Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, Part 2 · Chapter 61
CHAP. LXI. How Faith justifieth, and the Antinomian errour discovered in this point.
SAltmarsh aSaltmarsh Free grace, pag. 188.189.saith, That neither Faith nor Repentance are to be preached, the one without the other, neither without Christ, and yet neither of them as bringing in Christ to the soule, but Christ bringing in them.
But if he charge us with Preaching faith and repentance one from another, or both without Christ, hee should have proved his charge. 2. He badly joyneth them both together. For 1. Faith is a condition of justification; wee are justified by faith, not by repentance. 2. We receive Christ by bIoh. 11.12.faith. He cEphes. 3.17.dwelleth in our hearts by Faith; dHab. 2.4. Rom▪ 1.17▪We live by faith; none of these can be said of Repentance. 3. Saltmarsh saith, this is to debase faith; yea, but it is to make swine wallowing in their lusts one with Christ, though they beleeve not: heare his reasons.
Saltmarsh Free grace 1.8. Saltmarshes reas…s to prove we are not … by …, answered.Object. 1. Christ is not ours, by any act of our owne, but by an infinite act of Gods imputing his righteousnesse. Ergo, Christ is not ours by faith.
Answ. Christ is not ours, by any act of our owne, as by a ransome, a meritorious and principall cause. True, Ergo, not by faith, as a condition knowing, apprehending, feeling, applying, receiving, opening the everlasting doores, that the King of glory may enter in. Its false. So bread is ours onelyonly, by an omnipotent act of him that causeth the earth to bring forth, as by the first principall and effectuall cause: Ergo, Bread is not ou…s in a civill way, by plowing, sowing, earing, and in a spirituall way, by laying hold by Faith on the Covenant, in which the world, the things of this life are made ours, 1 Cor. 3.21. this is a laxe and vaine consequence.
Object. 2. If Faith should give us an interest in Christ, then as our Faith increaseth, Saltmarsh Free grace. 189.our interest increaseth, and wee should be more and more justified and forgiven.
Answ. Nor doth this follow, but onelyonly wee should bee the more assured, the stronger our faith is. And the reason why it followeth not, is this; Faith justifieth not as great or small, or as strong in life, or as weake, but as living and true. And so it followeth not, because this begger hath a stronger arme then a paralitick begger, that therefore hee receiveth more money then the paralitick doth.
Object. 3. If Christ be ours by faith, then when faith ceaseth, we should cease to be justified.
Answ. Nor doth that fellow more, then because a begger is not ever in the act of stretching out his hand, and receiving, that therefore he receiveth nothing; and because a hungry man doth not eat when he should sleepe, night and day, therefore hee is not fed; as if Christ should reach pardon and righteousnesse to us, when we actually beleeve, and when ever out of infirmity, or any other way, we doubt, and our feet slip, hee should pull in his pardon, and strip us naked of our wedding garment, a Novation way of despairing.
Object. 4. Can a sinner bee too foule for a Saviour, too wounded for a Physitian to heale? and too filthy for a Fountaine opened to wash?
Ans. Nothing is concluded against justification by faith; but it presumeth a beleever the humblest nothing; that is, to be so proud that he cannot looke out to Christ for salvation, physick, and to be washen, he is so filthy, sicke, wounded, and polluted: a beleever thinketh not himselfe too good, and too holy a sinner to be washt and made faire; like some, in whom pride and want contest; begge they must for extreame necessitie, and begge they cannot, for extreame hautinesse, because they beg not in Silks and Purple.
Object. 5. He that offers Christ, offers all conditions in him, both of Faith and repentance, for Christ is exalted to give repentance.
Answ. The Argument presupposeth a faith of the sinners owne creating, which is a bastard, and cannot owne, nor receive Christ, and a condition of the same nature. In Justifying the ungodly, Christ both works the condition, and that which is called the hire (though indeed no money, no price, is Faiths money and price) and giveth both; as in effectuall calling, Christ is both without doores knocking, Revel. 3.20. and within doores opening, Act. 16.19. yet he never cometh in, but upon condition we open, and the condition is his owne worke; he commeth in to no soule in a miracle, when the doores are shut, for by his grace he removeth the handles of the barre; so in justification, hee both offereth imputed righteousnesse, so the sinner beleeve, and he works beliefe, and bringeth of his owne, when he comes to sup with us; for repentance we give it not the roome of Faith, as Antinomians doe.
Object. 6 It is no more to offer Jesus Christ, Saltmarsh ibid. 190.then any grace of Christ to a sinner; for a sinner is as unprepared and unfit for the one, as the other, equally in sinne and pollution to both.
Answ. All proceeds on a false ground, and concluds as much against Paul, Rom. 3. & 4. Gal. 2. & 3. as against us, to wit, that we hold faith to be a meritorious preparation of our owne to conquiesse justification, and freely imputed righteousnesse, and we are alike unprepared for Christ, as for Faith, and for Faith as for Christ, except Christ give both freely. But it followeth not therefore, Christ justifyeth no ungodly man, but a beleever onelyonly; no more then it followeth, faith is no meritorious qualification for life; then must it follow, he that beleeveth not, is not damned, and he that beleeveth is not saved, which is down right against the Gospel.
Saltmarsh ibid. 190.Object. 7. This spirituall work is a new creation, Ergo, it needeth no preparation.
Answ. It is a creation or a work of omnipotency onelyonly, that Christ reveale to me that he dyed to justifie sinners, and to justifie me; then it needeth no faith to my sense and feeling, to apprehend and know that Christ justifyeth me. This consequent Antinomians will deny; then we may deny their consequence. For conditions are preparations of grace, such as faith is, cannot be contrary to rewards and favours that omnipotency onelyonly can worke.
Object. 8. Should sinners refuse to receive bloud freely, and of grace holden forth, because their vessels are not cleane enough for it, when it is such a bloud as makes the vessels clean for it selfe?
Answ. Grants all; then must it follow, we are not justified, except by a faith as strong and great, that it is free of sinne, and condignely meritorious, worthy of Christs bloud, as a cleane vessell is fit to receive so precious bloud; we grant, we receive not first imputed righteousnesse, and Christs bloud in a cleane vessell, with a faith perfect, or in a soule void of sin; yet its as true, that no unbeleever remaining an unbeleever, can receive Christ; and it is as true, Christ afore hand fitteth the vessell, and giveth faith first, and then his owne bloud, and imputed righteousnesse, and both without price and hire. But hence is never concluded, Ergo, Christs righteousnesse is not made ours by Faith, apprehending Christs righteousnesse, as a condition or instrument, but the contrary must be a true consequence.
Object. 9. If God justifie no man but a beleever, then hee doth not, as the Scripture saith, justifie the sinner and the ungodly: for a beleever is godly, holy, and cleane from sinne.
Answ. We grant, the Lord doth not justifie an ungodly man, as an ungodly man, and as voyd of faith, for by order of nature, he is first a beleever, and in Christ, and then he is justified, though there be no ordinary time between his ungodlinesse and his justification, the Lord justifieth the ungodly, in sensu diviso, not in sensu composito, as the Scripture saith, The lame man shall hEsai. 35.6.leap, the tongue of the dumbe shall sing, and iMath. 11.5.the blind see, the deafe heare; but no man dreamed that the lame as lame remaining lame, does leap, and that the dumb remaining dumb can sing, and that the blind, as blind, and wanting eyes and organes doe see. I confesse, if Christ had caused the blind, as blind, to see; and the dead, as dead, and lying in their graves, to live; the myracle should put all Divines to Schoole againe, to trie their contradictions, if one, and the same man, at the same time, in the same sense, foreign, as Aristotle taught us, be both lame and whole in the legges, blinde and seeing, deafe and hearing, dead and living; it may be Antinomians who will have the beleevers Adultery no Adulterie, have a way of Logicke of their owne, to goe with Libertines, who said, knowing sinne to be sinne, holynesse to be holynesse, was a worke of the flesh, and of old Adam, who through eating the forbidden fruit, knoweth good and evill. But so you will say, If God justifie the ungodly, beleeving, which is an act of sanctification, must goe before justification, then are wee sanctified, and can doe that which is pleasing to God, before we be justified, and be in Christ, then must we please God, as beleevers, ere we be in Christ, and so exercise acts of the life of grace, before we be in the Vine tree, and before we be branches ingraffed in Christ; for sure, to beleeve is an act of the life of Christ in us.
Answ. If beliefe or faith be an instrument, and so a cause in its kind, or a condition (call it as you will) without which Paul in the Epistle to the Romanes, and Galathians, and Hebrewes, &c. saith, we cannot be justified, I see not any inconveniencie of this order.
1. The sinner dead in sinne, a sonne of wrath.
2. A walker after the course of the prince Sathan, The order of conversion, and …f the Lords justifying the sinner.who ruleth in the children of disobedience.
3. The Gospel of free grace is Preached to the dead, to the Elect, heires of wrath, but freely for Christs sake, and with an intent on the Lords part of the same circumferance and spheare, with the decree of the election to glory, though they know not.
4. The Law and curses of it preached to them (with the Gospel, lest they despaire) to humble them.
5. The sinner Legally humbled, slaine in the dead throw, Rom. 7.11. with a hal…e-hope of mercy, prepared for Christ, though the preparation have no, 1. promise of conversion. 2. No ground, nature, or shaddow of merit. 3. No necessary connexion with conversion, save onelyonly that God may intend the same preparation, in an elect, for conversion; which he intendeth for no conversion in a reprobate.
6. The stony heart of meere grace removed, in the same moment, a new heart put in him, Ezech. 36.26, 27. Zach. 12.10. Deut. 30.6. Jer. 31.33. or the habit of sanctification infused.
7. In the same moment, the soule beleeveth in him that justifieth the ungodly.
8. In the same moment, God, for Christs sake, of meere grace justifieth the beleeving sinner.
And every one of these necessarily presupposeth the former. Nor can Antinomians free themselves,How the infused habit of sanctification, and the habit of faith, and the act of beleeving, by order of nature, goe before justification. or any with them, of the pretended inconveniencie, they would put on us, to wit, that we must beleeve, before wee be actually joyned to Christ, in justification; for they will have us justified, and so please God, and actually injoy the fruit of election, which is justification, Rom. 8.29. before we beleeve, that is, before we feele, and to our owne sense know, that we are justified. Now this feeling and knowledge, is an intellectuall act of the life of God, and the habit of an infused new heart, of regeneration, as well as our justifying Faith, and so we yet exercise an act of the life of Christ, which must bee an act of saving grace, actus secundus, or a life-operation flowing from the infused habit of sanctification, before we be justified, in the sense, that Scripture speaketh of justification, which saith all alongs, Wee are justified by faith. God justifieth the man that beleeves in him that justifieth the ungodly. Now sure the Lord giveth to us faith to beleeve justification, before he justifie, in the sense, that Paul speaketh of justification. For the Lord giveth the Spirit of sanctification, of grace, of adoption, of faith, &c. for all these are vitall and supernaturall acts of the same Spirit, to these that have not the Spirit at first, to the uncircumcised in heart, Deut. 30.6. to the wildernesse and dry ground, Esai. 44. vers. 3. to these who pollute his name among the heathen, and have stony and rockie hearts, Ezech. 36.21, 26. to these that are a dying, polluted in their owne bloud, Ezech. 16.6, 8. to those that are dead in sinnes and trespasses, Ephes. 2.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. and this the Lord doth, for Jesus Christs sake freely, Gal. 4.4, 5. then before we be actually in Christ, by justification, and branches in him, by order of nature; first, wee so farre find favour in the Lords eyes, or please him, or rather he is of free grace pleased with us, that he giveth his holy Spirit to us, and upon the same ground may we, being yet not justified; and so, in that sense, not in Christ, by order of nature, first beleeve, before we be justified; nor is it justification that formally united us in this actuall union, as branches to the Vine tree, but union is a fruit of life, as is the joyning of soule and body together, and so a fruit of the infused life of God, or of the habit of sanctification, and thus it followeth not, that we beleeve before we be united to Christ, as branches to the Vine tree, but onelyonly that we beleeve, by order of nature, before we be justified, which the Scripture saith.
But to returne, we are not obliged to M. Saltmarsh, who argueth against justification by faith, slandering Protestants most ignorantly, and the doctrine of Paul, as if to bee justified by faith, were to bee justified by a faith of our owne framing, without the grace of Christ, or by faith as a merit and hire▪ that hireth and purchaseth Christ to be ours.
It is a curious, and an unedifying question, to search out (as kCornwell, 5… Its not m…ch up or downe, whether Faith be active or passive in justification.Cornewell doth) Whether faith be active or passive in receiving Christs imputed righteousnesse: though if hee speake of actuall beleeving, to call it passive, is an unproper speach, i. we hold that foreign credere, to beleeve is not imputed, as our righteousnesse, which is Socinianisme.
2. That for the dignity, worth, and merit of Faith, Christs righteousnes is not imputed to us; and therefore neither wee, nor Scripture before us, saith, we are justified for Faith, but by Faith.
3. That Faith receiving Christ, is the free grace of God, given to us in the state of sinne. They say, The begger putteth forth an act or actions, both of petitioning for almes, and reaching out his hand to receive it, and so it is not every way, so of free grace, as Christs imputed righteousnesse is to us. But should we suppose the tongue and speach, the arme, and the act of stretching it forth to receive the almes, the sense of poverty, the opinion of the goodnesse of him, from whom he seeks almes, doth bow the consent and will, to seek almes, and receive it, were bestowed on the begger, of the same free grace and compassion of the giver of the almes, by which he giveth the almes; yee would say almes, and stretching out of the hand, were both of free grace, and the acts of the begger doe no wayes impeach the freedome of the grace of the giver. Now, here not onelyonly the gift of freely imputed righteousnesse, but faith, a mind to bel…ve, sense of poverty, and want of Christ; the actuall exercise of faith are all from the free grace of God, and so except one free grace, clash and counterworke against another; I see no inconvenience, to say by the act of Faith, as a condition, or instrument, we receive and apply Christs righteousnesse; and whether yee call it a hand, an instrument, an act of free grace, a condition; I judge there is no reason to contend for words: so yee say not, as Cornewell, Saltmarsh, and other Antinomians, Wee are justified, whether we beleeve or not and long, yea, from eternity, say some, before we beleeve.