The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians,…The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians,…

So then both these kinds of Humiliations are to be owned and practised; and therefore it is a false and dangerous error to acknowledge no other kind of Repentance then the later: The Papists will not acknowledge this later Humiliation at all, because they deny all Faith and Assurance that a believer may have of his sins in particular: And others, that there is only this later, and therefore the fore-mentioned Author, in his Treatise of Gospel-repentance, makes this only Gospel-repentance: but as Gospel-faith is not that reflect act of the soul in a man, whereby it is persuaded that Christ is his, but a direct act of taking and receiving Christ to be ours: so a Gospel-repentance is not that mainly whereby we are humbled, because we receive Gods love to us in pardoning, but principally in that loathing of our selves to obtain pardon: It is therefore great ignorance in that Author, in his Treatise of Gospel-repentance, when pag. 58. he calls Repentance that goeth before this Faith, viz. that my sins are pardoned, a dead work; as if the Faith that justifieth, and without which it is impossible to please God, were the believing that my sins are pardoned; whereas the Scripture makes it to be, the receiving of Christ, and laying hold on him: and seeing that the object must in order of nature be before the act that is employed about it, it followeth infallibly, that I must have Justification, before I can believe I have it: Repentance therefore may be thought to go before a two-fold act of Faith; First, That whereby Christ is laid hold upon and made ours, and so the Repentance that precedeth this, may be called legal and slavish. Or secondly, Before a persuasion that my sins are pardoned, and before this act of Faith, Repentance must necessarily go, because the Covenant of Grace dispenseth pardon only to such.

So then both these kindes of Humiliations are to be owned and practised; and therefore it is a false and dangerous error to acknowledge no other kinde of Repentance then the later: The Papists will not acknowledge this later Humiliation at all, because they deny all Faith and Assurance that a believer may have of his sins in particular: And others, that there is only this later, and therefore the fore-mentioned Author, in his Treatise of Gospel-repentance, makes this only Gospel-repentance: but as Gospel-faith is not that reflect act of the soul in a man, whereby it is perswaded that Christ is his, but a direct act of taking and receiving Christ to be ours: so a Gospel-repentance is not that mainly whereby we are humbled, because we receive Gods love to us in pardoning, but principally in that loathing of our selves to obta•n pardon: It is therefore great ignorance in that Author, in his Treatise of Gospel-repentance, when pag. 58. he cals Repentance that goeth before this Faith, viz. that my sins are pardoned, a dead work; as if the Faith that justifieth, and without which it is impossible to please God, were the believing that my sins are pardoned; whereas the Scripture makes it to be, the receiving of Christ, and laying hold on him: and seeing that the object must in order of nature be before the act that is imployed about it, it followeth infallibly, that I must have Justification, before I can believe I have it: Repentance therefore may be thought to go before a two-fold act of Faith; First, That whereby Christ is laid hold upon and made ours, and so the Repentance that precedeth this, may be called legal and slavish. Or secondly, Before a perswasion that my sins are pardoned, and before this act of Faith, Repentance must necessarily go, because the Covenant of Grace dispenseth pardon only to such.