The paraselene dismantled of her cloud, or, Baxterianism barefac'd drawn from a literal transcript of Mr. Baxter's, and the judgment of others, in the most radical doctrines of faith, compar'd with those of the Orthodox, both conformist and nonconformist, and transferr'd over by way of test, unto the Papist and Quaker / by Thomas Edwards ...

Baxterian.

ALL true Believers have not assurance of their Justification, because they are not certain that their Faith is such as hath the Promise of Justification: He that belie∣veth perceiveth that he be∣lieveth, but yet may be un∣certain that his Faith is so sincere, as no unjustified Man can have.—No Man hath perfect Assurance, that is the highest degree in this Life: for if all our Graces be im∣perfect, our Assurance must needs be imperfect (because that our Justification material∣ly lies in our inherent Righte∣ousness, therefore we cannot be assured of a justified State till the Graces thereof be perfected in Glory).

Bellarmine's moral Certain∣ty is more than most Christi∣ans attain to; and his and o∣ther Mens Concession there∣of tell us, that in this Point our Difference is less than those have thought, who have said it was sufficient Cause of our Separation from Rome. (Here our antient as well as modern Reformers from the Church of Rome, are all con∣demned by this Author at one clap). Mr. Baxter's end of Doct. Controv. ch. 24. §. 3, 8, 13.

Q. Whether habitual Love, or Holiness (or the Spirit) be ever lost?

Answ. That there is a con∣firmed State or degree of Ho∣liness that is never lost, I do hold, and that this is attaina∣ble, and in that State Men may be certain of Salvation:

But whether the least degrees of habitual Grace be utterly losable, which prove a pre∣sent Right to Life, till they are lost, I must plainly pro∣fess I do not know; much may be said on both sides: And if my Ignorance offend any, it offendeth me more; but how shall I help it? I think it is not for want of Study, nor of impartial Wil∣lingness to know the Truth: And Ignorance of the two is safer than Error, by which we trouble and seduce those a∣bout us. And in this case so many great and excellent Men have erred (either Augustine, with the Generality of the antient Churches, or Calvin, Zanchy, and most of the Re∣formed) that my Ignorance is pardonable where their Error it self is pardoned. But let those that are wiser rejoice in the greater measure of their Wisdom: But yet think not, that taking up either Opini∣on upon the trust of their Party, is such. (See here, Reader, the Craft of this Au∣thor, who saw he was not able either from Scripture or Reason to undermine the Truth of this Doctrine of Assurance under a Covert of an acknowledged and seemingly modest Ignorance, wounds it as an Error in all those who have in their several Generations defended the same against its Opposers).—

Others say only, that Men may sin, and may lose acqui∣red Grace, but no degree of that which is infused. But we have small Reason to think that our encreased degrees are not as much infused as the first Degree was: and yet Experi∣ence proveth, that such ad∣ded Degrees may be lost.

Ibid. ch. 26. §. 9, 11.

It is impossible for any one in this Life, in Mr. B's Sense, to attain unto Assurance.

Controv. Is Pardon and Justification perfect the first Moment?

Answ. No, 1. All the Pu∣nishment is not yet taken off: We have yet much penal want of Grace, and the Spi∣rit's Operations and Commu∣nion with God. 2. We have not Right to the present Re∣moval of all the Punishment. 3. Many more Sins hereafter must be pardoned. 4. Much means is yet to be used for final Justification. 5. That final Justification only is per∣fect. Mr. Baxter's Breviat of Justification, Part 1. p. 47.

These Conditions are our Duty by God's Command, and not less so, by being made terms of the benefit in the divine Grant.

The Covenant, tho condi∣tional, is a Disposition; there's Grace in giving Ability to perform the Condition, as well as in bestowing the Be∣nefits: God's enjoining one in order to the other, makes not the Benefit to be less of Grace, but it is a Display of God's Wisdom, in conferring the Benefit sutably to the Nature and State of Men in this Life, whose eternal Con∣dition is not eternally deci∣ded, but are in a State of Trial. (So that the Believers Assurance must wait for a State of Glory.) Mr. Dan. Williams's Gospel-Truth, &c. p. 46.

Faith is not an Assurance, or inward Perswasion, that Christ is ours, and our Sins are par∣doned (tho it be the Fruit of such a Faith, thorow which a∣lone it is that Assurance comes,

Heb. 11. 1.) Men may have this Perswasion, who do not savingly believe: (i. e. A Man may be hanged for wear∣ing a Suit of Clothes that he had stoln, therefore another must not wear his own, a more Popish Evasion!) They in Mat. 7. 22. had this, (had what? what this Assurance that comes by Faith? which Dr. Crisp only pleads for) when they cried, Lord, Lord, open to us! (Mind the Con∣text, Reader, it is upon the account of their Works that they would come in, whereon they founded the assurance of their Acceptation, not a word of the Faith that Dr. Crisp speaks of, but our Author's Prerequisites to this false Per∣swasion) neither did the foo∣lish Virgins seem without it, Mat. 25. 12. (tho they had those predisposing Qualifications unto their Union with Christ, and Justification by him, that our Author and some of his fry so much plead for) yea, it's what the most profligate Sin∣ners (Bellarminus Redivivus) grow secure by, to their own Destruction; and this upon the general word of Grace.—Many true Believers have not this Perswasion; let common Experience be con∣sulted—(therefore it is not to be sought for or attained unto by Faith alone, but Works al∣so)—such as have had assu∣rance, do (by the Doctor's Opinion) fall into the Sin of damning Unbelief, (what will not a Whore's Forehead ingage in when sufficiently brazened Unbelief even in Believers, which is their Plague, carries the same nature in it with that total Unbelief that reigns in the Reprobate to their Condemnati∣on,

and what is this to the pur∣pose?) whenever they doubt their Interest in Christ, and especially if they conclude that they have not this In∣terest: A sad doom on many pious Souls.—This Per∣swasion should suppose an In∣terest in Christ, and doth not give it: (Here the Shooe pinches, for says our Author) It's a false Conclusion, that Christ is mine before he is so: (But is he not mine before I know it? Or upon what is my Assurance founded when I come to know it?) And must the great term of Life be a Lie? (Even the elaborate Pre∣dispositions, the very Hinge up∣on which, with these Men, this Relation moves) we are to examine our selves whether we be in the Faith, and so whether Christ is in us, be∣fore we assure our selves that he is in us; 2 Cor. 13. 5. (This, Reader, is a nervous and strenuous Caution, especial∣ly if he had told us, what be the Works of his being there, how and wherefore he came there, and what it is he testi∣fies unto the Soul, when come there; but this would have spoil'd all, and therefore he tells us [who value him and his Doctrines as much as the Pope's Bull] with somewhat an angry Expostulation.) And where hath God made this Proposition, My Sins are laid upon Christ to be the Object of saving Faith? (q. d. he shall never perswade me to such an Assurance until I have brought him those conditional Qualifica∣tions whereon my Pardon is ma∣terially [tho meritoriously for Christ's sake] founded, &c. with the rest of his pitisul stuff which has been sufficiently han∣dled

already, as condemned by the Lord and his Word.) Mr. Dan. Williams, ibid. p. 63.

TRUTH, Tho our Sins were imputed to Christ with respect to the Guilt thereof, so that he, by the Father's Appointment, and his own Consent, became obliged, as Mediator, to bear the Pu∣nishments of our Iniquities, and he did bear those Punish∣ments to the full Satisfaction of Justice, and to our actu∣al Remission when we believe, nevertheless the filth of our Sins was not laid upon Christ, nor can he be called the Transgressor, or was he, in God's account, the Blasphe∣mer, Murderer. Mr. Dan. Williams's Gospel-Truth, &c. p. 6. (so that when we come to believe, we have no other ground of an Assurance of our Peace with God, and the Par∣don of Sin, together with our justified State before God, but our Faith which gives the same its Being and Continuance; for Sin, with our Author, as a matter of Fact, wherein its Filthiness and Abhorrency does lie, was never charged upon Christ by a transacted Imputa∣tion [which he most impu∣dently and treacherously would make his Reader be∣lieve, even contrary to his verbal Recitation of Dr. Crisp's Sayings, that it must be by Transfusion, p. 8.] but the Guilt of nothing, for Sin is not imputed unto him, and the Pu∣nishment he underwent not a proper Satisfaction unto Ju∣stice, as offended, since it was not that very idem which was due unto our Sins, that Christ did bear: is not this a strange sort of a hellish Foundation for us to fix our Perswasion of the

favour of God upon? Let the Reader judg) This very ground of Peace and Assurance thereof, does he endeavour to undermine us off, in p. 12. TRUTH.

The Atonement made by Christ, by the Ap∣pointment of God, is that for which alone the Elect are pardoned, when it is applied to them. (I suppose none can pardon Sin as Sin but God, but this he cannot do, without an entire respect to the Honour of his great Name, wherein all his Attributes are essentially concerned, out of which Number his Justice will never be ex∣punged or dispensed with∣al without a full and com∣pleat Satisfaction; this is either given by Christ in an eternal Covenant-Engagement, and actually in his Sufferings, and when we believe, as this Author crudely says, when it is applied unto us, then are we pardoned; which renders the Blood of Christ and his Atonement in the actual Sacrifice of him∣self, to be but a mere empty dependent Notion, and that upon our Faith, whose efficacious Recepti∣on with God for Sinners found no place, nor ever shall until we believe; for says he) But the Elect are not immediately pardoned upon Christ's being appointed to suf∣fer for them. (Here his Promise in the eternal Compact to die for the E∣lect in the fulness of time, would not be taken or

trusted unto by the Father) nor as soon as the Atone∣ment was made, (here the Insufficiency of his Death is blasphemously asserted by this Author) nor is that Act of laying Sins on Christ God's for∣giving Act, by which we are personally dischar∣ged. (Here the eternal actual Love of God to∣wards his Elect in Christ, their actually pardoned and justified State in what Christ both did and suf∣fered for them according to the Judgment of God, depends materially, for∣mally, and really as to its Being, upon their Belie∣ving; whereas it is by Faith indeed that they are manifestatively and expe∣rimentally unto and with∣in themselves discharged before God, as receiving from him freely what he had before received from Christ graciously and juri∣dically for them: on this it is that they come to fix their Assurance by Faith, and thereby rejoice in a well and irreversibly grounded Hope of the Glory of God. Rom. 4. ult. Compare ch. 5. 1, 2, &c. also, 2 Sam. 23. 5.