A26974:143
Of justification four disputations clearing and amicably defending the truth against the unnecessary oppositions…
Of justification four disputations clearing and amicably defending the truth against the unnecessary oppositions of divers learned and reverend brethren / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1658
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.
To this last Mr. Blake saith, pag. 504. This Text shows the Duty of men to be, not alone to such rest and ease from Christ, but to learn of Christ and follow him: But neither their learning nor their imitation, but faith in his blood, is their freedom or Justification. Repl. Properly neither one act of faith nor other is our Justification. Faith is a Quality in the Habit, and an act in the exercise: and Justification is a Relation. Faith is a part of our Sanctification; Therefore it is not our Justification. But supposing you speak Metonymically, I say both acts of faith are our Justification, that is, the Condition of it. And the Text proves it, by making our Subjection not only a Duty, but an express Condition of the Promise. And this Conditionality you here before and after do confess or grant.
Argument 4. If we are justified by Christ as Priest, Prophet and King conjunctly, and not by any of these alone, much less by his Humiliation and Obedience alone; then according to the Opponents own Principles (who argue from the distinct Interest of the several parts of the Object, to the distinct Interest of the several acts of faith) we are justified by believing in Christ as Priest, Prophet and King, and not as Humble and Obedient only. But we are justified by Christ as Priest, Prophet and King, &c. Ergo, &c.
The Consequence is their own. And the Antecedent I shall prove from several texts of Scripture, and from the nature of the thing, beginning with the last.