A27029:119
The Scripture Gospel defended, and Christ, grace, and free justification vindicated against the libertines…
The Scripture Gospel defended, and Christ, grace, and free justification vindicated against the libertines ... in two books : the first, a breviate of fifty controversies about justification ... : the second upon the sudden reviving of antinomianism ... and the re-printing of Dr. Crisp's sermons with additions ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1690
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.
2. If the Promise of Pardon and Justification be Absolute without any condition, then either to All men, or but to some. If to All, then all are justified. If but to some, to whom? If you say to the Elect; no man knoweth them, while they are unbelievers: and so neither the Person nor the Minister can apply that Promise to any singular man: If you say, To Believers, you grant Faith to be a necessary, moral antecedent: And if so, whence can you imagine it to be such, but Aptitudinally• in the Nature of the Act (receiving Christ, which some call it's Instrumentality) and Actually by Gods Institution in the Tenor of his Word: Now this is 1. In the Tenor or Mode of the Precept, and that maketh it a Duty. 2. In the Tenor or Mode of the Promise, and that maketh it it's Condition: In what other respect do they (exclusively) feign it necessary?
Obj. As an Antecedent? Ans. That speaketh but the Order: But what Antecedent is it?
Obj. As a sign? Ans. Of what? and why Is it as a sign of Election? But Holiness, the Love of God, and man, &c. are signs of Election, and yet not prerequisite to baptism and pardon. And whence is it that this sign of Election is prerequisite, but that Gods precept made it a duty, and the promise a condition? Grant it a sign, the question is still of the reason of this signs necessity to Justification. 3. If Signification be the thing necessary, it must be either to God, to the Sinner, or to the Baptizer. Not to God, that needs no notice by signs: and so it would follow that before God Elect Infidels are justified, which is false, as is oft proved: And to the Minister it is not certainly known: Nor may he baptize any merely as Elect, if he could know ⟨p. 16⟩it (by revelation) before Faith. Nor might such a person claim it. Nor do believers usually at the very first know their Election. It's pity that any catechized person should be so ignorant as to deny so plain a Truth as it is that the Promise maketh Faith antecedently necessary to Justification under the form of an apt condition; when no used phrase can speak the thing to us so intelligibly and truly as this doth.