Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT763 .B35 1655

teomprehend Juftification Remiffion and Adoption ; which you feem to affirm, with L. C'. p. 200. whereas on the other fide Mr Forbes in his of jollification, makes Adoption to com- prehend it, which he makes therefore the prime benefits and the reft to fpring from it, wherein I cannot affent to him. Nor can I yet bring my minde to clofe with B. Downhayri again-ft NIt Pemble; in Defence of whom againft him I had once a purpofe towrite a fhort Difcourfe framed out of fuck Exceptions as I had blurred the Margin of my Bookwithal!, and to have crow- dedit into fame other Work. And your fell; alfo feem to.de- part from him, in placing Faith before R,egeneration,whereyou fay with Mr 757. p. 103. prope fin. This (viz. to take God fin- cerely for their God ) no unrenewed foul ever did or can do. Nor feems B. Davenant fo clear herein, making fame graces concomitants of Faith, as Repentance ; fame confequents, as Love. Wherein alfo you feem to leave him, affirming the Re- ception ofChrift to be a loving receivingofhim, which cannot be without Love. As for the Inftrumentality of Faith in or about the work of Juftification, albeit the term commonly received and ufed be not proper, yet as the meaning may be, you feem not to difallow it. And Purely Faith as a medium feems to have amore peculiar Office in the tranfaaion of that main bufinefs of Juftification,then either Repentance or any other grace, as the Love or Fear of God, or the like. Which to me kerns the more apparent, bccaufe I Linde it fo oft faid in the Word, that men are juflified by Faith, but nowhere by Repentance, albeit that alfo be as a condition thereunto required : as alfo that form of fpeech, 77;575 T 4,ii-can, fides, or fidtacia in fanguine, feems to intimate and imply, tliat this grace bath a more fpeciall re- ference then any other, to the fatisfadionmade to Gods juftice for our fins by Chrifts fufferings, which alone we can plead for our difcharge of them at Gods Tribunal'. Nor is it as I con- eive the intent ofour Divines, when they ufe that term, to lay upon it the main ftrefs of the great difference between us and the Papifis in the Datrine of Juftification, which as it is laid down in the Council of Trent, (howibever fome of them that wrote before it, came in, a manner home to ua,arad fore of them that have writ fence, feem now and then to condefcend much to us, till they come to deliver the genuine fenfe of the Council) Rands

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