A treatise of justifying righteousness in two books ... : all published instead of a fuller answer to the assaults in Dr. Tullies Justificatio Paulina ... / by Richard Baxter.

Aphorism.

HE therefore saith, [Faith is dead, being * 1.1 alone,] because it is dead as to the use and purpose of justifying—And so Works make Faith alive, as to the Attainment of its ends of Justifi∣cation.

Animadvers.

1. Faith if it be alone without Works (hoc est renuens operari, as Cajetan doth well express it,) cannot justifie, and so is dead as to the use and purpose of justifying. Yet do not Works there∣fore concur with Faith to Justification, nor are they part of the Condition required of us, that we may be justified.

2. Works do not properly make Faith alive, but only de∣monstrate it to be alive. Works are the effect of justifying Faith, and the effect cannot give life to the cause, but may evidence the life of it.

Reply.

1. You yield to my Exposition of [Dead;] viz. non ut fides, sed ut medium, that Works are part of the Condition; I doubt not to say, the Scrip∣tures cited in the Aphorism fully prove.

2. You must know that those words were mis∣written, or misprinted: They should be thus, [And without Works, Faith is not alive;] yet the words are true as they are. For by [Fai••h] I mean not, [fidem qua fides,] Works do not make Faith alive in it self; but, [fidem qua medium:] And by [Making alive,] I mean not efficienter, but consti∣tutivè. And so when a man hath a Condition to perform which hath two parts, when the first is performed, the performance of the second part makes it to be sufficient to the end; it makes it to be the totum, the Condition fully performed, and so alive or sufficient ut medium: When without it, it would be but pars, and insufficient.

3. To your Argument I grant all, and what the better are you? Works are the effect of Faith, and so they neither give life to Faith as Faith, nor to Faith as the cause of Works, nor yet to Faith as the Condition of our begun-Justification (because so Faith is the whole Condition, as to external Works, though not as to the exclusion of Repen∣tance, Knowledg or Love;) but as it is the medium or Condition of our confirmed, continued, consum∣mate Justification. Your Fine is the full Condition of first possessing a leased Tenement, but your Rent must be added to continue your Interest and Possession (yet in our Case there is no ratio pretii.)

Notes

• * 1.1

  Ibid.