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

Answ. How would you have your Reader understand these two insinuations? 1. Have I so oft asserted that which you call my Confession, and put it into an Index of distinctions, least it should be over-looked, and told you as much so long ago in private writings, and do you now come out with an [Its at last confessed.] I hope you would not intimate that ever I denied it: or that ever I wrote Book of that subject, wherein I did not expressly aver it. But then (that you think not better of me then I deserve) I must tell you, that when I still excluded works from our begun Justification, it was external Obedience, and not Repentance, nor those acts of faith (even the Receiving ⟨p. 110⟩Christ as Lord and Teacher) which those that oppose me call works.

Answ. How would you have your Reader understand these two insinuations? 1. Have I so oft asserted that which you call my Confession, and put it into an Index of distinctions, least it should be over-lookt, and told you as much so long ago in private writings, and do you now come out with an [Its at last confessed.] I hope you would not intimate that ever I denyed it: or that ever I wrote Book of that subject, wherein I did not expresly averre it. But then (that you think not better of me then I deserve) I must tell you, that when I still excluded works from our begun Justification, it was external Obedience, and not Repentance, nor those acts of faith (even the Receiving ⟨p. 110⟩Christ as Lord and Teacher) which those that oppose me call works.

2. If you take it but for an argument to convince such as I, that [the Papists hold it: Ergo▪ &c.] I must complain that it is uneffectual: But if you intend it for another effect on other persons, viz. to affright them with the sound of so horrid a name, or drive them away by the slink of it, then you may possibly attain your ends. But you should have attempted it only by truth. Is it true, that [this is that in effect, which the Papists affirm in other words?] Yea is it not a notorious truth, that it is quite another thing which the Papists affirm in somewhat like words? 1. The world knows that the Papists by the first Justification, mean the first infusion of renewing special grace. 2. And that by the second Justification, they mean, the adding of further degrees of Sanctification, or actuating that which before was given. 3. That they hold, faith justifieth in the first Justification constitutivè. 4. And that works or holiness justify constitutivè in the second Justification, even as Albedo facit album, vel doctrina indita facit doctum. On the other side, I have told you often privately and publicly, that, 1. By Justification I mean not Sanctification, nor any Physical, but a Relative change. 2. That by first and second, I mean not two states, or works, but the same state and works as begun, and as continued. 3. That faith justifieth neither constitutivè & inhaerenter, nor as any cause, but as a Receiving Condition. 4. And that works of external obedience are but a dispositive condition, and an exclusion of that ingratitude that would condemn. And now judge on second thoughts, whether you here speak the words of Truth or Equity.