A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Book 2 · Aphorism 85
Aphorism.
MƲeh less are any Promises or Benefits Page 250.of Christ the proper Object of Justifying Faith, as many Divines do mistakingly conceive.
Animadvers.
I confess I know not well what to make of this. Are no Promises the proper Object of justifying Faith? What hath Faith to lay h…ld on without a Promise? We cannot believe in Christ, but as he is promised and held our in the Gospel. First they saw the Promises, and then were perswaded of them, and embraced them, Heb. 11. 13. By the Promises (as I said) are meant the things promised; but neither a Promise without a thing promised, nor a thing promised without a Promise, is imaginable. Perhaps you will say, The Promises are the ground of Faith, not the object of it. Indeed, if we distinguish betwixt a Promise, and a thing promised, yet the Promise it self must be believed: And indeed, neither can we believe a Promise, but we must believe the thing promised; nor can we believe a thing promised, but we must believe the Promise.
Reply.
I spake as other men, that make one object, even Christ himself to be the direct or proper object: But I repent of the narrow use of the word [Proper Object;] for indeed, God, Heaven, the Promise, the Benefits, may be called Objects of it too. Yet,
1. It is plainly expressed, and I doubt not but you have many a time read the like before in the Learnedst Divines; viz. That the object of that Faith which justifies, is not axioma aliquod, but an incomplex term, viz. Christ himself, Ames. Medull. l. 1. c. 3. §. 9. In Scripturis vel promissionibus, enunciationes continent & exhibent objectum fidei, vocantur{que} objectum fidei per metonymiam adjuncti. Bonum quod proponitur assequendum qua tale, est finis & effectum fidei, non proprie objectum ipsum: Illud vero cujus vi nitimur, in assecutione boni illius est proprium objectum fidei, 1 Cor. 1. 23. Praedicamus Christum, & 2. 2. non statui quicquam sici inter vos nisi Jesum Christum, 2 Cor. 5. 19. Deus in Christo. So also cap. 27. §. 15, 17. Fides igitur illa proprie dicitur Justificans qua incumbimus in Christum ad remissionem peccatorum & salutem. Christus enim est adaequatum objectum fidei, quatenus fides Justificat. Fides enim non alia ratione Justificat nisi quatenus apprehendit illam justitiam propter quam Justificamur: Illa autem justitia non est in veritate alicujus axi…matis, cui assensum praebemus, sed in Christo solo, 2 Cor. 5. 21. Hinc toties illae in N. T. repetitae conciones quae Justificationem in persona sola Christi quaerendam ostendunt, Joh. 1. 12. & 3. 15, 16. & 6. 40, 47. & 14. 1, 54. Rom. 4. 5. & 3. 26. Acts 10. 43. & 25. 18. Gal. 3. 26. So also in Disput. de Fid. divin. verit. And I have shewed you, Append. p. 111, 112, &c. that Dr. Preston and others most frequently have the same.
2. I fully enough (I thought) opened my meaning to you to this effect. Justifying Faith is the motion of the whole Soul to Christ. It containeth therefore the action of both Faculties. In the intellect Assent is its act, and the Word or Promise is its nearest object, though not its chief (as I opened my meaning, p. 260.) For as Ames. Medul. l. 2. c. 5. §. 23, 24. Hoc objectum est immediatè semper aliquod axioma vel enunciatio sub ratione veri, sed illud in quo principaliter terminatur fides, de quo & propter quod assensus praebetur illi axiomati per fidem, est ens incomplexum sub ratione boni, Rom. 4. 21. Heb. 11. 13. Actus (enim) credentis non terminatur ad axioma, sed ad rem, fatentibus scholasticorum clarissimis. Ratio est: quia non formamus axiomata, nisi ut per ea de rebus cognitionem habeamus. Principalis igitur terminus in quem tendit actus credentis, est res ipsa, quae in axiomate praecipue spectatur. But as the act of the Ʋnderstanding is but preparatory, introductory and subservient to that of the Will, whereby the Soul cleaveth to God as good, being but the means to it, or the imperfect Rudiments of it: So Assent to the truth of the Promise, is but such an initial or introductory act, as to Consent, or the Wills Acceptance of the good offered. These acts of the intellect (in affectionate or practical matters) are but imperfect acts of the Soul, and so but imperfecte humani vel morales: And therefore we commonly distinguish intellectual Acts and Vertues from moral. Not that I think they are not truly humani & morales, but it is in a more imperfect kind; as the digestion in the stomach, before Sanguification: Nor do I agree to Amesius, who placeth justifying Faith only in the Will (no more than to Camero, who placeth it only in the Intellect:) But till it come to the Will, it is not perfect, nor so fully to be ascribed to the whole man. And therefore saith Gibieuf de Libert. Finis intellectus est veri notitia, sed finis hominis intelligentis est amor Dei. As the sense is for the Intellect, so the Intellect is for the Will here. And therefore it is the act of the Will that is the compleat and principal act of justifying Faith, and the object of that act is the proper principal object of justifying Faith.
Now this compleat principal act I mean not by all this, that only this which I call the principal act, is the Condition of our Justification; but that it is the most special act implying the rest, as the generical. Yea, and the sinal object is the principal in excellency; as the end is better than the means as such, though the mediate object be the special proper object. And as when believing and consenting to my Physician, importeth that health and life is my end, and is so included or connoted in his Office or Relation: So Heaven, that is, God to be perfectly loved, and enjoyed, and obeyed, is the end of Christ's Mediat…ship, and the final and most excellent object of our Faith.of Faith; (viz. The Will's Acceptance, Election or Consent, velle bonum oblatum) hath not the Word or Promise for its proper material object; but Christ himself, as in his Office, and to the ends and uses of that Office; and so the benefits are final or remoter objects indeed, and still implied. The accepting of the Word, or the accepting of Justification, are neither of them this compleat special act of justifying Faith; but the accepting of Christ. As the act wherein the essence of Marriage doth principally consist, is not believing each others words (which is pre-requisite) nor yet accepting the riches or honours of each other: But accepting each other in the Conjugal Relations; or the Wills consent (and its expression, if we speak of it quoad forum exterius.) And the Condition of a womans enjoying her Husband's honour and estate, is not principally her believing him, nor yet her accepting his honour and estate; but her accepting himself in Marriage. So I think it is here. Yet the truth of God or his Word, is the object of that introductory initial act of justifying Faith, called Assent. Methinks this is so plain, that you may well know what to make of it. Ne{que} nobis absurdum videtur, sed valde consentaneum, actum illum quo tota anima Purificatur & Justificatur ad totam animam pertinere: ita ut in nudo intellectu habeat mitium, in voluntate complementum. Davenant. Deter. Q. 37. p. 166.