Admonition to William Eyre, Section 2
§. 2.
THe first place that I observe you falling on me, is Pag. 25. about Maccovius, where you say [Though one of our late writers, (Mr B. App. p. 147.) mentions this Doctors opinion with much contempt and oscitancy, calling his Assertions strange, sensless and abhorred (which is the less to be regarded) seeing he usually metes out the same measure unto all men else, whose Notions do not square with his own mold.]
Rep. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. My words of Maccovius doctrine I refer to the consideration of any that are impartial: for my part I cannot repent of them, any more then for saying that whoredom or drunkenness are to be abhorred. But that I [usually mete out the same measure to all men else whose Notions square not with my mold,] is a gross untruth, which any man that converseth with me, and hath read my writings, may quickly know. But let's hear your proof.
[As Dr. Twiss, Mr. Walker, and them that hold the Imputation of Christs active Righteousness whom he calls, A sort of Ignorant and unstudied Divines, &c.
Rep. Divers more gross falshoods in these few words, are added to the rest. I am loath to call you Antinomian, but if the ninth Commandment be Law, I am sure you make as bold to break it, if that be Antinomianism, as most that I have dealt with. 1. Why did you not quote the place where I [mete out the same measure] to Dr. Twiss? Mr. Kindal accuseth me of sleighting him indeed; and what is my language? why I call him [that most excellent famous Divine.] But I judge him to mistake in saying Remission of sin is from eternity: that is, I judge him not Infallible nor free from error: Thus Protestants abuse all men, and Papists all save the Pope and his General Council. 2. For Mr. Walker, I confess I spoke undiscreetly, as having no call to meddle with him, and I hereby revoke it, and do repent it, that I intimated him to be Ignorant, and that I medled with his Reviling… But yet I will take no man for a competent Judge of my fault, that hath not read his Book against Mr. Goodwin, and Mr. Gatakers Book against him in Defence of Mr. Wotton. 3. It is here intimated, that the cause of my speech was his differing from my mold: that is, as he means my opinions (for indeed the Scripture is my mold: Whereas the reason of my words against Mr. Walker, was his exceeding hard language to his Brethren; which as being against love and peace, I so far reprehended, as to say [He strongly reviled and weakly disputed] when in discourse and Pulpit he had done so much for above 20 years, against such learned, choice servants of God, as Mr. Wotton, Mr. Bradshaw, &c. and when in the Press the term Heretick, Blasphemer, &c. are so familiar; and he even proceeds to the Curse of Anathema Maran-atha. But what if I spoke unreverendly to this Reverend man, in saying he Beviled? is it just that I be accused of doing so to all men, or any others, when I never was guilty? 4. Next I am charged with the like, as to ["them that hold the Imputation of Christs active Righteousness.] Another falshood, as thus without limitation expressed: For I there professed to hold it my self, as part of satisfaction, and I hold it as Meritorious of all that higher felicity then the first Covenant gave (if there by any such:) But it was only one sort or sense of Imputation there explained which I spoke against. 5. Another untruth it is, that I [call these, A sort of ignorant unstudied Divines:] The words are these [The maintainers of it, beside some Able men, are the vulgar sort of unstudied Divines, who having not ability or diligence to search deep into so profound a Controversie, do still hold that opinion which is most common and in credit.] Where I divide those that are for this way into two sorts: some Able men, and others the common unstudied Divines that take it on credit: And this is a known truth that too many such there are, that so receive even much of their Religion: As if you did not think so your self of the most that are against your particular opinion? Do you not think they go for company against you? So I do not call all Ignorant that go that way, nor any man because he goes that way.
You add of Maccovius [I dare say his Arguments in this particular will not seem so weak and ridiculous as Mr. Baxter makes them, to an indifferent reader that shall compare them with the exceptions that he hath shaped unto them. Sharp Censures are but dull Answers.]
Repl. I am not desirous to blast the reputation of that Learned man, if I were of any power to do it. But I confess his Doctrine in the matter of Justification I would have all friends of mine avoid; and I took it for my duty so to tell them: which I know not why you should be so offended at. I suppose you know how the Synod of Dort judged of his harsh language in another case, wherein he opposed Lubbertus.
And seeing I am thus brought to take notice of the Witnesses that you produce as for your Cause; give me leave a little to review them.
The first is Mr Pemble: But as Mr. Pemble is for you in his Vind. Grat. so when he came purposely to treat of that subject, it seems he changed his judgement: For in his Treat. of Justification, he saith as much of that as most of your adversaries: I pray you read him Pag. 15. c. 2. & p. 22, 23, 24, 57. and then you will sure boast of M. Pemble no more: If he were once of your mind and afterward rejected it, as he seems fully to have done, that is no great credit to it.
Your second is Mr. Rutherford, who you say hath said as much as any of you. Wil you give the Reader leave to judge how far M. Rutherford was for you, by these words of his own, written after a fuller knowledge of the men of your Sect; In his Trial and Triumph of Faith, pag. 55. Serm. 8. he answers these Objections (against his first words, wherein he asserteth that [The condition of the Covenant is faith: Holiness and sanctification the Condition of the Covenants.) This do was the condition of the Covenant of Works; This Believe is the condition of this Covenant.]
[Object. 1. But some teach that this Covenant hath no Condition at all, so Dr. Crispe and other Libertines.] [Obj. 2. I will put my law in your inward parts, is no condition to be performed by us, but by God only.] [Obj. 4. Believing and obedience is but a consequent of the Covenant, not an Antecedent: so I must believe upon other grounds, but not in way of the condition of the Covenant, for in that tenor I am to do nothing.] [Obj. 5. The Covenant is Gods love to man to take him to himself, and that before the children do good or ill, and to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt.] [Ob. 6. Our act of believing is a work, and no work can be a condition of the Covenant of grace: yea Christ alone justifieth: Faith is not Christ, nor any partner with him in the work; yea we are justified before we believe, and faith only serveth for the manifestation of Justification to our conscience, for we believe no lie, when we believe we are justified, but a truth; then it must be true, that we are justified before we believe.] These Mr. Rutherford answers as the Libertines Objections. It would be too tedious to recite his Answers, only some of that to the last I will recite.
He saith, p. 59, 60, 61, 62. [Christ alone as the meritorious cause justifieth, and his imputed Righteousness as the formal cause: and this way Christ alone justifieth the Patriarchs, &c. and all believers before they be born, but this is but the fountain ready to wash: but believe it Christ washeth not, while we be foul, &c. nor is his name our Righteousness while we be sinners (i.e. unrenewed.) 1. Men not born cannot be the object of actual Righteousness; the unborn child needeth no actual application of Christs eye salve, gold, righteousness: Now Justification is a real favour applied to us in time, just as Sanctification in the New birth, &c. We cannot be justified before we believe. 1. We are damned before we believe, Joh. 3.2. He that is justified is glorified, Rom. 8.30. 3. We are born and by nature the sons of wrath, Eph. 2.2, 7. Rom. 7.5, 6. & 6.14. 4. By faith we are only united to Christ, possessed of him, Christ dwelling in us, &c. 5. This Justification without faith casteth loose the Covenant, I will be your God: But here's a condition, God is not bound and we free: Therefore this is the other part, Ye shall be my people. Now it is taught by Libertines, that there can be no closing with Christ in a promise that hath a qualification or condition expressed, and that conditional Promises are Legal, &c. (Here he rejecteth Conditions, 1. In the Arminian sense, as they are the work of Free-will not acted by the predetermining grace of Christ. 2. In the Popish sense, as they are meritorious, as work of wages: and so I reiect them too.) 6. Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, takes it for granted that Iustification is a work done in time, transient on us, not an immanent and eternal action, remaining either in God from eternity, or performed by Christ on the Cross before we believe, and so never taketh on him to prove that we are justified before we either do the works of the Law, or believe in Iesus Christ, but that we are Iustified by faith, &c. and faith is not the naked Manifestation of our Iustification, so as we are Iustified before we have faith: Satisfaction is indeed given to Iustice by Christ on the Cross, for all our sins before we believe, and before any justified person who lived this 1500 years was born; but, alas, that is not Iustification, but only the meritorious cause of it: that is, as if one should say, This wall is white since the Creation of the world, though this very day only it was whited, because whiteness was in the world since the Creation.
And that you may know the true nature of Justification, and Mr. Kendall and you may see what others say of the nature of the act as well as Mr. Woodbridge and I, mark the next words [Justification is a Forensical sentence in time pronounced in the Gospel, and applied to me Now, and never till the instant now, that I believe: Its not formally an act of the understanding to know a truth concerning my self; But its an heart-adherence of the affections to Christ as the Saviour of sinners, at the presence of which a sentence of free absolution is pronounced: Suppose the Prince have it in his minde to pardon twenty malefactors; his grace is the cause why they are pardoned, yet are they never in Law pardoned, so as they can in Law plead immunity, till they can produce their Princes royal sealed pardon.] So Serm. 18. pag. 148. [Nay give me leave to say, that Antinomians make Iustification and free grace their common place of Divinity, as if they onelyonly had seen the visions of the Almighty and no other, but they are utterly ignorant thereof: For they confound and mix what the word distinguisheth, because Justification is onelyonly a Removal of sin by a Law-way, so that in Law it cannot actually condemn.] So pag. 151. [Iustification freeth us in this life from all Law guilt and Obligation to wrath, which is but the second act of sin.] So pag. 153. [All which are true in a Law-sense, and in a Legal and Moral freedom from sin, &c.] and [for they are in their actual guilt as touching the Law sting, and power, as no sins, &c. removed and taken away quoad actualem reatum eternae mortis, in their Law-demerit and guilt, &c. This is a Law removal of sin.] So oft pag. 154. & passim: & p. 162. speaking of Christs sufferings [This threefold taking away of sins I clear from Scripture. 1. Christ taketh away our sins on the Cross Causatively, and by way of merit, whileas he suffereth for our sins on the Cross. So Joh. 1.29. 1 Cor. 5.21. 1 Pet. 2.24. Isa. 53.10. Now this was the paying of a ransom for us, and a Legal translation of the eternal punishment of our sins, but it is not Iustification, nor ever called Iustification: there is a sort of imputation of sin to Christ here, and a summe paid for me; but, with leave, No formall imputation, no forensical, and no personal Law-reckoning to me who am not yet born, far less cited before a Tribunal, and absolved from sin: When Christ had compleatly paid this summe, Christ was justified Legally, as a publique person, and all his seed Fundamentally, Meritoriously, Causatively, but not in their persons. There is a second removal of sin, when the believer is justified by faith This which is formally the Iustification of the believing sinner, the Believers person is Accepted, Reconciled, Iustified, and really translated by a Law change, from one state to another.]
I have been the longer in reciting Mr. Rutherford's words, 1. Because of themselves they suffice to confute your Opinion. 2. Because you so talk of [the Protestant Divines and Churches,] and yet of those few that you produce for you, it may appear what they judge of your Cause. 3. That your allegations may be understood hereafter by your Reader.
Your third Dr. Twiss, and also Maccovius, I acknowledge are for you in the point now in question.
Mr. Parker's words imply no more then Ratherfords, viz. That in Christs Iustification we were justified causally; but that is a term of diminution, as to the formal Iustification; for till it be extra causas, It doth not exist: and it is an improper use of the word justification.
Chamier I have oft noted to have some passages that make for your Opinion: but that he contradicteth them elsewhere, I think is not hard to manifest. I will not deny the truth for the credit of the man.
Calvin is so express and frequent against you, as few men more. I came but now from citing some passages to that end against Ludiomaeus Colvinus, and therefore will not now lose time in doing it again, when all men that will reade his Books, may quickly finde that he was no friend to the Justification of Infidels. I marvell rather that you had not cited Zuinglius, who indeed is blamed for leaning that way, and called Seneca by such a Christian name unless perhaps he was deceived by Hierome, as Hierome was by his counterfeit Epistle, and thought Seneca a believer indeed) And you might have alleadged an inclination in Erasmus for you, who could scarce forbear saying, Sancte Socrates ora pro nobis. Calvin's words mean but this much (which you cite) that seeing God offereth Remission, and we do but Accept it by faith, therefore God doing his part in offering it, he saith that respectu Dei Justificatio fidem praecedit, though we are not actually justified till after. For that offer is common to Infidels. In that very discourse Calvin hath many passages against you: As pag (mihi fol.) 390. Nos autem meminerimus fidei naturam à Christo aestimandam esse: quia quod nobis offert Deus in Christo, non nisi fide recipimus. Proinde quicquid nobis est Christus id ad fidem transfertur, quae nos compotes & Christi & omntum ejus bonorum sacit. Ne{que} aliter verum esset illud Johannis, fidem nostram esse victoriam, qua mundus vincitur, nisi nos in Christum insereret qui solus est mundi victor.]
Zanchy in the words cited by you useth inconvenient expressions; but that he is fully against you, is manifest in many places of his Writing. But I have newly Vindicated Zanchy from Ludiomaeus Colvinus, who urgeth the same words as you do.
So I have done Alstedius too, and therefore shall say no more of him.
So also have I vindicated Amesius against the same Colvinus: and as for this testimony which you adde more then he, viz. ex Antisynodal. p. 164. his [atiquo modo] in favorem restituti, by which he there expoundeth reconciliation, is so stretching a word, as may well be yielded true: for it will let in as improper a reconciliation as yours: but yet Amesius will not use the word Justification so improperly, at least without discovering the impropriety.