A30137:335
A defence of the doctrine of justification, by faith in Jesus Christ
A defence of the doctrine of justification, by faith in Jesus Christ: showing, true Gospel-holiness flows from thence. Or, Mr. Fowler's pretended design of Christianity, proved to be nothing more then to trample under foot the blood of the Son of God and the idolizing of man's own righteousness. As also, how while he pretends to be a minister of the Church of England, he overthroweth the wholesome doctrine contained in the 10th. 11th. and 13th. of the Thirty Nine Articles of the same, and that he falleth in with the Quaker, and Romanist, against them. By John Bunyan.A defence of the doctrine of justification, by faith in Jesus Christ: shewing, true Gospel-holiness flows from thence. Or, Mr. Fowler's pretended design of Christianity, proved to be nothing more then to trample under foot the blood of the Son of God and the idolizing of man's own righteousness. As also, how while he pretends to be a minister of the Church of England, he overthroweth the wholesom doctrine contained in the 10th. 11th. and 13th. of the Thirty Nine Articles of the same, and that he falleth in with the Quaker, and Romanist, against them. By John Bunyan.
London: printed for Francis Smith, 1673
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.
Your Sixteenth Chapter Containeth an answer to those that Object against the Power of the Christian Religion to make Men Holy.
Answ. And to speak truth; what you at first render as the cause of the Unholiness of the Professors thereof (Pag. 171▪) is to the Purpose, had it been Christianly Managed by you, as namely, Mens Gross▪ Unbelief of the truth of it; for it Effectually•Worketh in them that Believe (1 Thes. 2. 13.) but that you only touch, and away, neither showing what is the Object of Faith, nor the cause of it's being so Effectual to that Purpose; neither to you at all treat of the Power of Unbelief, and how all Men by Nature are shut up therein, Rom. 11. 32. But presently, according to your Old and Natural Course, you fall First, upon a supposed Power in Men, to embrace the Gospel, both by closing with the Promise, and shunning the threatening (Pag. 172.) farther adding, That mankind is Endued with a Principle of Freedom, and that this Principle is as Essential, as any other to the Humane Nature (Pag. 173.) By all which it is Manifest, that however you make mention of Unbelief, because the Gospel hath laid the same in your way; yet our Old Doctrine, of the Purity of the Humane Nature, now broken out into a freedom of Will, and that as an Essential of the Humane Nature, is your great Principle of Faith, and your following of that, as it Dictateth to you Obedience to the first Principles of Morals, the Practice of Faith, by which you think to be saved. That this is so, must unavoidably be gathered from the good opinion you have your self of coming to God by Christ: viz. That in the ⟨p. 70⟩Command thereof; it is one of these Positive Precepts, and a thing in it self absolutely considered indifferent, and neither Good nor Evil. Now he that looketh upon coming to God by Christ, with such an Eye as this, cannot lay the stress of his Salvation upon the Faith, or Belief thereof; Indifferent Faith, will serve for Indifferent things: Yea, a Man must look beyond that, which he Believeth is but one with the Ceremonial Laws, but not the same with Baptism, or the Lord's Supper; for with those you compare that of coming to God by Christ. Wherefore Faith, with you, must be turned into a Cheerful, and Generous Complying with the Dictate; of the Humane Nature, and Unbelief, into that which Opposeth this, or that makes the Heart backward, and sluggish therein. This is also gathered from what you aver of the Divine Moral Laws, that they be of an Indispensable, and Eternal Obligation (Pag.