as long as you will you shall never tempt me by it to renounce my Baptism and List my self under the grand Enemy of Love and Concord nor to Preach up Hatred and Division for nothing as in the Name of Christ If you will handle such Controversies without Distinguishing of Faiths Works and Justifications I will never perswade any Friend of mine to be your Pupil or Disciple Then Simon Magus's faith and the Devils faith and Peters faith must all pass for the same and justifie accordingly Then indeed Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost yea and Christ as our Teacher King and Judg c. must pass for the Works by which no Man is Justified If Distinction be unsound detect the Error of it If not it is no Honour to a disputing Doctor to reproach it § X. But pag. 17. you set upon your great undeâ—eiving Work to shew the evil of ill using Words Words you say as they are enfranchised into Language are but the Agents and Factors of things for which they continually negotiate with our Minds conveying Errands on all occasions c. Let them mark that charge the vanity and bombast of Metaphors on others one word Signa should have served our turn instead of all this Whence it follows that their use and signification is Vnalterable but by the stamp of the like publick usage and imposition from whence at first they received their being c. Answ O Juniors Will not such deceiving Words save you from my Deceits But 1. Is there a Law and unalterable Law for the sense of Words Indeed the Words of the sacred Text must have no new Sense put upon them 2. Are you sure that it was Publick usage and Imposition from whence they first received their being How shall we know that they grew not into publick use from one Mans first Invention except those that not Publick use but God Himself made 3. Are you sure that all or most Words now Latine or English have the same and only the same use or sense as was put upon them at the first Is the change of the sense of Words a strange thing to us 4. But that which concerneth our Case most is Whether there be many Words either of Hebrew and Greek in the Scripture or of Latine English or any common Language which have not many Significations Your Reputation forbids you to deny it And should not those many Significations be distinguished as there is Cause Are not Faith Works Just Justice Justification words of divers senses in the Scripture and do not common Writers and Speakers use them yet more variously And shall a Disputer take on him that the use or signification of each is but one or two or is so fixed that there needeth no distinction 5. Is the change that is made in all Languages in the World made by the same publick usage and imposition from which at first they received their being 6. If as you say the same thing can be represented by different words only when they are Synonymous should we not avoid seeming to represent the same by Equivocals which unexplained are unfit for it Pag. 20. You tell me what sad work you are doing and no wonder Sin and Passions are self-troubling things And it 's well if it be sad to your self alone and not to such as you tempt into Mistakes Hatred and Division It should be sad to every Christian to see and hear those whom they are bound to Love represented as odious And you are still pag. 19. feigning that Every eye may see Men dealing Blows and Deaths about and therefore we are not wise if we think them agreed But doubtless many that seem killed by such Blows as some of yours are still alive And many a one is in Heaven that by Divines pretending to be Orthodox were damned on Earth And many Men are more agreed than they were aware of I have known a Knavish Fellow set two Persons of quality on Fighting before they spake a word to one another by telling them secretly and falsly what one said against the other Many differ even to persecuting and bloodshed by Will and Passion and Practice upon a falsly supposed great difference in Judgment I will not so suddenly repeat what Proof I have given of some of this in the place you noted Cath. Theol. Confer 11 12 13. There is more skill required to narrow differences than to widen them and to reconcile than to divide as there is to quench a Fire than to kindle it to build than to pull down to heal than to wound I presume therefore to repeat aloud my contrary Cautions to your Juniors Young-Men after long sad Experience of the sinful and miserable Contentions of the Clergie and consequently of the Christian World that you may escape the Guilt I beseech you whoever contradicteth it consider and believe these following Notices 1. That all Words are but arbitrary Signs and are changed as Men please and through the Penury of them and Mans imperfection in the Art of Speaking there are very few at all that have not various Significations 2. That this Speaking-Art requireth so much time and study and all Men are so defective in it and the variety of Mens skill in it is so very great that no Men in the World do perfectly agree in their interpretation and use of Words The doleful plague of the Confusion of Tongues doth still hinder our full Communication and maketh it hard for us to understand Words our selves or to be understood by others for Words must have a three-fold aptitude of Signification 1. To signifie the Matter 2. And the Speakers conceptions of it 3. And this as adapted to the hearers Mind to make a true Impression there 3. That God in Mercy hath not made Words so necessary as Things nor necessary but for the sake of the Things If God Christ Grace and Heaven be known believed and duly accepted you shall be saved by what Words soever it be brought to pass 4. Therefore Real Fundamentals or Necessaries to Salvation are more easily defined than Verbal ones For more or fewer Words these or other Words are needful to help some Persons to Faith and Love and Holiness as their Capacities are different 5. But as he that truly believeth in and giveth up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant is a true Christian to be loved and shall be saved so he that understandeth such Words as help him to that true Faith and Consent doth know so much of the Verbal part as is of necessity to his Christianity and Salvation 6. And he that is such holdeth no Heresie or Error inconsistent with it If he truly love God it 's a contradiction to say that he holdeth an Error inconsistent with the Love of God 7. Therefore see that you Love all such as Christians till some proved or notorious inconsistents nullifying his Profession disoblige you 8.
The Augustane Confession Art 3 4. Christ died that he might reconcile the Father to us and be a sacrifice not only for original sin but also for all the actual sins of men And that we may obtain these benefits of Christ that is Remission of sins justification and life eternal Christ gave us the Gospel in which these benefits are propounded To preach Repentance in his Name and Remission of sins among all Nations For when men propagated in the natural manner have sin and cannot truly satisfie Gods Law the Gospel reproveth sin and sheweth us Christ the Mediator and so teacheth us about Pardon of sins That freely for Christ's sake are given us Remission of sins Justification by Faith by which we must confess that these are given us for Christ who was made a Sacrifice for us and appeased the Father Though the Gospel require Penitence yet that pardon of sin may be sure it teacheth us that it is freely given us that is that it dependeth not on the Condition of our worthyness nor is given for any precedent works or worthyness of following works For Conscience in true fears findeth no work which it can oppose to the Wrath of God and Christ is proposed and given us to be a propitiator This honour of Christ must not be transferred to our works Therefore Paul saith ye are saved freely or of Grace And it is of grace that the promise might be sure that is Pardon will be sure when we know that it dependeth not on the Condition of our worthiness but is given for Christ In the Creed this Article I believe the Forgiveness of sins is added to the history And the rest of the history of Christ must be referred to this Article For this benefit is the end of the history Christ therefore suffered and rose again that for him might be given us Remission of sins and life everlasting Art 6. When we are Reconciled by Faith there must needs follow the Righteousness of good works But because the infirmity of mans nature is so great that no man can satisfie the Law it is necessary to teach men not only that they must obey the Law but also how this Obedience pleaseth lest Consciences fall into desperation when they understand that they satisfie not the Law This Obedience then pleaseth not because it satisfieth the Law but because the person is in Christ reconciled by Faith and believeth that the relicts of his Sin are pardoned We must ever hold that we obtain remission of sins and the person is pronounced Righteous that is is accepted freely for Christ by Faith And afterward that Obedience to the Law pleaseth and is reputed a certain Righteousness and meriteth rewards Thus the first Protestants VII The 11th Article of the Church of England to which we all offer to subscribe is Of the Justification of Man We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own works or deservings Wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholsome doctrine and very full of Comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification The said Homilies of Salvation and Faith say over and over the same thing As pag. 14. Three things go together in our Justification On Gods part his great Mercy and Grace on Christs part Justice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Justice or the Price of our Redemption by the offering of his body and shedding of his blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly And on our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Jesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us And pag. A lively Faith is not only the common belief of the Articles of our Faith but also a true trust and confidence of the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a steadfast hope of all good things to be received at Gods hand and that although we through infirmity or temptation do fall from him by sin yet if we return again to him by true repentance that he will forgive and forget our offences for his Sons sake our Saviour Jesus Christ and will make us inheritors with him of his everlasting Kingdom Pag. 23. For the very sure and lively Christian Faith is to have an earnest trust and confidence in God that he doth regard us and is careful over us as the Father is over the Child whom he doth love and that he will be merciful unto us for his only Sons sake and that we have our Saviour Christ our perpetual Advocate and Prince in whose only merits oblation and suffering we do trust that our offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truely do return to him with our whole heart steadfastly determining with our selves through his grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments c. So also the Apology This is our doctrine of Imputation VIII The Saxon Confession oft insisteth on the free Pardon of sin not merited by us but by Christ And expoundeth Justification to be Of unjust that is Guilty and disobedient and not having Christ to be made Just that is To be Absolved from Guilt for the Son of God and an apprehender by Faith of Christ himself who is our Righteousness as Jeremiah and Paul say because by his Merit we have forgiveness and God imputeth righteousness to us and for him reputeth us just and by giving us his Spirit quickeneth and regenerateth us By being Justified by Faith alone we mean that freely for our Mediator alone not for our Contrition or other Merits the pardon of sin and reconciliation is given us And before It is certain when the mind is raised by this Faith that the pardon of sin Reconciliation and Imputation of Righteousness are given for the Merit of Christ himself And after By Faith is meant Affiance resting in the Son of God the Propitiator for whom we are received and please God and not for our virtues and fulfilling of the Law IX The Wittenberge Confession In Corp. Conf. pag. 104 A man is made Accepted of God and Reputed just before him for the Son of God our Lord Jesus Christ alone by Faith And at the Judgment of God we must not trust to the Merit of any of the Virtues which we have but to the sole Merit of our Lord Jesus Christ which is made ours by Faith And because at the bar of God where the case of true eternal Righteousness and Salvation will be pleaded there is no place for mans Merits but only for God's Mercy and the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ whom we receive by Faith therefore we think our Ancestors said rightly that we are justified before God by Faith only X. The Bohemian Confession making Justification the principal Article goeth the same way Pag. 183 184. By Christ men are Justified obtain Salvation and Remission of sin freely by Faith in Christ through mercy without
46. Quest 7. Are we reputed our selves to have fulfilled all that Law of Innocency in and by Christ as representing our persons as obeying by him Ans No. § 47. Quest 8. Is it Christs Divine Habitual Active or Passive Righteousness which Justifieth us Ans All viz the Habitual Active and Passive exalted in Meritoriousness by Union with the Divine § 48. Quest 9. Is it Christs Righteousness or our Faith which is said to be imputed to us for Righteousness Rom. 4. Ans 1. The text speaketh of imputing Faith and by Faith is meant Faith and not Christs Righteousness in the word But that Faith is Faith in Christ and his Righteousness and the Object is quasi materia actus and covenanted 2. De re both are Imputed that is 1. Christs Righteousness is reputed the meritorious Cause 2. The free-gift by the Covenant is reputed the fundamentum juris both opposed to our Legal Merit 3. And our Faith is reputed the Conditio tituli and all that is required in us to our Justification as making us Qualified Recipients of the free-Gift merited by Christ § 49. Quest 10. Are we any way Justified by our own performed Righteousness Ans Yes Against the charge of non-performance as Infidels Impenitent Unholy and so as being uncapable of the free-gift of Pardon and Life in Christ CHAP. IV. The Reasons of our denying the fore-described rigid sence of Imputation Though it were most accurate to reduce what we deny to several Propositions and to confute each one argumentatively by it self yet I shall now choose to avoid such prolixity and for brevity and the satisfaction of such as look more at the force of a Reason than the form of the Argument I shall thrust together our denyed Sence with the manifold Reasons of our denyal WE deny that God doth so Impute Christs Righteousness to us as to repute or account us to have been Holy with all that Habitual Holiness which was in Christ or to have done all that he did in obedience to his Father or in fulfilling the Law or to have suffered all that he suffered and to have made God satisfaction for our own sins and merited our own Salvation and Justification in and by Christ or that he was did and suffered and merited all this strictly in the person of every sinner that is saved Or that Christs very individual Righteousness Material or Formal is so made ours in a strict sense as that we are Proprietors Subjects or Agents of the very thing it self simply and absolutely as it is distinct from the effects or that Christs Individual Formal Righteousness is made our Formal Personal Righteousness or that as to the effects we have any such Righteousness Imputed to us as formally ours which consisteth in a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency that is that we are reputed perfectly Holy and sinless and such as shall be Justified by the Law of Innocency which saith Perfectly Obey and Live or sin and die All this we deny Let him that will answer me keep to my words and not alter the sense by leaving any out And that he may the better understand me I add 1. I take it for granted that the Law requireth Habitual Holiness as well as Actual Obedience and is not fulfilled without both 2. That Christ loved God and man with a perfect constant Love and never sinned by Omission or Commission 3. That Christ died not only for our Original sin or sin before Conversion but for all our sin to our lives end 4. That he who is supposed to have no sin of Omission is supposed to have done all his duty 5. That he that hath done all his duty is not condemnable by that Law yea hath right to all the Reward promised on Condition of that duty 6. By Christs Material Righteousness I mean those Habits Acts and Sufferings in which his Righteousness did consist or was founded 7. By his and our Formal Righteousness I mean the Relation it self of being Righteous 8. And I hold that Christs Righteousness did not only Numerically as aforesaid but also thus totâ specie in kind differ from ours that his was a perfect Habitual and Actual Conformity to the Law of Innocency together with the peculiar Laws of Mediator-ship by which he merited Redemption for us and Glory for himself and us But ours is the Pardon of sin and Right of Life Purchased Merited and freely given us by Christ in and by a new Covenant whose condition is Faith with Repentance as to the gift of our Justification now and sincere Holiness Obedience Victory and Perseverance as to our possession of Glory Now our Reasons against the denyed sence of Imputation are these 1. In general this opinion setteth up and introduceth all Antinomianism or Libertinism and Ungodliness and subverteth the Gospel and all true Religion and Morality I do not mean that all that hold it have such effects in themselves but only that this is the tendency and consequence of the opinion For I know that many see not the nature and consequences of their own opinions and the abundance that hold damnable errors hold them but notionally in a peevish faction and therefore not dammingly but hold practically and effectually the contrary saving truth And if the Papists shall perswade Men that our doctrine yea their 's that here mistake cannot consist with a godly life let but the lives of Papists and Protestants be compared Yea in one of the Instances before given Though some of the Congregational-party hold what was recited yet so far are they from ungodly lives that the greatest thing in which I differ from them is the overmuch unscriptural strictness of some of them in their Church-admissions and Communion while they fly further from such as they think not godly than I think God would have them do being generally persons fearing God themselves Excepting the sinful alienation from others and easiness to receive and carry false reports of Dissenters which is common to all that fall into sidings But the errors of any men are never the better if they be found in the hands of godly men For if they be practised they will make them ungodly 2. It confoundeth the Person of the Mediator and of the Sinner As if the Mediator who was proclaimed the Beloved of the Father and therefore capable of reconciling us to him because he was still well-pleased in him had not only suffered in the room of the sinner by voluntary Sponsion but also in suffering and doing been Civilly the very person of the sinner himself that sinner I say who was an enemy to God and so esteemed 3. It maketh Christ to have been Civilly as many persons as there be elect sinners in the World which is both beside and contrary to Scripture 4. It introduceth a false sence and supposition of our sin imputed to Christ as if Imputatively it were his as it is ours even the sinful Habits the sinful Acts and
the least punishment upon For he that hath perfectly obeyed or hath perfectly satisfied by himself or by another in his person cannot justly be punished But I have elsewhere fully proved that Death and other Chastisements are punishments though not destructive but corrective And so is the permission of our further sinning 35. It intimateth that God wrongeth believers for not giving them immediately more of the Holy Ghost and not present perfecting them and freeing them from all sin For though Christ may give us the fruits of his own merits in the time and way that pleaseth himself yet if it be we our selves that have perfectly satisfied and merited in Christ we have present Right to the thing merited thereupon and it is an injury to deny it us at all 36. And accordingly it would be an injury to keep them so long out of Heaven if they themselves did merit it so long ago 37. And the very Threatning of Punishment in the Law of Grace would seem injurious or incongruous to them that have already reputatively obeyed perfectly to the death 38. And there would be no place left for any Reward from God to any act of obedience done by our selves in our natural or real person Because having reputatively fulfilled all Righteousness and deserved all that we are capable of by another our own acts can have no reward 39. And I think this would overthrow all Humane Laws and Government For all true Governours are the Officers of God and do what they do in subordination to God and therefore cannot justly punish any man whom he pronounceth erfectly Innocent to the death 40. This maketh every believer at least as Righteous as Christ himself as having true propriety in all the same numerical Righteousness as his own And if we be as Righteous as Christ are we not as amiable to God And may we not go to God in our Names as Righteous 41. This maketh all believers at least equally Righteous in degree and every one perfect and no difference between them David and Solomon as Righteous in the act of sinning as before and every weak and scandalous believer to be as Righteous as the best Which is not true though many say that Justification hath no degrees but is perfect at first as I have proved in my Life of Faith and elsewhere 42. This too much levelleth Heaven and Earth For in Heaven there can be nothing greater than perfection 43. The Scripture no-where calleth our Imputed Righteousness by the name of Innocency or sinless Perfection nor Inculpability Imputed Nay when the very phrase of Imputing Christs Righteousness is not there at all to add all these wrong descriptions of Imputation is such Additions to Gods words as tendeth to let in almost any thing that mans wit shall excogitate and ill beseemeth them that are for Scripture-sufficiency and perfection and against Additions in the general And whether some may not say that we are Imputatively Christ himself Conceived by the Holy Ghost Born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate Crucified c. I cannot tell To conclude the honest plain Christian may without disquieting the Church or himself be satisfied in this certain simple truth That we are sinners and deserve everlasting misery That Christ hath suffered as a Sacrifice for our sins in our room and stead and satisfied the Justice of God That he hath by his perfect Holiness and Obedience with those sufferings merited our pardon and Life That he never hereby intended to make us Lawless have us Holy but hath brought us under a Law of Grace which is the Instrument by which he pardoneth justifieth and giveth us Right to life That by this Covenant he requireth of us Repentance and true Faith to our first Justification and sincere Obedience Holiness and Perseverance to our Glorification to be wrought by his Grace and our Wills excited and enabled by it That Christs Sufferings are to save us from suffering but his Holiness and Obedience are to merit Holiness Obedience Happiness for us that we may be like him and so be made personally amiable to God But both his Sufferings and Obedience do bring us under a Covenant where Perfection is not necessary to our Salvation CHAP. V. The Objections Answered Obj. 1. YOV confound a Natural and a Political person Christ and the several believing sinners are not the same natural Person but they are the same Political As are with us saith Dr. Tullie the Sponsor and the Debtor the Attorney and the Clyent the Tutor and the Pupil so are all the faithful in Christ both as to their Celestial regenerate nature of which he is the first Father who begetteth sons by his Spirit and seed of the Word to his Image and as to Righteousness derived by Legal Imputation Vid. Dr. Tullie Justif Paul p. 80 81. It 's commonly said that Christ as our surety is our Person Ans 1. The distinction of a Person into Natural and Political or Legal is equivoci in sua equivocata He therefore that would not have contention cherished and men taught to damn each other for a word not understood must give us leave to ask what these equivocals mean What a Natural Person signifieth we are pretty well agreed but a Political Person is a word not so easily and commonly understood Calvin tells us that Persona definitur homo qui caput habet civile For omnis persona est homo sed non vicissim Homo cum est vocabulum naturae Persona juris civilis And so as Albenius civitas municipium Castrum Collegium Vniversitas quod libet corpus Personae appellatione continetur ut Spigel But if this Definition be commensurate to the common nature of a civil person then a King can be none nor any one that hath not a civil head This therefore is too narrow The same Calvin in n. Personae tells us that Seneca Personam vocat cum prae se fert aliquis quod non est A Counterfeit But sure this is not the sence of the Objectors In general saith Calvin Tam hominem quam qualitatem hominis seu Conditionem significat But it is not sure every Quality or Condition Calvin therefore giveth us nothing satisfactory to the decision of the Controversie which these Divines will needs make whether each believer and Christ be the same Political Person Martinius will make our Controversie no easier by the various significations gathered out of Vet. Vocab Gel. Scaliger Valla Which he thus enumerateth 1. Persona est accidens conditio hominis qualitas quâ homo differt ab homine tum in animo tum in corpore tum in externis 2. Homo qualitate dictâ proditus 3. Homo insigni qualitate praeditus habens gradum eminentiae in Ecclesia Dei c. 4. Figura seu facies ficta larva histrionica c. 5. Ille qui sub hujusmodi figura aliquam representat c. 6. Figura eminens in aedificiis quae ore aquam fundit