Of justification four disputations clearing and amicably defending the truth against the unnecessary oppositions…

3. To your third, [That the Covenant justifies but conditionally, therefore not actually.] I answered before: for it was one of your former Arguments. Conditio est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit, saith Cujacius. And as Mynsinger saith, Neque actio, neque obligatio ulla est antequam conditio eveniat: quia quod est in conditione, non est in obligatione: (Schol. in Justit. p, 52•.) So that it is the Nature of the condition to suspend the effect, but not to make the cause to be no cause. Indeed if the Condition be never performed, then it destroys or prevents the effect, and so the Instrument doth not agere: And why? but because it was the Will of the Agent that it should act so, and on such terms, or else not: so that the non-performance doth not undo what the Instrument did, nor doth it disoblige the Author, but it manifesteth that he was never obliged: (they are Grotius words.) I conclude therefore that when the condition is performed, then the Instrument or conditional Grant doth begin verè agere & donar• ; and the Agent by it: but till then it doth not properly act or effect at all. Is not your Testament that gives your Legacy, because it gives conditionally? Or must there be some other Act, to make it an absolute proper Gift.

3. To your third, [That the Covenant justifies but conditionally, therefore not actually.] I answered before: for it was one of your former Arguments. Conditio est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit, saith Cujacius. And as Mynsinger saith, Neque actio, neque obligatio ulla est antequam conditio eveniat: quia quod est in conditione, non est in obligatione: (Schol. in Justit. p, 52•.) So that it is the Nature of the condition to suspend the effect, but not to make the cause to be no cause. Indeed if the Condition be never performed, then it destroyes or prevents the effect, and so the Instrument doth not agere: And why? but because it was the Will of the Agent that it should act so, and on such terms, or else not: so that the non-performance doth not undo what the Instrument did, nor doth it disoblige the Author, but it manifesteth that he was never obliged: (they are Grotius words.) I conclude therefore that when the condition is performed, then the Instrument or conditional Grant doth begin verè agere & donar• ; and the Agent by it: but till then it doth not properly act or effect at all. Is not your Testament that gives your Legacy, because it gives conditionally? Or must there be some other Act, to make it an absolute proper Gift.