'O Se o.uv rovs vificv;
Aiav dxfiZus (Tuxofavrris fainTUl.
G02 OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST,
But that is in the matter of laws ; these are but words. Now, though I have just cause to abstain from calling in associates in my judgment, lest I should bring them under the suspicion of Antinomianism, though not of the ruder sort, p. 190, or at least of laying the foundation of Antinomianism, which Mr Burgess, after all his pains against them, is said to do (praef.), — but the best is, that he does it superficially and without proof (prfef.), — and although I cannot come up to the judgment of the man whom I shall name, yet, seeing he is deservedly of good esteem in the judgment of others, and particularly of Mr B., for his opposition to the Antinomians, I will for once make use of his authority for my shield in this business, and see if in this storm I can lie safe behind it. It is Mr Ruther- ford, who, in his learned exercitations, De Gratia, exercit. 1, cap. ii., tit., " Quo- modo justificamur fide," having treated of the matter of justification, p. 44, thus proceeds : —
" Dicent ergo Arminiani, nos hie justificationem sumere pro sensn et notitia justi- ficationis : idcoque homines fide justificantur, idem valet, ac homines turn demum justificantur quando credunt, hoc est, sentiunt se justificari, cum antea essent justifi- cati. Nugte et tricte siculse ! nam justificari est plus quam sentire se justificari : nam (1 .) est actus Dei absolventis terminatus in conscientia hominis, citati et tracti ad tribunale tremendi judicis ; qui actus ante hoc instans non terminabatur in con- scientia," etc.
Now, if this man be an Antinomian, I am sure he much mistakes himself; and yet he says justification may be terminated in conscience, and yet not be a sense of an antecedent justification, nor from eternity.
But how it may fare with him I cannot guess. Mr Pemble and Dr Twisse {quanta nomina !) are in the next page recounted as the assertors of the position here opposed by Mr B. ; and indeed as to some part of it they are, but yet, if I durst say it, they were not Antinomians : but Mr B. knows these things better than I.
But what say I to the whole position ?
P. 190. — "One learned man" (so am I called, that the sacrifice may not fall without some flowers on its bead, which I professedly shake otF, and dare not own my name amongst them who are or ought to be so styled) " saitli that ' absolution in heaven and justification differ as part and whole, and that justification is terminated in conscience,' — and so makes a longer work of justification than they that say it is sivnd and semel, or than I, whom Mr Cr. blames for it, — and so that whole, begun in eternal absolution, or from Christ's death, and ended in conscience, should contain immanent and transient acts together, and no small number of our own, as there described."
Ans. Though I do not perfectly understand the coherence of these words, yet the intendment of them being more obvious (and being myself in great haste), I shall not stay to make any farther inquiry thereabout.
What I mean by " absolution in heaven," the reader, if he please, may see, chap, xii. pp. 75-78 [pp. 470, 471] of that treatise whence Mr B. urges these expres- sions. It is neither eternal absolution nor absolution from Christ's death (if froin denote a simulty of time, and not a connection in respect of causality, in which sense Mr B. will not deny that absolution is from Christ's death), but an absolution at the time of actual justification, when God gives Christ to us, and with him all things, that I Intend.
That by asserting this absolution in heaven and justification to difi'er as part and whole, and justification to be terminated in conscience, I make longer work of it than those who say it is simul and semel, is said. Simul and semel refer unto time ; I expressly affirm, as Mr B. knows (or ought to have known), that there is in these things an order of nature only. At the same time wherein God absolves us in heaven, the term of the stipulation for our deliverance being accomplished, by reckoning Christ to us, or in making him righteousness to us, he infuses a principle of life into our souls, whereby radically and virtually the whole is accomplished.
AND OF JUSTIFICATION. COS
That actual justification should contain permanent and transient acts together, and that it is so by me described, is affirmed by a failure of Mr B.'s memory. Having made this entrance and progress, adding the judgment of some whom he calls " most learned and judicious" (as he is " perspicax ingeniorum arbiter"), he concludes his first section in these words : " So that howsoever some, by plausible words, would put a better face on it, the sense of all seems to be the same, that justification by faith is the revelation of God in and by the conscience that we are formerly justified; and so their justification by faith is the same that we commonly call the assurance or knowledge of our justification, in some degrees at least : I prove the contrary." And so falls he into his arguments.