XV. CHAP. idolatry; it is by the same reason manifest, that they all agree in this meaning of both precepts. The first, therefore, forbiddeth the inward act of idolatry in the esteem of the mind; the second, the outward, tendered by some sign of it. it involves.] CHAPTER XVI. [OF THE CONDITION OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE, AND THE- [Justifying Now, as to the condition of the covenant of grace, it can faith, what be nothing else than justifying faith. Let men dispute as long as they please of regeneration, justification, sanctification, and adoption. That he, who is justified, is in the state of grace by the covenant of grace, is beyond dispute; and, by consequence, regenerate, sanctified, and adopted. And therefore I grant, that the Reformation hath great interest to insist upon justification by faith, to secure the right of believers in a comfortable assurance of the state of grace and salvation, by faithful endeavour to be attained. Not as if the Church of Rome did deny it; but because there is an effectual course taken, as they govern the Church, that few or none shall attain it. The truth hereof shall appear in due place. its true the im portance of it.] [What is § 2. In the mean time care is to be had, that the nature of nature, and justifying faith be so understood, that it be neither grounded upon Socinian confidence of man's free will, nor fanatic dictates of God's Spirit. I am not here to dispute over so large a business again: which I have set forth in brief in my Just Weights and Measures, at large in my Epilogue P. Here I shall think it a master-piece to make good this observation: -that the true notion of justifying faith determines all the controversies between the Reformation and the Church of Rome concerning a particular Christian as such; and that neither side necessarily transgresses the Catholic faith, when they refuse to explain themselves by it; and that those, who refuse this, necessarily fall either to the Socinians or to the Fanatics. [It lies between the § 3. It is well known, that the doctrine of the school, 0 cc. ix. xi. P Bk. II. Of the Cov. of Gr. cc. i.— ix., and c. xxx. § 10, sq. Epilogue, ibid., c. xxx. § 10, sq.; and Conclusion, § 66: Just Weights and Measures, c. ix. § 4, c. x. § 1—3, c. xi. § 1, c. xxi. § 6. XVI. opposite of Trent which the council of Trent canonizes, makes justifying faith CHAP. to be only the belief of the Christian faith that it is true'. There is another opinion, most received in the Reformation, opinions of as I suppose; that makes it to consist in trust and confidence the council of the grace of God to the faithful in and through Christ and of some Jesus s. The one of these goes before justification, the other of the Re-formation.] follows upon it. Between these two is the notion of Christianity; that is, the profession of Christian religion made sincerely to the Church, in behalf of God, at receiving the sacrament of baptism. This is that, which if we make to be the faith which alone justifieth according to St. Paul, we come to an end of all controversies relating to that point. So that, in the first signification, faith is said to justify by a metonymy of the cause, because it is the beginning of it: in the second, of the effect, because it follows upon it: properly and formally, only in this proper notion of faith. And so are all texts of Scripture concerning this question to be expounded. and New in the true notion of § 4. One thing I propose here to be considered; that,― [Both Old whereas our Lord by the gospel introduceth, not only matters Testaments of faith, only to be believed, but also precepts of life and concentre manners, to be observed by His disciples, the condition of our baptism requireth not only to believe all the matter of justifying faith.] faith, which the gospel declareth, but also to believe, that, living as the gospel requireth, we shall attain the world to come. For it is only the gospel, preached by our Lord and His apostles, that assures us, and requires us to believe, that we have eternal life, observing the terms of it. So that we need not dispute, whether or no the precepts of the gospel be the same with the precepts of the Law; there being no appearance, whether the same or not the same, that they were proposed for the condition of everlasting life by the letter of the Law. For, as it is granted, that they were so by the spiritual sense of the Law, so those, that understood them to be so, were justified by that faith from the beginning of the world: according to the doctrine of the apostles, disputing that the fathers were justified by faith, not by works; that is, not as Jews but as Christians, not by the Law but by the gospel, as the whole dispute importeth. And this true intent of the 22. See Epilogue, ibid., c. xxx. § 17 See ibid. § 11-15. CHAP. Law, set forth by the apostles, concentres the sense of the Old XVI. and New Testament in this one notion of justifying faith; and leads him, that follows the grain of the apostles' doctrine, from end to end of the Bible. [The true notion of justifying faith requires both the satis CHAPTER XVII. [THE TRUE NOTION OF JUSTIFYING FAITH CHECKS BOTH THE Now consider, how this notion checks both the heresies which I named". For, the condition of bearing Christ's cross being tied to the profession of Christianity, it must be a deliberate act of man's will, and such an act as draweth after faction and it all the acts of his life that shall follow, that must make his the grace [and there fore checks the Soci nians ;] But this act must require the grace of God by Christ; otherwise His coming had been to no purpose. And therefore the necessity of this grace must be grounded upon the fall of Adam; introducing the bondage of sin, though not destroying the freedom of the will in accepting of the condition of release. Therefore the grace of God by Christ must consist, first, in purchasing the terms of man's release at God's hands; that is, in the satisfaction tendered God by the sacrifice of Christ's cross; whereupon He condescends to declare by the gospel the terms of our peace: secondly, in promising the help of His grace to perform the condition thereof, which justifying faith signifieth. § 2. Now the Socinians, denying the satisfaction of Christ and by consequence original sin, do seem to be carried by consequence to deny the Godhead of Christ; as finding no need of it to purchase the covenant of grace: and, further, the Holy Trinity; Which by these degrees they seem to come to refuse. Indeed they admit justifying faith to consist in such a choice as I have described; but they consider neither the profession of it to be made by the sacrament of baptism, nor the Church which God appointeth to be the depositary of this profession on His behalf: a See Just Weights and Measures, cc. ix., x. ▾ See Epilogue, Bk. II. Of the Cov. of Gr., c. i. § 5, 6, 9; cc. xii., sq. XVIL thing to be considered of young divines in this Church, who, CHAP. being sensible of the free will of man in this choice, are to consider, that the free grace of Christ is silenced by silencing the sacrament of baptism, and the Church both; out of which it is not effectual to salvation and grace. § 3. On the other side, they, that make justifying faith to [and the Fanatics.] consist in believing that some men are absolutely predestinate to life, without consideration of the covenant of grace and the condition thereof accepted and performed, do make it too late to require it of them, whom they have before estated in an undefeasible title to all that can be claimed by it. They tie God to make them do all it requires of them, without their own will; the effect whereof is promised afore. And, therefore, the covenant of grace, and the sacrament of baptism, and the Church with whom the profession thereof is deposited, are words signifying nothing, by both these errors, upon which I said that all our sects are grounded. the inter and of the § 4. Now within these two extreme opinions of justifying [Inadefaith, that of the School, which the council of Trent' canoni- quacy of zeth, making it to consist in believing the truth of Christian- mediate opinions of ity, and that of the Protestants, in trust and confidence of the counGod's mercy to the faithful in and through Christ, both of cil of Trent them maintain, or may maintain, both the condition of the Protestcovenant of grace, and baptism in the catholic Church. But ants.] as the one makes justifying faith to go before baptism, the other to come after it; neither of both includes it, either in the condition of the covenant of grace, or in the nature of justifying faith: so that, though both be clear of those heresies which the extreme opinions of the Socinians and the Fanatics run into, yet neither is able to shew them the source of their errors; as the truth, including baptism, is. See ibid., c. vii. § 7, note h. See ibid. § 11-16. THORNDIKE. M m СНАР. [The faith not neces sarily concerned in CHAPTER XVIII. [OF PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL.] As for the question concerning the agreement of predestination and grace with the free will of man, and the covenant of grace, in which the condition of salvation consists: I supthe reconciling of pose, that I have shewed, that it depends upon the most predestina- intricate dispute that philosophers and divines of what refree will.] ligion soever have at any time debated; to wit, concerning tion and [Two ways proposed for re the foreknowledge and providence of God, and the consistence thereof with freedom in the actions of the will and contingence in the works of it. For seeing the particular cannot be cleared without the general, neither can the actions of grace be freed from the difficulty incident to all actions, till the general be resolved. And therefore I am far from thinking, that the faith can be concerned in the terms of agreement; provided that neither the necessity of grace nor the freedom of the will be infringed. § 2. I suppose also, that there are but two ways to be proposed for the reconciling of the contingence, which free will conciling infers, with the certainty of foreknowledge, and the efficacy them.] of providence: the one, by the predetermination of the will of man, before it determine itself, by God's will; and the motion of it, before it move itself, by His activity: the other, by His foreknowing, what the free will of the creature will do in any case, in which providence shall place it. mination [That of § 3. Now I do not doubt, that the opinion of predeterpredetermination is utterly destructive to man's free will; and, by really al consequence, to the covenant of grace, the condition whereof though not formally consists in an act of it. Nevertheless, because the freedom a heresy.] of the creature is supposed by all, that hold it, to have no other ground, than God's determining of it, before it determine itself, to do that freely which in time it shall do; I do not call it a heresy destructive to the Christian faith: though I believe it, in truth and really, destructive not only to the Christian faith, but to all religion and civility, neces b Epilogue, Bk. II. Of the Cov. of Gr., cc. xxi.-xxvi.: Just Weights and Measures, cc. xii., xiii. |