A26974:439
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
Whether Works are a Condition of Justification? And so whether we a… › Part
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.
Preface. [For in his Aphoris. 74. Thes. They both, viz. Faith and Works justify in the same kind of causality, or mediate it (should be media,) and improper causes, or as Dr. Twiss causae dispositivae, but with this difference, Faith as the principal, Obedience as the less principal. Here is causality, though improper; Here is a causa dispositiva: and yet shall I be blamed after I had removed Efficiency and Merit?
Preface. [For in his Aphoris. 74. Thes. They both, viz. Faith and Works justifie in the same kind of causality, or mediate it (should be media,) and improper causes, or as Dr. Twiss causae dispositivae, but with this difference, Faith as the principal, Obedience as the less principal. Here is causality, though improper; Here is a causa dispositiva: and yet shall I be blamed after I had removed Efficiency and Merit?
Answer. This is but to add injustice. When I have written at large that faith and works are no true causes of Justification, and after tell you that a condition is commonly called causa sine qua non, which is causa fatua, and no cause at all, but merely nominal, having by custom obtained that name, and that Dr. Twiss calls this causa dispositiva: when I say that they have only a causality improperly to called, which indeed is no causality. Is it justice for you still to persuade the world that I mean some causality, though not efficiency? The thing I renounce: the name is not it that you only charge me with: if ⟨p. 100⟩you had, I was not the maker of it. It was called causa sine qua non, before I was born: I must comply with common language, or be silent: especially when I tell you, I take it for no Cause. You give me such justice as the host of the Crown Tavern in Cheap-side had, who (as Speed saith,) was hanged for saying merrily, that his Son was Heir of the Crown, and his exposition would not save his life. I pray you hereafter remove more then Efficiency and Merit. I take not works to be either the material or formal cause of Justification, no nor the final, though you (in the words before cited) affirm it such. Who then gives more to works, you or I? The final cause is so called, because it causeth us to choose the means to it; Justification is not a means of our using, but an act of God. Therefore works are not properly the end of it, as to us.