But, p. 228, from words of mine, which from several places of my treatise are
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put together, he makes sundry inferences, and opposes to them all two conclusions of his own, p. 229.
" This man," says he, " seems to judge that the name of complete justification is proper to that in conscience, and not to be given to any before. He seems also to judge that justification hath degrees and parts at many hundred or thousand years' distance one from another, or else absolution at least hath, which we have hitherto taken for the same thing with justification ; for he calls that in conscience complete justification. So, saith he, absolution in heaven and justification differ as part and whole."
So he.
" Egregie cordatus homo Catus Eliu' Sextus ! "
It seems Mr B. knows not what my judgment is, by his repeating that "it seems this is his judgment." He might have stayed from his confutation of it until he had known it ; it is not for his honour that he hath done otherwise.
I deny that it is my judgment that the name of complete justification is proper to that in conscience; nor do I know of any proper or complete justification in conscience. I only said, complete justification is terminated in conscience. If Mr B. know not what I mean thereby, let him stay a little and I shall explain myself.
It is most false that I judge justification to have degrees and parts at a hundred or thousand years' distance ; unless under the name of justification you comprise all the causes and effects of it, and then it reaches from everlasting to everlasting.
That absolution in heaven (as I call it) is before our actual believing in order of time, I have nowhere said, but only in order of nature; and that Mr B. hath not disproved.
What Mr B. thinks of absolution and justification to be the same is no rule to us ; when he proves it, so it is. But to what I and others have said Mr B. opposes two conclusions, p. 229, whereof the first is, —
"1. We did neither really nor in God's account die with Christ when he died, nor in him satisfy God's justice, nor fulfil the law."
The second, —
" 2. Though Christ was given for the elect more than for others, yet is he no more given to them than to others before they are born, or before they have faith."
" The first of these," he saith (he means the first of them before mentioned, which the first of these is set down in opposition unto), "is of so great moment, and is the heart and root of so many errors, yea, of the whole body of Antinomianism, that I liad ratlier write as great a volume as this," etc.
What it is that I intended by dying with Christ, Mr B. does not know, nor guess near the matter. The consideration of God's giving the elect to Christ, of his constitution to be a common person, a mediator and surety, of the whole compact or covenant between Father and Son, of his absolution as a common person, of the sealing, confirmation, and establishment, of the covenant of grace by his death, of the economy of the Holy Spirit founded therein, of the whole grant made upon his ascension, must precede the full and clear interpretation of that expres- sion. For the present it may suffice, I have not said that we did satisfy God's justice in him, or satisfy the law in him, so that we should be (personally con- sidered) the principals of the satisfaction or obedience, nor that we so died in him as to be justified or absolved actually upon his death before we were born. So that I shall not be concerned at all if Mr B.'s thoughts should incline him to write a volume as big as this about his confession, which is no small content to me.
For the second, " That Christ was given to the elect more than for others," I say not. because I say that he was not given as a mediator, price, and ransom for any others at all. When the demonstrations that " Christ died for all," which Mr B. hath some while talked of, are published, I may perhaps find cause (if I see them) to change my mind ; but as yet I do not suppose that I shall so do. That he is
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given to any before they are born I have not said, though they are given to him before they are born, or that he is given to them in order of time before they do beheve; — but this I say, that faith and forgiveness of sin are given them for his sake; which when Mr B. disproves, or pretends so to do, I shall farther consider it, as being a matter of importance. With his strife of words (if I can choose) I shall no more ti'ouble myself.
This process being made, sect. 3, Mr B. lays down the conclusion as con- trary to them before, which, as he informs me, are maintained by myself and others: —
" No man now living was justified, pardoned, or absolved actually from tlic guilt of sin and obligation to death, at the time of Christ's death or undertaking, or from eternity, or at any time before he was born, or did believe."