true Faith, Repentance and Conver •• on. 2. Union with Christ the Head, as his true living members. 3. The actual forgiveness of sin, as to the grand spiritual and the eternal punishment, Rom. 4. 1. 7. & 8. 1. 33, 34. 4. Our actual Reconciliation with God, so as to be beloved as his peculiar people. 5. Our Adoption and Right to the heavenly Inheritance, Psal. 4. 6. & 8. 16, 17, 18. 6. The Spirit of Christ to dwell in us, and sanctify us, by a habit of Divine Love, Rom. 8. 9, 13. Gal. 4. 6. Col. 3. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 16. & 2 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Joh. 4. 15. Joh. 3. 5, 6. 1 Cor. 6. 19. Gal. 5. 17, 18, 22. 2 Cor. 6. 1. 7. Employment in sincere holy acceptable Service, where they and their duties are pleasing to God, Heb. 11. 5, 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5, 9. 8. Access in prayer, with a promise of being heard in all that's good for us (in God's measure, time and way,) through Christ, Joh. 14. 13, 14. Heb. 10. 19, 20, 22. 9. Well-grounded hopes of Salvation and peace of Conscience thereupon, Rom. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. 10. Spiritual communion with the Church-mystical in Heaven and Earth, Heb. 12. 22, 23, 24. Eph. 2. 19, 20, 21, 22. 1 Cor. 3. 22. 11. A special interest in Christ's Intercession with the Father▪ Rom. 8. 32, 33, &c. 12. Resur • ection unto Life, and Justification in Judgment; Glorification of the Soul at Death, and of the Body at the Resurrection, Phil. 3. 20, 21. • Cor. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Rom. 8. 17, 18, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, &c.
All these Benefits Christ hath made a conditional Deed of Gift to all the world: But only the Elect accept them, and possess them. From whence we certainly infer, that Christ never absolutely intended or decreed that his death should eventually put all men in possession of these Benefits: And yet that he did intend and de • ree that by his death all men should have a conditional Gift of them. (As Dr. Twisse doth frequently assert.)
98. Christ therefore died for all, but not for all equally, or with the same intent, design or purpose: So that the case of difference in the matter of Redemption, is resolved into that of Predestination; and is but God's different Decrees about the effects of Redemption.
99. The particle [For] when we question whether Christ died [For▪] All is ambiguous: 1. It may mean [In the strict representation of the • ersons of all as several, so that they may be said to have died or satisfied • n and by him, as civilly in their own persons, though not naturally]. And thus Christ died not for all, or for any man: which yet is in some men's conceits, who thence say that Christ died not for all, because he did not so personate all. 2. It may signify [to die by the procurement of all • ens sins, as the assumed promeritorious cause.] And thus Par ••• himself in his Irenicon saith, That the sins of all men lay on Christ; and so he died for all, that is, for all men's sins as the cause of his death: And you may tell any wi • ked man, Thy sins killed Christ (whatever the deniers say to excuse them). 3. Or it meaneth, that Christ died fin • lly for the good of all men. And that is true, as afore explained. He died for the good of all; but not equally; that is, not with the same absolute Will, Decree or Intention of attaining their Salvation.
100. But the conditional New Covenant, without any difference in the tenor of it, doth equally give Christ, Pardon and Life to all Mankind (antecedently to men's rejecting the offer) on condition of acceptance. And Christ equally satisfied God's Justice for all the lapsed Race of Adam, so far as to procure them this Gift or Covenant, and the other foresaid common mercies: But not equally as to his Decree of the success: For there Election differenceth.
101. It is a thing so contrary to the nature of Christianity, and the Spirit of Christ in his Saints, to extenuate Christ's Merits, Purchase, Interest or Honor, or rob him of his due, that doubtless so many sincere Christians would never be guilty of such injurious extenuations, and narrowing of Christ's successes, but that they cannot reconcile special Grace with universal, and mistakingly judge them inconsistent: Nor durst opprobriously reproach his universal Grace, as they do, by calling it vain, lame, imperfect, a mockery, &c. if the conceit of their defending some truth by it did not quiet and deceive their Consciences. Whereas indeed universal Grace and special, do as perfectly and harmoniously consist, as Nature and Grace do, and as the foundation and the building, and as any generical and specific Natures: And so doth a general Decree, that [All who will believe shall be saved, and that this Promise shall be made to the world] with a special Decree that [Paul shall believe and be saved.]
But on two accounts I pass by all the rest about the extent of Redemption, 1. Because I must give you a special Disputation or Tractate on that subject. 2. Because the most Judicious of English Divines (so far as I can know them by their works) Bishop Davenant hath said so much in his two Posthumous Dissertation de Redempt. & Praedestinat. (Published out of the hands of Bishop Usher) as might suffice to reconcile contenders on these two points, were not men slothful in studying them or partial or incapable in judging of these matters.
SECT. VII. The Antecedent and consequent Will of God, &c.
102. The distinction of God's Antecedent and Consequent Will, used by Damascene, is by many applied to this controversy, but by none that I have read sufficiently explained, which is the cause that so many good men reject it, because they misunderstand it. It's truly said, that by his Antecedent Will, God would have all men to believe, repent and be saved, but by his Consequent Will, he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn. But then it must be understood, that this distinction i • not applied to the Will of God, as he is merely 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 God's Law is the signification of his Will, or his Will signified, or that his Judgment and •• cution is his Will declared; or that God's 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 threatening 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 justified by Faith in general, agreeth to the ages before Christ's Incarnation, and those since: But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justified. For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justified 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 sense, is all one as to be justified by becoming Christians. To be a Believer, a Disciple, and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sense.
106. The faith by which we are justified, as is aforesaid, is best understood 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 Savior and our Sanctifier, 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 human and not Scriptural at all: And though they may be well used with explicatory caution, as being well meant, yet they are more liable 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which no more signifieth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification, than 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ex operibus: And though sometime 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 be used, it is to signify 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 Savior; as the said Baptismal Covenant showeth; 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 believe in him as the purchaser of pardon;