Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression…

Faith is to be considered as being Faith (i. e. such acts exercised about such objects) in order of nature, before it can be rightly considered as justifying or the condition of Justification: Seeing therefore it receives all its formal Legal interest from God, as Legislator and Donor of Christ and his benefits, which is after its material aptitude ad hoc officium; its interest must not be gathered directly, ex natura actus, but ex constitutione donantis & ordinantis: And therefore you must first prove out of the Gospel, that It is the Ordination of God, that as Christs several actions have their several effects for us and on us, so our faith shall be the proper condition of each of these various effects, quâ apprehendit, as it Believeth or Accepteth each distinct effect, or Christ distinctly as the cause of that effect, & etiam consideratum in modo causandi. But, alas, how invisible is the Proof of this in all your Writings? (I will leave the rest of the Propositions, by which I intended here together to have opened some more of my sense, till afterwards, because I will not interrupt the present business.) Here, either my Understanding is too shallow to reach your sense, or else you are guilty, quoad literam, of very great confusion; (which one would think should have befallen you at any time, rather then when you are blaming others of unsufferable confusion:) and yet quoad sensum involutum, of more dangerous, unscriptural, unproved Distinction.

Faith is to be considered as being Faith (i. e. such acts exercised about such objects) in order of nature, before it can be rightly considered as justifying or the condition of Justification: Seeing therefore it receives all its formal Legal interest from God, as Legislator and Donor of Christ and his benefits, which is after its material aptitude ad hoc officium; its interest must not be gathered directly, ex natura actus, but ex constitutione donantis & ordinantis: And therefore you must first prove out of the Gospel, that It is the Ordination of God, that as Christs several actions have their several effects for us and on us, so our faith shall be the proper condition of each of these various effects, quâ apprehendit, as it Beleeveth or Accepteth each distinct effect, or Christ distinctly as the cause of that effect, & etiam consideratum in modo causandi. But, alas, how invisible is the Proof of this in all your Writings? (I will leave the rest of the Propositions, by which I intended here together to have opened some more of my sense, till afterwards, because I will not interrupt the present business.) Here, either my Understanding is too shallow to reach your sense, or else you are guilty, quoad literam, of very great confusion; (which one would think should have befallen you at any time, rather then when you are blaming others of unsufferable confusion:) and yet quoad sensum involutum, of more dangerous, unscriptural, unproved Distinction.