Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…

2. To the second I answer, 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant, but man by sin did lay it aside, by making the Condition impossible. 2. You overturn the Gospel too much, by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise, (though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues:) To say that the sense of Adam's Law was, [Thou or another (Christ) for thee, shalt obey.] And that we are justified by that Law, is to confound Law and Gospel, and make a Gospel of that Law, and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us; or both to condemn and justify, and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased. God saith now to no man living, [Be innocent, and so merit life, that thou mayest live.] And God doth not repute us innocent at all.

2. To the second I answer, 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant, but man by sin did lay it aside, by making the Condition impossible. 2. You overturn the Gospel too much, by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise, (though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues:) To say that the sense of Adam's Law was, [Thou or another (Christ) for thee, shalt obey.] And that we are justified by that Law, is to confound Law and Gospel, and make a Gospel of that Law, and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us; or both to condemn and justifie, and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased. God saith now to no man living, [Be innocent, and so merit life, that thou maist live.] And God doth not repute us innocent at all.

3. To the third I answer, It is notoriously untrue, that Faith justifieth only ratione objecti, unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all, which is true. For we are justified by it also ratione foederis, because that which is materially Faith in Christ (a justifying Saviour) and so connoteth its Object as the meritorious Cause of the free Gift and Pardon, is (by reason of this aptitude) made the Condition of that New Covenant or Gift, which is its nearest interest or reason of our being justified by it. And it is the Law of Grace by which we must be judged and justified. And at that Bar, the question which Life or Death dependeth on, will be (supposing Christ's Merits) whether we are penitent Believers, or impenitent Unbelievers, and so have part in Christ or not: And if Satan accuse us as being impenitent Unbelievers, and the question be whether we have true Faith or not? my Opinion is, that we cannot be herein justified by pleading the Object, when the Act is questioned, and saying, That Christ fulfilled that Law: unless you could prove that