The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

8. Hence there hath been a pretence and appearance of twenty several Opinions among Protestants about Justification, as Bellarmine and Vasquez, and others of the Papists charge it against them out of Osiander, when the Faith of them all was one and the same, Bellar. lib. 5. cap. 1. Vasq. in 1.2. Quaest. 113. disp. 202. whereof we shall speak elsewhere. When men are once advanced into that field of Disputation, which is all overgrown with thorns of subtleties, perplexed notions, and futilous terms of Art, they consider principally how they may entangle others in it, scarce at all how they may get out of it themselves. And in this posture they oftentimes utterly forget the business which they are about, especially in this matter of Justification; namely how a guilty Sinner may come to obtain Favour and Acceptance with God. And ⟨p. 7⟩not only so, but I doubt they oftentimes dispute themselves beyond what they can well abide by, when they return home unto a sedate meditation of the state of things between God and their own souls. And I cannot much value their notions and sentiments of this matter, who object and answer themselves out of a sense of their own Appearance before God, much less of theirs who evidence an open inconformity unto the Grace and truth of this Doctrine in their hearts and lives.

8. Hence there hath been a pretence and appearance of twenty several Opinions among Protestants about Justification, as Bellarmine and Vasquez, and others of the Papists charge it against them out of Osiander, when the Faith of them all was one and the same, Bellar. lib. 5. cap. 1. Vasq. in 1.2. Quaest. 113. disp. 202. whereof we shall speak elsewhere. When men are once advanced into that field of Disputation, which is all overgrown with thorns of subtilties, perplexed notions, and futilous terms of Art, they consider principally how they may entangle others in it, scarce at all how they may get out of it themselves. And in this posture they oftentimes utterly forget the business which they are about, especially in this matter of Justification; namely how a guilty Sinner may come to obtain Favour and Acceptance with God. And ⟨p. 7⟩not only so, but I doubt they oftentimes dispute themselves beyond what they can well abide by, when they return home unto a sedate meditation of the state of things between God and their own souls. And I cannot much value their notions and sentiments of this matter, who object and answer themselves out of a sense of their own Appearance before God, much less of theirs who evidence an open inconformity unto the Grace and truth of this Doctrine in their hearts and lives.