Admonition to William Eyre, Section 4
§. 4.
THe next bout that you have with me, you begin thus, pag. 29. He may if be will compare his doctrine with Mr. Baxter's notions (whom Mr. W. follows at the very heels) Thes. 56.26.73, &c. in his Aph. who denies, That Christs obedience is the material, the imputation of his Righteousness the formall cause of our Iustification, or that saith is the instrument by which we do receive it.
Rep. What an unhappy name is mine to your mouth, that is seldom mentioned without sin! 1. I did not deny Christs obedience to be the material cause in the sense as Divines commonly so called it; and therefore not absolutely & without explication, as you recite it: But 1. As matter is proper to substance, so justification being an accident hath no matter. Are not you of the same minde? 2. As accidents do inhere in the subject, so the subject is commonly called their matter: In this sense too our Righteousness or Justification paflive is not in Christs Righteousness, but in our selves, and so our selves are the matter: for I think it is we that are justified Nor do I believe yet that it is one act whereby Christ and we are justified. There is then no other proper matter of our Justification (the later being not properly so called it self.) 3. But yet as our Divines commonly call Christs Righteousness of satisfaction the matter of ours, because it is the matter that merited it, so am I well content to do, and so I willingly profess that our righteousness is materially out of us, in Christs satisfaction: and therefore I there said that they speak nearer the matter that call it [the matter of our righteousness] then they that call it the matter of our active Iustification.
2. Your next charge is, that I deny Imputation to be the form. 1. I both grant it and deny it, as you understand the words. I did in that place take the word Imputation in one onelyonly sense, for Donation, and so said, it was rather in order of nature before Justification, i. e. sentential: and so saith many other. 2. But I would defire you and all men to take notice that those two pag. 218, 219. I have much altered, as finding the expressions unfit, and therefore do revoke them. And I say 1. That imputation is taken either for Donation or Adjudication, and that mental, by meer estimation, or Judicial by sentence. 2. That Justification is Constitutive, or Sentential. And so I judge 1. That imputation of Christs Righteousness taken for Donation is the form of constitutive Justification (Active Donation of Active Justification, and Passive Donation of Passive Justification.) 2. That sentential adjudication of Christs Righteousness to us, is the form of our sentential Justification. 3. And that after the manner of men, or by extrinsick denomination à novitate objecti, it may be said, that God doth impute righteousness to us by mental estimation or acceptation, or approbation, when he looks on us as then Righteous and not before, and therefore may be said then to begin so to esteem, accept or approve us, because before there was no object for an act of such denomination. And this may be called the form of a mental Justification. So in all three senses I say that Imputation is the form of Justification, but not one sort of Imputation the form of another sort of Justification; which was all that I there meant to deny, but unfitly expressed my mind, as in some other places of that Book, for which I have ever since suppressed it.
3. How far I deny faith to be the instrument, I refer the Reader to my Reply to Mr. Blake and Mr. Kendall. You a little after could say, You thought I argued rationally in that when it fitted your turn.
You add, He plainly ascribes the same kind of Causality to Christ and faith, making them to differ, Only secundum magis & minus, that Christ is the sine qua non principalis, and faith the sine qua non minus principalis.
Rep. 1. More calumny and untruth. 1. I said [Christs satissaction,] you say Christ: as if Christ caused no other way but by satisfaction. 2. The word [Only] is your notorious forgery. 3. I did in the same place expresly say that Christs satisfaction is the Meritorious cause, and sine qua non, in several respects. 4. It was only in sensu physico that I called it causa sine qua non (and so do your best friends, in sense) but a moral cause, yea of highest dignity I asserted it to be. 5. I affirmed that faith was no moral cause at all. And now let the Reader judge of your Veracity, and whether you recite not my words just as, you know who, is commonly said to have cited Scripture to Christ.
You adjoyn in a Parenthesis, [He might have listed sin in the same rank, which too, is a sine qua non of our Justification.
Rep. 1. Every thing sine qua non res existet, is not Causa sine qua non. Though this have no true causality, yet it is a medium ad finem, and hath a tendency to the effect, by which it doth so far emulate causality, that it receiveth the nature. But who ever called privation Causam sine qua non? and yet it is Principium sine quo non. Sin in being is the true cause of guilt: and guilt is the materia removenda, or the Terminus à quo of Justification, it being the very thing that Remission doth destroy: even as life doth death, or light darkness. 2. What if you had spoke sense in this? yet what had it been to the strengthning of your accusation? Would you have your Reader believe that I make sin to be the meritorious cause of our Justification, or to have that Dignity in moral causation which I ascribed to the satisfaction of Christ?
Next you say, That faith and works in a larger sense are meritorious causes of life and blessedness.
Rep. Another false witness: I mentioned merit in a larger improper sense: (as all Divines that ever I read against the Papists on that Point do) but never called them a Meritorious cause that I know of. Why would you print such things which you knew might be discovered? It may be you will say, It is all one. I answer, 1. You should then have said that I speak to that sense, and not that I speak so: Nay you should have put down my own words, and left the Reader to judge of the sense, and not put your own sense on them, and then say, I speak so. 2. It is not all one. For in denying them to be properly Merit, I deny them to be any way causing by that Merit: therefore you feign me to yield to a further impropriety then I did, or else to false doctrine. 3. But will you go tell the world what is my judgement, because I take the word Merit in the Fathers in a larger improper sense? Christ called Peter Satan, for his carnal counsel: Will you determine thence that Christ judged Peter to be the Devil? David was a worm and no man in improper sense: Must he needs be lasht by you for speaking false doctrine in so saying? Will you accuse Christ of Error for saying, He is the Vine, and his Father the Husbandman? He is the Way, the Door, the Shepherd, &c? The word Reward is oft enough used in Scripture, and so is the word [Worthy:] and yet you conclude they are both used improperly: And will you therefore say that Christ was a Papist, or Socinian, or Erroneous, for using those words improperly? Having spoken so much to your Head, let me say this to your Heart: Brother, you engaged your self in Baptism to fight against the Devil: your life is or should be a continual combat against him: How comes it to pass then that you have so learned his accusing art, when you should have learned of Christ to be holy, and to love your brother, and to speak the truth? I do seriously advise you to repent of these ways, and to be think you whether your opinions encourage you not hereto. If you reject this wholsom advice, take heed that it rise not up against you in judgement, and if you proceed in such courses impenitently, take heed lest those sins prove unpardoned hereafter, which you say were pardoned before you believed, or repented, or were born. Because I desire it may not be so, therefore do I wran you.
Pag. 30. you say, Too many of our Protestants (setting aside the word Merit, which yet Mr. B. thinks may be admitted) do tread directly in their steps; they ascribe as much to works as Papists do.
Rep. 1. It seems then other Protestants are as much Papists herein as I, in sense, though not in word. 2. Another slander you are guilty of (I say Guilty, for all you say its pardoned before committed.) Did ever I say The word Merit may be admitted. Shew where if you can. I said indeed that in that large improper sense, Works may be called Merits, thereby intending no Moral admission of it: but only a capacity in the term, to signifie such a thing by improper use. But I never said that it is no sin in them that do use words so improperly, or that it may be admitted. For my part, I think the danger is so great, that the very use of the word is to be avoided by us, except in interpretations of others, or with them that will use it whether we will or not; and so we must speak to men in their own language sometime, or say nothing. 3. Better men then you or I, have used the word Merit, even the Church of Christ, the Councils and Fathers for 1400 years and more: And Austin that most eminently vindicated the glory of free grace, yet never disused this word himself. If I have sinned therefore but as all the Church hath done so long, and in its spring, I hope I am no Papist. 4. I would again have you and all men take notice how these overdoing men are the greatest Undoers. How could this man credit Popery more almost then he doth? As bad as I am (which is bad I confess) yet if he could make all my neighbours believe that Papists be such as I, he would do more to make them Papists, then such arguings as this Book contains would undo. And I think some R…lers that now may be in the mind to deny Papists the liberty of their Religion, or at least of preaching to others, would grant them both, if they thought that the Religion of Papists were no worse then mine? So the argument would run thus; R.B. is a Papist: But he should have liberty: Therefore Papists should have liberty. But yet this is not that I aim at: But that he should place Popery in a thing which the Church hath used for so many hundred years, even as high as any Ecclesiastical History or Writing can give us light, is not this the way to make all turn Papists, and say, Hath Christ had no Church but Papists so long? then we will be Papists too: For sure the Head had still a Body. Well, when God will heal his Churches divisions, he will teach men moderation.