Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

that faith and new obedience are one and the fame thing. I own that faith is a virtue or grace, commanded by the law of God, and that a believer, by his very believing, obeys God. I likewife confefs, that we are to look upon nothing, as a true and living faith, which is not fruitful in good works. But yet faith is one thing, and the obedience flowing from it quite another, efpecially in the matter of juftification, of which we now fpeak, where Paul always contradiftinguishes the obedience of all manner of works to faith. For, it is a rafh attempt to confine to a certain fpecies or kind of works, what the Apostle fays concerning them all in general. The force of truth extorted from Schlichtingius this affertion: faith, in its strict and proper fignification, bears the fame relation to obedience, as the caufe to the effect, as the tree to the fruit, as the mother to the daughter, contra Meifnerum, p. 325. In fine, neither the truth nor the juftice of God allow our faith and our obedience, which are imperfect, to be admitted as perfect. For, it is the will of God, that the righteousness of the law be fulfilled in our juftification, and not that any thing be derogated from it, as we proved Sect. XLII.

a certain

XLIX. Others think proper to fay, that faith is The fen here confidered as a condition, which the covenant timent of of grace requires of us, in order to our juftification. learned A certain learned divine of ours, in a volume of perfon exdifputations lately published, fpeaks thus: Nothing pofed. can be faid with greater probability, fimplicity and more agreeable to Scripture, than that justification is therefore afcribed to faith; becaufe faith is the condition, which the Gospel requires of us, in order to our being accounted righteous and innocent before God. And a little after; yea, fince we affirm, that faith alone juftifies, we don't intend, that the alone act of believing, 'taken precifely, as it is opposed to acts of love and hope, and diftinguished from repentance, is the condition, which the new covenant, or the Gospel requires, in order to obtain remiffion

Į 3

of

But not to

[ocr errors]

of fin, and be abfolved from them on account of Christ. For, the hope of pardon, and love to God, forrow alfo for fin, and purpose of a new life; in a word, all the acts, requifite to a genuine and serious converfion, are alfo fomewhat neceffary, and altogether prerequifite, in order for any to be received into the favour of God, and from thence forward to be accounted a justified perfon, yea, that a living faith that works by love, which we affirm alone to juftify, includes and implies all these things. And the learned perfon imagines thefe are fuch truths, as the doctors both of the Romish and reformed fchools receive with common confent. He alfo adds: As often as the Apostle affirms, that we are not justified by works but by faith, he intends nothing elfe, but that none can, on any account, be justified by fuck obfervance of the law, as the legal covenant requires, in order to obtain life thereby, and escape the curfe of God: but that God accounts as righteous, and out of mere grace, freely forgives all the fins of thofe, who with fincerity receive the Gospel, and from faith perform obedience thereto. These things juftly call for our animadverfion.

L. ft. With this very learned perfon's leave, I be found doubt, whether he can perfuade any, who is not in the con- altogether unfkilled in theological matters, that what feffion of he has propofed, is the received opinion of the churches. reformed fchool. I find nothing of this in their

Our

Faith does

confeffions and catechifms; but there is a great deal, which does not differ much from the words of the learned perfon, in the writings of thofe, whose unhappy names and heretical principles, I from my very heart believe are deteftable to him.

LI. 2dly: When the difcourfe is about the not justify, relation which faith bears to juftification, the as it is our learned perfon does not feem with fufficient cauact enjoin- tion, to repeat fo often the act of believing. For, ed by God.

it is well known, that the reformed churches condemned Arminius and his followers, for faying that faith comes to be confidered in the matter of juftification, as a work or act of ours: whereas the

Dutch

The

Dutch confeffion speaks far more accurately; namely, that faith is here instead of an inftrument, whereby we are joined together with Chrift in a partnership or communion of all his benefits. I am well aware, that this is not very agreeable to the learned perfon, who maintains, that faith can be faid to be the instrument of justification, no other way, but as it is a kind of condition, prequifite on our part thereto. But when the remonftrant apologists, in order to be relieved from that troublefome expreffion, of our confeffions by their foftening interpretation, wrote; that faith is therefore faid to be the inftrument of juftification, as it is a work performed by us according to the command, and by the grace of God. For, a condition, fo far as it is performed, may in fome measure be faid to become a mean or inftrument, whereby we obtain the thing promifed on fuch a condition, Apolog. p. 112 a. reformed protested, that they were displeased with this explication. They deny not, that our mafter, Chrift himself, fays John 6. 29, that faith is a work : neither do they refufe that, in the matter of juftification, the apprehending and receiving Chrift is an act of faith; and that faith ought to be fo far confidered as active. Yet they deny, that faith justifies as it is an act prescribed by God (for thus it would ftand in the fame relation with the other works enjoined by the law) but they affirm, that we are juftified by that act, as by it we apprehend Chrift. are united to him, and embrace his righteoufnefs. Which they usually explain by this fimilitude: a beggar's ftretching forth his hand, by which, at the command of a rich man, he receives the free gift of his charity, is the act of the beggar prefcribed by the rich; but it doth not enrich the beggar, as it is an act, but as by this means he applies the gift to himfelf and appropriates, or makes it his own. Thefe things are too evident to be obfcured by any quibbles, or fubtleties whatever. LII. 3dly.

I 4

[ocr errors]

Nor is

to call it a

LII. 3dly. Nor do I think it an accurate way

it proper of fpeaking, that faith is the condition, which the condition Gofpel requireth of us, in order to be accounted righteous and without guilt before God. The conmatter of 'dition of juftification, properly fpeaking, is perfect juftifica- obedience only: this the law requires: nor does the

in the

tiɔn.

Nor are

'cluded in

faith as

Gospel fubftitute any other: but declares that fatiffaction has been made to the law by Chrift our furety; moreover, that it is the office of faith to accept that fatisfaction offered to it, and by accepting appropriate the fame. Which is quite a different thing from faying, (as the Socinians and remonftrants do, and which I know not whether the learned perfon would choose to fay), that, in the room of perfect obedience, which the law prefcribed, as the condition of juftification, the gofpel now requireth faith, as the condition of the fame juftification. Tho' fome of the reformed have faid, that faith is a condition fine qua non, without which we cannot be juftified: yet they were far from being of opinion, that faith is a condition properly fo called, on performing which, man fhould, according to the gracious covenant of God, have a right to juftification as to a reward. This is very far from the mind of the truely reformed. See what the celebrated Triglandius has fully, folidly and perfpicuously reasoned against the fubtle trifling of the remontrants in Examine" Apologie, c. 20, 21, and Ifaac Junius in Antapologia, p 236.

[ocr errors]

LIII. 4thly. Neither is it according to the mind. the acts of of the reformed church, that the acts of hope and the other love, nay, all thofe, which are required to a true graces in- and ferious converfion, are included in justifying faith as juftifying, and concur with faith, ftrictly fo juftifying, called to juftification. When the remonstrants faid in their confeffion, that faith contains in its compass the whole of a man's converfion prefcribed by the Gospel: nay, the prefcript of faith can here be confidered in no other light, than as, by its natural propriety, it includes

the

the obedience of faith, and is as a fruitful parent of good works, and the fountain and fource of all chriftian piety and holiness, c. 10. §. 2. 3. The Leyden profeffors in their cenfure remarked, that the adverfaries, who write in this manner, and throw off the mask, afcribe to faith the SOCINIAN-POPISH faith of juftification, which Peter Bertius, a principal afferter of this, found to be the way to popery. And this affertion of theirs they make out by folid arguments. And when the remonstrant apologift, foolishly faid, that this his opinion differed not from the common doctrine of the reformed churches, the venerable Triglandius replied, that it was clearer than noon-day, that this was too barefaced an affertion. The whole comes to this, that no faith juftifies, but that which is living and fruitful in good works: that acts of love and holinefs are required, as fruits of faith, as teftimonies of Chrift dwelling in us, as marks of our regeneration, as what go before falvation, and without which there can be no full affurance of it. But that thofe acts of love, holinefs and converfion concur with faith to juftification, and are included in justifying faith, as fuch, is a strange way of fpeaking to reformed ears, nor agreeable to fcripture, which always, in the matter of juftification, fets faith in oppofition to all works whatever.

in what

faith in

LIV. 5thly. Some time ago I read in Socinus, All works, before the fentiments of this celebrated perfon came ever light to hand, the fame exception, which he makes, that confiderby the works, which Paul excludes from juftification, ed, opis understood the perfect obfervance of the law, fuch pofed to as the legal covenant requires. For thus he fays juftificade fervat. P. 4. c. 11, the works, to which faith is tion. oppofed, are not every kind of works, nor taken and confidered in every light, but, as we have obferved elfewhere, thefe works denote an abfolute and perpetual obfervance and performance of the divine law, thro' the whole course of life. But our divines openly declared

2

against

« AnteriorContinuar »