7. For the doctrine of justification is directive of Christian practice, and in no other evangelical truth is the whole of our obedience more concerned; for the foundation, reasons, and motives of all our duty towards God are contained therein. Wherefore, in order unto the due improvement of them ought it to be taught, and not otherwise. That which alone we aim (or ought so to do) to learn in it and by it, is how we may get and maintain peace with God, and so to live unto him as to be accepted with him in what we do. To satisfy the minds and consciences of men in these things, is this doctrine to be taught. Wherefore, to carry it out of the understandings of ordinary Chris- tians, by speculative notions and distinctions, is disserviceable unto the faith of the church ; yea, the mixing of evangelical revelations with philosophical notions hath been, in sundry ages, the poison of religion. Pretence of accuracy, and artificial skill in teaching, is that which giveth countenance unto such a way of handling sacred things. But the spiritual amplitude of divine truths is restrained hereby, whilst low, mean, philosophical senses are imposed on them. And not only so, but endless divisions and contentions are occasioned and perpetuated. Hence, when any difference in religion is, in the pur- suit of controversies about it, brought into the field of metaphysical respects and philosophical terms, whereof there is mXvs v6/mos h6a xal h&a, — sufficient provision for the supply of the combatants on both sides, — the truth for the most part, as unto any concernment of the souls of men therein, is utterly lost and buried in the rubbish of sense- less and unprofitable words. And thus, in particular, those who seem to be well enough agreed in the whole doctrine of justification, so far as the Scripture goeth before them, and the experience of believers keeps them company, when once they engage into their philosophical defi- nitions and distinctions, are at such an irreconcilable variance among themselves, as if they were agreed on no one thing that doth concern it. For as men have various apprehensions in coining such defini- tions as may be defensible against objections, which most men aim at therein ; so no proposition can be so plain, (at least in " materia probabili,") but that a man ordinarily versed in pedagogical terms,
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. ] 1
and metaphysical notions, may multiply distinctions on every word of it.
8. Hence, there liatli been a pretence and appearance of twenty several opinions among Protestants about justification, as Bellarmine,^ and Vasquez,^ and others of the Papists, charge it against them out of Osiander,^ when the faith of them all was one and the same, Bellar., lib. V. cap. 1; Vasq. in ], 2, qusest. 113, disp. 202; whereof we shall speak elsewhere. When men are once advanced into that field of disputation, which is all overgrown with thorns of subtilties, per- plexed notions, and futilous terms of art, they consider principally how they may entangle others in it, scarce at all how they may get out of it themselves. And in this posture they oftentimes utterly forget the business which they are about, especially in this matter of justification, — namely, how a guilty sinner may come to obtain favour and acceptance with God. And not only so, but I doubt they often- times dispute themselves beyond what they can well abide by, when tliey return home unto a sedate meditation of the state of things be- tween God and their souls. And I cannot much value their notions and sentiments of this matter, who object and answer themselves out of a sense of their own appearance before God ; much less theirs who evidence an open inconformity unto the grace and truth of this doctrine in their hearts and lives.
9. Wherefore, we do but trouble the faith of Christians, and the peace of the true church of God, whilst we dispute about expressions, terms, and notions, when the substance of the doctrine intended may be declared and believed, without the knowledge, understanding, or use of any of them. Such are all those in whose subtile management the captious art of wrangling doth principally consist. A diligent attend-
' A cardinal, who, according to Bayle, had " the best pen for controversy of his day." He was born in Tuscany in 1542, ordained by the celebrated Janseuius iu 15G9, was professor of theology for seven years at Louvain, in 1576 gave contro- versial lectures at Rome, was made cardinal in 1599, and archbishop of Capua in 1602; which, three years after, he quitted for Rome, where he died in 1621. His controversial works fill three large folio volumes. His work on the temporal power of the pope was condemned at Paris, because he claimed for the pope the right to depose princes; and yet because he asserted this right to be not direct, but indirect, his book was placed by Pope Sixtus V. on the Index Expurgatorius.
^ A Roman Catholic writer on morals and theology, whose works were published at Ley den in 1620.
' Andrew Osiander, or in German, Hosemanu, was born in Franconia 1498, became a preacher at Nuremberg in 1522, and professor of theology in the Uni- versity of Konigsberg in 1548. He died in 1552. He was among the first of the Protestant divines that broached heretical views. He denied the forensic char- acter of justification, confounded it with sanctification, a>id held that man is justified not by the imputation of Christ's righteousness in satisfying and obeying the moral law, but by our participation, through faith, in the essential righteous- ness of Christ as God. He was, nevertheless, an able and learned man, though proud and dogmatic iu temper. He wrote a valuable " Harmonia Evangelica." — Ei>.