A26862:269
Aphorisms of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of…Aphorismes of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of…
Aphorisms of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of the covenants, satisfaction, righteousness, faith, works, &c. : published especially for the use of the church of Kidderminster in Worcestershire / by their unworthy teacher Ri. Baxter.Aphorismes of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of the covenants, satisfaction, righteousnesse, faith, works, &c. : published especially for the use of the church of Kederminster in Worcestershire / by their unworthy teacher Ri. Baxter.
Hague: printed by Abraham Brown, 1655
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THESIS XXI.
Not that we can perform these Conditions without Grace: (for without Christ we can do nothing:) But that he enableth us to perform them our selves; and doth not himself repent, believe, love Christ, obey the Gospel for us, as he did satisfy the Law for us.
NOt that we can perform these Conditions without Grace: (for without Christ we can do nothing:) But that he enableth us to perform them our selves; and doth not himself repent, beleeve, love Christ, obey the Gospel for us, as he did satisfie the Law for us.
EXPLICATION.
This prevention of an Objection I add, because some think it is a self-ascribing, and derogating from Christ, to affirm our selves to be but the Actors of these duties; though we profess to do it only by the strength of Grace. But that it is Christ that repenteth and believeth, and not we, is language somewhat strange to those ears that have ⟨p. 76⟩been used to the language of Scripture or Reason. Though I know there is a sort of sublime Platonic, Plotinian Divines, of late sprung up among us, who think all things be but one; and those branches or beams of Gods Essence, which had their Being in him before their Creation, and shall at their dissolution return into God again; and so the souls of men are but so many parcels of God given out into so many bodies; or at least but beams streaming from him by a fancied Emanation. These men will say, not only that it is Christ in us that doth believe, but the mere Godhead in essence considered. But it sufficeth sober men to believe that Christ dwelleth in us; 1. By his graces or spiritual workings: 2. By our constant love to him, and thinking of him: as the person or thing that we are still affectionately thinking on, is said to dwell in our minds or hearts (because their idea is still there,) or our minds and hearts to dwell upon them. But in regard of the Divine Essence, which is every where, as it dwells no otherwise (for ought I know or have seen proved) in the Saints, then in the wicked and devils; so I think; as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks of the Soul; That the Body is more properly said to be in the Soul, then the Soul in the Body, so we are more properly said to live, and move & have our Being in God, then God to live, and move, and have his Being in us.