A30137:480
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.
I come now to your Twenty Sixth Chapter, which is spent to prove, that an obedient temper of mind is a necessary, and excellent qualification to prepare men for a firm belief, and a right understanding of the Gospel of Christ, Pag. 267.
Answ. 1. For as much as the obedient temper you mention, is Precedent to, or before Faith, and the right understanding of the Gospel, it must needs be also, that which stands with unbelief, and ignorant of the same. Now that this should be an excellent, and necessary qualification, to a firm belief, and right understanding of the Gospel, is altogether without proof, and truth. But this is affirmed for the farther promoting of your Humane Nature, and the things that Originally are Dictates thereof. But,
2. The obedience or inclination to obedience that is before Faith, or the understanding of the Gospel, is so far off from being an excellent preparative, or good qualification for Faith, and the knowledge of the Gospel, that in its own Nature (which is more then in its Consequences) it is a great obstruction thereto.
For, while a Man remains faithless and ignorant of the Gospel, to what doth his obedient temper of mind incline? Not to Faith, nor the Gospel of Christ; for with these, as yet you suppose he hath not to do; therefore he inclineth to the Law of Morals, either as it was delivered in Tables of Stone from Sinai, or as