A26862:385
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.
6. I call it a Discharging [by the Gospel-promise or grant:] (It is called a Promise in reference to the benefit as future, but more properly a Grant in reference to the benefit as present or past; either in the conferring, or already conferred.) This I do for these Reasons. 1. To clear the nature of this Act. 2. To divert your thoughts from Gods secret judgment, where most suppose this Act performed; and to turn them right, and free God from the imputation of change.
6. I call it a Discharging [by the Gospell-promise or grant:] (It is called a Promise in reference to the benefit as future, but more properly a Grant in reference to the benefit as present or past; either in the conferring, or already conferred.) This I do for these Reasons. 1. To clear the nature of this Act. 2. To divert your thoughts from Gods secret judgment, where most suppose this Act performed; and to turn them right, and free God from the imputation of change.
A great question it is, Whether Remission and Justification be immanent or transient Acts of God? The mistake of this one point was it that led those two most excellent, famous Divines. Dr. Twice and Mr. Pemble to that error and pillar of Antinomianism, viz. Justification from Eternity. For (saith Dr. Twice often) All Acts immanent in God, are from Eternity: but Justification and remission of sin are immanent Acts: therefore, &c. by [immanent in God] they must needs mean Negatively, not Positively. For Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject, but an effect to its cause. Now whether all such immanent Acts are any more eternal then transient Acts, is much questioned: As for God to know that the world doth now exist; That such a man is sanctified, or just, &c. Gods fore-knowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is, which is not; but that such a thing will be, which is not. Yet doth this make no change in God: no more then the Sun is changed by the variety of Creatures which it doth enlighten and warm; or the Glass by the variety of faces which it represents; or the eye by the variety of the colours, which it beholdeth: (For whatsoever some say, I do not think that every variation of the object maketh a real change in the eye, or that the beholding of ten distinct colours at one view, doth make ten distinct acts of the sight, or alterations